Tag: #amwriting

Posted in Challenges, Writing

One Liner Wednesday

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Sixty years ago today, the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, killing 70,000 people. A few days before, a nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, by the United States, killing around 150,000 people. The plane that dropped the bomb was the Enola Gay and the Commander was Robert Lewis.

Commander Lewis said he saw Nagasaki simply disappear. When he did, he wrote one line in his journal. That line is my contribution to One Liner Wednesday. Commander Lewis wrote:

My God, what have we done?

Posted in weekendcoffeeshare

#weekendcoffeeshare – 08/05/2017

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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I’m sitting in the coffee shop where we’ve been having our #weekendcoffeeshare, with my friend, Jenn, going over today’s menu with the owner. We’re early so we can get the menu worked out for our colleagues. I’m reflecting back on the week.

“Here they come,” Jenn said.

I could tell she was excited. So am I..

Our blogging friends, and friends of theirs, came in,

“Come on in,” I said. “The owner of the shop has prepared the best cinnamon rolls for us. There is hot tea – green, black, and herbal. The specialty coffee today is chicory. Have a seat anywhere.”

I’m so glad to see all of you today! I hope you’ve been well and that you’ve been prolific in your writing. This has been the busiest and most frustrating week for me. I guess we all have them.

The first order of business each day is training my new puppy, Hanna. She will be five months old in just a few days. She’s smart and trainable, but I don’t want to put too much on her all at once. Slowly, but surely, she is responding to her name, housebreaking, and a plethora of words and commands. She went through a period of trying to be the “alpha” around the house. I stopped that quickly! I bathed and groomed her for the first time this week. Hannah is having a lot of “firsts.”

I fear my writing has suffered this week. I haven’t written as much as usual. I love blogging here on WordPress, but I’ve had to work on my novel, which is not on this platform. I’ve gotten some done on my novel. I’m rewriting some material, which is hard. But, I think changing my style and doing some rewrites was definitely in order. However, I haven’t been very prolific. Some weeks are better than others, I guess.  How has your writing gone this week? Very well, I hope.

How many of you have made a career in freelance or staff writing? I have, but in the past. During my time teaching, for a time, I had too careers. Professor and freelance writer. I wrote for online and offline magazines and websites. I’m thinking of launching that career again. Freelance writing is different now with more competition, but that doesn’t bother me. The only thing that does bother me is that it would be a huge time commitment. I would enjoy the extra income at this point in my life. Living on a fixed income in retirement doesn’t really suit me. If I do this, I’ll be blogging here on WordPress, writing a novel, and freelancing. Even to me, that sounds exhausting, but fun! What say you? I’d love your comments.

I just got back from our local farmer’s market. This is the prime time of the year for good vegetables where I live in Kentucky, USA. People line up to buy them. My haul included green beans, more tomatoes than I can possibly eat, corn, and green peppers.

I am suspicious that fall is coming early to my part of Kentucky. Even the fall flowers, like the black-eyed susans are just about finished blooming. The summer flowers are completely done. Things are starting to look fall-like. I’ve noticed the sharp shadows at the end of the day where the angle of the sun has changed.

It’s been great to be here this morning. I’d love to hear from all of you!

 

 

Posted in Challenges

#SoCS – 08/05/2017

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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The #SoCS prompt this week is high/low:

If you’re a writer, you’re accustomed to experiencing the highs and lows of the profession. Think of the lows in the form of all those rejection slips from print publications and emails from online publications you may have received. If you’re a novelist, make that form letters from agents or publishers. You undoubtedly have a portfolio of unpublished material in the bottom drawer of your desk.

The highs. The obvious ones happen every time a publication accepts an article or a story you have worked so hard to write and source to appear on its pages. It’s exciting to have a story or an article to appear in a publication that is unpaid, particularly if you are a new writer. When you start getting paid for your work, receiving those checks, no matter how small, is truly exciting. If you work really hard, you may be able to make a living as a writer. Perhaps you can become a staff writer for a publication. I prefer to be a freelance writer.

If you write a book and an agent represents you so you can get it published through traditional publishing, it’s a real high. Finding an agent is just as difficult for a novelist or a writer of non-fiction books as finding a publication to accept a non-fiction article.

Self-publishing is becoming increasingly acceptable and if your work is marketed correctly, you can do very well selling your book, although there is no doubt that it is more difficult than traditional publishing.

All careers are full of highs and lows. I contend that a career as a writer, whether non-fiction or fiction, staff or freelance, is particularly so. With the ease of using email to query publications and agents, there is more competition in the marketplace. It takes hard work and long, hard hours and is not for the faint of heart.

Posted in Challenges

Compassion

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Ben said, “I’ve rounded up the last of the flowers. I just stuck them in these containers.”

The employees of the flower shop were resting in the back room at the end of a busy summer weekend. Every flower in the shop had sold except these two arrangements.

 

The door opened and a woman walked in, crying.

“My mother is so sick. She loves flowers. Do you have anything? The cases are empty.”

The employees all looked at each other and Ben walked to the back. He got the arrangements and handed them to her.

She left the shop, smiling.

 

Photo credit to Dale Rogerson

 

Posted in Challenges

#weeklysmile 83

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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I was lucky enough to witness an event that gave me a huge #weeklysmile this week! I live in a cabin in the Daniel Boone National Forest, moving here almost 19 years ago now after some trauma in my life forced me to seek peace and tranquility. I didn’t take me long to realize my house was built right in the path that white-tail deer used in this particular part of the forest. We have a huge herd of deer in my state and they have a terrible time finding enough food. I started to feed them. That was in the winter.

By the time the winter was over, I had a herd of deer at the feeding trough. By the time July came, I had a wonderful surprise and that surprise has fascinated me year after year since. It’s my #weeklysmile this week. The does brought their fawns to my feeding trough to teach them to eat.

The fawns are no bigger than large dogs and have their spots. Many does have twin fawns, with the male being slightly larger than the female. It would make anyone smile to watch them try to eat cracked corn out of the feeding trough, corn flying from either side of their mouths while they struggle with it. These beautiful, special babies are true miracles of nature.

Posted in Challenges

#SoCS – 7/29/2017

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Double-Jointed…..Much?

All of my life, within my family, I have heard the term “double-jointed.” That’s because on my paternal grandmother’s side of the family, this rather rare characteristic ran in the family. It was passed down to my dad, then to me.

Being double-jointed doesn’t really mean you have two sets of joints. The proper name is hypermobility syndrome. A person with this syndrome looks like they can stretch a limb farther than they should be able to. Instead, it actually is the ability to stretch the ligaments and tendons around the joint that cause the hyperextension of the bone possible. The person can hyperextend the bone without the pain that a person without the syndrome would feel.

An example is someone who can easily touch their toes. In both my dad’s case and mine, we could/can lay our palms flat on the floor with absolutely no effort and no pain. Sometimes, this “double-jointedness” is due to shallow hip or shoulder sockets. People with this syndrome are often very limber and move very easily.

Often, as a person with hypermobility syndrome grows older, arthritis becomes present in the joints.

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Posted in weekendcoffeeshare

#weekendcoffeeshare – 07/29/2017

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Good morning, everyone! Thanks so much for meeting Jenn and I at our local coffee shop. I think it is so much nicer, since it’s summer, to sit outside here on the patio than it would be to sit inside my house! There is room for all of us here. The proprietor has prepared hot cross buns for us today, along with other pastries. They are to die for! Choose your drink. You can choose from a wide selection of coffees and teas.

Come sit! I’m glad to see all of you. I haven’t been able to be with you for a couple of weeks. I have been terribly busy.

Good friends are a wonderful thing. Yes, this is related to how busy I’ve been. Most of you know that I’m writing a novel. One of my best friends, and a colleague when I went through the doctoral program, is reading my novel. Right now, he is only reading it for content, though he will probably do the first edit on it. After reading the entire first part of my novel, he was able to give me a completely new perspective on the content. After thinking about it, I decided to take his suggestions and I am doing a significant rewrite. As I write, it is sounding better and better all the time. I am grateful for my friend! This means it will take me a little longer to write the book, but I feel like it will be a better book.

Then there is Hanna, the new puppy. She is absolutely delightful. The sweetest, most affectionate puppy. She’s now 4.5 months old. Hanna is in training to be a dog. 🙂 We are currently working on housebreaking and leash training. At some point, we will move up to crate training and I will try to desensitize her to riding in the car. Every time she gets in the car, she get sick. Very sick. We have to work very hard on this!

Hanna and I had company for two nights this week. My cousin’s little dog stayed with us since my cousin had some business to attend to. Max is a breed about the size of Hanna’s breeds. They got along famously and loved to run together in the backyard. Hanna was a little jealous though! Max is now back home.

My morning glories are finally blooming! I’m waiting on the moonflowers, planted in the same spot. The insects, those darn Japanese beetles, have been hard on them this year.

The weather here has not been particularly good for growing anything. It has been so wet, So much rain the forest looks like a jungle. Not much humdity at times. Intense humidity at other times. Cool days followed by really hot periods. Unusual for my area.

I would love to share a cup with each of you. Please tell me what’s up with you in the comments! See you next weekend!

 

#weekendcoffeeshare is sponsored by Parttimemonsterblog where you can join the linkup. Join us on Twitter at #weekendcoffeeshare.

Posted in Challenges

Progress

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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The announcement in the newspaper said to meet in the school if you wanted to help The Foundation raise money. A large group of students and community members met at the designated spot, by the old pay telephone. They had collected pledges of money from sponsors. The first three finishers in the race would donate to The Foundation.

When they finished the race, they were to meet back at the telephone and call a designated number.

Two hours later, John, Felicia, and Barb finished the race and dialed the phone. No one had remembered pay telephones didn’t work anymore.

Photo Credit to J. Hardy Carroll

 

 

Posted in Challenges

The King’s Legend

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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“Ian, I’ve always loved the coast of Brittany,” she said as the sailed along in their boat. There was no wind at that time. They were in a deck chair, relaxing, as the Captain they had hired took care of the boat. She was in Ian’s arms and had never been happier. The sea, the bay, and Ian.

“Can we stop and see the Merlin and King Arthur sites?” she asked.

“Of course,” he replied, as he directed the Captain.

Ian and the girl met up with a tour group going to the forest of Painpont, all that’s left of King Arthur’s Forest. A mystical, magical place. A small group was going to the Merlin site, where the wizard was imprisoned by Viviane in a stone. What they found was a shrine to Merlin and a feeling that seemed spiritual.

The group of five felt drawn to the stone. They reached out and touched it. When they did, there was a curl of smoke and they were all gone.

169 words

Photo credit to The Storyteller’s Abode

 

Posted in Non-fiction

Fake President

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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I’m tired of hearing the term “fake news” from the big, fat mouth of Donald Trump. Particularly since he has shown himself to be a fake President. He uses the term “fake news” simply to fire up his base. His latest tweets slam Hillary Clinton again regarding her emails. What does that have to do with Trump’s issues of today, such as the Russian investigation and his utter incompetency as President of the United States? I’m not sure he remembers that he is no longer campaigning but is actually in the Office of President of the United States.

Trump’s latest exhibition of incompetency happened today when he turned down the NAACP’s invitation to speak before their 2017 convention. This smacks of racism along with incompetency. He’s worried about Clinton’s emails? A woman who is out of politics for the rest of her life? I think he has bigger problems than that.

This past week, the Election Commission even reported that the results of the entire 2016 election results are suspect. Perhaps he worried that he will be ousted from the office. He may be ousted, but it won’t be because there is a “do-over.”

The most shocking development is that Trump is suddenly, as of today, supportive of new sanctions being placed on Russia. Since Trump and Putin of Russia are such big buddies, all this says to me is that our fake President is scared. He is thinking if he acts supportive of the sanctions against Russia now, it will somehow save him.

We don’t have the findings of Robert Mueller or the House and Senate Committees about the Russian investigation or anything else yet. If Trump can manage it with his money and perceived power, we never will. What has prompted this article today is the fact that the Committee’s are not requiring Donald Trump, Jr. and Paul Manafort to appear in front of them in either a closed or open session. They are simply asking for documents. EXCUSE ME? Trump, Jr. gave them documents in the form of emails. They already know he is guilty of collusion with Russia. They don’t want to question him under oath? Trump wins again. They are requiring Jared Kushner to appear before them in a closed session. Why not an open session so the American people can learn the truth? Don’t we deserve that?

So what’s going on here? For starters, we have a Republican House of Representative and a Republican Senate. Trump is still polling at about 36% popularity. He could bomb Seattle and his base wouldn’t move, in my opinion, though rumor has it that his base is starting to erode..

A man who has admitted guilt cannot save himself and yes, Donald Trump has, indeed admitted guilt. We don’t yet know what he is guilty of, but if a man is questioning if he can pardon HIMSELF, you can bet that man is guilty. Why else would you ask that question? Not only is he guilty, but he knows members of his staff and family are guilty as well, since he has been trying to find out his power to pardon them as well. Can someone tell me why Congress has not drafted Articles of Impeachment at this point? Actually, I think I can answer my own question.

Trump still has about a 36 percent approval rate in the U.S. If Congress impeaches him, many of them will lose their next election. That means the senators and representatives are trying to hang on for their own self-interest. They aren’t representing us. They are representing themselves.

Trump does not involve himself in the legislative process. Some say the Senate Health Care Bill might have passed had he taken more of an interest. He has recently been out of the country more than he’s been here. Due to his narcissistic, volatile personality, it is worrisome to me what might happen if Trump starts to feel cornered. I think it may be happening now. He is talking about firing Robert Mueller, Special Counsel, which takes me right back to 1973 and the impeachment of Richard Nixon. Nixon fired his Special Counsel, Archibald Cox, and that set up Nixon’s eventual resignation.

Nixon went relatively quietly. Do you think Trump will do the same? I don’t.