CELEBRATE This Week: LXXXIV (84)
I’m glad you are here to celebrate! Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.
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I turned my Instagram account public. I’ve been using it to collect & document celebrations. I love it. Please follow me there: @ruth_ayres to find celebrations throughout the week.
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Today I celebrate writing. Here’s what my couch looks like…
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| Click on the picture for a bigger version. |
When I was in college, and taking way too many physics classes, my dad always said, “Remember water runs downhill.” He thought he was funny, giving this advice grounded in the basic idea of physics. Objects in motion take the route of least resistance.
It wasn’t helpful at the time. Of course, that might have had more to do with the too stressed college kid who was being dramatic about not passing and not graduating and then never becoming a teacher. (Just a note, I did pass and I did graduate and on a whim, added a class or two to become an English teacher, and never had a job as a physics teacher. Lucky me.)
Remember, water runs downhill has been haunting me this week, clogging my mind as I sort through my writing life.
It’s officially summer and that means space. I’ve been planning these first few days of summer break to set some concrete writing goals. The problem has been knowing what writing territory to follow.
Water runs downhill; it always flows along the path of least resistance. I think writing flows best along a path of least resistance too. I want to follow the writing down the path where it’s flowing.
So last night I pulled up my boot straps and gathered some inspiration to follow the flow. I’m in place to write professionally. You can see in the photo some of the things I gathered. My soul was comforted as I looked through a stack of quotes from Christy Rush-Levine. Last year she collected some of her favorite words from my blog and fancied them up. Reading through them, I was reminded that I’m not giving up craft or creativity or connection when I follow the flow of professional writing.
I made this list in my notebook —
This week I celebrate writing and following the writing where it flows.
What do you have to celebrate? Share below!
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Your books, and your blog are wonderful resources. I've learned so much about teaching writers and about celebrating from you. Thank you.
Your books, and your blog are wonderful resources. I've learned so much about teaching writers and about celebrating from you. Thank you.
I love to listen to your thoughts each week. You share it so beautifully without worry that we might not understand your process and it always makes sense. I write to understand how I think and when it comes out, it makes sense to me too.
Love this, Ruth. Thanks for taking us on your writing journey.
Yes, yes, yes! You can teach others how to teach writing. Your words are inspirational to so many of us who struggle with our young writers every day. Please keep “flowing.” 🙂
Your post about water flowing reminds me of a year when my class studied more than one watershed as we studied water in our world. In a watershed, all streams and rain flows down (just as your father said) to the main larger body, and eventually to the ocean. Your notebook reminds me of little streams, flowing as separate entities, but eventually together. My penchant for connecting things is sometimes nutty, Ruth, but it seems to me you can “flow” numerous ways in your professional writing, and be ever helpful to teachers. Can't wait to see where you go! Thanks always for making me think!
We are a few weeks away from summer break but I am staring to collect ideas for summer writing, reading, and celebrating
You have so much to teach from the life you lead. It is a joy to follow and learn from you.
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Haste makes waste. every. time.
Ruth, I love this page from your notebook. I can't wait to hear your presentation at All Write. I celebrate the gifts you've given me on my writing journey. Thanks, my friend. By the way, I was shocked to learn you were a physics major!
This sentence jumped out at me: “The problem has been knowing what writing territory to follow.” Thank you for this reminder. As someone who has one foot in the classroom and the other foot in graduate school, trying to figure out which “writing territory” is often a challenge. Thank you for reminding me that writing doesn't have to be all in one territory, but “to follow the writing down the path where it's flowing.”
I have your words, created by Christy, framed and in my room at school. You are such an inspiration to so many people. Wherever your writing takes you, I know many will continue to follow. I can't wait to see you and your presentation in just a few short weeks!
I, too, struggle with writing territories and what to follow. Thanks for sharing your thinking/writing processes with us!
All your writing territories keep leaving footprints on my heart and thinking paths through my brain. As you use your gift lives are enriched. What a blessing you are Ruth!
Kim(writekimwrite)
I haven't been blogging as much as I've wanted to lately but I'm here today and it feels pretty great. I love the words that Christy put together for you and I have a friend who might need just that right now…I think I'll work on it for her this weekend. Thank you again for sharing your life – writing and otherwise – and bringing us together to celebrate. Cheers to you!
We find our way to the writing we need to do …the writing that speaks to us at that particular moment. Whatever you write is a gift to ourselves, and to the world – as long as it speaks from the heart. Here's to a productive and satisfying summer of writing, Ruth!
Thank you for sharing your reflections. I love to come here.
I have a collection of Ruth quotes too! Wink!