Seen but Not Heard

This may seem really mean and I don’t really care. As the title suggests this article is about children, the title is of course based on the phrase “children should be seen and not heard”. I agree with this. If you are a parent and you don’t have the time, patience or love to teach your child not to be obnoxious or rude, you should at least be capable of accomplishing the lesson of silence. Silence is after all golden, even if you have to use the duct tape.

Why do I write this considering I have no children? Well, I leave the house; I am out and about in society and since it is deemed appropriate by our culture to allow children out in the general public, I have to deal with children, not in a personal or social way, just a public manner, which is minimal. We do have to breathe the same air and if the child in question is being disruptive, chances are, it is affecting me. Whether the child opened something in a store or knocked something over and the product is now all over the floor and now that isle or section of the store is closed until the overworked, underpaid employees deem it worth their time to go over and clean it up; or if I’m done shopping and the young human is in line with its creator in front of me and that young human is screaming at the top of its lungs and its owner or creator is doing nothing to silence it or to get out of line to be courteous to the other shoppers. This leaves me with the very unhappy choice of either moving to another line in order to escape the noise, or to stay and endure it. The child in this scenario in this day and age isn’t even “young”. By the way, this excuse of being “young” bothers me a lot. I was never in any point in my life allowed to misbehave so horribly in public. Being young has nothing to do with it; it’s the lack of discipline and care. The child is so ignored that it feels the need to get louder and wilder in order to be acknowledged by its parents. Negative attention is better than no attention at all in the eyes of a child, and then eventually the poor behavior becomes habit. This brings be back to the fact that some children who are disruptive in public aren’t “young”. I’ve seen twelve year-olds and up, throw fits like the ones I’ve described: just because the screams are replaced with whinny demands or screeching protests doesn’t make it less of a tantrum.

The point to all of this is for me to say that I think something isn’t working. The way children are being raised has failed for several generations now. It’s time to rethink the public standard and I am all for going back to “children should be seen and not heard”. As a parent you should be concerned with how your children behave in public, enough that you actually do something to correct your child when they are misbehaving or don’t take them out in public at all until they can behave.

  My Mama wasn’t allowed to go to a restaurant until she was three years old and it was a guarantee she wouldn’t do anything that might ruin the meal. How many three year olds can you name off the top of your head that can sit through a proper dinner meal without getting “bored”? My grandfather was very old fashioned and stuck to the “children should be seen and not heard” rule to the letter. It worked then, so there is no reason for it not to work now; and as for “letting the kids be kids” rubbish, let me tell you, a child can have plenty of fun without screaming just because they like the way their voice echoes in the public bathrooms at Disneyland; and as I have previously stated, a child won’t even get loud if it’s being cared for by its parent. A well cared for child is a happy child; a happy child is a quiet child.

Another Writing Prompt

Here’s another writing prompt I got in High School “Right in the middle, the phone rang….” I remember that I was pressed for time, and this is what I came up with:

Frank and Jessica were having an argument when the phone rang. Neither wanted to answer it, they each had more that they wanted to say. The phone kept ringing until finally, Frank stepped up to the kitchen counter and picked up the receiver. It wasn’t for him thought, it wasn’t for Jessica either, it was a wrong number.

  Frank hang up even more frustrated than before, so they resumed their argument with a new vigor.

Driving Test

Today I’m taking my driving test, I’m not as nervous as I expected myself to be, but I’m sure that will change the moment I get to the DMV office. Mama is taking part of the day off work so she can drive me down there, which is really nice of her. I’ve never driven in the area of the DMV so it’ll be a new road, and everything, but the driving instructor is going to be giving me directions, it’s probably someone I have never met or even seen before. I don’t understand how anyone can fairly judge someone’s driving in such an alien environment. I’m never going to be in a situation, (at least I hope not) that I’m going to have a complete stranger in the car with me with no one else there. This is probably going to be the only time I will ever do something like that. I don’t know I find it bizarre; maybe I’m just blowing it completely out of proportion because I am a bit nervous, but…it’s still a weird concept if you think about it too much.

Query Letters (Part 2)

So last week I wrote about how I go about finding agents, but mostly about how I keep records on how I keep track of which manuscript I sent to which agent. Once that is done, I put together my query letters. Drum roll.
There is a basic query frame that I put together. There are certain things in all query letters that are required no matter who you send it to, such as your name, address, and/or email, the agency’s name and info, a salutation,  a catchy beginning, you get the idea. (Again, I’m not saying this is the best way to do things, or that this query letter writing technique will be workable for you at the time you read this, the business is constantly changing, and so are the query letter rules of form. I am just sharing the way that I do it now.) So what I create will look something like this:

Samantha Blackwell

Ifyouwantmyrealemailyoumayask.com

Date:
Agent:
Agency:
Email:

Dear (agent name),
 A plot to murder the queen has just been uncovered and her lead sorceress is dying in a cabin belonging to White, a little dwarf. Leaving it up to him and his seven cousins to find away to save the kingdom without alerting the Ordinaries to their predicament. But what do they, humble dwarfs, know about magic? Nothing! and that’s the problem. My book Understandable is full of plot twists and lovable characters that keep the pages turning. All 45,000 words are tightly packed with information, keeping the adventure fast paced, sure to excite a wide age range not just the middle graders as I originally I intended. 

  The adventure is split into three parts, “How it Began”, “What Now?”, and “Is it over Yet?”; White’s journey takes you through a wonderful fairytale land that lies just beyond our front doors, filled with perils like dragons, assassins, gremlins, and the unknowing Ordinaries (us).

  I’ve never been published, but I have been a writer all of my life. I believe Understandable is more than ready to be read. (How I found your agency), and I’m sending query letters to other agents too.

(Say what I’ve pasted to the email). Please let me know if you would like to read more about my book.

  Thanks for your consideration,
 Samantha Blackwell

As you can see, I make my query letter not unlike a movie commercial, it’s exciting and hooks you right in, telling you just enough for you to get excited about the story, but not enough for you to know what actually happens in the book, which leaves you wanting more.

Once this draft is written out, I then copy and paste it to another document on my laptop, and save the original for later. With the copy, I fill in the blanks and boom, it’s ready to send to an agent or publisher of my choice, and because I saved the original with all the blanks in it, when I’m ready to send another query, all I have to do is copy it again and fill in the blanks. It’s easy and it’s fast. Every once in a while I’ll make minor changes to make the letter better, but mostly it remains the same. Here’s an example of that same query, except filled out.

Samantha Blackwell

Ifyouwantmyrealemailyoumayask.com

Date:  1/16/2010
Agent: Aurora Kingly
Agency: Fantasy Agency
Email: aurorafantasy@imadeitup.com

Dear Aurora Kingly,
 A plot to murder the queen has just been uncovered and her lead sorceress is dying in a cabin belonging to White, a little dwarf. Leaving it up to him and his seven cousins to find away to save the kingdom without alerting the Ordinaries to their predicament. But what do they, humble dwarfs, know about magic? Nothing! and that’s the problem. My book Understandable is full of plot twists and lovable characters that keep the pages turning. All 45,000 words are tightly packed with information, keeping the adventure fast paced, sure to excite a wide age range not just the middle graders as I originally I intended. 

  The adventure is split into three parts, “How it Began”, “What Now?”, and “Is it over Yet?”; White’s journey takes you through a wonderful fairytale land that lies just beyond our front doors, filled with perils like dragons, assassins, gremlins, and the unknowing Ordinaries (us).

  I’ve never been published, but I have been a writer all of my life. I believe Understandable is more than ready to be read. You’re agency was recommended to me by a fellow writer, and client of yours, Phyllis McNotReal, the author of “I’m Bored” and I thought my book would be a good fit with your agency, I’m also sending query letters to other agents too.

I have pasted the first five pages of Understandable and a synopsis to the bottom of this email. Please let me know if you would like to read more about my book.

  Thanks for your consideration,

 Samantha Blackwell

So you see, after you learn the language, and develop your own system, sending out the dreaded query letter gets to be as easy as fill in the blank.

Throwing Things Out

I love throwing things out. Let me explain; things have a tendency of accumulating in my room. Since I try my best to keep everything within their various folders and envelopes to the outside observer, it may not always appear that items are beginning to pile up, when in fact they are doing just that. I try to throw things out as they become irrelevant or old, but if I have set something aside in its proper place, I can sometime forget to throw it out when the time comes, or I think I already have thrown it out when I haven’t, or I don’t know that the items time of usefulness has past.
Let me give you an example, just yesterday I had my college folder out, most of the flyers and pieces of paper in there are essential for me to finish the process of getting into Fullerton College: proof of assessment, my student I.D. number scribbled on a scrap of paper (since they haven’t sent me my card yet), proof of orientation, flyers on the different class I can take within my various interests since I’m not positive what I want to study (people ask me what I’ll be studying and I always say Art, because I don’t like the look most give me when I say I have no idea. Some people may have their entire lives planned out, and I want to be one of those people but am incapable of it) I think you get the idea of how much stuff is in that single folder. Because I’ve been so busy lately, I usually only have time to open the folder when I need a particular scrap of paper. So things that are no longer relevant, such as old information on scholarships I didn’t win and flyers for events at the college for this past spring were still in the folder. Yesterday I actually had a free moment, (imagine that) and the folder was right in front of me, so I went through it and had the pleasure of throwing out old pieces of irrelevant notes, and flyers out. I say pleasure because it’s a form of cleaning and I love cleaning because it makes me feel like I’m on top of the pile of stuff that is my life, rather than being buried by it. Also getting rid of these things shows me how far I have come in the process of getting into college, it also makes the folder, so much lighter and easier to carry.

Query Letters (Part 1)

I received a question from a fellow aspiring writer, it was about query letters. As you may know I hardly consider myself an expert on the subject, but as I began to think about it I realized that I know a whole lot more now than I did when I first began. My nature of over-studying and trying to ask more questions than I think I need to ask has taught me a lot about writing a query letter, and the delivery of that query letter.

  First off my advice to newer writers is study!! Read books on how to write query letters, on what to do and what not to do. Then find your prospect agents or publishers and then you need to study more!! I know right about now you would say that being told to study is not what you want to hear, you want me to tell you exactly what you need to do, well unfortunately every genre requires a different approach, fiction, non-fiction; what level you’re writing, child, middle school, young adult, adult and it’s sub category, college level, average intelligence, or a specific field. Which is why there are so many reference books on the subject, and the rules keep changing every year. What I tell you now may be different by the time you read this. So what am I blogging about? Well, I’m going to tell you how I get ready to write a query letter, I am not saying this is the only way to go about it, or even if this is the best way to do it, this is just what I do.

  Let me set up the situation. Let’s say that I have a story called “Understandable” (I have no such book, this is just for an example) it’s an urban fantasy (aka. a fantasy story that takes place in our world as to opposed a fantasy that take place in its own world, like Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”) The main character is…a dwarf named…White, (hey, I’m making this up as I go, so stop snickering.) White works in the mines when he returns home to see a lovely lady dressed as a traveling apple sales woman, (wait for it) she’s a powerful sorceress in disguise, and she has come to the dwarf for shelter. This is an unusual occurrence as you may expect, but White lets her in, and that night she explains that she just caught wind of a plot to kill the queen, so she was on her way to stop them, hence the disguise. White offers his help as a….guide (I guess), she says thanks but no thanks, the sorceress refuses the food White offers her, saying she can only eat the apples she has with her, for they are the key to her strength. The next morning however, White and the sorceress find the basket with the fruit has been stolen, and the sorceress will die if they are not found, and the day for the planned murder of the queen is drawing near, and they need to do all of this while keeping themselves hidden from the other people of this world: the Ordinaries (that’s us)….White goes to his seven cousins for help and together they save the sorceress.

  So what do I do first after the story is written and edited?

I go and find agents and publishers that might be interested in this kind of thing. I write out an index card for each company or agent with all their important information.

Side One:

                (1)White (2)great    other project okay                         

       

        (3) 1.16.10                 11.12.07 (4) NO

(5) Fantasy Agency

(6)Aurora Kingly

(7)Fantasy@Imadeitup.com

or Aurorafantasy@Imadeitup.com  

(8) Fantasy Agency

212 I Make It Up St.

New York, MY 99999

Explanation

(1)    I list the books I am currently searching for agent for; usually I am looking for more than one book at a time.

(2)    I make a note at how well I think my project fits the agency or publishing house in question.

(3)    I note the date that I sent the agency the query letter.

(4)    I write down “NO” when I get a refusal or no response so that I can avoid sending a query to the same place twice.

(5)    Next I list the agency name.

(6)    I list the name of the person I wish to contact; there may be more than one noted person in the company, if possible I narrow it down so that I send it directly to my desired agent or publisher.

(7)    I write down the company email and/or the specific email of the person I wish to contact.

(8)    The final thing on this page is usually the physical address of the agency or publishing house.

Side 2

(1)    Picture books, fantasy, Short Stories

(2)    Q letter Snail Mail with 1^st 5 pages & synopsis along with SASE.

(3)    Q letter with QUERY & work title in email subject with 1^st 5 pgs and synopsis of work NO attachments. WILL REPLY, if none, email again.

Explanation:

(1)    I list the preferred genres of the company, or specific person I’m going to be sending the query to, in some cases, they list only what they don’t want sent to them in which case I list those instead with NO at the beginning of the list.

(2)     I note how they wish the query letter to be sent by mail. Since I am pressed for space I use a mix of my own shorthand, and the generally accepted slang of the writing world. Q letter, meaning they want a standard query letter, which is only one page long. Snail mail, which is regular mail; a lot of agencies will not accept UPS, or other deliveries and will not even let it in through the door. Some will ask for the first few pages from your work, it can be anywhere from the first five to the first fifty pages of the work, depending on the genre. They could also ask for a synopsis, which is basically a summary of the entire book condensed to around three pages for a “Short Synopsis” or around ten pages a “Long Synopsis” they may or may not specify what kind of synopsis they want and you’re left to guess. A SASE is a Self Addressed Stamped Envelope, a lot of companies will not pay for postage to send you a rejection or an acceptance, so you need to send an envelope addressed to yourself with a stamp, even then some do not guarantee a response.

(3)    This is where I note the recommended mode of sending the query by email. Most agencies and publishing companies get a lot of spam, so even if they don’t require it, it’s best to put QUERY in the subject line of your email, with your book title. Most of them are paranoid of viruses, and do not open attachments, so anything that they ask you to send along with the query you should paste to the email, they will most often request it but even if they don’t, you should do it anyways. Some will guarantee a response and will ask you to email another query after a given period of time, because if you didn’t get a response, they accidentally deleted it, or it got lost. Most are not so kind. Most of them will give you a time span of days to expect a reply, and then if they exceed it, you are to assume it to be a refusal.

So, this is how I start my query letter adventure, I think this post is long enough for one day, I’ll be posting more on this subject another time.

Happy 4th of July

It's a common misconception that the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4th 1776. That famous painting with our Founding Fathers gathered around the document is inaccurate. There was never a large gathering like that to sign it. After it was drawn up, it had to be ridden to several towns where the various Founding Fathers were at the time. We forget, that even when the war was over (in our perspective) there was a lot of political turmoil: What's fair and what isn't? Whose the Governor or leader of this city and so on and so forth. There was a lot to be done, and while that document is now considered to be one of the most important in our nation's history, it was actually just one of many legal documents that needed to be taken care of, and it was well into August by the time all of the signatures on the Declaration of Independence were in their places.


This song is one that I grew up listening to, the country radio stations would play it on every patriotic national holiday, not exclusively on the Fourth of July, and then of course after 9-11-01 they only played patriotic songs for what seemed the longest time. Since I no longer listen to the radio (they don't play what I enjoy listening to anyways) I haven't heard this song from start to finish in several years, and I figured it was long enough.

College

Today I went down to the junior college that I plan upon attending in the fall. I looked around and figured out what my next step is in order to get in, and I'm still just as nervous as I was before I went there. I keep being told that it's nothing, I'll get used to college and then I'll wonder what the fuss was all about, I don't know why they bother saying it, it doesn't change the way I feel.

L.A. Zoo

Okay, first off, I love zoos. I’ve learned a lot about animals and the people who care for them thanks to zoos. I’ve also had a lot of fun there. I just got back today from a visit to the zoo with some my cousins, and we had a blast. But there are just some flaws about that zoo right now that I feel bears repeating, so that maybe the right person will hear about it and get it fixed.  I’m not discouraging anyone from going to the zoo, or specifically the L.A. Zoo, I just want the zoo to reach its fullest potential, which it is sadly falling short.

  At the present time, the L.A. Zoo is undergoing some changes. They are adding a building for reptiles, which is fine, except they have been at it for many months now, without much visible progress. There are also several other things that are being built, or changed, (I’m not sure what they’re doing) but their doing it wrong. I’m a carpenter’s daughter, so trust me, when I say something wrong: it’s wrong. There were so many things wrong I don’t even know where to start. It’s not going to fall down or anything horrible like that, they’re just wasting a lot of wood, layer upon layer it looked like.

  Also, while all of these things are going on, the paths are in desperate need of repair and maintenance, my cousins are quite young and we needed to push the stroller around potholes, large cracks, and tree roots.

  My suggestion: prioritize.

  Fix paths so people can walk around with their children without as many hazards. This will also help builders bring in supplies and workers carrying equipment not have to worry about stepping around hazards.

  Also, hire carpenters who actually know what they’re doing. I know the economy is hard right now, and going for cheaper labor is tempting. Just remember, cheap labor, is cheap for a reason. It’s always worth it to hire the guy who has a license and costs a little bit more so the job right the first time: which means the project will get done sooner and there will be little to no materials wasted. In the end, hiring the experienced guy will actually save you money in the long run.

  If the zoo isn’t always in the middle of building something, then a whole lot more people will come to the zoo and the animals won’t be bothered by the noise of construction for as long. Everyone will be happy, and that’s what matters.

Maggie Stuart

Maggie’s heart beat faster than the cycles her wheels made on the concrete as she sped through the parking lot of the shopping mall where her mom worked. She zigzagged through cars as an insane speed before she finally reached the front doors. She needed to get there before the bomb went off.
Her friends had told her not to piss off the drug lord, but she hadn’t seen another way to keep her boyfriend alive. Now she wished she hadn’t interfered.
The heads up about the bomb had come fifteen minutes ago from the lord himself. He called it his “final warning” – the “last scare” before he went for everything she has ever cared about until she begged for death, or took her own life, or ran.
Her car wheels screamed as she slammed on the brakes right in front of the mall doors. She’d get away in her mom’s car. They wouldn’t even go home, they’d just run. Grabbing her purse with the plane tickets, Maggie ran into the building.
Her sneakers squeaked on the waxed floor as she brought herself to an abrupt halt to check her watch, five minutes, there was no way she would get to security to warn them in time.
She whipped her head around, trying to find a solution to the problem.
An eternity wrapped up in a moment went by before she spotted it: the little red box. Rushing over she broke the protective covering with her elbow.
Maggie gasped from the pain. That probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do. Everything she did the past week was stupid come to think of it. But she had to do this. Taking one last gap she mumbled an apology and pulled the fire alarm at the shopping mall.

The Lion

Agnes cautiously approached the sleeping lions. The African sun beat down on her as she raised her camera. Others would have used the camera’s zoom from a safe distance, but the picture quality was never very good, and she wasn’t afraid of the lions.
The gathering of beasts were lying beneath the shadows of a small group of trees. They were all aware of Agnes’s presence and they weren’t concerned at all. She was obviously alone, having left her jeep a good fifty feet away and her baggy t-shirt made it more than a little clear that she wouldn’t be any kind of a good meal, humans didn’t taste very good anyways.
Finding the perfect angle she started taking pictures.
One lion yawned.
“Oh perfect,” she whispered snapping away.The true essence of the lion during the day: a sleepy fur ball with a mouthful of teeth.
The sun was beginning to set when she was done, drawing her hand across her sweating forehead she unclasped the water bottle off her leather belt and took a long drink.
Taking one last look at the pride, she raised her bottle in a salute.
“Thanks a lot my friends.” She took another swig.
Slinging her camera over her shoulder she headed back to the jeep, satisfied with her days work.

A Conversation Between Three Parents

Linda: How old are your children?
Jim: Thirty-five and thirty-three.
Martha: Nineteen, seventeen, and fifteen.
Linda: Ooh.
Martha: What?
Jim: Don’t worry, they’ll be gone soon.
M: Why should I worry?
J: Well, when my children were teenagers, my wife and I took every opportunity to be out of the house: golfing, fishing, hunting, women’s group for her and poker every Friday and Saturday night for me, and adult church supper every Sunday evening.
L: Yes, yes. I have a three year old and a five year old, so I know exactly what you mean by needing to get away.
J chuckling: I still remember all of those sleepless nights getting the baby to stop crying!
L: Tell me about it.
M: Well, that’s the deal with babies, they don’t understand how to wait; when they need something they need it now.
L: Yes, yes, but they’re so….needy.
J: That’s how they are, and it doesn’t ever stop. Even now my kids call me: “Benny broke his arm and I don’t think I can pay the bill.” Did you ever think of getting health insurance? He’s not my kid; it’s time you take responsibility.
M: Is Benny your…step-grandson?
J: No, he’s my grandson, why did you think-
L interrupting: Maybe they can’t afford insurance.
J: Oh they could if they thought ahead and saved.
There was a silence.
L: I can’t even fathom three teenagers.
M: It’s really not that bad-
J: Oh, you’re just more patient then the rest of us.
M: Perhaps.
L: I must say I’ve never seen three teens more well-behaved. How did you do that?
M: Love, care, coddling and being honest.
J scoffs.
L: Well, we all do that, but what’s your secret? What do you do to make them behave?
M: I don’t do anything. They learned basic manners when they were really young. Every once in awhile they need reminders, but we all do, don’t we?
M gives a laugh to break the tension.
J: How did you do that?
M: I was always right there reminding them. If I said “No” and they didn’t listen, there was always a consequence. I never let them get away with anything, so they grew up knowing that if they chose to cross a line they would get into trouble.
L: But that sounds so time-consuming.
J: And straining.
M: Sometimes that part of raising a child is hard, but I found most of it all a joy.
J grunts and walks off.
L as she walks away: Well, I have no idea how you can have all of that energy.
M to herself: You don’t care enough to make the effort. That’s too bad for you.

Wolves - If everyone cared

I found this yesterday. I believe it to be a great representation of the beauty of these animals. Wolves have been greatly misunderstood for centuries. If we all learned to think with clarity and logic, we would all understand that the wolf is a needed animal in the wild to keep the balance of life and death. The elimination of this vital strand of the web of life can only lead to disaster. Not to mention the wolves serve as a reminder for us humans that all things of nature have a place and are beautiful.

Driving

I recently received my driving permit (RED ALERT! Watch the roads!!) No I’m kidding…a little. I’m keeping most of my driving in abandoned parking lots, so you don't really have to worry about bumping into me...or me bumping into you, I guess would be more accurate.

So far I’ve managed to crash into six imaginary cars while backing out of parking spaces, which I was pretending was a crowded mall parking lot (rather than an empty college parking lot); and I’ve hit two more imaginary cars by forgetting to look before changing lanes. Just for laughs, I gave backing into a parking space a whirl, and I’m not even going to tell you what happened. All in all, I’m getting better, and I was unleashed upon a real road with real cars yesterday, and I didn’t freak out…not on the outside anyways.

My car of choice hasn’t sustained any damage, and I haven't given Mama (who has been my licensed driver in all of my driving adventures) whiplash. So all in all, I guess I haven’t done that badly.

Stairs Leading to Nowhere

I was flipping through one of my composition books and came across an old writing prompt that said “Stairs leading to nowhere…” My first story was about a crumbling staircase in a graveyard that used to be a part of a building that’s function was long forgotten.
Today when I looked at the prompt it brought up things in my mind that were completely different from what I had come up with the last time I looked at it.
The first things that popped into my head were the unfinished “Adoration of the Magi” painting by Leonardo Di Vinci, and the stone steps in our old backyard in Bella Vista, and how Arkansas is a place that will lead a local to nowhere and an outsider to certain ruin…
Then there was something else a lot more profound than the others. Drugs and alcohol are “stairs leading to nowhere” in a symbolic sort of way.
Everyone can look at history and see what those things do to people, that it leads to absolutely nowhere, or like the “Adoration of the Magi” they lead to a shear drop that could kill you.
Anyone can see it, yet generation after generation continue to choose not to look beyond the step directly beneath them, and when they run out of stairs they may not even realize that their falling until they hit the ground.
Then what? What do most people do if they survive hitting the ground? Turn around and start looking for a staircase that will actually lead them somewhere? Some do, most don’t.
Sad to say a large number of them get right back on that same old staircase, thinking that this time they won’t climb so high this time, and they’ll avoid falling. A number of them do succeed to a degree while others take the big tumble all over again. All these people continue to use the stairs, never seeing that they will never bring them anywhere.
They just stay stuck in place, never moving on as human beings, never progressing, they are content to remain stationary, content in their nothingness and insignificance, until they become another step on the stairs leading to nowhere.

Inspirational Thoughts on Life

I figured most people have some sort of personal Inspirational realization through their life; some pieces of information that have snapped together and no matter who you are or how much time elapses, thoughts that won’t ever change. This is merely my teenage Inspirational thoughts, I have them weekly. One day I just decided that I’d write it down as some kind of speech. Now I’ve decided to rewrite it as a blog. But in essence it’s the same thing that I originally wrote down.

First off, I will acknowledge the fact that everyone has a different way of approaching everything, whether it is a problem, job choice or anything else, so I will start this off by stating that what this says may or may not work for you personally. Everyone’s way of dealing with life differs from person to person. So, I won’t bother trying to sell that what I am about to say is true for you.

Goals

I know an excellent thing for everyone (and everybody does it, consciously or otherwise) is to set goals. Goals are a way of knowing what you want, and having an idea of how you are going to get it. One’s position always influences the goals one has; a position also changes the way to reach certain goals. Your position could determine if the goal you have could mean more or less work for you. So, why should anybody ever even bother to tell anybody what a “good goal’ is? Quite frankly, no one should. No one has any right to tell you what you can or cannot do, or can or cannot achieve.
For that reason, I’m not going to bother going into what a “good” or “bad” goal is, but just for the brief I’m trying to make I’ll just list some examples: gaining a college scholarship, graduating college, a job promotion, a good/successful relationship with a partner. Goal setters are recognized as outgoing people, and if you really want what you’re setting your goal for, you will achieve it, one way or another.

Wishes

I also firmly believe that everyone should wish less. Wishes should be made only once in a great while, over a birthday cake, or on a shooting star. Wishing is the wanting something without having the initiative or determination to go and get it yourself; it’s wanting something that you think you can only gain with the help of a Divine Other. Wishes are over-used, and are often a big waste of time. But as humans, we can’t help but wish for things that are impossible to achieve, like wanting to speak with an ex-President…whose dead; or wishing that a puppet would turn into a real boy. Wishing is a way of wanting things that are completely out of our hands, with no exceptions.
Wishing less is something that someone with a high self-esteem and self-loving person is smart should strive for; because wanting things that are impossible can only make you be disappointed and discontent with life.


Dreams

Now dreaming is something we all need to do often, but like all things it can be over done, and like all people, the limit line is different for everyone. But I think I can safely say everyone needs to dream more often. It can be looked at as a more healthy form of wishing, though it’s not really even close if you think about it.
We have established that the art of wishes are people hoping for things that are completely out of reach, and often times impossible: like winning the lottery. Dreams on the other hand, are when you want something that is possible to have, and there is a clear way of getting whatever it is (in a lot of cases, dreams can be the beginnings of a goal.) Dreaming is thinking up a goal before the goal has been set.
Dreaming is what makes a lot of people push harder, to do better and be better. What we dream about, (and how often) determine the type of people that we are.
Dreamers can be good-natured people that are always trying to do better. But like most wishes, some dreams don’t come true too. Usually the reason for this is even if you do all you can do to reach your goal, and dream with all your might, there is a chance that it can all go down the drain. How you take your failure that determines what kind of a dreamer you are: Whether you are the disappointed or the ordinary kind.
The worst thing that you can probably do when a dream spoils is to blame yourself when it happens. I think a lot of stuff we all want (70% to 90%) have portions that are another person’s choice. So even in dreaming you’re still relying on someone else to get what you want. 70% to 90% of one dream needs someone else’s positive action to make your dream come true. Blaming yourself on “wasted” dreams, breeds resentment, and restlessness. I believe one of the worst things anybody can do is blame yourself when something is out of your control. But that doesn’t mean you can be irresponsible.
Everything isn’t your entire fault, but sometimes it is you that shattered your dreams. But it isn’t common that a situation is caused totally and utterly by one’s self.
So, dream more, be responsible, and don’t blame yourself needlessly.




Caring

We all need to care about something. What you care about makes you a better person; whether you are caring about others like family, you partner, or children. Caring and doing good go hand-in-hand. If you really care you do something. And when you do something, it causes change, and things can only change for the better if you care. Caring for something gives you a goal and you dream about what is the best way to achieve that goal, and caring about your goal, keeps you focused. And when you’re focusing on a goal, you’re doing something and you’re working on making your dreams come true.
If we all cared more, we can make better children, better families, better neighborhoods, better communities, and a better world.



“Do no Evil”

The last and probably the most important things to add to my list are to “Speak no evil, hear no evil.” “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” “Hurt no others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.” “What is hateful to you do not to you fellow man……” “….desire for your brother that which (you) desire for (yourself).” “Bless is who preferreth his brother before himself.” *
You would think with it written in so many ways in so many places, it would be catching!
The saying “speak no evil, hear no evil” the one that means the most to me would be the "speak no evil", but the one most people need is the “hear no evil” since we are all gossipers at heart and like to hear when someone else has it as bad, or worse off than we do ourselves, it makes us feel better about our own situation.
“Speak no evil.” Everyone does it. Gossiping (again), back-talking, lying, cussing, telling unkind truths in hurtful ways, the list is endless.
Words can’t break bones…they hurt more. The people closest to you, can break you more easily and more thoroughly than anything in the world; and it’s their words that hurt more than anyone else’s. Because the people close to you know the most about you, they are the people you trust to know the most about you. And they can break you, and you can break them too; which is why words from a loved one can hurt more than any stone could; because they have abused the information that you have entrusted in them to respect and to keep, and that hurt runs deep.
“Speak no evil; hear no evil…..do no evil”

* You may have noticed I’ve altered a few of the quotes to make them more appropriate for my point. The reason I changed the first saying raises a good point that I feel needs to be written. The saying is “Speak no evil, see no evil, and hear no evil” in my opinion, you need to see evil. If you see evil, and recognize it for what it is, then you have acknowledged that fact that something needs to change, then you are dreaming of something better. If you care enough to try to change whatever it is you have given yourself a goal. And you will start working on a better world, even if it doesn’t work out in this lifetime, you would have realized that the meaning of life is to enjoy the good things that are in life already, and to see if you can’t make it better.

The Veil

The Echoes of past
Send vibes into the silent night
Unheard through the day
Now amplify at night
For the one who have ears to hear them.

As I lie awake,
Unsleeping, unceasing
Through the witching hour

A time, nature has it,
Those who live - sleep
Those who are dead, and those who never lived
Rule the frozen time of midnight.

My eyes gaze
Into the veil’s haze
Between this world and the other

I watch unblinkingly, nervousness grows
As those beyond the veil move
Some pass through an opening in time and space
into my world and bedroom.

I feel the watchfulness eyes of another on me
I change my gaze to look into my own room
A petite figure bends o’er me.

I feel a breeze across my face
When the veil reclaims this residence
Of the other place,
Out of my world and into the other
Which is also my own
From there I came from
There I shall be again.

Once my earthen body perishes,
I will learn again
To peer through the veil
To watch the living, as I now watch the dead.

A Villiage Girl and a Captain Walk Together

As the small village girl led the tired military captain to the town Inn she commented that he didn’t seem like a captain.
“Don’t get me wrong,” the simple country girl said, “I hear you fight well and all, for one so young. But your voice is too soft to give commands and be taken seriously. In fact, everything about you is all wrong to be a man of war. You have a goodness about you that doesn’t belong on a battlefield.”
“I do what I have to,” he replied shortly, and then his voice softened as he looked at the girl. “I know my job is to kill, and take life; so that’s what I do. I’ve learned to be good as what I have to do.” He paused, “Sometimes you just need to do what you’re told to, even if you don’t like id….even if you don’t agree with it….” The soldiers mind wondered for a moment.
“Amazing isn’t it, life?” the captain said, “We think it’s so precious that some of us are willing to compromise our own morals and beliefs just to keep on living…
“But when all is said and done, once everything that can be compromised has been; when everything has been taken away or changed; and yourself compromised and changed, is it worth it? Is it even a life that we lead anymore?” He glanced down at the girl traveling beside him. Innocent and pure, her eyes wide and full of pity for the captain, but did she really understand what he spoke of? He prayed she didn’t and that she never would.
Since his soul was now forfeit, he then and there swore to make is his duty to ensure that she and others like this girl, would never have to make the choices he had made what seem like an eternity ago, or to know the pain and loss he had gone through just to understand that you don’t always make your own life; you can’t always choose your own future. So when you do have a chance to make your own choices, you need to choose the path that is good for your soul.
It is better to go against country, family, and friends than to go against your own conscious; because it is you who lives with your choices, it is you who has to sleep with yourself at night; and no matter whom you are, or where you are, or what you did, everyone dies alone. It will just be you and your choices that walk down that tunnel towards the light of the next life.
Just as the captain decided to pay the village girl who showed him the way, enough gold to feed her family through the winter time, before walking into the Inn and eating a dinner of bread and cheese and sleeping in the cheapest room that the Inn keeper had open.

Writing

Writing a book can be a really stressful thing. Speaking for myself of course, I hate editing, and we all know that editing is the final touches that can make any manuscript great, passable, or crappy. There's just too much editing to be done for me to do it in one sitting.

First there's the spell check and simple grammar editing that needs to be done, but thanks to computers, that process has been made easier...or not. I don't know about you, but I have found that grammatically incorrect sentences can be what makes a book believable. Nobody speaks with perfect grammar. So, it's impossible to write an entire book with a dialog, and not have some grammatical errors in them. So, now when you're spell checking, you have to remember to ignore all of these different mistakes, which aren't really mistakes at all, their deliberate.

Second there's getting the manuscript off of the computer and on to paper. At this point I usually read whatever it is I am about to print several times over before I actually print it, so that there will be fewer, or possibly no errors after it's printed. (That has yet to happen to me however.) After I have the work on paper, I either read all of it or portions of it, aloud to either myself or to somebody else. No matter what method I use, there is usually a truck load of mistakes found, whether they are; spelling, grammar, or plot mistakes, they are there and they need to be fixed. Once the printed manuscript has been thoroughly butchered to almost beyond recognition, I go back onto my computer and make the changes that are necessary.

The third step is almost exactly like the second. I may have to print out my work three or four times before I believe that the work is as perfect as it can possibly be.

In the end, I am satisfied that I have done all that I can to make my work perfect, I have spent more time editing than I did creating the main idea for the story, building up the story, and writing the darn thing down.
I don't have an ending for this, so.....

Congratulations, or Not (A true story)

November 2009

Samantha was relaxed, and happy, and there were very few sixteen year old girls who had more right to feel that way than her. She had completed something that had been incredibly difficult, very few girls her age had done it: She had completed the Girl Scout Gold Award, which was the hardest thing she had ever done in her short life. It had been emotionally and physically draining on a level that she had never experienced before. But as she and her mother helped everybody who had made her dream possible clean up, she felt as if an huge load had lifted off of her shoulders. Starting an International Fair had been anything but a walk in the park; there had been time changes, last minute cancellations, and numerous misprints in the newspaper as to the time of the fair.
The night before, Samantha had little sleep, all the planning was over, she had seen with her own eyes the fair begin to take shape in the Riordan Hall auditorium earlier that day, her job was done. Now matter what happened now, she had completed her project for the Girl Scout Gold Award, even if no one showed up to the fair, she was going to get her award.....that's what she kept telling herself, and that's what her mother kept telling her too. However, the thought of an empty auditorium, sent chills down her spin, and rendered her sleepless.
Despite all off the set backs, and her worries, the fair was a huge success. Nothing could have gone better. As Samantha thanked everyone and everyone congratulated her, she felt as if all was right with the world, even if she could fly, her heart could not have been soaring higher.....


May 2010

In May the first congratulation certificate arrived, it was from the State Governor. Her mom was so excited, even more excited than Samantha herself.
It's just another piece of paper. She thought to herself, Nice paper, thick paper, pretty paper with a signature....but still just another piece of paper. Samantha was a very active young woman, who put herself out into different contests. She had one picture frame that she kept all of her certificates in. There were certificates for a large variety of thing: art and writing contest, there were certificates from dog training graduations, to piano contests. Certificates weren't really a big deal for her. She got them all the time. The only reason Samantha kept them in a frame was to keep them from getting wrinkled, (after all, she might actually care someday.) But if her mom wanted to buy her a frame so that this particular certificate could be all by itself, Samantha wasn't going to burst her bubble.


June 2010

Samantha's dad picked up the mail that morning. There was a manila envelope addressed to his daughter, he looked at the return address and saw that it was from Washington, the Supreme Court of the United States of America, no less. He couldn't wait to drive home and ask his daughter to open, so he opened it as soon as he was in his car. When he saw what was inside, he started to fume....
When he got home Samantha was serving herself left-overs for lunch. They said hello to one another, and talked about little things. Once Samantha sat down at the dinning table with her lunch, he tossed the manila envelope across the table to her.
"It's really sad," he said.
Samantha didn't bother looking at the return address, (she rarely did) as she reached in to it out, the first thing she noticed was the thickness of the paper.
It has to be a certificate, probably for my Gold Award. They must have spelled my name wrong, that would explain Papa's comment. The first thing she noticed when she had gotten it out of the envelope was that it had gotten wet. The color from the envelope had seeped into the thick certificate paper, making it look like someone had peed on it. She held the certificate on the edges, (it would just be her luck if someone had peed on it.) She looked at her name and blinked, not knowing what to say. Not only had they butchered her last name, but they hadn't gotten her first name right either: "S-a-m-a-t-h-a"
"Who is that?" her dad asked sarcastically.
"I dunno," was her reply. She felt strange, a large portion of her wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the mistake....but there was another part of her that felt upset, even hurt.
After all of her hard work, they couldn't even take the time to spell her name right on a certificate?

The whole point of a certificate was to make the recipient know that someone appreciated the hard work that was done, and if you appreciate somebody, you make doubly sure that everything about the certificate was just right.....Even the graduation paper she had gotten for dog training had her name spelled right; and all that she needed to do to get that was show up with her dog once a week, and try to keep her dog under some level of control. But the hardest thing she had ever done in her life; something that was honored and appreciated by a large portion of the community; something that was recognized as one of the greatest things that a teenage girl could ever do; something that helped bring people together to complete a common goal; something that helped better the community....You would think that a certificate for something like; a secretary would at least hit spell check. Upon closer examination, she and her mother found that Samantha's last name had been spelled wrong in the certificate from the governor, and all the other letters of congratulation as well.
If this was how people treated someone who had done something constructive and positive to help her community....it was a wonder that anybody anywhere ever bothered to do it.


Now

All of this ran through Samantha's mind as she sat down to her computer. It was running a live update. As she waited for the update to finish, she wondered how she could possibly make the twisted feeling in the pit of her stomach go away, and to make the corners of her eyes stop pricking with tears - tears that she did not want to shed....that would change anything, it would only change her face from dry to wet.
Writing was had always been the way she expressed her emotions, and vent out her frustration. As she allowed the live update to restart her computer, she made a mental list of all the websites she would post her story on.