Life in progress


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Legends of Windemere: Family of the Tri-Rune Cover Reveal!

Cover Art by Jason Pedersen

Cover Art by Jason Pedersen

Legends of Windemere: Family of the Tri-Rune is set to debut on Sunday, March 16th!!!

The magical adventure continues after Luke Callindor and his friends recover from their battles in Haven.

Nyx still has nightmares about casting the genocide spell in Hero’s Gate. Every night her heart is gripped by the sensation of hundreds of goblins dying by her magic. By the request of Lord Highrider and Duke Solomon, she is returning to fix the damage she caused. With Luke Callindor and Sari by her side, Nyx is ready to face the vengeful goblins and opportunistic thieves that plague Hero’s Gate. Yet, there is a darker threat that was born from her violated magic: The Krypters.

It is another action-packed, character driven story that will reveal one of our heroes has been lied to for their entire life.

About the Author:

Charles author photo B&WCharles Yallowitz was born and raised on Long Island, NY, but he has spent most of his life wandering his own imagination in a blissful haze. Occasionally, he would return from this world for the necessities such as food, showers, and Saturday morning cartoons. One day he returned from his imagination and decided he would share his stories with the world. After his wife decided that she was tired of hearing the same stories repeatedly, she convinced him that it would make more sense to follow his dream of being a fantasy author. So, locked within the house under orders to shut up and get to work, Charles brings you Legends of Windemere. He looks forward to sharing all of his stories with you and his wife is happy he finally has someone else to play with.

Blog: Legends of Windemere
Twitter: @cyallowitz
Facebook: Charles Yallowitz

We’re still taking volunteers for the April blog tour. So fill out the form HERE!

Read the Previous Volumes of Legends of Windemere!!!

Cover Art by Jason Pedersen

Cover Art by Jason Pedersen

Cover Art by Jason Pedersen

Cover Art by Jason Pedersen

Cover by Jason Pedersen

Cover by Jason Pedersen


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March 11th – Three Years Later

Japan-Kurashikicarp

Kurashiki, 2005

My thoughts with Japan today.


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The Push

I sometimes wonder why I push myself so hard. My determination to write a post every day here on WordPress; my aspiration to finish my novel; my involvement in The Community Storyboard, HarsH ReaLiTy, and A Good Blog is Hard to Find; my ambition to read more, and write book reviews; my wish to help out friends by critiquing their unpublished works… the list itself is overwhelming. Most days I barely notice the work piling up. I love being busy with writing and the pursuits that involve it.

But, Spring Break. Yes, it’s that time of year again. While I’ve had much of today to do the things I needed to get done, I know it’s only a matter of time before Alex gets bored keeping himself busy. And just because the kids are home doesn’t mean the shopping doesn’t still need to be done – a task which requires me to leave my Autistic son by himself – and my paper route, and then there’s my mother’s appointments because I’m the only one who can take her… again, overwhelming.

I think everyone gets to this point occasionally. It’s the stage where we just have to start saying no, and not give in. While it’s exciting, and best of all not boring, there’s a limit at which one shuts down and curls up in a little ball with a straw and a bottle of one’s favourite Merlot.

So if I up and disappear at some point this week you’ll know why. And if I do manage to keep it all together AND keep my blog going without consuming a bottle of wine per day, well, give me a cape and call me supermom.

Just don’t push me off the side of a building to see if I’ll fly. I push myself too hard already.


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Possessions

I’ve never been one to have much affection for the things I own. Apart from old photos, I have very few things that can’t be replaced – and if I took the time to scan all those photos I could add those to the list of replaceable items as well. Yes, my laptop is valuable, but only inasmuch as what is on its hard drive. If I lost it but was able to retrieve everything off it, meh. I could buy another.

There is one thing however that I can’t replace. It’s the one thing that, if someone asked me, “If your house was on fire, what, other than your family would you save?” that would be it. It’s a CD. It’s not the music on it, nor is it the case which makes it my most prized possession. In the cover booklet there is a signature by the artist, that reads, “To Linda, with love…”

And I’ve misplaced it: the whole CD, case and booklet.

I’ve spent much of a very frustrating day searching, to no avail. Whilst doing so, I’ve tried convincing myself that it doesn’t matter if, somehow, it ended up in a bag that was put out for garbage without proper inspection. After all, I still have the memories of the event which led up to my having it autographed. That I went all the way to Japan, to a concert–never met the artist, but my booklet did–and came back home with this coveted piece of memorabilia in my hot little hands.

After all, what really matters? It’s only a piece of paper, albeit one that I’ll mourn the loss of, if it never turns up. But I can always hold the memory close to my heart.

I’ll keep trying to convince myself, anyway.


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Soul

What does a soul weigh?

What are the tiny particles that make up our art, our way of putting words together–our music?

Are the objects to our eyes which are beautiful to be counted in the heft of our being?

When we die, are we but shells? That which we were only in flesh and bone and sinew?

How do we measure what pleases us; what makes us laugh and cry?

Does all that disappear? Or can it be counted?

Is there a number which can represent all that we are?

What does our soul weigh?

It is infinite.

DSC00010


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Writing, But Not Writing

You have to love it when your utility company sends the most gorgeous man on the planet over to your house to upgrade your internet speed. Needless to say, as my day has progressed it has gotten better.

I’m currently procrastinating over picking up my manuscript. Oohh, a muffin!

Despite what I said yesterday – wait, was it yesterday? I’ll go check. No, it was Thursday, in this blog post. Anyway, despite what I said in Thursday’s post, procrastinating when it means completely putting off something is detrimental. Allowing my mind to wander whilst doing something mindless, as a break from hard work is nothing like what I’m doing now.

It brings to mind an excellent article that my new blogging friend, Angie, shared with me in my comments. In it, she cites the well proven fact that sometimes we procrastinate for fear of failure. What if we finish what we’re doing (such as writing a manuscript) just to have it rejected? It’s silly, really, to think that way. Why begin something in the first place if you’re never going to finish it?

I wrote the novel I’m editing as a NaNoWriMo project in 2011. When I started it, I was writing it for myself. I needed a distraction from the chaos that was my life at the time. Had I not written it, I probably wouldn’t be here right now – I’m sure I’d be in a padded cell, plucking my arm hairs out one at a time and tying them into the rope which would become my escape – one way or another. By the time I finished my manuscript, I knew I wanted to share it with the world. And so, editing began… and continues. It’s a huge project and is going to take many more hours of work before I’ll even allow it into the hands of beta readers.

So why am I typing a WordPress post instead of working on the manuscript I can’t wait to get out? I’m up for suggestions.

You can find Angie’s article here: http://familyanswersfast.wordpress.com/tag/procrastination/ Fascinating stuff.

Off to work. Really. And I’m not going to stare off into space and think about that telephone installation guy AT ALL.


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SoCS (Stream of Consciousness Saturday) – An Amount

When one has nothing to write, where does one start? Is it with a single word? Or a sentence?

I like to start with a statement, or a question. Once I have that first sentence however, I can either fly like an eagle or sink like a stone, the latter of which I feel as though I’m doing now. But I’ll plow on, because this whole SoCS thing was my idea to start with, and so I’d better show the world that it CAN be done, even when I’m not in the mood to write.

It’s 10am on the Saturday of my day off and the day is already screwed up. The person who delivers the newspaper to me, so I can take them to the individual houses of the people who subscribe to them only showed up this morning with half my papers. They’re supposed to be delivered to the customer by 9am. So I got up from my potential lovely lay-in for nothing. It’s freezing drizzle outside right now, I haven’t had a coffee yet and I have to stay in all afternoon to wait for my internet service provider to come over to fix something (proactively) that’s not broken. Hopefully I’ll get some editing done in there.

So now that I’ve spent my Saturday bitching about my Saturday. I think I’ll end there, put a cap on this, and say, what a waste of blank screen this was.

Can’t win ’em all I guess. At least I wrote something, right?

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Please join in! To see the prompt for this week for “Stream of Consciousness Saturday” click here: https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-march-814/

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 will come and read your post! The way to ping back, is to just copy and paste the URL of my post somewhere on your post. Then your URL will show up in my comments, for everyone to see. For example, in your post you can copy and past the following: “This post is part of SoCS: (https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/03/01/socs-stream-of-consiousness-saturday-the-rules/)” Also, you can come here and link your post in the comments. The most recent comments will be found at the top.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has pinged back their post. If you’re the first person to ping 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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The Friday Reminder and Prompt for SoCS March 8/14

Hello to my Stream of Consciousness Saturday friends and to all who wish to join in the fun this week!

As well as a reminder for tomorrow’s event, I’d like to share a minor update. As it turns out, I’m not able to automatically approve pingbacks in my comments, so if I’m not at the computer when you ping your post, it won’t show up. Consequently I’ve added to the rules, suggesting that after you post your SoCS article, you comment here: https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/03/01/socs-stream-of-consiousness-saturday-the-rules/ with a link to your Saturday post, so others can see it right away – otherwise it could be hours before anyone comes to visit and sees how awesome your post is. Note that I’ve set up my comments so the most recent is on top, so you won’t have to scroll down too far to visit other contributors posts for the current week. If you have any questions, or if this is as crazy confusing as I think it might be, please leave any questions you have below.

Here is this week’s prompt: In your first sentence, include a quantity. Any number from one to a gazillion, or any conceptual number, i.e. “many,” “few,” “a lot,” or even “once” will do.

Have a once-over of the rules by clicking on the link above if you’d like, and then off you go. I’m looking forward to reading all your contributions!

Edit: It’s been brought to my attention that if you link your Saturday post back to the Friday prompt (i.e. this post) then everyone will be together in each individual week. We’ll try that this week and see how it goes. So tomorrow, when you post, add this link to your article: https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-march-814/

Hopefully we’ll get this ironed out before the month is up! Thanks for your patience. 🙂


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The Very Best Blog Post Ever

Have you ever felt so full of inspiration and ideas that you thought if you could just have a moment of peace and quiet you could write the best blog post that’s ever been written? Just five hundred words which beams of sunshine would radiate upon, and people all over the world would stand up, with their arms raised and exclaim YES! Choirs of children would sing and violins and harps would play and bears and fish would hold hands and never would there be a moment of strife in the universe ever again!

Yep, me too.

Facebook photo

Facebook photo


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I’m Not Procrastinating, I’m Keeping My Mind Gently ‘Round the Subject

“…keep your mind gently ’round the subject you’re pondering.”  ~ John Cleese.

This quote is profound, in my opinion, because it’s something I can wholeheartedly relate to. I spent more time playing Candy Crush on Facebook while I was writing my last NaNoWriMo project than perhaps I spent writing. I stopped to play every time I ran out of words, and each time I came to a wall in my story. The real beauty of Candy Crush is that, once I ran out of lives, I had to wait up to thirty minutes before I could play again. I used this forced break in the game to make myself go back to my story.  Yet I couldn’t decide why exactly I needed the game. Mr. Cleese, in the video I posted yesterday, explains it.

He says, (and I paraphrase) that when you ponder a problem, allowing your mind to “rest[ing] against the subject, in a friendly but persistent manner,” your sub-conscious will reward you with a creative solution.

If you listen to music when you write; if you find yourself wandering to the fridge, or doing housework – anything that you consider procrastinating, is this not what you’re doing? How many times have you been performing some mundane task when the perfect solution came to you from out of the blue? It’s that “aha” moment which Oprah went on about, way back when, and what it is, is creativity hard at work when you least expect it.

The video I posted yesterday here: https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/03/05/creativity/ is thirty-six minutes that you won’t regret taking the time to watch, whether you’re a writer of fiction, poetry or blogs. If you can’t watch it right away, I strongly suggest you bookmark it.