Sunday Morning Tea: An Invitation

“Sunday Morning Tea” was the title of a short story I wrote several years ago on this blog, one of the first stories to ever be posted actually.

It was complete and utter trash. Don’t bother looking for it. It has since been deleted in the ongoing purge.

But in that story, I talked about how my mom used to sit on the front porch on Sunday mornings with a warm cup of tea and watch and listen to the neighborhood wake up.

…the birds chirping in the bushes…

…the leaves rustling in the wind…

…the neighbor who overslept on Saturday mowing the grass before church…

…the parishioners dressed in their Sunday best gathering on the front lawn of the tiny Baptist chapel across the street…

She’d sit, listen, and sip.

Sometimes I would join her, and we’d talk about whatever’s been pressing on our minds that week. Or we’d just sit in silence and drink our tea.

Something’s been pressing on my mind lately, and it’s where I stand as a blogger today.

Recently, I decided to shift the direction of my blog. I wanted something other than toxic romance to inspire me for a change. I’d grown tired of writing “lovely curses.” And I knew if I kept forcing myself, I’d eventually disappear from blogging again. And maybe this time for good. And if that happened, would that mean I would stop writing too? That has been the pattern. Because I use my blog to explore who I am as a writer, so if I’m not blogging, I’m definitely not writing either.

So I sat on my porch, and I sipped my tea, and I cleared my mind, and I thought, and I asked myself, what is my identity as a blogger, as a writer, today?

Hence, Nortina’s Writing Inspiration Well was born. It felt like the perfect fit, as even before I changed my blog title, when I would talk candidly about finding inspiration to write again, I’d refer to it as my “inspiration well” or my “writing well.”

I started by looking for prompt challenges that would inspire stories. A lot of the ones I used to participate in, before my last disappearance two years ago, are no longer active or don’t have the same participation. Maybe all of our wells are dried up? So I started one of my own—daily inspiration to fill my well again. And then I challenged myself to write stories in 100 words. Maybe the well wasn’t quite full enough for me to draw out buckets full of pages of thousands of words, but 100, maybe I could at least do 100, and that could eventually grow into something longer.

Last Friday marked another 30 straight days of posting for me, though these 30 days feel different from the last. They feel like a beginning…of an inspiration streak. So I thought, why don’t I continue this inspiration streak and bring back Sunday Morning Tea?

And no, I am not talking about that god-awful story.

Seriously, it was bad. I hope my mom never read it…

So what is Sunday Morning Tea then? Well, it’s not quite a weekly blog hop, not quite a “Weekend Coffee Share.” It’s more like a salon for inspiration. You know, like those late 19th and 20th century salons, where artists, writers, musicians, etc., would gather in the home of a rich and famous woman to discuss art, politics, etc. Though I’m neither rich nor famous, I hope to be rich with writing inspiration, and I have no desire to talk about politics—my anxiety won’t allow it—but let’s talk about art, specifically the art of writing.

Sunday Morning Tea is a time for the writers to get together and just…be writers. It’s a time we pick, when our minds are less busy, to draw from the inspiration well and write stories, write about writing stories, write to encourage each other to write stories.

It started on this blog as a story (that was really bad) and has evolved into a meeting space for more stories. What are you writing? What are you thinking about writing? What are your writing dreams? I plan to share mine over a cup of tea. And if you’re like me, maybe you’ll pop in (Like, Comment). Maybe you’ll join the conversation (guest post on my blog or vice versa). Maybe you prefer to sit and enjoy a nice warm cup of tea while letting the writing flow (Pingback).

My porch is open, and all are welcome!

—Nortina