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  Noyoki's Blog. This is where I'll keep my responses to Blogging challenges, and stuff. |
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| “A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.” – Karl Kraus Blog City Prompt: Rahm Emanuel said, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste.” Have you ever spun a crisis into an opportunity? Were the end results good or bad? So far, I’ve been pretty lucky in life. Nothing I’ve experienced has reached the level of crisis, let alone a serious crisis. I doubt I’d be level headed enough to think of all the angles and how to exploit a crisis as it was on going, and I’d probably be too freaked out afterwards to think of a way to make it into an opportunity. The only reason I say that is because of how I react in arguments or when people are driving aggressively. My first thought is never to fight or yell, I try to smooth things over. Only later will I think “Oh, I should have honked at that person who cut me off, or I should have said this back to the person, that would have been the perfect come back.” I can think of all sorts of stuff…long after the micro crisis is over and forgotten. But when it comes to acting in the moment… Well, I’ll probably end up being one of the zombies noshing on your brains. 30 Day Blogging Challenge Prompt: Convince us to vote for you to be the leader of your country. For the good of all Humanity, it’s probably best that I remain out of power. I just don’t like humans enough to be a good steward of them. [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] There’s more to this clip, but I couldn’t find the rest. Still, it gives you a good idea of how I feel about the teeming masses of humans running around consuming everything. Either way, you should check out his specials, they’re awesome. |
| “Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.” – Napoleon Hill 30 Day Blogging Challenge Prompt: On this day in 1899 Phoebe, a moon of the planet Saturn, was discovered. If you’re on facebook, take a look at Friends of Phoebe. Today, just be kind. Be fun. Share a happy story. Be a friend to someone who might need a friend. Bonus points for pink and purple and cats. Cats   Cats There’s a lot more going on when we smile than you’d think. When it comes to something that can bring the world together, we don’t have to look any farther than a brilliant smile. It’s one of the few expressions that’s truly universal and has been observed and means the same thing no matter where you travel in the world. The mere act of smiling has the power to reduce a bad mood, and actually change how you feel. Is your day going wrong? Feel like every little thing is driving you insane? Force yourself to smile. Do it a couple times. Almost against your will, you’ll start to feel better because smiling releases mood enhancing chemicals. To top it off, smiling is contagious. When we see someone smile, we often find ourselves smiling in return. Feel better today, share a smile with your kids, your loved ones, perfect strangers. Let your smile travel around the world. [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Blog City Prompt: Pick something that appeals to your creative muse and write a story, a poem or discuss some of the points that you didn’t know. Maybe Dinah will inspire you as she did Carroll or aka Charles Lutwidge Dodgeson. The fun fact that stuck in my mind was that the original book title would have been Alice’s Adventures Underground. It reminded me of an article I read a while back about funny book titles for classic novels that were rejected in favor of the titles they were published under. What’s interesting is that a good title can help make a story. I think some of these books wouldn’t have done as well if they’d stuck with the original titles. Let me know if you think the same or not. 1. First Impressions became Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 2. All’s Well that Ends Well became War and Peace by Tolstoy 3. They Don’t Build Status to Businessmen became Valley of the Dolls by Jaqueline Susann 4. Four and a Half Years of Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice became Mein Kamph by Adolf Hitler 5. The Saddest Story became The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford 6. Tomorrow is Another Day became Gone With the Wind 7. The Dead Un-Dead became Bram Stoker’s Dracula The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald had a whole barrage of near naming disasters. - Trimalchio in West Egg - Amon Ash-Heaps and Millionaires - On the Road to West Egg - Under the Red, White, and Blue - Gold-Hatted Gatsby - The High-Bouncing Lover Would Alice’s Adventures Underground have been as great a classic as Alice in Wonderland? We might never know, but I think the second has a better ring to it. Thank Heavens for good Editors and all the people in marketing that have a talent when it comes to titling novels. When left to authors alone, things can get a little squirrely. |
| “Disappointment is just the action of your brain readjusting itself to the reality after discovering things are not the way you thought they were.” – Brad Warner Blog City Prompt: “There is no enjoyment like reading.” Jane Austen. With this in mind, what books will you be reading this spring and summer? While I was at Barns and Noble the other day, I spotted a book entitled Gone by Michael Grant. “In the blink of an eye, everyone fifteen and older vanishes leaving the Californian coastal town of Perdido Beach in chaos, from babies losing their carers to cars losing their drivers. It soon becomes clear that Perdido Beach is cut off physically and electronically from the world they knew before.” – Publisher’s website. It sounds like an interesting twist on things going wrong. It’s the first in a multi-book series, so if it turns out to be a good read, I’ll gobble up the rest over the summer. I’m also reading a number of writing books. The one I’m into right now is entitled: The Kick-Ass writer: 1001 Ways to Write Great Fiction. This is a deeply humorous, and rather colorfully language how to book. If you like insane and at times quite vulgar analogies, this is the book for you. One that stuck in my mind was on giving yourself treats for making your word count. You know like a bowl of ice cream, an hour of TV, a motorboat made out of pony bones. That sort of thing. 30 Day Blogging Challenge Prompt: If you were a cartoon, how would you market yourself? *Blink* *Blink….blink* Um…er…yeah. I suppose that would be up to the marketing department since I would be the cartoon. If you cut us, do we not bleed pixels? |
| “Pain is temporary; quitting is forever.” – Lance Armstrong 30 Day Blogging Challenge Prompt: Write a myth that explains why clouds have shapes (and/or how they got them). “Mama, why’s there a bunny in the clouds?” Mandy smiled down at the little girl lying on the grass next to her. They’d been telling stories back and forth about the pictures they all saw in the clouds. Now the clever girl asked the age old question: Why? Sure, she could offer explanations about cloud heights, mist, wind, and the way the elements played together when coupled with the human mind’s almost obsessive urge to find patterns in the random. But…No. No, instead she smiled. “You know how they taught you about souls in Sunday school?” “Mmhmm.” “Don’t tell the Priest, but I believe everything has a soul. Not just people, but all the animals, the plants, rocks, everything has its own spirit. When they’re done on this world, they go up, just like we do. But sometimes, they get tangled up in the clouds and like a mirror; they reflect their true form to our eyes for a minute before they make it through. That’s what causes the different shapes.” “That’s cool!” With a child’s quick acceptance, she lifted a hand and waved at the rabbit shaped cloud. “Bye Mr. Rabbit, have fun in the rolling fields of never, never!” |
| “There is a face beneath this mask, but it’s not me. I’m no more that face than I am the muscles beneath it, or the bones beneath them.” - Vendetta 30 Day Blogging Challenge Prompt: The United States is one of the few countries around the world that doesn’t offer paid maternity leave. What’s your opinion? Tough it out and be thankful you have a job and a family; demand better services for new mothers, babies, and their families; or somewhere in-between. I work for an insurance company, and I was given 8 weeks paid maternity leave when I got pregnant. Reading a few different articles, I would have loved to have had more time off to bond with my son and to help prolong the length of time I was able to breast feed with him. One of the major failings in the United States is a near total lack of paternity leave. It’s important for mothers and babies to bond, but it’s also vital for fathers to have a chance to bond with their children as well. Maternity and paternity leave are two areas where the U.S. workforce could greatly improve. There are countless studies showing the benefits of uninterrupted time for parents and babies in the first year of life, and I think those benefits would be reflected in our children when they enter school, and further when they move into the workforce. Blog City Prompt: Johnny Depp said, “My sickness is that I’m fascinated by human behavior, by what’s underneath the surface, by the worlds inside people.” In what ways, do you think, can you see through what’s underneath the surface of a person. One of the fastest ways to get the true depth of a person is give them power. If you give a bad person power, they’ll still be a bad person. A good person given power will continue being good. It’s all those people in the middle that you don’t know about until they have enough power to show their true selves. All the normal people who show us polite faces and yet never reveal what’s living under the mask of flesh. Another way to see clearly past the surface levels of a person is to see how they react in the middle of a dangerous situation or tragedy. Then the real them steps forth because there’s no longer time to keep it hidden. |
| “The Devil may take the reckless, but the good will surely die of boredom. Boredom and frustration.” – Sarah Dunant Blog City Prompt: Lisa Cron, author of Wired for Story claims our brains are hard wired “to think in story.” She adds, “Without stories, we are toast.” Do you believe she’s correct and do you find yourself thinking in stores? “You will not believe the kind of day I had, Emma. For starters, traffic couldn’t have been slower if it was made up of a herd of turtles. That made me late for work by twenty minutes, which turned out to be a good thing. You would not believe the stink in there! I have no idea what my fellow cube monkeys were eating this weekend, but dear God, it was enough to make me light headed. Anyway…” “And then the puppy went up the tree. And then he barked really loud. And then I saw him fly! I did! I really did!” “Oh? Yeah the security at the airport is getting crazy. Mary had to fly across country so her parents could meet the baby. Little Shawn, he’s so darned cute. I can’t believe it, cute as a button. Well, you know how she’s breastfeeding? The guards actually tried to make her drink it to prove it wasn’t poison or a bomb or something. Completely inappropriate if you ask me.” It isn’t just our thinking that is made up of stories, but almost all our interactions with each other. From husbands, to children, to neighbors gossiping over the fence, we share our world with each other in in the form of stories. From the start, humanity has relied on stories to continue our advancement. Parents use stories to teach their children about the world. Grandparents share past stories to instill values into their grandchildren. On and on through the ages we’ve employed the story to bring our world to life. 30 Day Blogging Challenge Prompt: Albert Einstein, born in Germany on this day in 1879, once said, “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the universe.” Do you agree or disagree with him, and why. I think the best answer to this quote is yet another: “Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.” – Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See The levels of human stupidity is almost awe inspiring in its boundless disregard for logic. A child can watch one child smell something gross, see that child almost throw up, and immediately shout “I wanna smell it too!” The sad thing is that we don’t grow out of this urge. We can watch someone crash and burn, yet do the exact same thing after watching it. In the end, humans are monkeys who’ve lost their minds. We’ve taken crazy to whole new levels. |
| “I’ve got a great ambition…To die of exhaustion, rather than boredom.” – Thomas Carlyle 30 Day Blogging Challenge Prompt: This week, the trailer for the new Ghostbuster reboot was launched…and along with it came concerns of racism and sexism. My biggest question is this: Are we just looking for reasons to be offended in everything nowadays? Or is this new Politically Correct culture a byproduct of the 24-hr news cycle, combined with the internet and social media being in our faces constantly? Is being aware of everyone’s opinions on everything somehow indirectly shaping our own? One of the major contributors to the society we see today of unlimited whining, complaining, and being insulted by every little thing under the sun is caused by the internet. It gave everyone a voice, and on top of them, hid all our faces. A person standing in line at the grocery store would never rant mindlessly at the woman behind them over whatever little thing is bothering them that day. Or well they might, but then they’d be labeled as ‘that crazy person’ and promptly ignored. It’s all part of the social contract we all live by. Yet the internet permits us all to throw off the social contract and go wild. Here’s just a few examples of insane things people are getting their noses out of joint about. 1. Manspreading – Where men sit in public transportation with their legs spread. You know, the way men have always sat since the whole mess began? 2. Team names – With all the problems we’ve got going for us, are sports team names really the most important thing for us to be debating? 3. Gay Marriage – I still can’t get my head around why people are pissed about this. If you don’t like gay marriage…don’t marry someone of the same gender as you. Problem solved. 4. Matt Taylor’s Girl Shirt – The net lost their mind over a stupid shirt. I guess they couldn’t handle a scientist who wasn’t wearing a white lab coat. Conformity at its finest I guess. I know there have been countless others, but my brain is melting out of my ears, and for the life of me I can’t create the right combination of words for the internet to tell me. I guess four is enough to get an idea of the inanities that so easily offend people today. |
| “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” – Albert Einstein 30 Day Blogging Challenge Prompt: Your blog is going to be adapted into a movie or musical. Who would play the main characters, what would the plot consist of (would you base it around a specific entry, or a general theme), and what would the theme song be? I’m going to start at the end, and work my way back. The theme song of my show would be People Are Strange by The Doors. Mine wouldn’t be a movie or a musical, it would be a reality TV show where me and other random bloggers wander the streets of wherever and ask equally random people blog prompts. Then we’ll rate the best responses and put them up on our public blog site. I suppose the best title, in truth the only, would have to be: Random Moments of Randomness with Dana. Blog City Prompt: Does a particular song or piece of music get you energized? Write about a time when the right song at the right moment helped you power through. I’ve never considered music as a source of energy, but I did have a song inspire a NaNoWriMo project. The song was by Three Days Grace called Pain. You’re sick of feeling numb, You’re not the only one, I’ll take you by the hand, And I’ll show you a world you can understand. This life is filled with hurt, When happiness doesn’t work, Trust me and take my hand, When the lights go out you will understand. It was a rather twisted Batman fanfiction involving Batman, Joker, and the Scarecrow. In it, Batman is injected by a concoction Joker forced Scarecrow to make that would have let Joker change his personality. Needless to say, things went wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong. And Bruce ended up kind of a blank slate. Things go downhill from there. Anyway, this song inspired the whole story. |
| “Dear Karma, I have a list of people you missed.” Unknown Blog City Prompt: Some personalities are high energy all the time, others so low energy you wonder if they’re awake. Where do you think you fall on that spectrum and why? I’d say I’m more in the low end side of the energy pool. Which really sucks, since I have so much stuff I need to get done, yet I don’t have the energy to do it. It probably has to do with lack of exercise and not eating the best diet, I’m sure. We are often our own worst enemies, isn’t that true? 30 Day Blogging Challenge Prompt: In 1909, the first gold medal to a perfect-score bowler was awarded to A.C. Jellison by the American Bowling Congress. Are you good at any particular sports? Care to share a memory of your own with us? Or are you pretty not great at sports, and have a fun story about that? Sports. Ugh. They were the bane of childhood. When you think about sports, cast your mind back to Gym class. Do you remember the quiet girl who couldn’t hit a ball to save her life, no matter what form the ball took? I’m the girl who managed to catch the volley ball with her face, or it went right through her arms, or two feet next to her as she hit the air. When we moved out doors, I was the girl who stepped on top of the soccer ball instead of kicking it, and ended up flat on my back staring up at the sky and wondering which minor god I’d managed to piss off. Overall, sports and me have never gotten along, and to this day I despise them. |
| “What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.” – Richard Bach 30 Day Blogging Challenge Prompt: Complete the sentence and explain your position: “_________ will be the end of society as we know it.” Grey goo will be the end of society as we know it. And as everything else knew it as well. This is one end of the world scenario that ensures there won’t be life after humans. It begins where all good tales of epic failure begin, with science. The grey goo theory explores the concept of molecular nanotechnology mingled with 3D printers. In theory, these tiny machines would be developed to a) build objects b) be used for health reasons, injected into humans to fight diseases and cancer c) used to combat pollution There’s no end to the number of uses technology like this could be turned to. However, here’s the kicker, the mini bots are programed to us outside resources to replicate themselves. The Grey goo theory is what would happen if the replication process got out of hand, and the robots began consuming everything to recreate themselves. In the end, the planet ends up a giant ball of grey mater where nothing is left alive.  Blog City Prompt: Write about the word sentimental. Lynn knew she was being a sentimental fool, but couldn’t help it. This time of year always brought that out in her, even if she managed to remain cantankerous the rest of the time. There was just something about Christmas that woke the little girl in her frail heart, and even though it pained her more each year, she still puttered around the kitchen making all her favorite Christmas treats. Later, she’d take them down to the old folk’s home, and share them around with her friends, who envied the fact that she had yet to join them. |
| “I don’t believe in reincarnation, and I didn’t believe in it when I was a hamster.” – Shane Ritchie Blog City Prompt: Not one day can erase the memory of time. What is your take on this? Uhhh… Usually I’m good at prompts like this, but I’m feeling a little stumped. So I’m going to go all kinds of random here, and hope I’m somewhere near the target. Perhaps it means that no one day can change all the days that came before. Actually, that doesn’t make sense, seems one day can alter the course of our lives, and if that day didn’t happen, we would have gone on down a different path. So maybe it’s like this: one good day can’t change all the bad that’s happened, and one bad day can’t change all the good that’s happened. Perhaps it means that life is fleeting, and little changes on a day to day basis. Or something. Heck if I know. 30 Day Blogging Challenge Prompt: Do you believe reincarnation? In general, I’m an Occam’s razor kind of person. The simplest of several hypotheses is usually the best in accounting for unexplained facts. When it comes to life after death, the simplest answer is that nothing happens. When we die, it’s all over. The end. On days when I’m feeling a little more whimsical, I do entertain the idea of reincarnation. Mostly because of small children. It isn’t just stories I’ve read online, I’ve actually experienced it with my own son. The other day he said, “Mom, you’re going to grow old and die. And then you’ll be a baby. It goes round and round and round.” Since we aren’t religious, I don’t think he picked that up from someone else. The thing is, this story happens a lot with little kids. They’ll remember fragments of past lives, and the parents aren’t the ones who told them what to say. It’s one of the things that seems to happen often, and isn’t the sort of thing that has a lot of outside influence forcing it out. Here’s a great article on some of the things little kids have said about past lives: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/337315-10-things-kids-have-said-about-past-lives... |
| “Monsters are real, ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” – Stephen King 30 Day Blogging Challenge Prompt: March 7th was National Cereal Day. What are your top three favorite breakfast cereals? 1) Reese’s Peanut Butter Puffs – Amazingly yummy with or without milk. 2) Lucky Charms – I only eat these dry. First I separate the marshmallows, then eat the cereal part before eating the yummy mound of marshmallows. 3) Chex – I probably only like these because of Chex mix. Blog City Prompt: What makes you stop from quitting things, for example, your writing, hobbies, friendships, relationships, etc.? Hmm, a never ending series of give up and try again. Not with relationships, but that seems to be the theme of my writing life. I’ll write for a while, get discouraged, stop writing, get interested again, and start writing more. One truth prevails since I was in my teens, no matter what I end up doing, I always end up coming back to writing. |
| “Life is a pair of skinny jeans, and you’re a big fat ass.” – Tom Papa Blog City Prompt: In what ways are you positive when it comes to your writing, such as your know-how or talent or about expectations from other readers and writers? Is there any room for improvement as to your positive approach to your art? One area I’m a fair hand at is dialogue. I’m pretty good at making it sound natural and giving each character their own voice. One of the hardest challenges I’ve done before is the all dialogue story. It gave me a true appreciation for making sure each voice could stand alone. “Dave?” “Eh?” “Oh, come on. How can you still be sleeping? It’s almost six.” “Leave me lone.” “But you promised.” “Did not.” “Did too!” “Prove it.” “I’m telling mom!” There’s always room for improvement, of course. Writing with accents is always a huge challenge for me, and I worry I go a little overboard. 30 Day Blogging Challenge Prompt: Bret Easton Ellis, an American author born on this day in 1964, once said, “I feel like I’m not smart enough to answer the question’s I’m asked.” Your thoughts? Before I had a child, I might not have understood this on the base level. I mean, sure, I get what it means intellectually, but it wasn’t until I found myself in the endless stream of “Why?” That I learned exactly how much I don’t know about almost everything. “What’s in our bodies?” “Bones.” “What else?” “Veins.” “What else?” “Organs.” “What else?” This went on for the entire trip home one day, and I quickly ran out of things to say. Then he made me explain what everything did, and explanations like: “Er, the ligaments are like the tendons and they are like strings on a puppet that move the bones.” By the time it was over, I realized how little I knew about the human body. I can add that lack of knowledge to my lack of knowledge about: dinosaurs, the galaxy, bugs, sea life, and God only knows what else. Kids will teach you all you don’t know about the world, and in the end I’m always stuck with, “I don’t know! Now it’s quiet time, hush and listen to the music.” |
| “I love you as certain dark things are to be loved. In secret, between the shadows and the soul.” – Pablo Neruda 30 Day Blogging Challenge Prompt: On Sunday, the circus elephants of Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus will perform in New York City for the last time. Should events like the circus, which use trained animals in some acts, be considered cruelty to animals? What about other forms of entertainment that may feature live animals? I feel that the Circus with live animals is an entertainment for a by gone age. While I can understand animals in captivity in Zoos and whatnot, the Circus is a more difficult prospect for me to accept. The animals are forced to remain in small cages most of the time, unless they are out performing. They never have a chance to simply exist and be themselves, and they never have room to move, run, or play. In the past, Circuses were a way for people to see and understand animals from places they’d never have a chance to visit. With documentaries, zoos, and the internet, I believe we have this covered. Then again, I have to say I do love the magic shows using big cats. Terrible and hypocritical of me, I know, but those shows are truly amazing and seeing the big cats live is wonderful. |
| “Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.” – Robert A. Heinlein Blog City Prompt: If you think of energy like a bank account, how do you spend the vast majority of your daily energy? As much as I’d hate to say it, a goodly chunk of my energy goes towards my job since I’m there 40 hours a week. Next would go to my son, who seems to drain my energy and then uses the stolen energy to attempt to drive me insane (you couldn’t tell that I’ve had him all day, all alone…and finally just got him to go to bed, could you?). Next would go to reading, writing, and playing on the computer. Then my husband gets the left overs. >.< 30 Day Blogging Challenge Prompt: Pick a movie and give it an ending you’d much rather watch. If I could change the end to a movie, I’d pick Stephen King’s The Mist. I wouldn’t have them all live happily ever after, or have them not get shot, but I’d nix the twist. It pissed me off big time. My ending would live up to the set up, and something spectacular and haunting would eat the guy at the end. |
| “FRIDAY: Is like a superhero that always arrives just in time to stop me from savagely beating one of my coworkers with a keyboard.” - Unknown 30 Day Blogging Challenge Prompt: On this day in 1997, US President Bill Clinton barred federal depending on human cloning. Do you have any thoughts on cloning, whether it’s animals or people? Would you want to be cloned? I am primarily against cloning because the science behind it is riddled with flaws. To begin, the success rate of cloning is a mere .1 to 3 percent. For every 1,000 attempts to clone something, 970 to 999 of them will fail. Most of these failures begin at the start. Often times, the egg and the transferred nucleus will not be compatible. Of the ones that are, many won’t begin the division process at all, remaining unviable. Then the embryo’s that make it to the next stage of development might not implant into the surrogate mother or if they do, many end in miscarriages. If the offspring survive long enough to be birthed, the results are often unhealthy. One of the major difficulties in cloning is that the resulting offspring suffer from Large Offspring Syndrome where their organs are unusually large. The enlarged organs are prone to failure resulting in kidney and brain malfunction and impaired immune systems. Finally, there’s the mystery of telomeres. As we age, our chromosomes get shorter, eventually causing the cells to die. If you put an already aged cell with short telomeres into a clone, you’d expect a shorter lifespan. However, scientists have found that sometimes the implanted DNA has far longer telomeres, resulting in a much longer lifespan. Yet, the cloned sheep Dolly had much shorter telomeres, causing her life to be cut short. Scientists don’t understand why there are such radical differences in the telomere length of cloned animals, but it’s another area that would present difficulties for anything created via cloning. Then again, it might also present the key to extending the human lifespan if they ever figured it out. Would I want to be cloned? No. Not only would I feel horrible for the hundreds of people who would end up dying just to produce a health clone, I know it wouldn’t be me anyway. Why go though the horror of cloning only for it to be someone else? I wouldn’t want to inflict that life on anyone. Reference: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/cloning/cloningrisks/ |
| “I love books. I love that moment when you open one and can sink into it. You can escape from the world into a story that way more interesting than yours will ever be.” – Elizabeth Scott 30 Day Blogging Challenge Prompt: Do you have a favorite quote about writing? Tell us about it. Do I have a favorite quote about writing? Who doesn’t? The trouble will be narrowing the field down to just one, so I’m not even going to try. Here are a few of my top writing quotes. The first is actually the title of a writing book that has always stuck with me. “I was alone with all that could happen.” – David Jauss If I had to pick eight words that better described fiction writing…well I doubt it could be done. This simple line of text encompasses so much about writing that I’m in awe of it. For the writer, it is always a solitary journey. While we might invite the thoughts and opinions of others, when you get right down to where the cheese binds, it’s you, alone in a room, opening a doorway into the unknown. Even if you have a plan, anything at all might happen when the words start flowing, and in the end you are alone as you’re swept away by worlds unknown. The whole book is called: Alone with all that could happen: Rethinking Conventional Wisdom about the Craft of Fiction by David Jauss. Pick it up sometime, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed. “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.” – Maya Angelon I’m sure we can all agree that writing is hard. Sometimes it seems like the hardest thing in the world. Yet many of us find ourselves returning to it again and again. Why? Because we must. The stories live inside of us, and they have to come out, or they’ll end up clawing us to pieces. This quote shows the desperate side of writing, where all the work and the almost mad drive to get the words out can walk twisted roads that might lead down into insanity if they aren’t walked with care. “The scariest moment is always just before you start.” Stephen King It doesn’t matter how detailed the outline, how many character sketches you’ve crafted, or how detailed your research is, there’s always a keening moment of terror when you sit down and face the blank page at the start of a new project. Will the words come? What if they don’t? What if every word that falls from your numb fingertips is a pile of steaming awful? It is entirely possible to be undone before you write a single word. The last quote I’ll leave you with is the one that inspired my tattoos. “There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” – Ernest Hemingway I decided to get two quill feathers on my wrists, one is dripping black ink, the other blood.   Blog City Prompt: You are leaving earth forever on a NASA mission. What will you miss about the blue planet? Gravity. Sure, it would be fun to float around and drink blobs of water out of the air, but I have a feeling that it would get old fast. Everything from crying to trying to keep stuff from floating away would become a hassle. I don’t even want to think how difficult normal things like showering and going to the bathroom must be in zero gravity. I can just picture setting my glasses down and forgetting to strap them in, and then having to float all around the ship trying to find them. |
| “Spring is nature’s way of saying Let’s Party!” – Robin Williams Blog City Prompt: Secrets. Write about them. He stared down into the gaping maw of the abandoned mine shaft. Was that a moan? It couldn’t be. “Mary?” Silence. Of course there was silence. After all, a secret between three people could only be kept if two of them were dead. “Don’t worry, Mary. You’ll have company soon,” he crooned down into the hungry darkness. 30 Day Blogging Challenge Prompt: If we didn’t have our priorities, we’d have… Penguins! Why penguins? First, they’re adorable, chunky flightless birds so there’s none of the guilt associated with owning a flightful bird and keeping it in a cage. B) They’re dressed like tiny butlers, and who doesn’t need a butler in their lives to help keep their schedule, answer the door, and make our lives run smoother. And last of all…it’s the first thing that popped into my head when I read this prompt. Though you have to admit, if we can’t have priorities, penguins would be an entertaining substitute.  |
| “I was going to do something today but I haven’t finished doing nothing from yesterday.” – Unknown And the day before that, and the day before that, and the day before that for roughly…three months. >.< Look! I’m alive. I’m sure you all thought NaNo killed me, and I’ll admit, I didn’t make it out of the fray undamaged. After 73,669 words, and 221 double spaced pages I found myself with a broken story and feeling more than a little insane. *Sigh* So I’ve spent the past few months moping and not writing…or exercising…or dieting. A huge ‘I’m my own worst enemy’ sort of moment. Or endless series of moments. Anyway! All was not in vain, I also managed to co-author an anthology of Twitter sized stories that we published on Amazon, which has sold a grand total of 7 copies. *Sigh* Still, it’s something to show that has my name on it and maybe one or two of you will take a moment to check the silly thing out. If you do, let me know what you think, even if you hate it. http://www.amazon.com/Byte-Sized-Fiction-Collection-Twitter-ebook/dp/B01A3NXVT0/... I’ve also taken up the 100 Day Challenge yet again. For like the third time. This time, I’ll win! I’m going all out for blogging this time, and my goal is to blog every day for 100 days. I expect all of you to keep me honest and to scream and throw banana cream pies at me should I dare miss a day. 30 Day Blogging Challenge Prompt: Tell us about the last book you've read or are currently reading. Would you recommend it? Right now I’m reading Asylum by Madeleine Roux. I’m only about 50 pages in, but so far it’s a pretty awesome tale. I really love all the old photography she included in the book. There are tons of pictures of the old asylum the book is centered around, and they add a creep factor that couldn’t have been achieved any other way. The story is about a bunch of college age kids who are at a summer camp sort of thing where you can take classes and live in the dorms before college starts for real. Unfortunately for the wayward children, the regular dorms are being renovated over break, and they’re being housed in an old asylum that had been purchased and turned into dorms. The students are experiencing strange thoughts and feelings, and if I had to guess, I think it’s leaning towards their past lives as patients and doctors at the facility which closed its doors decades ago. I haven’t gotten far enough into it to know for sure, but that’s the feeling I’m getting. If you like creepy stories with a paranormal flare, this is a story you could sink your teeth into. There’s also a sequel, which I’ll have to check out once I’m done with this one. Blog City Prompt: Oscar Wilde says in his The Ballad of the Reading Gaol, “Each man kills the thing he loves.” What do you think he means? I believe this quote is a darker rendition of “If you love it, let it go.” We all have the instinctual urge to hold tightly to the things we love, and when you hold too tight, you end up smothering and destroying the very thing you were trying to keep safe. Children are a perfect example of this phenomenon. As parents, we want nothing but the best for our children. We want them to succeed in life, but more than that, we don’t want them to get hurt. However, we can sometimes go overboard in our protection to the point where we leave our children unable to think or act on their own. Our love becomes smothering and prevents the child from ever growing up. Then, when they’re inevitably forced to go out into the world, they fail because they were never taught how to function as a separate being. It is possible to destroy that which we love most, simply by not giving it enough room to grow. |
| “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” – Louis L’Amour NaNoWriMo – November 4th Getting the words was a little harder today, but I managed to plow on and get them down. More infighting with the family, and father/daughter team up to make mom happy again. Yay! Things are looking up, so that they’ll be able to spiral down again. Oh! The Twitter is paying off. Another writer contacted me and we’re working on a collab together. We’ll be writing 365 twitter post sized stories over the next couple of months and he’s going to make them into a kindle book. Now, before anyone jumps on me and says this is too good to be true and it’s all going to go down in flames (like my husband said), I’m okay with that. Even if the worse happens and he steals all my work, and doesn’t pay me, I’ll still have had the experience of hunting down 170 ideas, polishing them, and carving them down to a mere 140 characters. Trust me, it’s not as easy as it sounds. At this point, money is a bonus for me, even seeing my name on something published is a bonus. Right now, it’s all about the words, and getting as many down as possible to improve my craft. If it does turn out for the best, I’ll link to it when we finish. 30 Day Blogging Challenge Wildcard Thursday - Pick three authors- two who have written books you've read, and one from WDC- and construct your idea of 'The Perfect Writer' compiled of your favorite traits of theirs. Laurell K Hamilton, Stephen King, and JudasFm   . Laurell’s been one of my favorite writers for over 10 years. I love her characters, her world, and how beautifully she mixes reality and her fantasy. She isn’t afraid to go places were other writers shy from, and she’s active outside of her writing via blogs and Twitter, giving her fans an inside view of her life and how she writes. I adore Stephen King’s writing. Lord knows how much I’ve spent on his audio books so I can listen to them at work. When someone has a novel that’s over 1,000 pages and not only have you read it more than once, but listened to it more than once, you know it’s rocking. (The Stand). He’s also great at short stories, and those tend to be even more twisted than his novels. Very fun. I’m a fan of JudasFm because we’ve both done the Character Gauntlets together more than once. They’re amazing at character development and a great competitor. Give it 100% - Day 66 I got up early today and did my work out. Alas, I did cheat a little and had a bag of peanut butter M&Ms. During my two breaks, I walked, though when I got home I was exhausted and took a nap instead of another walk. |
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