I'm doing a meme!

This is a first for me, and I am so honored. Seriously, I feel like a high school girl who just got invited to the cool kids' party. So, Angie at Between the Lines tagged me to do a meme on my 5 greatest strengths as a writer. That I am a writer thrills me, still! That someone considers me a strong writer, or at the very least, a writer with strengths, thrills me all over again! And to top it off, that Angie mentioned me, flaky jillypoet in a paragraph with the heading meticulous, well, that blows me away. Practically all the way to Kansas, with Toto in my basket.

I understand I am also to alter the meme a little and add writers to my list of strengths, or tag them, too. More school references. This time not at the party, but on the playground. Picking people for my kickball team.

Here goes.

1. Imaginative. When I sit down to write, I like to let my imagination off its leash, let it run through the neighborhood like my old dog Fatty used to, unencumbered, fur flying, tail wagging, nose buried in grass, in trash, in a freshly planted pansy bed. My good friend The Polka Dot Witch does this well. She is the Wicked Witch of free-association.

2. Voracious. Now there's a loaded word. I love to read. I read (and buy, much to my husband's chagrin) all the poetry I can get my hands on. Fiction, memoir, travel and art books, too. I truly believe that the more you read, the more you can write. The words become part of your own personal lexicon and if you treat them right, care for and feed them well, they will pop back out in your own writing! Another Angie, the writer over at Moxie, started reading lots of poetry when she began writing more. Bravo!

3. Possessed. Or is it obsessed? I have a need to write. It's like breathing. Well, maybe not that strong. Like needing a beer, or a glass of wine, or two hours of mindless sitcoms after a long day. I just need to write. Now that I'm a little older and a little wiser (little on both counts), I know that I fare much better (as do my spouse and my children) when I write on a regular basis. Everyone needs to breathe, right? If I may interject, on the flip side of strength...my weakness as a writer is that I am not especially disciplined. I'm working on it though. A local writer friend, Therese has a blog devoted to ekphrasis poetry. When she was getting her MFA she blogged about writing every day. She is dedicated.

4. Funny. I know my husband rarely laughs at my jokes. I know I'm no Ellen Degeneres. No Lucille Ball. But, in my own quirky way, I can be pretty humorous. I don't take my writing too seriously. No diary poetry for me, man. One thing I like about my poetry, or I should say, my muse, is she's pretty adept at taking a serious topic or something that might pull at your heartstrings, and using humor to lighten the load. At least I think she is. At least that's what I try to do... Poet With a Day Job is funny. She's funny, no doubt. Check her out!

Must pause here to note: This sort of self-examination is hard. Yes. Memes are hard. And just what exactly is a meme? Here I am meme-ing and I don't even know what I'm doing.

OK. And the number 5 greatest strenght I possess as a writer is... Hmmm... I am thinking...

5. Wordwise. I love words. Before computers, the thesaurus was my friend. I love synonyms. I love the sound of words...fleeting, flying, floating, flotsam, jetty, jaunt. Symphony, moss, slick, slider. Peregrine falcon, pileated woodpecker. Black crow, polka dot, cross-stitch, cross-hatch, sail away to Catmandu. I love nothing better than to free-associate and let the words write the poem. I will work very hard to get just the right word to paint just the right image in someone's head. Poetmom has some very cool words, too.

There you have it. I am an imaginative, voracious, possessed, funny, word-obsessed writer. How will that be for the back of my first book jacket? Or maybe on a t-shirt? A tattoo?

I wonder how I would write about myself on another day?