FIVE STORIES

These five stories were written in one day at a recent writing class in June with Cheryl Strayed, author of “WILD”.
They are enclosed verbatim with some added facts. Quotes above titles are by Cheryl.

“As weird as you are, trust others are just as weird.”
KNOCKIN’ ON HEAVEN’S DOOR

“Write about finding yourself doing something you thought you could never do.”
SEQUIN ART

“You can win people over better with love, kindness, generosity, light & goodness rather than hate. Lose yourself in the questions & find the answers through your writing. You put yourself into your writing & it changes you. Writing will heal you.”

QUEST FOR HUMAN COMPLETION

“Write about animated objects or the ordinary miraculous.”

ROCK STORIES

“The deeper you go, the truer it gets.”

JOURNEY TO MINNESOTA

The first four of these stories are prompts Cheryl gave to us. The purpose of this fifth story is to share why I took this class with her. Too many times in life I have started things without finishing, projects still standing waiting for completion. One of these is visiting all fifty states in the country where I live. I have a play I started, a book for teachers, a memoir, works of poetry, songs in the air, etc… Cheryl inspired me to read her book “WILD” with this encouragement to be a writer: “Writing is hard for every last one of us. Coal mining is harder. Do you think miners stand around all day talking about how hard it is to mine for coal? They simply dig!”