The Day

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There are days you think about constantly, days you hope for and days you wish didn’t happen.

Today was the latter.

Abbey

We found you at Dewey, before it was the ASPCA, and a kill shelter. You were laying, your head between your feet, staring at nothing and looked very sad.

I told mom that you were the one I wanted. She said, are you sure, and with your sad face, I knew you were the one.

We picked you up the next day, you’d been spade and were given a piece of paper to get you chipped. We arrived home, showed you your bed and your crate and you went to your bed as if you’d been living with us the entire time.

We took you on vacations when we could, hikes to Mt. Charleston and Red Rock.

You loved the time we hiked Ice Box canyon as you splashed in the water, showing your hound dog roots and letting the world know with your bark and beller.

It was a few years before we had your little brother, though you became protective of him regardless of the fact he was human and you were not.

You protected him like a big sister, watched over him and we knew immediately that we could trust you with him.

As your brother grew older, he played with your ears and tail and you didn’t mind, you seemed to enjoy it.

After your brother, your sister came a few years later, and you were just as protective of her.

We took you on less hikes because your age and joints didn’t agree with you. We weren’t sure when the day would come, and when it did, I cried liked a baby.

You’ve meant so much more than you would believe.

You laid next to me when I was knocked down with migraines. You knew I wasn’t doing well, and were my guardian from the world outside the bedroom door, always lifting your head to see who’d come in the room.

We decided on your time because we knew that a few months wouldn’t be worth watching you suffer through lymphoma at 16.

When we meet you in the next life I will thank you for being there for me, my family and being the best dog I could hope for in any lifetime.

I’ll see you in my next life Abbey.

Writing the each and every

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Books Stacked to the ceiling in New Orleans book shop.

Books Stacked to the ceiling in New Orleans book shop.

The window is cracked,  there’s a soft breeze across the desert and the blue skies stand out against a cloudless sky.

I watch my kids run through the room,  their clothes catching the breeze, my daughter’s cape flapping,  my son’s mask pressed tightly to his face.

My superheroes tear up the house as they chase each other.

Watching I’m reminded of the things I focus on too much, and the things I must focus on more.

We happen to think about our writing, at least as early writers, as horrible.

The reason we think this way is mostly because it is, at least for most of us, I mean we’re not all genius level writers, we have to learn to write well.

The thing about watching my kids play on a daily basis, they do their playing oblivious to the world around them.

This is what new writers usually don’t do.

They don’t write and ignore the world, they may get their writing time in, but they don’t lock themselves away like the more experienced writers.

The wind begins to die down, my kids are preparing for lunch, or dinner, I’m not sure as the day has moved by faster than normal, and in between the hours of my writing schedule; I see their asking for daddy to play.

I skirt away from the desk to play with them, as they beg me to get away from my writing.

I stop them, “I have a few hundred words to go. After I’m done, I promise.” I tell them.

After the hundred words, I set aside the laptop, rush downstairs as they sit on the couch, eager for a trip to the park.

Another sunset comes, we head back to the house, my wife is getting started on dinner, I pitch in, cutting the chicken, as I learned in a meat store in my late teens, and sit down as the I put music on the radio.

It’s one of my favorite days, but it’s still a writing day.

They’re finally asleep, my wife is doing the dishes, I have my laptop out again to get my notes from the day added to my laptop.

I finish and sit with my wife for an hour watching Supernatural.

 

Writer’s and their Window Dressing.

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They gather in the field, each one of them finding something they hadn’t thought would be there.

Standing in the sun, the crisp air moving through the pasture, the scent of lilacs flows through.

The lilacs, like the people are window dressing for the start of a story, they are something to use, something to give the reader a taste of the future of the story.

Will the scent of lilacs be used later in the story? Will it ever come up again, who knows.

The story we tell, and the window dressing we use to invite readers into our story is what makes us writers. There are our tools.

The window dressing is only a peak, just as the field, whomever is in the field, the crisp air and the scent of lilacs is dressing.

Each of us use different things for window dressing, but it’s all window dressing.

Standing in the middle of the street, he waves his arm while another taxi flies past him.

The ledge he stands on suctions him to curb, the drop is hundreds of feet, but he still tries to get a taxi, even as another ignores him and flies by in a gust of air.

Depending on how you read the above, or whether you understand that the story is possibly science fiction, you see the story differently.

Each story is different because each writer is different.

Something you write may not be published when another writer’s work is, that’s just how it is, and genre doesn’t matter.

Our writing is ours; it belongs to no one else. We write because we’re writers.

What are you using for window dressing to pull readers in?

Writing and the Things of Dreams.

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Dreams

Dreams

Getting through your nights and days, you stare at the things you wish to do, the lives you wish to live and the projects you wish to write.

Through different thoughts our mind comes through in the worst way.

We only see certain things. We only exist in certain places and in all our journeys we laugh at the things even our mind sees.

What happens when we see the life coming at us?

You know the one. We see it in our dreams, but it’s always too far off to grasp.

Within our dreams we see the world differently, this is because our dreams suspend the reality which our subconscious hides while we’re awake.

Tapping into the reality within our dreams is the true way to write what our heart wants, and it will bring out the writing which will make things seem different.

Our journey is to get through this life, find out as much as we can, move on to whatever comes next and gain more knowledge.

Maybe in our next life we can live our dreams?

The truth is, why should we wait until after death, when we could do it right now, in this life?

Life comes at us in different directions and keeps us guessing, this is why we dream.

A suspension of belief happens. We’re free to do what we need, and free to see what only our mind sees.

This discovery will make your writing better, keep your mind sharp and dress your stories in a way which will baffle you.

Keep writing and don’t forget, write down your dreams and tap into the reality of your mind.

 

 

Writing and finding the Honey Pot

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The laughter, pain and confusion of the day rolls by. We’re seething with what we’ve seen, but we put that away, stare at a blank screen and write.

Daily we see things, things which we’re sick about, confused about and sometimes, scared about.

When we see these things we could be worried about what it will do to us. Whether it may cause us mental harm or if, and this is a big if, whether it will affect our writing or on the off-chance, it may do things which could bring out the worst in us.

These are the moments we should be taking notes.

These are when our environment is giving us cues into the labyrinth of the world. This labyrinth hides many things, but sometimes it leads us to creativity, great wonderful ribbons of creativity filled with long writing sessions and awesomely incredible characters.

Our notes, whether written or jotted down in the folds of our grey matter, are the things which lead to the creative honey pot, and like Winnie the Pooh we should bury ourselves in the honey pot, finding every little piece of honey until we’re full.

The honey pot comes more with each time we take these notes, and it continues until we don’t need the notes anymore and we’re just experiencing the things around us, but our subconscious is taking notes, which will be unlocked in our writing session later.

Finding the honey pot, and getting our fingers into the warm, gooey wonderfulness keeps us writing every day.

Without the honey pot, we’re left with a blank page, nothing more.

The more we write, the more the honey pot comes into play and the less we realize we’re pulling from it, but afterward, when we’re reading our stories, that’s when the realization of the honey pot hits us.

It’s always there, but it comes more often when we’re writing regularly.

The best thing to do is get out, experience things, live and do the things you’ve wanted to do and never hold back from what you’ve wanted to do. Then you’re free to find the honey pot and it will appear when you least expect it.

Dig in, find the honey pot, take notes and write, and when you think you’ve written enough, write some more.