Life in progress

Category Archives: Blogs


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Priorities

Today has once again proven the theory that impermanence is something we can count on. In case you missed it, Doobster–he of proper grammar, eloquent blogging, Oxford comma insisting, and badge-maker extraordinaire–has gone private. His final post said pretty much nothing except that he’s taking a break and that he may or may not be back. He also said that there are things in his life that need his undivided attention.

I have to say his words hit close to home. I spend an awful lot of time here in front of my screen. The fact that real life demands more of my time on a daily basis is evident in that I have only just enough time to post. I’m behind on my comments, and I have little opportunity to visit the posts that are pinged back to my prompts, let alone all of the other blogs I really want to visit.

And so after the April A-Z challenge is finished I’m considering doing the same, perhaps just for a month. I need to get my novel finished – I haven’t touched it in weeks and before that it was weeks and before that… If I ever want to get it finished, if I ever want to sell my mother’s condo which has been sitting empty for over a year (and I’m still paying the mortgage on it), if I ever want to move forward I need to stop stagnating here. Yes, I realize that I’m keeping in practice – I’ll probably keep my fiction blog going for that purpose. It takes up minutes of my day rather than hours.

I sincerely hope that Doobster returns, but I can understand fully where he’s coming from. WordPress isn’t the be-all and end-all of life. At least it shouldn’t be.

I’ll keep you up to date with my decision. I promise not to just disappear.


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The Friday Reminder and Prompt for SoCS April 11/15

Today is Friday and that means it’s time for your Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. Yay! Being that we’re still in the throes of the A-Z Challenge, I’ve decided once again to do something that may potentially make our lives easier – or at least our Saturday blogging experience easier. Remember, the prompt word is really just a take-off point to get you started. As long as your post is stream of consciousness writing and somehow contains the prompt, your post qualifies for SoCS. Here we go!

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “-jour-“: add a prefix or suffix to complete it or use it as the French word for “day.” Have fun!

After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, 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 your awesome Stream of Consciousness post. Anyone can join in!

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!!

socs-badge

Badge by: Doobster @ Mindful Digressions

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,” or “Begin with the word ‘The’.”

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.

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. Have fun!


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G is for Glacial

Oooh, brrrr. Here’s a chilly subject. Appropriate considering we’re getting freezing rain here. Tiny little glaciers falling from the sky. The kind of weather that lifts your shoulders to your earlobes.

Speaking of cold shoulders, (what a segue, eh?) the first synonym in my thesaurus for glacial is antagonistic. Along those lines are also inimical (I absolutely cannot pronounce that word. Can you?) and unfriendly. This immediately brings trolls to my mind; the glacial denizens of the internet.

We’re all waiting to cross that bridge, aren’t we? If we haven’t already of course. That icy, slippery causeway to misery – commentary’s dip into a hostile Arctic abyss.

Or.

Just ignore them and they’ll go away.

The word, “glacial” also brings to mind my childhood and my favourite pasttime back then – figure skating. Although I practiced for eight years, I never did perfect the art of the axel. For those of you not too familiar, it’s a jump that involves taking off from a forward facing direction, spinning one and a half rotations (for a single axel) in the air and landing on the opposite foot facing the other direction. I simply didn’t have the guts to really give it 100% of my effort. I did enjoy coaching, though. Figure skating is one of those things that fits well into the adage, “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.”

What are you better at teaching than doing?

 

BATZAP by Doobster @ Mindful Digressions

BATZAP by Doobster @ Mindful Digressions

 


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One-Liner Wednesday – Life is too short

too short

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Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a ping back, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday you’re pinging back to is this week’s! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.

As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.

Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so there’s no need to stick to the same “theme.”

The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:

1. Make it one sentence.

2. Make it either funny or inspirational.

Have fun!


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Blogging from the Grave

Okay, my friends, I need your opinion on something. It’s a tough one. I fully expect some of you may even unfollow me over this. Honestly, as I read this over I’m not even sure whether or not to post it. But it’s been bugging me…

My current conundrum started out innocently enough. Looking at the stats on my fiction blog, pathetic as they are compared to last year when I did an A-Z story there, I wondered if it was too late to start a new fiction piece this year. I am, however, stretched thin enough already so I thought hey, why not start now and write a chapter every two weeks to post for next year! And why not schedule them as I write them?

But A-Z 2016, I thought, is a long way off. So much could happen between now and then. What if, for example, I die between now and next April? It would mean that my posts would appear after my death! Would that be really cool for the people who received notifications that I’d posted again? Or would it be creepy? And what if I died just before I finished writing my story? Talk about a cliffhanger!!

So here’s where I need your input. Think about it. Many of us hope to blog for a good long time to come. Some, including me, can see ourselves blogging until we pop off. Each and every one of us has the ability to schedule our posts ahead of time – we can even plan to send out a loving message after we die, by re-scheduling every few month or years. Kind of like those hidden tapes they’re always finding in movies where the character says, “If you’re listening to/watching this, I’m dead.”

Would YOU want your writings to come out after you pass away? And how would you feel if someone you follow, as sad as it would be if they died whilst in the throes of their illustrious blogging career, posted an article after he or she had kicked the proverbial bucket? Because let’s face it, unless someone else has a blog’s password, there’s nothing that can prevent a scheduled post from going live, so to speak.

It’s difficult to say, isn’t it? Or is to simply too morbid to contemplate?

 


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Blogger Appreciation

As I sit here with my laptop on this relatively lazy Sunday, (lazy in comparison to the chaos that is Blogging A-Z in April) I’m thinking about how much I appreciate the people who visit me here at Life in Progress, and at my fiction blog, Inspiration in Progress. Over the past couple of years my blogs have grown to what amounts sometimes to a thriving metropolis; a place for like minds and kindred spirits to connect. I write to inspire comments and though I don’t always reply promptly, I enjoy them immensely. What can I say – I love the further inspiration I that comes from your feedback!

WordPress is a huge wealth of entertainment, information, commiseration, and friendship. I’ve talked so much in the past about the sense of community here but it never fails to amaze me how so many people, from so many different countries and cultures can have so much in common. Of course what it boils down to is the fact that we are all the same on the inside. Race has never been, in my eyes, a reason to differentiate, nor has sexual orientation, religious beliefs, nor any of those things which divide our populations. What matters to me is how we behave. Again, it’s all part of being one type of creature – human.

But I digress. Blogging brings us all together. Our lives are intertwined by a platform which allows us to express ourselves however we choose – and I’m grateful for all of those who choose to be part of my community.

Thank you to everyone who has participated in my One-Liner Wednesday and SoCS prompts (even though it takes me a while to read your posts – I really try to keep up!), each of you who visit through the A-Z Challenge, and to all of you who keep coming back. This place wouldn’t be the same without you.


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SoCS – D is for Dexterous

I’m doing a little happy dance. There are 26 left-hand pages in my thesaurus; only eleven of them have entries that start with “de.” I chose the eleventh, and so I’m able to combine the two posts (SoCS and A-Z) into one. Was it dexterity that allowed me to pick a good page? Nah. Blind luck.

Nimble-fingered – that’s me of late. With my shoulder problems (it’s now frozen, by the way. I’m waiting to get a call from the hospital to go for a combination ultrasound/steroid shot) I’ve had to learn ambidexterity. I can’t write with my left still, but I’m learning to eat with it. You think you can use your left hand to manoeuvre a fork but if you’re right handed it means you’ve got a knife in your right hand to help your left out. Without the knife, you use your right. Right? Try using your left hand next time you eat something like macaroni. It’s not as easy as it sounds.

I look to try to be dexterous in many aspects of my life. Some of its synonyms are clever, handy, neat and proficient. Proficiency is such a handy skill to have. (Is that redundant?) I attempt always to cut down on the steps it takes to do something. Tidiness depends on it. Never going up the stairs empty-handed is something I strive for.

And with writing too – less is more. Proficiency or dexterity in grammar makes the difference between something that’s easily readable and text that goes on forever, saying nothing or worse, repeating itself.

How do you strive to be dexterous?

 

This post is part of SoCS:

Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions

Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions

Please join in today!! https://lindaghill.com/2015/04/03/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-april-415/

And the A-Z Challenge:

BATZAP by Doobster @ Mindful Digressions

BATZAP by Doobster @ Mindful Digressions


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Twitter Glitch for D Day

If you’re participating in the A-Z Challenge, you already know that today is the day for the letter “D.” But did you know that if you use “D is…” in your title and your blog is set up to automatically tweet your post that it doesn’t work?

Try it. Go to Twitter and type a tweet that starts with “D is” without the quotation marks. It will turn your tweet into a message. It’s okay if you type something before the letter D.

Just so you know…

Feel free to re-blog this.


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C is for Commit

As you probably know, my words for this A-Z Challenge are coming at random from my thesaurus. I’m absolutely committed to sticking to the rule I set for myself to take whatever word I open the book to that is the second from the bottom on the left-hand page. This will not, by the way, apply to the letters X and Y and Z- there aren’t enough pages for those letters. But I digress. My main concern today for the letter C was one particular entry that just happens to be the second-last letter in the left hand column on page 104:

CAM00650

Yes, this could have been the word of the day. It was with a grimace and a prayer to the word gods of the planet Thesauri that I gingerly parted the pages of my big red book and believe me, it was with a sigh of relief that I discovered I wouldn’t have to talk about cocks. Luck was on my side; I landed instead on page 108 and the word “commit.”

I think to a certain extent we all have things that we’re compulsive over. One of my biggest compulsions is that I must stick to a commitment. I may even be worse–more determined–with the commitments I make to myself, though I’m pretty fierce when it comes to doing whatever I promised someone else I’d do. Which is why it just about kills me when I can’t keep up with these challenges I set for myself.

One of the synonyms for “commit” is “imprison.” I do, in a way, imprison myself when I dedicate myself to something. I box myself in but that’s really not all that bad. For an unemployed (at least in a 9-5 sense) woman, structure isn’t something my days are filled with. Yes, I have to get up when the rooster crows (see what I did there?) for my kids, and I have to be here when they come home, but what of the space in between when they’re at school? A commitment to something consigns me to a task. In the case of this particular commitment–blogging–you, my friends, are my overseers.

I wouldn’t let us down unless under duress.

What, apart from your family and your job are you committed to? And how far would you go to honour your commitment? I’d love to know.

 


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The Friday Reminder and Prompt for SoCS April 4/15

Friday this week finds us in a long weekend for Stream of Consciousness Saturday! I can only imagine how busy you’ll all be with Easter, and families, and friends, and giant bunnies to deal with, not to mention those who are participating in NaNos and Blog Hops – it’s crazy! To potentially make it a bit easier on some of us, I can at least start with the correct letter for tomorrow’s A-Z Challenge. So, this is it:

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: use a word, anywhere in your post, that begins with the prefix “de-.” Extra points if your word ends with “ed”! It’s all about the fun – have some!

After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, 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 your awesome Stream of Consciousness post. Anyone can join in!

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!!

socs-badge

Badge by: Doobster @ Mindful Digressions

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,” or “Begin with the word ‘The’.”

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.

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. Have fun!