Tag Archives: Art

May 14, 2013 · 7:26 pm

Creativity

Creativity. Making something good and wonderful from something ordinary.

Sometimes writing is more about inspiration than it is anything else, and other times it is all about the perspiration.

Even when we are inspired and our work is flowing, there is a lot of work involved.

Research. The internet is an awesome resource and I highly recommend you do not rely solely on Wikipedia, The Fount of All Knowledge, fine repository of sometimes mythic information that it is.

Stitching the plot holes together. Finding them is the trick, because everything looks perfect to me, until Irene gets hold of it!

*doh*

Meeting and greeting the characters who people your tales. I write descriptions and biographies of them as they appear in the first raw draft of the tale so that I know them and how they will react in a given situation.

The day 14 writing prompt for the short story a day in the month of May from StoryADay.org for today was (and I quote:)

“Simple task today (ha!): The Prompt Write a story that opens, “On the edge of the mountain, silhouetted against the setting sun, there is a small ramshackle cottage made of wood.” Tips This sounds, at first blush, as if it has to be set in a fantasy or fairy-tale world, but I bet you can […]”

SOOOOO this is what MY somewhat less than fertile mind came up with today:

On the edge of the mountain, silhouetted against the setting sun, there is a small ramshackle cottage made of wood. The wind blows through the cracks and crevices, and the glass that once graced the windows has long since fallen prey to the winter storms.

Once it was full of laughter, love and merriment. Children played in the now wild garden. Raccoons now raise their young beneath the floor boards, and owls nest in the rafters.

The cottage and the mountain are one; both have always been and only time will tear them down. Nature always takes back her own.

This is in keeping with my commitment to writing my shorts in 100 word bursts, even though I’m not that impressed with it. It’s an exercise, and just doing it is good for the writing muscles.

Am I any closer to being able to write a decent pitch for my forthcoming novels? I don’t know, but I’m having fun. One day I wrote my 100 words as a love poem, too frank and soul-baring to post here.

It’s cathartic in a way – 100 words that fall out of me for no one’s amusement but my own. Some are good enough to share, some are just mental crap. But it’s a good exercise, and it stirs the creative juices.

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Filed under Books, Fantasy, Literature, writing

Tagged as adventure, Art, battles, fantasy, fiction, humor, literature, writing

May 8, 2013 · 7:28 pm

The Knight Returns

As always, I have five or six projects going at once. I’m in the editing process on Mountains of the Moon, a Tower of Bones prequel. I’m getting a sci-fi short-story ready for submission to Analog. If they reject it, I will publish it as a novella.

And now I am doing revisions on Huw The Bard, and writing Billy Ninefingers, I find myself writing a new opening vignette for The Last Good Knight. The revised edition will have several new chapters, one of which was completed only a few days ago. It will not have the prologue, nor will it have the chapter that is a long info-dump. They tell a lot, but they are mistakes made by a new author, and they do the book no good.

I know I’ve said it before, but I’m in love with my characters. And of all my characters, Julian Lackland holds a special place. He was my first real hero, my first slightly-flawed-but-nonetheless-still-perfect hero.

This is the issue: we as authors want readers to see our literary vision with the same clarity as we see it. The problem with that is our readers will NEVER see our vision as we do. They will see it through their own eyes. This means our task is to enable them to visualize the story and the characters in the way that is most pleasing to the reader.

Folks don’t want info–they want action.

So I’m going to give it to them. Heh-heh. Good Luck, Lackland!

Fortunately, I am an indie and I have the ability to unpublish a book that isn’t working as it currently stands, and do it as it should have been done in the first place had I not been so new at this business.

Today I hit the road north again, this time to Seattle. I will be working in a Starbucks in the South Lake Union part of town, in a building that houses Amazon. Afterward I will meet my son there and we’ll go to a vegan restaurant, where he’ll pretend to enjoy the food (because he loves his mother) and we’ll have a good time. All the while, all three tales, Huw the Bard, Billy Ninefingers, and Julian Lackland will be rolling around in my head, and I will attempt to carry a conversation on as if I weren’t a raving lunatic, obsessed with my imaginary friends.

He’s used to it.

Tomorrow, while my son is having oral surgery, I will be in the waiting room, devising new tortures for old friends. If it goes long enough, I might finish another vignette!

Sorry son, Mama’s a writer. Reality isn’t her best thing.

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Filed under Adventure, Epilepsy, Fantasy, Humor, Literature, Romance, Swashbuckling, Vegan, writing

Tagged as Art, fantasy, fiction, humor, knights, literature, vegan lifestyle, writing

May 5, 2013 · 1:35 am

Sell me that book in 100 words or less!

I’ve been participating in a month-long exercise where you get a prompt and you write the story. I have set the bar a bit high, as I am giving myself only 100 words to tell that story. It’s a bit difficult, but I have a reason for this, beyond my usual insanity.

The back of a book has something we writers call blurbs (I know. I shouldn’t use author-speak in company, it’s not polite.) Technically it is called “the pitch” because you are pitching your product to prospective buyers. This little thing is critical. Your cover must make them pick up the book or click on the icon and your pitch must sell it. But hello – you have only about 30 seconds to capture the prospective buyer’s interest enough for them to crack it open, or use the look inside feature for eBooks.

I’m not real good at writing pitches. Neither are the Big Six Publishers, oddly enough! Even the big companies have found ways of avoiding pitching a novel simply by putting glowing reviews of other works by that author on the back cover.

Back Cover of Mage-Guard of Hamor by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

Bleah. That doesn’t sell me a book, Tor-Forge, publishing giant that you are. As you can see, on the back cover of this book there is no blurb, only glowing comments about the author’s other series of books. This may work for a well-known author like L.E.Modesitt Jr., or Brandon Sanderson, but it doesn’t work for me as a reader.

I have observed many indies taking the same route, and skipping the blurbs entirely.

Indie authors take note: I (and millions like me) don’t buy books without blurbs of some sort, somewhere, unless I am already familiar with that author’s work. I want to know what I am buying, so even a bad blurb will interest me more than a quote from a glowing review by one of your Beta Readers.

Just sayin’!

So here I am, suffering the curse of the indie author, trying to not only be my own publicist, but also my own advertising agency.

Thus, I am going to learn how to write a blurb, if it kills me. Writing a 100 word piece of flash-fiction is called a “drabble”. I figure if I can get this down to a fine art, I can write a decent blurb.

The original prompt went as follows:

Write A 100 Word Story (“Drabble”) . . . although a 100 word story will probably take longer than expected, it’s still going to take a manageable amount of time.

To make a drabble work,
-Choose one or two characters
-Take one single moment/action/choice and show us how it unfolds
-Give us one or two vibrant details in as few words as possible
-Show us (hint) how this moment/action/choice is more significant than the characters probably realize in the moment

I decided to use these parameters for the entire month of flash fiction. Here is my first one, written May 1st.

Ted (5-1-2013)

Edna stirred her coffee and looked out the window toward the shed.

“Did you feed the chickens?” Marion always asked, though she knew Edna had.

Edna looked away from the shed. “Of course I did.” Her eyes turned back to the shed. “We won’t be able to keep him in there much longer. He’s growing too big. We should have a barn built for him.”

“Ted was always a greedy boy.” Marion stirred her coffee. “I warned him he behaved like a beast.”

A rumbling bellow shook the shed. A long green tail snaked out of the shed door.

I will keep practicing until I get the hang of creating something interesting in 100 words. Blurbs don’t have to tell the whole story, that is what the inside of the book is for! All they have to do is sell the book–be that tantalizing bit of interest that hooks the reader into buying your book.

Yesterday’s drabble went like this:

Drake – 5-3-2013

He stood on the parapet, silhouetted against the starry sky, his wings wrapped tightly about him against the chill wind. The sounds of the darkened world below drifted up to him. The nightbird’s song. The servants in the castle below. The lowing of cattle in the distance.

Hunger, intense and overwhelming clouded his vision.

Spreading his wings Drake fell forward, the wind catching and lifting him; soaring. A scent on the wind alerted him to his quarry.

On a corner she stood, ripe and full lipped—the tamale vendor.

Silently, he dropped beside her, whispering seductively, “Two tamales, please Senora.”

I’ve had a lot of fun with this, and I may have some ideas for longer short stories here, so it’s certainly not a waste of time, even if I never get the hang of selling my own work!

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Filed under Books, Dragon Age, Fantasy, Humor, Literature, Uncategorized, writing

Tagged as adventure, Art, battles, Brittain, dragons, fantasy, fiction, humor, writing

May 3, 2013 · 6:14 pm

It’s all Greek to me

Dragons.

Two tons (or more) of muscle, scales and, frequently, fire.

What’s not to love?

They are rumored to be as devious and crafty as your mother-in-law.

Don’t bandy words with a dragon or you may lose more than the argument.

Again, not unlike your mother-in-law.

My dragons are not really the kind who bandy words about, however some do breathe fire. That heats things up a bit!

Heh heh. Oops.

Darn it. Now we need a new hero.

I hate that when that happens.

In English, the word dragon is directly derived from Old French – dragon, which in turn comes from Latin draconem (or draco) meaning “huge serpent, dragon,” AND also from the Greek word drakon meaning “serpent, or giant sea fish”. Both the Greek and Latin term referred to any great serpent, not necessarily mythological, and this usage was also current in English up to the 18th century. So in that sense, dragons REALLY did exist.

Which came first Latin or Greek? Greek – it’s a living language and has been spoken for over 3000 years. Many Greek words found their way into Latin, and other proto European languages. Thus English has some roots in Ancient Greek.

Now as far as dragons go, in my two worlds they are quite different from each other. In Waldeyn, (Billy’s Revenge) there are two kinds. The smaller wingless variety often has a second breath that allows them to breathe fire–quite an effective weapon, as Huw the Bard will discover. The bigger ones fly and prefer to eat people, so they are considered a nuisance.

No, my dragons are NOT vegans. But that would be an interesting twist….

In Neveyah, (Tower of Bones) they tend to be immense creatures of both magic and the element water. This puts the mage at a disadvantage, as the element that heals the beast is the element of water and you must never use it against them. Water is also their best magic weapon, and they are relentless. They have high reserves of chi and strong magic at their disposal, along with excellent shielding ability, so using any magic at all against them is a no-no.

Good luck, boys.

There are ways to fight them, and all my heroes will find ways to do so with varying degrees of success. Writing those scenes is a real adventure, as I get to put myself in the battle, and choreograph it so that it flows, is believable, exciting, and hopefully no one crucial to the story dies.

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Tagged as adventure, Art, battles, dragons, fantasy, fiction, humor, knights, literature, magic, mythology, vegan lifestyle, writing

April 29, 2013 · 5:47 pm

Inspiration

The town I grew up in, Olympia Washington, has a reputation for being just a bit, how shall I put this? Weird. Wild. Wacky.

The city is the state capitol, so there is that political side of things, that energy that drives the local economy.

Then there are two colleges, one of which is The Evergreen State College, a school that attracts some amazing people. There is a fine community college, and across town in the city of Lacey, there is Saint Martin’s University.

Many students who come here from out-of-town choose to stay in the area, and so we’ve become a place known for our high-energy arts and music scene, and our…interesting…downtown life.

Olympia is one of the most Vegan-Friendly cities you could ever want to go to, as nearly every small restaurant and cafe has at least one vegan offering and many have an entire SECTION of their menu that is devoted to vegan options.

We are also the home of Riot Grrrl punk rock, with bands like Sleater Kinney and Bikini Kill to our credit.

Downtown is fun, crazy and most definitely a walk on the wild side, even on a Monday afternoon. When I am not on the road, I frequently drive up to Olympia and go to a local coffee-house called Batdorf and Bronson on Capitol way just to spend the day there, writing. I do this especially when I have come to a dead-end, because something about being in downtown Olympia inspires me when nothing else will.

The best parade of the year is called the Procession of The Species, and it is not just a parade, it is an event. In a time-honored tradition, people put their lawn chairs and camp stools out on the curb two days ahead of time, staking out their viewing places. The chairs will sit there, lining the curb like so many abandoned soldiers for two days prior to the parade and no one will steal them.

The parade itself is awesome.

From Wikipedia, the Fount of all Knowledge:

“Taking place during Olympia’s annual Spring Arts Walk, the Procession regularly draws 30,000 spectators and 2,000-3,000 participants.^[2]The celebration, now in its 17th year, is completely noncommercial, made possible by community contributions of money, materials, time, and skills.^[3] The Procession is produced by Earthbound Productions, a 501 C-3 organization, and currently does not benefit from any public funding from the city of Olympia. Seven weeks before the Procession, a community art studio is established. This studio is open to the public and a minimal donation is requested, but no one is ever turned away for lack of funds. As there is no permanent studio space available for the Procession, each year Earthbound Productions locates and rents a space to serve as the community art studio; ultimately, the group hopes to find a permanent location.^[4] The studio, staffed solely by volunteers, becomes a central location for art & music workshops and costume design. Participants use a wide range of artistic approaches, such as Batik, Papier Mache, and Luminaria. They use mostly donated or scavenged materials to express appreciation for the natural world and create their costumes, banners, floats, puppets, drumming, community bands, and more. During the event itself, bedecked in their costumes featuring the elements and various species of plants and animals, people of all ages join in the procession. The event itself has three ground rules: no live pets, no motorized vehicles, and no written words.^[5]

I have to say though, while the giraffe and the whales were awesome, the giant clam costume (the geoduck) at this year’s procession drew many…surprised…comments.

One of the fun activities happens 30 minutes ahead of the procession. Two wagons loaded with side-walk chalk pulled by volunteers make the journey along the entire parade route handing out chalk and the spectators then decorate the streets. Some amazing art happens. The wagons return to collect the chalk, leading the procession.

I don’t get direct inspiration from downtown as in “Oohh, write about this…” I just find it stirs my own already quite out-there mind and when the old brain can’t seem to pull up anything worth writing, the change of scenery does me good.

Alas, today I must hit the road once again, but inspiration travels with me this time. I think it will be a productive trip.

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Filed under Adventure, Books, Fantasy, Humor, Literature, Uncategorized, Vegan, writer, writing

Tagged as adventure, Art, battles, fantasy, fiction, humor, literature, Procession of the Species, vegan lifestyle, writing

April 19, 2013 · 3:45 am

Transporting Dead Dinosaurs

The Joy of Childhood
© Leah Reindl 2012

So I went on an outing with one of my grandsons and his Kindergarten class. You may remember this child–The Boy whose antics keep Grandma hopping.

I honestly thought he was going to be the difficult child on the trip, but it turns out that he has an image to maintain (already) and his little mates believe he is the soul of reason. His teachers adore him.

(See Grandma’s look of shocked disbelief.)

However, I did have the pleasure of riding on the school bus in the seat directly in front of the ‘interesting child’ in the class, a little firecracker we’ll call Mercy. Her voice was beyond piercing–my ears are still ringing.

First though, you have to picture the school bus packed with 6-year olds, each one in varying stages of that mania only a 6 year old child can bring to such an event. The adult volunteers were given groups of 3 children each to monitor. We lined up outside the school at the curb, and got on the bus, keeping our groups in order. My daughter and I shared our group, which worked out well.

The first thing I noticed was the amazing lack of leg-room in Grandma’s seat. That and the fact that nowadays Grandma seems to take up more than half of the bench.

Oops.

Still, two of ‘my’ children were able to sit on the bench with me, and despite the fact that my knees were firmly pressed into the back of the seat in front of me, we rode fairly comfortably.

Directly behind me was the girl who we’ll call Mercy. She was imaginative, boisterous, and full of ‘it’. She wore her emotions for everyone to clearly see, and every thought that entered her mind was immediately expressed, loudly, twice for emphasis. She was needy, loud, inappropriate and hysterically funny.

Mercy was the poster-child for ADHD.

As the large yellow sardine can I was trapped in hurtled down I-5, Mercy’s commentary dominated the din. “Look at that dude! He’s smoking a cigar. I’ll bet he’s a gangsta. He’s gonna do a deal. I saw it on TV.”

“Mercy, that’s inappropriate. We don’t talk like that, remember?” The lady who was Mercy’s wrangler was awesome. She was an older lady who volunteered at the school and who was also the school crossing guard. I suspect she was a retired teacher, as she had opted to wrangle the three toughest discipline cases in the class.

The other two were boys and they were…interesting…, but Mercy was the real loose-cannon in the bunch. She was the ringleader, the one the other two looked up to.

Just around the time I noticed I had lost the feeling in my legs, the school bus pulled alongside of a long semi, an open-top box trailer that was covered with a canvas tarp. A corner of the tarp had come loose, and flapped in the wind as the truck rolled down the highway, giving a tantalizing peek at the contents of the load. (It was sawdust.)

Mercy said, “Look that truck is broken. I wonder what’s in it? It’s probably going to crash, cuz its broken.”

Her seatmate, a boy we’ll call Dewayne, said, “It won’t crash. That’s just the tarp. I wonder what’s under it?”

Mercy said, “It’s broken, so it’s gonna fly off and kill someone and there’ll be blood everywhere. We’ll probably be on the news when it happens. And it’s a dinosaur, under the tarp. A dead one.”

Dewayne said, “How do you know its a dead dinosaur? It could be any sort of dead body.”

“Human bodies aren’t that big. It has to be a dinosaur.” Mercy’s tone implied that she held the trump card. “I wonder where they’re going to bury it.”

All I could think of was that the seat behind me was occupied by two future authors of fantasy crime fiction, and the girl could possibly be a future Quentin Tarantino. This little girl was hysterically funny, obsessed with the macabre, totally off the wall and sharper than a tack.

I was SO grateful she was not in our group, as she was fast as lightning, didn’t hear any instructions, and made her own rules as she went.

It was a fun trip.

Grandma needed a nap when we got home.

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Filed under Adventure, Books, Dragons, Fantasy, Humor, Literature, Uncategorized, Vegan, writer, writing

Tagged as adventure, Art, battles, Dinosaurs, dragons, fantasy, fiction, humor, vegan lifestyle, writing

April 8, 2013 · 5:14 pm

I-5 or The Handbasket to Hell

Today I am back home, doing massive amounts of laundry and also doing revisions on Huw the Bard. For the last week I have been trundling up and down the I-5 corridor in Western Washington like an elderly gypsy in a 2009 Subaru Forester. Or, as I like to think of the old family wagon, the Handbasket to Hell.

Anyone who regularly has to drive this particular stretch of highway knows what I am talking about.

The traveling population in Western Washington numbers about 5,229,486 people, and they are ALL eventually funneled onto the 6 to 8 lanes of I-5. Except for I-405, that 30 mile long stretch of misery that bypasses Seattle east of Lake Washington, this is it, folks. Unlike civilized places like the Midwest or Florida, you get only ONE major highway serving five-and-a-quarter million people out here in the urban-wilds.

Basically the legislature in Washington State is too dysfunctional to even begin contemplating fixing a toilet, much less our traffic troubles. The feds also feel that under normal circumstances conestogas and Sasquatches require very little in the way of freeway access, so there you are.

Oh, the Agony.

Olympia, Tacoma, and Seattle each have public transportation systems in place, and you can make it on public transport if you work at it, although it becomes a looooooooong journey with many tricky connections. This is the least expensive option and if you have all day and little cash, it’s doable.

There is also the time honored Greyhound Bus for those brave souls who don’t mind the smell of a rolling Porta Potty AND who enjoy the thrill of being stranded in the worst, sleaziest sections of strange cities.

But there is no light-rail connecting Olympia to Everett. Believe me, if there were I would take it! I could ride Amtrak, but that is $24.00 each way, rather expensive for an underfunded book-monger like myself to consider. And then I’d still have to find a transit bus to Snohomish. I could use my daughter’s car once I got to Snohomish, so it may become an option.

At certain rare, beautiful times (after 8 pm or before 5 am) my journey to Seattle will take 1 hour, exactly as it should. However, most of the time the traffic is such that I allow 2 hours to Seattle and 3 to Snohomish. As I inch along in the bumper-to-bumper traffic, I feel that if the car is rolling forward, even if it is only going 20 mph, I must be making progress!

While I am away from home, every coffee bar or cafeteria where I see the words ‘free wifi’ becomes my office! Grandma pops open the hand-bag, hauls out the little Acer and voila! Grandma is back in business. Not only that, but Grandma can write a book while helping Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader team up with Batman and the Green Lantern for a little kick-ball, pausing only to walk to the Pilchuck Drive In for a snack of those lovely morsels of greasy, salty goodness that we call fries (that’s ‘chips’ to you in the UK.)

Yes, I am that kind of grandma. (Here kid, eat yer spuds. They’ll make ya into a superhero.)

I have begun fleshing out Billy Ninefingers, and holy krraapp, once again I’ve fallen in love with my characters. I just LOVE the Rowdies and the snarky merriment Billy seems to generate.

Irene Luvaul and I have just finished the first draft of ‘Mountains of the Moon’, with me writing and Irene reading and removing ‘thats’ and ‘which'(s) right and left, along with de-comma-tizing frantically, and directing me to “Show not tell!” The woman is a saint, to want to do this on such a raw manuscript. She began work on the beginning chapters before I had even finished the story, but that gave me the impetus to just get it done.

As I mentioned before, Irene and I are embarking on the third edit of Huw the Bard, preparatory to sending him to Carlie Cullen.

By trial and error, I have discovered that I need two sets of editorial eyes on my wretched work – and when Carlie has made her trip though and I have fixed her findings to her satisfaction, my sister, Sherrie DeGraw, and several others will beta-read it, checking to see that it is ready for publication.

All this while, Carlie and Irene are writing their own wonderful works, and Sherrie is painting her little heart out.

When you are an indie author, if you want your work to be enjoyable, you must have a thick hide and the ability to work with others even if they are telling you things you don’t want to hear. Believe me, there is no agony like the agony of a bad review, other than that of having your heart ripped from your chest.

Write the story the way it falls out of your head. Rewrite the story until you are satisfied with it. Find an editor who is HAPPY to work with you, and TAKE THEIR ADVICE by sucking it up and making the revisions they have requested. Go through the MS at least 3 times with them, or even 4. Then find another editor, a ‘Line-editor” and go through the same process. Have the book beta-read by people who read in your genre.

Spend the time that it takes to make your book reader-ready and you will have a product you can be proud of.

Even if you’ve written it while riding in a handbasket to hell.

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Filed under Battles, Books, Fantasy, Humor, Uncategorized, writer, writing

Tagged as adventure, Art, battles, fantasy, fiction, humor, Sasquatch, Why are we in this handbasket and where are we going, writing

March 7, 2013 · 2:14 am

Sitting in a Starbucks

Today I am in Seattle, sitting in a busy Starbucks, working on my book. It ‘s kind of cool, blogging and working on my book on the ground floor of an office building that houses Amazon.

There is something about this rainy city that I love. It fires up my creative mind. Plus, I lived in Seattle until I was 9, and to me it has always been home.

The book is rolling along well–so well that I begrudge the time it takes to blog! The characters are occupying most of the space in my mind–to the point that I can hardly carry on a conversation without sounding like an idiot.

Designing melèes with strange creatures and putting my characters through hell and yet still finding something humorous in their situations–I’ve never had a job more rewarding. (Although, I admit it’s financially rather UNrewarding.) Still, maybe the next book will be the one!

I’m sitting here in a Starbucks, in Seattle, watching the rain and the people and loving my job. I don’t care if I’m not a bestseller and I don’t really care if I ever am. I’ve finished writing four (count them –> FOUR!) books and can all those nay-sayers say they have done that? So I’m not published by one of the Big Six. And so my books aren’t on the hot one hundred yet! I’m an indie and I do the best I can, which is all one can ask of themselves.

I am sitting in a Starbucks living my dream, writing a book. It doesn’t get much better than that!

My advice is this–do what you love, and do it to the best of your ability. Life is too short to spend most of it waiting for the right time to happen, or for someone to give you permission to live.

Find your “Starbucks” and make your life happen!

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Tagged as adventure, Art, battles, fantasy, fiction, humor, literature, magic, vegan lifestyle, writing

February 24, 2013 · 10:29 am

The ‘e’ word

Letting go is never easy.

You are grown up now, you’re a big boy. You make your decisions, right or wrong.

You’re thirty-five years old.

You have a seizure disorder. It’s okay to call it epilepsy. It’s okay to say the ‘e’ word. It’s not like we are naming Voldemort. Nothing caused it. Nothing will cure it. It will come and go, and yes it’s a bastard to deal with, but we deal with it. When you take your medicine, the symptoms are controlled. When you don’t, they are not.

You have this epilepsy thing and you have trouble accepting it, but I believe in you. Nothing has changed, except you have this problem sometimes.

Don’t choose to live your life looking at what you don’t have–so caught up in where things went wrong that you can’t see where they went right.

Life is so beautiful.

Your life is out there, waiting for you to claim it, waiting for you to wrap your arms around it and embrace it.

Life is good. Don’t become a small, angry person just because things aren’t perfect. Don’t build walls around the you that I love so much. Don’t hide behind stubborn anger, because life doesn’t care if you’re mad or not. Life goes on, and the only way to live, REALLY live is to grab it, and learn to love the life that exists despite the ugly bits.

It’s the contrast of the good and the bad that makes the good in life so beautiful.

Embrace every minute and see the beauty around you. Live in the moment, because you only get one moment, ever–and that moment is now.

Don’t let the ‘e’ word steal your “now.”

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Filed under Battles, Literature, writing

Tagged as Art, battles, dragons, literature, living with epilepsy, vegan lifestyle, writing

February 15, 2013 · 11:18 pm

The Sedative Box

Alas, I find that the week spent with my grandson didn’t advance my manuscript any further. I didn’t even get any book reviews done this week, although I did find Nemo.

And Waldo.

And the last shred of patience I ever had.

The Boy is six, and is off-the-chart-smart, requiring no entertaining on my part what-so-ever. He is a real firecracker, and just listening to him as he is playing is a hoot. Batman and Darth Vader teamed up with The Green Lantern to kill Smeagol, thus saving Bilbo from a dreadful death.

I’ve mentioned before that The Boy is a sponge and literally soaks up everything he sees and hears. This child repeats EVERYTHING he hears or even thinks he has heard. He is VERY verbal with a huge vocabulary (of which he knows the meaning and proper use of every word), extremely sassy, and regularly loses his precious, carefully monitored television privileges, which he is deeply remorseful for, but not enough to remember to curb his lip when talking back to Mama (She Who Controls The TV.) Curbing his commentary is both time-consuming and all-important, as it has led to some trouble in social situations.

For the most part, Grandma’s role when babysitting is to gently but firmly remind The Boy that we show respect to everyone when we speak to them, and when he responds with verbal abuse, I respond by parking him in the corner for some quiet time. Grandma sets the timer on the stove for five minutes and we both rest our ears. When the timer goes off, we hug and make up our quarrel, OR he goes back to the corner to reflect on where he miscalculated and went wrong for just a while longer.

Oddly enough, The Boy doesn’t like tofu in his stirfry. Go Figure! And Grandma doesn’t do mac and cheese–what a tragedy! We did find something he would eat, and we agreed to disagree.

I have ten grandchildren and one great-grandchild. The Boy is the only one of my grandchildren that requires special handling, although the others are just as talented and amazing as he is. Unlike the others, this child can’t be left to his own devices, or mayhem WILL ensue. Because he requires more intense handling, I’ve had a lot of individual time with him that I’ve not had with the others.

I can honestly say he is not my favorite grandchild, because they are ALL so awesome and so individual that I could never have a favorite. They range in age from 23 years on down to to 5 months and fall into 3 batches. The great-granddaughter is 4 years old and is amazing to me–we’ve developed a special friendship bonding in Grandma’s kitchen.

In the first batch, the oldest is attending college full-time and raising her child as a single mother and doing exceedingly well at both jobs. She inspires me to do better at my own work. The next oldest is my ‘Fairy Goth-Daughter’, an artist and musician, who hooked me up with Rammstein and Appocalyptica. The third oldest is 20, an actress, and has found work in HBO documentaries and even a straight-to-video movie. She is also managing a fast-food restaurant to pay her bills, since acting pays as well as authoring does! (insert ‘lol’ here.)

The next age group ranges from 14 to 6 and their interests are still varying. Two want to write, one loves to draw and he is awesome at drawing any sort of car you would want. The other three don’t have any particular area of focus yet, but I see glimmers of artistic and musical ability in them all.

The littlest, at 5 months, is really into the cat and his dog. He tries to sing when you sing with him, which I find quite entertaining–it keeps grandma busy and out of trouble for hours.

But what I love about The Boy is his imagination. He let’s his imagination fly freely, and I can see the seeds that, with good direction, will grow into a filmmaker or author or scientist there. The Boy thinks WAY outside the box because it hasn’t occurred to him yet that there is a box!

It ‘s my job, as The Grandma, to see that they ALL realize there are NO BOUNDARIES to what they can do or be. Success isn’t measured in how many toys and possessions you gain. It’s measured in your happiness quotient.

Are you happy? When you get home from earning your daily bread do you look forward to a chance to spend an hour or two at your real work? My happiness quotient is very high, and always has been, even when I was working as a hotel maid. Happiness is a state of mind you must deliberately cultivate.

When you get home, why not simply forget to turn on the TV? (Or as I like to think of it, the sedative-box.) What has it ever done for you besides offering mindnumbingly similar programs interspersed with commercials designed to make you feel you aren’t complete without the product they are hawking. Bored and discontent is not how I want to live, so I find myself reading and pursuing other hobbies in the evening.

Today, I am also looking up. Two asteroids, one imploding over Russia and one doing a close fly-by is quite enough entertainment for one day! For all my friends in Russia, I hope you were not affected by the event this morning!