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 |   Second blog -- answers to an ocean of prompts |
 "Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself." CHARLIE CHAPLIN  Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you. David Whyte        This is my supplementary blog in which I will post entries written for prompts. |
| Prompt: "I have a writing addiction." Prince Do you feel like this? Write anything you want about this. ----- If writing is an addiction, I love my addiction. I wouldn’t call it an addiction, however. It is my choice I fell in willingly. No one forced me into it. Quite the contrary. I was always told to do something more worthwhile, translation: financially beneficial. Sometimes people wanted me to be like them, going after nonsensical, meaningless pursuits that they themselves were involved with. But I chose wisely, even if it was the only wise thing I did in my life. This is because writing is more beneficial than anything, and it comes so handy toward the end of one’s lifetime. Those of us who love writing are never bored. As far as writing is concerned, one doesn’t need to bend over her desk day in and day out. We writers write everywhere, even when we lack paper, pen, or something to type on. We write inside our heads. We write about our tough times, our good times, others’ tough and good times, what we observe around us, and what we think and feel about anything. Writing is the key to our living. It is as important as breathing. It refines us. It keeps us busy. It entertains us. It is our best friend. It is who we tell our most secret thoughts and beliefs. Writing is like our alter ego. Usually, it gets itself known on paper or screen. Even when it doesn’t, it keeps an office inside our minds. I think there is nothing better than writing. |
| Prompt: "If the person you have been talking to doesn't appear to be listening, be patient. It may be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear." Winnie The Pooh Write about a time you have felt this way about a person you were talking to. ----- Yes, of course. That type of behavior occurs with some people once in a while, and such a quote is why I love Winnie the Pooh so much.  By the way, don’t some spouses (take notice that I didn’t use a gender) have that kind of fluff in their ears? The thing is, we can’t get inside people’s heads and make them listen, so we don’t feel like inanimate objects who make sounds that are lost in the great beyond. Then, what can we do? Sometimes, extremely talkative people bore others to death and cause them to tune out. In addition, there is that person who, instead of listening to what we are saying at that very minute, is formulating his or her next answer because what she says is more important to her than the topic in question. When that happens, what usually comes out of her mouth is a side issue, which can be titled as But She Digresses. When this happens, I usually tell myself that others’ behaviors have nothing to do with me and the other person is just distracted or uninterested or has his own problems. Also, the other person can be hearing-impaired. Some hearing-impaired people deny their lack of hearing and they act as if they are hearing us. Then, it might be me. I ask always myself if I am informed enough to carry that specific topic well enough in a conversation if the others are tuning me out. I don’t know what would work to make people listen to what we say, just maybe: educating ourselves in a person’s thinking and learning style; trying to speak more clearly and explaining things the way they can understand; not being repetitious; giving them a chance to talk; asking them questions; trying to create a meaningful relationship with them so they give more importance to what we say. Also, trying to talk to a person who is raging or overly emotional doesn’t work. In which case, we can let them blow off steam and calm down before they can listen to what we say. |
| Prompt: In W. E. B. Du Bois book, The Souls of Black Folk, he addresses the experience of double consciousness, a divided identity split between the consciousness of how one views oneself and how one is viewed by others. Have you struggled with representing yourself while being conscious of how readers may view you when they read your work. ----- Not really because I don’t think of the readers while I am writing, although those who write books on the subject say to target an audience. I sort of write for me and although I have been published, which happened because of where I worked as a linguist or because friends who published magazines and books picked my pieces on their own, I haven’t submitted my stuff as of yet. I may in the future, that is if I have a future, but it is a pain what an author goes through after their submission is accepted. Having said this, that double consciousness thing is a fact and. it does happen to me during the everyday living. I may be sitting in a room talking to people, but how I feel may be different than what I project and possibly what the way people see me. It isn’t that I hide anything or utter false stuff about myself because I don’t do that. I don’t need to do that. It may be because, in my life, so many people have projected things about themselves onto me and who they believe I am, which mostly isn’t true or complete. Not that what they projected is negative either. Mostly it has been overly positive, but to my understanding, that positivity is usually false or exaggerated. |
| Prompt: In your writing experiences have you considered spin-offs. A spinoff is not a re-write or a reprint but simply a window or an element in every article that can open into a different idea. One story often leads entirely to another, both are different and yet intricately linked. ------- In the last issue of Writing Digest, there is a good article on spinoffs. That made me think about this. At least two or more of my NaNo novels can have a spinoff involving one or two of the secondary characters. One of those can have a spinoff even with the main character because she was a child who grew into her later teens and in the last chapter, she learned something shocking about her background. I figure I can give her a few good flashbacks of that scene and that scene could decide the hang-ups and decisions in her later life. In fact, I think most any novel can have a spinoff because there are those situations, different secondary and supporting characters (they = are already developed, which is a bonus), and the setting. Using the setting would be fun because I develop the settings with care with maps and house plans. Having said all that, I think each novel that is a spin-off should be able to stand up on its own with all its loose ends tied at the end. An installment doesn’t mean series, but the writers and publishers just call any installment, a book in series, which I assume is for financial reasons. Case in point: Stephanie Bond is a writer whose books I enjoy reading just for the fun of it—nothing literary, but clean prose and good storytelling. Yet, a few months ago, I got a free Kindle book of hers from Amazon. It was a continuing series; however, there was no indication of it in Amazon’s intro or in the writer’s offering. The story finished at the end of the sixth book with each following book costing $2.99. But the story was written well with excellent hooks, and I bit the bait. I’d rather pay $15. for a good story rather than getting misled. Besides, it is a pain to go back and get another installment each time the story takes a turn. Such a practice is not writing a spinoff, it is something else. If the first book does not finish on its own, the reader should be warned before making a commitment. I have to repeat. Every spinoff should be able to stand on its own in a series. |
| Prompt: Describe your perfect weekend getaway. ----- A weekend getaway? A weekend is too short. I’d like at least a week’s getaway. Since I’ve traveled more than enough in my life, I’d like to go to a quiet place with a window in my room that has the water-view of a lake, river, or ocean. A place where I can take walks early in the morning and late in the evening. A place where the meals are sent to the rooms which have usable kitchens, too, where I could prepare things for myself if I so wish. A place where deliveries from the outside can be made, also, since I’ll need provisions. This I want because during the day, I’ll read and write to my heart’s content. Gosh, without realizing, I just wrote about a writing retreat, self-made, while sounding like Greta Garbo who is purported to have said. “I want to be alone,” which she later denied saying that but she admitted to saying, “I want to be let alone.” I don’t want to be alone all my days, but I’d like to have some me-time for reading and writing that is free of interruptions. |
| Prompt: "Independence means happiness." Susan B. Anthony Do you agree with this quote? ------- I don’t know if anyone who is independent is happy, but I value independence greatly. Maybe it comes from being an only child, maybe not. I was never a rebel unless pushed, but I like to decide for myself and most of the time I like finding solutions by myself, which is not a very good thing in old age, I am finding out. This quote brings to mind something on the independence of thought from Fahrenheit 451 by Bradbury. “If they give you lined paper, write the other way.” I tend to agree with that, at least with what it means metaphorically. Regardless of doing (or not doing) the opposite of what others push you to do, truly independent people like to think for themselves and perhaps cannot fit into a group that has its own rules. Then, if you don’t fit in a group, chances are you will be castrated. In that sense, does that kind of independence lead to happiness? I am asking this question because human beings are social people and most of us need to fit in a group or society that has to have at least some of its beliefs and actions come close to our own independent ways. “Live and let live” does not always work in many close-knit and tight societies with strict rules or even in those that do not censure your thinking. When the counterforces of thought do not agree with yours and they become strong enough, you either end up being alone or you may lose your independence and therefore, uniqueness. So, does true independence mean happiness? I think, maybe sometimes and only within the person, but not always. |
| Prompt: "As we said goodbye late that afternoon, I thought: Don't go, I want you in my life. And in a sense, she didn't go." Write a poem or anything you want about a friend who made you feel this way. ---- To My Best Friend When we were kids, you said, “All I want is to paint,” and I said, “All I want is to write.” You said, “I paint, and you write, such great combination,” but life is a home with many rooms a different décor in each and we got lost in different quarters trying to be unpredictable, although going with the flow, and how fragile were the wishes of youth! Now that the years have fled, you’ve begun to paint I’ve begun to write, untangling ourselves slowly from that home with many rooms, at the start of whatever comes next, and we both sing to each other in our secret language feeling our connection. from miles apart. |
| Prompt: What did you get in trouble for the most when you were younger? ------ I mostly got in trouble for sassing and wisecracking my mother especially when she crossed me. This was probably during my earliest teen years. Then, when my cousin and I were about 13 or so, we got into mischief together. The kind of mischief we got into wasn’t really harmful to ourselves or anyone else, but it was (supposedly!) humorous mischief, like changing the places of things. Once we had two sets of house guests in the house. When everyone else was in the living room talking, we sneaked upstairs and exchanged the guests’ bags. That is, in Guest A’s room we put Guest B’s bags and vice versa. I didn’t necessarily get into such silly trouble on my own, but when my cousin and I were together, we cooked up a whole lot of things like that. All of them were ridiculous and unnecessary. To this day, my cousin is my best friend, and surprise, surprise, we both ended up okay.  |
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