Happy Birthday To My Sister!

Today is my siter's birthday. She turns 24 today, but some friends have declared it to be her 30th birthday. She's the youngest of our group of friend's so we'll make her the oldest for the day! Happy Birthday Becka!

The Vacation Roller-Coaster...

I am planning a vacation for later the end of next month. It started out with lots of excitement. Now it's five people bickering over where to go. I really want to go to Florida and do the classic Florida vacation. It's something I've always wanted to do but never had the opportunity until now... and for all I know how life tends to surprise you with random twists and turns along the road, I may not get another chance quite like this. Pretty much everyone else I know is settling down and starting families and don't have any money for a real vacation..and the current group I'm considering travelling with is really leaning towards going to Vegas - which there are fun things to do there and it would be cool to say I've been there, but Vegas has never been on the list of vacation spots I dream about going to...

I'm afraid that if I don't go on my classic Florida vacation now, I might not get the chance to later on because of life and work and family and money... Plus there is an elderly couple who lives in Florida that I have heard stories about for years and year, but I have never met them and would like to meet them before they move on to the next life. Is it so wrong of me to want that?

Between work and falling behind in the everyday things in my own life, and planning/worrying about this vacation, I haven't had much of a chance to write. My focus seems to be wandering. I think a good refreshing vacation would definitely help... I just really hope everything works out...somehow...

Where Do Morning People Come From...?

I am not a morning person. I don't know about other writers, but I have a difficult time struggling out of bed each morning for my day job and usually spend Saturdays sleeping in...late. I mean really late. Saturdays are the day I catch up on my sleep.

Writers who can wake up 1-2 hours before the sun (or before they need to wake for work) to fit in an hour of writing are either insomniacs or crazy. I find it very difficult to write when I can barely keep my eyes open. I would love to be able to be awake, whenever I want to be awake, but sleep is a very difficult thing to fight.

This past weekend, I did fight sleep, however. All of the local writing groups seem to meet on Saturday morning. UGH. I have been a member of the local poetry group for almost a year, but haven't really attended any of the meeting because they meet on Saturday mornings. But I want to start attending them to perhaps help my poetry improve enough to be publishable.

So I attended last week's meeting of the local poetry group. It was a struggle to fight my ever-growing sleep deficit and attend the meeting during the time I normally catch up on my sleep. But I think I learned a lot in just that one meeting. I think it will be very beneficial to me to continue attending. AND I want to continue attending. Just fighting the sleep may be a problem...

The Postcard Project

I received a beautiful postcard in the mail yesterday. It was from Elizabeth McClung, a young woman with a terminal illness, who is trying to make a difference. She brightens people's days by sending out postcards to strangers. One of my friends gave her my address, and I was really surprised to receive the postcard in the mail. It was a really beautiful postcard, and Elizabeth is a really amazing person. She has such strength and that is very inspiring!

Her website is: http://efmpostcardproject.blogspot.com/.

"It is time."

Last weekend was the Arkansas Writers Conference. It's a small local conference and rarely has any big-name writers as speakers. There's usually not an agent or publisher in attendance to accept queries at the conference. Yet the past couple of years, I have found this conference really inspirational.

I think I got more out of the little sessions by local writers no one has ever heard of, than the ones with the more prominent regional names. These local writers are on the same level as me. They haven't strayed so far from the world of the struggling aspiring-writer that they still acutely understand our place in the writing world. Although they have experienced minor success, many are still in the same place as the unpublished.

I was sitting there during one session at the end of the second day at the writers conference. The session wasn't anything extra special when compared to those from the rest of the day, but I got this feeling that was almost spiritual from it. The session was entitled, "Bloom Where You're Planted" and was about a lady who took what life gave her and wrote about it. I feel like my writing is very close to blooming; I just need to give it a little care to help it bloom.

And as I sat there, I thought back to a session at an conference over a year ago. The speaker told about an Olympic high jumper who was so close to beating the world record, but didn't "because he wasn't ready." While I sat in the last session during the second day of this conference, I felt a voice deep inside my heart say, "I am finally ready. It is time."

Fears...

A champion is afraid of losing. Everyone else is afraid of winning." --Billie Jean King, American tennis player.

This quote was tagged onto the bottom of a regular (non-writing) newsletter that I am subscribed to, but I immediately thought of writing. As writers, our inner critic/inner child (irrational fear of failure) can hold us back and prevent us from ever reaching our dreams. Why do you think that there are significantly more "writers" who never finish anything than actual writers?

I have been in a writing slump recently. I must have gotten back a month's worth of poetry rejections during the week I was sick. I guess it's that time of the year when magazines that do not accept summer submissions clear their desks. I did get an "almost" on a short story I submitted to a regional magazine. But I'm starting to wonder if I'm just wasting my time and postage submitting poetry since every single piece has been returned rejected.

That fear can be a hard thing to control.

Remember What It's Like to Enjoy Life...?

We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery." --H.G. Wells, English author

I have been stuck in bed for a while now recovering from food poisoning. Ugh. Not fun, believe me. I feel like I have so much to catch up on now that I am finally well enough to move around again. That ticking clock is ticking quite loudly...

Yet, I did get one thing accomplished while I was sick. I finally found the time to start reading the Twilight series. I have heard a great deal of both good and bad feedback from people on the books, so I thought I should at least check them out.

I found that the first book left something to be desired in some places; but I could see the writing improve as I got further and further along. Anyway, I was hooked. I knew what would happen but I had to keep reading to discover the answers to all of the little mysteries that leave you hanging along the way.

My sister on the other hand read the first couple of pages, said, "Ah, romance..." and put it down. To like the book, you have to like romance. You have to be able to overlook the main character's constant gushing and brooding over her love interest. And you really shouldn't read it when you're sick. For a story about a bunch of vampires, they sure mention food a whole lot during the book!