I’m uninspired to write most days.

I know I could find something to write about if my life depended upon my churning out words — but since it doesn’t, I don’t force it.  Yet, even when I’m inspired to write, my pieces run together, indistinguishable, one from the other.

I need a creativity vitamin, something that will help my posts be less generic.  So I’m shaking up life with a little ‘research’ and development.  I’m going to finally ‘do’ something about my writing, to see if I can take it to the next level, whatever that means.

The biggest shake-in-my-boots change will occur in mid-July, when I run away from home for a week to attend the Iowa Summer Writing Festival at the University of Iowa.  I discovered these workshops three years ago, when our youngest son Kyle briefly attended the University of Iowa.  All I could afford to do then was dream since we were ‘college poor’.  To be honest, we’ve been strapped for cash for the last four years, with two boys in college at the same time.

But since I paid the final set of tuition bills last month, I decided to pull out the dream, to see what workshops were being offered this summer.  Each of the workshops is limited to twelve participants — some are weekend workshops and others last five days, Monday through Friday.  I had a hard time narrowing the field down to two but I finally did.  And before I could change my mind, or convince myself that I didn’t need to do this, I picked up the phone and registered.

The smaller creativity shake-up is that I’ve joined a new on-line writer’s group for women, — www.She Writes.com — a venture that is less than a year old.   I joined primarily to take advantage of the on-line courses, though it appears to offer support for publication and other writing adventures.   The class I’ve signed up for is called “Word Yoga.”  I fear the class will give me — a former ‘mild-mannered’ accountant with a smallish vocabulary — a big linguistic workout.  Maybe the class will be like going to a writer’s gym.   Five writing exercises are promised each week for four weeks — and our unpolished ‘best’ must be submitted for workshop each week.

I don’t know what will come of either of these writing endeavors.  But what I do know is that I need more energy and that I’m ready to stretch and flex my writing muscles.  And if either or both of these changes could offer me a boost, I will be glad I stepped out of my comfort zone to enroll in the writer’s gym classes.

Unlike those gym classes in junior high, I am consoled by the fact that I won’t be required to get naked.   Or will I?