Surviving the Storm: a Poem

The morning broke

I was alone

No friends around

My heart a stone

A storm approached

There was no breeze

The day was still

There were no trees

Dark clouds rolled in

A mist did fall

I closed the doors

No one to call

My little house

All safe and dry

Is strong like me

We do not cry

We’ve weathered storms

This house and I

We’ve seen worse gales

Pass us right by

We will survive

We always do

This house and I

We will get through

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This post is in participation with the Group Blogging Experience, and this week we used 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.

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.

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.
 

Am I Really a Writer?

Can you call yourself a writer if you’re not writing? I know writers who claim they must write every day, it’s like oxygen to them. I am not that person. I can go for long periods of time without writing anything. Even if I need to write for financial reasons - if it’s not happening it’s just not happening.

I am in this very slump right now. I’m distracted. Other things seem more pressing. I don’t feel like writing. I wouldn’t call it writers block because I have plenty of ideas.


If I could make myself sit down and put my fingers on the keyboard I’m sure the words would come.

Words don’t fail me. If anything, I fail them.

I wrote a silly poem about writer’s block last year, primarily to get over the hump. Here it is: Overcoming Writer's Block - a Poem. But even then, I questioned the difference between writer’s block and lack of motivation. Are they the same thing? Are they different?

To me, they are different.

I’m supposed to be writing about balance and I am. Are you following? If you’re reading between the lines you’ll gather that I have none. You are correct. I’m either in a writing frenzy or a writing drought. (Maybe writing slack-off would be a more precise description but I’m scared of the word slack-off).

My hope is that this forced post makes me climb back in the saddle. My pocketbook hopes so too.

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

Lisey's Story by Stephen King: a Book Review

Or, What's Keeping Me Up Past Midnight?

It’s been ages since I’ve come across a book that’s so good it’s kept me up past midnight. Past many midnights! Just to keep reading. I’m half way through Stephen King’s Lisey’s Story and I’ve been losing sleep since I picked it up.

Quick summary

The book is about the marriage between award-winning novelist Scott Landon and his wife Lisey. The story takes place after Scott’s death so it’s Lisey’s mind we get to explore. We learn about her troubled husband and their powerful relationship through Lisey’s memories and flashbacks.    

My impression so far

I can never say enough about Stephen King’s storytelling. His style is at once casual and compelling. He trusts his readers to stay with the book as he unveils the story in baby bites, at his own pace (which I believe is part of his mastery).

As an example, I didn’t start out liking Lisey—and Lisey’s Story is obviously about her. I wasn’t clear why someone as talented and complicated as Scott Landon would be drawn to her. If the story is about their profound marriage then I needed to know what the connection was. King kept me hanging on, slowly revealing nuggets, until I grew to understand.

The cool thing is, I don’t know if I understand what Stephen King wants me to or if I’ve layered my own life experiences over his story to reach my point of view. And it doesn’t matter, does it? King trusts me (his reader) to ‘get it,’ whatever that may be. And that, my friends, is what I call good writing.     

As I read Lisey’s Story, I can’t help but wonder how much of this book is autobiographical. Knowing what I do of King’s life (run—don’t walk—to buy Stephen King on Writing) makes reading Lisey’s Story more even more interesting.

At one point Scott says something to Lisey about feeling like nothing more than a jukebox, that people drop money in him and out pops a story. Wonder if Stephen King ever feels that way.  

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This post was written for The Writers' Post group on Facebook, and this week’s topic is midnight.  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.

Smile, Modine: Flash Fiction

Modine hobbled up 4 steep steps to get on the bus. She could feel the impatience of other the passengers. Their shifting and grumbling confirmed it, she was taking too long. She tried to hustle but her blasted right knee was not cooperating. It locked up at the bus stop and hurt like hell. After much effort she reached the platform and counted out her change. Dropping the coins into the slot, she grabbed an overhead rail as the bus whined and wheezed its way onto the busy road. It sounded as feeble as Modine felt.     

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This post was written for The Writers' Post group on Facebook, and this week’s prompt is to write a flash fiction story with exactly 100 words, including the title.  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.

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 

  

Control Over Your Writing Environment

One of the things I love about being a freelance writer is that the word free is in my occupational description. After a long career in ‘Corporate America,’ I am now free. Free to choose my own clients, projects and topics. Free to write what I want. Free to write when I want.  Free to write where I want.

Kinda.

I discovered something about myself this week. I’m not as free to write where I want as I thought I was. I need some measure of control over my writing environment.

This week I am out of my routine and out of my environment. I am with my parents, offering support as my dad undergoes a procedure. I have the technology to complete my writing assignments and stay on schedule, what I lack is the focus. Not because of my dad’s procedure or my mom’s worry but because of… noise, distractions.

To write about serious topics, I need silence. I’m not the ‘go to a coffee house and bang out a few articles’ kind of writer. I like to write in silence.

Sure, I’ve spent time in airports and coffee shops penning silly poems and jingles--but not the serious stuff. Not the real writing.

I was all geared up to sit in the hospital and catch up on my writing assignments, blog posts and maybe indulge in some fiction writing. Nope. Instead I surfed the internet, read trashy magazines and talked it up with the nurses and docs. No writing.

It’s late at night. We are back at my parent’s house and everybody is in bed. Dad is fine. It’s quiet. Now I can write.

What about you? Are you a crank-up-the-music and go kind of writer? Can you write in a bustling crowd or with kids running around the house? Can you write and watch TV at the same time?

Or do you need control over your writing environment?    
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This post is in participation with the Group Blogging Experience, and this week’s topic is control. If you want to blog with us, go to the GBE2 Facebook page and request to join the group. Everyone is welcome.

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.