The Sameness of Life

Today is a normal Saturday. I woke up and did the normal things I do. I sat down and wrote about 2.5K words on my novel. Then I started laundry and took something out of the freezer for dinner. As I was going through the motions of life I came to realize that the more life has changed for me, it is really the same as it has always been.

I live in a different house than I did ten years ago. I have a different job than I had just three years ago. I still do laundry, go shopping and cook for my family, though my daughter has moved away. Now my everyday family consists of my husband and our furry children. I still have to decide what to wear, what to do with my spare time and plan for the holidays.I still pay bills, go to church, make my bed and do chores.  My next thought was man, this is so dull and boring. I am no different from my parents or grandparents. I didn’t become something special like they said I could.Well, maybe I am special, just not famous like I thought I would be when I was ten and singing into my hairbrush.  I am just living not much differently than they did all those years before me.  Life is the same.

Oh, sure I do things a bit different. I order birthday gifts online. Where as my mom and grandmother would stroll the aisles of Gayfers,Dillards or some other retail conglomerate for hours until they found the perfect gift. I get my news from my cell phone. My dad and grandpa got it from Tom Brokaw at the 5 pm news hour after telling me to get up and push the channel buttons. When I was a teenager I used to talk on the kitchen phone with the twenty-five foot cord attached as I sat on top of the fridge snacking on Ziggers and drinking Dr. Pepper. Yes, on top of the refrigerator. I can’t tell you why. I just sat on the fridge. Now kids text, instagram and video chat.

Though we do things in different ways we still do the same things our parents and grandparents did. We work and take care of life. We function as we should in a normal day-to-day way. I find this ebb and flow of everyday life comforting. Yes crisis come and go but for the most part we find our way back to the sameness of life. Doing what we have to do in ways that are what they are for our time and our place in history.

As I chunk the last load of laundry in the dryer, I think about what my grandkids may be doing twenty years from now.  Maybe they will be special and famous like I tell them they will. I hope they find  peace in the simple things of life like laundry as I do.

 

 

Halfway Point

We are at day eighteen of NaNoWriMo, just a bit past halfway. I’m working through a quandary. I appear to have two stories going about my main character. I started by using flashbacks to explain why she is the way she is and the flashbacks have taken on a story of their own. Here is the quandary. If I split the story I will have to focus on one or the other. Both storylines are not dependent on each other, but they support each.

Am I the only one when is ready to scrap the entire thing and start over? I know this is the hard part. This is where the meat is put into the story. In all fiction books you get to the middle and this is where the magic swells into a whirlwind of words and emotion. The lover gets a heart broken, the hero fights the dragon and the detective finds the right clues.

We must keep going. Reevaluate your outlines and plot structures but do not quit. Make the word count and clean it up in December. It will be fine and at the end you may even have a novel that is worth giving to the world.

DO NOT STOP WRITING!

But wait! Isn’t life sort of like writing a book? We move through our days and we have goals and responsibilities that make us insecure. We put words on the pages of our loves. Sometimes it is a magical piece of prose and sometimes in is gibberish  random thoughts that make no coherent sense.  If we keep on living and keep on working to the end of the thing.Write to the end of the page. Make the goal the carrot on the stick that we follow, what would happen? We may be successful. We may end up happy. Imagine that? Happy people everywhere.

Now if I can just take my own advice.

 

Writing is Easy

“Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.” – Gene Fowler

Like many writers I have pieces and parts of stories,  novels, and  poetry. I have scraps of characters, plots and settings all over the place. They are written on scraps of paper and in notes on my compete and in my phone.  Most of which are complete ideas but not completely written. As I work through actually completing a novel I am learning just as much if not more about myself as I am about writing. For instance, did you know that you can procrastinate for several minutes just by staring inside the refrigerator even when you aren’t hungry? Or that If you snuggle your puppy taking a nap is easier than forming sentences?

I have discovered that I am an expert at not writing .I can find other things to do very easily. Not that writing is hard, it isn’t. Writing is the easy part. Writing and still living a normal life is not so easy. You still have to eat, sleep, spend time with loved ones, and work (unless you’re independently wealthy). I like to eat and spend time with family. I am not wealthy so I have a job that I love. When I sit down to write writing happens. I manage to sweat blood and get words down. The hardest part is getting the time to sit down in the first place.

I found that just making myself sit and write when I have time will get words out and stories will come to fruition. Even if I don’t want to sitting and writing something even nonsense is the best way to start. Once I start writing the stopping is not as difficult.

 

Be Something Better

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My goal in life is just to be something better. Not better than someone else. I want to better that I was, better than I am today.

What does it mean to be better? For me it’s to be better at being kind. Better at managing my life. Better at taking care of me. Better at doing my job. Better at doing what I enjoy. Better at loving people.

I want to be something, someone better. Be the best me I can be.

 

 

Light My Path

Create what sets your heart on fire, and it will illuminate the path ahead.~Unknown

Light is what allows us to understand the world we live in. The detection of light is powerful tool for probing the universe. It is through the study of light that we can understand the composition stars light years away or the living cells in us. It is no accident that humans can ‘see’ light.  Our language reflects our fascination with light. Isn’t it said in scripture somewhere that after groping in the dark, we see the light and understanding dawns.

To me light is almost a living thing. It embraces us on the outside with visible light and on the inside with knowledge. God is the source of all light. He put the sun and stars in the universe. He gave man the knowledge to create light. He gave us fire and later man harnessed electricity. I know scientists can explain to me that light is a form of radiation. God made the radiation. We can trace all light to Him.

Create what sets your heart on fire. Create your light. Make a difference in this world of shadows.  Even when we see shadows in our lives we should be encouraged. Shadows can not live without light. Make the light. The light will show you the direction.

Write in the Dark

I have been struggling with the dark. I can’t seem to get this cloud of darkness that is lurking around following me to dissipate. It is depressing and contagious. I caught it from someone else. It has fear and worry at its core. It is sucking the life out of people I love and is spreading like a plague. It has taken my will to write and I have to force myself to sit down. Sit and write. It has taken my want to do anything other than feel sorry for myself. It is a curse and I want it gone.

Then it occurred to me that I could write from within the darkness. That light is more brilliant against the shadow of dark things. I am writing from that place and I am beginning to see a speck of light. It is far off now, out in the distance but it is there. It is warm and welcoming. It will come closer and it will absorb the darkness. I will pray and write it so.

Love and peace are in the light. Love and peace will overcome the darkness. I will call the light into this place. I will invite it to envelop me to drive out the depression, sadness, hate, despair and shadow. Maybe, just maybe that light will spread from me to someone else, the someone who needs it most, the someone who gives of darkness.

I will write…write in the dark.

 

The Rook by Daniel O’Malley

As a librarian my ears perk up when I hear a person say, “I loved that book.” I especially pay close attention when that person is a fellow librarian. The Rook is one of those books. I heard rumblings from the librarians about it that morphed into praises. I decided to check it out, literally. I checked out the book on cd.

The story hit me as a cross between Men in Black and Ghostbusters.  A woman wakes up in a garden, surrounded by several men in latex gloves, and with no memory of who she is or how she got there. Fortunately, Myfanwy (rhymes with “Tiffany”) Thomas left her future self letters. Myfanwy discovers that she is a Rook of the Checquy, a secret society who takes care of supernatural threats to Britain. The only problem is that someone  out to kill her.

I do not want to give any of this thrill ride way, so I will just say that if you like fantasy, thrillers you will like The Rook. If you like fantasy, thrillers, creepy horror with a strong female lead, you will love it.

Zero Day by David Baldacci

I finally got to read Zero Day, the first book in the John Puller series. It did not disappoint. I read the second book first, The Forgotten. I didn’t really know at the time that it was in a trilogy. All the way throughout that book there were references to things that happened in Virginia. I had to know. I had to find out. What happened in Virginia?

John Puller is a combat veteran and military investigator in the U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. In Zero Day Puller is out on a case in a remote, rural area in West Virginia coal country far from any military outpost. A brutal crime scene, a family slaughtered, a potential conspiracy that reaches far beyond the hills of West Virginia, leads Puller on the hunt for justice. John Puller is a mix of flawed compassion. He is realistic in a super hero sort of way.

The next and last book in the trilogy is The Escape, but it is NaNoWrimo. I am sure I won’t pick it up until December.