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Hi folks, this was a good week. I received a letter of merit for my contemporary novel from SCBWI. Special thanks to the judges Walter Dean Myers, Donna Bray and Richard W. Jennings who judged the contest and felt there was a spark of something in Plumb, my irreverent take on chick-lit. Jazzy. This is a real boost to my creative heart.

My picture books are due on Monday and I'm ready to turn them in. I'm pleased with what I have and hopeful that my editor will feel the same way.

I think we all need a boost sometimes, so here is a list of those recent moments that have lifted my creative drive. Nature has been inspiring me since I was a young child. Glorious Washington State is chockfull of uplifting scenery. I'm driving my son to school every morning at 6:30 a.m. It's dawn. I see pink tinged mountain, cool morning mists dragging through the valleys and breathtaking vistas. I cannot express how wonderful it is to see the sunrise over the Cascades. In the afternoons, the fall light makes me want to throw down my pen forever and pick up paints. It happens every year. There is the golden hue that makes the air look sliceable. Fall is the fullness of the seasons. The time of the great orange moon, carving pumpkins, and the richness of the harvest -- the wealth of fall fires me up creatively.

The stars inspire me. I’m reading a book about modern cosmology and it makes me feel the great loss that humans have suffered in the century. We’ve invented artificial light and that light pollution has taken the stars away from us all. Our children grow up without looking into the sky to see the milky swath of our galaxy every night. They do not see us rhythmically moving through the cosmos. They do not know where they are. Stars are a great engine of imagination for me. We are star stuff. That connection, well, it's one of the reasons the pen keeps sliding across the paper.

Another big booster in my world comes from the wonderful people that I know. My writing friends endlessly encourage me to keep my eye on my readers, to write out my heart and to believe that my goals are obtainable. I also get a boost from the many teens that come over to our house. I love their open spirits. They always have ideas for stories. Their endless energy and fathomless hopefulness drives me to write more and more. Last, is simple, the power of love. Loving people involves pain and persistence. There’s a healthy sea forgiveness in there too. Loving is the center of life for me and opening myself up to love; it’s like a explosion of imaginative energy that infuses everything I write.

So my message for this week is simple. Open up open up to nature. Open up to love. See how you rise up creatively.

Here's my doodle of the week: Three Trees and Golden Sky.




Remember: ©Molly Blaisdell, all rights reserved. If you want to use my cool doodles, ask permission first. It is so wrong to take people's doodles without permission!

And last, the quote of the week:

Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding line, and no way of knowing how near the harbor was. "Light! Give me light!" was the wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour.

Helen Keller