A Short Mom Dream
Snow had fallen but now a sun blazed in the sky, transforming roads into slushy paths. All very picturesque, though. I was inside the house, waiting for Mom to return with my sisters. As usual, I hid from them when they first came in, springing out and surprising them, making them laugh.
We were busy with a multitude of things simultaneously. I went out and walked on the slushy asphalt, testing my footing. It all seemed safe.
A sister called my name from the house door, telling me that Mom wanted my help. When I went in, Mom was struggling with papers and stuff on a table. “Help me figure out my transportation, Michael,” she said. “I need to know who to call and where I need to go when I need to go somewhere.”
Sisters were in the mess, reading things. I picked up a few items and realized after reading that she only needed to go two places to catch transportation. So I marked the phone with bold black letters and began explaining things to her.
She immediately began firing protests back. “But what if I want to — “
I kept explaining that it could all be done with what I’d figured out. Press the 1 one the phone where I’d marked it to go to these places. Press the two for these places. The telephone numbers were programmed into the phone. Then she just needed to go to the place corresponding to the one or the two to be picked up. 1’s pickup spot was her house, so she didn’t even need to leave.
We went on in that vein for a few minutes before the dream ended.
It reminded me so much of being home last month and helping Mom figure out her medications.
Tuesday’s Theme Music
Looks like autumn is making progress in the area. More trees are choosing to change their leaves, as is their right. Their trunk, their leaves, their colors.
A mellow Tuesday morning has settled in the valley. The week is shaping up to be cooler. Rain is in the weekend forecast with high temperatures in the upper fifties. The air’s shimmer itself seems to have shifted at last, shaking off its summery flavors for autumnal accoutrements. Today, though, will be 80 F and it’s already 56. With that rich blue sky crowning trees becoming wealthy with golds, yellows, orange, and scarlets, it’ll be a fine day to take in the outside world.
Sunrise kicked off the daylight portion of October 18, 2022, aka as ‘today’, at 7:27 AM and will close out at 6:24 this evening.
My morning mental music stream is empty. Yeah, The Neutrons have let me down. Well, “Born to Be Wild” by Steppenwolf was in there. I’d decided to make coffee before sitting down to the ‘puter and started singing, “Got your coffee brewing, and then make your breakfast,” all to the tune of BTBW. So you need to know the song for it to make sense. But I’ve featured the rebellion anthem a few times already and didn’t want to repeat it. So what to do instead, Neurons?
Crickets.
“The Crickets,” The Neurons instantly shouted. “We know The Crickets.”
“Yes, I know,” I answered. “That wasn’t an invitation, guys.”
But they were off. Before I’d even begun my reply, they’d kicked “Peggy Sue” into the morning mental music stream.
While I know the song, I needed to look up the year it was released. Yep, 1957, when I was one. It was an AM pop familiar for a looonnng time. Don’t hear it much any longer unless you’re on a ‘golden oldie’ station, it seems.
Well, I have my coffee and ate my breakfast, so all that’s left is to enjoy the song. Be like a proton and stay positive. Test negative like an electron. Sorry, that’s all I got. I would blame a lack of coffee but I’ve had some. Must just be Bad Neurons.
Here’s The Crickets. Oh, yeah, and Buddy Holly. He got all the credit for the song, but if, as Paul Harvey used to say, you know the rest of the story…
Good day.
Monday’s Wandering Thought
He finished reading an article on a Tampa Bay news site. At the end of the article was something he’d never before seen: a button to report typos.
Impressed, he nodded. Many sites would benefit from such a button. They could also use a button to report grammar and punctuation errors.
Hell, his own modest site would do with those buttons.
The Writing Moment
Coffee in hand, he was ready to write like crazy one more time. That initial moment when he was about to begin to write was the best for him. The session could be great or mediocre. (Is there such a thing as a horrible writing session?) In that way, his sessions were something out of Schrödinger’s thinking: it might be good, it might be bad. Its dual state existed until the session was done.
Execflooftive
Execflooftive (floofinition) – Animal is who part of management or shares in the decision-making process.”
In use: “Quite often, people will include their pets in their decision making, asking the animals, ‘What do you think I should do’, for example. But that often leads to the animals assuming they have execflooftive privileges to eat what they want, sleep wherever desired, and do whatever impulse seizes them.”
Becoming you – how to develop confidence as a writer
Writing a novel is always a separate and personal journey. I’m getting better at recognizing what’s successful for me. This article captures the essence of the drift and bounce experienced while riding the writing currents.
On a recent episode of Litopia’s Pop-Up Submissions, we intended to talk about writer confidence, then the show went in another direction. But it’s worth a proper discussion.
Litopia founder Peter Cox, who is also a literary agent, told me confidence is a major issue for his members. ‘Either it never gets a chance to develop, or gets fatally knocked by so much conflicting advice (thank you, internet). But without a sense of self-confidence, I don’t believe a writer can develop their own true voice.’
Voice
First, let’s define voice. It’s what makes you unmistakably you. Your style. Your thematic signature. The distinctive hue of your world. As Peter says, this comes from confidence.
Here’s my take.
I remember when I wasn’t secure about my voice and other distinctive whatnots. I regularly rebooted myself, to be like the authors I was reading, or to act on feedback from critique groups…
View original post 595 more words
Monday’s Theme Music
Monday muscled into the morning, declaring, “Ready or not, I am here.”
It’s October 17, 2022. Half of October has fled under the bridge and over the horizon of the past. But they tell us the past doesn’t really exist once it’s done; really, all the previous days have evaporated, except for what we hold in our minds.
After reaching 95 F yesterday, half a dozen degrees higher than prepared for, today will drop into the upper seventies, maybe striking 80 (26 C). It’s a clear enough sky for it. Nothing but blue from my vantage. Trees have at last begun shifting colors here. Local leaves are mostly going gold or yellow.
Monday’s sunrise tiptoed in at 7:26 this morning like it had a hangover. Sunset will come at 6:26 this evening, just eleven hours later. Next Sunday, we ‘fall back’ in most of the U.S., resetting our clocks to be an hour later, part of a hugely debated bi-annual ritual adopted as law last century.
The Neurons were spying on me this morning. No surprise, right? The tiny peckerheads often do. Going about the usuals needed to void my body and begin to re-assume form and manners for being among humans, I found myself examining a memory about meeting a man. After carefully checking it to see where it came from, I realized it was from a dream – ‘we’d met each other in a dream.’ Case closed, I decided, but the dream was suddenly so vivid.
Well, The Neurons heard ‘we’d me each other in a dream’ and called up Heart and “Magic Man” (1976) for the morning mental music stream. It’s been going over and over in an endless loop, kind of like how phone calls and meetings take place on Monday. Chuckle, chuckle.
So that’s the theme music for this October Monday. Stay positively oriented and negatively tested when it comes to COVID and its variants and the flu. It is definitely coffee time for me. I’m positive about it. Here’s Ann and Nancy and the band with their song. Cheers
