I’m back …

Photo credit 

Did you miss me …

or even know that I was gone? Did you think of me during these weeks or stop on your mad schedule to take pause and wonder where I am?

I’ve been ruminating over my loyal readers, those faithful few who keep me coming back for more.

Trying to decide whether to be flippant, fierce or feisty and wondering how I should begin my new season of blogging.

This break accomplished a couple-few tasks. I became a voyeur … not always “liking” posts on Facebook because I didn’t feel like it.

I didn’t comment on blog posts as this was part of my moratorium on the internet.

I broke off communications with other parts of me and got an eye-full of who I thought I was.

 Poster credit

 

I rock forward to funny. I rock back to sad. I see the two sides of my life, the ephemeral state of my moon and stars, the signs of my birth.

A Monkey child, I was born on the cusp of opposites … the serious Virgo and the light hearted Libra … captured by the laughter of my moon … the two sides of me.

We’ve done battle … me and her … bloody-bare-fisted-battles … fighting for dominance … fighting for center stage. The up-side tells the sad-sack to get over herself … the sad-sack reminds the up-side of what happened the last time she listened to her.

 If you think I’m going to let you get me into any more trouble,
you have lost the few gray cells you have left.

Bull shit. You never would have any fun if
I didn’t drag you kicking and screaming.

 

Love it or take up basket weaving …

I am at the starting gate of yet another decade of this life … coming to that time when I have more to look back on than forward to … the time when reflections replace wanderlust.

For six weeks, I’ve given both sides of me a much needed mental vacation.

There was a brief time when I decided not to return to the blog-of-it-all … several lengthy times when I decided to forget Etsy and my work … but then what on earth would I do with all my time? While needed, this vacation nearly drove me mad.

See … I love to work with my hands and create good stuff.

I love to work with my mind and fashion words into stories and all the wonderful things I’ve always enjoyed imagining.

I just love to work. Not housework, mind you, but all other kinds of work. My kids called me a work-a-holic … I called me productive.

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Like it or not, both of me are here for more rollicking blog-fun … more meaningful examination of the life and hard times of a writer in waiting.

I have resumed commenting and liking … though I still don’t like to like it all and I wish people would stop posting pictures of bugs and sad animals. One makes me itch and the other makes me cry.

I reassessed my two on-line shops at Etsy, thought long and hard about how I want to tell my stories, and I started yet another venture.

And so, as in every other time of my life, I intend to use my hands and my mind to work as long and as hard as I can.

The stories we tell …

In each of us there is a story waiting to be told … in every direction you can travel the globe … the stories are there.

Like plump, ripe fruit waiting to be plucked off the tree, waiting for you to take that first bite and taste its sweet flavors.

How does the germ of an idea plant itself in the soft soil of our brain and spout a fruit tree, a beautiful garden or a tangle of weeds? The garden is pruned and cared for with loving hands. The weeds we hack, pull out by the root and send to the trash.

When my work didn’t make it from the brain to the blank page, it remained, often untended, and with no conscious effort on my part, continued to grow. I have a belief that our worst nightmares, fears and insecurities are the product of those lousy weeds needing to go to the trash.

My stories are often event-driven, an alter-ego, a character from an ongoing series, the memory of someone from my childhood or the man across the counter at a diner this morning.

For me it is often as simple as one sentence.

However the idea gets stuck in your brain, it becomes that germ and most of us, at least at the beginning, never know what we’ll get, a bouquet or a tangled mess.

Were do you find the word?

A new day …

Yes, this is a new day … another beginning. I am grateful that my first long absence garnered valuable insights and gave me plenty of time to catch up on my reading and think long about my writing … or as the late and often misunderstood J.D. Salinger said … and I paraphrase … I wish he had gone home and allowed himself to fill up again.

“I am kind of paranoid in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.”

And since he was the consummate neurotic writer of his day … I took his advice and shut up long enough for my muse to fill me once more.

I am encouraged by my two main BETA. Grateful for their tireless loyalty and helpful suggestions … critiques being the stepping stones to learning our craft.

Thanks Shelley … you are living proof that this new world of cyber friends can and does lead to wonderful friendships in the real world.

I send virtual hugs and kisses to several of my dear writer-friends for new releases … to Shelley Freydont a/k/a Shelley Noble, Christi Corbett, Jamie Ayres, and Vicki Batman for her funny stories, her movie reviews with Handsome, and those amazing bags … she is to bags what Imelda Marcos was to shoes.

A major thanks to Laura Drake and Anne R. Allen for keeping the light burning at the end of the tunnel.

A loving nod to Jenny Hansen for her humor and great gluten free recipes … to Patti Yager Delagrange and Sheri De Grom for their courage and loving hearts.

Look at my sidebar for a small list of those blogs I love to read … watch for Sherry Isaacs … she is a wonderful story waiting to visit you where you live.

And last … and with a special nod … the ever-funny-and-forever-optimistic Gloria Richards. Don’t we all smile when she visits? Don’t we all want her to get her stories out there so others can smile?

Whoever your on-line-cyber friends are … however you connect to those of our ilk and … wherever you find the joy of what we love to do …

Remember to be good to your muse.

 

Tell me … enquiring minds want to know …

How do you fill your muse?

And late at night when no one can hear

What do you whisper to the angels?

fOIS In The City