Got writer’s block? We’ve got the cure! #FiveMinuteFriday! <–Click to Tweet this

Where a beautiful crowd spends five minutes all writing on the same topic and then sharing ’em over here.

How to Join:

Want to know how Five Minute Friday got started and how to participate? All the details are here.

Featured Five Minute Friday:

And every week I’ll pick a post that caught my eye and share it down there in my side bar – see where it says “Featured Five Minute Friday”? Yea -that could be you! Hop on over and visit some folk who make fireworks in just five minutes. They inspire me.

What They’re Saying:

I also have some Five Minute Friday stories from participants I love to share each week – I can never get over the community that has grown up over a five minute writing exercise.

This one’s from one of my Internet besties – Emily – who inspired the topic this week. {Here’s me introducing Zoe to Emily last year. Thank you Ann for taking this photo!}

Emily’s new book for teenage girls just released this week. I love the title: Graceful (For Young Women): Letting Go of Your Try-Hard LifeIt’s a love letter to the awkward, self conscious teenage years that have us striving to live up to something we can’t even put into words yet. Seriously, read this one with your daughters. I plan to!

I love what my written-two-books-and-raised-three-kids friend, Emily from the blog Chatting at the Sky has to say about the power of a free writing exercise:

I can now say with a fair amount of confidence that writing is my job. My career. My thing. But also? Writing is that thing I love to do. Sometimes when the thing you love to do is also the thing you are paid to do, things get muddy. Deadline and Expectation go out on a date, get married, have triplets and name them Fear, Worry, and Writer’s Block.

To this day, the exercise that helps me break free from those needy three is to set my clock for a certain amount of time and force myself to write until it dings. That is why I adore Lisa-Jo’s Five-Minute-Fridays. The clock gives me permission to silence the voice of the inner critic and get back to the heart of what I love.”

Sigh. Inspiring, yes? And I’m giving away a signed! copy! of Emily’s new book to one of you today! Got a FMF story you want to share with us? Email me.

Now, set your timer, clear your head, for five minutes of free writing without worrying about getting it right.

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..

Oh and Ahem, if you would take pity and turn off comment verification, it would make leaving some love on your post that much easier for folks!

OK, are you ready? Please give us your best five minutes on:::

Graceful…

GO

I never was. I was the too tall, too gangly, too thin, too scraggly haired, too sad with the dying mother teenager. I wanted to be Julia Roberts, Gwyneth Paltrow graceful when I was growing up. I wanted to be the knows-what-to-wear woman and instead I was the try-to-wear-a-dress-as-a-shirt girl.

There was a benefit concert one night for my mom. My dad was waiting, waiting on me. And I was waiting, waiting on inspiration from my closet. That green velvet dress was all cute and tight and just right except that I wasn’t brave enough to wear it as a short, short dress. Instead I ended up tucking it all into my jeans to try and wear it as a shirt. The rest of the night I wondered if I looked as ridiculous as I felt. Self consciousness warring with defiant courage.

Not graceful.

Not beautiful.

Mostly lost.

But holding tight to the hand of the woman I wanted to grow up into. Never giving up. Never backing down. Always quietly watching how the other girls made it look so easy. Wondering if I could sidle up into their skin. So much loveliness at 18. If only we could bottle it and save it up for when we turn 38. So we could pour a bit of the confidence into the young skin and make an amazing blended mixture.

Today I smile when I watch those life guards in all their youth. Graceful. Fleeting. I smooth my hands down my tummy. Again. And remember the three tiny humans I grew. With all the fight and courage of a mother. I climb up onto the diving board and leap far and high because my four-year-old asks me to.

Not an ounce of grace. All humor and determination and more love than I thought possible.

All the way.

All because His grace is enough. More than enough, for even me.

::
STOP

OK, show us what you got! {Subscribers, you can just click here to come over and play along}