Remember the pretty icicles?
Look! No more icicles!
And no more eavestroughs too!
*grumblegrumblegrumble*
Monthly Archives: February 2014
Shhh! Don’t Tell My Mom
The last thing I want to do is worry my mother, so I’m keeping this quiet. I can tell all of you though, because she doesn’t read my blog.
I think her car is trying to kill me.
I went out in it today to pick up some groceries, for myself as well as for her. As I came up to a stop sign I put my foot on the brake and the engine started to rev. The more I pushed the brake, the faster the engine went – and the faster the car went. Luckily there was nothing coming (and there were no cops around) because I blasted through that stop sign.
Since then I’ve started putting it into neutral when I want to stop. That’ll teach it.
But in the meantime, would someone please tell it I was only going to buy her cookies?
I Don’t Want to Intimidate You, but…
Do you remember how you felt when you started on WordPress? If you’re fairly new here, I would imagine it’s pretty fresh in your mind. Even I consider myself a bit of a newb, but after just a little more than a year I’ve come to feel comfortable here; I’ve found a great community, some wonderful friends, and plenty of people who I can joke around with.
What stands out most in my mind from when I started, however, is how intimidated I felt when I stumbled across a popular blog and I wanted to comment. Should I? They seem like such a tight bunch of people, bantering about things they’ve learned about one another…
So I was considering this, and I wondered if people who are just starting out feel that way when they stop by to read my blog.
In light of my pondering, I decided to change my comment box prompt from “Leave a comment” to what it is now.
How do you make newcomers feel welcome? How do you encourage them to join in the discussion?
How Are Chickens Like Days Off?
I’m within an hour of the end of two days off. Yesterday I got a fair bit of work done on my manuscript – almost fifteen pages edited, which for me is flying through. I managed to take the evening off from everything and just watch an episode of “Breaking Bad.” I’ve only watched two so far – still wondering what all the hype’s about.
Then today I was woken up early with a phone call – Chris was sick at school and they couldn’t reach his dad. So I texted my ex, got up, delivered the papers, had a piece of toast and lay on the couch … and proceeded to sleep most of the day away. No editing accomplished.
How are chickens like days off?
Don’t count them before they’re hatched.
I need a week off.
Of All the Things to Whine About
I’m content. Basically, I am happy with my life, and yes, I’m whining about it. Let me tell you why.
The tortured soul can write poems of epic proportions. In times of loneliness, of pain, of near breakdown, a writer can bleed upon the page. But when this writer has nothing to cause her grief, there is nothing but fluff. Lint, even.
Is it strange to wish I longed for something? To pass my finger quickly through a flame doesn’t hurt. But the flame sparkles, enticingly.
Shall I burn for the sake of my art?
Awareness
Child abuse is a subject that keeps coming up around me of late, and not only because I’ve recently re-released my semi-biographical story, “Boy Series – One through…” A few minutes ago a glimpsed on Facebook a photo which made me want to throw up. I refuse to describe it – it’s one of those things that once seen cannot be unseen, and I’m sure I will have nightmares because of it. It’s worse in my mind than anything I could have imagined by myself, and in many ways, so is my series.
I’ve made the decision for a few reasons, to reveal the man behind the story. It’s not a big secret, and I don’t claim to be the one-and-only person to know… but I think having all the information that I’ve researched in one place will make the true story that much more interesting. I’ve been working, therefore, to compile links to interviews and decide what of his work might be most relevant to the story of his life. Strangely, something he said in one of the interviews I read last night cemented the decision in my mind to do this – it was almost as though I received a sign to say that it’s okay to go ahead.
The excerpt from the interview spoke of a song that he wrote about the tragedy of war. He has written several. He said that, (paraphrased) although there is little we can do about it, just spreading awareness that it exists and what it is like for those who are a part of it, whether it is their own decision to be or not, might cause someone to act differently.
And so I believe it is the same for my story of abuse. The more we are aware that it happens, even in our own neighbourhoods, the more we may look for the signs. Though we may not be able to help all of the children everywhere who suffer, if we can be kind to a child who we think may be abused, it might mean the world to that one child.
To Nav, John, Willow, and to all the people who had a hard time reading my series, I thank you for your perseverance. It was as heartbreaking to write as it is to read, just as it was for me to hear of it originally. I hope you’ll all stick around to learn the truth; to see that the man who was the boy has done well for himself despite the odds, even though he still bears the scars of his own, wretched war.
Missing the Magical Switch
Greater, more successful writers than myself (not a stretch) state that in order to be a writer one must dedicate one’s effort into writing: a writer must write. Here lies my conundrum.
I have no qualms over calling myself a writer. It’s what I do constantly – if I’m not physically typing on a keyboard or writing little notes, I’m composing something in my head with hopes that I’ll remember it.
But being a single mom, 80% responsible for two kids (meaning that I get to sleep 15% of the time and the other 5% is when their dad takes care of them) and having to be always within calling distance of my own mother, I don’t have time to write. What might take me three months more of full-time editing on my novel to render it publishable is, at the rate I’m going, bound to take me three years. Frustrated doesn’t begin to describe it.
I imagine there is, somewhere in the universe, a switch that can be flicked which could cause me to be able to stop merely calling myself a writer and become one. I realize that I cannot expect to ever take on a full-time job; my life is with my children, and taking care of them is apparently my job and mine alone. Would I want it any other way? Absolutely not.
Yet writing is also my life. I don’t live for my children – anyone who says they do, in my opinion, is in for a huge let-down when their kids leave home for good. I live for myself and I am a writer. I have a story that I feel needs to be told, of a world where I hope one day people will be able to escape, as I have. It’s inside me, it’s on my screen and it’s on paper, and all it wants is to be polished to a bright, shiny tale that many will love.
If only the magical switch to make it all come true wasn’t so far out of my reach.
Stream of Consciousness Saturday Fe15/14
Whilst searching for inspiration for this post today I decided to check out Freshly Pressed. I thought, before opening the page that I would write about the first tag that came up. Surely I have an opinion on just about any subject there could possibly be to write about, don’t I?
The first tag was “Books.” What a broad subject, eh?
I could write about the state of out-of-date textbooks in schools, or the price of the one I had to buy (used) when I took my short story course. It was the size of something I wouldn’t pay more than $20 for in a book store, and yet it cost me almost $100 because it was compiled by a bunch of professors.
I’ve written a few times on the importance of editing work in these days of anyone being able to become a published author, and I’ve written about books I’ve liked and not. Right now I’m reading A Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling and, while it was a bit difficult to get into because of the sheer number of characters, I’m about half-way through and enjoying it. It took me a good 33% of the book to retain the information that went with all the characters’ names, however.
You know what I hate? Not being able to put a page number on anything anymore. It’s all percentages when you’re reading an e-book. I think that’s what I miss most about reading a physical book. Knowing where the bookmark goes without a digital device advising me.
So that’s my stream of consciousness post for this week. My experience with books of late. Why do I have to put everything in a box? I blame it on WordPress and the damned tags. 😛
Newspapers Hire Editors
Apparently the editors at the newspaper I deliver have a head-start on the holiday. They’re already drunk.
(click to enlarge)
P.S. Family Day is Monday February 17th.
Adventures on My Paper Route – Strange Formations and a Pretty Bird
Brave, hardy birds, cardinals are. Today was cold and crisp – a pleasant 9 degrees C, (16 degrees F). I heard him singing first – they have a very distinctive song.
But the thing which has puzzled me for the past few weeks is this odd way the icicles have been forming… or leaning after they’ve formed. It seems they only do this if they begin above a window, so the only reason I can fathom is it has something to do with the heat from inside.
The first is an east-facing wall, and the second is a north-facing wall, so the sun has nothing to do with it.
Any ideas?
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