As I sit here in the way too early morning I look at my blog and think that it isn’t what it was supposed to be. But what was it supposed to be? A place to show my writing for sure but what kind? Was it for my non fiction? My fiction? Photography is a new love so it wasn’t that. I don’t know.
But I do… it was supposed to be a place where people could come and learn new things, learn about topics they didn’t know about or were curious about. I think I’ve done that over the years. But what, then, has it become? It feels more like an online journal. And while that might be nice for a while it is not what it was meant to be.
So should it change? I don’t know. I wanted it to grow organically and it has. Just because it has gone in a different direction does not mean it is wrong. Just different. I guess I am looking at things because it feels as though it has become a whine fest and that is NOT ok. I try to keep my bad days short on here because there is enough of that in the world without me adding my two cents. Yet when I go through tough times what should I do? Part of me wants to share to show that everyone has bad things happen and we can all make it through. Yet… yet where do I draw the line? I don’t want my readers to think that all I do is whine (I might not but it feels like I do).
I have made many friends through my writing. I have learned things I would not have otherwise through my writing and reading that of others. My writing has always been very much a part of me, even when it went dormant for a few years. I am trying to find new ways to water, feed and nurture my writing garden. That is why I continue to do this blog.
The sun is out in earnest this morning. And it will have a time of it warming things up. It was almost cold enough for frost this morning. That being said it is supposed to warm up quite a bit for the next few days so I may uncover the plants in the memorial garden and pull out the ones I brought in. I am hoping the nights stay as warm as they say or warmer. I don’t want to bring them all in and out everyday.
Today is 9/11. It feels like a somber day for those of us that were alive when the 9/11 bombings happened here in the U.S. It seems as though we have gone from outside enemies to inside enemies since then. With no end in sight. I had to unfollow a fellow blogger this morning because of the posts they were writing. They were getting angrier and angrier. Anyone that did not do and think as that person did would incur the wrath of God because that person was right. I don’t need to see that on my feed. That type of thinking is part of the problem. It certainly is NOT part of the solution.
It feels weird not watching the clock to see how much time I have before I need to get ready to go. A good weird. I got a bunch of stuff done last night after I got home so that will be less I have to do today. I do need to see if I can get the mower going today. If not I may ask for help from our neighbors across the street.
I feel like I want to work on my writing today. I got inspired by a documentary on Amazon last night about the controversial Scary Stories to Tell In the Dark. I had all three books as well as the on based on the movie (thanks Mom!). I really love the art and the content. For those who have never read the books they are a collection of scary stories and folktales from all over. This type of book is what got my love for horror started. Just sitting around telling stories to each other in the dark (or with just a flashlight). I still have my first collection that I convinced my parents to buy me (they were still married so I had to be in the single digits with my age). It was at the local bookstore in Ferndale, Michigan called “Paperback Books Unlimited.” This place was a staple of my childhood. I snuck a peek at my first Fangoria Magazine there as well. My parents tried to take me there as often as they could. I just dug the book out of my shelves. It was printed in 1973 so I had to be around 5 or 6 years old. Some Things Strange and Sinister edited by Joan Kahn is the book.
I have always loved short stories because they are small bites that you can snack on if you aren’t in the mood for a full novel (or don’t have the time). It has been a long time since I last wrote a short story. The last one I sent out into the world was college and was a runner up in a contest. They were only going to print the winners but they liked mine so much they made and exception. I still have the copy of the magazine. I have a few done that I need to polish and get out there. But, again, I need to get myself a copy of WordPerfect. Everything is digital now. Very few places will accept hard copy sent through the mail. So I need a reliable program that I can edit and send my work on. That may be something I save up for. I need to make sure bills get paid and Moose has a vet appointment coming up.
Ok, I see that I have talked quite a bit. I will wrap this up and share a few photos. I hope you have a great day! Thanks for reading and stay safe!
I should be at work right now but they needed someone to close tonight so here I am. I’m only working the deli until 3pm then I am at a register til close. It was nice night to have to get up in the dark but I will miss having the afternoon and evening free. Friday will be the new day to try to mow the yard etc. When I got home last night (afternoon really) I was just too exhausted. That being said I did get the plants covered and the moveable ones inside so that the temperature drop did not hurt them.
Since I don’t have to be to work until noon once I finish this the game plan is to watch my videos for class so I can get as much done as possible. Then Saturday I will write my paper. Monday and Tuesday I have meetings so I assume that he will give them to me off. It is what he has done thus far. We’ll see.
I am trying to stay focused. I am trying to remember the goals I have set for myself as well as what I need to do. Part of me feels bad because there are times that I don’t have much energy to spend on the family. Chris has been awesome about keeping the kids busy and keeping up with the everyday stuff while I have been working this 7 day stretch. But I get home from work and I am just tapped out. I don’t like that feeling. And I still have two more days after this.
It sounds like they really want me to work in the deli. A well as everywhere else. I am temped to say no but I think the plan is that when we start to slow down that I have some place else that I can work so that I don’t lose hours. We’ll see. There is a lot to learn there.
I have a new leave growing on my orchid. I am so happy! I think I need to add more dirt to the pot but I don’t think regular potting soil is an option. I need to find out what I need to do. She might need a bigger pot as well. I worry about the shock of going from one pot to another. I have lost many plants that way. I will add a picture of the new leave and wrap this up. A fresh cup of coffee and then off to study. Thanks for reading and stay safe!
I woke during the night feeling guilty. No idea why. I hadn’t done anything to feel guilty about. But that feeling spurred a line of thinking of things that I had done wrong over the years that I did feel guilty about. So I tossed and turned trying to think of something else. Not much sleep happened. Even my dreams I thought in the dreams that I wasn’t going to get much sleep.
I got batteries for two of my favorite toys, my Trex and my dragon from the Harry Potter books Norbert (he came from the egg that Hagrid got). The Trex has a controller that makes him walk (forward only) and Norbert yawns, eats, burps fire, sneezes fire, giggles (there is a spot you can tickle him) and stretches his wings. I had rechargeable batteries in both toys but they never lasted very long so I splurged and got regular batteries. Chris got a good laugh when I brought each of the toys in and ran them through what they could do. The dogs were not amused.
I am glad I have the day off but I find myself leaning toward not wanting to go back to work. I suppose that if I didn’t have to work the courtesy counter I would be less inclined to not wanna be there. But I am getting everything done that I need to so I shouldn’t complain.
Well crap. I just realized that I will need to send in my word count for this month soon and I don’t seem to have any of the papers set aside so I will need to rely on my emails. I hope I have kept all the emails from this month. I should probably print them out after I finish this. It is so unusual for me to not keep the papers. Hmmmm…..
I guess I should see if there are any stories that I can read and review for class. As of yesterday there was only one other student that had gotten as far as I had. Thanks for reading and stay safe!
I am doing a bit of a scramble this morning. And not with eggs either. 🙂 I went to bed at a decent time and got up at my regular time but I have to be to work at 10am this morning so that cuts an hour our of my normal routine. So I am feeling a bit pressured.
I did get paid yesterday and we all received a $40 gift card for the store (and it is a grocery store so it is most welcome). So that was good. I still need to make a few phone calls to pay bills but I don’t see that happening before work. I might have to go and slide out to my car on break. I will try to make one phone call before I leave though. I have an alarm set for 9:30am so that I don’t forget to get ready. I am so used to the 11am routine that I could do just that.
I dreamt about a fried that died earlier this year, Margie. She was the second person up here to die from the COVID-19. I missed her funeral at the end of July. We had fun in my dream so that was good.
A concern about work it that my arm keeps getting worse. Chris got me some braces for my arm but I find that I am dropping things with that hand more and more. And the pain is becoming a constant. So I guess we will see.
Speaking of seeing I just checked the clock and if I am going to make that call and get ready for work I need to get gone. Sorry for the short post. Thanks for reading and stay safe!
When I started this this morning I was contemplating not doing anymore online classes due to it being so difficult with everything going on. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that it would be the easy way out. It would be easy to say I couldn’t do it because of work and writing for the paper. But it wouldn’t be accurate. What would be accurate would be that I quit because I was afraid to fail. I was afraid that all my efforts would fail and someone would tell me that I was no longer a writer. (Writing for the paper is journalism and that is a different type… yes it is writing but there is a difference (to me atleast) between being a journalist and being a fiction writer.)
So after some soul searching I decided to stick with it. Which means that I need to write my story after I finish doing this. I do this a lot. I stop doing some thing I enjoy (or even love) because I am afraid that I will make a mistake and mess it all up. Riding the motorcycle is another prime example. I am afraid I will make a mistake. It doesn’t matter that I do know what I am doing. I know all the mechanics of riding and I really do enjoy it. But I psych myself out. The flip side of that is that I have been ok mentally and even excited to ride and I get on the bike and completely freeze up. I get so overwhelmed that I have to get off the bike and not ride. And so my beloved motorcycle sits (thankfully in the garage). I guess that is how I know that I care about something. I am terrified of messing it up or making a mistake.
People will tell me that is how you learn but it depends on the mistake. If I make a mistake on the bike then I will either suffer cosmetic damage to the bike (low end of the spectrum) to death or injury (high end of the spectrum). If I mess up my classes then I will feel that I am no longer a writer even though it has been my dream forever and I have been writing since I could pick up a pen. I would lose a piece of my soul. (I faced similar heartbreak when I tried to go to school for archaeology. Mom paid for my first semester and I was having trouble getting my paper (which I was very proud of) submitted. Nothing worked. I would send the paper via the net and they never got it. We finally decided to try by mail but I would be penalized with my grade and then I didn’t have the money for postage…. essentially it snowballed and I dropped out. I still feel like a failure. But I would try doing the class again if I could.)
So now that I have reopened old wounds it is time for me to get to work on my writing paper. Thanks so much for reading. Have a great day and stay safe!
I am happy to say that I got the job. I start tomorrow morning. This will mean I need to get up extra early on work days to make sure I keep up with this. I have also been nominated for a Liebster Award. (I will do a separate post to take care of the qualifications for that.) You would think that I would be over the moon with all these blessings. But the truth is I woke up in a funk.
Last night I had the kids running around the house and playing for a few hours. I thought that they would tire out but lo! as soon as I would get up to get something or do something they were all ready to go again. I had a good long chat with Mom last night too. My new phone should arrive today. So why the depression?
I think I spent all my energies yesterday and I have none today. I didn’t sleep badly but one of the last dreams I had was a motorcyclist getting accidentally beheaded in front of us on the road. (No idea where that came from.) Everything just feels blah.
I let the paper know about the new job that way if they need me for other meetings they know I might not be available. And my writing petered out just like that. Oh, that’s another thing that hit me this morning. I am going to have to buckle down with the classwork as well. If I plan to keep going with the online classes I need to make sure I get my classwork in on time. Now I know that all this is possible, I really do. But I just feel like a deer in headlights right now.
I work all weekend. Sunday I close so that means Chris will have to feed the dogs. So I will have to make sure that he remembers to give Moose his food and not what he feeds the girls. This will be the first time he has fed the kids in months. It’s not a big deal but it feels like it is.
I promised that I would get the Liebster award qualifications done this morning and I still have some videos to watch for class so I had better wrap this up. Thanks for reading and thanks for all the well wishes! As always stay safe!
Another cool dawn. It feels very much like Fall. Part of me is excited for it and the rest of me not so much. I think the big excitement is a bit of a change up. The sky is full of greyish flat clouds. The air is crisp yet everything is still that lush green with splashes of color from various plants and flowers. But I don’t like being cold for very long. A few days of this and I will be ready for my Summer heat.
I am making a few changes myself. I am going to try to be more active. I have a hula hoop that I have been using. I am also getting a jump rope. I can do both of these in the house during the cold winter months so I can keep it up. I still haven’t gotten a steady routine for my yoga. But that will be remedied soon. I am going to put in a job application today. It will be at the local grocery store. I am hoping that it will be flexible enough that I can still keep my job at the paper. I need something to help pay for the Jeep getting fixed.
The moon was beautiful last night! I am so happy I was able to actually get so really good photos! I was actually supposed to be turning on the lights outside so we could go to bed but the way the moonlight was reflecting off of the rippling clouds was too much. I had to go get my camera.
I got everything done but the writing for this week’s classwork. I have 1,000 words or less to write a short story that encompasses everything we have learned. Next week starts the next series of classes. This I believe will deal with character. I really like the instructors. It would be nice tot be able to talk to them and discuss things but there it is.
I need to get the rest of my day started so I will end here. Thank you so much for reading and sharing your thoughts! As always stay safe!
I envy those that can just sit right down and start writing. I used to be one of those people. My imagination just feels like a dry vessel. I seem to be able to do everything but write anymore. Anxiety creeps in as I am forced to face the world outside of my home on a regular basis. Seemingly all because I cannot find my way to regularly putting words on a page for money. I cannot finish a story, polish it and send it out. It sits barely visible on the page, unable to fight free.
Then there are those that publish and make money from seemingly bad writing. And the particular piece I am thinking of might actually be very good in it’s native tongue but the translation leaves much to be desired. What’s worse is that it is a friend of mine and I have been asked to read and review said published piece. Each page is difficult to get through because of run on sentences and wording that doesn’t make sense. Usually it is a failed colloquialism. The piece has gone through numerous editors but it doesn’t show. A well known book is referenced by name but the title is incorrect. Not only that but the person that wrote the referenced book is the topic of the book I am reading and my friend is supposed to be an authority on this writer. I am still only on page 3 of this book. I skipped ahead thinking that maybe the writing would get better but it doesn’t. And I don’t know what to do. I read lines out to Chris and he just stared at me in shock. It is so difficult to read and if I do finish the book I cannot favorably review it. The “expert” can’t even get titles correct. I’m not sure about facts. I haven’t gotten that far. This friend is bugging me to tell him if I like the book. What do I do? I can’t find anything good to say about the piece. If I am honest it will probably cost me the friendship no matter how much I sugar coat it. If I lie then others will wonder what the hell I was on when I read it.
So I sit and stare at the pages and think that I would be better off working on my own writing. I got close yesterday morning. I pulled out the notebooks containing my various projects and went outside. I did the sit and think for a bit and next thing I knew I was sawing off branches of trees for the next few hours. Things look nice and I won’t have to battle the branches when I mow. But STILL NO WRITING WAS DONE. So I will try again today.
The rain has gone away. Yesterday was a much welcome cloudy with rain off and on all day. It did cool things off a bit. Back down to normal summer heat for a day. The temperatures will be right back up there today. And I am ok with that.
I seem to have run into a mental dry spell over the last few days. No writing other than this and my journal. I’ve been lugging one of my guitars around with the appropriate paperwork to practice playing but I’ve done nothing past tuning the guitar. I have read a bit in the new book. I seem to not only lost my drive but my focus as well. I was moving forward with great strides and now… inertia.
Moose definitely has kidney disease so I ordered more kibble yesterday. I got the lamb since he doesn’t seem too fond of the chicken flavor. We’ll see how he does. Essie didn’t eat this morning. She started getting me up around 6am to go outside in a hurry. I left the door open for her. She had to go back out maybe an hour later. Then once we got up for the day She went directly outside. Moose wouldn’t eat either. I wonder if it is because Essie wouldn’t. He’s in here with me and I can hear his tummy doing hungry rumbles. I worry that Essie’s cancer is more severe than we think. They said they got it all out with the lump but I’m not so sure. And her surgery scar isn’t healing correctly. Part of it keeps getting opened back up. Now that Moose has been taken care of I need to call and ask them about her. That will have to wait until Monday. Monday I am also dropping the Jeep off for Chuck to look at. Soooo….
I feel so busy but I know I have plenty of free time if I choose to use it. I just need to not do other things, like watch tv. Moose is dreaming. It sounds like it is on the border of becoming a nightmare with the sounds he is making. I am keeping the house up as well as the gardens this year (so much easier and rewarding being able to stay home). But will I let myself blow off writing? That is part of the reason I opted to pay for the course instead of taking the free version. The other part is that I can get feedback from other writers. If you take the free course you are limited as to what you can do. If I pay for it and don’t do anything then I am wasting money. If I take the free version I can blow it off because it “doesn’t count” for anything. That’s what I did with the guitar class. So I need to find my way.
On that note I need to get something written before Chris gets up for the day. He wants to do some running together. I would rather stay home but it is time together. Thanks for reading! Stay safe!
