Monthly Archives: September 2010

Just write, keep moving forward. Also titled:I joined NaNoWriMo!

Posted on September 27, 2010 | 10 comments

Last night I did it! I joined NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month challenge that is scheduled for the whole month of November annually. Then I discovered that there are over 500 people in Nova Scotia who have signed on, a few are in my area.

As I mentioned in my post of August 19 ’10, the challenge is to write 50,000 words, with NO editing until December 1 at the earliest. Just write. Keep writing … 1667 words a day will make it just over the goal.

I don’t know what I am going to write about in November. Already I have been praying that God will bring something to mind by November 1 that will fit the bill. If He doesn’t it could be quite nonsensical, which is totally acceptable as long as I’m writing .. something .. anything. Just write, keep moving forward.

That sounds like the challenge of life, doesn’t it? It is coming into the time of year when my body reacts to not enough sunshine, and depression threatens. Keep moving forward. Don’t let it stop you! That is what I have had to take hold of and walk out. It is a frame of mind, and when the mind is affected by not enough sunshine it just gets to feeling blah, which affects the body, and everything becomes harder to accomplish. I need challenges, not overwhelming ones, but things that stimulate my mind and help me to keep going. Depression is a horrible thing, I’ve lived through some miserably dark times in that state over the years. The past two years have been much better than many before them, and I am determined to stay on top of it this winter too. NaNoWriMo may prove to be one way to keep me going.

Do you plan to join NaNoWriMo this year?
Do you or someone you know suffer from depression?
Perhaps the writing challenge can make this winter’s dark hours more easily handled by getting you started on a novel. Or … to help you just write and/or keep moving forward.

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

10 Comments

Posted in Preambles to Writing

Tagged depression, NaNoWriMo, writing challenge

Are you enticed by distractions?

Posted on September 24, 2010 | 6 comments

Two weeks ago I wrote about coyotes waking me in the wee hours of the morning. Well, last night there was a full moon, and after reading until late, around 1:30 am I heard them again. They sounded so close. It wasn’t chilling as before but I am always captivated by their yipping and barking and howling. I even wished I could see them doing all this, it’s fascinating.

After hearing them I got to thinking. I know a farmer, who, when an animal in his herd dies, buries it immediately. But I know of another farmer, when faced with the same situation, leaves it for the coyotes to clean up. (Yes, that is me going .. ewwwww!) And then he laments about coyotes being a nuisance around his farm. Hmmm

Want to know where my thoughts went on that? Bury it! Keep the scavengers away. If there is something to entice them they will return, you can count on it. It’s the same with crows. If they tear apart that bag of garbage waiting for pick-up, they will continue to come back on garbage collection days .. just in case. They’re not stupid – although I’ve lambasted them more than once out of frustration … “Stupid crows! stay out of my garbage!”

If it weren’t available to them they wouldn’t get it. There would be nothing to attract crows … or coyotes … or uninvited life forms of any kind.

Which leads me to my next point … it’s the same with sin in our lives. When we have a bad habit or have done something which we regret, don’t leave it out for everyone to see and talk about – or in other words, don’t continue in it. Bury it .. in Christ. Hand it over to Him, repent, and move on without it. Leave that negative thing behind. It will reek of death, it will attract negatively interested parties, it will even keep enticing us to revisit it. We must stay clear of negative influence, be it our own habit to be broken or the close company of persons with like interests of poor choice.

… And what communion has light with darkness? — 1 Corinthians 6:14c

The coyotes howl and sound exciting and wonderful but that doesn’t mean I can or should befriend them. What looks good at a distance, up close may well lead to one’s downfall.

Are there things that entice you and lead you away into places you shouldn’t go, or even .. as for me .. into procrastination? It seems that my biggest problem right now, and ongoing, is misuse of time. (Any pointers?)

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

6 Comments

Posted in Preambles to Writing

Tagged Christ, coyotes, crows, distractions, garbage, habits, procrastination, sin, temptation

Do you get your memories out of the trash heap?

Posted on September 21, 2010 | 8 comments

I am trying to come up with a topic to write about. Sometimes it is there waiting for me, more often it has gone into hiding. This is the latter.

What, oh what, shall I write about that will be worth sharing? hmmm

When trying to think of something I sift through my day, my week, summer vacation … whatever is filed away in my memory bank that is not under too much thinking and filing and stashing. You know, what we do with our memories … put them on a shelf not too far back to bring out and enjoy later, or file them away for safe keeping for an indefinite length of time, or just toss them onto the heap of regrets and disappointments to dig through when there is more time to do so. There should never be time to dig through the trash heap, unless to learn something, but never enough to wile it away there.

Do you happen to remember a children’s TV program called Fraggle Rock? (It’s still in reruns in some places.) There was the wise Marjory trash heap that would receive the occasional visitor seeking advice. Notice I said occasional. For good reason. Don’t go there. Mostly the trash heap consists of smelly yucky garbage, the mental trash heap being one of embarrassing moments, wrong thoughts, mistakes, regrets, failures, bad stuff … not a nice place to expend one’s brain power.

So, why did I bring that up? Because too often we tend to waste time thinking back over things that cannot be changed, cannot be fixed, cannot be forgotten if we keep digging them out to review again and again. Best to leave them alone to compost into a life lesson.

Our experiences have a way of changing us, affecting how we think or ‘see’ things, bringing us to new understanding, and often it is by the fact of their just being part of our living. Stored away in our memory, and left alone to decay into what comes next … they become a part of what makes us who we are. If not stored away properly they can affect us negatively — through our constant rehashing of them, not allowing ourselves to heal from the memories, instead taking them out for our private pity parties and our public displays of “you don’t know what my life is/was like.” But if not allowing the stench to touch us, not going back and digging it up to agonize over again and again, instead dealing with it in good and healthy ways, we allow ourselves to heal and grow and mature in mind and emotions.

So, what am I writing about? It seems I am saying … stay out of the trash heap, and compost instead. 🙂 Do not allow your past to hold you there, to hinder your walk and progress in life, or to prevent you from believing. Move out of that place of powerlessness, that desert of despair, that tunnel of torment. Walk out! Look up and walk out.

The One who has a plan and a purpose for your life made you to be the creative person you are. Use that gift to its fullest and crawl out of the garbage heap! Aspire. Believe. Create. Dream. Explore. Fly. Grow. Hope. Inspire. Jump in. Keep going – and … LIVE your Life!

What has helped you to keep going, not allowing Marjory the trash heap’s stink to permeate your life?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

8 Comments

Posted in Preambles to Writing

Tagged attitudes, Fraggle Rock, life lessons, memories, positive attitude, Writing

Coyotes! So what has awakened you lately?

Posted on September 10, 2010 | 8 comments

A few mornings ago I was rudely awakened at 5:00 AM. What yanked me out of a deep sleep was high pitched whiny, shrill screaming, or so it seemed. It took me only milliseconds to realize that what I was hearing was a pack of coyotes. They were so loud that I thought they were right out in the field by our house, but it seems they were a little further away than that. Sure coulda fooled me at the time!

My first concern was for the young calves in the herd out in the pasture, but later I learned that the cattle were content and unconcerned. Perhaps the pack was hunting deer. Then this morning on my walk I discovered hundreds of porcupine quills along both sides of one section of the road. Maybe the older coyotes were teaching their young to hunt. Could that have been the final result of one animal’s life, one conquest of the hunt?

It is always startling to me when coyotes begin their communication so suddenly, increasing in volume as they all chime in … somewhere out there in the night. It sends chills down one’s back to hear them howl, yip, bark, almost scream … a few at a time, then in pleasing unison across the hills to one another. Their voices – young mingling with mature – carry far, filling the darkness with haunting, unnerving song that rises and falls, then just as abruptly — stops. A few final rambunctious young ‘yip yips’, then nothing. Silence.

Amazing, fascinating, alarming. Spooky.

Have you encountered something in your life that has come with just such surprise? Something that has left you quaking in your slippers? Have you been awestruck? Or has it shown you something more amazing, something that you didn’t know about yourself?

Has it inspired you to write, dream, attempt something new, or maybe even change course? Do you feel emboldened?

What has awakened you lately?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

8 Comments

Posted in Preambles to Writing

Tagged Coyote, Hunting, Writing

Remember the Toni home perm?

Posted on September 4, 2010 | 4 comments

Because Laura (http://lauraabest.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/is-every-child-an-artist/ ) requested this in comments, and because one good home perm deserves another … I relented and dug out my school photo from my very first year in school. Yes, Mum used to give me Toni’s … home perms … and sometimes they were okay, other times they seemed too curly for my liking. Now I wouldn’t mind having more curls but natural wave is acceptable.

I was a very shy little girl, so I don’t recall how the photographer ever got me to smile unafraid for that first year’s photo session.

Anyway, do you have any such tales from your ‘long ago’?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

4 Comments

Posted in Miscellanea

Tagged Curl, Hair, school, Toni home perm

ends and beginnings

Posted on September 2, 2010 | 4 comments

This week we are experiencing a heat wave in Nova Scotia. As we enter hurricane season, Hurricane Earl is making its way up the eastern coastline, and we here are enjoying (or not!) the high temperatures and heavy humidity. By the time Earl arrives on our shores its hurricane status is expected to be downgraded to tropical storm strength. That means we will get lots of wind and rain but with less fury, and probably some areas will suffer damage, but because the storm keeps veering a little off the course it was on we do not yet know for certain how much of the province will take the brunt of it. One good thing is that the storm will sweep the humidity away with its passing, and the temperatures will lessen by more than ten degrees making it seem quite cool in comparison to what we are enduring now. (I want to make it clear that I am not complaining – because Summer is far too short – but the high heat and humidity combination really drains one’s energy.)

For awhile this evening my husband and I stood out on our deck enjoying the refreshing evening breeze, which is cooler than what the fans can push around in our house. I love looking at the sky filled with stars, and listening to the night sounds. How amazing it all is! Now the crickets are chirping steadily, a sure sign of the end of Summer. This morning I heard another flock of geese honking loudly in unison as they flew over, another sure sign of the oncoming Autumn.

And today …. today our darling little grandson started school! How can it be this all-important day so soon?! He was excited to climb onto that big yellow school bus, taking him into the next phase of his precious life. (Later over the telephone he told us he enjoyed his first day of school.)

I remember my very first day of school. It was horrible; I was so painfully shy. And to add to the problem, I had become very ill with tonsillitis during that summer and had to have a tonsillectomy just before school began. Of course, that meant that I was unable to start at the same time as the other children, which made it even more difficult.

So … do you remember your very first day of school? What kind of memory making day was it for you?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

4 Comments

Posted in Preambles to Writing

Tagged Canada, Hurricanes, memory making, Nova Scotia, school, Summer, tonsils