%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |  A running blog on a real newbies adventures with the WDC website |
|
I became a newbie writer just starting to learn the tools of the trade. Silly me thinking, I could just jump right in, and start swimming, with what I remember of my six grade English. After all what use did a professional computer repair person need of grammar, to fill in blanks, dot “I’s”, or cross his “T’s” with. I was forced into early retirement. Because of Agent Orange encounters from Vietnam, and a bad hernia repair. You cannot learn anything being a mugwump. What is a mugwump you say? It is a person sitting on a fence; with their mug on one side of the fence, and their wump on the other side. One day I received this interesting email from the Newbie Academy Group. They recommend I engage in contest activities. I thought to myself why not! I went to the contest list and found the writer’s cramp contest. At the prompt: here's a new restaurant in town with an interesting theme. What's the theme, how is it expressed, and how's the food? I read this and get all excited. I started thinking of all the Chief Gordon Ramsey shows I had watch with my wife. Out of nowhere pops a memory of a silly menu I had in my funny joke collection. It was a road kill menu for Uncle Roberts fine cuisine dinning. I decided to use my hillbilly name. I and my wife had a moment in our newly married life, when we were teasing a neighbor friend. We started calling our redneck friend Deny-Bob. He called us JoVonna-Bob and Brett-Bob. I decided to call my contest entry “Brett-Bob’s Road Kill Express” to me the whole idea was a joke and after all what a great thing to write about. To me the trick was to keep it rated ‘E’ as this was a requirement of the contest. I had in my mind decided to keep it as a fake road kill diner they would serve real food as fake road kill using the out of season as the excuse to use their specialty dishes for them. When I wrote it as with all my writing I am becoming world famous for run-ons and miss spelling. Part of the problem is MSoffice I blame its terrible spell checker, and the horrible grammar checker, since it cannot even do second grade error correction. Like I told one of the Newbie Academy Ladies I’m a senior citizen writing as a first grader. And even a first grader has trouble reading my work let alone the poor teacher. Beside whom else can I blame? None of us want to point that finger at ourselves. We might get ashamed and do something about it. One of the funnier parts to my story is I didn’t read it had a thousand word limit. I just assumed that they wanted whatever you could produce in a short time. Just like Nanowrimo. It had a twenty four hour dead line. I figured you didn’t need to worry, if it was a rough draft, or a finished work. This was probably my misreading of the contest rules. I’m betting the judge expects to judge finished works by more experienced authors other than newbies. Basically I’m trying to say, I set myself up for failure. But the best part of the story, and funniest is the judge’s comment: “You met that goal with an interesting piece. However, since I'm a vegetarian, it was unhappily a bit unappetizing in both humor and description. Sigh.” I know I thrive on rejection. But my very first contest. When I am trying to fit in, and receive that comment. It was about the funniest thing to happen to me. Being a new writer I understand not everything I write is golden or is going to make me incredibly rich either. I did install the sense of shame. I went visiting my email and asked the kind judge for help with run-ons. She took pity on me and provided a link to myenglishteacher.net. She also recommended a class from WDC’s own recommended school. She also recommended asking for help in my groups forums. The truth is I really don’t see even the kindest writer here, having the time to teach me sixth grade again. Then I realized I don’t need the whole lessen. I just need to learn to recognize what I do in my writing, and fix that issue. As I write I can auto correct instead or totally relearning English. So I went to some of the forums in the Newbie Academy Group. Since I have no life anymore I sometimes expect the same of everyone else. But the sad truth is it’s the week end, and all the nice people are out being nice people. I am going to have to wait until Monday to get my help. My contest entry received eight reviews; of the eight, two actually showed me areas to improve it, and of course one judge’s review. I think the poor lady felt sorry for me and I got the newbie prize of 250 gp with the review or it won third place. I in my vanity like the third place idea; the truth is I’m just guessing. I hope I haven’t offended any one with this story. It is another attempt at a funny story. I don’t have any hard feelings with the judge she was honest, truthful, and even extremely helpful. Some points of interest; only one person didn’t find it funny, the judge. Only the judge and one retired teacher gave me a link. They both gave me really helpful reviews with writing style help. I am still holding on to three reviews of the eight. I still get a laugh every time I read the third email. I just love her closing line: This story is fun, and I still have a silly smirk on my face. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** I'm building at "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"  Great place to read.I'm docked at "Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond"
, a safe port for bloggers to connect. |
 BLOG CITYPrompt: Was Christmas more fun as a child or is it more fun as an adult? I loved Christmas as a child. Then I grew up married and started celebrating Christmas with my children until they grew up married and have children of their own. I am blessed with 18 grand children. Soon I will have great grand children. Will wonders never stop. As an adult there is no greater joy than that of giving your kids gifts for Christmas. I loved seeing their little faces light up with pure joy no matter what they got. Both parts being the child and being the adult both have Christmas Joy. As the adult your children infect you with Christmas cheer. As a child you never stop loving opening up presents. As an adult I stopped caring about what I got and just enjoy the moment when my kids open theirs. To me Christmas with Family is the best time of the year. I am blessed with a very large family so I will always have family to spend Christmas with or share it with my wife and the remaining children. But the last thing I want to share with you is you always carry the memories. When I reach the point they put me in a rest home I will always have the memories of a lifetime to share with my family. Hopefully I get my writing carer going and can afford a really nice rest home. |
| BLOG CITY Prompt: A second Royal Baby will soon be joining the Windors in England. Would you rather be an heir to the throne or an off the hook sibling? /To be a prince or not to be a prince? I know some people who dream of being royalty and that is cool. Alas I have no such ambitions. What I do have is a desire to explore weird other worldly places to fly through space as if time and distance mean nothing. To captain my own space craft to see what no man has seen before. Did you know that in Star Trek the one place no man has ever gone? {The woman's bath room on the Enterprise.) {It never existed.) |
| BLOG CITY Prompt: How do you think a hostage negotiator would go about talking to the hostage takers? Or if you'd like to be more dramatic, imagine you are a hostage negotiator. Couple of criminals are holding three people hostage in a bank and threatening to kill them if what they ask for is not done. While the swat team is trying to break into the bank, you are asked to keep talking to the criminals. How would you go about this and what would you say to them? Jimmy was thrown to the lions by his police captain. His only job now was to do prisoner negations and hold off the killing until the swat team could take out the bad guys. He was called in when James got one of the prisoners killed. They could still see the body laying in the street of someone's mother and wife. What a bloody mess it was. Jimmy listened as the bank robbers made their demands. Jimmy spoke, "Mr. Bank Robber you want two cars filled with gas parked out side the bank in ten minutes or the next hostage joins the pile out front is that correct sir?" "Yes, it is about time someone with some brains talked to me." "Mr. Bank Robber I only have one issue with your request. We need to move the body out of the way first, please?" In the background Jimmy heard three men discussing the body moving. One spoke, "We loose our shock value if they move it." The second one said, "Yea, well we want the cars right where it is and we don't want any obstacles in the getaway, so let them move it." Mr Bank Robber said, "All right. Move it Jimmy but only you can come out and get it, so if nothing goes right I know who to shoot next." Jimmy was wearing his swat gear he wasn't worried about dodging bullets so much as getting the poor victim off the street. Before his captain or anyone else could stop him he darted out and picked up the dead body and hauled it over to an ambivalence that was set up.. Next Jimmy started waving to the rest of the police force surrounding the building to open up while two really old black and white units were pulled up in front where the body used to be. Jimmy spoke, "Here is your cars you requested Mr Bank Robber. Is there anything else you need like food ,water, pizza?" Mr. Bank Robber snapped back, "Sure we will have seven large peperoni with mushrooms and hot sauce on the side.". Jimmy thought why not and spoke, "Give me thirty minutes for delivery, please?" Mr Bank Robber spoke, "We are hungry, make it twenty or the hostages don't get any." What a strange turn of events Jimmy felt something was not quit right with this turn of events. Why would they agree to stay longer to except food even. What was really going on here. Jimmy motioned for his captain and the swat leader to come over. He outlined the new turn of events as he ordered the seven pizza's with mushrooms and the hot sauce. As they were thinking one of the officers came running over and reported a building alarm had gone off in one of the buildings next to the bank. The rest of the standby teams went into action. The police captain had all streets blocked off. The rest was in Jimmy's hands now and swat team inside the bank working their way down to the bank robbers. Mr. Bank Robber said, "Where is my pizza?" Jimmy spoke, "They should be arriving any minute now, I put a rush on them." "Good as soon as you get them, come to the front door with all seven boxes. You may enter the bank, and we will take delivery." Jimmy spoke, "What do I get in return?" "You get the hostages alive." There was a final click on the line. The pizza's showed up and Jimmy swallowed that big lump of fear down his throat and started walking to the bank lobby door. There was no movement inside. Jimmy kept on going until he bumped into the door. He slowly opened it wide enough to allow him and the pizza's inside. What he found were three dead security guards, four of the bank personnel tied up still living and no bank robbers. He untied the personnel and sent them outside. He started looking for the swat team. When he heard over his ear piece they had caught all three of them trying to leave the other building. |
| Prompt: In movies and fiction, cartoonist heroes and characters such as Rambo, Batman, Indiana Jones, Wonder Woman and The Warrior Princess Zena charm the audiences. Why do you think is this popularity of cartoonist heroes, and why are they so loved in popular culture? What an interesting prompt, I spent most of yesterday writing an article about this for the Heroes and Villains Newsletter. I think I'll paste a copy here as my proof. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Welcome to the Heroes & Villains Newsletter! Hi, I'm The Run-on King PDG Member or Brett The Fun You Can Have With a Hero or Villain You know I never realized the fun you can have playing with the characters. I took a writing class one of the things we had to do was character interviews for all my main characters. Writing their voice and learning more about them so they are not as thin as the paper they are written on. When your characters are larger then life, full of action, and adventure; everyone loves them. I found that writing a Hero or Villain. You have to overdo all the good side to offset the bad side of your villain. When your main character is the Hero to make him look good, with flaws and all. You have to have your evil character either more evil, or just as evil as your main is good. The challenge in writing these type of characters is not over doing it. This is one of the reasons they set a limit of three or less super powers in our character sketches. When you're not dealing with a large list of powers to keep track of. It does make it easier to balance your writing as your story unfolds. The more of a story you tell with your characters helps build them into lovable and the type of characters everyone loves to read about. At first I wanted to use ten super powers for my guys. I finally figured out to only use powers that aided to the plot for both good and bad guys. That helps me keep to the plot, and to the idea of what the story is about. I also picked the second powers to add to the entertainment value of the story. Some you can use to add humor or weird to the story. Next advantage is to add to the character and make them believable.thus turning them from 2d to 3d in the readers eye. I enjoy the challenge this type of writing has to offer. I would like to challenge all of you to create a plot that has one Hero and one super Villain with them having one or two powers that advance the plot or story line. Email the link to me and I will include them in the next newsletter. The Run-on King PDG Member   ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** The Heroes and Villains Discussion Forum is found here:
The Heroes and Villains Contest Forum: (Closed for now until we can get more active members.)
** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** That's all for this month. I hope to see you all next month with even more interesting things to show. |
| Day one: Chapter 1 2,291 words Chapter 2 1,712 words Day two: Chapter 3 - 2,113 words Chapter 4 - 1,672 words Day three: Chapter 5 - 1,883 Chapter 6 - 2,011 Day four: Chapter 7 - 1,814 Chapter 8 - 1,462 Day five: Chapter 9 - 2,218 Chapter 10 - 2,239 Day six: Chapter 11 - 2,336 Chapter 12 - 2,389 Day seven: Chapter 13 - 2,125 Chapter 14 - 2,623 Day eight: Chapter 15 - 2,721 Chapter 16 - 2,127 Day nine: Chapter 17 - 1,803 Chapter 18 - 2,477 Day ten: Hey, the month of November I thought was going to be smooth sailing. I was 35,000 words by Saturday the eighth. Sunday I started in as usual but started getting sick. My left leg started swelling up larger then my right. It actually swelled up three times the size of my right and it looked like I had elephantitus. Then rough red spots appeared and started weeping and any place I had had a wound before did the same. Late Monday night I had my wife drive me to the VA Hospital. I was shaking uncontrollably and could barely move. With the help of my kids they crammed me into the car and then helped me out of that car and wheel chaired me into the ER. They took my temp and stuck me in a room. There they took blood cultures and admitted me into the hospital. Normally most hospitals just cram you into any bed. I told them I needed an easy chair I don't lay down any more unless they wanted me to suffer congestive heart failure. They special ordered me a bed that folded up into a chair. I had to wait three hours for it sitting in a wheel chair. Who cared I was impressed they would even bother to think of my comfort. Once the bed arrived they put me in it showed me how it worked and soon I was settled in to a private room all to myself because it was the only room big enough for that bed. The nurses were so nice to me I just couldn't get mad at them for anything. I ran a high fever for three days I just mostly slept except when they changed IV's or brought in food. Once they brought my fever down from 105.6. They had to pack me in ice and bring in a fan. It felt wonderful until the fever dropped then I got cold really fast. By then I had melted the ice packs. They all seemed to hover over me and that darn IV pump kept going off it just didn't like the IV in my right hand much. Since I'm right handed that didn't help either. I had a very interesting Tuesday in the VA hospital. It was Veteran's day I got visited by three school classes, three branches of the military, wishing all of us a happy Veterans day and a steak dinner. The only real problem I had was draining fluids. Both my thighs were so swollen that trying to use that urine bottle between my legs was impossible so getting it out was a messy problem. The nurses took it in stride and loved it when I asked to be helped out of the bed and sit in a lounge chair. while they changed my bed. They cleaned me up and changed the bed super fast. I found I couldn't sit very long or my left leg really stated weeping setting on the floor, gravity had control of it more than I did at that point. They helped me back into the bed. After that as the swelling went down. Things became more manageable for me. The doctors told me I was now diabetic. Mostly due to the all the antibiotics they were pumping through me. All this time I explained to my nurses that I was a writer and that I study people. I observe them mostly to form characters with their good traits. They were always cracking jokes or doing little extra kindness for me after that. I think I referred the poets and writers among them to our website as they really were nice people. Several nurses loved my universe and all the background stories I told about it. I found that because I had a forgiving attitude and didn't need to be waited on first. They did everything I needed done and a few things I could have gotten along without. It was fun having all that attention I have to say. I did learn that to the nurses the human body is like your car. We all know it has 4 doors and a trunk and an engine compartment. Since you use it every day you get used to it and all of its parts and pieces. So they don't feel uncomfortable seeing me in that small hospital gown, I am the one that is uncomfortable. On Wednesday they had stood me up and the bed had a sharp or rough spot it cut into my left upper thigh and it started bleeding I never felt the bleeding. But I noticed the fresh blood spot on the floor. Just then my primary RN came in the room to do the blood sugar test. I told her to use the floor after all it was fresh blood. The rest of the crew helping me burst out laughing. Besides I hated the poker they used on my fingers. I got poked four times a day. The nurses aid came in one day and asked if I wanted a deck of cards or some books to read. I know about the VA Library and the free paperback books. I had her pick me out three action adventure books since science fiction doesn't find their shelves very often. On Saturday they decided I was able to go home with home care on Monday. They were going to send a nurse to see me three times a day. They also were going to put in a pick line. (Whatever that was.) I got to find out the hard way. This guy comes into my room closes the door. Sterilizes everything then takes my left arm and operated on it. He inserts a tube into one of my major arteries and puts this tube all the way up next to a heart valve. Then leaves me with two dangling IV tubes hanging out of my upper arm muscle. That is called a pick line. Then x-ray came to my room and forces me to take several uncomfortable position shots. Later my RN comes in starts undressing out of her scrubs into a plastic hospital operating suit and pulls my pick line back by five centimeters because the x-rays show it was too close to my heart valve. She had me scared there with her undressing. I really wasn't sure what was going on. Being male we always have the wrong thoughts on female actions. Then she comes back and had to do it again she only took out one centimeter. It felt weird hearing it cut four times more. She re-wrapped it and it served me well the next two weeks. The interesting thing is no one knew how to draw blood from it. Even the home care nurses didn't know how. I always got a needle and fishing expeditions instead. Come to find out how it is done is you use an empty saline needle tube you used to flush the lines with. First you draw out the flush then bring in the blood. Then you swap out to another empty saline flush tube and draw all the blood you want. Since we flushed those lines every eight hours. There was a lot of empty uncontaminated tubes lying around. My wound dressing nurse a male told me how it was done. Go figure and here I always thought the ladies were smarter than the men. I still have the swelling in the legs and thighs but nowhere as bad as it was the day I went in. It turns out the real cause was I had a blood infection and cellulites in my left leg. The reason for the two extra weeks of antibiotics is because it was a strep blood infection. Now I'm done with all of that and back to my normal routine. With a visit to the VA every Wednesday, one to re-wrap my feet, two to see the primary care doc, and three to do blood tests on me. They are also going to do heavy Diabetes test on me to see if I am now really diabetic. They have found the higher your blood sugar levels the longer it takes to heal so by my keeping it low by not eating tons of sweets as well as no salt I can live a lot better than I was. In my drugged state I was only able in the two weeks at home only write about 7,000 words for my finishing total of 42,709 on November 30th. I feel I add maybe three new members to the website and made lots of new friends at the VA. It was the best time I ever had at a hospital in my life. So I didn't win Nano this year. There will be next year. I have learned so much from the people on this site as well as from the Nano group I met at the beginning. I referred a few of them to the web site as well. I will finish the book I started some time. I learned that I had over half of it written in less than a week how awesome is that. So if given another week now I could finish it with the 100,000 words or more I had planned. I learned a lot and I really have to make serious dietary changes in my life if I want to stay mobile. It sure beats just living in a battery powered wheel chair. The VA gave me a new wheel chair which I can push myself around in really easy. My old one only took me three feet and I had to give up on moving in it. They are also going to replace our bed with one that can fold up into a chair so me and my wife can actually spend time together as a couple instead of separate sleeping arrangements as we do now. Day thirty: Chapter 19 - 1,365 Chapter 20 - 3,165 |
| BLOG CITY Prompt: George and Martha Washington arrive at your home. What happens next? Yea! Right! It's Halloween, more then likely they are trick-or-treaters. I would just give them candy and send them on their way. Lets face it their dead and gone. I've had enough of the past haunting me. I'm not a great history buff and also I don't like the idea of our country's past haunting me now. We already are being haunted by Obama and he isn't even out of office yet. |
| BLOG CITY Prompt: What do you look forward to every week? Interesting prompt. It made me sit back and ask myself, "Self, what is it that you wake up for, every morning." Reasons: 1). To get a sip of Life Lesson's coffee mug picture in the newsfeed and find something witty to get a giggle or two from her to make her day. 2). To check in with SAJ and PDG to see if any of them need a morning smile. 3). Scan my e-mail to see if I have anything to respond to. 4). Work on my Nano prep assignments. 5). To finish what I started as in my three contests. 6). Study ways to better my writing from this awesome website. 7). As every writer, I aspire to; "Hope I get noticed today." 8). Work more on my dreams, after all, success is a lot of hard work as we all know. I just keep on practicing writing whither it be creative fiction in forms of reviews to the new people, who are at the rank of newbie beginner stages of writing, or to keep from disappointing a good friend. On some writing the hard part is finding something positive to say about it, before you show them what you found wrong with the piece. Write that flash fiction piece for a contest and then get busy and always forget to edit it after a cool down period. 9). To find the surprises like a few people have put me on their raffle ticket list and I get all these great notifications that I have a chance to win something. I never do, but hey it was nice to be included in their list. When I have the gp I return the favor, but lately I like the idea of cNotes or tags and sigs for the holidays I have to admit we have some really great artists here. 10). The most important thing I love about this site is the Newsfeed, you guys are always finding or doing something amusing on there. It is the highlight of my day to see happy people playing around. I know life is full of pain, hard work, and disappointment. The people here don't show you that side as much as they show you the joy of being a live to live out one more day in search of your dreams, goals and making new friends. |
| BLOG CITY Prompt:If all tablets and smart phones ceased working, how much impact would this have on your daily life and routines. You know it wouldn't really hurt me at all being an old man helps me. I don't own or use a cell, smart, or phablet. So their loss means nothing. I have a land line and regular desktop computers I use. I think it is really funny how you cannot miss what you never use. I am an electronic nerd and I know more about how all this stuff works then most people. I had to fix them all once upon a time. Besides I know the real electronics on how the gates and chips actually work inside them. Not that it is useful now. But it will do me a lot of good if we experienced a war or whatever. I would be really handy at making useful devices out of all the useless electronics laying around. |
| BLOG CITY Prompt: Let's talk about Halloween candy. Favorite, worst, or fond memories of a particular treat - share with us. My favorite candy on Halloween was the candy bars. You know Snickers, Mars Bars, Three Musketeers, Idaho Spuds, and Milky Way Bars. One Halloween in order to garnish my sweet tooth and a friends we made a deal with the neighbors to "borrow their little boy," Because it was his bigger brother that was my friend. They had no problem with what we had in mind. It went like this me and Kevin would carry this trash can up to peoples door. Mind you it was a polished brand new can never been used, my dad had just bought it to replace one of our old rusted out ones. We would ring the door bell when the people or person would answer the door out popped Brian saying in his three year old voice trick or treat it was so cute that they almost buried him in candy. After two blocks we had to stop and unload all the candy in the can into Kevin's mom's car. We had three bags set up for this. then we finished the next two blocks and finished fill up our bags. Brian's mom decided to cut his bag in half on the excuse he would rot his teeth and made us take it. I know mine lasted me a long time. I really loved the caramel nut coated candy apples And one guy owned a meat packing business he gave us ten hot dogs. Somehow I ended up with six of them, that was fine with me. I filled up on the perishables first. That was the best Halloween ever! The people of the neighborhood still remember the little cute kid with the chocolate coated face popping out of a garbage can saying twrick or tweet. |
| Victor Hugo said: "Intelligence is the wife, imagination is the mistress, memory is the servant." Do you feel that your memories work for you, or do you feel beholden to your memories? You know back in heaven when god said brains my spirit thought trains and I told him I'll take two! Now the problem is one is lost and the other one is out looking for it. The use of the term Military Intelligence is an oxymoron. They are taught not to use their brains just to think with their rifle. When most people would rather be followers more then leaders. Crowds of stupid people are more dangerous then tanks. My mother once told me, son, you can fix the lamp. You can fix a sick cow. You can even fix a broken dish, but you cannot fix stupid! My dad thought I was so bright, he called me "Sun." Every family has one they call the flower of the family you know the Blooming Idiot. Now that I got all that out of my mind. You have an idea of what I think of some of my fellow citizens. I didn't vote for Obama both years yet they did and now they are all crying about it. As his laws kill grandma and stop medical help to those who really need it. And they have the gall to call me stupid. Next is my favorite subject writing. I honestly love to write and associate with all the wonderful writers here. I truly think that writing uses both our creativity and artistic sides at the same time. I believe we are not wired like everyone else to to the things we do. I really think we are different in that we not stupid because we know the difference. We are not a super intelligence either because we know how to write to every market not just the intellectuals. How we function as writers is something we nurture and takes a lot of practice, patients, and a will to have fun doing it. I can only say when I'm writing I always surprise myself with the creativity and with all that goes on even if badly written. I have no idea where all this come from most of us blame our muse which I think is an integration of all three at once at our beck and call. I really don't know about that opening statement I think it is all three at once anytime we are creating our works. I know most writers are above normal in intellect. I know we cannot just call up imagination at a whim. Ahh memories now those are just that memories we can call up anytime and sort through. But writing takes all three at once even multitasking can do two of them but still I feel that it is blend of all three working side by side as we write. |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
I want to live to 100 years young!