The Day After WIP Wednesday

The two rules of procrastination: 1) Do it today. 2) Tomorrow will be today tomorrow. ~Author Unknown

Sunday Musings from Under the Steps: Talent Knows No Style

I think when two opposite forces, beings, cultures, styles collide something beautiful can come from it. I think the world of art and entertainment thrives on this.

Take Bing and Bowie as the perfect example...



Merry Christmas folks!

WIP Wednesday: The Curse of Knowing What You're Doing.

"Fiction writers, present company included, don't understand very much about what they do-"not why it works when it's good, not why it doesn't when it's bad."

~Stephen King.On Writing.





BUT... We sure as hell know when we are dragging our feet. Procrastination--we the procrastinators. We are our own worst enemy...

Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go kick my ass.

Sunday Musings Under the Steps: Words You Live By

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Invictus, William Earnest Henley

I had found this poem not long after recovering from an extensive and life changing back surgery, when I was 12 yrs old. In no time I remember it word for word (keep in mind I've often forgotten my own phone number) and to this day I can recite it at the asking.

The poem inspired me-made me feel stronger and made my situation feel more real while making it also more manageable. Back then it had made me feel less alone. The irony in that is it took me 22 years to research the writer and find he'd wrote this from his own hospital bed, recovering from a amputation--the result of a illness he was diagnosed with when he was 12. Maybe a century separated us but his words had been there for me when I truly needed them.

How many of you have words that do for you what this poem has done for me--still does? Or a writer thats reached across cultures or time to lend you inspiration?

WIP Wednesday: Inspiration Through Reading Old Blogs.

OOOKAY. I was going to write out a nice, long sentimental WIP Wednesday entry involving the similarities of nursing a WIP and impending motherhood. Even made it a point to go looking through older entries to find the link to another entry of similar but not same nature and then it happened...

INSPIRATION!

The last few days I have been a little lax writing new material for my WIP 'Ghost Mountain'. I have been...distracted. Well, I fell into reading some of my old blog entries concerning said WIP and its MC Wyatt and BAM!!!!!!!

Soooo, have a lovely evening all and nice of ya to stop by, but I have a date with my WIP.

Sunday Musings from Under the Steps: Jelly of the Month Club

This Sunday Musing is neither serious nor sublime. Just funny as hell and so so....life.

To all of us who have felt like this....



And had the humor and family support to get through it.

Thanks Eddie!

WIP Wednesday: Self Realization Time Again.

When starting this blog, I referred to myself as a Work in Progress. I don't think I fully appreciated that statement or that fact at the time.

More than anything, the WIP part was pointed more at my professional and creative endeavors. I understood that through working on these things, I would find changes in myself. This occurs with any new road one takes. What I didnt fully grasp or maybe just wasnt ready to see yet, was the more personal--more elemental things that would-could change in me when the WIP's in my life delved into big life changes (i.e. the little space alien inside my tummy and what its birth will mean).

You see, I have had some major shake ups in my life within the last few years, but the changes they evoked in me were somehow different than what I am experiencing now. I would sooner name all the stars in the heaven than I could exactly or accurately explain what I am feeling now... but I like it.

So many changes are coming for me. Things that will join my present works and other things that will change them. Jim and I will find a house before spring and that will be a big change in our daily lives--but a welcome one. I will continue to care for my little family and myself and fall in love with him or her as the day grows nearer. And then I will be a mother, a job I believe I have been in training for a long time and will justly make my priority.

But how will these changes mix with the things I want for me? Should they be pushed aside and turned away like many of the women in my life have done? Or maybe WIP's and dreams do not have to disappear, only change a bit. The true nature of a WIP don't you think?

Sunday Musings from Under the Steps: My Gift to You.

"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?"

"VIRGINIA O'HANLON.
"115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

8 year old Virginia wrote this letter to the editor of New York's Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church has since become history's most reprinted newspaper editorial ever.

And although the earnest words of that child touches me, it is the response that warms me each time I read it. My gift to all of you this hectic holiday season. A bit of perspective--a moment to see how we should see this time of year and every day that follows it. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.


Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.


Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.


You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

WIP Wednesday: NaNo Sum Up and Continuation

This year was my 3rd entrance in NaNoWriMo. The first two times I surpassed the 50,000 words and came away with the rough ideas for two novels. This year I entered the fray, not to write 50,000 wrds of new material, but use the one month experience to sort out last years novel idea I had been tangling with since.

I'd say I've just about done that. I did get some bugs worked out and came up with a few clearer scenes than before. Even better, the writing--as always--gave me the chance to get to know my characters better. For this I am very pleased. This month will most definitely make the continuation of my WIP easier.

How did all of your NaNo endeavors go this year. Find yourself a new story or a new idea to change a old one?

BTW, thank you for all of your support and kinds words last week regarding my latest and greatest WIP--my future baby. It put a smile on my face. ;-D