Finish my novel and get it published. (I cringe to think how many times this has already drowned in my bucket.)
Get paid for something I write. (It might even be my novel!)
Have a weekend to myself. In my house. Alone.
Teach the dog sign language as well as voice commands so Alex can communicate with him.
A boy and his puppy
Get my house spotlessly clean top to bottom. (Look for this one on the list every year for the next ten years … a girl can dream.)
Do something with the pot hole that is my back yard. (Okay, it’s not that bad, but it’s not that great either.)
Keep the weight off that I’ve already lost. (This is starting to sound like a list of resolutions. 😛 )
Finish writing the novel I said I was going to finish by Christmas. (My bad.)
Get inspired some more!
What’s on your bucket list for this year?
The “2016” prompt is brought to you by Fiona at Fiona’s Favorites. Click on the link and have a read!
To find the rules for Just Jot It January, click here and join in today. It’s never too late! And don’t forget to ping back your January 5th post here!
Yes, my prompt for today is “Dachshund.” It’s the most challenging prompt so far – it may just end up being THE most challenging prompt for me. Thanks, Bee. 😉
I’ve lived with a few different breeds of dog in my life – my first dog was a black lab. We had him for only half a year because my parents kept saying he was “too big for the house.” As a five year old I could never figure out what that meant. The dog was much smaller than the house.
So the next time we got a dog it was a black miniature poodle. We named her Cindy. Cindy had seven pups – I wanted to keep them all but my parents would only let me keep one. Perhaps seven (or eight with Cindy) was equal to the size of the lab and would be “too big for the house.” Who knows?
My mom still had Cindy and the pup (her name was Gigi, because what else do you call a poodle?) when I moved out. I got married to my first husband and the first thing we did when we moved in together was bought George from the pound. Guess what kind of dog George was? Yes, a Saint Bernard. He was a fantastic dog. So well trained, he even knew sign language – we could make him lay down past shouting distance. Strangely enough, I never thought he was “too big for the house.”
George was the last dog I owned until I got Winston, just two weeks ago. He’s a beagle mix – the vet thinks he may have some basset hound in him. He’ll be ten weeks old tomorrow; even though he’s just a puppy he has quite the character already. The cats think he’s “too big for the house,” but we humans think he’s just right.
So what does this all have to do with Dachshunds? Only that I’ve never owned one.
To find the rules for Just Jot It January, click here and join in today. It’s never too late! And don’t forget to ping back your January 4th post here!
There are certain things that will always be frozen in time. Moments we remember, though they may change for the better or worse in our minds, that remain static. Like the birth of a child; finding it impossible to forget the joy but the pain of childbirth becomes distant, as something we women dissociate from, transforming it into a story to be related many times as a comparison to every other kind of pain. Or like the size of a place we frequented as a child – our elementary school gymnasium, or a traveling fair’s ride that seemed massive until we revisit it as an adult.
In the interest of keeping things real, I’ve always found journals to be most helpful. As I go through this blog in the next few days and weeks for the purpose of writing a post on my 2015 year in review I’m sure I’ll find that my frozen shoulder was much worse than I remember, and that my summer was unbearably hot (it’s hard not to want such a thing when you’re freezing to death in January, no matter how miserably humid it was).
I’m trying to think of a moment in my past other than the two examples above that might not have been as big or wonderful, or as unhappy or painful as I remember it, but of course, in my mind it’s all exactly as I now imagine it was.
To find the rules for Just Jot It January, click here and join in today. It’s never too late! And don’t forget to ping back your January 3rd post here!
Does a pregnant pause give birth to little pauses after nine months? And how did it get pregnant in the first place? Was it, perhaps, inseminated by a break? A comma? Probably wasn’t a period. … think about that one for a minute.
I probably don’t pause often enough to contemplate how grateful I am for the life I have. Great friends, a loving family, a roof over my head and a boiler in the basement that works, enough food on the table and laughter all over the house. True, it’s not always easy. But I’m pretty content with it. Of course a warm sunny beach in my back yard year round would make it perfect…
So when do I pause? In the shower for sure. It’s really the only place I’m not pulled away from by the needs of everyone else. It’s rare to sit down to a meal without having to get up half a dozen times. Same with doing the dishes, cooking, sitting at the computer writing a SoCS post.
I’m back. See? You didn’t even notice the pause. 😉
The “pause/paws” prompt is brought to you by Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Click here to join in today!
To find the rules for Just Jot It January, click here and join in. It’s never too late! And don’t forget to ping back your January 2nd post here!
Happy New Year and welcome to the first edition of Stream of Consciousness Saturday of 2016! Today’s SoCS prompt will be tomorrow’s Just Jot It January prompt word, so if you want to use it for your JusJoJan post, go right ahead! Without further explanation or pause, here’s your prompt:
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “pause/paws.” Use one, use both, use ’em any way you’d like. 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!!
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.
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.
It’s a dilemma I deal with every time I write a blog post: do I write freely and not take hours poring over my grammar and choice of wording or do I edit my posts to death? To be persnickety or not to be persnickety? That is the question. I wonder how persnickety Shakespeare was? Then again, he probably had an editor.
Seriously, I’d love to be able to just write and release. But for the interests of my writing career, should I have a paid one one day, I demand perfection (or near perfection) from myself. After all, I never know who’s going to come looking. Perhaps someone famous or even better, someone who can get my proverbial foot in the door of the publishing industry will visit my blog. A line or two is all it takes to make an impression, and I want it to be a good one.
I know I’ve asked this question before, but it’s been at least a year so I think I’ll ask again. Who knows, maybe those who have already answered have changed their practices. Oh, the question? It’s this:
How many times, on average, do you edit a post before you hit the publish button? And how do you do your best editing – in the window you write in, or the preview? If I didn’t have the preview screen I’m sure my posts would all be a mess. What I really want to know is, how persnickety are you?
The “Persnickety” prompt is brought to you by Sirius Bizinus at his new home, An Empty Pen. Make sure you go say hi!
To find the rules for Just Jot It January, click here and join in today. It’s never too late! And don’t forget to ping back your January 1st post here!
1. Just Jot It January starts January 1st, but it’s never too late to join in! Here, we run on the honour system; the “jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to WordPress that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. If you write a JusJoJan post on your blog, you can ping it back either to my daily JusJoJan post or here, to make sure everyone participating knows where to find it. To ping back, just copy the URL from this post or the daily post, and paste it anywhere in your post. Check to make sure your link shows up where you want it to, and come back occasionally to see other bloggers’ entries – the more you visit others, the more they’ll visit you! Note: The newest pingbacks will be at the top of the comments section.
3. Tag your post JusJoJan and/or #JusJoJan.
4. Write anything! Any length will do! It can even be a photo or a drawing – you’re going to title it, right? There’s your jot!
5. This year there are prompts for every day that’s neither a Wednesday nor a Saturday. You’ll find the list below. You can, but you don’t have to use the prompts. Please write whatever inspires you.
6. If you’d like to, use the JusJoJan badge in your post so that others can find your post more easily.
7. Have fun!
My Prompts (you can use them too)
Jan 1 – Persnickety (Sirius Bizinus)
Jan 2 – (SoCS – pause/paws)
Jan 3 – Frozen (Helen Espinosa)
Jan 4 – Dachshund (morgaine620)
Jan 5 – 2016 (Fiona)
Jan 6 – (Cloud -TanGental)
Jan 7 – Robust (summerstommy2)
Jan 8 – Honorable (Corner of Confessions)
Jan 9 – (SoCS – title)
Jan 10 – Sane (John W. Howell)
Jan 11 – Effortless (Dan Antion)
Jan 12 – Skulls (Dean)
Jan 13 – (Sacrifice – mewhoami)
Jan 14 – Motivation (Aaron)
Jan 15 – Leadership (Tessa)
Jan 16 – (SoCS – start your post with “What”)
Jan 17 – Collection (Deborah)
Jan 18 – Elegance (jetgirlcos)
Jan 19 – Climate (Joanne Corey)
Jan 20 – (Surreptitiously – KG)
Jan 21 – Mittens (Candy)
Jan 22 – Felicity (Fun Simplicity)
Jan 23 – (SoCS – odd/even)
Jan 24 – Compelled (willowdot21)
Jan 25 – Prestidigitation (quiall)
Jan 26 – Oneness (writersdream9)
Jan 27 – (Mendaciloquent – Coralee)
Jan 28 – Serendipity (jan)
Jan 29 – Ghost (ghostmmnc)
Jan 30 – (SoCS – “an” as a word or at the beginning of a word)
Jan 31 – Clumsy (Judy Martin)
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:
Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Fantastic Festivus! Cheerful Friday! Whatever you’re celebrating, it’s time for your Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. This week’s prompt is an idea I’ve had for a while. It’s actually appropriate, since many of us are emptying them this morning. Or at least our kids are. But when I mention the word, my family knows I’m usually talking about whatever I’m writing on the weekend.
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “socks.” Use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!
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!!
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.
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.
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:
lindaghill.com 