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 |   Reflections and ruminations from a modern day Alice - Life is Wonderland |
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Reflections and ruminations from a modern day Alice - Life is Wonderland  Welcome to the place were I chronicle my own falls down dark holes and adventures chasing white rabbits! Come on In, Take a Bite, You Never Know What You May Find... "Curiouser and curiouser." Alice in Wonderland    |
| "Blogging Circle of Friends " DA Y 2528: October 22, 2019 Prompt: Write about comfort. Comfort seems to be a hard thing to come by as of late. I'm struggling a bit mentally at this point in my life. I've wondered quite frequently if I've become depressed in my middle age despite never having been particularly troubled by bouts of depression in the past. I've had bad moods that have elapsed into bad days but nothing that has left me feeling "scooped out" or drained to the point of inaction. Lately I feel that most days I am working hard to stay focused, to stay engaged. I am, in a real sense, wallowing in my own dim mire. The crisp October weather has been of some comfort. Spending time on the farm with our horse Roo has been a comfort but even that can only pull be out of my funk for so long. I'm quite sure I must be in a depression and while I believe I can name the catalyst, it brings little resolution for me. I look around and see the world moving forward but I seem stuck. My family is a blessing and possibly my greatest source of comfort but I know they sense the change in my, my deepening distraction and some of them might be worried where my head is really at. "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" DAY 2029 October, 22, 2019 Prompt: In Thunder and Lightning: Cracking Open the Writer’s Craft, Natalie Goldberg says, “I see that while I think I’m the active one, always doing, creating, I am also the one being created.” What are your opinions about what she says, and does what she says apply to you in some way? I'm not sure how I feel about this prompt. I feel like so much of my writing is reflective of me, of my emotions and my experiences, I don't feel as if I am recreating myself. I'm not familiar with the book, perhaps if I were to read it I would have more background as to what she means. I might be able to flesh out some part of it that applies to me and my creative processes. |
| "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" DAY 2025 October 18, 2019 What do you like to do on a dark and stormy day? Dark and stormy days are some of my favorite weather events. I think they are best enjoyed by lighting a fire and a few candles in case I lose power. I'd love to say I curl up with a good book but in truth, I am most likely prone to watch Netflicks with the daughter and the dogs draped about us on the couch. In my more prolific moods, I would try to write something. It seems easier to lose myself in some story when the fog rolls in and the rain is battering the window outside my little writing nook. "Blogging Circle of Friends " DAY 2525 October 18, 2019 Share a childhood memory that makes you smile. In my middle school years, we lived in a little rural town called Preston. We had a modest raised ranch in a neighborhood my siblings and I shared with several schoolmates. There was a kind of intimacy in our hood, everyone knew everyone. In the summer, when the daylight would stretch into the dinner hours, my family would host a neighborhood softball game. The teams consisted of family, my parent's friends and all our friends from the street. We would play until it got too dark or the bugs forced us all back inside. It was an all ages game. I remember knowing that those nights were unique and special. I think back to that camaraderie, to that feeling of being part of a close knit community, with a fondness that always makes me smile. I wish I could give my daughter the same experience but the world is so different now. There is so much more distance between people. Though we recently moved into a similar rural neighborhood, we only really know a handful of neighbors and there isn't one child her age on the street. |
| "Blogging Circle of Friends " Day 2524 October 17, 2019 Do you share your real self online? Or have you created a fake online persona (pen name) for your writing? What is the value in using a fake persona for your work? I have been writing and publishing under MD Maurice for as long as I can remember. It isn't necessarily a fake pen name, it is actually my maiden name and my initials. Using my initials served a dual purpose...it was first and foremost a nod to some of my favorite authors; DH Lawrence and CS Lewis. I also enjoyed the sexual anonymity by not using my obviously feminine first name. I found that particularly handy when I started publishing some of my erotic and horror pieces. I like that is put me on a gender neutral playing field to start off. As far as sharing my real self online...I would say nothing exposes me more than blogging. It is difficult to hit "publish" sometimes because I have been too candid about one thing or another. It feels very vulnerable some times but I have to be authentic in my writing or else what is the point? I feel readers are owed at least that much if they are taking the time to read my work. It has to be personal. It has to be real. Even in my fictional pieces, there is always so much more of "me" in my characters than I might normally be comfortable with but that is just how I've always written. "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" Day 2024 October 17, 2019 Prompt: What books are on your winter reading list? I would like to think I have the actual time for a winter reading list...sincerely. That sounds like a marvelous edition to my life. The reality is, if I have free time to myself, I'm usually grocery shopping or cleaning stalls and not reading or better yet, writing something. If the predictions of a snow-filled winter here in the Northeast ring true, I may just have some long snowed-in weekends of reading by the fire. If that happens, then I can think of a few titles I'd hit up first... I'd tackle the latest James Lee Burke novels about his chief character, Dave Robicheaux. In 2018 he published, "Robicheaux" and then "The New Iberia Blues" in 2019. I love this character and the beautifully visual world Burke paints as only a master can. I start in on one of his novels and always feel as if I am warmly welcomed back in to a place I have been away from for far too long. Then, because I can't think of more fitting polar opposite, I think I'd like to take on Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" or "Good Omens". I've become a fan of his style, he's made the sy-fy genre somehow more appealing and accessible to me with his dark visions and wry humor. I'd love to read Stephen King's latest, "The Institute" as well. I'm more a fan of King's early work but I did enjoy "Dr. Sleep" - and its obvious connections to his wonderful book, "The Shining". Lastly, and this I actually intend to do this winter, I'd like to read Lewis Carroll's classic, Alice in Wonderland. I'm not completely sure I've ever read the original. I need to do that both for the sheer enjoyment as well as to build some groundwork for a piece of fan fiction I am working on. |
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