Small acts of kindness, huge benefit
The other day I showed up ten minutes before my local pharmacy opened, wanting to be sure to get immediate assistance when I brought in a prescription to be filled.
Three extraordinary – yet small – things happened at that early hour when I was feeling less than able to even stand while I waited for the pharmacy gate to open.
- A store clerk that was doing some pricing procedures in the main part of the store in front of the pharmacy greeted me, asked how I was doing, and when I responded, “Not so great, actually” offered to help me to the pharmacy bench.
- Then the pharmacist opened the pharmacy early, 8:55 am, and told me my prescription would be ready in 10 minutes. I then left the pharmacy to go to the women’s room and as I was walking back, the third kindness occurred.
- The store clerk who had greeted me upon my arrival in the pharmacy area took the time to find me at a different area of the store to let me know my prescription was ready.
Big deal, such small courtesies are hardly worth writing a blog piece about, right?
Wrong, they lightened my burden and jump-started my day.
Don’t ever feel your efforts won’t make a difference.
They do, and they have.
Positive input from an agent: a welcome gift
As I’ve mentioned before, positive input about ones writing from someone other than your loved ones or friends is a veritable gift, presented on a silver platter.
Literary agent, Janet Reid, has once again singled out my entry as one that pleased her. She holds almost weekly 100-word writing contests on her blog which I enter in the hopes of being named a winner. That hasn’t happened yet but I’m almost as pleased with being told that my contest submission stood out.
The first time this happened, I posted my entry and her comments, here. What follows is my most recent complimented entry. I’ve underlined the required 10 words that must be included in each submission, and I’ve put in bold the sentence she liked most, which happens to be the last sentence. Her comment about my entry: “This entry cracked me up completely, especially this punch line.”
Here’s my submission:
The high school teacher sat with his student to go over her research paper.
“It’s Switzerland, not Switserland.”
“Before you criticize me, you know that’s the way it sounds.”
“Tell that to the originators of the exceptional country that’s served as a safe, neutral world-entity for many years.”
“How many years?”
“Look, I’m the teacher, not you. It’s your paper we’re correcting, not mine.”
“Sorry.”
Mr. Carmichael turned the page and shook his head.
“It’s Oxfam, not Oxfan.”
“Says who?”
“Says everyone. Why the errors, Jennifer?”
“That’s how it arrived.”
“Excuse me?”
“I bought it, not my fault.”
I’ll keep on submitting to Janet Reid in the hopes she’ll fall in love with my entry and say something affirmative about it once again. It doesn’t take much to make me happy.
Lighten up Mondays
When Will Rogers was being taken to the White House to meet President Calvin Coolidge, Vice President Dawes cautioned him not to try to be funny because the President had no sense of humor whatsoever.
Undaunted, Rogers bet the Vice-President that he could have Coolidge laughing within 20 seconds.
When the formal introduction was made, Dawes began by saying, “Mr. President, may I introduce my friend, Mr. Will Rogers.”
Rogers held out his hand and with a questioning look said, “Pardon me, I didn’t quite get the name.”
Coolidge roared with laughter; Rogers won the wager.
Lighten up Mondays
Two Generals of the Napoleonic era were watching a battle from a nearby bluff. Suddenly a stray bullet struck one of them in the shoulder. Without a moment’s pause, the General turned to his aide and said, “Fetch me my red jacket.”
As the aide rushed to comply, the wounded General turned to the other General and explained that he didn’t want the men to be demoralized by knowing he was wounded, thus the reason for the red jacket.
The other General was clearly impressed. At that very moment, a cannonball shrieked between the two men, the wind from its passing, rocking them both back on their heels.
After a moment, the second General turned to his aide and commanded, “Fetch me my brown trousers, will you?”
In between novels: magazine publication
I’ve just recently distributed my second novel to my Beta readers after three extensive edits on my part. I’ve been keeping busy while waiting for their input. A writer needs to write – or at the very least, a writer needs to do writer stuff.
This week I submitted two different short stories to publications.
I submitted my short story BAD TEACHERS to Agni Magazine, published at Boston University. Agni Magazine sees literature and the arts as part of a broad, ongoing cultural conversation that every society needs to remain vibrant and alive. Their writers and artists hold a mirror up to nature, mankind, the world; they courageously reflect their age, for better or worse; and their work provokes perceptions and thoughts that help us understand and respond to our age. Bad Teachers reflects modern man’s tendency to interpret the Hammurabi Code (an eye for an eye) to what suits their intended actions best, regardless of how incorrect the interpretation.
I also mailed (no online submissions accepted) my short story AN UNJUST PENANCE to The Sun in Chapel Hill, NC. The Sun is an independent, ad-free magazine that for more than forty years has used words and photographs to evoke the splendor and heartache of being human. Knowing that to be the publication’s focus, AN UNJUST PENANCE is just the piece they might be looking for. When young Hugh Nabours discovers his gamma on the floor of the family’s kitchen, he assumes responsibility for the stroke that forever changed his grandmother’s life. Hugh’s struggle to let go of his mantle of guilt is a poignant one.
The split personalities of a caregiver
Source: ON LABELS, ROLES AND MARRIAGE WITH ALZHEIMER’S This linked article does a fabulous job of putting a spotlight on the roles we take on when we become caregivers. Does our original role as: wife, husband, son, daughter, brother, sister, disappear when that role-shift takes place?
I’ve known numerous caregivers in my life. I was one.
Before I became a caregiver, I was a daughter. Was I still a daughter once my role as a caregiver became a 24/7 occupation?
It didn’t feel like it when:
- I had to cut up my father’s food for him
- I had to pack adult protective underwear when I took him on a walk in the park … just in case
- I had to correct him for behavior unbecoming of an adult
- I took him to a doctor appointment and spoke to the doctor on my father’s behalf
- I tucked him in for a nap so I could get things accomplished without him being tethered to me wherever I went …
Was I his parent? Was I his caregiver?
No. I was his daughter. I took on a variety of roles during the years of my father’s decline with Alzheimer’s, but I was always his daughter. As a matter of fact, never had I felt more like a daughter than during the five years of his illness.
During one of my walks in the park with dad, on his last Father’s Day as it turned out to be, two young men rode their bikes toward us and as they got right up to us, one of the men said, “Happy Father’s Day, Sir.”
That young man saw a daughter and a father, not a caregiver and an old man.
Dad took his parenting role very seriously. By the time I was on my own, he had been actively mentoring and caring for me for twenty-one years.
What’s five years in the grand scheme of things?
A privilege.
See also:
- Baby Boomer + Aging Parent = a changing paradigm
- Adult children who parent their parents
- Ambiguous loss – the experience of caregiver spouses
- When illness makes a spouse a stranger
Lighten up Mondays
Over breakfast one morning, a woman said to her husband, “I bet you don’t know what day this is.”
“Of course I do,” he answered indignantly, as he slammed the door and drove to the office.
At 11 o’clock, the doorbell rang. The wife answered, and there at her front door was a floral delivery employee; in his hand was a box containing twelve red roses.
At 2 o’clock, there was another knock at the door, this time a UPS driver delivered a deluxe box of Belgian chocolates.
Eventually, the husband returned home, tired after a hard day’s work. His wife greeted him with a great big hug and kiss and said,
“First the flowers, then the chocolates, I’ve never had a more wonderful Groundhog Day in my life!”
Necessity is the mother of invention
Source: Sprinkled With Love
Norcalmom writes a blog that tells it like it is when operating as the primary caregiver for a loved one. She has a full household, with children of varying ages, a mother-in-law with Alzheimer’s, a husband whose work schedule pulls him out of the home during many of the caregiving opportunities, and yet this daughter-in-law manages her household in ingenious ways.
Whether it’s purchasing and installing locks so her MIL doesn’t escape from the house at inopportune times (which, frankly, means any attempted escape from the house) or finding activities to occupy her MIL so Norcalmom can get things done, e.g., making dinner for the family, she puts on her thinking cap, listens – truly listens – to what may interest the oldest member of her household, and does what is needed to get the job done.
Her MIL is very much intrigued with sparkly things, specifically, glitter. In her eyes, if she spots specks of gold-colored glitter, it is not glitter she is feasting her eyes on it is the real deal: GOLD!
Please, click on the link provided at the beginning of this mini-post of mine, and feast your eyes on the treasure within.
Mary Riesche: art classes available
My sister, of Mary Riesche Studios, will be teaching extremely affordable art classes in Vacaville, California (northern California) every Saturday in February. The focus is on mixed media: watercolor, acrylic, paper, pencil. Classes take place at the Vacaville Art Gallery from Noon to 2 pm; total cost for all four classes, a mere $25. You must register for these classes by calling or e-mailing the gallery. (Contact information available through the above link.)
These classes are geared toward all levels of expertise – beginner to professional.
Students must bring their own supplies, but said supplies will cost less than $40. Please go to Mary’s website and click on the About the Artist link for a full list of supplies. When you go to the artist’s website, you’ll also see her inventory of paintings, currently for sale. Paintings such as
this one:
and this one: 
Lighten up Mondays
Airborne approximately thirty minutes on an outbound evening Aer Lingus flight from Dublin, the lead flight attendant for the cabin crew in her lovely Irish brogue nervously made the following painful announcement..:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m so very sorry but it appears that there has been a terrible mix-up — one minute prior to take-off by our airport catering service…I don’t know how this has happened but we have 103 passengers on board and, unfortunately, only 40 dinner meals…I truly apologize for this mistake and inconvenience.”
When passengers’ muttering had died down, she continued.. , “Anyone who is kind enough to give up their meal so that someone else can eat will receive free, unlimited drinks for the duration of our 5 hour flight.”
Her next announcement came four hours later…
“If anyone would like to change their minds, we still have 40 dinners available.”
GOD BLESS THE IRISH!
Irene Frances Olson: falling in love with my second novel
As of yesterday, I’ve read through and edited my second novel twice. I completed this novel the end of November (writing it in one month during NaNoWriMo). The length at that time was 60,203 words.
Bridged by Betrayal is a healthy 75,366 words.
Next steps:
- print paper copy, do another edit, this time with colored pens & highlighters;
- transfer pen edits to the computer copy;
- print several paper copies so my Beta readers can get their hands on my manuscript and apply their constructive magic to it;
- review said editorial contributions; accept and reject edits and “finalize” the “final” version;
- write full-length synopsis for those agents who request one;
- start querying agents.
I love, love, love my characters, and I hate the characters who rightly earned that hate. Read the rest of this entry »
Lighten up Mondays
I came across this bit of writing humor involving a college teacher and her student. As soon as I read it, however, I thought it could also apply to an agent or editor reading a writer’s unedited, clearly not ready for publication, manuscript.
Student: I don’t understand why my grade was so low. How did I do on my research paper?
Teacher: Actually, you didn’t turn in a research paper. You turned in a random assemblage of sentences. In fact, the sentences you apparently kidnapped in the dead of night and forced into this violent and arbitrary plan of yours clearly seemed to be placed on the pages against their will.
Reading your paper was like watching unfamiliar, uncomfortable people interacting at a cocktail party that no one wanted to attend in the first place. You didn’t submit a research paper, you submitted a hostage situation.
Owning our mistakes
I can honestly say, if I screw up, I admit it and try to do better. I’m not perfect. I’ll never be perfect. I apologize when my imperfections impact others.
If only everyone would take responsibility for their mess-ups. It’s okay not to be perfect, join the club, there’s a large membership and I’m the president!
Walking down a hill during my solo afternoon walk today, a man was walking up that same hill approximately a half block away. His small white dog – not on a leash – ran past its owner and toward me. I turned right onto a different street, the dog followed me and barked at me. I said “no” a few times and he eventually backed off. (No involvement by the dog owner whatsoever.)
One and a half miles later, that same dog owner, with that same unleashed dog, ended up on the same street as I, a half block away, on the opposite side of the street.
Lighten up Mondays
For me, 2016 signals the start of massive editing of my second novel’s manuscript. Here are some jokes on the writing craft that might amuse you as they did me.
If writers were good business people, they’d have too much sense to be writers. – Irvin S. Cobb
If Moses were alive today he’d come down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments and spend the next five years trying to get them published. – Anonymous
Learn to write. Never mind the damn statistics. If you like statistics, become a CPA. – Jim Murray
Writing is so difficult, I often feel that writers, having had their hell on earth, will escape all punishment thereafter. – Jessamyn West
I was sorry to hear my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I am not feeling very well myself – Mark Twain
The world is a hellish place and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering. – Tom Waits
The only time I’ll get good reviews is if I kill myself. – Edward Albee
And last but certainly not least:
Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs. – Christopher Hampton
Manuscript editing: getting the 2nd novel ready for publication
It’s the first full week of 2016 and I am extraordinarily excited …
because it’s time to hunker down and get my second novel ready for publication!
I’ve gathered my materials and laid them out on our large formal dining table: chapter timeline, character profiles, 2014 – 2016 calendars (the years in which the action of my novel takes place), varied colors of pens and highlighters, the “completed” manuscript brought in from the iCloud and onto my iPad, and I’m raring to go.
This is gonna be hard work people, make no mistake about it, but the excitement I’m experiencing is palpable and even manages to keep me awake at night.
I believe in the story, I absolutely love my characters, and I sincerely detest those who are detestable, and I’m going to perfect this manuscript … at least as much as perfection is possible from me, an imperfect writer.
Hard work is the stepping stone that no one can avoid by simply leaping over or stepping around it. I’ve never been afraid of hard work, and I’m not going to start being so now.
Do you have a difficult task you are about to start that’s got you excited, or perhaps petrified? Is anything or anyone holding you back? Are you up to the challenge?
See also, First step for any endeavor, START!
Lighten up Mondays
Happy 2016 everyone! I’m starting off the first Monday of this new year by introducing the new logo for this weekly injection of humor.
Some of you live in the colder regions of the world, some of you don’t, but all of you will appreciate these quips that follow the line:
It was so cold that …
- Hitchhikers were holding up pictures of thumbs.
- Roosters were rushing into Kentucky Fried Chicken and begging to use the pressure cooker.
- Richard Simmons started wearing pants.
- UN weapons inspectors suddenly decided that chemical weapons might be hidden in Hawaii.
- Pickpockets were sticking their hands in strangers’ pockets just to keep them warm.
- Rats were bribing alley cats for a snuggle.
- Dogs were wearing cats.
- Squirrels in the park were throwing themselves at the electric fence.
- Words froze in the air: if you wanted to hear what someone said, you had to grab a handful of sentences and take them in by the fire.
- We pulled everything out of the freezer and huddled inside it to warm up.
- When we milked the cows, we got ice cream; when we milked the brown cows, we got chocolate ice cream.
Happy 2016 to one and all. And remember, stop taking yourself so seriously … no one else does.
How to make the best of a New Year, every day
My last post of 2015 talked about making resolutions you can actually fulfill.
This first post of 2016 proposes that every day be treated as one does a New Year.
I’ll borrow sentiments from Dr. Bernie S. Siegel again, providing you with wisdom that might help you get a good start on 2016, and every day you’ve been given. Direct quotes will appear indented in this post.
How can you have a new year? You are the same person, and the world doesn’t start again with a clean slate. Your troubles don’t disappear. People don’t forgive you for what you did the year before…
Your life is anything but new when you awaken on the first day of the year. It is simply a way of measuring the passage of time. Why make such a fuss over it?
We like new starts, don’t we? There’s something refreshing about having the opportunity to start all over again. Not unlike second chances, I treat the commencement of a new year as an opportunity to do better. Unless you’re perfect, you too like the idea of a fresh start.
The truth lies in our desire to be reborn, to start again, to make resolutions and changes we can live up to. Then why wait for a certain date to start a new year? Why can’t tomorrow be New Year’s Day?
Maybe it is!
Wow, instead of waiting 365 days to do better, I can do better in the next minute. I don’t even have to wait until tomorrow. Right now, I can do better. I can think of and speak more kindly towards others and myself. I can promote a healthier lifestyle and make plans to construct a better me and a better world. Why wait?
I see it every day in my role as a physician; people learn they have a limited time to live, and they start their New Year behavior. They move, change jobs, spend more time with those they love, stop worrying about what everyone else thinks of them, and start to celebrate their life.
Whoa, why wait until it’s too late? Quite literally, when you’ve been given a death sentence, it is too late. I’m not going to rely on receiving such a prognosis to get things right, I’m going to make every effort to do better for myself and others, right now.
I have the chance to live my best life now, and so do you.
When every evening is New Year’s Eve and every day you awaken to is New Year’s Day, you are living life as it was intended.
Wow, given the alternative, I’ll get right on it!
New Year, new goals?
Good Bye 2015
Resolutions, they can be worth celebrating, but more often than not, they shame us and fill us with guilt.
Dr. Bernie S. Siegel, 365 Prescriptions for the Soul, had the following to say about these annual promises to ourselves that we oftentimes make without thinking them through:
It is not a bad thing to make a New Year’s resolution, but you can also continuously set yourself up to fail. Be realistic and forgiving. The best resolution is to accept your limitations and start from there. Resolve not to give up on yourself, and be sure to love yourself, even when you don’t like your behavior.
It is far easier to live with the old regrets and problems than to change. So resolve to practice doing what you have resolved, rather than achieving sainthood tomorrow.
As you write down your resolutions, remember these things:
Be kind; do not set yourself up for failure by creating multiple resolutions that involve too much self-denial.
Keep your goals manageable and realistic. The best resolutions leave one day of the week to enjoy being human and not living by any rules or expectations you have created.
Soulution of the Day
Resolve slowly, so you don’t get dizzy and fall down on the job.
Lighten up Mondays
Last 2015 humor submission: quotes associated with New Years.
Many people look forward to the New Year for a new start on old habits. – Unknown
Cheers to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right. – Oprah Winfrey
Now is the time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. – Mark Twain
Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account. – Oscar Wilde
An optimist stays up until midnight to see the New Year in.
A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.Youth is when you’re allowed to stay up late on New Year’s Eve.
Old age is when you’re forced to. – Bill VaughnAnd finally:
A dog’s New Year’s resolution: I will not chase that stick unless I actually see it leave his hand. – Unknown
The Gift
The top item on my Christmas list this year was something 100% of you would never ask Santa for:
A new guest bathroom toilet
The current one doesn’t resemble the one pictured here, but it has been in the house since it was constructed some 25 years ago, so it’s not one of those sophisticated, high efficiency, low water type such as grace our master bathroom and powder room.
Did my husband, I mean, Santa, get my #1 gift choice?
Not on your life. Instead he gifted me with a portable electronic device from a company that rhymes with Dapple.
I guess I’ll just have to find a use for it to honor the generosity of the best husband a woman could ever hope for.
Lest you think I measure generosity with dollar signs, read further. Read the rest of this entry »
Lighten up Mondays
It was Christmas Eve. A poor old lady was sitting alone, except for her cat, in her tiny house in front of a small fire.
Suddenly there was a flash of light and the old woman’s good fairy appeared in the room. The old woman was astonished, but the fairy reassured her, “Don’t be afraid, I am your good fairy. You are very poor and all alone at Christmas so I have come to grant you three wishes to cheer you up.”
The old woman was about to speak but the fairy held up her hand. “Wait! she said, “Before you make a wish, think carefully! You will get exactly what you wish for and no wish can be undone.”
So the old woman sat silently, staring at the fire and thinking. Eventually, she spoke. “First,” she said, “I want to be very, very wealthy.”
Poof! Immediately the tiny house was packed with pots full of gold coins. There was more money than anyone could spend in an entire lifetime. Read the rest of this entry »
It is never wrong to do good
You’ll never be faulted for doing your best.
Regardless of the outcome, always fall back on doing something for the common good.
I’m currently reading The Road to Character, a book by columnist and political pundit, David Brooks. I recently watched an interview of his with Oprah Winfrey and was so impressed with the subject matter, I purchased the book he was promoting.
Mr. Brooks talks and writes about the difference between Adam I and Adam II, the latter being the person who has lived a eulogy life, not the resume life of Adam I. You’ll need to read the book to understand the full contextual meaning, but what follows is just one of many elements that resounded with me. I provide this excerpt verbatim:
When a person gives a poor man shoes, does he do it for the poor man or for God? He should do it for God …
The poor will often be ungrateful, and you will lose heart if you rely on immediate emotional rewards for your work. But if you do it for God, you will never grow discouraged.
A person with a deep vocation is not dependent on constant positive reinforcement. The job doesn’t have to pay off every month, or every year.
The person thus called is performing a task because it is intrinsically good, not for what it produces.
You see, we’re not responsible for the outcome. Most of the time, we’ll never witness how our good deeds helped another person. If our motivation was only to observe first-hand the benefits such deeds might produce, we’d stop doing good in short order. We must exercise faith and hope that our actions are not wasted.
Your ability to discern your vocation depends on the condition of your eyes and ears, whether they are sensitive enough to understand the assignment your context is giving you. As the Jewish Mishnah puts it, “It’s not your obligation to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from beginning it.”
All that we do with a clear conscience is good. We must not refrain from standing up and stepping forward. The good we do may be the beginning of a widespread process of well-being for others, or it may be the finishing touches on that which was started some time before you came into the picture.
It’s never too late to do good. Why resolutionize your intentions until next year? Start now.
See also: Your positive imprint on mankind, Do little rather than nothing, Valuable acts of kindness, Positive community activism
Gone but not forgotten
Having completed my second novel, currently titled BRIDGED BY BETRAYAL, I packed up all the research I used for my first novel, REQUIEM FOR THE STATUS QUO.
REQUIEM spotlights a family that struggles with the tangible and emotional elements inherent when battling a disease that is always fatal; a disease that gives you daily – if not hourly – reminders of its devastating effects.
I could not write about the fictional family’s journey without incorporating some of my own stories from my years as Dad’s caregiver. I also included other people’s stories as told to me through my work as an Alzheimer’s caregiver support group facilitator, and as a Washington State certified Long-Term Care Ombudsman. (Names and facts altered to protect those directly involved.)
The research materials I packed away this past weekend consisted primarily of the caregiving journals I kept while being my father’s primary long-distance caregiver while he endured Alzheimer’s disease.
That research also included reams of paper I organized into multi-tabbed folders containing the various doctor’s reports and findings from the seven years of dad’s disease journey.
I was not prepared for the emotion with which I was blanketed when I pulled out the large waterproof chest that had resided in my writing space the past three years. Placing my research in the chest, shutting it, and returning it to its original under-the-stairs location was extremely difficult for me.
In a certain sense, I felt I had betrayed Dad because I wasn’t just packing up some paper, I was putting away the physical evidence of his seven year battle of brain function loss. Read the rest of this entry »
Lighten up Mondays
The preacher had just begun his Christmas Eve service when the electricity in the church failed.
The ushers found some candles and placed them around the sanctuary.
The preacher then re-entered the pulpit, shuffled his notes, and muttered, “Now, where was I?”
A tired voice from the back called out, “I believe you were right near the end, Reverend!”
Lighten up Mondays
Just as the mother was putting out cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve, she accidentally dropped one.
“No problem,” she said, picking it up and dusting it off before placing it back on the plate.
“You can’t do that,” argued the four-year-old.
“Don’t worry, Santa will never know.”
Her son shot a look at his mom. “So he knows if I’ve been bad or good, but he doesn’t know the cookie fell on the floor?”
Introducing: Lainey Piland, environmental writer/advocate and photographer
In the past, I’ve written posts spotlighting an artist who uses paints, brushes and charcoal for her creations: Mary Riesche: artist and sister extraordinaire, and Art worth viewing: spotlight on Mary Riesche.
Today’s focus is on an artist who uses words, sentences, and photographs as the canvas for her creations.
Lainey Piland happens to be one of my stepdaughters, so with that matter disclosed, I can now continue to rave about her talents without any masked conflict of interest. When you check out her blog, A Day Without Rain, you’ll rave about her abilities as well.
I don’t think Lainey would mind my saying that as a youngster she was far from enamored with hiking in any shape or form. (This is a fact admitted by the artist herself and her father, my husband.) But in the past several years, hiking has indeed become a passion of hers. Her husband, TJ, benefits from her hiking passion and gifts her with acceptance and total lack of complaining when called upon to accompany her on her many jaunts throughout the Pacific Northwest. Read the rest of this entry »
Lighten up Mondays
In colder parts of the country, some undomesticated pests make their way inside of buildings to escape the cold. What follows is what transpired in one cold-weathered town:
Three buildings in town were overrun by squirrels: the town hall, the hardware store, and the church.
The town hall brought in some cats but after they tore up all the paper files, the mayor got rid of the feline help and soon the squirrels were back.
The hardware store humanely trapped the squirrels and set them free outside town. Three days later, the squirrels made their way back into the hardware store.
Only the church came up with an effective solution: they baptized the squirrels and made them members.
Now they only see them on Christmas and Easter.
Second novel … completed!
Yes, it’s true, I finished my second novel at approximately 3:30 pm PST November 25th, 2015. I wrote a 60,201 word novel (10,201 words above the required minimum word count) in 25 days as a participant in the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) event.
Is the novel ready for publication? Hell no. Now begins the editing, fleshing out, adding and subtracting of content, and fact-checking drudgery required of a book fit for representation and publication.
But I did it! I averaged 2,408 words per day; yesterday alone I wrote 3,879 words in five and a half hours.
It’s all in the preparation, Bay-bee, at least for me it was. For the first time, I used a novel-planning software called Snowflake Pro developed by Randy Ingermanson. This software isn’t writing software per-se, rather, it’s planning software that helps you craft all the necessary elements for your novel.
The greatest realized benefits occurred in Step Three (wherein you create a list of characters and flesh out their storyline) and Step Seven (where you’re forced to answer forty-seven questions about each of your characters.) These questions are quite thorough, from stating the height and weight of your character, to best and worst childhood memory, to religion and political leanings, to how the character sees herself and how others see the character, and much more.
Armed with these character profiles, the writing came easy for me. Of course I changed some of the initial answers as I completed one chapter after another. As is usually the case when drafting a novel, I found as I got to know the character better, I needed to redesign its destiny, but without a preliminary resume of sorts, I would have found myself floundering – not a comfortable position to be in when you’re on deadline. Yep, I’m certain I would not have experienced the same outcome without the software’s guidance. Read the rest of this entry »
Life can turn on a dime
December 28, 2015 – I am thrilled to report that my grandnephew went home from the hospital 1.5 weeks after this article posted. He seems to be flourishing at home and the hope is that in time, there will be no recognizable cognitive changes for him. He is such a sweetheart, whatever happens in the future, he’ll be a force to be reckoned with. The support of his parents will carry this little guy through thick and thin. They are truly wonderful human beings.
A couple days ago, my family received the unfortunate news about the youngest member of our very large family, my grand nephew, Kingsley.
This adorable, full of life, seven month old is hospitalized with bacterial meningitis. Just like that, the parents’ Facebook posts changed from lively, getting into trouble photos, to a photo of their unconscious son in his PICU crib, hooked up to fluids. He was moved to a regular room yesterday and could be there for another week. The PICU photo was replaced with one of him smiling while still hooked up to the antibiotic fluids his body desperately needs.
God help him, God help his parents.
It’s sure difficult to look for the good in such a horrible situation but Kingsley’s mother, my niece, posted a comment saying how blessed she felt with the attentive medical staff that was taking care of her precious son. And she felt as though she was being held in the arms of all of us who were praying and stating positive intentions for his recovery. She found good in the bad.
My morning meditation reading today by Dr. Bernie S. Siegel addressed ones focus when in trouble: where to look and what you look for. I thought I would share it with you today: Read the rest of this entry »
Lighten up Mondays
An 80-year old man called his son in New York one November day.
The father said to the son, “I hate to tell you, but we’ve got some troubles here in the house. Your mother and I can’t stand each other anymore, and we’re getting a divorce. I’ve had it! I want to live out the rest of my years in peace. I’m telling you now, so you and your sister won’t go into shock later when I move out.”
He hung up, and the son immediately called his sister in the Hamptons to tell her the news.
The sister said, “I’ll handle this.”
She called Florida and told her father, “Don’t do ANYTHING till we get there! We’ll be there Wednesday night.”
The father agreed, “All right.”
The old man hung up the phone and hollered to his wife, “Okay, they’re coming for Thanksgiving. Now, what are we going to tell them for Christmas?”
Living: the ultimate team sport 