Derek tucks his pot belly into the slim-fit jeans along with the thick white cotton shirt. Four months of a personal trainer and he still can’t lose those last few pounds, although these days he calls them kilos. The heavy heels of his embroidered cowboy boots improve his posture, forcing him to walk straight and tall. The matching factory-stressed leather jacket still squeaks at the armpits, but the daily wear will soon get rid of that. His steely grey hair should be long enough by then too. Then he’ll show her, then she’ll see what she left behind, once he’s lost those last few kilos and has his pony tail.

Hello Friends!

This week’s essay is posted: Write For Yourself and Celebrate Writing!

An excerpt:

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“Why do writers write? Because it isn’t there.” ~~Thomas Berger

Thanksgiving, for those of us in America, has grown and evolved like most holidays. It all began when the Pilgrim’s celebrated a bountiful harvest with the Indians whose assistance made their survival possible. These days, families gather together to bond over generous servings of turkey (or Tofurki), endless hours of football and parades, and tasty bites of pumpkin pie. Yet tucked within the basting and the touchdowns is the root of an idea.

Thankfulness.

Being thankful for our family and friends, for prosperity and health, and for life itself. Now, let me add one more item to the list, Thankfulness for our innate creativity. Is there anything quite like the joy of being a writer? Penning marvelous adventures and exploring the journey of our characters, all within the cozy pages of a delicious novel. Yum-yum. Being a writer means having the power to create worlds. Wow. Could there be a bigger thrill?

“One nice thing about putting the thing away for a couple of months before looking at it is that you start to appreciate your own wit. Of course, this can be carried too far. But it’s kind of cool when you crack up a piece of writing, and then realize you wrote it. I recommend this feeling.” ~~Steven Brust
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Ready for some motivation?

Jump to The Write Soul: www.chironokeefe.blogspot.com for the complete essay.

Keep writing, everyone!

–Chiron O’Keefe

I’m taking a vacation break! Monday’s Motivation will be posted as usual but I will not be able to send out these reminders next week. If add The Write Soul to your blog list, the new posts will show up in your Blogger Dashboard. Have a great holiday!

Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving!   There are many things that we, as screenwriters, can be grateful for.  On this Thanksgiving, take a moment and ponder…

Freedom of Speech  and how you can write whatever YOU want. 

How computers have made rewriting easier.  Can you imagine having to retype every page that you need to rewrite!   OR, putting a screenplay on paper using nothing but a pencil?

Research is faster with help from the internet.   But don’t forget the beauty of your local library and be thankful for that, too.

Readers, the people who read what we write … our family, our internet buddies, friends in our writer’s groups.

And our lives.   All our experiences that we draw from as we write.  Our imaginations, wild and crazy as they are.   Our loves and our fears.  Our challenges and our gifts.

Screenwriters be thankful.  And after you eat some turkey, get back to work and finish that feature!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I reviewed someone’s work so well that he had to hate me back. Check below to see the flow of conversation we both had. He’s a Filipino like me.

HIM:

Well, thanks for your comment
but this is my style of sharing my sentiments
and I think there is no definite rule to be follwed in poetry….
besides, that and which are conjunctions with the same functions .

thanks for the visit brother and more power

I still reviewed his works

HIM:

well, brother its your right to correct
well, can you visit my poetry site at
www.poemhunter.com/***** and
do some correction specially with spelling,
diction and coherence of words and tenses

sometimes I can’t edit them for I write
as they come in my mind direct to the
computer….

I apprecate if you have the time doing so

best wishes

He even tried to review mine, to which he got pissed because this was my reply to him

ME:

First off, thanks for reviewing my work, specially that I’m the first review you did. We have a rule here though, that we can’t post any works until we have at least 2 reviews. You clearly disobeyed that rule but all is fine. Just one more review and you should be out of the blue.

Here’s my reply to your review, in case you don’t read my response.

yeah thanks. but if i did what you have suggested, i’d be wrong in tenses and plurality.

thanks. you have nice ideas though you pretty much changed the whole context of it.

correcting someone is not equal to making the work your own.

what you did was take the work as your own and spitting it right back telling them “THIS is how it’s supposed to be done”.

nice try though

Your review was very surprising. You’ve improved on grammar and sentence construction greatly. Keep it up.

Which he then replied

HIM:

thanks again for your message.

Well, i am not really so aggressive in reviewing other’s work as I see no significance on my part. Besides, I am not a gramarian per se being an accountant by profession. I just got the passion of writing poetry ever since i was in high high school. Some like the way I wrote while many didn’t dare to read even. Nevertheless, their are those that appreciated the uniqueness of my style.

I am not actually a good poet, but definitely, I can write and express myself with rhythm and melody as I weaved words to display my thoughts, emotions, experiences, concepts and convictions in life.

I am not really amenable in critiquing others works as I respected their own ways, style and capability. This is the very reason why, I seldom critique or give bad comments or correction to others products. I was really surprised that their are those who pretend to be more intelligent than others as if they have all the monopoly of knowledge and better understanding of things in this world. Anyway, wisdom comes to those who seek it with pureness of thoughts and conviction.

I hope to always hear from you and if you have time, do critique my works.

thanks a lot and more power

So I finally just jumped in the flames to have my own fun.

ME:

Regarding the review system…

It is actually more of an ethical thing to do rather than a rule here.

You see, members who just post and post their works here and not review well or anything AT ALL are supposed to be ignored. This website was put up so fellow writers can help each other thru reviewing/critiquing.

I actually expected you to be upset since your first pm to me. I was just playing you for a while LOL. But I see this little grammar issue has got the best of you.

Your message right now makes me think that you cannot take criticisms. You need not state any information as an excuse or valid reason for the correction done to you.

I find it funny that you’re an accountant and you can’t even correct your own work since accountants are supposed to be good, or at least well versed, in the English language.

Since you provided yours, I’ll provide mine.

I’m a student right now and I’m currently NOT enrolled in a literature degree nor is the program I’m in anywhere near that of the arts and literature. My main focus right now is chemistry, math,engineering,and food science. My “course” does not require me to be well off in the English language while yours make you master it.

Accountants often work with word problems in college, specially with depreciation and accrual of interests. I know because I took basic accounting and even my professor said that their major is not math but English. I’m not good in English but I strive to look up words and phrases just so my readers won’t have a hard time reading.

Isn’t that ironic Mr.Banggolay? If you can’t have mastery of language, what more someone like me who doesn’t even have English as a major?

I understand that English isn’t your primary language but it doesn’t excuse you nor anyone not to learn how to use it properly. With the current technology we have right now, and with the invention and innovation of the internet, we can learn pretty much anything with a click of a mouse.

Earlier, you stated that you write your works on a whim which may seem like a good excuse but it isn’t. Ever heard of spell check? Why not review your own work before clicking “publish” or “submit”. There’s even a “preview” button right next to it which serves as a means of seeing any noticeable errors.

I am not really amenable in critiquing others works as I respected their own ways, style and capability

True. We all respect each other’s works here. BUT the purpose of this website is to show your work and let others light knowledge and wisdom over it. It’s a give and take relationship we have here. Imagine if EVERYONE thinks the same way as you do. No one will grow as a good writer. No one will review/criticize anyone because they “respect” them.

If you just post and post and post without reviewing, that in itself is already a selfish act. You want others to read your works and critique them you but you don’t want to do anyone that favor.

Those people use their time, effort, and even sometimes, lose sleep over a work so that the author may know his mistakes or if he could make the work better or more interesting. What you did on mine was merely making the work your own when it isn’t. You don’t criticize by taking the works of others and telling them “this is how it’s supposed to be done”. What I did to your works, which were awfully wrong in grammar anyway, was put you in the right track. I didn’t claim the work, I just corrected spelling and grammar which is supposed to be standard correction in case you are not aware.

Imagine if you’re favorite book author used the wrong grammar you used in your works, would you still read the book? What if your local newspaper was littered with so many errors? Would you still buy that newspaper? These authors undergo spell checks, grammar analysis, even thru hardcore critiques just to get an opinion. They sometimes pay them large sums of money just so they can have a professional’s approval.

It wouldn’t hurt to have good grammar. I mean, just look at “Twilight”. That book had good grammar but it was ridiculed nonetheless by Stephen King and hundreds more credible authors. What more if the grammar was wrong?

It is insulting for the ones who read your work to be “forced” to read rather than enjoy it. Reading your work is like them doing you a favor and what do you show them? Errors in spelling, sentence construction, wrong grammar, wrong tenses, misplaced verbs, etc.

It’s writers’ ethics. If you want them to read your work, read theirs first. Being an accountant, you should know the basic principles of “balancing”. You must give equal to what you take. It’s just that you must give more in this site by reviewing.

I was really surprised that their are those who pretend to be more intelligent than others as if they have all the monopoly of knowledge and better understanding of things in this world.

I’m sorry if I seemed harsh on you but I had all the good intentions in all my reviews. This would really seem that you want people to criticize your work but when someone actually does it, you hate on them.

If you missed it, here’s the rule on grammar in this site

3. Chatspeak or really bad grammar: We’re a writing community so chatspeak isn’t allowed (aside from smilies and common acronyms like ‘lol’). In the same vein, we want all posts to be using decent grammar. Nobody expects anyone’s grammar to be even close to perfect, but if you feel like stabbing your eyes out after reading a post, report it. Please note that this does not apply to literary works! For literary works, you can critique instead of report.

If you don’t criticize the works you read then you are depriving that author his right to be corrected and criticized. You are then prohibiting that author to grow as a good writer.

Again, I am not supposed to be reviewing you since you had like 0 reviews then (now you have 1). This site wants to promote a trade of reviews and constructive criticism. If you have less than 5 then that means you are either a newbie or just plain lazy to critique. More likely than not, we opt for the latter reason.

So why not build a good image by reviewing? Try some short poetry. Don’t be lazy, don’t give me that “I respect their ways of writing” crap. It’s not even a valid argument. Not doing anything at all is worse than doing something wrong. Why? because doing something, whether wrong or not, means you are THINKING, you are RISKING, and you can make a DECISION while doing nothing simply means you’re not capable of deciding on anything. Even the Bible states that.

Funny how we should’ve learned basic English when we were still in elementary and yet you who is already a professional doesn’t even have mastery over it.

I don’t know what happens when you write your works but the messages you send me seem to be almost without tarnish. Why can’t you do the same to your work? Don’t you respect your works? If it is truly a passion, why not aim to be best at it? It’s just a regular past time for me too, but I take writing seriously. You are what you write after all.

In which I think pwnt him so much he didn’t reply after. /gg

The NAACP, the country’s oldest and largest civil rights organization, announced today that acclaimed film director Tyler Perry has donated one million dollars, marking the largest gift ever given by an individual entertainer.  In addition, Perry purchased several NAACP commissioned Jacob Lawrence lithographs and additional lithographs by celebrated artists Jonathan Green, Elizabeth Catlett and Sam Gilliam.  The gift, which will be distributed over the next four years, was made to commemorate the organization’s Centennial anniversary.   
 
NAACP leaders called Perry’s gift a “paradigm-shifting moment in black philanthropy” because donations of this size have not typically gone to civil rights organizations. It also comes at a key time for the NAACP, which has had to answer questions about whether it remains relevant.
 
“We are honored that Tyler Perry chose to support the NAACP,” said Julian Bond, Chairman of the NAACP.  “Tyler is a courageous pioneer in bringing positive images of African American culture and struggles to the screen. His remarkable journey from poverty and childhood abuse to become one of the world’s most successful filmmakers and entrepreneurs is an inspiration to us all,” Bond said.

“I feel so honored and blessed to be in a position where I can give to the NAACP.”  Perry said.  “Had it not been for the perseverance and vision of the thousands who came before me in the 100 years of this legendary organization, I would not be in the position I am in today.   I continue to be thankful for the tireless work of the NAACP, and I am proud to be able to help in their mission to fight for the equality of all people, and to work towards the elimination of discrimination against race.”

     I’ve been trying to cut back on my coffee drinking.  I used to drink herb teas quite often, but haven’t for a long time.  I’ve discovered Bengal Spice tea made by Celestial Seasonings.  Dang, it’s good.  They have a few other flavors I didn’t see in the store I went to, that I’m going to try to find at another store.

     I still want my coffee but their teas make a nice, flavorful change especially before I go to bed.  Dear Hubby likes their Sleepytime Vanilla tea and their Cinnamon Apple Spice.  I do think the Sleepytime Tea has been helping him sleep better.

     You should see  Gavin and Patty when DH makes the Cinnamon Apple Spice they think he has something they might like to mooch.  It’s his own fault for sharing his cinnamon toast with them all the time.  He’ll get no sympathy from me. 

This year saw me entering the world of blogging for the first time…

And slowly but surely I have become addicted.  My first attempt at blogging Poegeyed is merely a collection of amusing pictures, stories and happenings I find on the web.

But the thought of exposing my life to public scrutiny has always filled me with dread and trepidation.

However I have decided to take the plunge today and begin blogging the story of my life.

As one friend told me “You couldn’t make this shit up!”

How do you describe a contessa?

So without further waffling welcome to the cracked window into my world.

Jina with her Thanksgiving turkey

On this cool autumn day before Thanksgiving, I can’t help but think about how giving thanks for all the wonderful blessings in our lives is universal.

It became so real to me when the heroine in my upcoming novel, The Blonde Samurai, is in 1874 Japan celebrating Thanksgiving with her samurai family.

Check out my blog at NAUGHTY AUTHOR CHICKS and see what my heroine, Katie O’Roarke, wrote in her memoir.

Best,
Jina

 Janusz Leon Wisniewski, a Polish physicist, chemist and novelist who is famous in Vietnam for two of his works of fiction, “Loneliness on the Net” and “Lover”, has met his Vietnamese readers from Nov. 20-24.

He wrote “Loneliness” to fight the sadness of his private life and did not intend to publish. “All of a sudden, my novel Loneliness on the Net was released in 2001 and I first saw it at a bookstore in Torun, Poland,” said the 55-year-old. The novel was eventually published in 11 countries, he added.

“I think scientists have deeper romantic emotions than those who work for social duties. Although I don’t have any ability to invent a story, I collect from experience and real life,” Wisniewski told the Daily.

Author Janusz Leon Wisniewski in the meeting with Vietnamese readers on Saturday.

One of the best-selling modern novels out of Poland, “Loneliness” is about virtual love, sadness, desperation, loneliness, beliefs, flirtations on the Internet, wine, jazz and DNA. “This book is like a song that honors brainpower and knowledge. Loneliness exists from the bottom of every heart, especially of educated people, but all people wish happiness and hunger for love,” said Le Hoang Anh, representative of Youth Publisher and editor of the translations of Wisniewski’s “Loneliness” and “Lover”.

“Loneliness is a horrible illness. The more our society and telecommunication systems develop, the more people feel lonely. The book reflects reality,” Wisniewski said.

“Loneliness” was adapted into a dramatic film with Russian actors in February and it has been welcomed every night at one of the largest theaters in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Translated by Nguyen Thi Thanh Thu and published in Vietnam in 2006, “Loneliness” was reissued seven times with over 10,000 copies sold and “Lover” went into third edition with over 6,000 copies sold as of 2008, Hoang Anh told the Daily.

The author is making his first visit to Vietnam at the invitation of the Polish Embassy in Vietnam and Youth Publisher. He goes to Australia today, November 24.

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Lord of the flies – ha de fucking ha – that was what he thought some days. No one liked flies, no one liked him. He wished it meant that he got great air miles but it didn’t. He wished it meant that he had a huge pecker to poke through his flies at those women in the park who he liked to get over-friendly with, but it didn’t. No, being lord of the flies meant, as everyone knew, being lord over those stupid turd munching insects who buzzed around irritatingly.
People who knew his job title expected him to be some kind of advocate for the bloody things, but really, who could big up the little bastards? He’d tried – he surely had, but flies just got such bad press. Sometimes the constraints manifestation placed on him made him appear as a huge fucking fly, and some mad-for-it Christians had forced him to appear only to try and zap him with a custom made giant bug-zapper. He was not impressed and had left a room full of charred bodies in his wake – well, after several hours of suffering rather painful electric shocks as they tried to alter the voltage – thinking that this was the reason they were unable to kill him.
Being lord of the flies was like being in charge of a department where you were the only member of staff – it sucked ass in a major way. He would get small amounts of amusement from sending flies to pester people, but on a day to day basis he would say that his major sentiment was one of being seriously cheesed off.
He was, at that moment, directing what he was thinking of as an aerobatic team in a display that spelt out the words fuck you. He thought it was kind of nifty but it was like myspace and facebook – after days of endless repetition one wanted to bang there head repeatedly against something until they dislodged the boredom.
He was bored, and he knew he wasn’t the only one.

 Long ago, I read a novel about life in the Appellachian mountains in the United States.

The theme of the novel is the fate of two children, whose writer father dies in a car accident and mother becomes paralytic, unable to respond even. So from New York, the children are transplanted to the primitive life in the rugged hills, where their grandmother lives, whom the kids have never seen!

I immensely enjoyed the novel.

When the grandmother wakes up the girl (the younger one is a boy) and tells her, at five in the morning, it is time to milk the cow, the girl protests: why can’t the cow sleep for some more time?

The have a negro boy as friend and guide, who will show the way to cross the valley and reach the next mountain which, by road will take half a day to reach. The boy dies in an accident, caused by illegal blasting of a tunnel, by a company producing oil. They want to destroy the hill to get oil.

A lawyer friend of the grand mother regularly comes and reads the bible, sitting by the side of the immobile mother, without even caring whether she hears it or not.

Once the children go to the lawyer’s office in the far away town, and are surprised to see plantains, pumpkins and other vegetables in the office. THEY WERE TOLD THAT VILLAGERS GIVE IT AS THEY DO NOT HAVE MONEY TO GIVE AS FEES!

The hill contains oil. All others agreed to sell land to the oil companies, but the grandmother refuses. In the end, the court decrees against her. She breaks down in the court; but the children become millionaires!

As usual, the lawyer reads the bible and in the end he conveys the news to the immobile mother. She smiles and tries to get up, something no one could believe. I think the lawyer  marries her.

Today I read in the science section of the Times Of India, that a patient supposed to be in comma for twenty three years, woke up to tell that he was fully conscious and used to hear their talk.

I was reminded of the novel!

“Something about being a teenager just tears the whole world away from you, and I guess the outcome of that is what makes you the man you are going to be. So, what will I be…?” — Gardener Fox, main character in author David O’Leary Wielgosz’s first novel, Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired.

A writer well beyond his years, Wielgosz debuts his novel with an honest insight and real-life approach to the intricacies of a teenage world. Through a story of struggle and a message of self-acceptance, Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired touches on the relevance and intensity of such a defining age.  We are able to look behind the scenes, into the heart of the story — the heart of this 17-year-old author hoping to open up alternatives to a generation — to an age of constant uncertainty with life-changing consequences.

Wielgosz, a “kid” from Holyoke, Massachusetts, dreams of stories — “of creating new worlds for people to escape to.” In his first work of fiction, Wielgosz describes Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired as “honest with a lot of heart.” The story of Gardner Fox, a 16-year-old boy dealing with the hand life provided. A hand that leads him to question who it is he should be and the struggles of change within his surroundings — or perhaps the struggle to remain who he is…who we all are.

“I started off as a fat, love-sick fanboy with delusions of grandeur, but at the end, after God, Buddha, or Vishnu, or Odin, or Superman, or whoever the hell up there got through throwing rocks at me and brought me back down from that miserable tree I was in, I ended up being something I was even less proud of.” — Gardener Fox

According to Wielgosz, this is “a story about growing up and how on any given day you can feel like the king of the world or just another chump.” A story of significance that transcends from generation to generation as we all search for our place, our meaning, and our relevance.

Inspired by life right now and by friends, peers, acquaintances, and those simply observed, Wielgosz took the actions and emotions to their “logical extremes.” He hopes “to show that we are all better than this.” That the beautiful and ugly chaos is simply being a teenager, but that your choices will change you.

“Everything about this book is a product of me, and nothing in the world could ever make me more proud. It is not a work without flaws, but what is?” says Wielgosz, a quote almost symbolizing the story itself. “I don’t pull my punches and each character is a real teenager, [struggling through] morality, sexuality, friendship, life and death.” Through his book, Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired, Wielgosz proposes a challenge. A challenge to better yourself, to believe in who you are, and to realize that these years are critical in the shaping of who you will become.

- Melissa

He liked to believe that the song by Eminem was inspired by him, but he knew it wasn’t true. He liked to believe many things but he was too old and too knowledgeable to ever really be able to fool himself.
He knew that some of these scions of hell thought of themselves as more than finite archetypes marking the current age’s vision of what the devil might be, but he knew better. He had gone into exile so long ago that he was sure no one remembered him – except some minor file clerk in the halls of Heaven who had been banished to a similar exile in one of the dusty sub-basements of Heaven’s Central filing office.
He was considered to be toothless now – no kind of threat to anyone at all except maybe himself. It got him angry sometimes – who likes to be thought of as a has-been? No one that he knew, that was for sure. But seriously what constituted flexing his muscles these days? Killing a pigeon as it landed on his windowsill? Giving a cockroach heart palpitations? Whatever he was doing it was not the stuff of which legends are made.
Stan has become, he hated even giving voice to the thought: ‘Boring.’ Did it happen with the dropping of the A? The moving from the cutting edge to this beige suburbia? Maybe. He had gone to seed, that was all he knew.
He took out a cigarette from the pack, did the old trick with the flame leaping out of the tip of his thumb, and smiled. Small things amuse those with small minds, and perhaps, after an eternity of living within the means of a small character he had learned to play on threat of annihilation, he had downsized. Ambition was not a word he bandied about anymore – he was not the arrogant Morningstar who had been cast down from heaven – that was for the newer iterations.
Boring life: boring eternal life – he needed to do something to spice it up.

I’m not as cute as Cinderella, but I’m hoping dreams still do come true. If you need a writer, I’m hoping you’ll review my writing portfolio on this blog.

I left blogging alone because I was sick. Seriously sick. The type of sickness that makes you not want to do a damn thing. Alas, it’s over now. I most definitely have a few topics lined up that I fully intend to knick out, so stay tuned…

I find myself trying to “do it all” more than ever these days.  Motherhood, of course, comes first, and at my stage of life that means hockey games, sleepovers, school performances, being the Girl Scout leader, and orchestra concerts, as well as homework, staying up late enough for your son to let his guard down and talk to you, seeing the New Moon premiere at midnight, and so forth.

Being a wife is also an important but time-consuming job.  Forgive me if I don’t go into too much detail there.

This weekend I’m also trying to be a good daughter, a good aunt/great aunt, and a good cook for Thanksgiving. 

Not to mention working fulltime as a writer and strategist, with my own marketing communications consulting business.  That’s very important also.

But I’ll tell you a secret — the thing I want MOST to do right now is to find a quiet hour or two and keep plugging away on the edit of my first novel.  I have resisted picking it up for DAYS, and have only played around with one chapter of Book II for several days as well.

NOW – my house is tidy, my silver is polished, my groceries will soon be bought, my Girl Scouts will soon have gone horseback riding in the woods tomorrow, and my Thanksgiving dinner will soon enough (on Thursday) be on the table, be consumed and be put away as leftovers.

Then, I am promising myself, I will edit at least one chapter before turning to my Christmas shopping, which I’ve only just started.  ARRRGGGGHHHH.  It is enough to make a person go insane, or just give up.

But, being the positive person I try to be, I’m thankful for such a full life, and thankful that such a fascinating and enjoyable story will be waiting for me to dive back in once I have the time.  I’ll try not to wish away the rest of my life while I wait.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!