There are days when I wish I could go out in public with a veil over my head: mostly Tuesday through Monday.
We conceal ourselves in so many different ways. From wearing makeup and masks, to hiding behind a computer screen. We pretend–to be more important, smart, beautiful, rich, compassionate–but to what result? In the end, our real nature always shines through.
So I’ve decided to come clean. Right here, right now. Are you ready?
Almost every night for the past three weeks I’ve been too tired to write interesting blog posts. There. I said it. I’m stubborn (because I HAVE to live up to this challenge) to the extent that I’d rather keep myself up at night and blather through my exhaustion than give up.
Tomorrow I’ll try to post earlier. Ugh.
Okay, here’s the real confession:
I’m trying to put you to sleep too.
I’m a terrible person.
***
You know what’s not terrible? My A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette, “All Good Stories”! It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.
If you would like to participate, 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.
NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, like Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.
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:
1. Make it one sentence.
2. Try to make it either funny or inspirational.
3. Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.
4. Add our very cool badge to your post for extra exposure!
The word “urban” is making me want to cheat and find another word.
Although, according to Merriam-Webster online, urban means “of, relating to, characteristic of, or constituting a city,” the word always conjures houses on the outskirts of a city. The city is where the businesses and apartment buildings are, and the residential areas are urban. No?
Or maybe I’m thinking of the suburbs. Which I suppose means sub (below) the urbs (the city).
I’ve only once lived outside of the urbs. On a farm where I shoveled horse poop for a living. Such a glamorous job, and yet so rewarding. I know some people just can’t stand to reside in the city, and some wouldn’t live in the country unless they were dragged there kicking and screaming. Me? I’m comfortable anywhere. I love the quiet and I enjoy the constant noise–mostly because after a while I don’t hear it anymore.
Then again, crickets are everywhere in the summer.
***
Want something to drown out the crickets? Then buy my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette, “All Good Stories”! You won’t hear them over the sound of your own giggling.
It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.
It’s Friday today and that means it’s time for your Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. The month of April, as you might have heard, is time for many of us to participate in the A to Z Challenge. With this taken into consideration, I’ll start the prompt with the letter of the day, just to potentially help people along. Here’s your prompt for this week:
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “spell.” Use the word “spell” any way you’d like. Bonus points if you use it in the first sentence. 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 our 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. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.
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.
Qualification, schmolification. I can drive that rocket! Jus’ let me behind the wheel.
When I finished writing my first novel in 2004, I was hesitant to call myself a novelist. The way I saw it, the only thing that qualified me was the fact that I’d written 50,000 on the same subject. That something had a beginning, a middle, and an end; it had characters and settings and a climax. But it wasn’t ready to be published, and that’s what I thought qualified a person to be a novelist.
Then I wrote another book in 2006, and I started warming up to the idea that maybe I was a novelist, even though nothing had seen print. But still, I hadn’t taken any writing courses. I didn’t know if what I’d written was any good.
It would take almost a decade before I took a writing course, just to find out that I actually already knew what I was doing, for the most part. By then I’d started yet another novel and I was well on my way to calling myself a novelist.
And now… I’m still on the fence. None of my novels have seen print yet. Not one of the five I’ve finished, nor the three I’ve begun writing. But that tells me something. I see a pattern here. Do you?
I can’t stop writing novels. It’s how I pass my time. It’s part of who I am. I’m miserable when I’m not writing something. It’s not an urge, it’s a compulsion. And the more I think about it, the more I believe that that is what qualifies me to be a novelist. I’m a novelist because writing them is in my blood.
So the next time someone asks me if I’m a writer, I’ll say yes, in fact, I’m a novelist. I write novels. They may be good, they may be bad, they may be unpublishable, but that’s okay. Because I do it for me. I do it because I don’t have a choice.
***
Whether or not I’m a qualified novelist, I’m definitely a qualified novelettist! I have an A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette called “All Good Stories,” available for only 99¢ on Kindle and Kobo. It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.
Hey ho, it’s Friday and time for your Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. The month of April, as you might have heard, is time for many of us to participate in the A to Z Challenge. With this taken into consideration, I’ll start the prompt with the letter of the day, just to potentially help people along. Here’s your prompt for this week:
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “moo.” Base your post on the word “moo” or a word that rhymes with it. Bonus points if you actually use the word “moo” in your post. 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 our 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. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.
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.
When life is chaotic, it’s good to know a cup of tea is as close as the kettle, even if my bed is hours away.
Yippieee! Today my thesaurus has given me a word to play with that’s both a noun and a verb! That means I can jumble my jumble, or confuse my gallimaufry (which makes sense, because I have no idea what a gallimaufry is). I can muddle my mishmash, scramble my potpourri… I can even tangle my rat’s nest! Wait… my pillow does that every night. That’s what my comb is for.
But you know what? I’m too tired to mix up my miscellany tonight. My house is a hodgepodge, a farrago (another one I have to look up), a mess. It’s disarranged. Yeah, let’s go with that one. And my mind is all higgledy-piggledy, so I think I’ll just tumble off to bed and start all over again tomorrow.
Goodnight, all!
***
For more humorous reading, please check out my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.
“A short funny tale of two friends” ~ Ritu, 4 stars, Amazon UK review
“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars
If you would like to participate, 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.
NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, like Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.
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:
1. Make it one sentence.
2. Try to make it either funny or inspirational.
3. Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.
4. Add our very cool badge to your post for extra exposure!
I opened my thesaurus to find my random word of the day, and lo and behold, I’ve learned something new! A “fen” is, apparently, a “bog, marsh, morass, muskeg quagmire, slough, swamp.” And I can’t for the life of me figure out why I would want to call any of those things a “fen.” Or at least I couldn’t, until I looked up the definition. According to Google, a fen is not only characterized as marshy land that’s frequently flooded and has an “alkaline, neutral, or only slightly acid peaty soil,” but it’s also a particular area, described as, “flat low-lying areas of eastern England, formerly marshland but largely drained for agriculture since the 17th century,” known as the Fens.
Giggidy, as Quagmire would say.
***
Wanna read a fen-tastic book? Check out my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.
“A short funny tale of two friends” ~ Ritu, 4 stars, Amazon UK review
“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars
It’s Friday today and that means it’s time for your Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. The month of April, as you might have heard, is time for many of us to participate in the A to Z Challenge. With this taken into consideration, I’ll start the prompt with the letter of the day, just to potentially help people along. Here’s your prompt for this week:
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “give/given/giving.” Begin your post with one of those words. Bonus points if you end your post with one as well. 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 our 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. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.
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.
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