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 |  A running blog on a real newbies adventures with the WDC website |
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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. |
| Prompt: Your book is a movie. Who is your dream cast? Wow, that's quite a twist. I would love Harrison Ford to be the lead or maybe Nicklaus Cage. Whoopi Goldberg as one of the Living Computers as well as several other leading male voices like Val Coumer, Kurt Russell, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depth So many people to choose from, but hey, we are daydreaming here so might as well have fun. Angelette Jolie as the main ship's computer. I forget all the other ladies' names since I am married and don't care about anything with nice curves to keep my wife happy. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| Prompt: What is something you always take with you on vacation? When I saw this prompt I just burst out laughing. After all, if you're married the answer is so simple, we always forget it and just assume that your spouse is coming along right? Well when your severally handicapped and the Vacation involves activities you cannot do what then? I learned a long time ago I can trust my wife. So when her get away vacation comes up I never even think I'm going. I just help her pack and enjoy my time alone without her company. Shh, don't tell on me. We all enjoy vacations or alone time without our partners. Even if it is just an hour or two. I did notice that if she is gone longer than 24 hours. I do miss her company and it is at that point I realize what a god send she is in my life. I then start looking forward to seeing her beautiful smile. And being male you ladies can guess the rest and the men already know. In the good old days when we went camping and fishing as well as hiking. We always took our camping trailer filled with everything but electronics. After all, there are no power outlets in the forest and even if there was. There wouldn't be any WIFI hot spots or LAN service lol. The only comfort from home I would bring is a blow up mattress got to have my 6 inches from that hard old lumpy ground. Since they don't let you cut tree branches anymore to make a nice bed with. I used to dig a hole the shape of my body fill it with small pine branches the best mattress known to man if you do it right. The other thing is my wallet with all my plastic money in it. You have to pay for your play no matter what, gasoline isn't free. |
| Prompt: If I could change my... Complete the statement (multiple times if that floats your boat) Play it crazy or play it safe - as long as you play. How many times have we heard this? It reminds me of a little child crying about spilling his ice cream. We are what our bad habits are. So let's say I get a new body. If I didn't have new memories to go with it and started in living the "good" life. I'll be right back where I am now. What is it they say, oh yes, you can fix your glasses, you can fix a bicycle, you can fix a gas leak. But you cannot fix stupid! Then Forest Gump said, "Stupid is as stupid does." So I think before I go changing things I had better learn my lessons first. I need to learn how to fix my stupid, because it was partly my fault I'm here and not just the agent orange's fault. |
| Prompt: Procrastinate Now! Are you a procrastinator? What is your attitude toward procrastination? Have you ever got upset over something and reacted to it. Later on you found it wasn't such a big deal and if you hadn't reacted it would have solved itself and went away all on it's own? Now you know why when things happen I am very slow to react I tend to ignore for a couple of weeks. Because now days you don't know if it is a scam or just a troll. I have found that things that don't go away are the real deal and truly need to be dealt with. But the rest if you ignore it long enough, it goes away and you avoided all kinds of emotional issues as well as upsetting family and friends. Now as far as bills go those get paid on time as well as needed items, but someone calling everyday for something that happened ten years ago is totally going to get ignored. Because if you answer it and acknowledge it you just got it on your credit record and now they can use the legal system against you. Unless you keep proof that the debt was written off. Most of the time they send you a 1099 IRS form. I have kept all tax records for the last 25 years. I took an underwriter to task over such a deal they were telling me this timeshare condo rental was going to come back and bite me. I still had the 1099 that says they wrote it off we asked them to take it back because I was unemployed. They were very nice about it and did and gave me the 1099. They resold it for twice as much so I knew it wasn't going to come back. After, I threaten them with a class action lawsuit they fix up my credit report and ate their rejection letters. I'll bet next time they do their homework before taking a credit report at face value. I found there is this company praying on people who have old debits that are past the statutes of limitation and they do this stuff that was how that old debit got put on my credit report. It was quickly removed when the underwriters threaten the credit reporting agency for fraud. I found if you Google the phone number of strange people calling you. You can learn all about these rip offs and know who to procrastinate on. I found out the hard way it is best to let things stew for a while. then if your fighting hard times after a few weeks of no response. You can make a deal that you can keep and resolve the issue. After all, they would rather get some money then nothing. I found that public assistance are a trap to keep you poor and dependent on them. I procrastinate on everything except writing that I work my tail off on because I am so bad at it I have to work hard to get better at it now even more! Yes I procrastinate and I will always procrastinate, I refuse to get an ulcer over any of peoples greed and ill treatment. I always practice, I don't mad, I get even or ahead if I can. We all are human even me. I try and treat my brothers as they would treat me! But I take my time, so I don't ever over react or cause harm where no harm was intended. Procrastination serves me well in this respect. |
| In 300 years, if you were to be named the patron saint of X, what would you like X to be? (Places, activities, objects all are fair game.) I thought on is and no matter what I try and talk my mind into it comes right back to crap. I mean after all when you look at it, we all die, and become fertilizer anyway. Or we are cremated and spread all over anyway. So I decided to be the patron Saint of Fertilizer. Now when you think about it, why not? After all, three quarters of our food is grown from the ground. I decided I would bless the top grade organic fertilizer. It being all organic not that man made garbage. Of course that isn't no bull crap either. At least the cows don't brag about their fertilizer. You know one of the best fertilizers known to man is chicken guano and bat guano. Of course, if they want me to not bless a person. They can always tell me that the person is full of fertilizer, and I'll withhold my blessings from them. After all, they need to get rid of some of that fertilizer first so there is room for blessings. How many people can say that the organically grown food from organic fertilizer isn't good and user friendly? Just remember you really are what you eat so stay away from those bull crap products and you will always have my blessings! |
** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** VERSES ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** HEROES VERSES VILLAINS If you are interested in joining the Heroes and Villains Newsletter Group contact FlashWally22  .** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** We are all about writing about comic book heroes or just make up your own. You take control you decide what they can or cannot do. We always like to be the one in charge. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Why not let your dark harboring of an evil villain come out to play. What a perfect chance to wreak mayhem and crush that so called hero once and for all. How about henchmen or sidekicks? Do you have the perfect evil henchman to help out your super villain? Maybe you have the best sidekick to help out your superhero defeat that super villain once and for all. We would love to have you try it out. Your effort will be rewarded accordingly with gps and badges for best characters on either side. The more you do, the better it will be! Come take a look! To find out more
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** The Off The Wall Cross Genre Contest is running open prompts. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Try your hand at creating cross genre short stories or poetry. Try writing an alien romance or have a werewolf chase something fast and metallic through his favorite forest. How about a space opera mystery with an alien inspector with a sense of humor trying to solve a human murder case? The Fae lost a powerful artifact and it is up to a ghost to find it, and use it before anyone else can, including two meddlesome robots. Try writing about a poor lost vampire kidnaped aboard an alien spaceship. The aliens stole its coffin thinking it was a freshly dead human. The human zombies meet the Elves and the last of the fairies. You could even throw in a few ghosts, werewolves, and vampires. What a battle that could be. I wonder who would win? I wonder if there could be zombie ghosts? These are free story ideas you could use for anything. I think they would make great reading. Come on, try something different!
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| Most of us as children had a secret place to get away from our family. Prompt: Do you have a secret place now you go to avoid real life? The only secret place I have left is my private universe I write about in my books. People are amazed I can rattle of stuff and back story. Without batting an eye. It is the one true place that only I can share with myself. I write so bad no one can read it so it doesn't get shared. The short stories I do write in it are just small glimpses of pieces I'm prompted to write for my ninth book. Now if I started to rewrite my books they might be a whole lot better to read. But it is interesting to note my place is still a secret. If not, do you think you need one at times? Well once upon a time I used to settle down with the latest sci-fi or fantasy book to enjoy the authors secret place but it never lasts and makes you want more! I tried World of Warcraft for 9 years I even lead a top ten on the server Raiding guild. It was called The Nosferatu Brotherhood and it was the oldest guild on the server. Then my 21 year old son with no insurance got type 1 diabetes and we had to buy his supplied there went my credit card and my favorite game. It took a year to pay that card down enough that we could star using it again. By that time there was nothing left to return to guild was gone etc. So I started writing books and now this is website is my favorite addiction. I still have my universe anytime I need it, but I spend so much time here that I only join my universe when I try and write about it. |
| Tell me about a personal experience with violence, either one you experienced personally or one you witnessed (or even choose a violent scene you watched on television or film that affected you) Can violence ever play an effective role in problem solving? It started out as another rainy soaked to the gills day in the Foobye Province North Vietnam. We were here to guard a little village named Foobye. I just loved the heat and the rain. Today we were out to build a base of operation up on the plateau of this mountain. Me I was just hoping to get above the rainfall for once I was wondering what it might fell like to actually get dry for once. We hear this "pock" like sound and a mortar shell lands behind us. We all hit the dirt and try to find the mortar emplacement. No one fires a shot while we look around. some one spots it and we open fire on it lobbing fragmentary grenades and M16 gun fire into it. we get on heck of an explosion. With dirt and bodies everywhere. We get more as Charlie's artillery open fire on us. Our commander has two choices run up hill or run down hill neither are safe. The first artillery shell got our communications group and our first commander. While the second commander is deciding our group is hit. When I wake up, the smell is horrendous my buddies, the new commander, and most of our seventy man patrol is dead. I'm laying in a puddle of blood and guts and who knows what else. I roll over to my M16, and I grab a clip pouch. I'm just in time to mow down 30 gooks as they come running down that hill towards me. I am forced to crawl into the artillery shell crater to avoid being hit with bullets. I use this as a fox hole. There red traces flying all over the place. I duck down and start praying to any deity that would listen. I knew my time on earth was limited still I kept popping up and shooting at the source of the tracers. I was now down to one last clip and some small ammo in my pouches. The tracers were all coming from one place. I jumped up, with a "what the hell its a good day to die attitude" I fired the whole clip into that area and around it. It went dead silent as if nature was waiting for more bloodshed. I got out of that death trap and crawled through the remains of my friends to the jungle edge going downhill as fast as I could go. The smell of death hit me hard as I crawled. I felt like I was touching and desecrating a grave yard every inch I moved. I truly hope no one ever has to live through this kind of violence. Out of three hundred people both ours and theirs and that was just the dead body count from the marines when they went back to get our people. All I got out of that ambush was Staff Sargent stripe and leader of a dead platoon. It wasn't until then I got sent to my real post my jungle training was over according to the marines. Now you ask what good did this do? We sent sixty-nine marines home to their families dead. I have no real clue how man Vietcong will not be returning to their homes and how many young boys and girls will not be returning home either. All for what? Did we win it. Heck no! Instead we sent people home who witness horrific sights and traumatized beyond belief and made them out casts of society. |
| Prompt: What are you hoping to accomplish this summer? You know when someone drops a bomb shell on you. It is hard to figure out other than my preset goals I did back in January. I do know I'm taking a vacation from Game of Thrones. My real plans are: 1). Practice Writing! 2). Help with the newbies. 3). Custom design contests and activities for friends on WdC. 4). Write in my books until I have the first one ready to publish in December. 5). Finish my 9 books on my Game Lore at least get them all in rough draft. 6). Having fun, teasing, and helping the community with gp donations as needed and improving my reviewing when ever I find time! 7). Spend what time I can with my family. When your stuck in one chair hard to get them to come to you. 8). Enjoy the view out my bedroom window, the hot summer days. 9). The actions of my two cats as they teach me what cats are and do. 10). Encourage my beautiful wife as she needs it. |
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