life of a georgia Artist

Writing is a solitary event. Your brain and you sit somewhere and connect words. After this happens you write these sentences down somewhere. You form images for others to see while using words to conjure emotions from your readers. If you are a good writer you write so that your readers feel a connection with your story, words, and characters. You write to evoke emotion. Your words, while now only your words, go into the world fully formed and your readers change their meaning. They infer their emotions, their history, their take on your words based on their lives and you are devastated, or are you? As writers we set out with a thought, perhaps if we are  lucky a world, a character, or some story line that will resonate with others, the readers. We have a set vision in our words of how they will touch peoples lives. How they will be received and when readers see our words as something different, something more to them, we get mad or hurt, but in reality our words are still well ...

Relationships have an ebb and flow like everything else in life. A relationship is an organic thing. It changes, it adapts, and if it is a good one, it will grow from each adaption. In the natural world if you do not adapt you die, if you do not adapt in a relationship it ends. A couple needs to move and flow through their relationship over streams, over mountains, under bypasses, and anywhere else the relationship shall wind. Recently my relationship has  had a huge mountain throw in its path. My sweetie was moving his stuff to live with me in Georgia, from Texas, and had an accident and broke his arm. We needed to ebb and flow like the dickens. He made it home and we have been finding a path to our new routine. Life throws broken arms at you (not literally ) everyday. Flat tires happen, broken bones, happen, illness happens and so on and so forth. The ebb and flow instantly changes. A couple needs to move around the mountain to sustain a happy and healthy relationship. Januar...

As I write more and more these days, I find myself slowly falling into a new routine with my writing. I write for a few websites and I realize ( Big surprise as everyone who writes says to do this ) having a writing routine keeps me writing. I had a creative writing professor tell me "Write what you know" and so I throw what I know into poems, creative fiction, creative nonfiction, and just about anything else. I place my characters into parts of what I know, places I know, and feelings I know. I have taught workshops on creative writing. I have taught writing workshops, lead writing groups, and all around read pretty much everything on what anyone ever said about writing. I am not an expert, but I know reading all genre of books helps my writing. Writing is cathartic in getting past grief, in healing broken hearts, and basically dumping everything into the page. Writing helps us move past, deal with, and help others. Our words, our stories, if we are lucky touch someon...

It is that time again. Autumn and another photo prompt. Autumn is my favorite time of year. I have said that time and time again. As a photographer and writer I find inspiration in the changing of seasons and new photo prompt for autumn. We have so many sights  and sounds at this time of year. We have leaves crunching under our feet, we have blustery days and with them laying of clothing. We have an abundance of apples, abundance of hiking trails to view the colors, and we have gathering of family in friends as Americans celebrate Thanksgiving later this week. With so much going on we might struggle to write, but write on we must. For this writing prompt I thought I would include something a little out of season. Perhaps this will encourage you to think outside your box. I hope you are all enjoying fall, writing, taking photos, and I hope you all ( if you are in America ) have a great thanksgiving. So here is week 15's photo prompt for you: A little something for your eyes....

So it is not surprise with all my photos on my blog that I am a photographer. I realize though that I honestly do not talk about the process. I do not tell you why I shoot what I shoot and I have not told you about why I use the camera I do. Recently I did an artist statement for my photography and I want to share some of it with you, so you know why I take macros mostly and what I want to achieve by taking these. So here is part of my artist statement: I use my photography as a way to document nature and bring its fleeting beauty to others who would not otherwise be able to see it. I love to add textures to my work to add a touch of magic to the natural beauty of nature around us. My goals with my photography is to enhance nature in such a way that it makes people yearn to be out in nature and that ultimately it does bring people out into nature. My work is a small gift in the transitory world around us. One of my favorite items to shoot is leaves. I love them in autumn,bu...

Relationships and connectivity have been on my mind a lot lately. I mean all relationships. Mother/daughter Sister/Brother Girlfriend/boyfriend and all the other kinds you can come up with. Why are relationships so important in our lives? Why do we define ourselves by who we are connected with? I realize lately that connecting with a person is of great importance to our happiness. Hear me out. We can survive alone. I know this, but we miss out on listening. We miss out on opportunities to connect to someone who could give us a deeper understanding of ourselves. We miss friendships, belly laughs, and so much more. Connecting to another human and sharing our beliefs, our hobbies, our lives allows us to have a broader understanding of humanity as a whole. We need out tribes. I have a small group of woman friends who are my tribe. They are shakers, believers, day dreamers, my anchor and my wings. These lovely ladies are part of why I am who I am. I listen to them. I admire them. I see...

Susan Sontag once said "To collect photographs is to collect the world" and I agree. I feel lots of photographers would agree as well. We collect pockets of our world in the time we capture. We use our photos as words to show our world. To show the good, the bad, the ugly, and the pretty. We use photos to tell all sorts of stories and Henry Lohmeyer is no different. He wants to use his camera, his extended eye, to capture the world and share it. He wants to take a journey and explore the world. Well in this case one part. I will let you hear it from him. These are his words that follow, his journey, and his story. It is an amazing one and if you can please share, donate, follow along, but do not sit in the fragments of silence and do nothing!! EDGE • FRANCE It may have been fear’s screaming that we’ve been hearing, I believe it’s time for love’s whisper to be heard. We all live with trepidation over an edge we perceive. Often this fear clos...

So with most of my blog being about writing lately, I am sure you are not going to be surprised that I wrote a new poem. I grew up with a step-monster who abused me ( we wont go into that ) and recently I have connected with a soul on Medium.com that was abused too. This poem was in response to her story about her life and about abuse in general. I think maybe more people know it exists, but people do not want to react and do anything about it. We are all happy living in a bubble. The poem is titled ENTWINED Every person, every voice, intertwined with the next, standing alone on a ledge, whispering help me, longing to be heard. Struggling to find the thread that connects us to society. Abuse all around, beating us down, beating us till we bleed out, outward hatred intermingled through the classes, through society, through the world, Abuse around us, we stare instead of react. Each person crying, each voice drowned out by the next, each person frozen, f...

So it is that time again. Time for your next writing post. I hope you have enjoyed these so far. Everything included this week including the kitchen sink. If you are looking for a serious push on your novel writing, do not forget nanowrimo is in November. The link is here:  http://nanowrimo.org/ Also if you haven't checked out Medium it is a great platform for writing. https://medium.com/    So enjoy the kitchen sink and get to writing!!! If you would like to share on here, or have me look at a piece in email or whatever I am always willing to. My writing is on Medium as Debbie Aruta or you know here where you found me :D Happy writing! your story teller/poet Debbie xoxo

As a photographer and Writer I feel a need with both mediums to tell a story. Sometimes I tell it in photos and sometimes I tell it in words, but either way it is a story. Stories have been told, retold, and over told on porches, family gatherings, in parks, and other misc. places forever. They could be long, short, a tall tale or fictions tale. Tales could be filled with worlds that do not exist, magical potions, or everyday people. In any sense of a tale, a story is told. It is sent out into the world in a way for others to absorb it. Our writing prompts are a way to catalyst writing of a tale. I hope you find inspiration in them and enjoy sending your words or own photo essays into the world. I have really enjoyed writing a lot lately. I do not know if it is the cooler weather, the sharpened pencils, or the feeling of more and more of wanting to be published. I feel a connectivity to writing. I feel it can express my jumbled thoughts into one coherent tale. One word at a time co...

I have been writing words for many moons. I have put together sentences into paragraph after paragraph for years. I am at a place where I can help others with the knowledge I have collected. I have taught writing workshops and have work shopped numerous peoples pieces in writing group settings. I have lead a writing group and have been writing for years. Recently I have found a space for my voice on Medium.com. I am currently hunting down freelance writing jobs. I write in this blog, I used to write for ourcollective.org, and now I write short stories, poetry, and memoirs. Writing is something that is in my blood and as they say, "We bleed all over the page". I find bleeding all over my metaphorical page is therapy for my soul. I feel so many things so deeply and cannot express them in normal conversations. I find myself filled with words of a poem or short story that would express how I feel. My voice needs to come out and it does not matter if those words are shared or no...

Hey all, I hope Autumn finds you enjoying apples, leaves, crisp air, and everything else associated with Fall.It is such an amazing time of year. There is a change coming, a coolness, darkness falls earlier, and we turn inward to spending time just at home with our families and friends. I love that about the season. Not only are there physical changes, but people respond in different ways. We each move through this earth with different agendas, beliefs, and other items. I think what matters most is that if someone needs us we are there for them not based on what we will gain, but in what we will be to them. We could be a friend they need to listen, to help, to give a lift to, to help weed a garden, or just about anything. What we get is joy from helping. We accomplish something for someone else without any regard for reward. In any relationship it is a give and take. Recently I have been thinking if you do one that the other then the scales tip in your relationship. ( I am a Libra, ...

So recently I have been thinking about my talents. I am pursing my writing career harder now then ever. I have been writing constantly,doing revisions, writing more poetry, and so forth. I have ventured onto Medium, Facebook, Tumblr, Flickr, Instagram, and other social media sites. With the world seemingly spinning faster then ever, when is enough actually enough and it become OK to say no? Social media obviously has its place in our lives. It is not leaving us anytime soon, so I feel it is time to say no more. I have seen swarm and other apps, even for my photography people tell me all the time to download more software for editing photos. I smile politely, say thank you, and never do it. Recently I have started just saying, "No thank you" to people. They look startled and cannot comprehend what I am saying. With a society so bent on getting more material goods, I can understand why they also need to get more social media. I now have a stalker on my social media. I thoug...

Greetings all. I have been away travelling so please forgive my tardiness on prompt 9. First, let me say life has and always will surprise me !! I used to be a big planner. I would print the maps off the computer in case the phone or internet went down. I would pack a smaller cooler with water bottles for a day trip just in case. I planned snacks for a 2-hour drive. Yep, I was that person. Now there is nothing wrong with being that way, but I noticed as I got older that something in me has changed. I no longer care to plan. I was the only one who worried about these things and the rest of my family just was along to have fun. So yesterday we set out to go to a festival that well is next weekend. My bad. So on to plan B, but I didn't plan, so we went to an animal rescue place next, On the way, we found a festival like the one we were trying to go to. We continued onto the animal place, then found a garden to explore, and then we went to this festival. An unplanned trip turned in...

Another week has gotten away from me. I finished school in May, but I just seem to run run run. I am constantly on the go with two part time jobs, housework, and honestly no help. I feel like writing keeps me grounded in life though. I wrote two new pieces this week and got published in groups on Medium.com. My first piece: http://bit.ly/2bWXExH  is a piece on writing. It is about who you write for. Your audience when you right is not important in the writing process. It curbs your writing before the words flow and hinders your creativity. My second piece is a short: http://bit.ly/2bqeOoG This one is a quick quip about junk mail. It was a weekly prompt in a writing group and I went where it took me. I enjoy writing. It keeps me thinking. I keep seeing parts of stories in everyday life. I write for me and me alone. Maybe one day ill publish, maybe I wont, but honestly the process of writing is amazing to me. I guess that goes with my English B. A. I earned.I never minded writ...

So it is that time again where I put up a photo and you write. I usually do them on Wednesday, but this week was Rush at the college and I worked 10.5 hour days and just came home and died. So I hope you are all writing. I would love to feature your peace if you want to be on my blog just leave a message and we will talk. Writing is a solitary experience, but once your first draft is down on paper it can become a group activity. Many people who write are part of a writing group. I am part of two right now. The critiquing part is the worse. You think you corrected everything. You think you wrote well and BAM people tell you that you missed all sorts of thing. Honestly they are nice about it, they are there to learn too, and we are all in this together. I think sharing is the hardest thing, but if you can find a fellow writer to share with it can be amazing. So here is your photo prompt for week #6. Travel? Photography? Polaroids? Life through the lens? So many possibilities. Good...

So it is that time again for your next photo prompt to get you writing. Each week I do a photo prompt with a group and I wait for inspiration from the photo.I wait for it to unveil a poem or a short story or what it wants me to write. I wait. Why? Why do I need it to tell me? This week I decided I'm writing a  short story about it. I am not waiting for inspiration. Why as writers do we wait till we are in the mood to write, why do we wait for inspiration, or why do we simply not accept we are good writers and just begin. This week's photo prompt is: It is a panorama of the beach and ocean and sun. It is stretched, wrinkled in time, and manipulated by the camera. (those are all hints on writing,,stretched, wrinkled, manipulated ) As a writer, take the photo, make it yours, choose your words wisely, and write. You do not need my permission, you need your own to begin. I hope you are enjoying your weekly writing prompts. I am certainly enjoying being part of your w...

Greetings fellow bloggerx, friends, writers, and whomever else is joining us. I want to talk a little bit about personal life vs professional. I am pushing my writing more and and more and recently realized my personal spaces online were filling up with my professional writings. The lines were certainly blurred and I intended to fix that. I opened (Thanks to http://blogghetti.com/ my dear friend Lisa's suggestion ) I have opened a FB group for my writing side. Debbie Aruta: A Georgia Artist & Author I needed to separate my two worlds a little. Do you feel you need to do the same? If you have them separate how did you go about doing this? I am considering opening a professional website for my writing. You know with pieces to be considered for freelance paying jobs and such. Ok well enough of me. Here is writing #5 prompts. I hope you are enjoying these as much as I do. It really gets you pushing the envelope of writing. I bounce between writing poetry and writing short storie...

Greetings fellow writers, (and all of your other wonderful people) It is that time again. Ive been busy writing poetry and another short story. Writing is so freeing. You let your mind wander on paper or computer and something magical happens. A story unfolds. A tale is told. Something comes from one. word. in. front. of. the. other..... you connect and you have a sentence, a paragraph, you join them to make a character. You let a scene you see in your head unfold on paper. You, yes you, are a pure magical creature. You might not be a Harry Potter, or a magical dragon, but you as a writer are magical. So this weeks photo prompt is: So many possibilities with this one. Yes it is one of those tip jars, but look at it, read, take in colors, shapes, sizes, magic is happening. I cannot wait to see what you do with this prompt. Now if you are interested in sharing, or interested in me posting a guest blog about you, your writing, or anything to do with you and your writing please sho...