Life in progress

Tag Archives: SoCS


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Zzzoomin’ through to A-Z Reflections

It was a great month for blogging, wasn’t it? I met some really fantastic bloggers during the A-Z Challenge this year and although I started off visiting you all, I kinda fell off as time went on. I still hope to get caught up on all your posts!

My excuse – April was a tough one for me. My stress level finally reached the boiling point on Thursday and I literally ran away from home, meaning I made sure the kids were taken care of and I zzzoomed on outta here and spent the night at my mother’s empty condo. Which makes this both my reflections post and my unofficial “Z” post rolled into one.

My task for the month of May is getting rid of the above mentioned condo. Lawyers, real estate agents, auctioneers and moving trucks will be a huge part of my immediate future.

Just to reiterate, I WILL be doing One-Liner Wednesday and the Friday Stream of Consciousness prompts for the rest of May, and hopefully I’ll be up and running my blog as per usual in June. Don’t forget, you can still find me every day at my fiction blog here: http://lindaghillfiction.com/ … I can’t possibly stop writing altogether. And, of course, I’ll be editing my novel in the hopes of getting it published this year.

As a random note, I’ll be turning off the comments on my “K is for Key” post. For some reason the spammers are targeting it – I’m getting two or three spam comments on it every day. Weird.

Be well my friends and fellow writers. I wish you a wonderful month of May.

 


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The Friday Reminder and Prompt for SoCS May 2/15

It’s time for your Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt because hey – it’s finally Friday!. May first brings relief for many of us, doesn’t it? The leaves are coming back, the tulips are blooming, or if you live in the southern hemisphere the long hot summer is finished, and A-Z is over… life is good! So without further ado, here we go:

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “compliment/complement.”  Use one or use them both. 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!!

socs-badge

Badge by: Doobster @ Mindful Digressions

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 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. Have fun!


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The Friday Reminder and Prompt for SoCS April 25/15

Well girls and boys of Blogland, it’s the final Friday of April and the last A-Z Challenge-based Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. This week I’ve been fortunate enough to have a little help with the prompt, which is a good thing since the letter of the day will be the virtuous letter “V.” My dear friend and all-round great guy, Dan Antion at No Facilities, made the suggestion a few weeks back and it’s so good I’m going with it. Here it is:

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: vary/very. Use one, use ’em both, add stuff to ’em, your choice. Have a blast!

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!!

socs-badge

Badge by: Doobster @ Mindful Digressions

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 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. Have fun!


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SoCS – The Piece

It starts with a speck, a mere morsel, an element of thought in the vast space that is the universe of the mind. It’s a whiff, a spore at first – hardly a niggle like the frustratingly fading emotion that was a dream that’s just out of reach. A word on the tip of the tongue that can’t be read, even if it’s stuck out agonizingly far enough to see with eyes crossed, brows twisted to the point that even the scalp strains to pluck it off.

But then it begins to grow. Like a jigsaw puzzle made of sky on which the clouds roll in, the wind giving direction. Hues of gray and white and silver – yes! Is that a silver lining?

Bigger and bigger it fills the spaces until all else is blotted out… bits and pieces get lost in the shuffle of what is this and what is that. Hearing strains inward instead of out and nothing nothing nothing else begins to matter but that which started as a speck and has now grown, fills life and limb and thought and sky in the most amazing double rainbow!

It is the magnum opus!

It is a novel!

 

This post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Go here https://lindaghill.com/2015/04/17/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-april-1815/ to find out more and join in today!

Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions

Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions


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P is for Pack

As in packin’ it in. I’ve decided, pretty much, that I’m not going to. So this is what’s up with my blog:

I’ve spent the better part of this week contemplating the idea of going private for a month. At first I thought it would be the ideal solution to staying away, but then I started thinking about SoCS, and One-Liner Wednesday, and the fact that I don’t want to take a break from either. I think I’ve come up with a compromise.

I’ll post twice a week for the month of May. Once will be One-Liner Wednesday, which is pretty easy for me as far as the amount of work that goes into it. The second time will be the SoCS prompt. I won’t participate but I will spend the week reading other people’s entries. That way I’m not trying to cram in all the hours, happy as those hours are when I’m stress free (haha), that it takes to reply to comments and post. I will try to get caught up on my comments from older posts however.  Anything that I absolutely must write during the time I’m “away” I’ll save as a draft and publish in June.

Anyway, I’ll give it a whirl for the first week of May at least – that’s the best I can promise – and as long as I don’t find myself being drawn back in, I’ll continue that way until June.

I was just thinking about how this post really didn’t have much to do with the word “pack” until I looked at the synonyms in my thesaurus. As a verb, “pack” can be used to mean burden and overload. As much as I don’t want to say my blog has become a burden, the importance of the other things I need to do off-screen have pushed this place lower on my list of things-to-do than ever before. And it’s causing an overload in the stress department. I hope I can finish out April…

Thanks to all for putting up with my waffling for the past little while. I’ll try to make my posts more upbeat for the remainder of the month – it is after all in my nature to be optimistic.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful Saturday!

 


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The Friday Reminder and Prompt for SoCS April 18/15

It’s Friday; time for your Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt! For those of us participating in the A-Z Challenge, the letter of the day for tomorrow is “P.”  To potentially make our Saturday blogging experience easier, your prompt will again start with that letter. Remember, the prompt word is really just a take-off point to get you started. As long as your post is stream of consciousness writing and somehow contains the prompt, your post qualifies for SoCS. Here we go!

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “piece/peace.” Make one or both your theme or just include them somehow in your post. 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!!

socs-badge

Badge by: Doobster @ Mindful Digressions

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 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. Have fun!


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SoCS – J is for Journalist

Well that worked out well. I don’t think I need to take a picture of my thesaurus this week to prove that “journalist” is in fact the second-last word on the left-hand page that I turned to… you trust me, right?

Honesty in journalism is something that’s apparently hard to come by these days. I don’t often listen to or read the news. I wish I had less going on in my life that I had the luxury to put other people’s and countries’ business closer to the top of my priority list, but it just ain’t happenin’. My mother was recently diagnosed with ‘mixed dementia’ which includes a touch of Alzheimer’s, and though I haven’t even properly researched what that means, I have been led to understand that the difference between dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease is attitude. Let’s just say she hasn’t been easy to deal with these past few years and it seems to be getting worse by the day. While she hasn’t displayed any of the outbursts you sometimes hear about, nor has she gone wandering (thank goodness) but I’m finding myself agreeing to being the stupid one (her term) more often than not to avoid arguments. I really do need to learn more about this disease.

So where was I? Oh yes, journalists. I can’t imagine myself as a journalist. I can’t interview someone to save my life, and I’m afraid that any reporting I did would end up more speculation and fiction than actual true story. I tend toward writing fiction – my imagination is probably one of the most prevalent parts of my personality.

Let’s see what synonyms we have here: hack. Yeah, that’d be me. Chronicler. Sounds painful. Oh Oh OH! Periodicalist! I like that word, though my spell check doesn’t. Let’s try using it in a sentence.

The periodicalist was found guilty of dangling participles. His sentence; to be reviewed…

Ha!

This post is part of SoCS: https://lindaghill.com/2015/04/10/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-april-1115/ Join in today!

Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions

Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions

and A-Z April

BATZAP by Doobster @ Mindful Digressions

BATZAP by Doobster @ Mindful Digressions

 

 


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The Friday Reminder and Prompt for SoCS April 11/15

Today is Friday and that means it’s time for your Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. Yay! Being that we’re still in the throes of the A-Z Challenge, I’ve decided once again to do something that may potentially make our lives easier – or at least our Saturday blogging experience easier. Remember, the prompt word is really just a take-off point to get you started. As long as your post is stream of consciousness writing and somehow contains the prompt, your post qualifies for SoCS. Here we go!

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “-jour-“: add a prefix or suffix to complete it or use it as the French word for “day.” 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!!

socs-badge

Badge by: Doobster @ Mindful Digressions

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 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. Have fun!


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Blogger Appreciation

As I sit here with my laptop on this relatively lazy Sunday, (lazy in comparison to the chaos that is Blogging A-Z in April) I’m thinking about how much I appreciate the people who visit me here at Life in Progress, and at my fiction blog, Inspiration in Progress. Over the past couple of years my blogs have grown to what amounts sometimes to a thriving metropolis; a place for like minds and kindred spirits to connect. I write to inspire comments and though I don’t always reply promptly, I enjoy them immensely. What can I say – I love the further inspiration I that comes from your feedback!

WordPress is a huge wealth of entertainment, information, commiseration, and friendship. I’ve talked so much in the past about the sense of community here but it never fails to amaze me how so many people, from so many different countries and cultures can have so much in common. Of course what it boils down to is the fact that we are all the same on the inside. Race has never been, in my eyes, a reason to differentiate, nor has sexual orientation, religious beliefs, nor any of those things which divide our populations. What matters to me is how we behave. Again, it’s all part of being one type of creature – human.

But I digress. Blogging brings us all together. Our lives are intertwined by a platform which allows us to express ourselves however we choose – and I’m grateful for all of those who choose to be part of my community.

Thank you to everyone who has participated in my One-Liner Wednesday and SoCS prompts (even though it takes me a while to read your posts – I really try to keep up!), each of you who visit through the A-Z Challenge, and to all of you who keep coming back. This place wouldn’t be the same without you.


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SoCS – D is for Dexterous

I’m doing a little happy dance. There are 26 left-hand pages in my thesaurus; only eleven of them have entries that start with “de.” I chose the eleventh, and so I’m able to combine the two posts (SoCS and A-Z) into one. Was it dexterity that allowed me to pick a good page? Nah. Blind luck.

Nimble-fingered – that’s me of late. With my shoulder problems (it’s now frozen, by the way. I’m waiting to get a call from the hospital to go for a combination ultrasound/steroid shot) I’ve had to learn ambidexterity. I can’t write with my left still, but I’m learning to eat with it. You think you can use your left hand to manoeuvre a fork but if you’re right handed it means you’ve got a knife in your right hand to help your left out. Without the knife, you use your right. Right? Try using your left hand next time you eat something like macaroni. It’s not as easy as it sounds.

I look to try to be dexterous in many aspects of my life. Some of its synonyms are clever, handy, neat and proficient. Proficiency is such a handy skill to have. (Is that redundant?) I attempt always to cut down on the steps it takes to do something. Tidiness depends on it. Never going up the stairs empty-handed is something I strive for.

And with writing too – less is more. Proficiency or dexterity in grammar makes the difference between something that’s easily readable and text that goes on forever, saying nothing or worse, repeating itself.

How do you strive to be dexterous?

 

This post is part of SoCS:

Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions

Badge by: Doobster at Mindful Digressions

Please join in today!! https://lindaghill.com/2015/04/03/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-april-415/

And the A-Z Challenge:

BATZAP by Doobster @ Mindful Digressions

BATZAP by Doobster @ Mindful Digressions