Loss and IWSG Late Again

 

IWSG

I missed yesterday's post, but at least I got here today. I won't have a long post today, just remember to thank our co-hosts this month, and support all the amazing writers on this blog hop. Blog Hop seems such an old fashioned word now. But it still serves those of us who have a need to be a part of something bigger than just ourselves.

Every month there is a question we can answer if we choose to. I won't this month because I've already answered it before, Charlotte's Web. But I will put in one of my favorite quotes from the story, because I need to here this today. 

from the Audible website

Here are our lovely and wonderful co-hosts for this month:

 PJ Colando, Pat Garcia, Kim Lajevardi, Melisa Maygrove, Jean Davis!

Please visit their sites and thank them!

Enjoy summer. It is now upon us! From my garden to you...

My June Bug

IMPORTANT (TO ME) JUNE BIRTHDAY

June is the month of my daughter's birth. She, of course, changed my life with her entrance into the world, as did my son. I love them both so very much; I'm so happy to have had the chance to be a mother, to them, and to my other son, my "step-son". How did that come about? One "step" away? Perhaps. All I know is the heart loves who it loves, and my heart is filled with these three. 

My daughter is, for me, more than a child of mine. She is always teaching me to reach for new levels in not only being a mother, but becoming a friend. As a parent, friendship is difficult to cultivate with your child because it's hard not to see all the stages of their lives and judge accordingly. Yet, this year especially, I have learned that I can move into a friendship with my daughter that doesn't take the place of being her mother, but allows us to move into a new place of trust and acknowledgement of her as an adult and me being less judgy. I started going to a therapist in my role as a mother of adult children, to help in this transition because I love my kids so very much and realized I was having a hard time moving beyond being their mother. It isn't that they don't "need" me anymore that way. It's more about learning that I am more than a mother to them and to myself. I want to "be" in their lives, but don't need it the way I thought I did. Basing my worth on them and how they "turned out." I like when they want to call me, or see me. Yet my whole being is not based solely on them and their existence and what they do or don't do. Taking a step away and seeing them as separate from myself has been scary, and healing, and exciting. Old dogs can learn new tricks! 

Happy birthday my lovely young woman. I literally love all of you!

My lovely one and all of her selves! 

JUNE! Already! IWSG Posting

 

IWSG WEBSITE

I am happy! Amidst preparing for travel, amidst life and it's good and bad challenges, I have made time to write! I'm coming back into it gently, trying not to judge and enjoy the feeling of what I have inside me and on "paper". Whew, I am thankful for finding again a love of the story. Writing is not an easy trek and can be so incredibly frustrating. Yet the high when the writing comes is like nectar, making the drinker want to taste more. So this post will be short because I want to go write other things. I just wanted to share this with those who understand. Sometimes something happens and something clicks and a burden is lifted. This happened to me. Thank you H.C. for being that something.

Courtesy of BBC

The awesome co-hosts for the June 5 posting of the IWSG are 

Liza at Middle Passages, Shannon Lawrence, Melissa Maygrove, and Olga Godim!

PLEASE GO VISIT AND THANK THEM FOR CO-HOSTING THIS MONTH!

June! OMG it's June IWSG Already!

I'm so glad to realize that I've only missed IWSG by one day. Last year, I missed so many that I got relegated to the end of the line on the sign up, after at least 6 year or so of not missing any. Be that as it may, I'm not at all upset to be able to say I actually have been writing after a hiatus of over a year not writing. It finally feels good to be writing, to be reading, to be ready to take on the monster of my fear and disinterest. Have you gone through this? I know there are words for writer's block, but that is different I think from what I've gone through the last year and a half. In all my adult life, ever since I was an adolescent I've read. I've never, in my memory not read. But during Covid, and since I realized I was trying to write for money, I've stopped readying novels. I decided to try again and started with a novel called "The Rose Code," by Kate Quinn. What a great way to get back into reading! What a wonderful novel to find and discover my love of reading with. I highly recommend it, especially if you're a history buff. I've been interested in the "Ultra" story of WWII for a long time, Bletchley Park and all that. This story makes it so much more real and interesting to me. 

Then I read "Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret" by Craig Brown. I don't recommend it. Because, perhaps it's my being female, but I found it "sensational" and not at all complimentary to the Princess. It's hard to understand her point of view, especially when written about like this, but I came away feeling that she was very misunderstood and maligned and generally not looked upon with any sympathetic eye. I felt sorry for her. I felt that there was no way, in that time, for her to have won at all. Talk about the "Spare Heir". I think she and Prince Harry would have had great conversations.

Then I went on to read "All The Missing Girls" by Megan Miranda. So, after a drought of reading, I'm on a roll! This also, is another book I would hesitate to recommend. I felt disturbed when I finished. Mainly, I believe, because it perhaps hits too close to home in that we are all human and who are we to judge others when we haven't lived their lives? When we don't "know" anyone's full story? 

Anyway, now I'm on to another, and I'm on chapter 4 of my WIP. I feel that the judging I'm doing for the contest I've agreed to judge for is really helping me get my "writing" grove back on. I feel so blessed to have these opportunities, to judge, to read, to write. For now, though I feel insecure about being "good enough", I do feel blessed to be where I am. Perhaps this is a new beginning for me? Who knows? I'm just very glad to be where I am right now.

Sorry to have rambled so long! Enjoy June and the beginning of summer! 

Please visit our amazing co-hosts for this month, 

Patrcia Josephine, Diedre Knight, Olga Godim, J. Lenni Dorner, and Cathrina Constantine!

Some love from my garden...

June, Yes, Already IWSG

IWSG CLICK HERE

So, June is now here to prove that 2019 can go faster than any year before it. I’m sitting in my little kitchen listening to the breeze blowing through tree leaves and birds chirping, and someone’s A/C going even though it isn’t hot, yet. A quiet day in the middle of a city, which finds me thinking of the beginning of summer and what it might bring.

I hope to have time to write. I will make as much time as I can. The reason I know some time will be taken off is a good one. My mother in law is coming for a visit. She will stay with us in our 800 sq ft rental house and I will do my best to occupy her with talks, walks and fun things in the city to see. I don’t want to tire her (she’s soon to be 86), but my goal is that she will feel appreciated and loved.

City of Columbus Ohio

I’m a bit insecure about how this visit will go. My mother in law and I have until recently had a “distanced” relationship. I could say she’s been the proverbial “scary” and “no-way-to-please” mother in law and I wouldn’t be lying. But last year something changed. She all of a sudden likes me. I’m hesitant to trust this new side of her, but I don’t want to dwell in the past. I want to love her and have a true friendship with her. I have always wanted this, so I’m going forward with my goals and my desire to help her be happy with us while she’s here.

Having just “finished” my current WIP, I'm pleased to find that I still have it in me to finish novels I begin. So, I will look at this coming summer with my MIL as a WIP and see how it goes. Surely, I will learn a lot, and do a lot of revising. My mother in law and our relationship is worth this. Trepidatious or not, I can’t wait to see how “we” turn out.

 

June IWSG Question: Of all the genres you read and write, which is your favorite to write in and why?

I love to read mysteries, ScFi, and biographies. In writing, I like the puzzle of having to work it all out. I think that no matter what genre I write, the mystery of beginning a story and not knowing how I'm going to get to the end, the sense of having to puzzle something out, make a story work, is what makes writing so addicting for me.  I've written a mystery, a police procedural, and three historical fiction novels. Each one is a puzzle in the beginning. So, I guess I don't have a favorite genre (yet) that I like to write. I just like to write whatever story has the most to offer in figuring it out and making work in a way that hopefully others will enjoy reading. That, really, is the biggest mystery of all, finding out what makes readers come back.

Please go by their blogs and thank the amazing and wonderful co-hosts for the 

June 5 posting of the IWSG:

  Diane Burton, Kim Lajevardi, Sylvia Ney, Sarah Foster, Jennifer Hawes, 

 and Madeline Mora-Summonte!