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 |  Day to day stuff....a memoir without order. |
 Imagination is described by Webster as...The act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses in reality. Albert Einstein said "Logic will get you from A to B, but imagination will take you everywhere."  I never realized it until I read it somewhere but there are ways to boost one's imagination: Create a visual journal Draw whatever you see for 15 minutes a day. You don't need to be an artist. Think like an artist Cut out pictures from magazines & piece them together to create an original image. Listen to Bach Close your eyes while playing your favorite music. Or listen to the sounds of nature on a CD or in the great outdoors. Play word games Try thinking of as many words as you can that begin with MAR...or you pick. Daydream Let your mind wander, or focus on a single object & study its characteristics.     Everyone has a story....here's mine.....c   |
| I rewrote my micro fiction story and it has "passed inspection". Whew. Here it is: Comfort In summer’s heat the sharp blade of death leaves me a widow. Comfort food gives me none, and I lose my taste for meat. My recipe box burgeons with barbecued ribs, chicken-fried steak, and spaghetti with meatballs. As I thumb through the cards, the pictures nauseate me. Invited to Thanksgiving dinner, I load my plate with vegetables, and my sister-in-law frowns. “Don’t you like the turkey? Is something wrong with the ham? Have some gravy on those potatoes.” I feel guilty and mumble some explanation. At home, I cuddle my rabbit and look into her eyes. I imagine she smiles at me. I dreamed about this story all night and was up early this morning rewriting before I forgot what I wanted to say. From other things I have read on the site, it seems a lot of people get inspiration when they are in that half awake-half asleep state...weird, huh? Now on to the rest of our assignment, a critique of a story titled The Strangers by Lydia Davis, and we are to write a prose poem, something I have never done  .until next time...c |
| Next Monday afternoon I am hosting a critique pod at my home. I am nervous already. I'll be a nervous wreck by Monday...yikes. No zumba for me today. It was at 10 this morning and at 9:30 my micro fiction instructor emailed her critique of my story, in "Creating busy..."  . I was not in the mood for zumba. I must rewrite with a new title, a specific focus (she made a suggestion, Thanksgiving) and more specific nouns. She even suggested I change the "animal" at the end to my pet lamb (because people eat mutton). What happened to my story?until next time (I think)....c |
| I just got home from my first (I know I procrastinated forever) zumba gold class at the senior recreation center. I'm not sure how many of us were there, but it seemed like a hundred, a bunch anyway. An old timer (meaning she knows the ropes) next to me mentioned our instructor today was a stand-in and slightly harder to follow than the normal lady. Um huh. To begin with the music is fairly slow, the warm-up period he calls it. What it does is give a false sense of, "Yeah, I can do this; it's easy." Fifteen minutes later I was more than ready for a drink of that bottled water I was told to bring. We were given two-minute breaks every fifteen minutes with the class lasting one hour. On the second break I needed my towel to wipe the sweat from my eyes. On the third break, I was drying my hair with it  . Oh, and did I mention, my water was gone?But I must say it was really fun and I plan on returning Wednesday for more torture, uh, dancing. Everyone was friendly, cracking jokes about the cute guy and his "moves", and no one paid any attention to anyone else. They were too busy concentrating on what they were doing, or not doing. On the way there, I stopped by the library and picked up Home Spun by Leon Hale. I finished State of Wonder by Ann Patchett last night (our Book Club book) and it was a super-duper read. i made it to church again yesterday and got invited out to lunch afterwards at Carrabba's, great salad and veggie pasta dish. One of the invitees is vegan so we had lots to talk about. Still working on the doing part.... until next time...c |
As I type this, I am eating seedless black grapes and inhaling divine vegetarian chili bubbling in the crock pot. Supper is chili and cornbread  .I have spent most of today reviewing syntax, basically, sentence structure, a very important item in micro fiction. Before sentence formation, one must be familiar with the parts of speech, and I have been reviewing that, too. Remember, it has been almost fifty years since I was in school, but I can still hear Mrs. Pollitt saying, "That's a dangling participle, don't use gerunds like that, never end a sentence with a preposition, Connie." She always picked on me .Plus, in micro fiction, adverbs,metaphors and similes are out the window, no room. Make images (show) with active verbs and concrete nouns, stick to one plot line, one or two characters, and get rid of all the the's and that's you can. Use no superfluous words, known as elliptical speech, let the words used imply the meaning. This is something we do normally and automatically when we are in a tense situation, such as, "Get out." You is implied. Forget back story (exposition), try to imply that, too. Now, with all that and only a few words, tell a story with all its components, setting, characterization, conflict, and resolution, like we attempt to do in our very own "Daily Flash Fiction Challenge" .Oh, and did I mention we have to reduce our stories to ten words for our next class  !until next time...c |
| Some of the stories in my Micro Fiction Class were really weird. I think I have learned how to know if it's micro fiction. The story must be read several times, very slowly, sentence by sentence...or the meaning flows out into space somewhere along with the words. And of course as in most classes, we are told we will learn from each other by critiquing each other's stories, uh huh. Our instructor did give us a "critique theory and guide", the main observations to be on the opening, the body, the technical elements, and general observation, with several questions under each topic. The one question that seems to wrap up the definition of micro fiction for me is "Does the story seem timeless?" Most of the ones in the class book seem that way. I did not get to read my story, time routed out three of us. We shared copies with other members and critiquing those is part of our homework for this week. I have so many things going on I am keeping a file folder on each one...book club, micro fiction class, WAG critique pods (3), life history group, oral history transcriptions. It is good to be busy. And did I ever mention I play the stock market every day? Yep, busy, busy. until next time...c |
| I am really getting into this micro fiction thing. The little book I had to buy for my class is an anthology of short short stories (under 250 words). My first read through did not impress me at all, but the second...and the third...yes, I like them. My very favorite is this one, http://www.maryanneohara.com/story-diverging-paths-and-all-that/ Every time I read it, I find something new, and that has happened with most of the others, too. At my critique pod group yesterday, I found out what my writing style is....folksy. Yep, that's me, if that's really a word. I read them my "Fanny" story and had everyone laughing. Who knew I was such a comedian? And....I went to church last Sunday, first time in many moons, lots of memories there. I chatted with several "old-timers" and met some new ones, everyone very friendly. The message was on encouragement, and how important is that to all us writers, although that was not exactly the pastor's meaning . I plan on returning next Sunday. I have an invitation to lunch.The WAG (Writer's Alliance of Gainesville) meeting Sunday afternoon featured Stephanie Smith talking about her Warpaint trilogy. Apparently, publishers love trilogies. I'd consider myself lucky to get through one book, impossible if I were thinking about two more on the back burner...yikes! And a friend from my Life History group signed up here on wdc, historicwaldo. Please give her a shout out on her notebook if you have a chance. Well, I am writing this while I am cooling off between shrub trimmings so I'd better get back to it. until next time...c |
| I have been so busy lately I wonder if I may have taken on too much. My calendar of things to do confuses me to look at it, pod meetings, book clubs, spaghetti dinners, writers' meetings, and now a writing class at the community college near my home. Our first assignment for this class is to write a 100-word story about the loss of a sense. This class started last Tuesday and I have thought and thought without coming up with anything...until this morning. I was almost ready to drop the class. If anyone has time, please let me know what you think. Different Why I lost my taste for meat in October of 2012 remains unknown to me. It happened soon after my husband died. He insisted on cooked flesh with every meal, and I partook the same with enjoyment. My recipe box burgeons with barbecued ribs, chicken-fried steak, and spaghetti with meatballs. Now, I feel nauseated as I thumb through the cards. Relatives frown at holiday dinners where I load my plate with vegetables. “Don’t you like the turkey?” “Is something wrong with the ham?” I mumble an explanation and feel guilty. Later, at home, Mopsy, my cat, smiles at me. until next time....c |
| There is not much going on here except for heat, humidity, lawn mowing, and sweating. I am finished with it for another week, the grass that is. My daughter sent me some beautiful roses, pinks, yellows, and whites, day before yesterday, I was very surprised. She said she missed me. They have center stage on my mantle away from Mopsy's curious nose and lovable rubbing (and tipping). Erica is so happy to have a job. I love that girl! I have visited a couple critique pods associated with my local writers' group, and I find them very helpful, but no more helpful than right here on writing.com. The only difference is they are in the "here and now" and wdc is floating through the airwaves. I am liking a little of both, but if I had to choose, hands down, wdc is the best! Because the pods I have visited are full (one tops out at seven people), another new person and I have met once to form a new pod. We plan to meet the last Monday of every month alternating at each other's home, and we are "advertising" for new members through the writing group. It is fun and a learning experience and, of course, there is a little chit-chat. Terri is a lot younger than I am, 51 I think, and divorced, but I find different is much better than the same . Also, it helps that she is very extroverted . And she is an artist, teaching a couple of classes at the local community college. How lucky am I?For our meetings, we email our stories (memoirs-4 to 5 pages double-spaced) three or four days ahead of our meeting. We bring the already critiqued and marked-up copy to the meeting. Each person reads his story first, then the other person goes over his suggestions and remarks. It is working very well so far but we need more people for our pod. I have signed up for a class at the same college at which Terri teaches. It starts next Tuesday and is on writing micro-fiction, stories less than 250 words. The book required is Micro Fiction by Jerome Stern, an anthology of really short stories. And my library volunteer coordinator has finagled (that might be too harsh a word) me into joining a book club also meeting on Tuesday...so Tuesday will be a full day for me, but I look forward to both. Finally getting involved...a little... until next time...c |
| I am sitting here trying to think of an idea for a story for my next life history class. I remember games we played way back then that nobody plays now, at least I don't think they do. I'm talking about dress up involving paper dolls, cowboys and cowgirls with those mommy-scaring cap pistols, red light, giant step, and then there was a game called jacks. Does anyone remember that? Here's a refresher course: Still thinking.... until next time...c |
| I finished another WWII transcript last night. This one was the wife of a member of the Phantom Army. I had never heard of this before, but apparently they were engineers, artists, actors, etc., who made and placed blown-up replicas of tanks and trucks into warlike positions complete with soundtracks of gunfire and even radio transmissions. They were tactical deceptions...all news to me, I guess, because they were warned never to talk about it. They were a division of only around 1000 men and faked troop divisions of over 30,000 men. Wow! The wife (widow), who was interviewed, has alzheimer's and her memories may be some of the last remaining ones. Also, I finished Under the Dome (S.K.) which turned out to be very different from the television series upon which it is based (TV on book, that is). It is strange the TV writers left the characters' names the same, but rewrote their parts in the story. For example, in the TV series Angie is imprisoned in a bomb shelter in episode one, but in the book, she is immediately killed off. Barbie is a stranger in town on TV, but he turns up as a short order cook on his way out of town after getting in a fight with Junior in the book. Wish I knew the reason for all these changes. I'll have to keep watching to find out. But I loved the book, all except for its size, heeaavy, another reason for a Kindle. I won't tell the ending unless someone wants to know. The TV ending may be different, too. Well, I am writing this in between working on my shrub trimming so back at again. Hopefully, it won't rain until I am finished although I do not have much faith in that. We get several rain showers every day now...and hotter than you know what .until next time...c |
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