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"September 23, 2019"    "Prompt: On the first day of autumn."On the first day of autumn in West Virginia we are still sweltering under summer time weather. It did rain today so that is a little closer to autumn weather but the temperature is still up there. I believe it is 85 outside right now or it was the last time I looked. My phone has a weather app on it that tells the time and temperature. It's pretty handy to have around, except that it did not warn me that it was suppose to rain today and I got caught in a quick shower. I had to do some printing. I go to the local library to do that. The weather is nice enough that I can go. Even if it was cold I would venture out though. I prefer heat but I don't mind the cold. My biggest problem with winter is that the trees look ugly. I love summer when everything looks alive. Autumn means everything is going dormant soon. I regret that. God is in charge though. I sincerely believe He knows what He is doing. Some people will say that is blind faith. My faith is based on extensive archaeological and historic research as well as a smattering of other sciences, which convince me that the Bible is accurate and Jesus Christ rose from the dead. "Prompt: “In order to enjoy life, we should not enjoy it too much,” says Vladimir Nabokov in Speak Memory.What do you think he means and do you agree with him?" I think he is saying that we should not become fat and lazy. Some people want nothing but enjoyment out of life and that is unrealistic. One can enjoy life but into every life there has to come a few hard times and some good old fashioned work. I think the author is trying to say that we can enjoy life but that we should also expect to do some hard work. Some of us are so situated that we enjoy our work. If you have a job you love you are never really working. Yet even those jobs have their moments.   |
| "September 21, 2019" Happy Birthday in Heaven Dad Marvin L. Schrebe {September 21, 1934- February 19, 2015) ** Image ID #19997652 Unavailable ** "Prompt: Where or how do you find your creative spark?" I have always felt a creative spark is something one is born with. All people have the ability to write. If we can communicate with words we can learn to write. Some people however are born with a special talent for writing. They are the storytellers, poets, and philosophers among us. I guess that includes me as I have won several awards on this site and several awards on other sites for my writing. My writing is evolving. In my poetry I am using a lot more metaphors than I once did. I try to eliminate all descriptive words and use only nouns, pronouns, verbs, prepositions, and conjunctions now. I was informed that doing this allows the reader to "interpret" my work and that I am "showing" as opposed to "telling". I have found it to be effective advice and have won multiple awards as a result of following it. I am still trying to incorporate this and a :first voice" into my short stories. I want to tell what is happening as opposed to what happened as in third voice. I will see how that works out. My spark comes and goes like anything else in life. There are days I'd rather not write. I consider myself a professional after all these years and I write to compete. I am either competing for grades in college or competing for prizes on this site and others. Winning things such as Blogger of the Week lets me know to look back on those wins and see what I did different, then try to incorporate that into my writing. Some contests I won't enter because they appear to be popularity contests among friends, If you are not one of those friends you have no chance of winning. I avoid those. I write for fun but winning contests let's me grade myself. Your feedback and comments help me grade myself. My spark is strong today but on days it is not so strong I still manage to write if I find the prompt one I can respond to. Anybody can write. It's just like talking. We do it all the time. I just wish everybody would use good grammar and spelling. The only time I will omit grammar is in poetry. I find the hard stops mess up my intended flow. . So I usually leave out periods and most grammar. I do expect proper spelling though. Prompt: "Talk about one of your favorite industry (writing) -specific books you’ve ever read. Include some of your favorite passages or quotes."I really can't do that because I have never read any books on writing. Yes, I took some creative writing courses in school because my teachers recognized the talent in me and tried to enhance that. Most of my skills however come from trial and error. I find the best way to learn something is by doing it. Hands on experience is always the best teacher. There is a site that I use, which has taught me a lot. It is https:allpoetry.com, which has been advertised on here. It taught me the difference between "strong words" and "weak" words. Strong words are nouns, verbs, pronouns, conjunctions, and some prepositions. Weak word are descriptive words like adverbs and adjectives. By avoiding the use of weak words I "show" my reader and allow them to make their own interpretation. Weak word tell them the scene and leave nothing to the imagination. Using strong words only has won me numerous awards. So even though I try to learn by trial and error, I will listen to sound advice. MarvinDSchrebe .. |
| "September 20, 2019" Prompt: "Did someone give you great advice once? Write down the advice as you remember it/ Yes, somebody did once give me some great advice. He told me to never speak to him again because I was a user and a loser. He said I was addicted to drugs and his help was killing me. He did not want to be part of killing me so I needed to just leave him alone. I was floored by his statement but he was right. He never lived to see me clean but I know that he knows I am clean. Another man told me to leave his church and never come back. He knew I was using and that I was an overall idiot. I had made the mistake of punching my wife and then lied to him about doing so. He found out and threw me out of his church. It brought me to true repentance and I quit using drugs. Prompt: "What's a current frustration of yours?"My science class is a frustration. I had my skull fractured at one point and have a traumatic brain injury as a result. I have difficulty following anything with multiple steps.  |
| "September 18, 2019" Prompt: "Are you the same person you were last year? Five years ago? Ten years ago? Tell us how you have (or haven’t) changed." I have changed 100% from the person I was ten years ago. Ten year, 7 months, 1 week, 3 days ago I was using drugs. When I was using I was a different person. I was very self-centered and cruel. I would steal from you and then help you "look" for what was stolen. I was a jerk. Then I entered recovery and all of that changed. The change was slow at first but it happened. Today I am loving and service oriented. I am always looking for new opportunities to serve. One of the big changes that took place is that I dealt with my resentments. I was full of grudges and resentments. They b had to go. I also changed my patterns. The wrongs I did before I made amends for by not doing them again. I changed dramatically. "Prompt: "I'm a captive of my own ambitions." Patsy Kline What is your take on this quote?"I'd say we are all captives to our own ambitions in many ways. My ambitions have me helping people as a peer support specialist and a therapist. They also have me winning lots of prizes for my writing. As a writer I am learning and growing. I hope. |
| "September 17, 2019" "Prompt: By all these lovely tokens September days are here, With summer's best of weather And autumn's best of cheer. Helen Hunt Jackson What do you think summer's best weather is. What is autumn's best cheer?" Helen Hunt was always one of my favorite actresses. I watched "Twister" at least a dozen times and watch it every time its on, not because I like reruns but because I like Helen Hunt. I think she is a beautiful woman and a spectacular actress. I agree with her about September. It is one of my favorite months of the year because the weather is usually nice and the trees are still green. I love green. I think it is so mch prettier than the drab colors of winter. I also cant think of anything as ugly as a tree without leaves. We will soon be seeing trees with no leaves though. The leaves will change here around the second or third week of October and be gone by the middle of November. "Prompt: Can you think of three or more things that almost always make you feel better right away when you are sick, upset, or needing help in some way? Do you know or can you guess how and why those things succeed?"I don't need two or three things, I only need one: prayer. Prayer works because the Holy Spirit answers prayer. Faith can move mountains. I was praying recently to get a good job. I really don't need the money, though that is nice to have. I need something to do with my time. I wanted to go to work for my church, the Salvation Army. We have a new facility opening in October called "Pathways of Hope". It will be a church based community center. I wanted to go to work there. I asked God to open the doors for me. Then I went and bought four uniforms to go with the uniform I already had. The other day I told my commander that I had five uniforms now and hoped she would give me the opportunity to use them by hiring me to work Pathways of Hope. She said she was glad to hear me say that because she wanted me on staff of the new facility as a case manager! God answered my prayer. Sometimes He wants us to show our faith by taking action, which I did by buying uniforms before I actually needed them! |
| "September 16, 2019" "Prompt: If at first you don't succeed, you are running about average." ~ M.H. Anderson What do you think? Is Mr. Anderson talking about writing or something else?" I think he's talking about life in general. Life is often a series of setbacks, but each of those setbacks is an opportunity to learn. You learn what does not work and you learn what does work. Life is about learning as much as it is about anything else. I find that faith is a very important factor in my life. I often succeed because I claim the success by faith. I am a soldier in the Salvation Army Huntington WV corps. We are renovating a building and getting ready to put in a program called Pathways of Hope. I have known for a long time that a need existed in my corps for somebody with my skills. When I learned that Pathways of Hope was going in I started buying extra uniforms in anticipation of going to work there. I stepped out on faith and bought them. I was just informed yesterday that I will be wearing one of my uniforms n=most of the time as I am being commissioned as our corps Community Care Coordinator. I will be in charge of institutional ministries such as the chaplaincy here at the Veterans Home and a prison ministry at the regional jail. I am also the official liaison between our corps and Marshall University and will be doing the work of a chaplain at Marshall. It looks like I made the right move in buying four extra uniforms. |
| "September 14, 2019" "Prompt Words: ice-cream, arrange, exuberant, necklace, attack, gaudy, planet, mend This is a big day for me. I am on the mend form allergies, depression, and a pulled leg muscle but moreso, I have a lot going on today. We have an ice cream social here at 6:30PM today. It will be a big event as our soft serve machine broke down a month ago and is needing repaired. Everybody is exuberant about the social because they all want ice cream. I am also exuberant because two of my brothers are coming to visit today. I haven't seen them in three years so I will be looking forward to that. Visits are difficult for us to arrange due to scheduling conflicts.I won't know whether to shake their hands or attack them for not coming sooner. I also have to study for an oceanography test next week. I am learning quite a bit about the oceans around the planet. It's too bad I will probably never visit the oceans. It seems a bit gaudy to learn about them and never see them but that is the beauty of imagination. We can visit without ever actually being there. Perhaps I will buy a seashell necklace and pretend it is a souvenir. I don't know. I enjoy the class and I am going to enjoy this day. My brothers will be here in four hours. It's good therapy for somebody who has bi-polar disorder as I do. I have been getting depressed and their visit is cheering me up. The ice cream today will also help. I hope they have chocolate! I am also going to spend part of the weekend, and the day today writing. I enter a lot of contests on WDC's sister site www.allpoetry.com. I have won numerous prizes there over the past two weeks, including three first place or gold prizes for poems I wrote. My writing is in a transition stage. You may have noticed that my entries here have more body than they did before. That is because I am writing to compete now. I want to win those Blogger of the Week challenges and the only way to do that is write something substantial. I want to win because I want to improve as a writer and winning tells me I was able to write something decent that week. Before I would just give the prompt a superficial write and hurry off to class or whatever awaited me. Now I have decided to take it seriously and put something into it. My muse left me for awhile there and that did not help. However writing is not as much about the muse as it is about skill. Proper grammar and spelling do not come by accident. They take practice. I worked for years on developing my vocabulary and spelling skills. Grammar always bored me in school and now I use it routinely. My grammar teacher would roll over in her grave if she knew I was a writer. I asked the school superintendent who was my former school secretary that very question. Did she think my English teacher knew I became a writer? She told me she had remained friends with my English teacher all of their careers and that my English teacher collected everything I wrote that she could get her hands on. She had said I was her "star pupil". She had failed me because she knew I could have performed much better and she was not willing to accept half-measures. With that in mind, I have set out to rebuild myself as a writer! I too will no longer accept half-measures! Now I have a visit to prepare for and an ice cream social to arrange. I think I will wear my Salvation Army uniform to impress. I don't want to appear gawdy. I want to be exuberant today despite being depressed! I will not wear depression like a necklace! It can attack somebody else on the planet! I'm going to mend! Prompt: "Tell us about your writing process – do you like music or quiet, is there a special place you go."I never listen to music when I am writing. I would find that too distracting. Ido listen to my air conditioner/ heater running in the background as one of the two is on most of the time. Right now it is the A/C because it is summer time in the northern hemisphere. Give it two months and I will have switched over to heat. So there is always some background noise of some kind here. I write at my table. I don't have room for a desk as I live in a dorm room. I am a resident of the West Virginia Veterans Home, which started out as a college. The rooms are dorm rooms that served as hospital rooms at one time. They are small and therefore I use my work table as a desk. I don't work all the time but believe a desk would be more comfortable if I had room. I am happy to say my work is paying off now. I write for both writing com and it's sister site AllPoetry.com. I have been winning a lot of prizes on Allpoetry because I changed my writing style. Before I would use a lot of descriptive words. I discovered that in doing so I was cheating my readers. Readers like to interpret. So instead of saying "The boy rode the red bike quickly" I now say "The boy is riding a bike". This allows the reader to "fill in the blanks." It is a strategy that has won me four first place, six second place. eight third place, and more honorable mentions than I can count in the past two weeks. I am trying it on here as well on some poetry contests but they have not been judged yet. We'll see how it goes. I am also going to try a different approach in writing short stories. I am going to try to use "active voice". Instead of telling what happened I am going to try telling what is happening. I want to bring my readers into the action. We'll see how that works out as well. |
| "September 13, 2019" Prompt: "What is your favorite thing about the street on which you live?" I like that it is typically very quiet here. I live at the West Virginia Veterans Home and it is typically a very quiet place to live. We are on a hill overlooking the city below us. With the exception of an occasional train or a periodic fire truck their is very little to break the silence. It is relaxing and peaceful. Sometimes it is too much so. I enjoy the solitude most of the time. At other times I want somebody to talk to or something to do. Writing and studying usually keep me pretty busy. This is Friday so today I will spend most of the day writing with an occasional nap for good measure.It's my day off so I get to enjoy myself. Tomorrow I will study for a test on Tuesday. Today however I will write poetry and probably some reviews, I have won several poetry contests lately on https:allpoetry.com. I have changed my writing style and it worked. I no longer use descriptive words. Now I use basically nouns,pronouns, prepositions (sparingly) and verbs. It works. I've been winning a lot. My street gives me a lot of quiet time to write. Prompt: "How have your friendships with other women inspired you, or helped you to become a better you?"Well I am not a woman so I can't say that my relationship with "other women" has done anything for me. |
| "September 12, 2019" Prompt: "Do you make your bed when you get up in the morning or leave it since you will just mess it up again that night?" I live at the West Virginia Veterans Home in Barboursville WV. I live in a college sized dorm room so most of the time that I am at home I spend lying on my bed. I don't have many furnishings, basically just a bed, a table that I use for a desk, a television stand, and s couple of standing closets that separate my room from my roommate's side. I have been blessed thus far and have not had a roommate in almost a year. I'm sure they will eventually move somebody in here because empty rooms don't stay empty very long. I have been very blessed to have been alone this long. I really like living here over all. As it is it does not cost me too much. My income is very low and the rent is 50% of your income. Of course they provide literally everything you need. They have a clothing room that gives free clothing. They have a store that gives free necessities such as laundry detergent, toothpaste, mouthwash, etc. And they provide free basic cable and meals. Some of the guys complain that the rent is too high, but those guys usually have five or six thousand dollar per month incomes. I tell them to go ask any other landlord to give them meals and toilet paper! I think we are very blessed! "Prompt: "Your brain is always taking dictation. I'm just copying what's in my mind's eye." Maritza Moran Do you write like this? What are your thoughts?"I think we all write like that because no matter what Idea you come up with it come from the brain. |
| "September 11, 2019" }image:1997652-33%} Prompt: "The September 11 attacks were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda against the United States on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. It's been 18 years. Do you remember what you were doing when the news broke?" Yes I do remember as I am sure most Americans do as would most Americans have remembered exactly where they were when the Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor. Traumatic events like that leave an indelible mark in your mind. I however had been arguing with my family about the television. They wanted to watch some show they had saw a dozen times before. I wanted to scan the channels. We happened to be on a news channel when the second plane flew into the tower and that pretty much decided it. We knew America was under attack and decided, against the protests of my family, that we were going to watch the news. I didn't win any popularity contests that day, but after a bit they all realized it was very serious. Lives were being lost before our very eyes and the situation was quite grave. It was much more important that Spongebob Squarepants or what ever show they wanted to watch. The war on terror began that day, and to my knowledge we have been fighting it ever since. I have nothing against Islam or any other religion. I know these religions are wrong and I do not participate in them. They are wrong because the deny the deity of Jesus Christ, whom history and science have proven to my satisfaction to be the resurrected Son of God. |
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