A couple of weeks ago, I posted an exercise I call ?Find the Motto Writer Within.? Here are three writers’ outcomes from that exercise:

The first is by Barbara Furniss, one of the writers I gathered to try out the exercises for?A Year in the Life: Journaling for Self-Discovery. The second is by Dorothy Ross, a recent Writing It Real contest winner, who wrote her piece while using the first edition of the book. The third piece is my writing from the prompt.

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Dear Friend

Today I am considering going into the bumper sticker business or rather, I am going into the bumper sticker add-on business. For example, I have long owned a bumper sticker that says, “HELEN KELLER IS ALIVE AND WELL AND DRIVING IN GREEN VALLEY.” It hangs on a wall in my garage where it functions as a cautionary admonition each time I back out into the street. When I come to Tucson, I fantasize about having this on my rear bumper with an add-on that shouts, “AND SHE IS DRIVING THIS CAR!” My fantasy, of course, is that this will frighten tailgaters, pickups, California drivers and huge trucks, who will then treat me with extreme courtesy, respect and total avoidance.

? Barbara Furniss

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About her piece, Dorothy Ross writes, ?I wrote it about five years ago in response to a prompt in your book, A Year in the Life. It was printed in the newsletter from the Parkinson Association of Northern California a couple of years back.?

Overcoming Inertia

I believe that overcoming inertia is the secret to an active and productive old age. For my seventy-fifth birthday, I?ve ordered a T-shirt imprinted with a motto based on Isaac Newton?s First Law of Motion. Newton stated, in part, ??a body in motion?will remain in motion…? In other words, ?Moving bodies keep moving.?

Newton?s First is particularly applicable to the elderly, inertia being both the blessing and the curse of our old age. It can be very nice to slow down, sit down, and savor the quiet life. We?ve earned it. But we know, because our doctors tell us so, that there is real danger in becoming an immoveable object. Since we have no oilcans for our creaky, cranky knees, the only help for these arthritic joints is to exercise them. A heart that is never required to pump hard cannot withstand a sudden shock. And lungs that are not pushed to capacity will lose their breathing room.

I?ve been diagnosed with Parkinson?s Disease, the ultimate motion sickness, so my need to keep moving is even more pressing. The neurologist tells me that exercise is every bit as important as medication in alleviating the symptoms of this condition. She prescribes some movement every day. It can be yoga or aqua aerobics or walking? anything, as long as I?m not sitting still.

The only exercise the doctor specifically recommended was dancing. She said that moving to music would be neurologically soothing. I?m not a dancer, never have been, but I was sufficiently motivated to try a special Dance for PD class, developed by the Mark Morris Dance Group and offered near my home in Davis, California. At a real dance studio, lined with mirrors and ballet barres, I have the great fun of moving to music with other motion-challenged people. We sing and swing and sway. For one afternoon each week, we can forget that we have Parkinson?s disease.

So, yes, I really do believe in overcoming inertia, overthrowing stasis, overwhelming laziness. l ordered my T-shirt with Moving Bodies Keep Moving printed on the front and I?m Overcoming Inertia emblazoned on the back. Then, when I walk in the park and pass young people lounging on the grass, the signs on my shirt will challenge them to get moving. Even better, old folks sitting on park benches may be motivated to stand up and walk with me.

? Dorothy Ross

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Order Your Writing Mottos Now

Imagine a writers? kit with a dozen writers? mottos to adhere to bumper stickers, tee shirts, beverage glasses and mugs, aprons, even vacuum and broom handles! Why in so many sizes and objects? Why a dozen different mottos? Why do we no longer see the painting that has hung in the same place for years?

Imagine finding a swag manufacturer to print the writing mottos on objects (how I?d love service for twelve of cups for writers) or making the stickers yourself by printing the mottos and using double-sided adhesive to attach them where you?d like to see them.

Here’s dozen candidates:

1. Writers write.
2. Don?t think, write! — Ron Carlson
3. Writing is in the revision — road work ahead.
4. Writing is like brushing your hair, revise, revise, revise.
5. Writing corrects my envisioning.
6. Writers change the world one page at a time.
7. Twinkle, twinkle little star, what will I write of you this night?
8. The moon disappears yet my fingers linger over the keys.
9. Writing in flow is like travelling down a water slide.
10. I observe therefore I write.
11. Honk if you think writing is better than chocolate!
12. Honk if you?d rather be writing.

I remember my mother?s way of keeping family photos, one or two per drawer, in her dresser and desk. I asked why they weren?t in her albums; she told me because when she opens a draw she likes the surprise.

Here’s to surprises and another dozen mottos to place in drawers:

1. Write to find what you didn?t know was there.
2. 200 words a day, then 500 and then a 1,000!
3. There are treasures in what you wrote yesterday! Look for them.
4. Is the unwritten life worth living?
5. Clich?s will kill your writing.
6. Beat poets were not tired.
7. Images are seeds. Help them grow.
8. You can always find an object to write about.
9. My other life is on the page.
10. Just write!
11. Writing deports me — to the world I want to live in
12. Words are cheap but poetry is a bargain — William Mawhinney

• — Sheila Bender