Tag: #SoCS

Posted in Challenges

#SoCS – 03/25/2017

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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What is it about eccentric personalities? I’ve known my share and liked most of them. When I met a person once who was to become one of my best friends, he didn’t immediately strike me as an eccentric. It was only over time that I found he marched to the beat of a different drummer. I admire people who can do that and get away with it, but having known many people with eccentric personalities, I’ve found most don’t really get away with it. They may march to that different drummer, but they pay a price for it. They get to maintain their marching beat, out of time with the drum major, but they are looked at with skepticism by their community at large. Whatever that community may be. They seem vaguely suspicious to everyone who values marching in step. You might even say they can be the outcasts of society.

Some professions welcome eccentric personalities. Why? They tend to be original thinkers and come up with inventive ideas. Academia is one such profession. Original research is required in academia. Inventive ideas are a necessity in order to excel and even to keep one’s job in all but the smallest of colleges. Even there, inventive teaching ideas are welcomed. That slightly (or not so slightly) out of step marcher is welcomed. Think Stephen Hawking to call upon an extreme example.

Some industries, at least those that actually invent products which are rare in the U.S. these days, welcome eccentric personalities as they tend to think big and develop the products that are cutting edge. Think Steve Jobs and Apple Computer. Steve Jobs was certainly an eccentric and imagine someone never having conceived of Apple products.

I haven’t seen that churches particularly welcome eccentrics. Church goers seem to enjoy like-minded people. There hasn’t ever been much room for different ideas or ways of looking at things in my experiences. Or for people who march a bit out of step.

Artist’s colonies. Eccentrics with tendencies toward the arts – writing, painting, sculpting, theatre – are often comfortable in artist’s colonies. There are some artist’s retreats to be found and even some permanent artist’s colonies. Fewer and fewer that I see.

There are Stephen Hawking’s and Steve Job’s everywhere you look. Many people just don’t give those who march to the beat of a different drummer a chance. They laugh at them. Pretend to look down on them when they may actually envy them for going their own way. Even try to make them throwaway members of society for not fitting into the cliques, clubs, and gossip circles. All because their marching speed or steps are a little different than theirs. Think of what others may be missing by not knowing them. Think of what the world may be missing. Shameful really.

Copyright Rosemary Carlson 2017

 

Posted in Challenges

#SoCS -3/11/2017

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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A lot on my mind today, though I won’t write about all of it. Too much. Still getting ready for our move to the Southwest Gulf Coast of Florida. We’ll live there six months of the year and at our home in Kentucky the other six months. I’d rather be in Florida! It’s hard to live in two places and harder still to pack up about one-third of my house to make this move in late March. Time is short. I only have about two weeks until it’s time to leave.

We have a very small place in Florida. Really it is just a base camp until we find a house to live in. It’s enough for now. It has virtually no storage and very little closet space so I’m going crazy figuring out what to take with us. Anything we take, we leave as we will go back in the winter for our first six month stay. We won’t start looking for a house immediately. We want to spend several six month time periods there to see how we like it on a long term basis and through several seasons.

I’ve been under so much strain that I’ve been grinding my teeth in my sleep and have developed TMJ! M;y dentist is making me a mouth guard that I have to wear when I’m sleeping. Isn’t that crazy!? If we can ever get moved and get settled, it will be wonderful to live on our island on Florida’s Creative Coast.

I am managing to get in some writing. I probably shouldn’t be writing as much as I am. Writing soothes me and I do some of my best writing when under stress. Sometimes, when I’m writing, I’m thinking of how I should be packing boxes. I should write something about packing boxes! As I’m sure most of you know, moving is a huge job.

I guess we will sell our RV. We won’t need it now that we have a place to live in Southwest Florida. I am glad we’re going to sell it. I am not much of an RVer!

Something great has happened recently. I’ve been able to hook up with a good friend that I had lost touch with over the past couple of years. Wendy and I have been good friends for years now. We drifted apart for awhile, but she is back in my life and I couldn’t be happier. She is smart and funny and she makes me laugh. I’m so happy that she is back in my life and I hope she will now always be in my life!

Have a wonderful week!

#SoCS

 

Posted in Challenges

The Project of Writing a Novel – #SoCS 3/4/2017

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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I’ve mentioned in these stream of consciousness posts that I’m writing a novel. I suspect it is a little like giving birth. This project is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but one of the most fulfilling.

I changed careers in the middle of my life. I finished a career as a college professor after 27 years. I still felt young and strong and interested in the world around me. I wasn’t ready to quit work and retire to my rocking chair. I have been writing since I was a child. My first story was published in the Highlights for Children publication. Then, during my teaching career, I published many academic writings. Near the end of that career, I started writing for a financial brokerage and was writing for them, when I wasn’t at school, on 9/11. Writing about 9/11 gave me some serious writing chops. I was hired to write for the New York Times division, About.com. I was their Subject Matter Expert on finance and wrote, edited, and became the webmaster for their Business Finance website. I held that gig for five years. That gave way to writing for corporations, usually online learning materials for their executives. I also wrote many non-fiction articles for online and offline magazines.

So here I am. With my own blog where I started out writing well-researched non-fiction and I still write some of that. I took some writing classes through Udemy and read authors like Stephen King and Rayne Hall. I’ve studied writing extensively. I, then, started writing some of the fiction challenges here on WordPress which have helped me enormously and I decided to try my hand at my first novel. I knew the story I wanted to tell. I just had to figure out how to tell it, which is a daily process.

A good novel that you plan to hand to a publisher is about 80,000 words. That is long and hard and requires that you study all elements of writing fiction. I’m closing in on the first of three parts of this novel which is a psychological thriller. The first part, indeed all three parts, will be 26,000 words or thereabouts. It’s exhausting and very satisfying work. If you are interested in writing a novel, I’d recommend you read Stephen King’s book “On Writing” first.

I’d love to hear any comment you want to make or any advice! I’m a novice and still have a lot to learn!

SoCS 3/4/2017

Posted in Challenges

#SoCS – 02/25/2017

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Taxes, Moving, Reading, and Writing…and Weather!

How is it that it is already time for me to do my taxes this spring? Every year, about this time, it suddenly dawns on me that I really do have to settle up with the feds and that I need to start working on it. This year, my timetable is even more compressed since I’ll be heading back to South Florida in just one month. My federal and state taxes have to be signed, sealed, and delivered by the time I leave.

I don’t have much on my mind today except the preparations to go back to Florida and get my home set up. I’ll stay there just for a couple of months this spring. Then I won’t go back during the hot summer. I’ll wait and spend the winter there. The people from whom I bought my little Florida home vacate it on March 31. I will use the months of April and May to get it in shape to live in beginning in October or November for about six months. I’m looking forward to my spring stay even though it will mean lots of work putting it all together. Most of the furniture stays, but I’ll supply the rest of it. I’ll also move clothes when I go this spring.

Since I can’t work on the house 24/7, and don’t want to, my second priority is to spend several hours each day/night writing. My goal is to write 10,000 words during April and May on my novel. That is not a lofty goal but one I should be able to meet. I didn’t want to set a high goal and just frustrate myself. I have some paid writing gigs and, of course, my blog to keep up with as well.

Every night, I try to read just to relax. There is an author who I’m sure many of you have read but I’ll share her name with you anyway — Sarah Jio. I have enjoyed all her books.

It’s thundering outdoors right now and I’m almost glad to hear it. It’s been so very unseasonably warm here for February. We’re supposed to have a brief change in the weather pattern and the temperature should drop into the 40sF during the day. That won’t last and it seems the end of February and first of March will continue this as this unusually warm winter in the Ohio Valley. I love the hot temperatures where I go in Florida as it’s supposed to be that way at this time of year but not here. Quite the opposite. Makes me worry about things like climate change and the possibilities of global warming.

I look forward to reading your posts!

This post is part of #SoCS

Posted in Challenges

A Day Spa and the Trip Home: #SoCS – 2 04/17

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

 

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Soon, we will be leaving Florida and starting toward our home. It will take us a while to get there since there are a couple of legs to that trip. In preparation for the trip home, today I visited a salon and day spa here in Ft. Myers. It was a great experience! Although I only had my hair done there and picked up some products I need, this day spa offered every imaginable service from massage to facials to mani/pedi. If you’re ever in Ft. Myers, drop me a line and I’ll tell you where to go! Tomorrow is an errand day, again getting ready to start the trip home.

Speaking of the trip home, we will start driving north up along the Gulf of Mexico side of the peninsula mid-week next week. I don’t anticipate the traffic to be as bad going north as it was coming south. Most people don’t leave Florida until the end of February. We will make a stop for a few days at Carrabelle RV Resort, which is on the panhandle of Florida, right across the bay from St. Georges Island. We’re meeting friends there. We know that, unfortunately, the weather won’t be as warm as we’ve enjoyed in Ft. Myers, but it will surely be warmer than it will be when we get home to Kentucky! I will enjoy having some time with my girlfriend to shop, eat out, explore, and just talk and visit. The guys plan to do some fishing. We all plan to eat great food, especially great seafood.

We will visit Port St. Joe and Appalachicola at a minimum. We’re really looking forward to it. While we will be staying in the RV Park, they will stay on St. Georges Island. I, too, am looking forward to visiting the island, its beaches, and its shops. There is a nice bridge close by.

After spending a few days there, we will start the long journey home. A friend back home tells me that they are expecting a winter storm right about that time, if long-range weather forecasts are to be believed. So we will be watching the weather from the panhandle north to Kentucky very carefully. It’s almost a straight shot north and a little east. No big mountains, thank goodness. But any slick roads sidelines a RV, so who knows when we might arrive home! Unscheduled stops are always a possibility.

We have so enjoyed these weeks in Ft. Myers, Florida. We’ll be back! I will tell you about that another time.

If you’d like to join in with the Stream of Consciousness Challenge:

Here are the rules:
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.
3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.
4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.
5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!
7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.
8. Have fun!

Posted in Challenges, Uncategorized

#SoCS – Jan. 28/17

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Two things are on my mind for this stream of consciousness post. First, I am away on a trip and the place where I am is where I would like to live. The unfortunate part is that it is likely to take a while, maybe a long while, to make that happen. I don’t want to go home. “Home” doesn’t feel like home anymore. This place, this magical place, feels like home. There is very little I can do to rush the process of making my dream “place” my home. I have to wait for property to become available and it seldom does. I will wait. I would wait a long time.

Second, I am worried about the state of our country, the U.S.A. I don’t want to offend anyone, but I feel so strongly that we have an incompetent in the White House. Not only an incompetent but an egomaniacal narcissistic man. A dangerous combination for someone with access to the nuclear codes. He has been there one week and has violated the Constitution multiple times. He has also violated at least one important campaign promise. I know people whose most important requirement of the President  was that he was going to build a wall on the Southern border and have Mexico pay for it. Clearly, Mexico is not going to pay for it. Instead, he is going to tax us for it, the hard-working taxpayers. Not only that, but he has harmed the middle class by cutting the FHA mortgage insurance premiums. He doesn’t care about the middle class.

Do we let him go on and violate our Constitution and do absolutely nothing about it? The result of that will be the death of our democracy. Donald Trump may be the last President of the United States. We may be looking at a different, and less desirable, form of government. An authoritarian dictatorship, for example. If we’re lucky, a parliamentary form of government. Surely not a democratic form of government.

Then we have his and his Secretary of State’s Russian ties. Thankfully, that is being investigated.

The very most disturbing thing is the President’s efforts to stop the flow of information out of many of the federal agencies. Shades of Nazi Germany.

I’ll stop here, though I have so much more I could say.

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Posted in Challenges

#SoCS – Jan 20/17

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Wow! What a week for a stream of consciousness post. What has overtaken my mind at this point is the fact that I’m in southwest Florida, on an island off the coast of Ft. Myers and it’s warm, dry, and beautiful! It’s January! I love the ocean and since we arrived, the weather has been tranquil and the ocean like glass. Actually, we’ve been here five times before at this time of year, but not for a couple of years. I’m so thrilled to be here again I can hardly think of anything else. I’m really enjoying it. We’re taking a side trip to the Everglades tomorrow, one of my favorite places. Primarily so I can see the wildlife…..then rant about how we’re killing our environment.

There are other things on my mind. When we got to our favorite place in the world here in Florida, we found that two of our friends had passed away since we were here last. One quite suddenly and at a young age. He and his wife came here from North Dakota every year for six months and were good friends. The other an older gentleman  that also spent the season here. He was an interesting story. He had two German Shepherds, trained only using German commands. They were the most intricately trained, and well trained, dogs I’ve ever known. It haunts me wondering what happened to the dogs as Hans was single, to my knowledge. I don’t know if he had any family or not.

The other thing on my mind is my desire to move to Florida. There are so many reasons to move, but there are a few reasons not to move. I’m having a mental battle between pros and cons. One concern is the fact I will have to spend a lot of the hot times indoors. That is due to a health condition. My particular health condition does not allow me to tolerate very high heat for very long at a time. However, there are positives about moving regarding that same health condition. This specific downside is the only downside to moving here, but it is a significant downside. Before I make a final decision, I have to talk to my doctor although I’ve been told not to worry about this side effect. We will see a realtor here in Florida several times while we are here. We aren’t yet picking out a house as our house where we currently live has to be sold first. We are picking out the community in which we want to live.

Last, I guess I’m a little worried about my dog, Betsy. She is doing well on this trip, but she is sleeping a lot. She had a seizure about three weeks ago, so I am watchful. Signing off for this week!

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Posted in Challenges, Uncategorized

#SoCS – Jan 14/17

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Pajamas are a wonderful thing. I’ve been exhausted from trying to get ready to travel for a trip where we will be gone for about six weeks. I’ve also been desperately trying to keep up with my writing. Last night, I finally decided that I had to rest. I put on my pajamas and just relaxed, although I have to admit that I made a list of things I have to do this weekend. Writing things. Travel things to get ready to leave in a couple of days. Just putting on my pajamas relaxes me even though I still did some mental work.

Pajamas, a robe, and house slippers. What is better than that? My little dog, Betsy, is so happy when she sees me putting on my pajamas. She knows I’m staying home. Dogs are pretty smart like that. If I’m putting on makeup, other clothes, jewelry, Betsy knows I’m going out which is something she surely does not like.

I get some of the same relaxation effect when I put on leggings, which tend to be my “around the house” clothes. But, they don’t give me as dramatic a relaxation effect as pajamas. What relaxes you? Do you get the same effect as I do from putting on your slippers, robe, and pajamas?

 

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Posted in Challenges

#SoCS – Dec 31/16

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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First, it’s the last day of 2016 and I want to say to all of you how much I’ve enjoyed writing these stream of consciousness challenge posts and, most of all, reading your posts, in 2016. There are wonderfully talented writers in this group and I look forward to continuing right on into 2017.

Next, I want to thank you for reading my writings and ramblings since I started this challenge. I also want to thank Linda for being such a fine host! This is a great challenge that let’s my writing just flow out of my fingertips and also allows me to get things off my chest. A real service on both counts. Too many writers, myself included, sometimes suffer from writer’s block, and I think stream of consciousness writing helps clear the cobwebs and sweeps writer’s block away. At least, it has worked that way for me. Writer’s block has other causes. I get so caught up in writing that I don’t read enough. Writer’s need to read and when I am really in a heavy writing period, I neglect reading. That is always a mistake. Right now, I need to read more of the genre in which I’m writing a novel which is the psychological thriller. If any of you have suggestions, I’d love to hear them. I also need to blog more in that genre when I am blogging fictional stories or flash fiction challenges. That’s one of my goals for 2017.

Last, I just want to end this post by telling everyone Happy New Year! I think 2016 was a hard year for many of us individually and for big groups of us collectively. A writer I greatly admire, and who pulls no punches, thinks 2017 may be harder still on a global level. I hope he’s wrong. At least on a personal level, I hope each and every one of you have a wonderful 2017, filled with many writing, and other, successes. #amwriting #amblogging #writing #Challenges #SoCS

Posted in Politics, Uncategorized, Writing

#SoCS – Dec 24/16

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Good morning to everyone! I only have one thing of importance on my mind today. I want to say Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to everyone out there celebrating the holidays. In the United States, it has been such a disturbing year from a political standpoint. Since starting to blog on WordPress this year, I’ve met so many wonderful people of all political and religious persuasions. When we interact, their politics or religion never occurs to me.

I hope that, in 2017, we can all come together – Christians, Jews, Muslims – and every other religion and every political persuasion – and show our governments who seem to be trying to tear us apart, that WE are, indeed, the world. That despite the differences in how we worship or who we elect to lead us, WE are the world. The people and not the small groups of governmental officials. Those officials don’t represent us all and, in some cases, represent very few of us.

When we interact one on one, politics and religion don’t matter. We’re all just people, trying to survive, take care of our families, somehow make our way toward self-actualization. We can get along with our neighbors who may worship differently or have a different view of political governing, but WE, the people, are the world. WE are important, not the little groups at the top who try to cook up something between us. No matter what country we live in.

I’ve met a lot of people this year from all around the world. I want my blogger friends on WordPress to know that knowing them and reading their work has enriched my life. I have new friends on Facebook because of my writing who are also writers and I feel the same about you. I’ve come to like Twitter as there are people there who will help a budding writer and I’ve certainly made new friends there and I want to thank them. It hasn’t mattered one bit about their politics or religion and they haven’t let it matter about mine. I respect all these people immensely. I want to thank all of you for your friendship and help this year.

My old friends. What can I say? The year has been hard for me and to those of you who have shared those hard times with me, I will never be able to repay you and you have my gratitude. My old friends are more than special to me and I hope you will always be in my life.

To all of you, have a blessed holiday. WE are the people and WE are the world. Don’t let anyone take that away from US. #religion #politics #Christmas #Hanukkah #amwriting #amblogging #writing #WordPress

Post in response to Stream of Consciousness Dec 24/16

Thanks, Linda!