Writing Camp Tip #1: Take Notice of What Appears in Front of You and Write it...

I love facilitating writing camp and am consistently looking for supportive materials to make camp better and better. Recently I purchased a book, Keeping A Nature Journal by Clare Walker Leslie and Charles E. Roth. I hadn't considered a nature journal just of my everyday life around Bakersfield.

I realized a lot of what I do IS Nature Journaling, but with a new session of Writing Camp beginning, I wanted to be more intentional. Last night as I drove to my rehearsal for "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and noticed the sun was setting in a different place in the sky, I knew nature itself was calling me to begin.

It inspired one of the most elemental lessons (and assignments) of people attending writing camp:

Take notice of what appears in front of you ~ and write it.

Sunset appeared to have happened over Taft today. It was large, ominous. If it had a voice, he would sound like James Earl Jones and would say, "Julie, silly girl," no... the Sun wouldn't speak like that.


The sun would say, "Julie, there is no need to be alarmed. I might move from side to side and place to place along the horizon, but I'm always here, in the sky. I always rise to the East and set to the West. I am usually a red-orange-a yellow. Today I am Amber colored, like a well ripened pumpkin.


The sun hovered above the hills as if to be sure I saw it, I heard it, I took notice.


I took notice.

I took notice.

Take notice of what appears in front of you ~ and write it.

The Next Session of Writing Camp with Julie Jordan Scott begins this coming Monday, January 17 via Teleconferencing and/or recorded sessions so you don't even need to leave home.

Visit WritingCampwithJJS.com to learn more and register for Camp.