Young at Heart – Stream of Consciousness Saturday (young/old/age)

I wasn’t sure at first if I could come up with something for today’s prompt, but then as I thought about it for a couple of moments, one of my all-time favorite songs came to mind – Young At Heart from Frank Sinatra – and that gave me an idea, for I do feel that I am young at heart. I enjoy playing games, including video games when I have the time (yes, I consider myself somewhat of a gamer chick). I still like to watch cartoons (though not so much the newer cartoons) and Disney movies. I like to read YA novels. And yes, I occasionally still buy “collectible” figures and plush toys. I don’t feel like I’m almost 40 years old.  I still feel like I’m maybe in my 20s, which could be why my tastes and interests are still in that age range. I only realize how old I’m getting when the calendar turns and my birthday comes around. But I’m sort of like Peter Pan, I guess. I don’t want to grow up. I prefer staying young at heart,  having fun, and dreaming dreams and hoping for fairy tales to come true. You may think me a bit of a naive, hopeless romantic and optimist, but that’s just how I am.

 

 

 

This post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday:

http://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/08/29/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-august-3014/

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The What, Where, Why, and How of Writers

An interesting look at writing and writers. And I love Neil Gaiman’s quote as to “why”.

bookgirl

Is there a magic formula to writing a best selling novel – of course not, but this does not stop me wanting to know all the what, where, how and why’s of my favourite authors. I might uncover some secret that best selling novelists have kept hidden for centuries; they may belong to a secret society. I may stumble upon one quirky habit, that I could adopt, and my writing would be transformed.

My first quest was the Where.

I knew that Mark Twain and Roald Dahl both wrote in their back sheds, but I was looking for more inspirational writers haunts. So, why not start with the master of all writers, the picture above is of William Shakespeare’s house in Stratford- Upon-Avon, England. I didn’t get much from my visit here except that Shakespeare slept in the sitting position, and I wasn’t going to adopt that habit. Next was…

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Failing – One-liner Wednesday

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well have not lived at all – in which case you fail by default.” – J.K. Rowling

 

Part of One-liner Wednesday:
http://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/08/27/one-liner-wednesday-creations/

On the other side – Stream of Consciousness Saturday (start with a preposition)

 

 

On the other side of the door, they found…nothing. A small, clean living room greeted them as they crossed the threshold, guns held ready before them. Detective Lucy Johnson took a quick look around the room while her partner checked out the next room, behind a door on the wall to the right.  He came back a few moments later.

“The den is all clear,” he reported.

According to the call they’d received, murder suspect Jared Martin was supposed to be hiding out in this house. The anonymous tip had sounded genuine, so she and Mike Evans had rushed over.  They had entered the house with the assumption that he would be there, armed and dangerous and ready to fire on them the moment they opened the door.

That didn’t happened, which made her suspicious.

“Let’s check the rest of the house,” she told him. “You check down here, I’ll head upstairs.”

“Right. Be careful.”

She nodded and headed for the second floor while Mike went through the double doors at the back of the living room to check out the kitchen.

She had just finished checking the first two bedrooms at the top of the stairs – both clean, and the whole floor was suspiciously quiet – when she heard Mike call for her. She hurried back downstairs.

Her partner was standing by the doors to the kitchen. She frowned at the disturbed look on his face.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“You should see this. Let me warn you, it’s not pretty.”

Her frown deepened as he led her back into the kitchen, through the back door, and to the shed in the back yard. She noted obvious drag marks in the grass leading from the back door to the shed, as well as a few small dark spots that she suspected were blood.

Mike opened the shed doors. “Look at this,” he told her grimly.

Lucy peered inside and gasped.

 

 

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This short story blurb is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday:
http://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/08/22/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-august-2314/

It is also a continuation of the story I started  a few weeks ago for the SoCS prompt “side”:

https://jeanneowensauthor.wordpress.com/2014/07/19/picking-sides-stream-of-consciousness-saturday/

 

 

 

Imagination – One-liner Wednesday

“Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.” – Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

 

 

 

This post is part of One-liner Wednesday:
http://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/08/20/one-liner-wednesday-theoretically/

In The Cards

So, I got a new deck of tarot cards over the weekend, a cat-themed deck. I haven’t played with tarot cards in a good long while (at least a year or so), and I tried them out yesterday morning and again this morning, doing a small, 3-card daily read to see how my day would go. I have a deck that I used before that I really like, with the instruction booklet from a different deck stuck with them because I liked the way if gave the meanings for the cards and had an interesting diagram for a spread in it. That deck is where I learned about the 3-card spread for a daily reading for the day.  As it turns out, I have forgotten where I stuck that deck 😦 I looked for it over the weekend, to no avail. I’ll have to do a thorough search later, maybe this weekend. As much as I liked using that deck, I know I wouldn’t have gotten rid of it, so it has to be around here somewhere.

So since I can’t find that deck and instruction booklet, I’m having to try to remember on my own. I did find an instruction booklet in another of my tarot decks that’s similar to the one I can’t find. I like it better than the one that came with the new deck, which only gives one short line of a meaning instead of multiple suggestions and no meaning for reversed cards.

I think I must really be rusty at this, since this is what I ended up with for the two readings I did:

 

Yesterday’s reading (using the booklet that came with the new deck):

morning: 8 of Swords = a precarious situation  – didn’t happen (which is good)

afternoon: 7 of Swords = someone has taken something – didn’t happen (which is good)

evening: 9 of Pentacles = accomplishment – I managed to get 150 words written in my book

 

This morning’s reading (the booklet from a different deck/booklet that came with deck):

morning: 10 of Swords =trouble, misfortune, disappointment, etc./surrender to unpleasant circumstances – didn’t happen

afternoon: Knight of Swords = bravery, skill, heroic action, etc./someone who acts decisively – didn’t happen (that I can tell)

evening: 7 of Swords = new plans, hope, partial success, confidence, perseverance, etc./someone has taken something – so far, no

 

I wonder why I kept drawing Swords  And it’s weird how all the cards have similar meanings between the two decks except for the 7 of Swords (that I’ve noticed so far, at least).

Anyway, as I said, I think I must be rusty. I’ll have to keep practicing and work on breaking in this new deck. On the plus side, I’ve realized I’ve missed playing with tarot cards 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are We Animal Lovers? Or Users of Animals?

There are some excellent points raised in this post. Changes need to be made. But sadly I don’t think it’ll happen any time soon.

Dogpaddling Through Life

When I began writing about animal welfare issues, I naively thought that what was missing in the community was a lack of focused leadership, and that if only more people knew the truth about the plight of many animals around the world, we could join together and make positive changes.

Oh, what a fool I was.

You love me…. as long as Jen keeps getting great photos of me that pull on your heartstrings.

What do I know today? That the pet industry is one of the fastest growing in many places around the world. Animals appear in more commercials than they don’t. Looking at cute animal pictures on the Internet is one of the biggest time thieves in modern-day life.

While at the same time, human commitment to animal welfare has declined in the past eight years.

Humans are responsible for the almost-certain extinction of elephants, rhinos, and tigers.

We…

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Black Cat Appreciation Day

So today, August 17, is Black Cat Appreciation Day. This is the day set aside to celebrate these “miniature panthers”.

Sadly, black cats have a hard time getting adopted. This is in part due to outdated superstitions and myths about them, such as their being bad luck, being evil, being witches’s familiars, etc.  Another reason black cats (and black dogs) have trouble being adopted is that shelters have trouble getting good pictures to showcase them because they don’t photograph as well as lighter-colored animals.

Black cats, however, are just like any other cat. They are not evil creatures in league with the Devil or anything. Nor are they bad luck. In fact, in many cultures, they are considered good luck. My own black cat, Shadow, is a total sweetheart and, in the 12 years I’ve had him, he has not brought me any bad luck. I would love to have more black cats if given the chance.

my black cat, Shadow

 

So why not take a chance, save a life, and adopt a black kitty? They are always stylish – black goes with anything, after all. Stray black cat hairs are harder to see on dark clothes and furniture. And you can tell people you own a “miniature panther” 🙂

 

 

Taking the Time – Stream of Consciousness Saturday (Time)

Let me take the time this morning while I have it to make this post. And let me say that the prompt for today is quite coincidental because I was thinking of making a post about time and writing. I’ve been so busy the last week or so that I’ve not been able to really find the time to do much writing. It seemed like I would plan to do some writing, and then something would come up that would keep me from it. Or when I did actually manage to have the time, I was so tired I didn’t feel like doing any writing because I didn’t feel I could focus on it. Best laid plans, and all that. So in the last week or so I have not managed to get any writing done on my book, not even keeping to my word count goal. But I did have a couple of ideas for it.

I saw a picture on Facebook yesterday that I need to keep in mind: to treat writing like a job, and to sit down and write something, anything, even when you don’t feel like it or feel inspired, that creativity will flow once you start writing. But for me the trick is finding the time – or, probably more accurately, taking the time – to write, to make myself not be distracted by other things and to just sit down and write. It’ll be hard to do though, because life keeps trying to interfere. But that’s the struggle any author faces, right?

One last thing: When I thought up the title for this post, one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite bands came to mind – Take The Time by Dream Theater – and I had it on in the background as I typed this.

 

This post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday:

http://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/08/15/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-august-1614/