Can you help me with giving this poem a title? Place your suggestions in the comment section below. 😉
Tag Archives: life
Story Saturday: Untitled Haiku
Photo Credit: Ben Heine
This haiku was prompted by the “elephants” theme over at @storysaturday on Twitter.
Story Saturday: Moon (Poem)
What If My Writing Isn’t Good Enough?
Click on the image to access this group’s official page
This month’s question: What if my writing isn’t good enough?
This group (also endearingly known as IWSG) is all about insecurities; and gosh, I have a boat-load of them!
Where even to begin?
I’ve battled with insecurities all my life, and they’ve filtered over in to my writing life.
You’ll never be good enough.
You’re worthless.
Don’t bother even trying.
There are so many ideas running through my head. And I have written many of them…but, they usually die (or get placed in the trash).
I have published several items (all short ones) so that is something, I suppose.
But…
I keep feeling like I’m missing something.
Or, there is a story somewhere within that needs to be written and then released to the world.
But…
In the past, in my previous work life, I had this nasty habit of self-sabotaging myself.
Not allowing myself to experience success of any kind.
And this is quite prevalent in my life as it is in my writing life.
It’s like I feel like I don’t deserve it.
You’ll never be good enough.
You’re worthless.
Don’t bother even trying.
A lot of this stem from childhood abuse. Others from a progressive disability.
Excuses, I suppose.
But they’re the Goliath in my life, and I’m the puny boy with no sling-shot or weapon of any kind.
Just a pen.
I’ve heard that a pen holds power. I just don’t have any faith in the holder of this particular pen.
Am I good enough?
Will I ever be?
Do I even bother trying?
You Tube Tuesday: Glacier National Park
(*YouTube Tuesday idea originally came from the Martians Attack blog)
Last week, our family went on an adventurous vacation. When I say “adventurous” I meant that practically everything was done on the fly. Such is our life with my former-Navy-officer hubby 🙂
Originally we were going to spend the entire time down in the Black Hills region (South Dakota); however, the place was too mad with tourists. We stopped very briefly at Mt. Rushmore, and then left. We drove most of the night through the remaining sixty-plus miles of South Dakota, and most of the width of Wyoming, arriving at a truck stop just south of Billings (Montana) around 3:45am. There, we slept for a few hours in the vehicle.
After a quick breakfast, we were back on the road heading north for Helena. We ended up settling in at a KOA twenty miles south of the city in a nice cabin nestled close to Canyon Lake. There we stayed for three days before heading out for Glacier National Park.
Glacier National Park is so huge, and incredibly beautiful! You could easily spend three or four days exploring and still not see everything. We were only there for a few hours; long enough to drive up a very scenic highway to Logan Pass which was where I took this amateurish video clip (using my Trio tablet).
I added music to it before uploading to YouTube.
Hope you enjoy 🙂
If you’d like to participate in YouTube Tuesday, post something from YouTube that you enjoyed and tell us a bit about it. Don’t forget to include the link to this post in yours so I can check it out. Also, if you’re on Twitter, tweet about it using the hashtag #YouTubeTuesday.
One-Liner Story Saturday: Ghosts of Bear River
Bear River, Idaho
As she walks across the meadow she could almost hear the voices of past lives echoing through the sparsely forested terrain; with the breeze caressing her body, their faint howling cries icing her to the core with haunting images of despair and betrayal.
*Inspired by article, Site of Deadliest Native American Massacre Identified in Idaho
Story Sunday: Shark! (Poem)
Photo Credit: Perth Now
The ocean water
oh so blue and clear…but
when she peers down into
the salty sea
the last thing she’d see
are those black, doll eyes
Your Life in Six Words Contest Winner
Over a month ago, I ran a contest at WritersCafe.org called, Your Life In Six Words. Here is the winning item by Akshatha Kamath:
A real satire,
but humorously serious!
What about you? If you could describe your life in six words, what would they be?
One-Liner Story Sunday: Shadowy Mountains
Photo Credit: Compass Points Media
It isn’t the mountains that need to be feared; but the shadows that accompany the daunting peaks as they tend to claim all who enter within.
*Inspired in part by article, Does Vermont Have Its Own Version of the Bermuda Triangle?
Writing: The Power Behind Words
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This month’s question: What is one valuable lesson you’ve learned since you started writing?
This was a difficult question. I couldn’t think of any one thing specifically but just the knowing that writing in of itself has been incredibly valuable for me. Without it, I don’t think I’d be as “put-together” emotionally and mentally as I am.
Even though I’ve been writing for a number of years now, and have several of my short works published, I’m not famous or rich.
In fact, most people have no clue who I am.
I suppose that’s okay.
What matters to me is that the words I write impact people in some way.
So, yeah, I write for myself first but I also write to give voice (or try to) to those who cannot speak.
For me, writing is therapeutic.
Which means words matter.
And I want it to matter to the reader as well.
In the end, I can think of a particular lesson that writing has taught me.
Compassion for others.
And empathy.
Writing offers a way to let others know that they are not alone in feeling the way they’re feeling.
And for that one reader, the writer’s words can make all the difference in the world.
One-Liner Story Saturday: BBQ
The patties sizzled in the flames as the crowd eagerly waits; he wonders if they’ll notice his missing wife.
Story Sunday: The Bench
He stood
before the bench where he last saw her
Shadows from nearby trees nearly engulfing it
as the sun lowered in the smoke-glazed sky
She had on her gray pantsuit with a silky blouse
its’ color matched her sea-blue eyes
He set the ash-covered helmet on the wood
and as if pressed down with a heavy weight, he dropped
to one knee and bowed his head, tears trickling down his grime-stained face
Fires he could fight, but not the monstrosity he witnessed on that fateful day
One by one, his brothers fell as with the towers
Did she too?
Perhaps she’ll suddenly appear like an angel he knew her to be-
or, was she lost somewhere in the rubbles of mangled steel and crushed cement?
Time’s no man’s friend
For he was a fool to think he had plenty
and now she’s gone
*I created a video for this story. It can be accessed here: The Bench
Favorite Friday: Ray Bradbury (on leaving behind a legacy)
“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there.
It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.” – Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
You Tube Tuesday: The Bench
(*YouTube Tuesday idea originally came from the Martians Attack blog)
A secret dream of mine is wanting to see one of my works produced into a feature film. I just love the thought of seeing my story come to life with visuals and music. Well, I decided not to wait any longer and began creating my own “films” by using the movie-making software, Kizoa. Yeah, it’s not quite the same as having actors acting out parts of the stories I’ve written, but it’s close enough and not to mention, fun!
Here’s the most recent one I created for a microfiction I wrote, The Bench.
If you’d like to participate in YouTube Tuesday, post something from YouTube that you enjoyed and tell us a bit about it. Don’t forget to include the link to this post in yours so I can check it out. Also, if you’re on Twitter, Tweet about it using the hashtag #YouTubeTuesday.
Story Sunday: Fire and Ash
As she stood in the entryway
staring at the black mass in the fiery sky
she wondered
what good did technology do for them
now on the brink of extinction?
Gusts of heated air whipped around her body
as the only thoughts of comfort
were of all the written journals
she’d buried in the deep caverns nearby
in the hope that those pieces of her would survive
while the rest be reduced to nothing
but hot ashes
“Fan”tastical Friday: Helen Keller
I’ve never really gave much notice to the term “fandom” until I looked up the meaning of the word in a dictionary:
-“the state or condition of being a fan of someone or something.”
This definition made me chuckle as it sounds like something out of a psychology textbook. So, I looked at what Wikipedia had to say:
-“a term used to refer to a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of empathy and camaraderie with others who share a common interest.”
Meaning, you can be a “fan” of not just individuals or movies or a particular kind of music; but, also of an ideal, an interest, motive, etc.. I think you get the idea.
I suppose now that I’m thinking (oh, so dangerous) I am a fan of multiple things.
For today, I will focus on one of them.
Women with great inner strength.
Helen Keller. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell. Mother Teresa. Anne Frank. Maya Angelou.
There are just too many to list here but the one who has been the greatest inspiration to me was Helen Keller.
Although I am legally blind and deaf, I still have enough of both to manage. But Helen had none of both and she still got around! There are days when I get frustrated at my shortcomings and limitations to the point I just want to quit and throw in the towel (and I’ve done this before which brought only misery for me), but I have to remind myself that there are (and have been) others who persevered and thrived despite their disabilities.
Which gives me hope.
And some days, that is all I need to continue on.
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.”
-Helen Keller
Writing: Getting Too Attached? (Poll)
One-Liner Story Saturday: This Thing Called Life
A young woman who lost her parents, one to infidelity and the other to a war in some foreign land, must choose between a childhood dream and her familial responsibility…real life sucks.
Wordless Friday (Untitled)
Photo Credit: tjdrysdale.com
What Happens When A Writer Stops Writing?
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This month’s question: Did you ever say “I quit”? If so, what happened to make you come back to writing?
I wrote an essay on this last year, and today I took and created a video from it.
