Plain Vs Plane: Fun with Words

I have to start this post with the same disclaimer I’ve used before: I am not a grammarian. I make mistakes in my writing. I am always learning, growing and (hopefully) honing my craft.

That being said, I do take the time to look up a word if I’m not sure how to use it. When reading a popular fiction blog yesterday, I came across this sentence: 

(MC) felt as if she had been transported to the highest level of the physical plain. Eyes closed, she took a deep breath and considered the possibility that she may have crossed over into the spiritual plain. Intuitively, she knew she must understand how vibration is defined differently on the spiritual plain…

I said to myself – Oh no, not again. 

Homonyms are problematic for many writers. I wrote about some of the usual suspects in these posts: 

Common Words Writers and Bloggers Misuse 

Did that Pique, Peek or Peak Your Interest? 

Regarding plain or plane, here’s a refresher:

Plain: 

Simple, normal, basic 

I’m looking for a plain white t-shirt

Obvious, clear

It was in plain view

Flat, level

He lives near the salt plains of Utah

Plane:

An airplane

A flat or level surface

A carpenter’s tool

Level of existence, consciousness (see above)

It’s confusing because the words plain and plane sound alike. In fact, they both come from the Latin word planus which means flat or clear.

I always have to pause and think when I'm using affect or effect. What about you, are there certain words that trip you up? ____________________________________________________

This post is in participation with the Group Blogging Experience, and this week’s prompt is Oh no, not again. If you want to blog with us, go to the GBE2 Facebook page and request to join the group. Everyone is welcome.

Admission of Suckage

Yes, it's entirely true. I have neglected my blogs in the biggest way possible. In fact, shamefully, I didn't even know the password to get in here. I had to look it up.

I suck.

Let me tell you how bad I suck. There has only been one post between the one I'm writing now and this one, where I vow that I'll start blogging again. See, I win the suckage award.

I forgive myself for sucking.

That's always true. Life happens, things happen, and sometimes something has to give. Usually the thing that has to give is the thing that 1) doesn't need me for health reasons 2) doesn't need me for emotional reasons and 3) doesn't pay me. So as much as I love this blog (is that weird?), sometimes it gets pushed to the side. Not my writing, that never gets pushed to the side. Just the blogging.

Now I'm busting out the password, brushing off the dust, and reintroducing myself to the blog.

If you're reading this, thanks for staying interested. I missed you.

Happy Blogging!

Freelance Work

A few years ago I retired from the corporate workplace. What's that you say? I look too young to be retired? Well, that's mighty kind of you, thanks.

Ahhh, flattery. It always makes my day. Where was I? Oh yeah, work. So I retired from a big job that required lots of hard work and responsibility and decided to be a freelancer - although I had no idea what that really meant. I set about researching freelance opportunities and started a fledgling writing career. I'd hack out corporate communications copy, sales brochures and annual reports all day long; mostly for companies I had relationships with from my previous jobs. Hey, it's a living. But I still didn't know how to develop a 'real' freelance writing career.

In the meantime, I started blogging. Now I'm old school (another age reference? really?!) and didn't know nuthin about no blogging. I jumped in anyway and wrote some pitiful posts. Wavering somewhere between online journaling and mindless drivel, I chugged along. I needed a place to be creative so I kept at it.

Feeling a little more confident and realizing I needed a niche, I began a blog about my pets. People started to read it. I started to like it. I'm a crazy, diehard animal lover so it fit. Then an editor at a corporate dog food blog started reading, one thing led to another, and now I blog for them. Real work as a freelancer! A few more goodies have come my way and I am eternally grateful. I plan to work harder and keep growing.

I'll finish this post with yet another age reference. If you take anything away from this post, it should be this:

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This post is in participation with the Group Blogging Experience, and this week’s topic is work. If you want to blog with us, visit the GBE2 Facebook page and request to join the group. Everyone is welcome.
 

An Alternative Look at David Bowie's song, Changes

This post was going to be about David Bowie’s song, Changes. I love the song. It’s brilliant how the lyrics are just vague enough to be open to individual interpretation, of which there are many.

Some believe that the Changes lyrics focus on the obsessive nature of artistic reinvention, which Bowie mastered. More common interpretations include taking a hard look at the process of aging and how you’ll handle the changes that go along with it. Even deeper, the lyrics examine a young man's attempt to figure out how he'll react to moving from the ‘cool, hip’ side of the generation divide to the ‘old, outdated’ side.

My plan was to take an excerpt of the Bowie lyrics and wax academic about the primary text and sub texts, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah.  

BUT…

…this is so much more fun. As I was researching the lyrics I noticed some word discrepancies—especially after the Ch-ch-ch-changes hook. I always thought the lyrics were:

> Turn and face the strain
Ch-ch-changes

It turns out, I may not be correct. Here are some of the alternative suggestions:

> Turn and face the strange
As in - move out and face the unknown.

> Turn and face the change
Which is an obvious repeat of the hook

> Turn and chase the grain
Guessing that Bowie drinks whiskey with a beer chaser

> Turn and get my cane
The refrain Bowie will sing when he gets older

Other notable interpretations:

> Turn and take the train
> Turn and face the stain
> Churn your face in Spain
> Turn and face Loraine
> Time to eat chow mein

Okay, I’m easily amused but these are laugh out loud funny to me. Here, take a listen and tell me what you think the mystery lyrics in David Bowie’s song, Changes are.

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This post was written for The Writers' Post group on Facebook, and this week’s topic is changes.  If you want to connect with other bloggers and join the fun, go to The Writers' Post Facebook page and request to join the group. Everyone is welcome.

Winnie the Pooh on Loyalty

The word loyalty means different things to different people. That may sound harsh and you may disagree but that’s the way it has played out in my life. One could argue: then the person wasn’t really loyal. That’s true, and there’s the rub. There are times when you believe someone is loyal and you find out otherwise. There are other times when someone’s loyalty surprises you, in a good way. 

The word itself is not hard to define:  

Loyal is an adjective. Marriam Webster defines the word as an unswerving allegiance; faithful to a person to whom fidelity is due; faithful to a cause, ideal, custom, institution or product. Showing loyalty.

Loyalty is a noun, defined as the quality or state or an instance of being loyal.

There are many examples of true loyalty and mistaken loyalty in literature. One of my favorite examples of true loyalty in literature is the relationship between Winnie the Pooh and Piglet in A. A. Milne’s “Winnie the Pooh” books.    

Many authors have used Milne’s characters to illustrate a point (for example: “The Tao of Pooh,” “The Te of Piglet”). That’s because his genius is multilayered in its simplicity.

One of the messages that resonate with me is the way Milne’s characters—living in The Hundred Acre Wood—demonstrate the power and importance of loyal friends. Here are a few of my favorite “Winnie the Pooh” quotes that get right to the heart of what loyal friendship is all about:

~If ever there is a tomorrow when we're not together, there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we're apart, I'll always be with you.

~Promise you won't forget me, because if I thought you would, I'd never leave. 

~If there ever comes a day when we can't be together, keep me in your heart, I'll stay there forever.

~If you live to be one-hundred, I hope I live to be one-hundred minus one day, so I never have to live a day without you. 

~We'll be friends forever, won't we, Pooh? asked Piglet. Even longer, Pooh answered.

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This post is in participation with the Group Blogging Experience, and this week’s prompt is loyalty.  If you want to blog with us, go to the GBE2 Facebook page and request to join the group. Everyone is welcome.

Classic Pooh image courtesy of justpooh.com. The pictures are free to use for educational purposes and personal use.

Testing the 'After the Jump' Function on Blogger

This is a test post. I've noticed that some of my blogger friends write their entire post on one 'page' while others write an intro and add a 'read more' link. Considering which way I should organize my blogs, I posed the question to the blogging community. 

OO Words for Scrabble and Words With Friends Players

Pondering a post with oomph while sipping a mug of oolong tea…

Hmmm, what should I blog about today? Seems I'm oozing oodles of oo-words so I'll go with that. I'll write about one of my favorite games: Scrabble.

As kids, we played a lot of board games. I'm dating myself (not literally) but there were no video games at that time. Scrabble was our go-to game, that and Battleship. My parents instilled a love of words in us at an early age--my mom still rocks the NY Times crossword puzzle in pen!

Some common words that start with oo include: oodles, oomph, ooze, oops, ooh but none of those give high Scrabble scores. As I compile this list, I'm smiling at the fact that oozily is a real word. I'm glad that wazoo and ballyhoo are real words. Also interesting: jackaroo and buckaroo can be spelled with an a or an e. Who knew? See how fun words can be. I digress...

So for those of you who play old-fashioned Scrabble, 3D Scrabble or Scrabble online, here is a list of high scoring words that begin or end in 2 O’s.

Word                        Letters                 Points

oophorectomy                   12                          24

oophorectomies                 14                          23

oozinesses                          10                          19

oophytic                             8                            18

oozily                                 6                            18

oompahing                         9                            17

ooziness                             8                            17

oomiacks                            8                            16

oompahed                          8                            16

oophytes                             8                            16

ooziest                                7                            16

oozing                                6                            16

oozy                                   4                            16

jackaroo                             8                            21

jackeroo                             8                            21

didjeridoo                          10                          20

switcheroo                         10                          18

cockapoo                           8                            18

kazoo                                 5                            18

wazoo                                5                            17

ballyhoo                             8                            16

bazoo                                 5                            16

buckaroo                            8                            16

buckeroo                            8                            16

cockatoo                            8                            16

kerchoo                              7                            16

peekaboo                           8                            16

peekapoo                           8                            16

word source: scrabblelookup.com

For competitive word lovers and competitive Scrabble players, check out Top Ten Words that Start with X and V Words for Scrabble Players.

Play on!

Opportunities to Make Money

Opportunities multiply as they are seized. ~Sun Tzu

And by opportunities--for the purpose of this post--I mean money. Sure, it doesn’t grow on trees like the photo suggests (wouldn’t that be convenient!?) but I sincerely believe that opportunities to make money multiply as they are seized. My experience as a freelance writer proves this point.

When I was just starting out, a potential client approached me about a project that involved writing copy for trade publications. Yeah, okay, I can do that. What's the project? 

Extracting contaminated PCBs from transformers. 

Whaaaat? I was clueless... but broke. What to do, what to do?

I was honest. I told him I didn't consider myself a technical writer of that kind but that I was a quick learner. I let him know that I was willing to give it a shot if he could make the resources (engineers) available for me to ask loads of stupid uninformed questions. We further agreed that if I didn't 'get it' in a reasonable time frame we would part ways respectfully. No harm, no foul.       

Many seasoned freelance writers will tell you to find your passions and build a niche for yourself. I agree with that advice 100%. But I am also passionate about food and shelter. I certainly didn't want (or expect) to build a niche as a Polychlorinated biphenyls writer but it paid the bills. And it lead to more writing opportunities.

You know what? It was interesting. Not interesting as in 'how does Raquel Welch still look so good at her age' interesting, but interesting. I dug in, focused, and learned a lot. I wrote about PCBs for quite a while (and if you know about PCBs, this post is really showing my age!).

So that's my advice, for what it's worth. Grow your own money tree. Go boldly forward. Seize those opportunities and they will multiply. 

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This post is in participation with the Group Blogging Experience, and this week’s topic is a picture prompt. If you want to blog with us, go to the GBE2 Facebook page and request to join the group. Everyone is welcome.

First Love: an Acrostic Poem

Fair and young, so

Innocent.

Ready to jump in,

Seriously. All the way in.  

This must be the one. Your forever.

Light-headed and giddy, life’s a blissful blur.

Open your eyes. Please. Be

Very careful.

Evolve slowly, precious girl. 

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This post is in participation with the Group Blogging Experience, and this week’s topic is first love. I chose to write an acrostic poem instead of my typical blog post. If you want to blog with us, go to the GBE2 Facebook page and request to join the group. Everyone is welcome.

Links to more acrostic poems:

Exploring Superstitions, in an Acrostic Poem 

An Ode to Spring in an Acrostic Poem 

A New Year's Resolution in an Acrostic Poem 

  

The Real Meaning of Success

Success

The Encarta Dictionary defines success as:

1.      achievement of intention

the achievement of something planned or attempted

2.      attainment of fame, wealth or power

impressive achievement, especially the attainment of fame, wealth or power

I lived the first half of my life chasing #2, and–at the expense of everything else in my life–I got there. I was successful; successful by corporate standards.   

The real part of the above sentence is found between the em dashes, however. There's the heart of the story. I’ve grown to understand that there is no such thing as success at the expense of everything else in life.

Because when I was successful, I was a mess. I traded my life for the pursuit of success and all its trappings. And success didn’t feel very successful.

So I gave it up. I radically changed everything. Now I am truly successful, as defined by the achievement of intention; #1 above.

I intended to change and I did.

• I intended to become a writer and I am.
• I intended to spend more time with my parents as they transition into older age and I do.
• I intended to find someone to walk the path of life with and I have.
• I intended to be a better woman, daughter, wife, aunt, sister, niece, mentor and friend–and I am.

See, now I am successful and happy. Ever learning and ever growing. Living with intention. For me, that's the real meaning of success.

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This post is in participation with the Group Blogging Experience, and this week’s topic is success. If you want to blog with us, go to the GBE2 Facebook page and request to join the group. Everyone is welcome.

WordPress vs. Blogger: the Conclusion

I started a WordPress blog and a Blogger blog at approximately the same time. (Here is the link to my first post about this experiment, if you care to follow the plot). Along with plenty of other errors and bad judgment calls, I named both blogs the same thing. *facepalm*

Then I joined a daily blogging challenge, which seriously tested my blogging skills but also forced me to go deeper on both platforms. Yes, not one to dip my toe in the water, I plunged right in. I over-enthusiastically signed up both (same named) blogs for the A to Z Blogging Challenge. As I hacked and miss-stepped and clumsily pushed forward, I learned a lot.

Before I give my final conclusion, I’d like to make a few things clear: I am technologically challenged, I gravitate towards the intuitive and easy, I want my blog to be easy (to read and to navigate), I don’t like to read instructions, I want my blog to look good, I want to know what people find interesting,

As I said before and still believe, there are pros and cons to each. If I was king of the world, I’d combine the best of both and have a goldmine perfect blogging platform. Still, after 30+ posts on both WordPress and Blogger, I favor Blogger overall.

What about you?

New Pets Blog

Glutton for punishment or blogging addict? You decide *but don't tell me what you think*! Ha. Anyway, yes, I started a new blog. I have loads to learn about blogging. And since I'm a 'learn by doing' kind of gal, I'm doing.

I write about pets for the Yahoo! Contributor Network, Demand Studios and Examiner. Animals are one of my favorite subjects to write about. Though the blogosphere is over-saturated with pets blogs, I'm jumping in anyway. We totally have the cutest pets in the universe, so yes, they are worthy of a blog all by themselves.

Besides, I just can't help myself (see above).







Oh, the link? Here you go: Hearts in Fur Coats
I'd love to know what you think.

The Yahoo! Contributor Network Article Writing Challenge

Crazy, right?! Yep, I signed up for another challenge. This is an article writing challenge on the Yahoo! Contributor Network, as opposed to the A-Z Blogging Challenge we just finished up. 

It's simple - write one article on YCN per week starting with the letter A. You can either publish the articles display only to ensure they publish in the proper week or submit them for upfront payment, which means they'll be reviewed and published when an editor gets to it.    

Even though I'm commitment phobic and avoid rules whenever possible, this article writing challenge appeals to me because it's a once-a-week deal (see how I used the word deal instead of commitment) and the rules are loose. Really, there are no rules, more like guidelines.

So I'm in, kind of. My A article is languishing in the queue. I'm waiting to see if it flies before I write B because I'm going to write on a theme. It's taking longer than usual to process, maybe because I rarely write on this subject so the editor doesn't know me. We'll see how it goes. In the meantime, I'm a week behind on the challenge and we just started one week ago. 

What? Did you say you want to know what my never-before-written-about theme is? I'll let you know after editorial review.

Blog Design Update

Hi friends. I have not posted lately because, well, the A-Z Blogging Challenge took it out of me. You may remember that I was new to blogging when the challenge began and I jumped in with both feet. All I had time to do - regarding writing - was push out some client articles and blog. No time whatsoever for blog design.

There's so much to learn about blog design, and so many fun things to do. I've changed templates here and added a signature (see below). Not sure if I'm completely happy with it, yet. Apparently this blog will be yet another WIP. That's okay, it's fun to learn new stuff.

Tell me what you think of the new blog template and the signature. What else should I do? Seriously. I'm a baby here and could use the feedback.

That's it for now, I'm off to learn how to change up the post dividers...

A-Z Blogging Challenge: Top 10 List

The A-Z Blogging Challenge. Over 1,200 bloggers. One post per day per letter of the alphabet. Whew. I had no idea what I was getting into. And now, it's over. I did it! Every.Single.Day. (except Sundays).

As a new blogger, I really didn't know what I was getting into, but this was baptism by fire. The challenge was probably the best way to learn how to blog and get into a routine. Special thanks to Lee and the other hosts at Tossing it Out There. The challenge helped me in so many ways.

Today is the first day of the end of the challenge. I feel a bit out of sync, like I have to blog today. So I'll write my recap..

Here are the Top 10 things the A-Z Blogging Challenge taught me:

1. Bloggers are good people
2. I write better with prompts
3. Goals are necessary for me to be productive
4. Peer support is more important than I anticipated
5. I have tons to learn about the technical aspects of blogging
6. Challenges are motivational
7. Blogging is more intimate than article writing/sharing
8. The blogging community is sincerely supportive
9. Colorful, shiny badges look cool on a blog
10. Camaraderie fuels my enthusiasm

Thanks to all of you who supported this journey and cheered me on. I look forward to more interaction with you. It was a pleasure and a delight.

Now to Catch Some ZZZZZZZs

It's with mixed emotions that I make this announcement. It's over. This is my final post for the A-Z Blogging Challenge. Since it's Z-day and since I'm creatively spent, I'm going to write about catching some ZZZZZZZZs after this challenge is over. Okay, I totally lifted the idea from the comment section (thanks Word Nerd) but still, it will be nice to sleep more.

Going into the challenge I had no plan, no map, no clue. I blogged by the seat of my newbie pants the entire month. Some nights, as I was trying to sleep, I would start churning through possibilities for the next day's post. I would write the post in my mind and think I could remember it until morning.  Then I might think of other options for that letter and mind-write another post. This could go on for hours. Mentally writing instead of sleeping.

Yes, I know that writers often sleep with a pen and pad on their bedside table for this very reason. I do too. But I don't like to turn on the light once it's off. The light makes me 'more awake' and then I'm liable to fire up the computer and settle in for a night-long date with the written word. Actually writing instead of sleeping.

Sure, I'll still mentally write and actually write when I should be sleeping, sometimes. I always have. But maybe I'll do the mental-writing thing less. Perhaps the alphabetic prompts over-stimulated me creatively. I couldn't turn it off. So now I need some good, old-fashioned ZZZZZZZZs.

See you after I catch some sleep.

Yay! We're Almost Through

Yes. For Y-day I'm skimming by. Cutting corners. Taking the cheap route. Slowing down this train. My Y-word is yay as in Yay! We're almost through.  

The A-Z Blogging Challenge has been a learning experience. Dipping my toes in the blogosphere only days before the challenge kicked off, I had no idea what I was getting into. I started this blog and one on WordPress at the same time - as an experiment, to learn about both platforms. I fully expected to spend more time learning how to work within the templates than on the actual blogging. I planned to quietly blog under the radar until I found my footing. Then, and only then, did I plan to get serious about what I would write. I didn't think up cool names for my blogs, whether I should niche or go general, or any of the other smart stuff I would normally do. Nope, these blogs were only for me.

Then a friend learned about the A-Z Challenge and started (virtually) talking it up. With naive enthusiasm, I signed up BOTH BLOGS. Whatever was I thinking?! I didn't even know how to blog and I signed up to post on 2 blogs every day of the week (except Sunday) for a month? Oh, the folly of inexperience.

It's been good. Through this challenge I've learned:

• how to schedule a post on Blogger and WordPress
• how friendly and supporting this blogging community is
• how to remove a captcha code requirement 
• how creative and smart you people are
• how to add buttons, gadgets and other cool stuff to blogs
• that you can't monitize basic WordPress
• how to use google analytics
• that you can't use google analytics on WordPress
• that it's hard to write 2 posts per day and keep up with other writing requirements and a family and other regular stuff...
• that I've got a lot more to learn but I've gotten a good start
• that I've met super people and discovered excellent blogs to follow
• oh yeah, and that I love blogging

... and that I'm glad the A-Z Challenge is almost over. Today is Y-day and I say Yay! We're almost through. Tomorrow is Z-day and we will be through.

It's been a real pleasure blogging with you and I hope we stay in touch.

On a less sappy note, I'm happily accepting Z ideas in the comments section! :)