Photo by Miguel u00c1. Padriu00f1u00e1n on Pexels.com
I’ve been writing off and on, mostly off the last few weeks. It’s been really rough as every day when I come home, I am still looking for Gracie. Last week, as I have done for years, I kept a portion of my steak off to the side for Gracie. Then it hit me, that she is no longer here. I’ll have to admit my eyes teared up a bit.
The writing I have done has been divided between three projects. My memoir, my sci-fi book and my character driven book. Three widely divergent genres. This is probably not a recipe for success as an author. Most authors write in one genre only. Very, very few write and are successful in multiple genres.
It’s the same problem I had when I was actively woodworking. I would work on multiple different projects. Once I had finished, I never wanted to go back to it again. I liked the challenge of doing new things. In my writing, it’s the same way. If you go back and look at my short stories, most are in different genres. Some worked, some didn’t. Rarely did I continue a character in multiple stories with the exception of Harry Gruen. Will I ever write another Harry story? Doubtful as I’m pretty bored with him already.
The one thing I that I do enjoy is writing short stories, but I’m having a hard time finding the enthusiasm to write any. Hopefully, I’ll start writing them again, but for now, I’ll work on my projects.
Did quite of bit of driving today at work. Usually this means I have time to think of stories to tell. Some of my best stories came to me while driving. My mind wanders here and there, going from one idea to another. I’ll ruminate on a promising idea and from that I have the framework of a story to tell. It’s not 100% foolproof as evidence of my thinking today.
Most of the ideas were a tad weird, which is an understatement. I quickly rejected one idea after another. Yes, I know I had given my mind permission to run amok, but the thoughts today frightened even me. I’m not sure they need to be brought to life in the pages of this blog or any blog.
Then I started thinking of yesterday’s story of Trust. I realized I could have done a better job, but as my wont, I figure out what I want to accomplish with the story and run with it. Due to the topic being trust or lack of trust to be fair, I started thinking of my book that I’ve been writing off and on for the last ten years. A huge storyline in the book is trust.
It’s been well over a year since I last wrote anything on that book, so I reread what I had so far. Ideas are bubbling up and I feel the need to write on the book some more. Strange thing is, long ago, I realized that I will probably never attempt to publish this book or share it. At odd times in my life, I feel compelled to work on it. It seems to awaken in me a spirit of writing.
What the hell? I rolled over and checked my clock on the nightstand. 1:52 am with someone banging on my door is not a good sign. I jumped up and threw on my robe and headed for the front door.
BANG BANG BANG
What? Someone’s banging on my backdoor? I flipped on the lights in the kitchen and saw a wildly disheveled man through the glass door. Pausing for a second, I realized who it was. With a sigh, I reached out and unlocked the door and opened it.
“About damn time,” he exclaimed as he entered my kitchen, “You got to help me!”
“Jack, relax. Have a seat and tell me what’s so damn urgent at 2 in the morning.”
Jack looked wildly around the kitchen and rushed to the opening to my living room to take a peek. “You are alone, aren’t you?”
I sighed and nodded. Again, I gestured for Jack to take a seat. He looked around the kitchen a bit more and then scurried to the chair muttering, “Can’t be too sure they aren’t watching.”
Here we go again I thought. I went over and started making coffee as I knew it would be a long night. This wasn’t the first time Jack had come over with his wild conspiracy theories, though it had been almost a year since the last time I had seen him. He was quickly becoming the bane of my existence. I rued the day I had ever befriended him.
“So who is watching?”
“CIA, FBI, NSA, DHS, FDA, FTC, and any number of other three letter agencies. I haven’t figured out all of them yet, but I will, I will…”
“Wait, FDA? The Food and Drug Administration? Why would they be watching you?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know, but ever since that time at Applebee’s when I drank their water and next thing you know I found myself in a field outside of town missing my pants, I’ve suspected they are drugging me. Don’t trust anybody, I’m telling you, don’t trust a soul.”
I carefully looked at Jack. He hadn’t changed his filthy clothes in what looked like weeks. I doubt his hair had ever seen a brush or comb and his beard was wildly tangled. He sat there wringing his hands with his eyes shifting constantly looking around. It was easy to see him as a crazy, deranged, homeless person, but I knew he had a house. He had definitely deteriorated since the last time I had talked to him.
“But, but, but, this time, this time,” his voice rose, “I’ve got them, yes sirree, I’ve got them, I’ve got them by the short and curly’s this time. They won’t be doing any more mind control stuff with me ever again.”
“Really?”, I said as I brought my coffee mug to the table and sat down across from Jack.
“Yep, yes, si, ja and every other way you can say it. I’ve got them. I discovered my house is wired to the hilt with camera’s and microphones. But, but, but, I was smart. I didn’t let on that I knew I was being watched. Instead I hacked them, I hacked them all. I’ve got proof now. No more can people say that Jack is a nut. I’ve got proof!”
This was not good, it seemed that Jack had completely gone off the rails. I thought about calling 911, but realized that in his state, he might do something completely crazy. Better to let him talk it out and maybe calm down enough to send him back home.
“Jack, that sounds great. Can you show me this proof,” I said in my most calm voice.
“Nope, no, nada, can’t trust anyone. Don’t trust a soul. I’ve got the proof on a flash drive and no one is getting it from me.” He stopped shifting his eyes and looked directly at me for the first time since entering my kitchen. “I’m pretty smart, I am. I devised a container for the flash drive and swallowed it. Yep, they ain’t getting it from me without a fight.”
This was bad news indeed. I reached into my robe pocket and withdrew my taser gun. Pointing it directly at Jack’s chest, I pulled the trigger and two wires with a prong on them shot out and embedded themselves into his chest. Jack looked down in surprise as I pulled the second trigger sending 10,000 volts into him. His chest arced and he fell over onto the floor twitching uncontrollably. I could see that it had caused him to pass out.
I got up and went and opened my silverware drawer. I lifted the tray up and out and picked up my secure cellphone along with a hypodermic needle all primed. Flipping open the cellphone, I immediately said, “This is Snowdog Three. I need a disposal unit at my location to perform a stomach autopsy of subject Two Charlie X-Ray Delta. Also need a scrub team at his residence. Stat!”
I walked over and crouched beside Jack. His eyes started fluttering and I knew he would awaken soon. I inserted the needle into his neck and his eyes popped open.
“Wha….why?”
I sighed as I pressed the plunger and said, “Jack, you should have followed your own advice. Don’t trust anyone.”
It had been a tense hour since breaking away from the dock at the marina. Having to navigate the river to the ocean while under motor power was bad enough, then to transition to sails left me full of worry. Had I forgotten anything? Were the sails trimmed correctly? Being a novice sailor, I didn’t feel too comfortable about being on the open sea for the first time in my new boat. I keep feeling I should have studied more and taken more boating classes. Being the guy type I am, I dismissed the training and thought I would figure it out as I go.
Slowly, it dawned on me that I had finally reached my dream of sailing. As I looked upon the reflections of the waves, it left a bittersweet feeling in me. Yes, I had achieved my life-long dream, but I was alone. My wife had passed last year of cancer. We had married right after High School and forty years later, I found myself alone for the first time in my adult life. She should have been on the boat with me, but each year, we had postponed our dream until it was too late. After grieving for months, on a whim, I sold the house we had lived in for forty years and bought a brand new sailing boat.
I set course to the southeast as the wind was blowing from the west. The waves were a tad choppy, but the boat which I had named after my wife, the Heather C, rode gracefully on the seas. I should have been grinning from ear to ear, but my eyes brimmed with tears. I had no destination in mind, but as I looked up to the partly cloudy skies, I said, “Heather, we finally realized our dream, just too damn late.”
Grief overtook me and I fell to my knees. I didn’t know how I was going to go through life alone. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to continue on. Maybe I should dive overboard and end it all. We had led an unremarkable life together. Heather wasn’t able to conceive so it had been the two of us always. After a long career at the manufacturing plant, I had taken an early retirement to take care of Heather when she was diagnosed. The cancer was too far gone by that point and quickly claimed her.
A sudden shift of the boat grabbed my attention. I looked up and around and saw dark clouds behind me flashing with lightning. A squall! I had been warned that sudden squalls might pop up and I needed to be prepared. My mind went blank. What should I do? The boat picked up speed and heeled over to the port side. Ah-ha, I need to quickly lower the main sail or the increased wind would push the boat over until it capsized. Frantically, I rushed toward the main mast and completely forgot what line I needed to haul down. I grasped a line at random and pulled hard. The sail tightened even more and I almost lost my balance. I realized then I had forgotten to put on my life jacket. The wind was picking up rapidly and I knew I didn’t have time to retrieve the jacket.
Think dammit! Then I remembered the correct sequence to lower the main sail. I released the lines so I could winch down the sail. Even though I was spinning the winch like a madman, it seemed to take forever to lower it. The rain started coming down as I finished lowering the sail. I quickly gathered the main sail to reef it to the boom. As I was tying the last knot, a shift in the wind caused the boom to swing toward me and hitting me in the chest. I felt my breath leave me as my feet left the deck of the boat. Some instinct in me caused me to try to grab onto anything in an effort to not be swept overboard. Somehow, I grasped onto the cleat holding one of the boat’s mooring lines. I almost lost my grip when my body slammed into the side of the boat.
I held on with dear life to the cleat. Dazed by the blow, my mind refused to think. I knew I had to keep hold or I would be lost to the sea. Not surprisingly, I remembered that the people who had tried to teach me to sail had said that the sea was a cruel mistress. Now I knew exactly what they meant. I tried pulling myself up onto the boat, but lacked the strength. It would be easy to give up I thought. Maybe this was the time I could rejoin Heather in the afterlife. My fingers started to loosen, but then my survival instincts kicked in and held on tightly to the cleat.
It seemed like I had been hanging on for hours, but in reality only for a few minutes when the wind stopped abruptly and the waves calmed down. I looked around but only saw dark skies except directly above me. I had never heard of a squall having an eye, but this looked exactly what I had imagined the eye of a hurricane would be like.
My eyes widened in alarm when a bright shimmering light came from above. Could it be an angel? Could it be Heather to save me? My fingers numb with pain slowly slipped from the cleat and I fell into the sea. Briefly, my head went underwater and I kicked for the surface. My boat, the Heather C had already moved away from me and was almost back into the storm. I watched as it slowly disappeared into the driving rain. This is it. Eventually I would tire of treading water and sink into the sea drowning. A sense of peace came over me. I knew I wouldn’t fight it.
But what about that light I saw? I looked up and the light was still there, but not as bright. In fact, it looked like a metallic shape instead that was glowing. What in the world is this? Did I hit my head when going overboard? Is this a dream? The shape gradually grew closer and then a most amazing thing happened. A portion of it opened up and there were stairs. The stairs moved next to me and I climbed onto them. Frozen in shock, I didn’t know whether to climb up and into the round shape or dive off and swim as fast as I could away. Before I realized it, the stairs had risen and I was deposited inside an oval room. Perhaps I was dead and this was the last vestiges of my mind conjuring up a hallucination.
Then a loud voice said, “Welcome!”
“What? Who is that? Where am I?”
Chuckling, the voice said, “You are on my spacecraft. I saw that you were about to die and decided to come save you.”
I tried to speak, but my mouth just opened and closed.
“I know, you are asking why and the answer is simple. It’s been a lifelong dream of mine to explore this galaxy, however, I find it has been a bit boring to do it alone. So I decided to pluck you out of the predicament you were in and have you join me.”
“Umm, what, wait, how?” I gibbered
Laughingly, the voice said, “Relax dude and enjoy the ride.”
I sat back and pondered all that had happened. Perchance this was fate, might even be divine providence. I pictured Heather smiling at me and knew then that this is meant to be. I don’t know where I’m going, but it sure will be interesting to find out what happens.
Sigh, yet another poorly written book, full of misspellings, grammar errors and jarring viewpoint shifts. Why is it so hard to find a good written book lately? I looked over at my wife on the other end of the couch. She was knitting a scarf, or was it a hat? Meanwhile, she glanced up at the tv occasionally watching yet another one of her daytime soaps. I couldn’t stand those things, that’s why I kept my hearing aids off whenever she turned on the tv.
I glanced out the window and it looked to be a beautiful day. We shouldn’t be sitting here in our retirement age sitting on the couch, reading bad books and watching tv all day long. In that instant, I made a decision.
Turning up my hearing aids, I turned and said to my wife, “Honey, it’s a beautiful day. Why don’t we go take a walk on the beach?”
She arched her eyebrow and looked sidelong at me, “The beach? I’m watching my soaps. Besides, are your knees up for the walk?”
Sighing, “Never mind about my knees, it’s the last day of summer and we haven’t walked the beach once this year. You stream the soaps, so you can pause it and watch after.”
Pursing her lips in thought, she looked at my face for a long moment. “Perhaps we could go for a short walk, it has been a long time.”
We got our shoes on and light weight jackets and drove to the beach. I was right, it was beautiful there with the softly roaring of the waves, the fresh air and feel of sand on our bare feet. We had taken off our shoes after crossing the soft sand to the packed sand near the water’s edge. Slowly we walked along, side by side. We didn’t hold hands as we did many years ago. She was looking at the surf and a guy on a kite surfer in the distance.
Suddenly I stopped. With creaking knees, I stooped down and picked up a perfect starfish. It had to be at least six inches across. My wife had stopped a couple of paces after I did, perhaps sensing I wasn’t next to her any more. I held out my hand and she grasped it to help me back standing. Handing her the starfish, I watched her eyes light up. A smile appeared that bespoke of pure joy. I couldn’t help but grin.
As she examined the starfish, I twisted my head to work out a kink in my neck. I spied a young man sitting on the beach about twenty yards from us. He was writing and occasionally glancing at us. Curious as to what he was writing, I slipped my hand in my wife’s hand and gave her a gentle tug toward the man. As he was sitting on the soft sand, it was slow going. Halfway to him, he stopped writing and looked up at us. I waved my other hand in greeting and kept trudging toward him.
“Hello young man. I’m sorry to bother you, but I felt an overwhelming desire to know what you are writing.”
The young man looked down at his notebook and back up at me. Wordlessly, he handed the notebook to me. He said, “It’s a character sketch. I come down here to the beach and pick out a person or a couple and describe them and imagine what their life is like.”
“Hmmph, I’ve never heard of such a thing. Are you an author?”, I inquired.
He shook his head, “No, I’m an aspiring writer but hope to be published one day.”
I looked down at what he had written. Surprisingly, it had no misspellings. The grammar was almost perfect. He had described my wife and I to the tee. I handed back his notebook to him and looked off into the distance for a minute thinking.
“Young man, you are not an aspiring writer at all.” I declared. With that, his face fell in disappointment. My wife grinned and gave me a small punch in my arm.
I chuckled and said, “You are a writer, a darn good one. Right now you are an aspiring author, but I think one day you will be a great author. Thank you for letting me read a small part of your writings.”
His eyes widened and his mouth opened as in shock. Maybe no one had ever told him that he was talented. I saluted him with two fingers and turned to walk back near the shore. My wife slipped her hand in mine as we walked. We both had smiles on our faces, mine from reading well written words and hers from having a perfect starfish.
“I don’t know why we don’t come to the beach more often. Why is it that we only seem to come on the last day of summer?”, I mused.
My wife laughed, “Because dear, you’ll be on your back for the next week with aching knees or have you forgotten the last five summers?”
I stopped and drew her hands towards my face and gave her a kiss on her knuckles. “I do remember, dear. I’m not going senile yet. I only wish I could come more often just to see you smile.”
She grinned even more broadly, “I do love you Henry, and I know you love me, even if you never say it. Let’s go home, it’s time to get you off your legs and eat supper.”
As we started to exit the beach, I turned and looked back. I wondered if this was the last time I would ever get to go to the beach. At my age, I was slowing down more and more. I treasured this last day of summer at the beach. Peering down at my wife, I knew I had to say something.
“Grace, I love you.”
Want to be part of the Weekly Writing Challenge? Using the prompt above, write your story and publish it with a link to this story. Make sure you tag it either md-wwc or #md-wwc
Photo by Miguel u00c1. Padriu00f1u00e1n on Pexels.com
I’m going to start with health news first. My frozen shoulder is thawing out nicely. I’ve been doing daily exercises that are painful, but have increased my range of motion tremendously. I still have a constant pain, but it is much less now. At least now I can sit and write without having to take a break every few minutes.
On to writing progress. This part I’m going to ramble a bit, so feel free to skip it. I’ve been reflecting why my writing has deteriorated since I stopped writing at the end of July. Before I stopped, I used to be able to sit and write a story in about twenty minutes. A few minutes of basic editing and I published. The words flowed and generally the stories were well written. Since I started back up, it has been a completely different story.
I’ve struggled to even come up with a story based on my weekly prompt. When I do have a small germ of an idea, I’ll write a paragraph or two and then go completely blank. The stories don’t flow and I’m not real happy with the quality. It takes me about two hours to come up with a semi-decent story. This has been extremely frustrating to me and part of the reason why I haven’t been able to restart the blog properly.
Last night I had an epiphany. It all makes sense now. I went back to my early stories from last year. Reading through them, the quality is not as good as it was this last spring and early summer. Granted, I was starting out and not as well versed in the art of writing. As I looked at more stories, I could see the progression. Steadily, they were getting better and better. Wow, who would have thought that practice makes perfect? Yes, I know, I’ve been preaching that since I started, but somehow I completely forgot.
My writing skills have become rusty and the only cure is to start over and just write. Quantity over quality right now. I need to trust the process. Instead of bemoaning the lost time, I need to remember always to “Suck it up”, “Deal with it” and “No sympathy”. In order to get back to where I was at, it’s going to require daily writings. More than likely the writings will be dreck at first, but as I get more comfortable with putting words to paper so to speak, the old creative juices will come back and also the quality will naturally increase.
One of the the things I’ve told my children and also others is 80% of the key to success is to show up and suit up. In other words, be there on time and ready to work. 15% is determination to be the best you can be and the other 5% is the talent that you bring to your endeavor. I have a talent for writing, but talent alone will not and cannot be all that there is. Without showing up and writing every day and having that will power to write no matter what, I’ll never get to the level that I was at.
Enough rambling for today. My progress this week is being restarted once again. I have another weekly prompt that I will be writing today. Yes, I’m going to be doubling and tripling the weekly prompts until I get caught up. The goal of 52 prompts in one year is still doable, but will take a lot of work.
“It was the darnedest thing. This guy walks into store. He looked funny.”
“What do you mean, funny?”
“Well, the first thing I noticed is that his shoes made a slapping sound. That’s because he was wearing those big clown shoes.”
“Clown shoes? What color where they?”
“Well, they were red with white polka dots. I They were so big, I couldn’t help but think that they would be hard to walk wearing them.”
“What else did you notice about him? What was he wearing?”
“Look, I’m sure everyone else has already told you what he looked like.”
“Yes, but I want to be sure about all the details, so go ahead and tell me everything about how he looked. Besides that, you were the closest to the guy.”
“Okay, he had on these big purple glasses. You know, the ones you get at a carnival or novelty store. He also had what looked like a wig.”
“Wait? A wig? Are you sure?”
“Yeah, it was definitely a wig. I would say it was a Cher wig. You know, black hair that was way too straight and it came down to his knees.”
“Interesting. Go on”
“Well, he was carrying a bunch of balloons.”
“In his right hand or left?”
“Definitely his left hand. Then he stopped in front of me and pulled out a toy gun.”
“Did you know it was a toy gun immediately?”
“Oh yeah, not a doubt. It was bright orange and yellow. He pointed it right at me and pulled the trigger. There was a light pop and a flag came out with the words ‘Bang’ on it.”
“Then what happened?”
“I figured it was a practical joke and I started laughing and looking around to see who had paid this guy to do this silly stunt.”
“When did you know it wasn’t a joke?”
“Well, he pulled out another gun…”
“With his right or left hand?”
“It was his left hand for sure.”
“Wait, wasn’t he carrying balloons with his left hand?”
“Yes, but when he pulled the trigger on the toy gun, he let the balloons go and they floated up to the ceiling. See up there?”
“Yes, I see them. What did he do with the toy gun?”
“Hmm, I don’t know. One moment it was in his hand, the next it disappeared. Anyways, with the other gun, he shot the two Brinks guards that were collecting the days receipts.”
“Was the gunshots loud?”
“No, they were like an airsoft pistol. The guards slapped their necks and then went down. I could see darts sticking out. Are they okay?”
“Yes, they were apparently knocked out by tranquilizer darts.”
“Well, that’s good to know. I was worried about them.”
“They are already awake and the EMT’s are checking them out. So what did he do next?”
“Well, this is what made this whole thing surreal. He put his left finger to his lips like he was telling me to be quiet and then…”
“Which hand did he use?”
“That’s what made it strange, he used his left hand again. I don’t know what happened to the gun. I mean, he could have put it back into his coat. It was a long trench coat. Dark brown, I think.”
“That is strange. Keep going.”
“Well, he picks up a bag of cash from the one guard and then walks out almost in a saunter with his shoes slapping the whole way.”
“What did you do then?”
“Quite frankly, I was frozen in shock. I couldn’t believe all that had happened. Have you guys caught this guy yet?’
“Um, no unfortunately. But we are getting closer each time.”
“Wait? He’s done this before? Why hasn’t there been any news about it?”
“Quite simply, this is the fourth place he’s hit today. I’m sure we’ll get a break pretty soon.”
“Detective! Detective! They spotted him over at the Avenues Mall, looks like he’s hit another place already.”
“Damn it. Um, thank you ma’am. If you can think of anything else, let one of the patrol guys know.”
“Sure, okay. I’m not sure who are the bigger clowns here, that guy or you cops.”
Want to be part of the Weekly Writing Challenge? Using the prompt above, write your story and publish it with a link to this story. Make sure you tag it either md-wwc or #md-wwc
Sometimes you have to take a step back in order to go forward. This past month I’ve been focused on editing and revising. It’s become a chore. Yes, it advances me to my goal of being published, but detracts from the main reason I’m writing. Mainly, the joy of writing a story. Sometimes they are received well, other times they fall flat. Regardless, I enjoy writing each and every one of the stories. The more I write, the better the stories and more importantly the better the writing.
I looked back at some of my early writings and I cringe. What was I thinking? Some of them look like a total hack job. This shows me how far I’ve progressed. I’ve still got a ways to go. It is said that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at anything. I’m not anywhere close to that number yet. I’ve yet to complete a novel. I’ll work on it in spurts, then something will come up to distract me from it. It takes a bit to get back into writing the novel.
I don’t expect my first novel to do well. Maybe my fourth or fifth. Just like writing short stories, it takes practice to write a novel that I will be proud of. Writing the novel is a major project. Editing my memoir is a major project. I’m not at the level of writing to be able to do both at the same time. I could edit and revise on certain days of the week and write the novel on other days, but it doesn’t quite work that way with me. I need to write on the novel for several days in order to get back up to speed. Once I stop writing, then I have to start the process over again.
I hope to do the final revising of the memoir this week. Maybe I will and maybe I won’t. I’m not going to pressure myself. It will come when it needs to come. Meanwhile, I will post my weekly writing challenge tonight. It’s a hard one in that it could go several ways. I always have a problem with these type of prompts. So many ideas, but only one story. I could write multiple stories on the prompt, but I feel that would get repetitive and negate the purpose of the challenges.
This has been an editing week. I’m really liking ProWritingAid as it points out more things I wouldn’t have even thought to look at. For instance, I have several paragraphs where I start every sentence with “I”. Currently rewriting those paragraphs to make the flow better and not sound repetitive. I’m currently at three (3!) passive sentences, down from originally 56. I’m struggling to rewrite the last three, but I’ll get there.
Speaking of struggling, this weekend is the half-way point of my Weekly Writing Challenge. To me, this one should be special. Stupendous, marvelous and, above all else, astounding. Unlike last week, where I could have gone in a dozen different ways to write the challenge, this one is pretty straightforward. And I’m drawing a complete blank. I can’t visualize anything but a boring story.
I’ve sat down many times in the last couple of days to see if I could come up with something that doesn’t completely suck. Usually, I’ll write a first sentence and the story will come to me. This time, not so much. I’ve written at least a dozen first sentence’s and every time it leaves me stuck. Could this week finally be my doom?
I’ve not written about cancer lately, due to me being cancer free, but I’ve noticed a peculiar thing. Every little ache or pain causes me instantly to think, “Cancer!” It’s almost as if I’ve become paranoid. I went to the dermatologist and had a mole that has been bothering me removed. During chemo, the mole dried out and split and has been flaky ever since. I can’t help but wonder if this is cancer. Friday, I received a call and the tests show it was benign. What a relief!
During my annual physical, I complained about my right arm hurting. The doc thinks it is because I had a rash of boils under my right arm. The scar tissue may have contracted my muscles. To be sure, he had me do x-rays of my arm and shoulder. I finally got to see the results yesterday and contrary to my fear of having bone cancer, it showed my bones are good. Looks like physical therapy is in my future.
It’s going to take a long time for me to get over this irrational fear of cancer whenever I experience anything different. I’m not used to living in fear and I don’t like it.
This week has been all about editing. Not my strongest suit, but something that I need to work on. Slowly I’m getting there, but it seems like I’m slogging through a mud pit. I’ve decided that I need help. I’m going to pull the trigger on buying a year’s worth of premium for ProWritingAid. Of all the editing software I’ve seen, it fits the bill the best.
I’m on day 2 of my stop smoking process. I only get to smoke 19 cigarettes today. Yesterday was the first day I’ve only smoked 1 pack. I’ve been a pack and a half smoker for a while. When I visited with my youngest daughter at their new home, I went over two hours without smoking. When I left and came home, I smoked and I got a buzz. Felt lightheaded. From past experiences, this will happen more this week. Not a good recipe for success with trying to concentrate on editing.
I still need to write my Weekly Writing Challenge story. I will post it early tonight. It’s another vague prompt that could go in a number of different directions. Probably what I need to continue to grow as a writer, but indecision is wracking my brain.
I foresee a tough week ahead. I’ve been through tougher weeks in the past, so I know I’ll be able to get past all the obstacles.
Writing with Cancer 