Life in progress


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NaNoWriMo Challenge

“Write what you know.” It’s one of those things we’re told to do, along with “show, don’t tell,” and a bunch of other guidelines we’re given as writers, that will apparently give us the tools we need to make us better writers and bring home our first million. It’s the “write what you know” thing I want to focus on today though, and I’ll tell you why.

I almost got hit by a bus today.

Don’t panic, I’m okay, but it was a close call. I’m talking inches. Millimeters even. It got me to thinking about my NaNo project, as does everything in my life – when I decide to write a novel, I live and breathe it, almost literally. Having something as dramatic as a real-life near-death experience happen to me (okay, okay, the mirror of a bus moving half a mile an hour nearly clipped my ear as I walked along the edge of a sidewalk) being worth mentioning, could happen to one of my characters, right? You can bet it will.

So back to writing what you know. I don’t think they really mean it in the strict sense of writing what you do for a living outside of writing, for instance. Or even writing about characters who write, though many writers do (I’m looking at you, Stephen King). If we did that, everything we wrote would be autobiographical. And what would the fantasy writers do? I’m thinking an elf accountant would be rather boring.

I think writing what you know can be taken in a more broad sense of feelings, emotions, and yes, little experiences like almost getting hit by a small, slow-moving school bus that’s coming to a stop beside the curb.

So my challenge, for all my fellow NaNoers who are reading this, is simple. Write into your story the next time you write, about something you’ve experienced in the last week. If your characters are in space it can be a sensation, or a sentence you remember hearing or saying.

And if you’re writing an autobiography – oh what the hell. Lie! I dare you!

P.S. Let me know how it goes!


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Post-Hallowe’en Indulgence

I have a love/hate relationship with Hallowe’en.

I’m in a unique, somewhat unenviable position of having a child who enjoys trick-or-treating but doesn’t eat – all of his meals are administered through a tube. So while he’s at school, I must either hide the candy or eat it.

indulgence

Though I do my best to resist temptation while indulging in my second love (after my kids) of writing, as they say, resistance is futile. After all, what better way to pass the time whilst NaNoing than eat sweets?

Thank goodness for running around the mall doing Christmas shopping in December, eh?


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All for the Cause

It’s Movember again and time to raise awareness for men’s health issues. Last month we wore pink ribbons for breast cancer.

I find it strange: when I was a kid there were no colourful ribbons, nor were there people shaving or not shaving to make others pay attention to their cause.

Now I’m not knocking anyone who decides to put themselves or their adornments out there to attempt to raise money or simply let everyone know what they’re fighting for; far from it. In fact, it makes me feel bad that I don’t have the resources to help out everyone.

But that’s the thing. It’s because there are so many different causes that foundations have sprung up, that ribbons are being worn, etc. because every one of them wants to be noticed.

Were diseases just not talked about years ago? Was research played down? Or is it that horrible diseases are so prevalent now, disabling and killing off our populations that our governments can’t keep up with the demand, and so the public must find a way to pay for the fix themselves?

The logical, dispassionate side of me wonders if it is the earth’s way of depopulating and renewing itself. The paranoiac side of me wonders at the possibility that the governments have a hand in it…  One way or another, it is natural selection – survival of the fittest.

But neither of these scenarios slow us down. We will always fight for what we believe in. Whether we are acting as survivalists or puppets, we can only do what we can to save those we love from the ravages of disease. I’ll be thinking of that, every time I see a ‘tache this month.


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Above and beyond

Good Saturday morning! I hope everyone is having a nice weekend, particularly those who don’t have to work. If you have a regular 9-5, you shouldn’t be working today, right? Then again…

I was reading the paper (it’s become a habit now, since I did my challenge) and was struck by an article in the entertainment section about Jared Leto and his loss of 30+ pounds for the sake of his role in the upcoming movie, “Dallas Buyers Club.” You can see his picture here. It’s really quite shocking.

Reading this lead me to think about what we do for our jobs. Sure there are some of us who flatly refuse to wander outside our job description, but at some point I think we’ve all been in a position where we’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty for what we do for a living. Some of us do it all the time.

My own job, as a stay-at-home mom is 24/7. You might say being on call all the time IS part of my job description, and it is. But at the same time, I didn’t go into it with the expectation that I was going to be in it alone.

His Majesty

His Majesty, for whom I slave night and day

 

And speaking of my ex, over the last ten years he has been working at a few different retail chains as manager. Budgets in these places always seem to be a concern, according to him, and he is constantly having to work overtime so as not to tax the budget by having to pay employees – he is on salary.

I’d be interested to hear what you do that is ‘above and beyond.’ Come on, toot your own horn. After all, it’s rare that we get any appreciation from all we do, isn’t it?


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And so the true paranoia sets in

I had no idea that it was a ‘thing,’ but apparently, with senile dementia comes paranoia. As my mother ages I’m thinking more and more that I need to research the stages, before she goes through them.

Last night she told be that she had been talking to her sister, six years her senior, on the phone and that her sister is losing her mind. My mother loves to complain about anything, but when it comes to her siblings, nothing has ever been more delightful to her than being superior to them. Being an only child I can only assume that this is a result of early childhood bullying, or simply being told what to do, since my mother is the youngest of five.

Anyway, she was gleefully informing me about how her sister had related the same thing story times in the space of five minutes, and then the subject of my mother’s apartment came up. To backtrack a bit, before my mom moved to town, I lived in her apartment since I hadn’t found a place of my own. Her apartment came available on the market, so I bought it. Then when her old house sold, she bought my house and I moved out of her apartment the day she moved in. Confused yet? Just keep going.

She forgets that she came to visit me when I lived in her apartment. She swears up and down that she never saw the place before the day she moved in. When I tried to remind her last night, she not only denied it, she told me that I was the one who was losing my mind, not her – she’s obviously worried about it even if she won’t admit it.

What really got under my skin, and is worrying me, is that she accused me of saying she saw her apartment before she moved in just to make her think she is going crazy – like I’m doing it maliciously.

I’m getting close to the point where I’m going to have to move her into a place where she can have assisted living. Not a nursing home, necessarily, but a retirement home at least. She wants to move in with me, but I just can’t handle it. My children have to come first, as well as my own health. She is just too much work.

I’m just afraid if I wait too much longer, she’ll think I hate her. This paranoia thing is really scary.


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16/16 – Yesterday’s News – The Orange Box

It’s my last day to report on what inspired me from the previous day’s newspaper, and I must say, it has been a challenge. I may start again after NaNoWriMo is finished – then again I may take a break. I’d rather not try to make plans that far in advance.

On my final day here then, I’d like to talk about the orange box. Being that it’s Hallowe’en, you might assume that it’s related in some way to the holiday, but it isn’t.

The orange box is being introduced in my city to go alongside the blue box, for recycling paper, plastic and tin, and the green bin for compost. What is the orange box for, you ask? (Or maybe you don’t ask and I’m the only one just finding out about it…) It’s for electronic recycling.

How, you may ask, (and this time you really may be asking) has recycling inspired me to write a blog post? I got to thinking about what we consume. Throwing away something electronic was something we used to do maybe every five years, if not ten. Years ago, things lasted longer not only because they were built better, but because they didn’t go out of style as fast. In my house right now, however, I have five old-style computer monitors, four computers – the oldest has a 5 1/4″ floppy drive – one ancient laptop, and one old tv set, not to mention numerous broken cellphones, VCR’s and DVD players. All of the monitors still work, but what else am I to do with them but throw them away?

Having written all that down (and I’m shocked), I realize that the time has come when we need such a thing as an orange box. Still, it makes you think, doesn’t it? All this junk we’re getting rid of into landfills and that which goes up in smoke to pollute our air – where are we going to live when it all takes over?

Here’s to the original, organic orange box. May one light up your Hallowe’en!

orange


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15/16 – Yesterday’s News – Horoscopes

Have you ever noticed that sometimes the horoscope in the paper is spot-on and sometimes it misses the mark by a mile? Well mine has me worried.

For about a week now, astrologer Eugenia Last has been telling me, and all other Aquarians, to watch our backs. The messages say we shouldn’t let ourselves be talked into anything we don’t want, to not allow anyone to manipulate us, and yesterday, not to trust anyone with our secrets.

A day of being told someone is out to get me is bad enough, but after my Incredible Adventure on my Paper Route the last week, and the comments that I just may be on my own version of the Truman Show, I’m starting to get a little paranoid.

Here's a random picture, to throw off whoever's out to get me

Here’s a random picture, to throw off whoever’s out to get me

Do you ever get weirded out by your horoscope?


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14/16 – Yesterday’s News – The Wave of the Future

Bitcoins. Have you heard of them? I just did today, when I read yesterday’s newspaper.

According to the news, the first-ever-in-the-world Bitcoin ATM is opening today in Vancouver, British Columbia. The way it works is, you scan your palm on the machine (quite literally “wave” – see what I did there?) and you can then put as much as $3,000 into your Bitcoin account, or “wallet.”

Sounds easy enough, but then I wanted to know how one spends all this money. The answer: on the internet! Apparently, WordPress accepts Bitcoins. (I haven’t looked it up, I’m just going by what the news says.) But how does WordPress know that the Bitcoins I’m spending are actually my Bitcoins? After all, a palm scanner isn’t a regular household appliance….yet. So I decided to google “How does a Bitcoin work.” I got this: Bitcoin: How it works, which didn’t help me much at all. On first glance it looks a little bit like PayPal. I lost it at the map. Check it out for yourself.

If this system of Bitcoins doesn’t fall flat on a wave of confusion, it just might end up what separates the middle-aged from the youth of today. My mother can’t use a debit card – can’t understand the concept. Maybe this is where the youngest tip of the baby-boomers like me get to wave bye-bye to Generation X.


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13/16 – Yesterday’s News – Lou Reed et al

freedigitalphotos.net by xedos4

freedigitalphotos.net by xedos4

For most of us it begins with eye-bulging denial. “No way!” we exclaim, or “You’re kidding!” Then comes the numbness of confusion. “But how can s/he be dead? I grew up with her/him!” If we were a true fan, the tears might sting our eyes as they well up. And slowly, sometimes over the space of minutes, sometimes years, we accept it. That star we never really knew, we’ll never ever know, has passed outside the reaches of Earthly pursuits, and into the realm of legend.

We listen to their songs again, or watch their movies; gaze at their art or read their words, and we wish beyond all reason that it wasn’t so.

Lou Reed, and all of those who have gone before you, may you rest in peace.


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My 200th Post! (and I need some advice)

I can’t believe I’ve been this wordy in the space of nine months.  🙂

So to celebrate my 200th blog post, I’m going to do a few random things.

First, a pretty picture. I took this about five years ago, in Gatineau, Quebec:

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

Second, I’m going to ask anyone who is participating in Nanowrimo this year to join me as my writing buddy. I’ve never had one in the ten years I’ve been doing Nano and I already have three this year. It seems a good idea to have as many as I can – I’ll need all the encouragement I can get with all I have going on. If you’d like to join me, look me up. My user name at Nano is “schvell”.

Third, I need some advice. I’m thinking about changing my theme, but I was wondering – does it throw you off when someone’s site looks drastically different all of a sudden? Will you still visit if you don’t recognize the decor?

That’s all I can think of at the moment. So, dear friends, and readers I haven’t met yet, enjoy the rest of your Sunday, and thanks for visiting!