Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Oh to be a FMESSN

I can’t believe I have been posting on this blog for over a year and a half. I’ve gone from project to project, idea to idea, on a merry-go-round of writing. I write a lot. I love it.

Betsy Lerner says, at least I think it’s her, “…don’t be an ambivalent writer”. My apologies to Ms. Lerner if I got it wrong, but I think she said, focus, damn it, stop jumping from project to project. But gee, I love writing all that stuff, essays, memoir, novels and short stories. I don't just sit down, start and never finish. They are all done.

Stephen King says, (I shall paraphrase), figure out what you write well and write it. I read once that he said he knew he’d never be able to write the ‘Great American Novel’ so he embraced horror because that’s what he wrote well. Whoa, Mr. King, back up Christine. He must have been very young and naïve when he said that because to me RITA HAYWORTH AND THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION is certainly an American classic, plus at least a dozen more, I won’t go into listing now.

So I shall continue to write. I’ll throw them all at the wall to see which ones stick. Like the EGOT’s - winners of an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony award, I would like to be a FMESSN, a writer in Fiction, Memoir, Essay, Short Story, and Non-Fiction. Don’t need an award though, publication is reward enough. I’ve written them all; watch out… here goes…wind-up…where the hell is that wall anyway?

So, did you finish your last project or, with your ass in the chair, did you think of the next one instead?

cha ching

Got a wedding coming up; checkbook is being hit hard.
Just found out we have another wedding coming up. Egads !

I am over-the-top happy that my beautiful, smart, daughters, (they take after me, but I have the humility) have found wonderful men with which to spend their lives but really girls, what’s wrong with elopement, I did it. Look where it got me. Shut up!

Funny how we didn’t want, or have, the money to spend on ourselves back then, and here we are, decades later, planning and spending for two weddings.
Hey… anybody got an extra advance kicking around so I can pay for these nuptials?
No..oh well back to writing.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Frustrated and Green

Two books done, working on a third. I say the second was my first but actually the resurrected first is more a second and now on to the third. Whew!

Hey, isn’t it great that Kathryn Stockett’s THE HELP has been so successful as a book and now as a movie. Saw the Oscar Nominations yesterday and almost cried for her success, her hanging in, her not giving up. I say ‘almost’ cried because I’m just a little green. May we all believe in our work as she did in hers.

I posted my frustration today on ‘The Shark’s’ website. I was trying to be funny. Am I bad?

Saturday, January 21, 2012

A Saturday Morning

The sound of a workout video in the living room as my visiting daughter exercises, she has lost 102 lbs., looks like a model, I am so proud. Outside a snow blower whirls and swirls the snow, my daughter’s boyfriend helping my husband clear away the detritus of winter’s wrath. My other daughter and her fiancé, soon to arrive, as my fingers click in time on the keyboard to the video. Our sweet Harley, asleep before the fire is peaceful and so am I. Life is good, very, very good, I am so blessed.
Now, if only someone else would clear away the breakfast dishes. Actually the full sink means we are all together. Time to clean the kitchen and be thankful for the task.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

A very special friend, Justin Case

Justin Case lives a very interesting existence. The dreams and hopes of hundreds of millions depend on whether Justin will come through for them. Health, jobs and justice, the stability of whole communities and nations, ride on him as a decision of circumstance.

With that being said, if you are interested, check out www.flogris.org, click on memoir class, scroll down, 6th one I think, to GIFTS IN WHITE PAPER. It doesn’t explain the significance of Justin but it is a piece of which I am especially proud, not only because I wrote it but because it is very different regarding format. It is presented here, just in case someone with interest is reading.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

PURPOSE

The new year, a time of cliché’s, out with the old, in with the new, resolutions made, resolutions broken.

All I know is that another year is gone and there are no guarantees I’ll see tomorrow, let alone the next new year…so…here’s my resolution.

LIVE EACH DAY WITH PURPOSE

A character in my second book teeters on the edge of oblivion every moment of his ‘awake’ life. He speaks about his future as if there are no guarentees to living, and decides what we have left should be lived, not just smelling roses, but with purpose. So I’m going to follow his advice.

The first book I wrote, about the capacity WE ALL have to change, flipped my life.

In it, the main character, steps away from her doldrum-life because even though it’s a shit-existence, she clings to it because it is familiar. In a flash of insight she bravely ventures among strangers. When I finished that one I spoke so often about change that I thought it was time I lived up to the words I had written. I lost 92 lbs. WOW I’m normal, whatever the hell that is.

So, maybe the resolution this year should be to practice that of which I write. Sounds good, I think I’ll try it. Thank God I don’t write horror or true crime.