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I need to say this!
Enter if you dare! Who knows what will be said here! |
A place to practice my writing. Also where I will put my random thoughts, ideas, rants, and whatever else I have to say.   
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| Ten second delay. Warning: nonsensical rambllings. Run Away. |
Taking a minute for a breather means lots of planning and surreptitiousness. I feel like a secret agent sneaking away so I can read or review. I have given up trying to write while my kids are awake. Today I reviewed a piece and I referenced a wrong character. Lucky for me I was corrected in an understanding manner. This was not my first mentally disoriented moment either. This morning I responded to a tweet that I read wrong and just noticed it a few minutes ago. There was no response so I assume they have deemed me a moron and will never talk to me again.  I am at least ten seconds behind in my thought process and I should be in bed catching up with Mrs. Sleep, but I have finally found a place to hide and my laptop is fully charged. So here I am and here I will stay. At least until I start having double vision. Or I pass out. WARNING: This blog is being operated by a overtired, hanging on by a thread, barely functioning mentally at the moment woman. Beware! I will use a lot of adverbs. OH NO! I met with my daughters teacher today. Report card pick up day is hectic and crowded as usual, but the kids are always excited because they get to pick out a book afterwards from the book fair. I love to watch them browse the sections repeatedly and finally choose one that interests them. Yes! Mini me's in training. I'm a proud mama.  After that I took the kids to see my parents and show off the good grades. My mom gave them a dollar each and made them something to eat. My father was tinkering with the old set of Christmas lights trying to get them to work again. I remember my mother buying those things when I was in high school and I told my dad that it was OK to throw them out because they have been long replaced with new ones. I shouldn't have bothered, but I was concerned for his safety. A couple hours later he finally gave up, but not before becoming extremely pissed off. He blamed me for breaking his concentration then stormed out of the room, leaving me at the kitchen table next to a tangled bunch of lights and my little sister giving me the evil eye for upsetting our father. I should have stayed home. At least my mom cooked for me. I never get sick of her yummy food. It's worth the abuse I get when I visit. Besides; it didn't bother me until ten seconds later. |
| Review Time. Yipee! |
| It's raid time. For the next few days I will be knee deep in poems, short stories, and novels. I LOVE to read. If I could, I would do it all day and night. I also get to review them and that makes me nervous. When I first started reviewing I was afraid to tell someone their piece needed editing. I worried that it would discourage them and they would not want to write anymore. But as someone who craved feedback and writing advice, I offered suggestions in the most positive way I could. Being honest is best. Not everyone is going to like my work and I won't like everything I read, so I have developed some rules that I try to follow. First I will say, that I rarely come across a piece that is terrible. I did find one with the worst spelling, but I think English is her second language. Many of the stories or poems I come across on this site are upstanding and beautiful. Many of them put my stuff to shame. I don't mind or take it to heart. There is always something to learn from another person. When I review a piece I am as honest as possible. Also I am as encouraging as I can be. I remember posting something that I thought funny, but someone thought horrible. They let me have it, with a page long list of things to fix or take out. I was so excited and happy, I must have thanked her six times in the reply email. Around here, I am the only one who writes or reads. Trying to get my husband to read one of my poems or stories is like trying to get him off the couch when football is on. Impossible. Sometimes and this is rare, he will read something I wrote and his critique will go like this: "It's alright." or " I don't get it." or " This is too long. I'll do it later." That's all the feedback I can squeeze out of him. So when I get a long, in-depth and honest review, I couldn't be happier. Anyway, I am not that hard to please . Any feedback is good enough for me. Oh yeah, rules. OK I hate rules, so loose guidelines is what I'll call them.  Treat others the way you would like to be treated. (If your the type who likes to be verbally abused, please go get help. I can't do nothin' for ya! And don't treat someone else like that, it's just not nice.) Honesty is really the best policy. If I told someone I loved their story when I see plenty of grammatical errors and misspellings, that would make me a liar and would not help them get better. Consider your fellow writers here on WDC as friends OR even pen pals. Would you lie to your friend or would you tell your friend snot is falling out of his nose so he doesn't walk around like an idiot all day? (If your a practical joker, once is OK. Twice, is not cool!) Offer suggestions to the best of your knowledge. I am not that great with grammar so I let them know first off. Tell them what the first impression is and how the piece made you feel. For poetry I have a checklist, and that is a great help since I am not completely familiar with all forms of the craft. I usually try to feel the poem and interpret it in my own way, then try and see if it is close to what the author is trying to communicate. Reading a poem aloud is a must. Thank them for sharing their piece and leave them with an encouraging statement.That's about it. If I think of anything else, I'll add it in another entry. If you have any suggestions, feel free to drop in and say so. Everyone is welcome here. On another note, I entered my first contest on this site. It was the writers cramp and no I did not win. The prompt was to use five or six given words and incorporate them into a story in a twenty for hour time frame. I had three hours, so I wrote a story for my kids. My daughter loved it, so I am going to develop it into a mini series for her. This will give her something to do when she says she's bored. I'm planning to enter more contests soon Anyone have any suggestions? |
| Mc Rib OR Mc Writing? |
| Last week, there was a segment on the news focusing on Mc Donalds. Once a year they "bring the Mc Rib back" and the city goes crazy. My mother loves this sandwich, and everyday her Facebook is flooded with messages reminding her to get one. The news segment focused on the ingredients it takes to make up this popular sandwich. If you ever had a Mc Rib, you know that the only vegetables it comes with is onion and pickle which is thrown on top of a BBQ covered slab of meat and placed in between two pieces of bread. I'm not going to tell you what the meat is made of and whether or not it is a real piece of rib or not. I am not going to tell what goes into the sauce and how terrible it is for you. What I am going to tell you about is about the bread. It's not really bread. It's a science experiment. There are so many ingredients that in the end it left me wondering, "Is this even bread anymore? Why does it have to be so complicated?" That got me thinking about the story I started writing a couple days ago. I am barely five pages in, and I am over complicating things and going into stress mode. Usually this happens to me after I am ten or eleven chapters in, and I have made a mess of things. There are a list of ingredients that should be applied to a story. Elements necessary to make the story work. (Don't worry, this list is not as long as the one for the bread.) How do you do that Lana? You ask. I'm not exactly sure. Here is what I think, put in not so sophisticated terms. You have your main character. Something has to happen to him/her that is life changing. They have to want, need or desire something. There has to be crisis. He or she has to do something about it. Some thing has to get in the way or another bigger crisis has to happen. The main character solves the problem and is changed. I think these are the basics. The foundation as Mr. Percy puts it. This is the science of writing. Doesn't sound so hard right? Mr. Percy talks about these points pretty much everyday in his blog. He said that you have to repeat something three times before a person soaks it in. Well his father used to tell him that, but you get the point. It takes about five or six times for me, but don't tell him that. He might not let me in his class. What's your point Lana? I thought you were talking about food. I was talking about the ingredients it takes to make something. Compare the famous Mc Donalds sandwich loaded with so many things. It is not what is seems. Then you have these easy six ingredients I listed to write a great story. There will be some added ingredient but that's the art superseding the science, the creativity part. Put these elements together and you have everything you need to write a great story. Why I haven't done this yet is beyond me. I did tell you it takes five or six times for something to soak in my brain. I'll get it eventually. *In case you are a curious little monkey, I've listed the ingredients that go into the bread below. McRib Bun: Enriched flour (bleached wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, yeast, high fructose corn syrup, contains 2% or less of the following: salt, corn meal, wheat gluten, soybean oil, partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oils, dextrose, sugar, malted barley flour, cultured wheat flour, calcium sulfate, ammonium sulfate, soy flour, dough conditioners (sodium stearoyl lactylate, datem, ascorbic acid, azodicarbonamide, mono- and diglycerides, ethoxylated mono- and diglycerides, monocalcium phosphate, enzymes, guar gum, calcium peroxide), calcium propionate (preservative), soy lecithin. What's A McRib Made Of? By Ben Popken on November 2, 2011 12:00 PM http://consumerist.com/2011/11/whats-a-mcrib-made-of.html |
| Thoughts askew |
| A surprising white flurry of fluffy white flakes descended upon the rooftops and gently landed onto the sidewalk as my children and I watched through our picture window. The classic song “Let it snow” by Dean Martin came to mind and I belted it out at the top of my lungs. Much to my children’s amusement, they swayed from side to side in unison and sang along with their tiny voices. It was a picture perfect moment. On the recliner to right of us, my husband stared at us with a raised eyebrow and a silly smirk spread across his face. A look that means he is about to make a smart-ass comment. Probably about my amazing and beautiful singing voice. I forgot to warm up and I was a bit off key, but I sounded good. I shot him that please do not ruin this moment stare, hoping he would let me enjoy the few seconds of snow before it melted. By some miracle, he did. Until the kids left the room, then it was a back and forth wisecrack-a-thon. We have been maintaining a fun atmosphere around the house this week. It’s been too serious lately, and we haven’t been smiling enough. I plan to take the kids out on the trampoline one last time before the weather becomes intolerable and we settle in for the winter. I have been working on a character sketch for one of the characters in my novels. I am having trouble with this because, I am used to writing the story and letting the characters personalities and quirks and everything else unfold onto the page. I have no idea how to put it into an outline. I mean I know how to write an outline, I am not an idiot, it’s just my mind goes all over the place when I try. I write things down and then I think of something better so I scratch that and write the new idea down. Then the next part doesn’t fit anymore and I go back to the first idea or start over again. I’ll do some research later and see if there are any examples online. I’ll let this outline linger in my mind for a while and tackle it in the next few days. The strange man came to visit me again. This time, he stood in the background and watched me fight my evil cousin and save her son. His eyes were not as frightening as before, and I thought there was a hint of pride in them. I am not sure what he wants yet, and I haven’t had time to think what his presence might symbolize. I have to admit, as scary as he is, I find a certain twisted comfort with him there. In a way, I feel safe. Not safe from him; he is oozing with danger, but safe from everything else. Maybe he is protecting me, ensuring I am in one piece so he can tear me apart himself. Of course, I am not positive of his motives, but he scares the crap out of me and I assume my death is his goal. If he comes back tonight, I am going to write a book about him. |
| Nightmare |
| Nightmare I woke up in a sudden frenzy this morning. I was jolted from my dream world so fast; it took me a few seconds to realize I was in bed. In this dream, a man approached me. He was of medium build with golden brown hair perfectly arranged on his head, and dressed in an expensive suit. He was and older man with a handsome features, and a sinister smile. In the last three or four dreams, he made cameo appearances in between scenes but never approached me. Last night he asked me for something. His voice was deep, heavily accented and dangerous. I asked him what he wanted and he did not answer. I waited for him but he just stood there, so I started to walk away. I did not like him; and I felt an urgent desire to leave. Before I could get away, he grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into him. He told me if I did not give him what he wanted he would kill my family, and the lights flashed on around us. I did not realize we were in the dark or that we were alone, until my family appeared. Only they weren’t my family, just strangers representing them. Frightened I would be the cause of a loved ones demise, I agreed to give him what he wanted as soon as he set them free. An eerie smile spread across his face and he agreed. I was on the other side of the room, which was more like an empty space. It reminded me of the old cartoons when they incorporated the artist, who would mess with the characters by erasing the road in front of them or completely wiping out the scene leaving them on an empty page. I glared at him from across the room, and one by one, my family disappeared vanishing off the blank page. With outstretched arms, he summoned me. Desire and greed oozed through his deep voice and I thought I spied drool forming in the corner of his mouth. I trudged towards him, scared and pissed off. He received me with such vigor; I almost thought I was safe. Then his smooth hand glided up my back and latched onto the back of my head, pulling my head back so my neck was visible. Before his lips touched my skin, I sunk a long blade into his back and ran like hell when released me. “You really thought it was going to be that easy?” I said to him before jumping off the blank page and out of my dream. |
| I dream in stories. |
| I dream in stories. I have done so since I was a young child. Each morning I would wake up with a new and exciting tale or a continuation of a previous dream. As I grew older, I would tell my dreams to anyone who would listen. I grew up in the same home for the first 16 years of my life and next door was an older woman who was very kind to me. She was the total opposite of the grumpy old police officer on the other side. I have fond memories of this woman as any child would when someone is very kind to them. Her name was Miss Maholy. I am not positive it was her true name but that’s what I called her and she never corrected me, so I am sticking with it. My sisters and I were the only kids on the block at the time and our ball would always roll on her lawn and into her flowerbed. My mother had warned us not to step on her flowers so we always rung her doorbell and asked if we could carefully retrieve our ball. Now that I look back on these events, I realize how patient and kind she was. I have little recollection of how she looked. I was eight or nine then, and all I remember about her is that she always wore a loose dress made of a flowery pattern and pink slippers. In the evening, she would sit in the middle of her top step with her cute fluffy dog on her lap and wait for me to talk to her before I went inside for dinner. One day she made me banana nut muffins and told me a story about her younger years while I sat besides her and devoured them. The next afternoon a woman stopped by my now favorite neighbor's house, and as nosy as I was for an eight or nine year old, I skipped over to say hello. I found out Miss Maholy had a daughter and she was as lovely as her mother was. I was so excited I couldn’t keep my mouth shut and talked to her for a very long time. I remember one thing about that day that has stayed with me ever since. She listened. She was into my story. Really she was. Kids have built in radar; they can tell when an adult is interested in what they have to say or just blowing them off. I’m not sure how long our conversation lasted, but to me, it seemed like forever. She listened and I talked, so I told her one of my dreams. I added to it as I went along and turned it into a fascinating tale. Well it was to me, and I recall her smiling and encouraging me to continue. I will never forget that moment. I think that day; I became a storyteller. My mother was not supportive of this. I would get in serious trouble if she heard me telling my sisters a story, so I would tell them in secret or when she wasn’t around. Eventually my sinister tales gave my cousins nightmares and kept my sister glued to me during the night. I read every book I could and when I came across a story I didn’t like, I would change it and make it better. It started that way until it morphed into a completely different story that had nothing to do with the original. Then I would try it out on my family. If they liked it, I would move on to friends and so on. It never occurred to me that I should write any of these stories down. I guess I was so scared my mother would find out, that anything she could use as evidence was out of the picture. I don’t know the exact day I decided to put pen to paper; but since then, I haven’t been able to stop. Question: When did you decide to become a writer? Have you always known you would be? Or were you compelled to write something one day that triggered the writing itch? I am interested to know when YOU became a storyteller. |
| Can you get something good from bits and pieces? |
| I made it out of the house yesterday in one primped up piece. Last nights comedy show got me thinking. Yes I was laughing too. In fact I was laughing so hard I think I might have embarrassed the group of friends I was with. The variety of comedians commanded the stage which was constructed of two tables pushed together and brought forth an onslaught of laughter. I love to laugh, but I found myself picking apart each of the comedians routines. By the end of the night I mentally compiled a collection of the best jokes and put together in my opinion, a perfect routine. By perfect I mean a collection of jokes that received the most laughter. I was tempted to write them down but stopped myself because I was already drawing too much attention with my loud and uncontrolled outbursts of laughter. I do the same thing when I watch movies. I pick them apart from start to finish and most of the time figure out the movie way before it ends. The formula is usually the same. Most mainstream movies nowadays are regurgitated and predictable. They lack mental stimulation and spell everything out for the audience before or after or during all the impossible action scenes. So I figured if I compiled the best jokes of the night and one of the comedians performed them, it would be the perfect set. There will be constant laughter ending with a standing ovation and a long line of folks ready to spend their hard earned cash on the CD sold in the corner booth next to the DJ. The comedians talked about the same thing in their own way. Sex, drugs, race, and personal experiences. Each joke had a different reaction from the crowd. A few laughs here and there, some ooh I can't believe you went that far laughs and some laugh till your stomach hurt outbursts. Every person reacted to the jokes the way they perceived them. One of the comedians touched on politics and the reactions were plainly divided. On my table, I called it the poker table, there was a three way split. republican, democrat, and I don't care about politics group. After the show, when the music came on and the people crowded the dance floor, my group gravitated to the next room and settled down at the bar. The political discussion began and lasted until last call. I am not an expert on politics but I have been following the republican debates so I kept up and even threw out a few topic starters. A couple of the comedians overheard us and joined in. I felt like I was on Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher. I caught some shit from my republican friends when I asked them why they would agree with a political party that has no intention of helping working class citizens like themselves who are struggling to make ends meet. I was sent to the side of the bar with the group who didn't care about politics. I think that choosing sides is pointless. There will be no end to what is right or wrong when it comes to topics like this. If you look at things from an outsiders point of view, you would see a bunch of people who are full of themselves squabbling over money and power. That got me thinking of my perfect comedy formula. Apply it to politics. If you take the best qualities of both parties and combine them into one, and I'm talking about the qualities that help everyone collectively, you might actually have something. Think about it. |
| Getting ready or getting stressed. |
| For a woman, getting ready for a special occasion is kind of like a ritual, a ceremony. It can be a long one or a short one, depending on the notice and how much time is allowed for preparations. I don't speak for all women, I am not qualified to do that. I am however, qualified to speak for myself and the lovely women I know. I am going to talk about myself for two reasons. Reason number one: this is my blog and I can do that. Reason number two: to compare the difference between my sisters primping ritual and mine. Why you ask? I don't have a good answer for that but there is a science to it. I've been thinking and talking about science all day. Mr. Percy Goodfellow has provided me with interesting notions on the science of writing. This back and forth we had going, made me think of how there is a science to a woman preparing to go out. Let me back track to this morning after I purchased tickets for a local comedy show in my area. After signing off my computer and performing a tiny celebratory dance, I compiled a mental list of things to be done around the house. Whats for dinner, how much time it will take me to complete, what outfit I will wear, who will watch the kids, how my hair and makeup will be done, and what accessories will go with my outfit. This is all on the assumption that my husband will be wearing what I lay out for him. If he doesn't, I have a couple backup outfits stored for emergencies. Some of you women know what I'm talking about. It's all about preparation and time management. This is another issue. Time. I don't have much of it, so if I want to look my best in the shortest amount of time, I have to plan way ahead, like six hours ahead. So I start my day, taking care of household duties, feeding my son, and preparing all the ingredients for dinner so I can throw them together and make a meal later. Then it's dishes, feed the dog and fish, lay out my clothes, make the beds, blah blah boring stuff. Then jump online real quick to respond to some emails before I hop in the shower. Hair and makeup time. Make up has to wait, because an unexpected visitor comes. I have to stop blow drying my hair and settle for air dry instead and hope it's a perfect wave kind of day. An hour later the visitor leaves and I give up on my hair, it's a perfect friz kind of day and I plan to fix it later. My husband comes home and decides he is going to put up the bunk beds we bought for the kids today and guess who has to help him. OH JOY! Two hours later I'm bitching because I'm sweaty and late picking up my daughter from school, but glad I didn't get to the makeup part yet. Next is another shower and start dinner. It's going to be an early dinner tonight. Get the kids overnight bags packed, just in case, and check on my husband who is still building the bunk beds. By this time I am contemplating on staying home because I know I will be rushing in the end and I won't look like the woman I imagined in my head this morning. I remind myself that I already purchased the tickets and to NOT call my friends and offer them a night out on me. A fellow poet and blogger, Mia, reminded me that a little play is good for the writing soul. I need to play. So I leave for this night of laughter and hopefully a few libations in two and a half hours. My husband is almost finished with the beds and the kids bellies are full. All I have to do is clean up the pile of sawdust, screws and spare parts (OH NO!) and hope I can pull off a kick ass look. Now for the comparison. My sister. A single independent working woman. How she prepares for the same night out. Comes home from work, showers, dries her hair, sets it in curlers, dresses and eats at the same time, lets her hair out, curls it again with hot iron, pins it up in a cute way, and spends the next few hours doing her makeup and nails. Tonight when we meet up, she will look like a million bucks and I will look like a stressed out million bucks. I hope they have good wine, or whiskey... whatever.  |
| I want to change... but not right now. |
Working on some of my older pieces in my portfolio. I think I might scrap them and write new stuff. I'm in one of my moods again. I hate editing my stuff. I get too emotionally attached and I never want to change anything. After hours of brooding, I finally changed something. The font.  I am hopeless. |
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