The Day After WIP Wednesday...

 

     I have decided that no matter if my Wednesday Blog is late, by a day or week, I will post regardless.  And if I have no big topic to rant on, ask questions about or report, I will post something on this blog.  Even if it's a photo of my kids big toe, word count update, or a quote of the day I found somewhere on the net, something will be posted each week.

 

A writing friend of mine once commented that it didn't matter the amount of followers or comments one had, but that you got in the habit of making deadlines.  And blogging is good writing practice.  Well, I am out of practice with deadlines, NEED practice, and if I can continue to bond with other word-slingers once in a while I will sure as hell keep posting.

 

So quote of the day #1 shot a true path to this target.  Belief that my goal (completion of a WIP) is out ahead of me so long as I keep writing and working on my craft, helps my focus to stay true.

 

And quote of the day #2...  

 

 

...bodes well with #1 for all writers.   We are the only ones to blame if we fail.   My goal at this time is simple, to complete a WIP. No grand notions, just a earnest attempt at a childhood love.   So I write.

 

Keep writing team!

 

N. Murray

WIP Wednesday: A Bad Excuse Not To Write.

And that is what I have been doing with myself these past two months, waiting and not doing.

My office space where I write is under construction.  I'm a nester.  I will wait to write once its done.

I don't have my old music system up, so to be inspired by my tunes.  Another excuse to wait.

We had a long trip a long long ways away with family a couple months ago.  I haven't settled in yet.  I have a ever restless two year old and a million and one commitments, Spring is here and house restoration is back in full swing, life is.....

Life is chaotic.  But life will continue on at a imperfect whirlwind pace and will not be an excuse for me not to write any longer.

"If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word."  ~~~Margaret Atwood

True enough Ms. Atwood.  True enough.

WIP Wednesday: Got Gadgets?

Gadgets.  Aside from our imaginations, gadgets are a part of all writers--all creators--tool box.  It may be something low tech like a paint brush, hammer or pen you most pull out of the box.  Or high tech gadgets like a digital camera, 3D printer (wildest dreams) or my little Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1. (Image above created during 3rd attempt using S Memo app.)  And like most of us, the combination of both low and high tech gadgets are whats needed to fully express our imaginings and brings forth our creations.

I started out very low tech (pencil, pen, paintbrush and hammer sort) and stubbornly held onto these creative tools for many years, ignoring the world of high tech like it was the enemy.  Time, high tech positive peer pressure and experience opened my mind to the wonderful would of technology, but I'm still very loyal to my old primitive friends.

The below is a example of one of my high tech gadgets taking on one of my low tech gadgets jobs.  

I often sketch out a geographical map for the fictional world I'm writing about.  I'm a visual person by nature and it sometimes helps in the structuring of my story.  Usually I would do this on the back of a paper tablet or a sheet of print out paper, to be crumpled into a binder or tacked to the wall at my desk.  This would have been fine and I will probably continue such creative planning and nest making in the future. 

But with the apps on my Galaxy Note 10.1 I can more easily share my vision with a wider audience of friends and fellow creators.  And frankly, this looks better than me taking a digital of my crumpled up paper on the wall and posting it.  Then again, I do like old school.  We shall see.  This is a process and I have just started this new avenue.

My second attempt at sketching, using the S Memo feature my new Galaxy Note 10.1. (For you Galaxy owners, I see Omni Sketch and Zen Brush in my near future.) 

So what gadget, low tech or high, helps in your creative process?  What gadget can you not live without.  What new gadget would you love to use or what old gadget do you keep coming back to time and time again?

Good writing folks!

I hadn't even thought of this day till this morning, flipping through my e-mails and Facebook offerings.  I have thought of the significance of 2012 and yes I have let it sit in the back of my head like a headache or worry I'd rather not deal with.

So 12-12-2012!!!! 

A date and year translated as doom via our translation of the Mayan calender.  Logical me likes to think that maybe it was just the end of their calendar and not THE END. 

~12-12-12~ 

Numbers so devine and sacred that thousands of brides will marry on this date just because of the harmony this number shall bring to their holy matrimony.

12

A dozen roses. The number of months in our calendar year. 12 inches in a foot.  12 hours on a clock.  24 hours in a day (12x2=24).  And it can be evenly divided into multiple subsets; 12 breaks down into halves, thirds, fourths, sixths and twelfths making it a very dynamic number.

And it would have been just another day if I had bypassed my computer today and ignored the news.  Happily, I have begun to see 2012 in general, much the same way.  Just another year, with its good and bad, ready to lay down and allow room for 2013.

So I say numbers are devices man has come to use in order to make better sense of the world when he believes intuition and faith are not enough to do the job.  I believe following numbers to count our time here on Earth, sometimes feels like an attempt at shortening it.  And a day (or year) is what you make it.

So what does this day mean to me? 

December 12, 2012.  Laundry day, another Wednesday Blog post and 13 more days till Christmas. 

Cheers!


 

Should Ya Know My Politics?

I have come to the hard learned conclusion, politics is the great alienater, my fine members of the Insecure Writer's Support Group.

People you thought you knew become unrecognizable and differences you may have just talked through or accepted any other given Sunday, become huge gaping canyons of animosity when tossed into the context of politics.

Now, I like to think of my present and future relationships with my readers to be a friendly, non-alienating one.  Seeing people of different opinion and place in life participating and enjoying my world is a thrill.  I want to keep a atmosphere that nurtures that.  But at the same time I am no fan of apologizing for who I am or what I believe.

How do I stay true to me and yet keep all of you?  To all those conscientious fiction writers who manage a writing blog, how do you find the balance between the writing world and your personal beliefs?  Do you nix all discussions of politics from your realm?  Do you stay neutral when the "politics" hits the fan?  Does having a political opinions hurt a writers fledgling career?

I know this is a personal choice.  I guess I was just wondering if this was ever a dilemma for any of you out in ink and keyboard land?

And thank you to Alex J. Cavanaugh for thinking up this pretty cool support group/ blog hop!

 

While I was gone...

Let's see. (index to lips in great concentration)
Since the last time I tapped keys in this neighborhood Jim and I visited this place again...
Yep, Jim's folks on the Big Island were and are still doing fine in the Aloha State. I took this pic across the street from their condo the last night we were there. As always, there were no loss of beautiful memories to be had or gorgeous days to enjoy those 3 weeks. And it was a wonderful place for a Baby Moon (wiggles brows). But, FYI: Air flight while pregnant can be and truly was a bitch! I'm sure I will find a way to get that experience in here one of these days. All experiences have their use when one is a writer, right? Right? And it was just sooooo dang fun I'll have to share... :-P

And then this Spring Jim and I bought a house in preparation of our growing little family. Behold yet another room under construction (below). This is good but frustrating, but mostly really really good thing. Because with each wall of plastic, nail struck, floor refinished, each treasure found and personal touch placed in our new old house, makes it even more our home. And not the neglected red headed stepchild (and it was red when we bought it) of the neighborhood that it will soon not be. I knew my addiction to HGTV would save me some day...

And then exactly one week after moving in--I want you to think towers of unpacked boxes, dusty cobwebs yet un-mastered and barely a bedroom to sleep in--we had James. Nearly 9 pounds, 22 inches. James Alan Murray was born healthy and happy on May 24th.

And now...

My Man and my little man just the other day in front of the tube. Jim was teaching James the fine art of channel surfing at the time. Lord, in the short time that little monkey has been in my life I have learned so much more than I could have ever guessed about parenting--hell, about life. No talent for empathy prepared me for feeling what its really like to be a parent. I don't think I could love another human being more...and I love his Daddy a considerable amount.

I had said that my son would be my best WIP. The truth is, he is his own WIP and I am so much a WIP still.

As for WIP's, Ghost Mountain is still a go, although it had stalled for a bit, due to EVERYTHING!!!! I have started this again...

And not just writing, but sketching again, home repair and decorative project making again. I still have a pile of boxes in the third bedroom where Salvaged Beauty will begin again, so no jewelry at this time. But it will come.

And with my creative self finding its way back again, my socially active self has been making its way around. Slowly I make contact with old friends and soon I hope to attend a writing group session again. And while I dip a toe or two into the waters of my small social pond, my mind has already been taking dips into the much bigger pond--our nation and the world.

A anniversary solidified my need to voice some long held opinions. 9-11 and those days that followed to be exact. I remember that day, a decade ago like most. I was working a double at my old job as a mental health worker. We had a small TV in our office. The Today Show was on while I went over the log entries from the day before. And then I heard something that caught my attention--Matt Lauer reporting on some plane hitting one of the World Trade Towers. Something similar had happened many years ago. In 1945 a B-25 Bomber smacked into the Empire State building. A horrible accident. But this day.... As soon as I watched a second plane do the same to the second tower, I knew what I had seen was a act of terrorism. I had never felt so angry or hyper aware than I did that day in front of that small TV, side by side with staff and half the clients stable enough in the building to do so.

When the next day came I was still angry, still raw from what I had bore witness to on live TV. But I could sense something else in me as the day drug on with each new bit of horrifying footage from all 3 sites. This thing swelled in me. A protectiveness, a patriotism, a pride grew in me while I watched those who had come out of the dust or those brave enough to travel into it, band together in the rubble strewn streets of Manhattan, the defiled home of our military in DC and that scared field just outside a small town in PA. For the first time in my life I saw what I knew my America was capable of. What my grandparents always reminisced. A America that didn't hold into account your sex, religion, race, or economical place when the shit hit the fan. You were a human being in need of help and that was all that mattered. We were all in it together. We were Americans. I just wish it hadn't took 9-11 to remind people of that.

And now--oh how times have changed and not at all how I would have imagined or hoped. I remember who we were those hard horrible days, months, years. I see the good and feel the pride of being a American still, but something has changed. Something wrong floats in the air and I want to help air it out if it still can be. How will I do this, I am still figuring on. I know it may be wise to keep some sort of separation between my writing and jewelry biz self and my inner politico. Maybe I can find a way to do that on Blogger? But after all that has gone on these last few years, I need to get a few things off my chest and out into blogisphere.

So, I am back. There will be some changes here and there, but I am still me--a eccentric, hopeful WIP.

Wednesday WIP: The Road Isn't to Hell...

"The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.”

~~~Philippe de Comines




I'd say the road to publication in paved with rejection letters. WIP's are not good intentions to me, they are proof that our dreams can become tangible, viable steps towards our goals. So, long live WIP's!!!!

BTW, check out NPR's website. They are starting up another round of Three-Minute Fiction, Laughing And Crying is the subject and per usual, a 600 word limit. Winners are read on the air and published on the web site. Take a peek.

Sunday Musings from Under the Steps: Time to Make Hero's

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.

~~~Ralph Waldo Emerson


I do not believe we need larger than life hero's to save us from our hard times. We need everyday people with immense hearts and even larger volumes of courage. I like the quote above for that reason.

Heroes can be the guy who sells insurance down the street or the granny who smiles at you every morning at the Circle K. All of us hold a possible hero within us. All we need to do is hang on just a little while longer...

WIP Wednesday: The Sex of My Little WIP...

Lets just say that my little WIP will be peeing standing up...

IT'S A BOY!!!!!

Just a few more months till I meet him in the flesh. My son, James Allen Murray. Till then ultrasound images of his little face and the perfect shot of his little bum and manly junk, will have to suffice.

Let's just say, little James is proving not bashful.

May I Introduce My Latest and Greatest Work In Progess...

Yep, I'm working on a baby. I'm 3 months into this project and so far so good. I'm a bit tired, naturally worried for a multitude of mommy-to-be reasons. And I feel impossibly happy everytime I think him/her/strange little space alien in my tummy.

I think this may be my greatest work ever.

Happy Holidays!!!!

Sunday Sermon Under the Steps: A Poor Trade Off

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.' Benjamin Franklin, 'Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor,' November 11, 1755."

I'd say this makes as much sense today as it did in Ben's time. Keep these words in mind now and in the days to come.