Pond Hopper

My son loves to play with the webcam and adding special effects to the photos.  Since I have little time to write, I just thought I'd share some of today's photos...

I have written an e-book for Kindle.  It's a book of very short and simple writing prompts for writers.  At the moment, it's 365 writing prompts (obviously, my idea was one for every day). I have bought numerous writing prompt books and they are always filled with all sorts of plots and story starters giving a good amount of detail.  The thing I don't like about these books is that the prompts offer too much detail and leave very little to the imagination.  My book will be the other extreme.  It will give very simple and short opening lines that will leave the details to the writer. Ok that said, I wrote the book and today, I started formatting it for Kindle.  I'm fried.  I should have researched this before finishing my first draft because I have each prompt on a separate page (I hate writing prompts books that just lump the prompts into a numbered list - it doesn't look inspiring to me - the prompt on an ...

The worst part of finishing a story that I'm really proud of is not being able to share it with anyone.  Most writing competitions do not allow previously published pieces to be entered.  This blog counts as publishing.  I finished a story the other day that I was really proud of.  It was my first darker piece with a twist as well.  I wrote all day on and off knowing how I wanted it to go.  I stopped to do my mom stuff, but for the most part, I wrote all day.  My back was killing me, but I wouldn't stop until I had a first draft done.  When I finally finished, I was on a high.  The high didn't last long because all there was to do was save it and close the document.  I shared it with a few people (mostly with people who love me and as I said before, people who love you will always give you great feedback), but that was it.  I really wanted to post it, but I'm pretty sure this one was good enou...

The more I learn about writing, the more I want to delete every entry of this blog and start over.  The writing is pretty poor.  It's cringe worthy.  One day I just may do it.  Either that or start editing them from beginning to end.  It took me years to write them and it would probably take me just as long to find the time to edit them.  The end result would be never having a new entry.  I guess I'll leave it for now, but I warn you - one day it will make me crazy and I'll just start deleting! Here's some news.  I sold my first piece to a magazine.  I won't say what it was or to who, but I will say, I made a whopping £25 (about $40) on it :-) Hey, you have to start somewhere right? Did I mention my book has been put on hold?  Here's the deal -  I am just starting out with writing.  I'm not that good - yet.  I really want to write the book, but I what I want more, is to write it well.  Right now, I'm writi...

We our first appointment with a social worker for adoption was on Tuesday.  It definitely gave us a lot to think about.  I don't know what I was expecting to find out, but I was not prepared for what we learned about the children that are adopted out of child services.  I expected to hear of trauma.  I expected to hear it would be a lot of work and they would need great deal of care and love.  I expected they might have a delay in development and their ability to learn.  What I didn't expect to hear was that 90% of the children that are up for adoption, have some sort of brain damage due to being exposed to drugs and alcohol in the womb.  The extent of the damage varies, but almost all of them have special needs in some form. I don't know why I found this to be surprising. I don't know why it never crossed my mind.  Thinking about it now, it makes perfect sense, but It came as quite a sh...

Some years back, I blogged about my husband and I considering adopting a child. Our son was still quite young back then and we didn't think it was the right time.  Now that he's a bit older (he turns 5 in May), we started discussing it again.  The outcome was that we are going to apply.  We have always wanted to take a child out of the child services system.  We want to offer a child a second chance at a loving stable home. Being the class mom for my son's kindergarten class has been a big part of why it's come up again.  There are thirty children in his class and there isn't one kid, I don't like.  I love them all.  Even the ones that aren't well behaved - I can't help but love them because I've gotten a chance to get to know them and they are all so lovely in their own way.  I look at them and think it would break my heart if I found out that any of them were in a position that they weren't loved and taken care of at home. ...

I've had a few emails asking where I've been.  As a rule, I don't blog when I'm miserable.  I don't like to write a bunch of woe is me posts that air my dirty laundry. I'll summarize - my Christmas party was a disaster.  One of the party guests decided she didn't like me very much.  At the party, she said something (that wasn't true) that was apparently meant to make me look bad in front of my husband and other guests.  I decided there and then, I was done with her.  I didn't feel the need to say anything or cause a scene, but I knew I was done. She on the other hand, was not done and the following day, she caused a bit of a drama.  The end result is that there are very, very few people from my long awaited social circle who still want anything to do with me.  I won't give details or try to villainize anyone. It's just not my style.  There has apparently been enough of that already to cause so many people to turn against ...