Sometimes...

So instead of writing these days I've been doing very important things. Like right now I'm eating Honey Bunches of Oats with a banana on top and later I'm heading to Panera and Books a Million. The bookstore is having a huge sale today so that's kind of writerly related, right?

Let's see, the past few weeks I've studied a lot, shopped a lot, driven a lot, watched an awful lot of basketball games (loved that!). Writing, however has not been on the top of my list. Why?

Maybe down time explains it. We all need time away. Time to experience what we write about, time to grow deep or spread out in new directions.

Maybe it's been fear. Afraid to write something that doesn't measure up to what I've written before, or doesn't quite hit the quality of another author's writing. I'm not saying those are good things, but they are real things.

Maybe it's laziness. Other stuff is so much easier. Writing, for those who don't do it very much, is the hardest work I've ever done...and I've done some pretty hard work. So I get lazy sometimes.

Maybe it's life. It just gets in the way. Can I hear an Amen from the crowd? Sickness, death, injuries, schedules, holidays...ahhh! This one can't be so easily excused. These are the things that mold our heart and prepare us to write when life calms enough for us to reconsider the laptop.

So whatever the stumbling block, use it to boost yourself up to the next writing venture. Never stop writing.

Tweedle Dee Tweedle Dumb

You get Facebook, reconnecting, hooking up, and all. It's a social universe not difficult to understand. But if you Twitter you're in a whole different social galaxy. You might have checked it out and thought, what a waste. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb never contradicted each other.

As a writer, my tweets are barely off the ground. I do know how to follow others and use the Tweets to my writing advantage. I'm just slow and short on time seeing as how I'm expected to bring home a Friday paycheck. But I digress.

Back to using Twitter. Following The Onion, NYTimes, Chicago Tribune, or Newsweek can bring a ton of topics to the table, like the Newsweek post on America's most misunderstood pet -- the Pit Bull or The Onion's take on the Dept of Human Services cancelling flu season. Don't these spawn a whole slush pile of writing prompts?

They're all out there. The Beast, USAToday, Time, Anderson Cooper or Stephen Colbert. If you're interested in it you can bet someone is tweeting it.

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb wouldn't be at odds over Twitter. If one liked it, the other would figure out a way to use it and better each other.

Care to share how you use Twitter to your advantage?

Learned Something New

Aw, man. This might be a bit embarrassing, but what the hey. Have you ever yanked and pulled on a bottle of pop to free it from that plastic thingy that keeps the bottles together? I have twisted and pulled the bottle; stretched and fought the plastic. Most of the time I end up using kitchen shears to cut the %$#&& thing.

This is my worst thing to do, when putting away groceries. Worse than pulling a greasy precooked chicken off the bone. Worse than repacking steaks for the freezer. Worse than tossing the brown slimy bag of salad and replacing it with a new one.

I'm strong. But that plastic bottle holder is stronger. Superman and 6Million$ Man would have trouble. It's like the plastic was designed to keep aliens from stealing our soft drinks -- one bottle at a time.

Today. Just this morning. I saw a little zipper / perforation in that plastic thingy. And I gave it a tug. And what happens? The bottle slipped out nice and easy.

Now, I'm not one to miss learning something. A week ago, I saw my sister free a Dr. Pepper with ease. When I inspected the 8-pack today, I tried it. Talk about feeling small, out of touch, and just down right goofy. I did.

Now, tell me true. How long has this luxury been around. Did the Pepsi and Coke tell us they made the bottles accessible? Why didn't somebody tell me?

Cliche's Make Us Human- On Occasion

"Fast as lightning" "Look what the cat drug in" "Soft as a butterfly" or 'Sweet as pie"

These are all cliche's, right? But don't we all have to describe scenes where something occurs 'fast as lightning' or a character might want to say to someone 'look what the cat drug in'? The old proverbial 'there's nothing new under the sun' gets tested when we search for a new way to describe in our writing.

To be sure, it's a challenge. I've found myself searching for pen and paper when an idea crosses my mind that I realize is a new way to describe something. Of course, I write on my computer so I end up desperately searching for those scraps of paper to 'jiggle' my memory.

I've also been surprised at the amount of cliche's I've found in some well-respected books. So my thinking is changing a bit on the subject. It seems a few - what I would call - innocent cliche's are okay to sprinkle in my stories. Just a few. As I come across them in other books, I study the setting. It seems when it deals with humans interacting, cliche's are almost expected because they are often universal. City or country, quaint or sophisticated, common phrases are understood by all.

My end result: Cliche's still need to be avoided, but the occasional use is not to be worried over.

No Mail Today

The US Postal service is on holiday today. Who cares? Right? But, remember when we were so obsessed with mail delivery, we didn't think mail service should take a holiday? The first thing we'd do after a hard day at work is grab our mail, flop in a chair, and flip through it.

Personally, I used to be a junk mail freak. Throw away my hand delivered bulk postage mail and suffer serious consequence's. Now, I get irritated with any and all junk mail that lands in my inbox. I even threaten to change PC securities, if my current provider doesn't step up.

There are no holidays with email. We can send / receive hundreds of times a day, 365 a year.

A bad address on snail mail often delayed delivery. But, a bad address on email is not recoverable. I guess there's a big cyber slush pile collecting all the email that gets lost forever.

Other things we like about email: no postage or licking envelopes; no forgetting to put the flag up to let the mailperson know that they have to stop for pick up; no more $25 in a Christmas card left for a person who delivered your mail to the wrong house; and, no more mail strikes (can cyber space go on strike?)

What else do you remember about the good ol' snail mail days? Any nightmares? Happy thoughts? Or are you just glad there's no mail today, because that means a holiday, and you're off work, too?