Another Self-Publishing Post

"Write without pay until somebody offers to pay." Mark Twain

Boy I do read a lot about Self-Publishing now, don’t I? Did you ever notice, if you google something, all day long or week for that matter, you will find yourself stumbling on the same thing over and over? Or you’ll run into a post of the same nature, just by chance?

After my wholeheartedly post on the self-pub industry, I by chance ran into this blog post that shed new light on the subject. Very well written and masterfully crafted on the subject matter of the self-publishing industry. Is it for you? Or not for you?  This blog post really spells it out for you, whether it is something you’d be interested in or not.
 
Marketing tool

I think I gave my opinion and all I thought of the industry, and I sure hope my words or Jane’s words steer you in the right direction. In this very unstable economy, throwing money away is truly not an option unless your Bill Gates, which I’m  certain he is not reading this and throwing money out the window as I write. Even though he has the funds to self publish, he also has a NAME that is known, and publishers will publish his work, even at a risk of it being a flop, just because the name Gates carries weight with it.

That is another thing to think about. Have you already established a name for yourself and are you well known enough that if you did go the self publishing route, would you be a recognized name? Can you mass market yourself? Even the publishing industry thinks of these things before they take you on, and thus the reason many writers take on a pen name. I’ve thought of using a pen name, just so people won’t recognize me, but my personality is such a unique one that many who know me recognize my style right away!

I’ve seen prices as cheap as $2.94 a copy, to $395 and is spit out in six weeks! Is this for you? Are you that confident in your writing and that loose and free with funds that you’re willing to take the risk?

Many links within the link below will give you even more material to wade on through like ducks on a pond. Just dip your head in and go, that’s what I say. Do your research thoroughly before handing out one red cent! You owe it to you, to be that precise in the path you plan to journey on.
The do’s and don’ts of self publishing, give it a quick read. You’re on your way with all the info, now decide.

Do's and Don't's of self publishing

Poetry Sunday ~ Intricate Flower

 

Intricate Flower

The blossoms seem to surface

when out of the weary cold

they spring to bountiful life

 the fragrance ever so bold.

Gathered round the stalk so true

the petal forms a flower

to stand among the crowd

to watch each passing hour.

The intricate life of the blade

the receptacle is a home.

for growth through each bud,

the soil soft silken loam.

My life is like the bloom

that slowly unfolds to be.

I rise and stretch each morn

release the soul of me.

Quotation Saturday ~ Memorial Day

Memorial Day

The stern hand of fate has scourged us to an elevation where we can see the great everlasting things that matter for a nation; the great peaks of honour we had forgotten - duty and patriotism, clad in glittering white; the great pinnacle of sacrifice pointing like a rugged finger to heaven.
~David Lloyd George
 
With the tears a Land hath shed
Their graves should ever be green.
~Thomas Bailey Aldrich

The brave die never, though they sleep in dust:
Their courage nerves a thousand living men.
~Minot J. Savage

Our country is not the only thing to which we owe our allegiance. It is also owed to justice and to humanity. Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong.
~James Bryce

The hero dead cannot expire:
The dead still play their part.
~Charles Sangster

While we are mourning the loss of our friend, others are rejoicing to meet him behind the veil.
 ~John Taylor

We look forward to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power. Then will our world know the blessings of peace.
~William Ewart Gladstone

PEACE

Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

One must look hard through history to find when a clear understanding of the truth moved anyone to fire the first shot.
~Robert Brault
You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.
~Attributed to both Golda Meir and Indira Gandhi

Five great enemies to peace inhabit with us: avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride. If those enemies were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace.
~Francesco Petrarch
 
There is one armor that the world of men and women, as a world, has never yet put on. The churches have long bungled with its fastenings, but the world has gone unfended, and few have been those in whose hands the mystical sword of the spirit has shone with daily use. This armor, waiting to be worn, is the armor of brotherhood and sacrifice, the world of unselfishness, a conquering sword, with the power, where used, to unite the world in love. And there are none who may not put it on.
~M.A. DeWolfe Howe

LOVE

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.
~Mother Teresa

Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.
~Eric Fromm
Let your love be like the misty rains, coming softly, but flooding the river.
~Malagasy Proverb

Love is much like a wild rose, beautiful and calm, but willing to draw blood in its defense.
~Mark Overby

Hate leaves ugly scars, love leaves beautiful ones.
~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

Love unlocks doors and opens windows that weren't even there before.
~Mignon McLaughlin

Blog a Book

It is perfectly okay to write garbage – as long as you edit brilliantly.
C. J. Cherryh

Here’s the concept. For starters you need to start yourself a blog. I have one and the settings are set to ‘closed’ where no one can read or comment on it but me. My goal? Write my life story. I don’t know where the idea came from and at first I had it opened to where people could read my gut wrenching, painful past and learn from it, but then I thought I was revealing too much for public viewing so I closed the doors and am writing my novel instead, through the use of a blog.

Many of you have read books like Go Ask Alice and surely, the Diary of Anne Frank. The format is quite simple in a daily journal style format; with some added tidbits meshed into the story. Well that is my goal in Blogging a book. Day after day I’ll write one tale after another, compile posts of substance, possibly 1,000 words a day. Then at the end of the month I will have close to 30,000 words written! Sounds like a plan.

You don’t need any fancy gadgets and sidebars, this is where you are just going to pen your story. You could do it outside the blog, but I know many of you don’t back up your work on a daily basis. This is where all your writing will be safe, and when your computer crashes and you lose everything, the blog will still be there storing all that you’ve written, so a months worth of work will be safe.

Writing a novel of fiction would be done the same way, but not so much as a journal. I’m going for the journal-like route because my biography is non fiction. The style might change after I get it all completed, but this gives me something to write about on a daily basis. I’m done on classes for now, I’m finished leading people in their writing (except for my blog here at Write Right) and I’m moving on to action. The action being that I’m writing every day, no outside negative influences, and I’m well on my way.

If you’re a new writer and this is your first time penning a tale. Do your research! You don’t need to pay for expensive classes to help you along the way. Make google your friend and search out style of writing, voice, metaphors and the like. Surround yourself with positive people which you can find on many writing sites on the web, for FREE! Take it from me, one negative person can take you down, so flee from them! Be forewarned! Surround yourself with positive and positive will be your pillow at night, and all you dream.

There are many storage facilities, also free on the net, GOOGLE is one of them. Make sure you store your work somewhere other than just on a blog. Your files are not safe because computers have been known to crash, with years of hard work wiped out completely, all because no one thought to BACK-UP their work. Sure the websites you store your work at can rarely be hacked, and this is why you choose many sites all with different passwords.

Keep your novel/blog/work safe! And Write Right!

Book worthy Blog?

Writing is a lot easier if you have something to say
~ Sholem Asch

We live in an era where mostly everyone has a blog. Whether its about food, raising kids, knitting or you pick a subject, more than likely, there is a blog about it. But is it book worthy?


Blogging is a nice comfortable place to share my writing skills while I wait for that big moment in time where a publisher accepts my work. In the meantime, I write my blog to share things about the craft that I’ve learned along the way. This isn’t an easy task, this blogging route, but it is a nice distraction from many mundane circumstances that life throws at you.


Again, is your blog book worthy? There is actually a book titled How to Blog a Book, that will take you through the steps of turning your blog into a book! A book worthy blog.


First let me say, no I haven’t bought the book and second, when I began this blog I had no intention of turning it into a book. But now with this newer technology buzzing around the internet, the possibilities are there. Yesterdays self publishing post was more aimed at the novel you’ve written. I don’t think self publishing is a route for the budding writer. It’s an easy out of taking away all the rejection so you can feel secure. Writers know, there is nothing about this business that’s comfy and secure. It’s hard work, day in and day out of honing a craft, marketing your work, and promoting yourself.


If you have a target audience for your followers, chances are you have a book in the making. If your posts are consistent about one subject, is aimed at a certain group (photography, writing, knitters, etc.) then more than likely you have a book worthy blog. Now it is time to find out.


For me, I have close to one thousand posts. There has to be a book in there somewhere! My main topics are the writing craft, poetry and quotes. Now I know my quotations are not book worthy, but one never knows. What I’m going to do is take all the posts and separate and organize them. Poetry in one file, writing another and quotations yet another. My life posts will go in my life story I’m penning. I might be able to use something there.


If your blog is not post specific, meaning all over the place in topics, chances are slim that you have book worthy content amid the rubble. You might just blog for fun and that is all well and good, but to a writer, we’re always thinking books! As I said, I’ll organize my posts first and see what I have. Then onto editing it to make sure the post was sufficient and all the right info was given to the reader.


Once all this is compiled, I’ll add a few unpublished works. Editors love new material and sending them already published work may discourage them from taking on your project. Add new material! And make sure you inform them that there is newly added material! Persistence pays off.

Self Publishing?

"Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go." 

E.L. Doctorow

I know quite a few people who would like to self publish their novels. I myself would love to be able to afford to self publish my poetry, but as for my novel? I think I’d rather stand on my own two feet and trust it in the hands of a publisher who has faith in my story, my writing. Standing on my own two feet, I mean to send it out to the very people who will say it is either good or great enough to publish. Not your friends and family, REAL publishers!

To me, and this is only TO ME, self publishing seems like a sort of easy way out. But is it really, easy, I mean? You are paying to publish your own work. Talk about vain. It seems to me like a vain ego boost that drives you to just BE published! And to me, being self published is not a time to say, boast and brag, “I’ve been published!” No, you published yourself, now you have to hope that your work is good enough for the PUBLIC to buy it.

Sure your friends that you’ve acquired at writing sites will buy your book and your family will too, and all will say, “wow! I know this author” and stroke your ego, but without sales to the outside world and total strangers not in the know not buying your SPN (self published novel), you are only setting yourself up for a world of hurt.

Maybe I’m being too harsh? I don’t know. I only know what I feel, and to me, since poetry doesn’t sell big, self publishing might be the  positive route to get your work out there to all your friends who LOVE your poetry and would be willing to spend a few bucks to have it all in one place, between book covers that they can feel and thumb through!

As for covers, I would not tolerate a soft cover book. I won’t even pick one up in the library, nevertheless pay for one. But to pay to publish a soft cover? What IS the point? I haven’t figured that one out, friends. It’s just that I think a good firm hard cover is more apt to sell, than a soft cover. And a lot of times that is all the self publishers offer, is a soft cover and possibly SOME royalties.

Why would you PAY to self-pub, if they keep much of the royalties? You’re paying THEM to print and bind it, you market it and sell it, and THEY get royalties? Does that sound of a scam ready to blow up in your face?

Hold onto your money, people. Self publishing is nothing more than you selling yourself. You are prostituting your writing and that, again to ME, is demeaning to your talent and skill as a writer. If you’re a good writer, there are publishers out there waiting to find that nugget of gold amongst sand in a riverbed of writing. Remember, there are a lot of EXCELLENT writers that you’re going to be competing with, so be the best you can be, don’t sell yourself out for an ego boost. Have faith in your writing!


Two Self publishing firms I know of:

Lulu.com  

xlibris.com

Why Write?

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.
~ Cyril Connolly

Why? Because it’s in your blood.

As you can tell, I haven’t written much in the past few months as I was off healing. My back issues, my dental issues have all been taken care of and I’m on the road to healing. I’ve taken away my dream of writing and as such I’ve even lost Alexandria Virginia in the process. Sorry, Alexandria, I have forgiven you and the others that attacked me but they have all harbored ill will towards me to this very day.

I’ve lost many friends in the past few months and I see who really cares for me and calls me friend. I’ve been in solitude and as the school year ended on a high note for my son, my life is slowly returning to normal again. So why write?

Around October, I slowly got sick and the attacks began. I lost my love of writing but soon realized it is all I live for. Sure I belt out a poem here and there, but writing, helping people, guiding new writers; that was something I loved, and I let many people down along  the way just because of a few bad seeds in the garden of my writing life. I trained most of the very people who attacked me, and this is how they repay me? With friends like that... you get my meaning.

If you’re a writer, no one can squelch your dream but you. Oh they might try, but the kindling fire is still there burning inside just awaiting to have a little wind touch it, and here in Nebraska, I’ve got plenty of wind to stoke my fire. As I heal, I return to my gift and will share with you my 1000th post! Like it or not bubble poppers, I’m here to stay and as I regain my strength, so does my fire.

So why write, you might ask? Because writing is in the blood of you. You can not, and I mean can not, put it out just because of a few party poopers who live in the realm of ‘you go, I’ll stay and hone MY skills’. Fine, I’ve left but my writing will go on and on and on, and I like it that way. I no longer feel like the writing site, that was once my ‘home within my home’ will ever be the same to me again as it will never be the same without me again. Sure people will go on day to day, thinking they are going someplace but really they are dormant seeds to me, nothing more.

My writing is MINE and it was my dream long before the naysayers came and pooped on my party, and will once again be the flourishing garden of words that I’ve come to know and love. No one can take away your dream but you! If you allow a person or people to define the craft, then you my friend are in the wrong business. There will always be a negative ion in the bunch, and it is up to you, my writing friends, to stand firm in what you believe in and take the bull by the horn and move on to a better place, alone or with your true friends holding you up, the choice is yours.

Write on and Write Right. It’s YOUR dream, what are you waiting for?

Poetry Sunday ~ Spring

Psalm 107:20 He sent his word, and healed them, and del ivered them from their destructions.

Welcome Spring

Spring has sprung the time has come,
for the fields to burst alive.
With colors so great it's not to late.
for spring to officially arrive.

The snow has gone, I have no one,
to share this vibrant season.
I feel so strong I break into song,
for no apparent reason.

I have no excuse for spring to seduce,
my heart to rendezvous.
I go into panic, my soul now volcanic.
I'm free to grow and renew!

All rights reserved: copyright  © 1984 Joni Zipp

Wellspring of the Season
copyright 2011 © Joni Zipp
***

Spring flourishes as buds burst through the soil
branches have nubs that appeared without toil
long winter nights have now given swift rise
to sweeping old leaves out of the cloudless skies.

Earth has shaped this beautiful display
of fragrant pleasantries and colorful array.
We take for granted the burgeoning blooms
looking for light where all darkness looms.

Hand in hand we walk through the meadow;
orange collides with buoyant yellow.
The warmth of the sun; the tickling grass
all give rise to Springtime's sheer glass.

The beauty is wrapped in a myriad of shades;
sunbeams dance off of dew-laden blades.
We inhale the life of this glorious treasure
wrapped in the love of heavenly pleasure.

Humans who falter in the deceptive lure
bother not with keeping things pure.
Guilty and gullible with nary refrain
never enjoying the soft-spoken rain.

Dance in the sun, let its fingers drizzle ~
your body is sculpted by its gentle chisel.
Allow it to shape and mold your being,
relish our God and all things you’re seeing.

authors note: My how my writing has grown!

Quotation Saturday

FRIEND

Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh!" he whispered. "Yes, Piglet?" "Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw. "I just wanted to be sure of you."
 ~A.A. Milne

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.
~Dinah Craik

Friends are family you choose for yourself.
~Author Unknown

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.
~Henri Nouwen

HANG IN THERE...

When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.
~Harriet Beecher Stowe

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
~Henry S. Haskins
 
If one dream should fall and break into a thousand pieces, never be afraid to pick one of those pieces up and begin again. ~Flavia Weedn
Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are.
~Arthur Golden
 
I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much.
~Mother Teresa

BE YOURSELF

The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another.
 ~James Matthew Barrie

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.
~Judy Garland

If you cannot be a poet, be the poem.
~David Carradine

The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant duplicity. Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike, and rejoice at what brings you nothing but misfortune. ~Boris Pasternak

IDLENESS

Few women and fewer men have enough character to be idle.
~E.V. Lucas

There is a working class - strong and happy - among both rich and poor: there is an idle class - weak, wicked, and miserable - among both rich and poor.
~John Ruskin

Keep doing some kind of work, that the devil may always find you employed.
~St. Jerome

To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.
~Samuel Johnson

SOLITUDE

There are days when solitude is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall.
~Colette
 
When the superficial wearies me, it wearies me so much that I need an abyss in order to rest.
~Antonio Porchia
 
In a soulmate we find not company but a completed solitude.
~Robert Brault
 
I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least - and it is commonly more than that - sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.
~Henry David Thoreau

It is only when we silent the blaring sounds of our daily existence that we can finally hear the whispers of truth that life reveals to us, as it stands knocking on the doorsteps of our hearts.
~K.T. Jong

Never be afraid to sit awhile and think.
~Lorraine Hansberry

Poetry Sunday ~ What is a Mother

What Is A Mother

A mother is God’s way of saying

that He’s with you all the way

He put her here in His place 

so you would never be led astray

She watches over and protects you

in any manner that she sees fit.

She brings you up to be a good person,

yet she spoils you a little bit.

Once you’ve left home she’s still there

as God would want her to be

A mother goes on with her own life

yet she always has room for me.

God created a beautiful thing

when He created a Mother

Especially the one he blessed me with

who could be replaced by no other.

 Authors note: 

Written many years ago in my youth

one of many mothers day cards!

Quotation Saturday ~ Graduation Day

In honor of Graduation Saturday. Today my niece graduates with top honors at the age of seventeen. CONGRATULATIONS Kylie!

What we are is God's gift to us. What we become is our gift to God.
~Eleanor Powell


A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that "individuality" is the key to success.
~Robert Orben


There is a good reason they call these ceremonies "commencement exercises." Graduation is not the end; it's the beginning.
~Orrin Hatch


Graduation is only a concept. In real life every day you graduate. Graduation is a process that goes on until the last day of your life. If you can grasp that, you'll make a difference.
~Arie Pencovici


It is clear the future holds great opportunities. It also holds pitfalls. The trick will be to avoid the pitfalls, seize the opportunities, and get back home by six o'clock.
~Woody Allen
The future lies before you
Like a field of driven snow,
Be careful how you tread it,
For every step will show.
~Author Unknown


I hope your dreams take you to the corners of your smiles, to the highest of your hopes, to the windows of your opportunities, and to the most special places your heart has ever known.
~Author Unknown


It is indeed ironic that we spend our school days yearning to graduate and our remaining days waxing nostalgic about our school days.
~Isabel Waxman


What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
~Henry S. Haskins


Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson


Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
~Quoted in P.S. I Love You, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.


The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.
~Sydney J. Harris


Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit and simply never leave. Our lives are measured by these.
~Susan B. Anthony


Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. ~Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles," 1992 (commonly misattributed to Nelson Mandela, 1994 inauguration speech)

Poetry Sunday ~ Broken Beauty

Job 40: 10 Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty.

Broken Beauty

***

 Take me as I am...

broken beauty

a small token

forlorn duty.

Hold me...

as I crumble

I will rise

newly humble.

Hear me weep...

all my sighing

I am me

beauty dying.

Touch me...

worthy crown

all my heart

falling down.

Lift me up...

to the skies

as my world

slowly dies.

Find me...

in the mire

peel me

from the fire.

Guide my soul...

to the realm

where God alone

mans the helm.

Quotation Saturday

ADVICE

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.
~Erica Jong, How to Save Your Own Life, 1977

It is a good divine that follows his own instructions.
~William Shakespeare


It is more easy to be wise for others than for ourselves.
~François Duc de La Rochefoucauld

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself.
~Cicero

FRIENDSHIP

A single rose can be my garden... a single friend, my world.
~Leo Buscaglia

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.
~Albert Schweitzer

If a friend is in trouble, don't annoy him by asking if there is anything you can do. Think up something appropriate and do it. 
~Edgar Watson Howe

The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.
~Elisabeth Foley

PEOPLE

The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits. 
~Nathaniel Hawthorne

Those who are quite satisfied sit still and do nothing; those who are not quite satisfied are the sole benefactors of the world. 
~Walter Savage Landor

If we had no faults of our own, we would not take so much pleasure in noticing those of others.
~Francois duc de la Rochefoucauld

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.
~Plato

WEEKENDS

Weekends are a bit like rainbows; they look good from a distance but disappear when you get up close to them.
 ~John Shirley

Your hair may be brushed, but your mind's untidy.
You've had about seven hours of sleep since Friday.
No wonder you feel that lost sensation.
You're sunk from a riot of relaxation.
~Ogden Nash, about weekends

Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week. 
~Joseph Addison

The rhythm of the weekend, with its birth, its planned gaieties, and its announced end, followed the rhythm of life and was a substitute for it. 
~F. Scott Fitzgerald

My best advice is to share your weekends among people, preferably friends! 
~Joni Zipp

Alexandria, Virginia

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. ~Michelangelo
***

Sorry Alexandria, Virginia. I notice you check out my blog at least twice a day, sometimes more. Are you in search of a new post? Seeing if I’m writing? Well the muse has faded from my eyes for a bit, and maybe one day it will be recaptured. I have said over and over that it was squelched and to this date, it has not been rekindled.

Life has a way of putting up roadblocks and we can either stand behind them, waiting for it to be removed, or we can go around it and move forward into new areas of fulfillment. This is what I’ve chosen to do. It is Spring here in Nebraska and as such, the gardens are coming alive, the fields are being plowed, the rains have given nourishment to the soil, seedlings are popping up everywhere, and the sun, the rich warm sun lightens my path and guides me to new things.

I could curl up into a ball at all of the adversity happening in my life, but I’m not one to roll over and play dead. I’m embracing all that life is tossing at me. I watch as my writer friends move on in their writing pursuits, trying to grab hold of their dream, but as of late, my writing dream is asleep. It’s pretty sound asleep too.

After my beau regained his sight, the recent infection that has seen us on many trips to Omaha, is finally showing signs of healing! My back issues and dental issues are all coming together in a mutual healing pattern. It’s as if our (my beaus and I) infections know each other intimately and are both on the same path to healing, making me see the intricacies of a life altering progression.

My life as I know it will change forever. I will not be the same being I am today and I will follow the road where it may lead and never look back. Remember, life is a string of thought, we are all connected and we will all come full circle. The blanket has been cast, the weavers are busy weaving and humans are in the tangled mess trying to figure it all out. As such, the trail I’m on has bread crumbs and I’m following them as I go along.

So I’m sorry Alexandria Virginia if I am letting you down. I follow my inner soul and allow it to lead me where it may. It will always be threaded in poetry. I will always connect to the wisdom of old in Quotes and my heart belongs to God, and that is a good thing to have in life. My gift will remain an effervescent presence in my life. Be happy! Life is too short to waste on the mundane.

I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities. ~Theodore Geisel

Poetry Sunday ~ The Zone

The Zone

I’m in the zone every day
walking forward in every way.
shining light come what may...
my world is not your own.

I try connecting each little thread
as they pass my world is fed
letting go of all I’ve bled.
My soul is fully grown.

I feel excluded from this place
earth no longer a happy space
I run with fear upon my face.
The wind knows all that’s blown.

In this life we all can see
something flows through you and me.
Vibrations of light we cannot flee.
I share all that I’ve known.

Here we are on our own,
embracing now we have grown.
wings whispered fully blown.
For all I’ve known
and now have shown!

Quotation Saturday

KNOWLEDGE

“The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand."
~Frank Herbert
 
"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young."
~Henry Ford
 
"We owe almost all our knowledge not to those who have agreed, but to those who have differed."
~Charles Caleb Colton

INSPIRATION

I have learned that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
~Henry David Thoreau
 
Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another's pain, life is not in vain.
~Helen Keller
 
In art the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can inspire.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
When you become detached mentally from yourself and concentrate on helping other people with their difficulties, you will be able to cope with your own more effectively. Somehow, the act of self-giving is a personal power-releasing factor.
~Norman Vincent Peale
 
Basically we are all the same human beings with the same potential to be a good human being or a bad human being ... The important thing is to realize the positive side and try to increase that; realize the negative side and try to reduce. That's the way.
~Dalai Lama

ADDITUDE

"Our attitudes control our lives. Attitudes are a secret power working twenty-four hours a day, for good or bad. It is of paramount importance that we know how to harness and control this great force."
~Tom Blandi
 
"When you consistently maintain a positive frame of mind, you'll become known as a problem-solver rather than a complainer. People avoid complainers. They seek out problem-solvers."
~Joseph Sommerville, PhD
 
When you think you cannot succeed then this is what the mind will believe. So, invest in your own confidence and change your mind into a positive resource. "Believe that you will succeed, and you will."
~Dale Carnegie
 
"In helping others, we shall help ourselves,
for whatever good we give out completes the circle
and comes back to us."
~Flora Edwards

MOTIVATION

"We all find ourselves in situations that at times seem hopeless.
And, we all have the choice to do nothing or take action."
~Catherine Pulsifer
 
"Failures are made only by those who fail to dare,
not by those who dare to fail."
~Lester B. Pearson
 
"For every failure, there's an alternative course of action.
You just have to find it.
When you come to a roadblock, take a detour."
~Mary Kay Ash

LAUGHTER

"Laugh and the world laughs with you,
weep and you weep alone."
~Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 
"At the height of laughter,
the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities."
~Jean Houston
 
"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter."
e..e. cummings
 
So many tangles in life are ultimately hopeless that we have no appropriate sword other than laughter.
~Gordon W. Allport

“If what motivates you into laughter is a positive attitude, then you are on the right path to gaining knowledge!”
~Joni Zipp

Touch

I’m coming out of the woodwork today to talk about an enlightening TV show called Touch!
 
It’s not about T&A, sleaze or a reality show where trash and smut are tossed around like yesterdays garbage. No, instead it is about the reality of us all being connected in some way.

Very uplifting and inspiring, the show begins with a voice in the sea of words making a connection to all the people out here in the real world.

From the website:

We are all interconnected. Our lives are invisibly tied to those whose destinies touch ours.
This is the hopeful premise of the new drama TOUCH from creator and writer Tim Kring (“Heroes,” “Crossing Jordan”) and executive producers Peter Chernin (NEW GIRL, TERRA NOVA) and Katherine Pope (NEW GIRL, TERRA NOVA).
 
""Our lives are invisibly tied to those whos destinies touch ours""
 
Blending science, spirituality and emotion, the series will follow seemingly unrelated people all over the world whose lives affect each other in ways seen and unseen, known and unknown. At the story’s center is MARTIN BOHM (Kiefer Sutherland), a widower and single father, haunted by an inability to connect to his emotionally challenged 11-year-old son, JAKE (David Mazouz). Caring, intelligent and thoughtful, Martin has tried everything to reach his son. But Jake never speaks, shows little emotion, and never allows himself to be touched by anyone, including Martin. Jake is obsessed with numbers—writing long strings of them in his ever-present notebooks—and with discarded cell phones.
 
Social worker CLEA HOPKINS (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) believes that Jake’s needs are too serious for Martin to handle. She sees a man whose life has become dominated by a child he can no longer control. She believes that it’s time for the state to intervene. So Jake is placed in foster care, despite Martin’s desperate objections.
"Martins quest to connect with his son will shape humanity's destiny"
 
But everything changes after Martin meets ARTHUR TELLER (Danny Glover), a professor and an expert on children who possess special gifts when it comes to numbers. Martin learns that Jake possesses an extraordinary gift—the ability to perceive the seemingly hidden patterns that connect every life on the planet. While Martin wants nothing more than to communicate directly with his son, Jake connects to his father through numbers, not words. Martin realizes that it’s his job to decipher these numbers and recognize their meaning. As he puts the pieces together, he will help people across the world connect as their lives intersect according to the patterns Jake has foreseen.
Martin’s quest to connect with his son will shape humanity’s destiny.


Thursday nights on FOX 9 EST / 8 CST

***

While I’m not a fan of television because it has become a raunchy cesspool of dark matter for me, I saw a preview for Touch back in January and after the Premiere showing, I was hooked. Always feeling alone in my thoughts, no one understanding me and writing me off as ‘weird’, ‘strange’, and sometimes ‘loony’, Touched reached me and my thoughts and brought them to the world. But they were not just my thoughts, apparently they are the thoughts of many interconnected people.

As in all shows, they are connected to facebook and twitter, and I’ve found, that I’m NOT so alone. There are actually millions of people with these same threads that have bound them to this world, and we’re all finding that we are connected. I’m a very spiritual person, and have felt the connection to the world all my life, but only now, via a television show, does my connection not seem weird, strange or loony at all. The show actually makes me feel sane in an all too loosely tethered society.

I wrote on their facebook wall these words:
Thank you! I just wanted to say thank you, for not only connecting us all via the show but through facebook. You are connecting like- minded people who share many of the same ‘connections’ in our real life. What I like most about the show is that you make us like-minded people not feel so alone out in this vast universe sea of people, you have connected us all, and for that, I thank you! When I watch the show it is like looking up at the stars at night and forming images of the many lights. We may all be different but we are ALL under the same blanket, being woven together, one thread at a time.


Their response? (yes they actually respond to people!)
Thank YOU for being a fan, Joni. We couldn't have said it any better. :]

Astri's Birth Day

Astri’s Birth Day

***

I look around at everything,
for her soul's existence.
I cannot find her anywhere
through all my tried persistence.

A gently cradled baby;
a stroller passes by.
My eyes begin to fill with tears.
I ask the question why.

Why is she not here with me?
Why has she gone away?
Why am I the lonely one
left to brave each day?

Is she safe in heavens abode?
Are the Angels now her mother?
Is she within the vibrant realm,
that's home to her own brother?

Does she think of me, as I of her,
with every passing day?
Will we ever meet again?
I'm lost for what I'd say.

I feel her in the warm swift breeze,
I sense her in a flower.
The birds all sing a song for her;
a gentle rain’s her shower.

As years all pass I mark the day
the day that I gave birth.
The day I seen her soul depart
from this luscious earth.

author's note: It would be her eighth birthday.

We never forget...

4-26-04 to 4-26-04

Poetry Sunday ~ TOUCH

Gen. 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

TOUCH
***
by: Joni Zipp

People enter each waking day
to see the light in a whole new way.
Bump into a friend and make him fall
shaking the momentum of it all.

Connected and bound by a thread
whether alive or all but dead.
We journey through space as we go
our movement is but a candid light show.

Bound to this planet but not our souls
the fate of our life is within our goals.
Reach for the stars but then you see
another person touching thee.

Connected by mere space and time
words are but a musing rhyme.
What really matters is all that's changed
the lives for purpose have rearranged.

A lifetime of reason and mortal season,
we’re all together God wasn’t teasin’
Glue that bonds the earth and sea
every plant and fortuitous tree.

When one and one makes two alive
then three and four make seven arrive.
Understand the mirror that’s shattered
Is our journey; once whole, we mattered.

Quotation Saturday

PEOPLE

You never know till you try to reach them how accessible men are; but you must approach each man by the right door.
~Henry Ward Beecher, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1887

It is with narrow-souled people as with narrow-necked bottles: the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring it out.
~Alexander Pope

Groups of people are like a massive Rock, Paper, Scissors war. 
~Daniel

Freaks are the much needed escape from the humdrum. They are poetry.
~Albert Perry

PHILOSPHICAL
 
We are all but recent leaves on the same old tree of life and if this life has adapted itself to new functions and conditions, it uses the same old basic principles over and over again. There is no real difference between the grass and the man who mows it. ~Albert Szent-Györgyi

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
~Henry David Thoreau

Oh, Heaven, it is mysterious, it is awful to consider that we not only carry a future Ghost within us; but are, in very deed, Ghosts!
~Thomas Carlyle

Each forward step we take we leave some phantom of ourselves behind.
~John Lancaster Spalding

By daily dying I have come to be.
~Theodore Roethke

BEING YOURSELF

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
~e.e. cummings, 1955
 
All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself.
~Ralph Ellison, "Battle Royal"
 
We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.
~François Duc de La Rochefoucauld
 
Almost every man wastes part of his life in attempts to display qualities which he does not possess, and to gain applause which he cannot keep.
~Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, 1750

Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.
~Homer

The man of masks need not hide. Some see clearly the man inside. ~ Joni Zipp

HAPPINESS
 
Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
 ~Robertson Davies


Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.
~Fyodor Dostoevsky

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.
~James Openheim

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.
~Margaret Young

SILENCE
 
True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment. 
~William Penn

Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation... tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego. His anxiety subsides. His inhuman void spreads monstrously like a gray vegetation.
 ~Jean Arp
 
I have often lamented that we cannot close our ears with as much ease as we can our eyes.
~Richard Steele
 
Nowadays most men lead lives of noisy desperation.
~James Thurber