Life in progress

Tag Archives: family


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If I Just Had… Stream of Consciousness Saturday (Just)

I hear people say all the time, “If I just had,” this or that, then I’d be happy. Today, if I just had a moment without stress I’d be able to think about what I want to write! That’s what SoCS is for though, right? Just start writing and publish whatever comes out.

So I’m sitting here with my laptop on my lap, on the couch, while my mother tries to avoid Alex, who is bound and determined to terrorize her in any way he can.

Stress doesn’t even cover it. Doesn’t begin.

I hate whining though. Whenever I get on here and I write a blog post that sounds like I’m complaining, I delete it. But I can’t do that today. So here, you see a rare blog post from me where I’m actually bitching about things going on in my life. It’s like spotting a rare bird in a tree. Quick! Take a picture!

That happened to me the other day, actually. I heard the cardinal before I found it – I wouldn’t have been looking for it otherwise. It sat singing at the top of a tall tree, brilliantly red. I got my camera out of  my pocket to take a picture, not sure I could zoom in enough to get the shot, but it flew away as I was pushing the zoom button. So, you don’t have a picture of that not-so-rare bird.

Things are quiet. This is the stupidest post I’ve ever written. I need to do my laundry.

 

This post is part of SoCS: https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/04/18/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-april-1914/


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Somebunny Has A Sense of Humour

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Alex brought a fresh eggplant home for Easter.


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O is for … Openness

Do you ever wonder how much you’re giving away of yourself when you write? Details of a writer’s psyche must show through, since all we really have to draw from are our experiences and our emotions. Our backgrounds: our genetics, our nature and how we were nurtured as children make up who we are, and are inherent in everything we do. Whether a writer of fiction, personal accounts, poetry… what creates our literary “voices” is our individuality.

I worry–not as much now as I used to–how much personal information I’m putting out there, whether intentionally or not. I worry that my kids will read what I write and be embarrassed or scarred – who wants to read their mother’s love scenes after all? How do they know how much of it comes from my imagination and how much from experience? I certainly won’t hand my own mother my novel and say, here, enjoy it. But then she judges me more harshly than anyone on the planet.

Of course, not everything we write comes from experience. I often say that if Stephen King did, he’d long be imprisoned. It’s not as though he goes around killing people, or feels the pain of being hit by a car. … oh wait, never mind. I watched a Youtube video the other day, in which he spoke to a room full of students about his process in writing, among other things. He said that one of the questions he is asked most often is what his childhood was like – what kind of trauma he went through in order to write the things he does. He said there was absolutely nothing… but if there was, he wouldn’t tell.

For myself, I went through an obsession with death after my father passed away suddenly. Not surprising since I was only fourteen years old. Is it why I write horror on occasion? I’m not sure. It was certainly the only traumatic thing I went through as a child. Yet paternal abandonment, in whatever form, shows up in every major work I’ve written to date. It took four novels before I realised it.

This is what I am open about. What about the stuff I’d rather not be? I ask again: do you ever wonder how much of yourself you’re giving away when you write? Is there anyone in your life you’d rather never read your work – or are you careful just in case they do?

Illustrated in light erotica, on my fiction blog here: http://lindaghillfiction.wordpress.com/2014/04/17/o-is-for-oh-jupiter/


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One-Liner Wednesday – Among ‘Things I’m Glad I Didn’t Learn the Hard Way’

“Since Alex was born with a hole in his heart; there’s a good reason they didn’t fix it, I’d like the dentist to start giving him antibiotics before his visits: if a bacteria gets in when his gums bleed, the infection can go straight through his bloodstream to his brain.” ~ My son’s pediatric cardiologist, today.


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M is for … Money-Making Manuscripts

Writing for money–earning a living at it–has long been a dream of mine.  I’d dearly love to have any day job, but being single and caring for my two kids with their numerous disabilities, makes it unfeasible for me to work outside the home. I’ve never attempted to hide the fact that I live off of the social assistance that I receive for my kids. Actually, scratch that. I have a paper route for which I earn a whopping $15 per week.

So during the time that I’m not driving to appointments, looking after them when they’re either sick or sent home with behavioural issues, I write. I suppose you could say I’m in a rather enviable position, in that if I do make even one dollar selling a novel I’ve gained something.

The fact is that one day I may find myself living alone. If I’m unable to care for my kids anymore, for whatever reason, and they go to assisted living elsewhere, I’ll have nothing but whatever I gain through this practice of writing. Yes, I have a background in bookkeeping, and have worked in retail, reception, data entry, and on dude ranches and thoroughbred farms, but who will hire me when I get to the point that I can’t care for my children and have nothing to put on my resume since 1999?

Realistically, at this point, my future lies in my writing. When I have enough money saved I’ll take more courses; I’ve never been more determined to do anything in my life, and I want to be good at it. If I can sell these manuscripts I have laying around–three of them so far–either to a publisher or by self-publishing, I may just be okay. Is there a living to be made? I think it’s best I find out now, while I at least still have my paper route.

 

Things are getting weirder with Jupiter and Xavier over on my fiction blog. Click to read: http://lindaghillfiction.wordpress.com/2014/04/15/m-is-for-maniacal-mischief/


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On Knowing – Stream of Consciousness Saturday (Know)

I’m having a hard time with this prompt. I don’t come up with them knowing what I’m going to write – it’s as much of a challenge for me as for anyone else to find something appropriate to write on. All part of the plan I suppose.

I’m having a hard time with this because most of the time I don’t feel as though I know anything. I know facts, such as that gravity exists and I know how to do things, such as type. But it’s hard to know the future, which is where my mind usually is. I tend not to dwell on the past too much, and I know I don’t spend enough time in the present. It’s difficult not to think of the future when there is a work in progress at hand. The number of things that I don’t know about that are countless. Can I finish it? Will it be any good? Am I any good? Will anyone actually want to read it?

I know nothing, not even in my heart. So what do I know in my heart?

That I will care for and do everything in my power for my children as long as I live. As much as I may wish writing was my life, it is not. They are. My heart remains always and forever with them.

I know nothing else.

 

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This post is part of SoCS. Please join in!

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 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/2014/04/11/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-april-1214/)” 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 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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One-Liner Wednesday – Stolen!

“I entered 10 puns in a contest hoping mine would win, but no pun in ten did.” ~ stolen from my son, Fred.


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The Simplest Things

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click on the photo to see the detail

It’s funny how the simplest, and sometimes the ugliest, things can be made beautiful by nature.

The frost along the edge of these dried leaves captured my attention this morning while I was outside with Alex, waiting for the school bus.

Speaking of Alex and going to school, I thought he would be staying at home today. Yesterday he came home with a little itch on his wrist. No biggie. I couldn’t see anything, and he seemed to forget about it as he got involved in things to do. Then before bed it began to itch again. I encouraged him to ignore it and just go to sleep but he wouldn’t stop scratching. He was miserable.

After listening to him whine in bed for about half an hour, I went back upstairs to see him. He was covered, head to toe, in a red, angry-looking rash. There were bumps and actual weals on his legs, some of which were five inches across. It was horrible! I gave him an anti-histamine and let him sleep on the couch where it was a little cooler.

This morning, when he woke up, he’d forgotten about it. All that was left of the rash was the scratches he inflicted on himself with his fingernails.

The cause, as well as I can theorize, was stress caused by the simple little itch he had on his wrist – which was also gone this morning.

Funny how the simplest things can take on a life of their own, when given a touch of something extra, isn’t it?


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Gearing Up For A Challenge

Ah, I do love a good challenge. It’s just as well, when you think of it: my entire life is one big challenge. I remember saying to myself, before my son Alex was born, I’m in such a rut. I need some excitement in my life! Now THAT was a lesson in being careful what you wish for, right there. Between surgeries, deafness, feeding issues, pneumonias and meanwhile trying to run a business, the first eight months of his life were anything but boring. But I digress. For what I have coming up in the month of April is nothing, by comparison.

Yes, the A-Z Challenge. Since I’m going to write about writing, I thought why not extend the challenge and write a fiction piece a day to illustrate the article I post here? It’s only twice the amount of work, after all! And besides, there’s no reason I shouldn’t show rather than just tell…right?

We’ll see how far I get.

For now, I’m attempting to put all my accumulated notes in alphabetical order. It only seems to make sense, and why put it off? I’ll have enough to do, starting tomorrow.

Don’t you love a challenge? How will you be challenging yourself in the upcoming month?


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At a Loss for Words

Where’s your communication book? I’ll ask your teacher to tell you.

It’s the most common phrase that is signed in my household, aside from, I love you, and Go to sleep already.

The problem is, of course, that my son Alex doesn’t ‘speak’ the same language as I do, and sometimes I’m the one at a huge disadvantage. I, whose life consists of putting words together to make meanings clear, am unable to communicate with my own offspring. What kind of sick force in the universe came up with this irony?

Tonight I had to try to explain to Alex why he wasn’t able to eat from my plate. It’s something that I allow him to do on occasion–not something I allowed my other two sons to do–since he doesn’t eat much more than one piece of anything, being that he’s tube fed. But now, since I’m not sure I’m completely over this bug, it’s a no-no. Germs are not something I often talk about, and so once again I’m faced with my lack of knowledge, and my incompetence in being fluent in American Sign Language.

Can you fathom the frustration at not being able to say the simplest of things? With a hearing child, the conversation would be over in four or five sentences. “I’m sick, and if you eat from my plate you might get sick. Why? Because there are these things called germs – tiny things like bugs crawling around in my food. You still want some? I thought not.”

Instead? It’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m grateful that I have the resource of the Deaf school to back me up when I need it, and especially that they are teaching my son to communicate with his peers. What scares me are the stories I was told by a few different Deaf people of their hearing families – that they grew apart. The Deaf have their own community. In fact “Deaf” is capitalized when the word is used to describe a person in the same way American is – because it denotes that very community.  It’s only by virtue of the fact that Alex has a global intellectual delay that I might have to care for him well into adulthood.

In the meantime, I’ll keep trying to learn his language. Because once he’s twenty-one and has to leave school, I won’t have a communication book to write in. And I’ll be at a complete loss for words.