Superbowl Prediction

My prediction for the Superbowl: A close game going into overtime with a 21-21 tie. Finally the Seahawks will win 24-21.

Covert

More and more I notice interesting words. Covert is one of those. Every time I read or hear that word, covert operations come to mind. Somehow I never think of it as a noun. In an adventure story, the escaping hero found a covert.

Sayings

Looking at a list of some sayings in Spanish and their English translations, I see a couple that struggling writers might enjoy:

1. Where there is desire there is ability.

2. Who runs for pleasure, never tires.

3. From word to deed is a great distance.

Happy New Year

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!

Wishing you all the very best in 2015.

Resolutions?  There are many I should make.  I have this habit of looking back each year to see if I kept them. Usually I don't keep them. The main reason isn't that they are too optimistic or unreachable. Changing priorities turn me off one road onto another.

What Resolutions for the New Year?

Starting to review the year for myself. Looking back before deciding  goals always adds a bit of reality.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Writing

My writing has taken a back seat for awhile, but still doing freewrites daily to keep the practice and habit. Five hundred words is my target. Some days it is very difficult to even write five hundred words -- even nonsense. I like to think that those days are the most helpful with keeping the ease of a daily write.

One Great Way to Write Short Stories

ONE GREAT WAY TO WRITE SHORT STORIES by Ben Nyberg shows a way to write a short story.

What interested me is his view on writers. Are writers made or are they born?  Perhaps a little of both. Here are a couple of quotes from that book:

• "...writing a story requires knowing technique. If you don't have that, no amount of heart or mind will make your stories work. If you do, you can write effective, even publishable stories, even if your creative gift isn't huge."
• "...what you are learning is the technical skill to make the most of whatever storytelling gift you have, to write the best stories you can."

Chromebook

I feel I have joined the computer age. Even though I have been using personal computers since my first Apple in 1979, the feeling that the computer age had left me behind overcame me with the purchase of a Chromebook.

Chromebooks are inexpensive laptops that run Chrome OS. They update automatically and are considered virus safe. They run almost everything through the cloud. I'm not really sure what the cloud is but it seems to me to be a virtual server. It is a place where documents and programs can be stored and used.

The Chromebook works well surfing the net. My problem arose when I wanted to print out a page. I couldn't do it. It prints only from the cloud. I may have been able to save the page to a memory chip and physically take it to another computer with a printer attached, but I didn't try that.

Today I started the set up of a home wireless network through a personal hotspot. After several hours yesterday with tech support, I managed to get the hotspot up and some data paid for. Today I connected another computer to it. It was a breeze to do.

Enjoying a post Thanksgiving mellow. The crazy shopping on Red/Green Friday is not for me.

With the last few warm days of the year catching up on the ends of the Fall projects. Writing continues but with less focus and more for fun and for myself. Is that another way of saying that I have realized that being a published author may be beyond my limit? Perhaps it is.

Thanksgiving

As a kid I didn't like turkey, stuffing, cranberry anything, pumpkin pie, mincemeat pie, squash, or sweet potatoes. Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday. For me it meant getting together with the cousins. The weather was warm enough to play outside -- sometimes with snow, often not.

Finished the moving

Finally emptied the storage garage, swept it out, and handed in the keys.

Monday most of my old computers go to the recycle. No longer any room for them and there doesn't seem to any good home for them. Some of them were clunkers that just got the job done. They lacked style, innovation, or mystique. Others like the Bondwell B310 portable from 1990  thrilled with  their design, capacity, blazing speed, portability, and tons of software.

My hoard goes back to my first typewriter, a graduation present from high school. I branched out into computers with the 1979 Apple II plus.

Cold

Not so cold but this year it really feels cold to me. We're somewhere around thirty degrees. Almost done with moving out of the storage garage. I can see all four walls now and have moved everything I'm keeping. Still have to move a couple of cubic yards of trash to the dump, take four or five old computers to the recycle, and donate a large piece of old furniture that had been quite good in its time (1920's or 30's?). Before that I need to take apart the last platform. I'm hoping that today it will be get warm enough for me. But whether it warms or not, after the laundry, I'm taking apart the platform.

Rockhome Garden

170 miles from Chicago, 30 miles from Champaign, IL, Rockhome Gardens is five miles west of Arcola. It is a unique garden with much unusual rockwork that caters to tourists and gives some insight into the 1800's life and the Amish. Throughout the garden are posted many 'amusing Amish Dutch' sayings. A pamphlet, "Rockhome Sayings", records many of them. Here are a few:

Suggested names for garden clubs: "Hoe and Hope", "Weeders Digest", "Plan and Ponder", and "Yard Birds".

There's no fool like an old fool. You just can't beat experience.

Criticism is the one thing most of us think is more blessed to give than to receive.

A smile always adds to your "face value". 

Rule 10

Found in storage a 1965 Elements of Style in which "Use the active voice." is number 10 not 14 as in my 2000 Fourth Edition.

What changed?

Elementary Rules of Usage forms Part I. Part II, Elementary Principles of Composition,  continues the numbering from Part I. Part I had four less rules in 1965. Life just keep getting more complicated.

Mark Twain

Still sorting, tossing, and giving away stuff from the storage garage. I'm about 35% cleared out;  the work left is daunting. Found an old poster with Mark Twain's profile sketch and a paddle wheeler. I hung it by my desk.

Mark Twain:  "I have known a great many troubles but most of them never happened."

Rule # 14

Rule # 14 in The Elements of Style by Strunk and White: "Use the active voice."

What does it take?

I can't resist library book sales or any group's used book sale. Recently I bought FREELANCE WRITING FOR MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS --BREAKING IN WITHOUT SELLING OUT -- BY MARCIA YUDKIN. This is a 1988 copyright.

Checking on Amazon.com you will find Marcia Yudkin has pages of books, many of them recent releases.

The book I bought has lots of good insights and advice for all writers, not just freelance ones.
In the chapter called  'Succeeding as a Writer', she says:
     "I have a short and a long answer to the question what it takes to break
      into print and keep on getting published. Briefly, it takes humility,
      confidence and persistence.  Humility, so that you can accept
      criticism and improve your writing to a professional level and beyond;
      confidence, so you don't crumple at rejection letters as proof of
      stupidity or ineptitude; and persistence, so you keep on sending out
      queries and submissions that eventually result in publications."

Junk

My writing has slipped a little as I try to close out a storage garage. The old and broken holds for me as much fascination as some people hold for the old in perfect condition. An old coin that shows its wear from the thousands of hands that it has passed through is much more interesting to me than the pristine mint proof sets. The stories that a coin could tell.

Each box of old games, broken cups, and the mementos of travel, becomes a treasure chest of memories and fantasies.