Linda G. Hill

Life in progress

Category Archives: Life


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#SoCS – Setting a Ceiling

When we’re kids, we think we can do anything. Sky’s the limit. As we get older we realize that reality dictates differently. There are some things we thought we could do that we can’t. Flying by flapping our arms, for instance.

Putting on a cape and being a superhero may be one of the other things we might think we can’t do, but is that true? We might not be able to save the world, but I believe we limit ourselves to what we are conditioned to “know” of the world and how much we can change it. Sure, we may not be able to singlehandedly solve world hunger, but good deeds tend to roll downhill and gain momentum as they do. What we do today might have much farther-reaching effects than we can ever know. And if not, at least we tried.

It’s the same with personal goals. We humans tend to sabotage ourselves with our ideas that we can only go so far and do so much with our lives. I have a friend who was complaining (and with good reason) that he was stuck in a place of poverty, unable to fight his way out. Therefore, he is unhappy. I can fully understand that. Yet there are avenues – ones completely free of monetary cost – that he could pursue if he chooses to. I suppose that also depends on the depth of his unhappiness… I know what it is to feel completely unmotivated.

But I’ve learned one thing over the course of my life. The sky is the ceiling if you never go out. And the breadth of my imagination make the walls of my dreams. My belief that I can do just about anything I set out to do is only limited by my health and my ability to find ways around the barriers that inevitably come up. Yes, some barriers take years to navigate. But it’s only in those moments when I give up that the sky drops to eight feet above the floor.

… if this is what vertigo does to me, maybe it’s not such a bad thing …

This wildly philosophical post is brought to you by Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Click the link and join in today! https://lindaghill.com/2017/07/21/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-2217/

 


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One-Liner Wednesday – He’s at it yet again

This phone conversation between myself and my best friend, John, is a week old, but I saved it:

Me: I stabbed myself in the wrist today. With a steak knife.

John: Oh no! Are you okay?

Me: Yeah. I missed the vein by a couple of millimetres.

John: How did you do it?

Me: I was opening a box of my novels with a steak knife. It slipped and I almost killed myself.

John: You know, they’ll sell for a lot more if you’re dead.

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If you would like to participate in this prompt, 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 pingback, 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.

NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, like Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a pingback 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. Try to make it either funny or inspirational.

3. Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.

4. Add our very cool badge to your post for extra exposure!

5. Have fun!

#1linerWeds badge by Dan Antion


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I Could Have Died!

When someone famous (I thought it was Hemingway; upon investigation, I found that it could have originated from numerous people) said something like writing is easy: just bleed on the page, I don’t think they were talking about bleeding on the book after it’s written. But I almost did that today.

My friendly local UPS man came to my door with the first of two boxes of my books. I signed for it and hurried into the kitchen for a knife to open it. That was my first mistake.

As I sliced open the box, the knife slipped and I stabbed myself, millimeters away from the vein in my wrist.

It doesn’t look like much, but it’s deep.

So if you want to buy a copy of my book, for pity’s sake please buy it directly from Amazon and not from me! You may never get to read Book 2!!

There were only six books in this box – when I get the other 44, I promise to try to avoid slitting my throat. 😉

 


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#SoCS – Picky

I’m a bit of a perfectionist. Which is an oxymoron in and of itself, because how can you be an imperfect perfectionist? I suppose what it comes down to is some things I absolutely insist on getting perfect and some things I can say it’s good enough and leave it. But not without a lot of internal finger wagging.

I have to wonder how much of my perfectionism I’ve handed down to my kids. It’s really a bit of a disservice, when you think about it. Our kids inherit our fears, our dislikes, our prejudices, and yes, our insistence on getting things right. At least some of our kids do. I suppose it depends on whether you see perfectionism as a positive or a negative.

As I typed the above list of things that our kids inherit, I tried–I really tried–to write something positive, like our love of music or our appreciation for having a clean house, but these things are not always so. Yes, sometimes our kids inherit our positive traits somewhere down the line, but it’s more often they inherit the negative ones. I wonder why that is.

But I digress. Is perfectionism a positive thing or a negative one? I’m thinking it’s positive until it gets in the way of having a sound mind. I can drive myself crazy trying to get something right. But once it’s there, I’m happy with it. It’s a relief.  There also comes a point when I know I’m just being picky, which may or may not be a positive thing. It’s easier to let go of a picky point than a perfectionist point.

This picky post is brought to you by Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Click the following link and join in: it’s fun!! https://lindaghill.com/2017/07/07/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-817/

Have you picked up my new book, The Magician’s Curse yet? I now have three rave reviews and one pretty good one on Amazon.com. Check it out and please take a chance on an indie author!

(Note: In the online preview, the formatting (tabs and spaces between paragraphs) is off in a few places. The copy for sale does not reflect this. I’m working on getting the “Look Inside” fixed.)

On Kindle and in paperback:
Amazon US
Amazon Canada
Amazon UK
Amazon Australia
and Amazon where ever else you are in the world, as well as
Kobo worldwide.


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#SoCS-haustion

Ooooh, am I ever sore. This is going to be short and sweet more than likely (though who knows – I’m typing with my eyes closed and just coasting along on what’s left of my steam).

I walked with my best friend, John, and two of my kids to see the local fireworks display tonight. It was pretty spectacular, and the mood, being Canada’s 150th birthday, pretty warm and happy. I’m glad I’m Canadian. I’m proud of my country. But as much as I loved being included in the festivities, I’m happy to be home right now and almost ready for bed.

Just one last push up the stairs and then aaaaah… zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

This tired old post is brought to you by Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Click the link and check out all the other posts!https://lindaghill.com/2017/06/28/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-117/
And thanks so much to Dan Antion for helping me out this weekend! You did a fabulous job!


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#SoCS – Insanity Reigns

Well, I’ll give myself a pat on the back. This is two weeks in a row that I’ve missed my own prompt on the day it was supposed to be posted. My excuse this week is insanity.

It’s funny. I’ve been driving myself nuts with all the preparations and advertising and stuff for my book, and what have I been wishing for? Those nice, calm days when I was busy editing someone else’s work. Which is crazy for me, because normally I’m not happy unless I’m writing. Somehow I must know this, even when I’m not conscious of it and you wanna know how I know? Because I signed up for July’s NaNoWriMo camp.

Because I have nothing better to do. HA!

I’m totally rambling tonight. Can you tell? And I haven’t even been drinking. Not since the cup of coffee I had at dinner, at least. I did just put a bottle of white wine in the freezer so I can have some before bed though. Kind of insane, if you ask me.

I should probably rein in all this craziness. But that’s me. I can’t stop challenging myself and I have no idea why. It’s almost as though if I slow down, I’ll waste away to nothing. So I just keep piling it on. I may just explode one day. Though I should probably implode – less messy. And the last thing I need is more housework on top of everything else.

This post is brought to you by Stream of Consciousness Saturday on Sunday morning because I’m such a rebel. Click here for details: https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2017/06/23/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-june-2417/


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#SoCS – Seek A Sign

I have two things I want to post today but I’ve been procrastinating since I got up while I tried to choose which one to post first. The two things are (or were) this SoCS post and my cover reveal for my new novel, The Magician’s Curse. As you might have guessed by now, I decided to grace you with this gem first. 😛 (I do think a lot of myself, don’t I?)

While I was dithering deciding, I was looking for a sign to tell me which order to post them in. I do that a lot – look for signs.

Forgive me if you’ve heard his one before – even if you have, it bears repeating. A whole bunch of years ago, while I was feeling sorry for myself because I was alone, I was looking for a sign that I wouldn’t be forever lonely. I used to do automatic writing back then, which isn’t really that much different than letting a character guide my writing when I’m penning a book. It seems to come from nowhere. Outside of the worldly realm. Whatever. Anyway, I don’t remember the exact details, but I wrote something like, watch for signs passing by. It made no sense whatsoever – you pass by signs on the road, not the other way around. At least that’s what I was thinking.

Then the next day I was driving somewhere, diligently looking at all the signs, when I looked up just before I drove under a bridge that crossed the road. There going across above me was a city truck full of road signs. Made me laugh – it’s something I’ll probably never forget.

By now you’re probably wondering what the sign was that made me post this before the cover of the book you’ve been waiting for since I first mentioned writing it four years ago when I started this blog. My sign was the dog wagging his tail in his sleep while I thought of writing this. Not as spectacular as signs passing by on the road, but I’ll take what I can get.

Watch out for my new cover, would you? Thanks. 🙂 Drumroll please…

This post is brought to you by Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Click the following link and see how you can join in! https://lindaghill.com/2017/06/16/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-june-1717/