First post of the new year and I'm late. Okay, I have a good excuse, but still, what a way to start the new year! I won't bore you with details and just say, no, our house has yet to sell, yes, we are now living in North Carolina, no I'm not writing, just managing a big construction project, and yes, my husband is now a teacher and taught his very first class today! No, we aren't living in France yet and yes it is still the plan. Live is definitely full of surprises. So today, though I am late, here are a few meme's that speak volumes about my life in this new year. I wish you all the best in 2017...
Please visit the awesome co-hosts and thank them! Eva @ Lillicasplace,Crystal Collier,Sheena-kay Graham,Chemist Ken,LG Keltner, and Heather Gardner!
Prompt question for today -
What writing rule do you wish you’d never heard?
"Write what you know." Because, this statement is not clarified by those who say it. I may not know a street in a town I'm writing about, but that doesn't mean I can't go find out about it. Just sayin'...
Boy am I building one right now!
For a Virgo, this is important advice...!
Re-affirming previous Meme.
Learning something new is my middle name right now.
Congratulations to us all and most especially to our Ninja
Captain for starting the IWSG blog for us insecure types. Today marks it’s one year
anniversary!! Toddling steps and now look at us, contributing to a guide we can
all use! Thank you Alex for all that you do for us… and to all your co-hosts throughout the year.
I have much to write about this month, but won’t make this
post long, I promise. I’m nervous, excited, hesitant and jubilant because I’ve
finished my “former” work in progress. Now I’m getting the book formatted,
getting the cover tweaked, hoping against hope all will be done before I go to
the writer’s conference I’m attending on the 24 of this month. Arg! Still, if I must choose something to be
nervous or concerned about, this is it. The first draft of the next novel is
already on my computer, thanks to NaNoWriMo last year and I can’t wait to get
started on it. But before I can indulge one thing must come first, the “dreadful” —and I do
dread it—marketing of the finished product. I so wish I could just hire someone
to do it all for me.
Oh well. The trials of the writer’s life. Like I said
before, if I have to choose something to be upset over, this is it. Because it
all comes back to writing, doesn’t it? This novel has taken SO LONG for me to
get right or at least as right as I can make it. I’m glad it’s done, and I'm glad
to move on. But I don’t want to go too fast and overlook something important
that I will regret later. So, I’m staying in low gear. This novel obviously
listened to the Pointer Sisters when it came to needing a “slow hand!” Thanks
for dropping by.
Today my post will be short and in honor of my
fellow bloggers at the Insecure Writer’s Support Group. I’m not feeling
particularly insecure right now, because I’m on a roll up to the long
anticipated finish line of my current work in progress. I’m so close I can feel
the delight in my fingers as they share my victory with me.
I hope that once my
journey on this road is done, that the next will benefit from what I’ve learned And I wish you, each of you, the finishing line in your near future for whatever endeavor
you are pursuing. Go forth and sew, grow and reap the rewards of sticking to
what at times has felt or is feeling an insurmountable task. Let’s go rock the
world together.We owe it to ourselves and those who wanted to finish and didn't get the chance.
From our Ninja Captain Alex J Cavenaugh:
In memory of Tina Downey, the A to Z Team is hosting a sunflower tribute on
September 8, 2014 – Remembering Tina Downey.
Prior to that date, for those of you who are members of the A to Z or the IWSG and want to participate, please purchase or plant a sunflower in her honor. (If you
have to resort to plastic, that’s cool.) Take a photo of your sunflower
and post it in her memory on Monday, September 8 on your blog. Tina loved her
sunflowers, and we want to splash the blogging world with sunflowers
that day and honor a truly amazing woman who was friend and family to so
many. You can sign up HERE or HERE now or add your link when you post your sunflower.
Please help us spread the word! Let’s brighten the Internet with sunflowers the way Tina brightened the lives of so many. Tina’s blog was at http://kmdlifeisgood.blogspot.com/
Tina Downey
For those of you following this blog who didn't know Tina, the name of her blog says all there is to say about her. She was a loving gifted woman/blogger who touched many of us, whether we just found her yesterday or knew her for years. A major team player on the A to Z Blogging Challenge, she brightened a lot of lives with her positive outlook on life even when it was beating her down. Check out her blog if you'd like to see what we all will miss...
“When it don’t come
easy…” Title words to one of my favorite songs by Kathy Griffin. My writing
life is often this way. Lately I’ve wondered if I’ll ever really finish this
novel I’ve been working on for too long now.
“Time keeps moving
from a crawl to a run…” My daily time seems to crawl and I feel I can’t
lift my feet. My yearly time is running away without me. I can’t keep up.
“If you break down, I’ll
drive out and find you…” So, whenever I’m trying to get my gears going
again I sometimes read other writer’s books on writing and this time I chose “Zen
in the Art of Writing” by Ray Bradbury. I
can’t believe I’ve only just found this book of essays. RB’s total being is
consumed with writing, and the joy he finds in it almost makes me feel ashamed.
Well not almost. It does. I cried.
“I don’t know nothing
but that change will come…” Ashamed of my seeming cowardice, lack of
enthusiasm and general grumpy complaining, got me to thinking after reading and
absorbing his total commitment to his craft and his joy in that commitment,
that it is far and away time for me to find my joy in writing again. Because I’ve
lost it.
“You're
out there walking down a highway, and all of the signs got blown away. Sometimes
you wonder if you're walking in the wrong direction.”I’m walking in the wrong
direction. I must find my joy again. I’m going to test RB’s advice to look
inside, listen to my subconscious and remember memories. Associate words with
my imagination and give in to whatever I find there. It’s time to move and dream and find joy. It’s
time to reassess, even… “When It Don’t Come Easy.”
Today is my husband and my thirty-first anniversary! We are
going to St. Augustine, Florida for a few days to celebrate. We LOVE it there!
Pondering the subject of this month’s post to the IWSG my
fingers gently rub the new scar I now sport upon the side of my abdomen and
realize I’m a lucky woman.Appendicitis
is nothing to sneeze at, literally (it hurts like you know what!), and I feel
blessed to have come out of it with only healing to do and a scar. When I woke
up after the surgery I thought instantly of the Madeline books I used to read
as a kid. The very first one is about little Madeline having to go to the hospital
to get her appendix out, and how the other girls from her school, when they come
to visit her, are so envious! Ha. I wouldn’t be, having now gone through it.
So I could whine about how much writing I’m NOT getting done
right now. But I won’t. I will, instead, be grateful for the new challenges I
face, because I will heal and be able to work out and have energy again soon. Though
I still tire easily, today marks the fifth week since my surgery, which leaves
one week left before I can begin in earnest to get back on top of things and WRITE.
I am, truly glad to have time to catch up on life in a slow
way, cooking, gardening, talking with family, snuggling our pup and, of course, adoring
my husband who has taken great care of me.So this month my advice is, smile. Challenges in life are here to stay.
Trust in a smile to help you march on.
