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 on your promotion to Preferred Author! Keep up the great work! Kindest Regards, Lilli |
| Good morning, my Writing.com friends! I apologize for my absence and I thank you all for my promotion to Preferred Author status and for the many congratulatory notes you've sent. Accolades from the WdC community are particularly meaningful to me and I always feel very honoured when one is bestowed upon me. Am I supposed to make a speech? If you know how locquatious I can be, you should probably say "No," very quickly.  Over the past few days, I've tried to log in here as oft as possible, but the truth is I've been unwell. It's nothing serious, but it has kept me pretty tired. Also, I have several friends in the 'real world' who are having difficult times. I've been trying to be as helpful to them as I could. I'm going to respond to as many emails and comments as I can today. Again, a very heartfelt Thank You for the emails, reviews (I see I have several), and especially for conferring upon me the status Preferred Author. I will do my utmost to justify the honour. |
I've just added a new item to my portfolio.
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| My mind is too full and my heart is too empty. This isn't a good season for such circumstances. It feels like it has become a season of loss and mourning. Along with our recent losses here in the WdC community, my 'real life' family and friends are also dealing with sadness. Bren's mom passed away on Christmas Eve 1995. One of our dearest friends lost her sister on December 30, 2023. My daughter's family has lost several friends unexpectedly just since Thanksgiving. Yet, we needn't let life's darker events dim the season. Instead, we can let the season help lighten the shadows. Love is the brightest light of all, and this is the season of love. It's the season of forgiveness and generosity. With all the lights of love around us, can remembrance of loved ones absent, either permanently or briefly, truly be as dark? We cannot prevent shadows, but let us comfort ourselves with candles of remembrance lit with the steady flame of love. |
| I just awoke from a nap feeling a sense of true accomplishment! Three of us spent three hours last night (10 p.m. - 1 a.m.) decorating a rented venue for our grandbaby's third birthday party. Baby Shark was the theme. The party today went beautifully! I took quite a few photos and videos. After the party, we spent two hours undecorating and cleaning up. Then, I spent 45 minutes or an hour with my grandbaby and her mom, playing at an outdoor, holiday play area before walking home. I doubt I've ever spent a finer forty-eight hours! I love those two more than words could possibly convey. What gives you, my fellow WdC members, a sense of accomplishment? |
| I love books, especially real ones which require no power source but a reader. One type of book has always puzzled me though. I can't seem to find a use for 'idea books'. I can see a purpose for 'how-to books'. They teach things like how to use certain tools & materials. The idea of needing ideas is a bit foreign to me. If I were a millionaire and stepped into a small hobby shop for a respite from rain or cold weather, I would probably emerge penniless without browsing beyond the first aisle. |
| Oh goodness, yes. I love shopping at Hobby Lobby because it seems like the world of crafting is at my fingertips. The possibilities are endless. Unfortunately I dream about crafting and creating physical works of art far more than I ever actually do. But the dreaming and imagining is glorious. Which sounds really weird... |
| Just be thankful books aren't like today's video games. Imagine buying a book, but before you can read it you have to download an hour-long update to fix typos and plot holes that released with the book. If you want to hear the inner thoughts of the characters, you can purchase the battle pass. The book doesn't come with an ending, but you can purchase the Act III expansion pack to see how the story ends. And you can only ready two chapters at a time before you have to wait 30 minutes to recharge your Energy Crystals, or you can purchase the Savior's Pack bundle to get some Energy Crystals so you can keep reading. The bundle also includes Life Gems, which you can use to unlock flashback scenes, where all the character development takes place. |
| Nearly all writers speak (and write) of their muses. I actually have a residue of muses. They're all on hazard pay, of course. At one time, I had more muses than I have now, but even my generosity failed to induce them to stay on. I find the situation amusing and I plan to write about. I'll get started on it as soon as I get inspiration to draw a deep breath and begin. I'd love to hear what anyone has to say about what I've said. |
I have stories bouncing around my head all the time, the main problem is connecting my fingers to my mind at same time. For some reason I can go through the whole story in my head but not put it to paper  and looking a the Muse Wiki there are numerous muses. I suppose those are the voices I hear all the time, huh? |
| The Monkees' song, Pleasnt Valley Sunday, has been playing in my head this morn. It brought up a question in my mind. In common speech and writing, we oft use structure like that found in the line, "The local rock group down the street is trying hard to learn their song." "Group" is singular but "their" is generally plural except when used in a gender-neutral situation. So, is such sentence structure grammaticaly incorrect, or is it just an exception to a rule, a quirk in the English language? |
Dave Ryan  - The plural verb generally works in situations like that in your second example, since the names of many sports teams are inherently plural. So, "The Cowboys are...", "The Steelers are...", etc would be correct, but the rare team with a singular collective name like Magic would require a singular verb. I only mention these teams as examples because I hear those names names often enough to remember them. I'm not much of a sports fan but I hear about a few teams from family and friends. |
| It suddenly occured to me that in some fonts, the name Al (as in Weird Al) looks like "AI", the abbreviation for artificial intelligence (or "articicial infringement" depending on one's POV). What're we to make of that? |
| Bren & I begin this month in a spirit of triumph, a spirit of accomplishment, and a spirit of sadness. In ten days, we will formally honor the many individuals who have given so much, often their very lives, to preserve the ideals of liberty and to protect the lives and interests of Americans since the birth of this nation well over 200 years ago. Certainly, this represents a triumph. I have been honoured by my literary peers on WdC several times this year. Just this morning, I learned that my poem Lub dub, Lub dub was selected as the 2nd Place winner in the Structured Poetry Contest. Certainly, this is an accomplishment in the community of remarkably talented authors/poets which is WdC. In these next few days, Bren & I say farewell to a longtime friend who passed away on the evening before last after a relatively brief illness. In addition to having our friendship, he has also our respect and our gratitude for his military service to these United States of America. Certainly, we feel a sense of loss and of sadness. Through it all, the cadence of life goes on, and we rejoice with hope. |
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Congratulations on your promotion! 
Congratulations on your promotion to 
Again, thank you.