Life in progress

Daily Archives: September 30, 2016


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The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Oct. 1/16

Welcome to the Friday prompt for Saturday’s SoCS, I’m your guest host, Joey of Joeyfully Stated, aka, NotLindaGHill.

As I write this post, I am feeling even more awkward and nervous than usual. Writing on someone else’s blog is kinda like cookin in someone else’s kitchen.

Y’all, Linda told you I’d be an exciting guest-poster, and now I’m feelin a lot of pressure to be exciting, which is difficult under normal circumstances but especially since she didn’t leave any tequila here for me.

I think the best thing you could do to help me, the best way to comfort me in this strange time, would be to bring me tequila write about things that are awkward. ‘Awkward’ is your prompt. You can write about feeling awkward like me right now or the awkward silences we often find ourselves in, like staring at a blank page only sometimes that blank page is a person’s face, or even trying to fill the awkward silence — just make it awkward. Do your best to out-awkward me.

After you’ve written your Stream of Consciousness Saturday post, please link it here at this week’s prompt page and check to make sure it’s here in the comments so others can find it and see it. All are welcome to participate.

To make your post more visible, use the SoCS badge! Just paste it in your Saturday post so people browsing the reader will immediately know your post is stream of consciousness and/or pin it as a widget to your site to show you’re a participant. Wear it with pride!!

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Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours.  Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!


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Kingston WritersFest

It’s the time of year again for the Kingston Writer’s Festival! I bought tickets for seven events this year, one of which was last night at the Grand Theatre.

I had the pleasure to attend an interview with Annie Proulx, of Brokeback Mountain and The Shipping News fame, and Emma Donoghue, who, most famously so far, wrote both the novel and screenplay for Room. Both lovely ladies talked about and read from their newest releases, Barkskins, (Proulx) and The Wonder, (Donoghue), and I must say both books sound fascinating.

The best part of the evening, for me as an author, was when they talked about writing. I nodded my head when Ms. Donoghue said that if she were to describe where “home” is for her, it would be her laptop. Both authors agreed that when writing a novel, they live there inside it. It’s true for me as well. Emma also told a funny story about when she was writing Room, how she used her young son to figure out the logistics of escaping a rolled-up rug. I did the same, using my son to help me figure out the intricacies of a certain magic trick in “The Great Dagmaru.”

It was wonderful to be able to relate to two famous authors on a professional level – as professional as it can be to use your offspring as a prop, that is. And, of course, to be in the presence of greatness.

Most of the events I’ve signed up for to come are more for the sake of learning. A few are on the subject of writing non-fiction, in anticipation of putting together my memoir on parenting a Deaf child. I hope to update you all on how things are going throughout the weekend.