Progress, Owl Story update

I have been fussing with Owl Story for the last week, ever since my pen decided to quit and the replacements wouldn’t be found. (Yes, I am well aware it is silly to only write with a certain type of pen on a certain type of paper. But… if you knew how nice these pens work with this paper, you would understand.) In the scene I am working on, Dmitry is running from a possessed wolf pack (how cool is that) and I needed a place to stash him for safe keeping, until the pack is gone. I stashed him in a old tree on par with the California redwoods. And to get back he has to pass through a swamp with some type of monster living in it.

I keep wondering am I going to far? Swamps are bad places to wander through without a swamp monster to fight off too.

Cheers on a Sunday night. james

Faith and Steve Harvey

My co-worker and I listen to the Steve Harvey morning show and he was talking about faith. His take on faith struck a cord with me both as a person and as a writer. Mr. Harvey said faith is an undenyable truth that a person just knows. The example he used was fried chicken in a room, and then being taken out. And a person smelling the chicken after it was removed, they knew it had been there even if no one else caught it.

“Faith is an undenyable truth” that is a powerful statement for a writer. If I believe and know I am suposed to be a writer, then that is my undenyable truth. The Good Lord Above put that truth within my being, and He has left it up to me to work and fulfill that truth. As a writer, we know when we don’t write, we feel worse than we do by putting pen to paper, or at least I do. When I know I need to write, if I try to ignore it, I get distracted on other projects and tasks, sleep is hard to get, both falling and staying asleep. And the missing feeling in my life. Blogging seems to help, I try to keep a schedule of posting once a week. If I get to Thursday and I don’t have anything to post, words, thoughts and ideas begin to bubble up in my mind. This week I was busy and Thursday slid by. I believe it was because I needed to hear Mr. Harvey’s thoughts on faith. I have spent the last two days trying to get this post written and I finally felt ready to write.

I do take breaks, I am on a knitting break now, when I am burned out or frazzled, but the words are coming back and I am ready to jump back into the writing life.

1Year blogging

I just received a notice from WordPress this is my one year anniversary. How cool is that for a little blog that was started to better my writing. Thank you for keeping me company on this journey. I currently have 74 followers. Thank you!

Fortune Cookie-isms

I love going out for Chinese and then receiving the gem of wisdom hidden within the fortune cookie. Over the years I have collected these bits of advice, wisdom, and humor, pulling them out when I need a pick me up. Some are humorous, “Don’t use a cannon to kill a mosquito.” Some are useles and didn’t deserve remembering and others are pure diamonds or gold nuggets to be held and cherished. One of my all time favorites is “Don’t trouble trouble, til trouble troubles you.” But the one that causes a knot of dread in the pit of my stomach is “Your wish will soon come true.”

Most folks would be jumping for joy, buying every lottery ticket they could get their hands on. Me, I am trying to figure out which wish is going to come true. And is it one of the good wishes or one of the “wish (insert aggravating person) would take a long walk off a short pier in shark infested water” bad wishes. I always hope for the good kind, but cringe in horror over the bad ones. (One day I will learn to stop making the bad kind wishes. I hope) Some days it is much harder to stick with good wishes than to wish said aggravating person to some place else.

However, I think there is merrit in using the “if you get the wish” fortune and the trouble it could cause, especially if only the bad wishes are granted. Of course take care no actual harm comes to said folks. There is a story fodder aplenty for the brave, humorous short story or dark horror, there is room for both.

I have set a page up for these bits of wisdom. What are your favorite fortune cookie-isms? Let’s share the good fortune. Cheers, james