Today I had the pleasure of attending a writing workshop given by Wade Rouse on our campus. I really, really like him. He’s genuinely funny and a nice guy, plus he had a lot of good things to teach us.

I have to admit I haven’t read any of his work, but after getting the first several pages of one of his books (as an in-class comparison to some truly horrendous writing he did earlier), I plan on reading most of his stuff. He has a great talent for pointing out the painfully obvious, all while using sharp humor to tug on our heartstrings.

We had time to do two writing exercises – one long, one short. The short one consisted of writing a 6-word memoir to describe yourself, which as those of us who write short stories and poems know, shorter does not always mean easier.

I came up with three, which surprised me. I normally fairly loathe on these types of exercises, but I’m kind of cool with what I managed to come up with, even if they are pretty cheesy:

-Fierce kitten roars on the page.

- Listens to things that only whisper.

- Haunted by dreams from the dead.

I have to say I think the best one was from one of my writing classmates, which was “Caged bird-writing her way out.” Loved that!

So what would YOUR 6-word memoir be? I challenge you to write some and leave them for me in the comments. THAT’S RIGHT, I’M PASSING OUT HOMEWORK ON THE BLOG. I did it, you can too. DON’T MAKE ME BREAK OUT THE SAD PANDA PICTURES.

The second, longer exercise was about fear—what are you afraid to write about? What are you afraid to examine? What do you avoid? We had a good 30 minutes to work, and I ended up writing 8 pages on relationships in my family—things I hate dealing with and discussing in general. But, it was a very eye-opening experience to sit down to pick apart how my reactions are based on other’s expectations and what I can do to make changes in my own life. And apparently I need to draw more boundaries with certain people so they can stop emotionally draining me dry. In all, good session. I feel like I should pay him to be my therapist. Or at least buy him a cup of coffee.

For the past month or so, I’ve been acutely aware that I need to make significant changes in my life. I’m feeling rather bored with my job. I like it, love it even, but I’ve done the same thing day in and day out for the past four years, and frankly, I’m bored (this is a consistent theme in my life-the eternal struggle against obsessing with something and then getting bored quickly). I’ve conquered and accomplished what I wanted to by moving here, and I think I need to start keeping an active eye open for something a little more challenging. Plus, work keeps piling more on my shoulders and I’m feeling a bit like the love child of Sisyphus AND Atlas, bodily carrying an immense weight on my shoulders up a hill that never ends. It’s exhausting, and I’m quickly losing my patience for most things. Ok, pretty much everything in general.

Yesterday I had such a terrible day at work that I was alternately ready to either break down crying or punch someone in the face. Doing both at the same time also held great appeal. Today was better, but only because I was leaving early, lol.

So yeah, all of the writing exercises combined with work stress has me thinking about change on a much larger scale. I think it’s time to pay attention to the hints of the Universe before they become large, walloping blows.

Right, kids. Enough of the whiny and heavy. I stumbled upon these inspirational pics from The Chive today, and I thought I would share a few of my favorites: