Five Minute Friday: Family

It's Friday, which means we get our prompt for writing from Kate Motaung and the Five Minute Friday Community!  This week's prompt is...

Family:

My writing improves when I actually live my life. My family, my friends, my kids, life events, all of these give me things to think about, things to process, things to look at through a lens.

“In order to write about life first you must live it.” (Click to tweet)

In addition to living a life, I find that if I want to write, I need to read, not the useless consumption of facebook, news, and light reading, but time spent in God's Word, in quality literature, in books on the craft of writing. For me, writing only comes when I have something to write about. And there is a limit to consumption and I have reached the point where I need to step back from consuming and start creating.

When I think of my writing journey, I am only where I am because of family.  My husband encouraged me to go back to school to pursue a degree in Communications. He continues to support me by picking up the slack when I'm consumed with schoolwork. My father keeps giving me books on writing, devotionals to encourage the writer, how-tos and ideas for writings, etc. My mom and my sisters faithfully (or semi-faithfully) read my blog whenever I actually post.

My kids learn from my writing. We've had conversations about writing and going back to school (especially when my homework gets in the way of something they want). I have even caught my kids doing some of their own writing. Journals are pretty high on the Christmas list even for my young kids. They have written short stories, comic books, essays, etc.

I am thankful for my family. In anything you want to pursue, you need to have support and I believe that the ones who support you are your true family, whether it's through blood or not.

Writing has also expanded my family. I've been a part of the Five Minute Friday family, the Allume family and the God-sized Dreams family. You might call them communities, but really that's what family is all about. Living in community with one another.

My thoughts today: Be family to someone today. Encourage them to pursue their dreams. Cheering on others has a way of cheering yourself up!





Join me as I remember what it means to be a writer again. Writing for 31 days in an attempt to find where nature and art collide in the work of writing. Click the graphic to find all my #write31days posts.