#creativity

Passionate – #JusJoJan

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She couldn’t remember the last time she felt passionate about him. She was capable of such passion about so many things. Sex and love in her marriage used to be two of them. Her husband only cared about sex in their marriage and when she was ill and sex was not possible for a time, he became resentful. Without sex, he withheld love. Without love, the desire for sex with him died within her. She knew they were at a stalemate.

The longer the stalemate went on, the more resentful about sex he became and the more embittered about love she became.

Resentfulness turned into aggression and combativeness on his part. He became deceitful. Without love, she became contrary and morose. Feeling passionate toward him didn’t seem  possible any longer. They were estranged while living in the same house. He wouldn’t talk to her, wouldn’t communicate about their situation.

She tried to do things that would make him happy. It was late in life to divorce, but she couldn’t see how they could stay together. It was so uncomfortable. It took a shocking turn of events for her to remember the mental illness that plagued his family and the symptoms that he was exhibiting.

She was afraid and she ran.

 

This story is part of Linda Hill’s JusJoJan 18 challenge.

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Drama – #JusJoJan

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Drama. What a word to start off the Linda Hill’s Just Jot Jan Challenge 2018 !

There are lots of definitions of the term “drama.” The current popular usage of drama is when emotional conflict is caused by a person or a situation or surrounds a person or situation, for whatever reason. Drama also describes the production of certain types of plays or television shows and branches of literature. It always involves conflict.

At this point in my own life, I like to avoid drama, but drama is not avoiding me. I am undergoing a change in my living circumstances that has turned into something fairly dramatic. Not of my own choosing. I find myself wondering why, at my age, can’t people just be adults as opposed to badly behaved children? Particularly when the change in living circumstances was their idea! I’m likely to think of the word “drama” pretty often in the early part of. 2018. At least I hope it’s only in the early part of 2018 and not in the later parts of the year. Going back to the definition of drama, I can be certain that conflict will be involved which I dislike even more than drama!

By this time in 2019, I hope all drama and conflict in my life will be long past and the future will be bright once more.

Rules for the #JusJoJan 2018 Challenge

Here are the general rules to follow for Just Jot it January:
1. Just Jot It January starts January 1st, but it’s never too late to join in! Here, we run on the honour system; the “jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to your blog that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. I’ll post the daily prompts at 2am my time (GMT -5), every day except for Saturday’s Stream of Consciousness (SoCS) prompt–you’ll find that one on Friday morning at 9:30am. That daily post (i.e. this one) will be where you leave your link for others to find in the comment section. There will be a prompt for every day except Wednesday, when the prompt is simply my One-Liner Wednesday.
3. As long as your blog is on WordPress, you’ll be able to link via pingback. To execute a pingback, just copy the URL from the daily prompt post, and paste it anywhere in your post. Check to make sure your link shows up where you want it to, and go back occasionally to see other bloggers’ entries – the more you visit others, the more they’ll visit you! If you’re participating from another blogging host, just drop a link into the comment section. Note: The newest pingbacks and comments will appear at the top.
4. Tag your post JusJoJan and/or #JusJoJan.
5. Write anything! Any length will do! It can even be a photo or a drawing – you’re going to title it, right? There’s your jot!
6. The prompts are here both to remind you and to inspire you to write. However, you don’t have to use the prompt word of the day. You can link any kind of jot back here. Note: If it’s 18+ content, please say so in a comment with your link or close to your pingback.
7. If you’d like to, use the JusJoJan badge so that others can find your post more easily.

Another World

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”Daddy, what are those whirly things sticking up toward the sky?”

”Daniel, those are a new kind of antenna to listen for signs of life on other planets.”

”You mean like when you found life on Mars, Daddy?”

”Yes, Son.”

Daniel was twelve years old and his Daddy was an astronomer at the U.S. facility in Flagstaff, Arizona. It was 2030 and they had just finished transporting people to a facility they built on Mars after receiving permission from a small colony of Martians they discovered.

”Remember what I explained to you, Daniel? See the funny color of the sky? Our air will not be breathable very soon. We’re trying to transport the people of the Earth to other planets. Mars can’t hold them all. Here are the listening devices that go with the antennas. Do you want to listen?

”Yes!”

Daniel placed a set of ear buds in his ears. He watched the display. He heard a screech and jerked the buds out as he called his Daddy over.

“I just heard a loud noise.”

Daniel’s dad grabbed the ear buds and started looking at the data. A planet was trying to contact them!

#SoCS – 10/28/17 – Creativity

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Which should I take, the black or the navy? That was one of the questions I asked myself as I packed my clothes last evening. I am soon off to the ocean and, along with color-coordinating my wardrobe, I found myself thinking about all kinds of things while packing. One of them was how busy I always am and how I look forward to my months by the sea. My thoughts aren’t exactly rocket science, but I do want to share them with you. The busier I get, the less creative my writing becomes. My inner finance professor is screaming at me to call that a negative correlation. The writer in me simply calls the lack of creativity a problem.

My months at the ocean are a time when my life slows down and simplifies. I’ve always thrived on being busy and the complexities of life. As I’ve taken up this career of writing, particularly the writing of fiction, I’ve found that my previous way of life doesn’t work as well for me. Being busy and having a complicated life does not foster creativity. My head is simply too full of the details of my life for creativity to find a foothold. Perhaps that’s why my first career was in finance. Numbers and even the explanation of what those numbers mean do not require much creativity. They are right or wrong with explanations that are obvious. There may be a bit of creativity, but not much.

My creative outlet during my years as a finance professor was primarily music. Specifically, playing piano, generally classical music. I could lose myself, and everything that was in my head, during hours at the piano. I always wrote, but during those years, I wrote either academic writings or non-fiction.

Fiction writing is a completely different experience. Unless I give myself time to be quiet and still, to slow down and make myself feel instead of think, then the creativity needed to write fiction just doesn’t come. This is a tough gig for someone like me. Being still and letting myself feel is a new experience and I’m not very good at it. Developing these skills makes me feel vulnerable. Out of control. I haven’t allowed myself to slow down and feel in a very long time. It’s scary.

Scary or not, writing fiction makes it necessary. So soon, I’m off to my island in the sun. To experience a slower life where I don’t live inside my head quite so much. Instead I let myself have new experiences and actually feel the feelings they arouse. For me, that’s what arouses the passion that it takes to write good fiction. We’ll see what I come back with when I incorporate it into the books and stories I’m writing. Perhaps I’ll even come back as a more well-rounded human being again?

SoCS