Tuesday, June 26, 2018

#DWHabit - Drama


https://dramakids.com/blog/the-benefits-of-drama/wood-drama-sign/

Today I chose the word Drama for my daily writing.  I have felt at times this week that I was in some sort of an unrealistic play.  I have not written daily as my mom has been hospitalized.  This word popped into my head this morning because I have had at least six people this week make a comment about not wanting to deal with someone's drama, or they were over someone's drama. In the past I always thought of drama as a performance. I guess in a way it is.  However, this last school year and this summer I have heard the word used in a more negative connotation.

What causes someone to create such negative drama in their lives?  Students are always telling me, "Oh so and so is just so full of drama." or "You know so and so is all drama." I have even had family members use that this week.  I don't want a lot of "drama" in my life. I choose to live as drama free as possible.  I also am choosing not to be an active participant in someone else's "drama". I am just praying for strength to carry this through.


Saturday, June 23, 2018

#DWHabit Word of the Day is Block

*Warning - this post may seem to be a bit more of a downer than usual.*


I sat in the hospital room with my mother listening to her tell me about her night.  I wanted to block out all of her discomfort and pain, all of her frustration.  I wanted to block out the phone conversation she'd had the night before she ended up in the hospital. The call came at 10:30 that night. I know the motive behind the conversation. It is always the same. It creates worry in my mom about things she can't do anything about. It worries her that my sister paints such a horrible picture of her life, her daughter's life and her grandchildren's life. She lays this burden on my mom. My mom gives advice that she knows will go unheeded. It is always followed by  my mom telling her to put the problems in God's hands.  Then my mom goes to bed stressed and worried all night.

I walked out of my mom's hospital room today with her preacher. He hugged me and asked how I was doing. I told him I was hanging in there and just wanted my mom to get better. I know that eventually things will get worse with her health and she will leave us. However, I would like to keep her around a while longer.  I told the pastor about my sister's phone call.  I asked him, "How do you block your sister?"  He told me I can't, but I can monitor things and take control of my mom's phone.

I would love to block all of the things that cause my mom stress. I would love to block the pain and illness she is going through. I can't anymore than anyone else can block the bad things that happen in their lives. Besides, if we block everything out, how can we ever hope to raise people up. Blocks are walls we build. They may start out tiny and continue to grow. Maybe we need to learn how to deal with those negative things that block our relationship with God and others. Maybe then we will know true happiness.

Thursday, June 21, 2018

Anger is a Snake




Anger is a snake.
It slithers silently through our life
waiting for the right moment to strike.  
Once it strikes, it’s venom takes over
poisoning our thoughts, attitudes, and all aspects of our life.

Anger coils itself around you,
squeezing all rational thoughts
from your mind. Crushing
the very life from you.

Anger waits silently
for an opportune time
to strike, killing not only
the heart, but the very soul.

Anger is a snake that needs
to be killed before it can
ever rear its ugly head.
You can try to cage it but
that is never the best
answer.

Yes, anger is a slippery, slithery,
snake in the grass, best to be
avoided at all costs.


Tuesday, June 19, 2018

A Child's Imagination: The Floating Fruit Sandwich

https://www.livetheadventureletter.com/education-history/5-ways-to-build-your-childs-imagination/


Today was my mother's 86th birthday.  My daughter, husband and four kids came up for a visit. Visits are not real regular even though they only live an hour south of me. Both work such long hours. Their children are Haylee age 12, Jacob age 7, Greyson age 3, Roland age 2. Haylee has written with me in the past. Today I saw a new talent in the family. While eating lunch I looked at Greyson and asked him what he was eating. We had some fresh pineapple and he was chowing down on it. Suddenly he took two crackers and put a chunk of pineapple between them and said, "It's a fruit sandwich."
Here is the rest of the conversation.

Me:  "A fruit sandwich?"
Greyson: "A floating fruit sandwich."
Me: "Oh a floating fruit sandwich." He suddenly lays it on the floor.
Greyson:  "It crashed. A giant tiger with giant claws hit it and knocked it to the ground."
Me: "A giant tiger?"  At this point the the floating fruit sandwich is once again floating.
Greyson:  "A spaceship came down and lifted the floating fruit sandwich into the sky."

At this point there are two fingers on top of the top cracker. He looks at me and says. "See the tiger is on the floating fruit sandwich."

At this point one of the fingers starts tapping on the cracker and the floating fruit sandwich and the sandwich starts wavering. He says, "Oh no the tiger with the big claws is jumping up trying to hit the spaceship." The floating fruit sandwich slips back down to his plate. He picks it up and says. "The tiger with the giant  claws fell off the floating fruit sandwich." He bit into the floating fruit sandwich and said, "See, the alien ate the floating fruit sandwich."

Our whole day was full of Greyson telling stories. He kept my mother laughing all day. He is only 3. I looked at my mom and said, "Can you imagine what it will be like when Greyson and Haylee decide to tell stories together?"

Monday, June 18, 2018

Excerpt From "The House That Haunts Me"


                                   http://www.oldhouses.com/images/lst/024/24146/XL_71233_RF050215-2.jpg

Over the past week Macy had noticed dark circles under her mom’s eyes and heard her weeping and talking in her sleep. Her mom spent more time each morning writing in her journal. Then two days ago Macy and her brother Bruce had come home from school to find their mom sitting at the kitchen table. In front of her on the table was a letter, her journal, and a cup of coffee in her hand. One look at their mom and Macy knew something was wrong.
She and Bruce sat at the table. Coffee sloshed over the side of the cup as her mom sat it on the table. They waited.
“School ends next week.” Her mother said. “When you come home the last day I’ll have the car all packed. We’re going on a little trip back to Idaho.” Bruce bounced in his chair. Macy placed her hand on his leg to calm him. She knew how excited he was. They had not gone anywhere in the two years since their dad had died. Her mother looked at her and smiled. The smile was hiding so much, and Macy wanted to know what it was. She waited for her mother to say more. Instead her mother stood and took her cup to the sink. “Go finish your homework while I fix dinner.”  Macy and her brother looked at each other and obeyed.
            The last week of school seemed to fly by. It was all Macy could do to keep her brother from running ahead of her as they walked home.  She tried to get him calmed down by promising to play games with him in the car.
            “I’m not a baby Macy, I’m seven years old. I start third grade next year.” 
            Macy smiled down at her brother. “I know that Bruce, I just thought maybe we could play games to help me keep the excitement under control. You know, you can help me calm down.”  This tactic always seemed to work with him. Treat him like he was the older brother helping her to behave and he was putty in her hands.
            “Oh, okay Macy. That way mom won’t get cranky and yell at us. I’ll help you stay calm.
Race you to the door Macy.”  Macy watched as her brother took off. She knew he wouldn’t look back, so she walked the rest of the way. When she entered the house, her mother was sitting in the kitchen hugging Bruce.
            “Mom said we have to go upstairs and change clothes. She already has them laid out for us on the bed. Then we have to…” Bruce looked at his mom for the rest of the instructions.
            Mom rubbed his hair and stood up. “I put a bag on your bed. Grab whatever you want to take for entertainment like books, notebooks, coloring books, favorite animal and electronics. When you get back down here with your bags I’ll have a snack ready and we can leave. I want to get some miles down before we stop tonight.”
            “How far do we have to drive?” Bruce asked.
            “A long way Bruce.” She looked at Macy and said, “It usually takes at least fourteen hours to drive. But, I want to drive as far as I can and give us time to get out and stretch so we don’t get too tired. It should only take us about four hours to get to Macon, Georgia. That is where we will spend the night and eat supper. Now go.”
Macy glanced sideways at her brother. He had dozed off just thirty minutes after pulling out of their drive. She slid her mom’s journal out of her bag and opened it. She had disguised it by wrapping it in one of her favorite book jackets. As far as her mother knew she was just doing what she always did, read. She had often seen her mother write in her journal and slip it into the stand next to her bed. She asked her mother about it once and was told that it was where she wrote down her feelings, hopes and prayers since their daddy had died. She promised that when Macy was older, meaning an adult, she would let her read it.  She opened it to one of the more recent entries.

June 6
They say there is no such thing as ghosts or haunted houses.  They’re wrong.  I know, because I grew up in one.  Mine is not an unusual story.  It is not even that terrifying.  It just is.  This is a fact I have come to accept.  As a child growing up in Bluebell, Idaho I had few friends because of that house.  From the outside the house was a typical, two story farm house. My father inherited it when his grandmother passed away.  He repaired and fixed it up.  It stood out on the hilltop.  You could see it’s gabled roof a mile away.  The inside was a different story. 
Even now I lay awake at night listening, watching, waiting, for it.  I’ve been waiting since I moved out of that house.  I knew it was only a matter of time.  That time has come.  Both of my parents are gone.  A drunk driver took them away from me.  Now the house is calling me.  I hear it in the middle of the night, I see it in my dreams.  It waits for me, calling me to return.  I don’t want to.  I still don’t know why it calls me.  Sometimes the shadows visit me.  When I was a child my friends used to tease me when I told them about the shadows.  Then they would visit my house.  No one teased me after that.  Instead they stayed away from me.  It’s as if they were afraid the shadows would follow them.  Now I must journey back. I’m scared, not only for me but for my children Macy and Bruce.

            Macy closed the book and glanced at her mother. Why was she so afraid of that house? She flipped back to the beginning of the journal. Everything from the beginning on seemed to be about her mom and dad. As she began to close the journal she noticed the flap inside the front cover was loose and had a slight bulge. Macy quietly peeled the flap back and saw a piece of paper and a picture. The picture showed a house on a hill with fields all around it. Her stomach felt queasy. This must be the house. She slid the piece of paper out and opened it up. It must have been her mom’s handwriting when she was a child. It was a small list; cold clammy hand in closet, stairs creak, lights flick off, pacing in next room, heaviness in air, fear it wants something. What does it want besides me, and why does it want me?
           Macy placed the paper back inside the flap along with the picture. She would put the journal back in her mom’s bag when they got to the motel. She wasn’t going to learn any more from it. She would have to try her mom again.

Sunday, June 17, 2018

Liberated


Liberated, Set Free!  That's how I felt when I woke up this morning.  Although I have been writing every day; I have not felt the freedom to just write the way I want to, or the things I want to. Life has been very hectic for the last few weeks.  My mother has not been doing well. Waiting on her hand and foot because she is unable to do anything eats up your creative time. Before you go jumping on me for sounding so cruel hear me out. In April my mother fell in our bathroom and broke a rib. Because she takes blood thinners they took x-rays. This let to a PET and CT scan. This was followed by a biopsy. They discovered a mass in her lung that turned out to be stage 3 cancer. She has chosen at age 86 to have nothing done. She is a strong and stubborn woman and I love her very much.  Two weeks ago she woke up unable to breathe well. She asked us to take her to her doctor. She was in congestive heart failure so they gave her medicine.  This has resulted in 2-3 trips each week because the meds messed her  up. Then her blood pressure was too high, then way, way too low. She is so weak and confused she has been able to make it only to her chair, bathroom and bed. I've waited on her hand and foot.  This means about the time I get anything started she would need help with something. I was still writing in small snatches, but there were no long periods of time or continuity. So I took a challenge from Teach Write, LLC on June 11th. The challenge was to try something new  in our writing. I usually write realistic fiction.  I decided to work on a ghost story idea that has been floating around in my brain for a couple of years. The small bits of writing I would do throughout the day usually happened after  a conversation with my mom. She would say something out of the blue, reminiscing about the farm we had up north. Then she would start in on the house. That is where the idea for this story originated, the house.

Below is a piece of writing I submitted with my application for the STAR program at the Hermitage Artist Retreat. This piece was one of the things they asked me  about after I was awarded the residency.  I told them that it was a piece that came to me in a dream and when the muses were ready for me to write it they would let me know. Here is what I submitted.


They say there is no such thing as ghosts or haunted houses.  They are wrong.  I know, because I grew up in one.  Mine is not an unusual story.  It is not even that terrifying.  It just is.  This is a fact I have come to accept.  As a child growing up in Bluebell, Idaho I had few friends because of that house. 
  From the outside the house was a typical, two story farm house. My father inherited it when his grandmother passed away.  He repaired and fixed it up.  It stood out on the hilltop.  You could see It’s gabled roof a mile away.  The inside was a different story. 
Even now I lay awake listening, watching, waiting, for it.  I’ve been waiting since I moved out of that house.  I knew it was only a matter of time.  That time is now.  Both of my parents are gone.  A drunk driver took them away from me.  Now the house is calling me.  I hear it in the middle of the night, I see it in my dreams.  It waits for me, calling me to return.  I don’t want to.  I don’t know why it calls me.  Sometimes the shadows visit me.  In school my friends used to tease me when I told them about the shadows.  Then they would visit my house.  No one teased me after that.  Instead they stayed away from me.  It is as if they were afraid the shadows would follow them.

When I accepted the challenge this week, this story popped back up, but with a twist.  Now it is a middle grade story with excerpts from from the main character's mother's journal. I wrote bits a pieces, ideas and phrases throughout the week.  Come back tomorrow to read the beginning of my new middle grade novel, "The House That Haunts Me" You will be able to see what came of all of that writing when I put it together. After you have read it please write and let me know what you think. I want honesty when you reply. Suggestions are always welcome.  Thank you in advance. Looking forward to sharing with you tomorrow.



 
Copyright Sandra's Writing Quest 2009. Powered by Blogger.Designed by Ezwpthemes .
Converted To Blogger Template by Anshul .