Quotation Saturday ~ Patience

 Luke 21:19 “In your patience possess ye your souls.”

I needed these quotes today! I hope you enjoy them, too.

PATIENCE

“No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God . . . and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven.” 
― Orson F. Whitney

“Patience is power.
Patience is not an absence of action;
rather it is "timing"
it waits on the right time to act,
for the right principles
and in the right way.” 
― Fulton J. Sheen

“Trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.” 
― Molière

“The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter.” 
― Paulo Coelho

“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.” 
― Aristotle

Patience is not the ability to wait. Patience is to be calm no matter what happens, constantly take action to turn it to positive growth opportunities, and have faith to believe that it will all work out in the end while you are waiting.” 
― Roy T. Bennett

“Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing, in the end, can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.” 
― Margaret Atwood

STRENGTH

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” 
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Promise Yourself

To be so strong that nothing
can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness, and prosperity
to every person you meet.

To make all your friends feel
that there is something in them
To look at the sunny side of everything
and make your optimism come true.

To think only the best, to work only for the best,
and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others
as you are about your own.

To forget the mistakes of the past
and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times
and give every living creature you meet a smile.

To give so much time to the improvement of yourself
that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear,
and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world,
not in loud words but great deeds.
To live in faith that the whole world is on your side
so long as you are true to the best that is in you.” 
― Christian D. Larson

"Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone
to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties
arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are
right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end
requires courage." 
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

PERSPECTIVE

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.” 
― Frances Hodgson Burnett

“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses.” 
― Alphonse Karr

“It does not matter how long you are spending on the earth, how much money you have gathered or how much attention you have received. It is the amount of positive vibration you have radiated in life that matters,” 
― Amit Ray

“When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him. In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” 
― Albert Camus

“I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.” 
― Og Mandino

Dismantling Christmas!

Rom. 1:25 “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.”

On December 31st I began dismantling Christmas and all the bells and whistles left behind. You celebrate Christmas, you might ask? Yes in my own way of course. I’m not one to take the Pagan holiday at face value instead I celebrate Christmas as a season of putting your past behind and preparing for a new year to begin.

The tree, a symbol of life, sits with every ornament of memories from years past. Some from my mother, others we bought each other to mark each year, while others were ones of Adam and his years of Christmas’ with us. Each one holds a cherished memory within.

The twinkling lights on the tree are a symbol for the light that shines in me in many different hues. My Christmas this year was colored by many days of darkness so the lights on the tree were the only source I could see of the light inside of me.

On the thirty-first I began tucking my enormous amount of snowmen tightly in their yearly trunk and pulling out every nic-nac that I had put away for the season. I took a deep sigh as I released a horrible year and not a very good season to ME. 

The tree came apart on the first of the year, as the New Year was moving forward. Branch by branch I dismantled the tree, as pieces of me felt like they were being placed in there, putting behind a year I hope I never remember. Of course I will because the year is embedded in my memory but for now, as I embrace the new beginning I choose to put the disorganized, disheveled mess of a year in the basement, locked tightly in a box!

Dismantling Christmas is more than just putting the season away in a box, it is in a way, realizing that clutter has consumed you and you put the distorted mess into some kind of organization that you can either release or hold onto. 

This past year, my life was dismantled. My faith was shaken by outside influences that profess truth but are full of lies. I couldn’t put my finger on the reason people seem to want atempt to shake your faith. Not all people are the same and we believe in many different things whether they are truths or lies. Not that I ever doubted my faith but maybe the origins of truth? Because I listened to the OUTSIDE source my mind and soul became disheveled, confused, throw some death in there and life was like a swirling cyclone. 

As I put away the Christmas season, I realize I need to be more active in putting outside influences far away from me. This is going to be a crazy year wrapped up in lies, insecurities, people consumed with themselves so much they become blind to their inner beauty that they lost along the way. I cannot focus on these falsities that dance around like water on a hot griddle. 
While I claim this to be the year of change, I know it is I who has to change. 

Did you ever go back to the old house that you grew up in and everything seemed so much bigger, the yard, the rooms, everything. Life is like that; we make things bigger than they are and it isn’t the yard or house that changed sizes it’s our perspective. I need to change my perspective in what I want to drink out of the fountain of life. We don’t live forever so it is not a stretch to want to put my eternity into a clear organized perspective instead of the dismantled mess that has sat before me for the year. 

Dismantling Christmas means to me: Putting the past behind me to forge ahead into the future, the new future of change that I claim for myself! Good or bad...I will embrace the change.

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” 

~ Albert Einstein

Putting it in Perspective

The value of identity of course is that so often with it comes purpose. ~Richard Grant
***

The week in review....

We’ve had Procrastination, Prioritizing, Networking and Focus and a culmination of the four days leads to this post.

Monday - As a writer, the Procrastination post was about where we discussed putting things off. We allow things to jumble and cloud our day so much so we miss our quiet writing time. Playing around and goofing off also keeps you distracted enough so you get no writing done and I had to make sure you saw if you were on that path. Some are on it, some like it, some could care less. Me? I’m in the mood for change.

Tuesday - This was a day where I pinpointed Prioritizing. You know, where you put the playing around on hold and make something other than ‘games and fun’ a priority, like writing?
This was also the day that an Earthquake rattled the east coast. While the local news here in Nebraska didn’t even give the story a second of its time, World news found it vital to report. All of my family is back east, in Maryland, and yes, they felt it. My 73 year old parents were quite shaken, literally. Since my mothers stroke and my dads survival of cancer, they moved to a retirement condo and they live on the eighth floor.
So while everyone made jokes about  the quake, being far from home during a panicky situation made me miss them all the more.
Perfect day for a Prioritizing post, made me SEE where my priorities lie, and what *I* need to do.

Wednesday - This was the day my Networking post went up. I went to place it on Twitter, and it is already part of a newsfeed! Yay! My Networking with fellow writers is working. I’m not just an airplane cruising through facebook happily prancing and playing and woohooing and weeHeeing, I’m actually putting into ACTION, all of this weeks posts! Wow! I think it is called follow-thru? I’m not just preaching words and going on my merry way, doing my own thing and not acting on them. I’m actually taking my own advice! Now, there’s a change I like!

Thursday - This FOCUS/Discouraged post was a way of helping me to see the err of my ways. I recently touched base with a friend I had lost. It wasn’t via facebook and doubt that we’ll EVER be friends on facebook again. You see, facebook may be a social wall, it may be a place to Network, but sometimes you see things in people, that you wish you had never seen. You see them in a whole different perspective, and maybe if you wouldn’t hang out with that kind of person in real life, maybe you shouldn’t be faking your LIKE to them on facebook. I am not one who is false and that is why my friends list is at a minimum. I actually LIKE you all if you’re on my list.


Friday - The culmination of an enlightening week. This week has been full of insights that I’ve shared with you, that I’ve learned along the path in the writing world. I give off some negatives but hopefully run over all that with the positives.

As Irene heads to the coast, as natural disasters head to the earth in a meteor shower raining down on us, as the tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11 tragedy approaches, maybe what we all need to be doing is reflecting and not joking about it. Humor is good in the right place, but false humor appears as fear. Don’t fear impending doom, if it is your time, embrace it. You ARE ready, right?

Perspective

Psalm 51: 12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.
***

From my perspective, life is moving along at a snails pace, the mundane becomes boring and a shake up is in order for it to move along swiftly. Oh, wait, I already had a shake-up a few weeks ago. Still reeling from the aftermath too.

Perspective is where we can sit on a cloud and look down at people and their lives, swooping down to get a closer view or just sitting and observing. I gain perspective the longer I observe and in writing that is just what you need to do sometimes, observe.

I observe other writers as they link words together to form sentences. I watch as the sentences take the shape of paragraphs, and the paragraphs form a story. What better way to learn than to witness the classics in action?

I’ve read some newer authors and I’m not impressed with their storytelling. What I get from the library shelves is that this new author writes the book, feeds it to the editor and sometimes the publishing house needs new blood so bad they accept, not so good work.

I see typos throughout, misspellings weaved in, atrocious punctuation and this all slipped by? Wasn’t anyone watching the creation of this tale? This is the very reason I prefer classics. The story didn’t depend on a computer program. It depended on a writer sitting at his/her desk tapping on the keys of a typewriter. Yeah, a typewriter, remember those ancient things?

I’m not knocking new author’s, by no means. After all, I can learn a lot from them too. I see what NOT to do in a story.

I read differently being a writer. I try to get into a story, but I’m always picking it apart, word for word, sentence for sentence. It can become quite annoying so I rely on the classics to take me to an imaginary world, where I soar in the reading of the text, without picking and needling every aspect of the writer’s skills.

Maybe I should start listening to audio books. You can’t find typos if you’re listening now can you? And you can hear the words forming sentences, but you can’t nit pick the structure.

As far as perspective goes, this is my view, from my world, my perspective. Others may have a different take and that is okay because being a human being with free will, you my friend, have a perspective too.

Enjoy being unique. Cherish the life you were given and always have, give and share your perspective. You’ll be glad you did. :)

POV ~ Point of View

Jas. 2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

***

Recently I have noticed the biggest problem for new writer’s is not getting the story out, it is keeping the story consistent.

Consistency in POV and consistency with tenses. Sure I see alot of grammatical issues being tossed out there as a new writer, but POV is one tough element of the craft that needs to be honed and mastered.

Mastering the POV will help in keeping the work consistent.

We at f2k, have an exercise this week in POV and when asked to shift pov, alot of people write the same exact paragraph and switched the POV from “He said” to “I said”. To me, shifting the point of view changes the perspective and the ‘who’ is seeing what and from whose point of view. 

Here’s an example of something I’ve been working on: Two pov’s and different perspectives arise.

POV 1 ~ First person
As I hover over my lifeless body lying below me, I wonder where I am. The aroma of a fresh garden surrounds me making me feel like a weightless cloud. I want to yell down to myself, but I can’t seem to communicate from here. I walk slowly toward the endless portal that awaits me. I float like a feather on an endless air drifting into the unknown. No claps of thunder, no bolts of lightning, just eerie warmth surrounds me. A gravitational pull sucks me like a huge non-existent vacuum of space and time. I turn away from the light and try in a motionless effort to reclaim the body I left. Suddenly, I awaken to the trickle of an ice cold shower that releases me from the warm safe haven. I scan the bathroom and wonder how on earth did I get in here?

POV2 ~ Third person
Look at her, a lifeless form in need of assistance. She has left her body only to discover the realm of the unknown. The bright light that has hold of her won’t let her go. She can wriggle and worm all she wants but it is pulling with an endless flux of gravity. She knows this is the end of the line, the place she’s heard about but never wanted to be at the cusp of her youth. She's grappling with fear yet releasing herself without a fight, letting herself drift into the aromatic garden that waits. As moments pass, time is of the essence.
She needs to be revived; it’s not her time. Wait; look; she’s in bathroom shower. How on earth did she get there?

The same paragraph but from different perspectives, and two different pov’s.  This shift sometimes confuses new writer’s because they can’t see from anyone else's eyes. They are looking at the paragraph and thinking they need to write the exact same words but change *I* into *She*. When I shift pov, I see from different eyes.

I think we need to look at perspective as much as POV. Work on the POV, sifting through all the knowledge you can and retry the exercise and I can bet you’re perspective will change too. You’ll be seeing through different eyes in no time.

Now get moving, Write Right!

POV and tense shift

This is a much needed repost of mine. :-)

Recently I have noticed the biggest problem for new writer’s is not getting the story out, it is keeping the story consistent.

Consistency in POV and consistency with tenses. Sure I see alot of grammatical issues being tossed out there as a new writer, but POV is one tough element of the craft that needs to be honed and mastered.

Mastering the POV will help in keeping the work consistent.

We, f2k, had an exercise this week in POV and when asked to shift pov, alot of people wrote the same exact paragraph and switched the POV from “He said” to “I said”. To me, shifting the point of view changes the perspective and the ‘who’ is seeing what and from whose point of view.

Here’s an example of something I’m working on: Two pov’s and different perspectives arise.

POV 1 ~ First person
As I hover over my lifeless body lying below me, I wonder where I am. The aroma of a fresh garden surrounds me making me feel like a weightless cloud. I want to yell down to myself, but I can’t seem to communicate from here. I walk slowly toward the endless portal that awaits me. I float like a feather on an endless air drifting into the unknown. No claps of thunder, no bolts of lightning, just eerie warmth surrounds me. A gravitational pull sucks me like a huge non-existent vacuum of space and time. I turn away from the light and try in a motionless effort to reclaim the body I left. Suddenly, I awaken to the trickle of an ice cold shower that releases me from the warm safe haven. I scan the bathroom and wonder how on earth did I get in here?

POV2 ~ Third person
Look at her, a lifeless form in need of assistance. She has left her body only to discover the realm of the unknown. The bright light that has hold of her won’t let her go. She can wriggle and worm all she wants but it is pulling with an endless flux of gravity. She knows this is the end of the line, the place she’s heard about but never wanted to be at the cusp of her youth. She's grappling with fear yet releasing herself without a fight, letting herself drift into the aromatic garden that waits. As moments pass, time is of the essence.
She needs to be revived; it’s not her time. Wait; look; she’s in bathroom shower. How on earth did she get there?

The same paragraph but from different perspectives, and two different pov’s. This shift sometimes confuses new writer’s because they can’t see from anyone elses eyes. They are looking at the paragraph and thinking they need to write the exact same words but change *I* into *She*. When I shift pov, I see from someone else eyes.

I think we need to look at perspective as much as POV. Work on the POV, sifting through all the knowledge you can and retry the exercise and I can bet you’re perspective will change too. You’ll be seeing through different eyes in no time.

Now get moving, Write Right!