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Writing Prompt #1

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Write a paragraph that starts with a color and ends with a sound, or vice versa.

Red. The color of passion. It ignites everything it touches. From the sky that encompasses the world to the water that erodes the earth away. Red brings life to those who wear it and death to those who abuse it. It is strong enough to be picked out of a crowd, yet quiet enough to get lost in the moment. In the end, it doesn’t matter how it looks. It only matter on how it feels. Red ends like all great colors end. Together in the silence of the night. Not a murmur to its name. Just a hush. 

You have a paragraph of your own? Link me!!! I would love to read your prompt!!! 🙂 Until next we meet… may your days be full of joy and your nights nothing but rest. You are love and you are loved. Be well.

Stories of Childhoods long past~1

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So, I’m writing this book and need to do some warm up writing exercises. You know. To get the brain working. So instead of a word vomit, I’m trying something different. A story. Come along!

This is a tale of a boy. A boy in a rural town. Now, this particular story is not how the boy was abandoned by his mother at a young age or the rough childhood he had growing up. No, this tale it about a boy free from beatings and terrorizing cousins. This tale starts after he turned 13, but before he was a man.

This boy was out on his Step-Father’s farm with his trusty farm dog, Buck the Wonder Dog. This dog was infamous in the county for reasons that do not pertain to this particular tale. But few things he was famous for was the following: being a hunter, a chaser and a fighter. The dog, though small in stature, could jump a six foot fence no problem. He was Buck: The Wonder Dog! And he was mighty.

Image result for australian blue heeler

Now, back to the boy. He was out in the field with Buck, fixing a tractor when he heard barking. That in of itself was not unusual. It was the duration of the manic barking that concern the lad. So, he wanders over to the tree stump Buck was preoccupied with. The tiny blue heeler was jumping all around the ancient wood, looking for something. So the boy, naturally curious, looks into the hole that was there. He couldn’t see anything, but he knew that there was something there. After all, Buck wouldn’t stop barking.

So the boy did what he considered was the next logical step to asserning what was in the tree. He reached in the dark, damp, rotten hole with his bare hand. Much to his astonishment, something bit him! The boy was very upset that a mysterious critter had the audacity to bite his hand. He was going to teach it a lesson.

Image result for welding gloves

To the surprise and horror of the boy, whatever was hiding deep within the trunk of the tree did indeed bite him and bit so hard that it punctured the work gloves he had put on. The boy, with a shout loud enough to startled Buck, pulled his arm forth from the mouth of the wooden creature to reveal his advorsary and criminal of bites…. a woodchuck.

Image result for woodchuck images free

This critter was longer than his forearm and stronger than anything he had wrestled with before. The sharp teeth pierced the tender spot between thumb and forefinger deeply. He attempted to swing the beastie off his hand, but the rodent refused to let go. Whether it was due to the boy disturbing it’s home and wishing to punish him, or because Buck was excitedly jumping up and around with snapping jaws, the woodchuck would not let go.

The boy, frustrated and flustered, tried to get the dog to calm down long enough pry the jaws off his hand. Yet, Buck refused to be placated. He had other ideas. Using his tiny legs, he used his human companion as a springboard and only let up once the boy began to threaten to strike him.

Finally, the boy was able to swing his arm hard enough to dislodge the rodent from his hand. The massive woodchuck flew up into the air like a firework. Underneath it danced the one and only Buck. Shimming to the left. Then shuffling to the right. Only to return to the left just to get the perfect angle on the flying quarry. The boy stood to the side, mesmerized at the show before him.

Much too soon for the woodchuck and not soon enough for the dog, the rodent hit the highest point in it’s arc. Then time stood still for the boy. He watch in horrid fascination as the animal began its descent to earth just as Buck leapt up into the air. As the boy would later describe to his daughters in the future, the sound from the two animals colliding in the air was akin to screeching tires on the freeway. Then Buck dropped harder than a meteor strike as he reaffirmed that he was a born hunter.

From here, you can use your imagination. As long as it ends in one satisfied dog, a dead rodent, and a boy who learned a valuable lesson on the farm. Don’t stick your arm down random holes, no matter how much your dog barks at it. Nothing good will come from it.

if you made this far, allow me to tell you that this is a true story from my father’s childhood. it never fails to make me laugh when he tells it.

Word Vomit #3

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Been way too long. Really need to get back into this thing. Okay, so what’s on my mind today? Well, it’s July?

Gosh that’s horrible. Okay. Okay. Let’s try again. /deep breath in\ What’s on my mind? ….

Yep, nothing much. But isn’t that how it goes? You have this grandiose idea about how things should be and how they should land and you come up with nothing. The shoulds and woulds and coulds plague your mind in a thousand ways, more than even media could possible plague it. But there you are. Sitting on your bed, staring at the wall or ceiling or window and have thousands of images of what you should be, or would be, if XYZ didn’t happen.

And you know what? In the end, that means less than nothing. All those what ifs. All those I shoulds. All those I have toos. They all equal to nothing.

I guess that’s not quite right either. They don’t equal to nothing. What they can equal too is a great number of negatives. Low self-esteem. High anxiety. Massive amount of depression. Lack of confidence.

But, if you sit to think about that, even that equal to nothing. Hear me out. In order to have any of those problems, you have to have standards. Standards that you are not meeting. These standards, whatever they may be, are higher than what you believe that you can achieve. But! BUT! You have met them before. You have looked in a mirror and been proud of what you saw. The reason you don’t like what you see anymore is because it is no longer the same thing you saw before. You must have been thin, or smart, or witty, or plump, or talented, or….ect. ect.

Sit there and argue, but you know what I type is right. You might think, “but I’ve never been XYZ.” Ah! That is the standard I am speaking of. We could go thru them all, but I’m tired and want a nap, so let’s move this thought train on. Unless your doctor is concerned for you life and you refuse to help yourself/your body out by doing what is nessecary to move, you are not too fat. Unless you epically fail at breathing and walking at the same time and have to remind you eyes to blink, you are not stupid. Unless you have never crack a smile in your life, you are witty/funny. So on and so forth.

If you find yourself in the mirror downgrading yourself, face that demon. Look that demon in the eye and see what that demon sees. Then point out something different. Do you like your eyes? I think that human eyes are the prettiest things I have ever seen. They sparkle more than stars in the sky. They shine brighter than the sun. They have more diverse colors than all the shades on the earth. They express themselves better than words. I can promise you that your eyes are stunning. They are beautiful. They are worthy.

They are worth to see and be seen. They shine with a light that is so unique and special it takes a breath away. Do you like your eyes? Because I do.

Focus on that. Focus on the beauty that is your gaze. If you don’t like your eyes (my heart breaks, but I understand), then do you like your smile? Your laugh? Your hearing? Your feelings (this one is hard to do)? How about the sensation of touch? Taste? Sleep? Dreams? Friends? Family? Sunlight? Darkness? Cool air? Warm air? Blankets? Fans?

Find that one thing. One thing is all you need. And that one thing fills that void. It will fill what depression, anxiety, and fear take from you. Let it become your new standard of beauty. Of faith. Of hope.

Yep, and if that won’t do it for you, try a goal. It doesn’t have to be a goal of “saving all the dying kittens in the world!” Which sounds exhausting if I’m going to be perfectly honest. But it could be, smile at least once today. Take a shower. Touch something soft. Little things

The more little things you do and praise yourself for, the better. Did you replace the toilet roll right away? You did great! You pick up your clothes on the ground and put them in the washer? Fantastic! You went on a walk with your family dog? Be proud of that!

A thousand little things mean more than one great big thing. So you didn’t find the cure for cancer? Whatever, you took your medicine. You aren’t making over $50,000 a year like everyone else in your family? Can you afford a $2 burger every now and then? That’s good.

We made never change the entire world. But we can change OUR entire world by one little thing. A shower. A walk. A smile. A joke. That is all it take to change nothingness into somethingness.

And that something is worth thinking about. So, what’s on your mind today? Nothingness? Or did you find a little thing to fill the void for a moment in time?

Poem

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So, I wrote this poem because of a prompt I read online. Enjoy! 🙂

Red. The color of passion. It ignites everything it touches. From the sky that encompasses the world to the water that erodes the earth away. Red brings life to those who wear it and death to those who abuse it. It is strong enough to be picked out of a crowd, yet quiet enough to get lost in the moment. In the end, it doesn’t matter how it looks. It only matter on how it feels. Red ends like all great colors end. Together in the silence of the night. Not a murmur to its name. Just a hush.

Proud of myself!

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Hahahahahahahaha! I am so proud of myself! Finally, I have completed the first draft of what I would consider a novel. As of yesterday, 3/7/19 I did what I wanted to do for the new year! I completed my novel! Is it still rough? Of course. Do I still want to polish it? Yes. But I did it! I wrote something that was other than a short story with a dynamic plot that has to span to another novel.

I know that if someone comes across this will have no clue why I’m so excited. So let me just briefly explain. I was never really encouraged to write. It was the one thing that I struggled with as a child. Everything I brought to the table was dissected and scrutinized until writing was never a joy for me. Yet, there was this drive to read and created. I could never really hold it in. So I wrote little blurbs of scenes floating inside my head and most of them had full length stories burning in my head, but I never felt motivated to write them.

Well, until about two years ago. While I was a courier, I had a ton of down time inside the van driving for eight to ten hours every day. Soooooo…. I had way too much thinking time and these worlds that I had created screamed to the surface demanding attention. They got so loud that finally I bought a notebook and started to write them down. Of course, it couldn’t had been content to fill up two notebooks, but it wanted to be typed as well. I was reluctant and slow, but it just burned.

It continued to nag at me until I stumbled across someone on Tumblr. I really admire how this woman portrayed characters as real life people and respected the growth of relationships so much. When I read that she had lost her greatest fan, her mother, to a sudden accident, I grabbed my social anxiety by the reigns and reached out to her. She was/is so warm and friendly that I became even more in awe of her. She inspired me to continue on something that I had no encouragement to complete. And today I did it!

Of course, there is another that is brewing in my mind and the companion to this story is cooking somewhere deep in my consciousness. But I think that is going to be my life now. With this achievement, I beginning to feel like that creative writing is okay to delve into, even when you aren’t too hot at it.

About me #1

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So, I will try not to be an awkward duck as I delve into what makes me tick. So first thing is first, a name. Theresa. It received this name from my grandmother on my mother’s side. I had the insane honor of knowing her while she was alive. Theresa Morinville was a spitfire of a woman who gave birth to eleven children and ran a farm while her husband held down three other jobs. Though the woman was barely five feet tall, she always felt larger than life. I loved my grandmother beyond all doubt and continue to love her even after she was called back home in 2006. 

Now, the name supposedly means “reaper” and “of souls”. So I guess I’m a reaper of souls….I promise I am not that intimidating in real life. Granted, many people have commented that I do care an aura of authority. Perks of walking around with a straight back and your head held up high, I guess. My grandmother was always so keen that her tall grandkids had to have a straight back. I can recall the buries I got whenever she caught me slouching. She would pinch me hard on the butt and hiss “Straight back, girl. Be proud of your height and your beauty!” You always walked away from grandma’s house with a bruise or three. If it wasn’t from her show of love, it was because your cousins dared you to do something stupid. 

Word Vomit #1

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Have you ever just sat down and vomited whatever came to mind? It’s a cleansing ritual that seems to work for some and not for others, right? But what if it’s doesn’t pan out like you want it too? What if you struggle to get what you’re really feeling across? Then what? What do we do then? Do we hide inside of ourselves until the world explodes and we have nothing more than a trembling mess of nerves and pain? But how is that productive?

Cause it’s pretty!

So I propose this. To my reader and future self, I’m going to try to weave a tale of adult exploration into her own mind. I’ll try not to be an anxiety-riddled teenager because only God knows how much I don’t miss that time in my life. My word vomit will try to have a purpose or a reason. Whether it is to cleanse the pain in my chest or to carefully plot out my methods, I will have a point to all of this. Or will at least try. That’s what counts right!