When you dream do you dream about things that actually have happen or will happen or are your dreams of things that are completely made up? I can honestly say I rarely remember my dreams. If I do, it is only for a limited time and the memory of the dream itself seems to vanish a short time later. However, I sometime have day dreams, or more like thoughts, that pop into my head for a good story idea for a book. I still remember the day I was up in my bedroom making the bed when the idea for the … [Read more...]
Day 158: Winging It
From the moment we are born we have to go by instinct to get things done. Think about it. No one taught us how to hold our heads up. We just eventually did. No one taught us how to sit up. We just did. No one taught us how to crawl, or walk, or any number of things. We just did. How about that new job you took. Did you know everything you needed to know from the moment you started to work or did instinct have to kick in at some point and just went with the flow? Obviously you need to know some … [Read more...]
Day 156: Gratitude
In life there are so many things that can bring us down. The loss of a job. A house being foreclosed on. A spouse who’s had an affair. The loss of a parent; a spouse; a son or daughter. The list could go on with all the things that make us sad and miserable. However, it’s what we do when these things happen that matters most. When Mari died it would have been so very easy to curl up into a ball and just wither away as the pain was so acute and utterly deep. I’d cry out of the blue for what … [Read more...]
Day 155: Telling Family Secrets
I think of books out there like A Child Called It or Go Ask Alice and how either the person who wrote it, how'd they do it knowing family secrets would be revealed or how did the person who allowed Alice's journal to be published how they felt about revealing all this girl's most private thoughts when she was alive. They probably did it for the same reason as I'm telling Mari's story that by sharing their most intimate details of what happened in that person's life that somehow maybe they might … [Read more...]
Day 154: It Takes What It Takes
Do you have the mentality that no matter what happens in your life that you will do what it takes to succeed at whatever you are doing? I think many of us do and then many of us don't. It's the "I won't give up" way of thinking. I'm sure we've all heard a thousand times how this successful person or that one had received however many 'no's' before that final yes finally happened. It's what makes us stronger. It's the refusal to give in to failure or rejection. If we were all to just give up … [Read more...]
Day 153: Writing Your Own Marathon
There are so many times in life where we just feel tired, exhausted and just don't feel like doing anything. And it's not that we don't have anything to do. It's that we just don't feel like doing anything. Our brains feel like mush. Our bodies feel like they are spent. Yet, there we are with that niggling feeling thumping us at the back of our minds telling us we need to do something. If we are a teacher it might be grading or planning out the school day. If we are a composer it might be the … [Read more...]
Day 152: The Eleven-Day Marathon
In life there are times where things are at a sprint. We must get them done as soon as possible. The urgency is critical. So we put in all our might and effort to get done whatever it is as soon as possible. At the end we are exhausted, if not physically, most definitely mentally. Yet, we have a sense of accomplishment for being able to have done it to begin with. However, what about those things that take a long time to complete like getting a new business up and running? Or maybe a new house? … [Read more...]
Day 151: Walking Away
In life sometimes there are things we want to do so bad, and then we start to do them only to find that about two-thirds to three-fourths of the way through what we are doing isn't anything like we'd thought it'd be. As a result, we realize we need to stop without finishing. Has this ever happened to you before in your life? It has with me, only I realized this when I had completed the full first draft of Mari's book. The book I'd written was a complete biography of Mari's life as well as some … [Read more...]
Day 150: Forgetting How to Write
I think we all have times in our life where we go down a road and then forget why we did so. This happens to me all the time when I'm talking. I'll be talking about something and while doing so I end up explain something that came up and by the time I'm done with this new thing I've completely forgotten what I was talking about to begin with. My train of thought can get derailed so easily. Maybe our minds do this for a reason we can't understand. Or maybe we just have a great forgetter as my … [Read more...]
Day 149: The DVD in Your Head
Whether you are a writer or not have you ever had an idea that just goes round and round in your head until you do something about it. As a writer, it might be your story and your characters constantly talking to you. Or maybe a scene that is playing out before you. For me, I've relieved what happened to Mari in the hospital more times than I can remember. It's something that's always there and can easily be brought to mind. I think it's because it will forever be apart of me and is embedded … [Read more...]
