Poetry Sunday ~ When Darkness Calls

When Darkness Calls

I crawled onto the naked floor:

wet from tears I cried before.

Clawing, clenching, my nails they bled

for want of need for to be fed.

I heard the solemn cries above

shedding droplets of forlorn love.

I saw a ray as it streamed on by.

passed my wavering longing eye.

In the gallant bristled light

Tis' where I knew I had to fight.

Slithering in the dark too long

I seek the edge of rhythmic song.

Darkness sought me when I was low

played the game of revelries blow.

Believing he had the promising cure,

I fell for Lucifer's haunting lure.

His nails felt like a warm embrace;

his fire lit my empty face.

Parts of me they tingled within,

leading me down the road of sin.

It felt so right, so warm and true,

betrayal a game I never knew.

Lies, deceit the blackened stares

with him my guide I had no cares.

When he had me in his clutch,

reality hit me; I lost too much.

I begged I pleaded for simple release

I wanted refuge, my inner peace.

It was that moment I felt a hand

reach from Heaven and make me stand.

Brought me forth from the darkened night,

into the morn of a new dawns light.

Anguish and pain were in the pit

while Lucifer he growled and spit.

Trying to tug me back into his realm

where he alone could man the helm.

As sweat rolled down my chafing cheek,

returned my strength no longer weak.

Angels of grace were at my feet

True Light of love our eyes did meet.

I am the master of my own domain

Truth will abide in Light I'll remain.

No longer a victim, I'm on the mend

Thanks to the Lord my newfound friend.

Quotation Saturday

PEOPLE

Who is wise?  He that learns from everyone.  Who is powerful?  He that governs his passions.  Who is rich?  He that is content.  Who is that?  Nobody. 

~Benjamin Franklin

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.  

~Winston Churchill

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

Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sunlight expands my blood?  Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?  
~Walt Whitman

PATIENCE

How can a society that exists on instant mashed potatoes, packaged cake mixes, frozen dinners, and instant cameras teach patience to its young? 

~Paul Sweeney

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish. 

~John Quincy Adams

One moment of patience may ward off great disaster.  One moment of impatience may ruin a whole life. 

~Chinese Proverb

Experience has taught me this, that we undo ourselves by impatience.  Misfortunes have their life and their limits, their sickness and their health.  ~Michel de Montaigne

PROMISES

Promises are the uniquely human way of ordering the future, making it predictable and reliable to the extent that this is humanly possible. 

~Hannah Arendt

When a man takes an oath... he's holding his own self in his own hands.  Like water.  And if he opens his fingers then - he needn't hope to find himself again.  

~Robert Bolt

Not the maker of plans and promises, but rather the one who offers faithful service in small matters.  This is the person who is most likely to achieve what is good and lasting. 

~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Promises are like crying babies in a theater, they should be carried out at once.  

~Norman Vincent Peale

TRUST

One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life.  

~E.M. Forster

You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment unless you trust enough.  

~Frank Crane

Every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent, scurrilous, wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly every political practitioner in the country - and then declares itself puzzled that America has lost trust in its politicians. 

~Charles Krauthammer

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. 

~William Shakespeare

Poetry Sunday ~ Drought

Drought

I look across the fields so bare

Pivots racing for drought to spare.

Boughs they bend seeking relief

From the suns scorching grief.

Grass is burnt in umber bliss

Green it sleeps the moisture miss

Blades are thorns piercing the skin

I’m lost in thought for the state I’m in.

Summer fun has been sucked dry

The heat it drinks tears I cry.

Thankful for a warm swift breeze

It only drains the towering trees.

Shade is welcome; there I sit

Watching as the bugs all flit

Mosquitoes have all lost their bite

Crickets are still they silence the night.

Come forth rain and spare us wrath,

As summer sun has marked its path.

The season is slowly nearing an end

Up to heaven rain prayers I send.

Quotation Saturday

Phil. 4: 8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

***

SANITY

A man who is "of sound mind" is one who keeps the inner madman under lock and key.
~Paul Valéry


The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you.
~Rita Mae Brown


Temporary madness may be necessary in some cases, to cleanse and renovate the mind; just as a fit of illness is to carry off the humours of the body.
~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare


Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked.
~Oliver W. Holmes, Sr


No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.
~Aristotle

MORALITY

The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from custom.
~Michel de Montaigne, translated


We have two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practice and another which we practice but seldom preach.
~Bertrand Russell


It is with flowers, as with moral qualities: the bright-coloured are sometimes poisonous; but, I believe, never the sweet-smelling.
~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare


What is morality in any given time or place? It is what the majority then and there happen to like, and immorality is what they dislike.
~Alfred North Whitehead

VIRTUES

Virtue is an angel, but she is a blind one, and must ask Knowledge to show her the pathway that leads to her goal. 
~Horace Mann


Virtue is praised, but hated. People run from it, for it is ice-cold and in this world you have to keep your feet warm.
~Denis Diderot


Modesty and unselfishness - these are virtues which men praise - and pass by.
 ~André Maurois


Do not be troubled because you have not great virtues. God made a million spears of grass where He made one tree. The earth is fringed and carpeted, not with forests, but with grasses. Only have enough of little virtues and common fidelities, and you need not mourn because you are neither a hero or a saint. ~Henry Ward Beecher


It is hardly respectable to be good nowadays.
~Edith Sitwell

FAITH

Faith, to my mind, is a stiffening process, a sort of mental starch.
~E.M. Forster


Faith is courage; it is creative while despair is always destructive.
~David S. Muzzey


He who has faith has... an inward reservoir of courage, hope, confidence, calmness, and assuring trust that all will come out well - even though to the world it may appear to come out most badly.
~B.C. Forbes


Be like the bird that, passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings.
~Victor Hugo


As your faith is strengthened you will find that there is no longer the need to have a sense of control, that things will flow as they will, and that you will flow with them, to your great delight and benefit.
~Emmanuel


In these trying times, faith is knowing a brighter tomorrow lives right around the corner.
~ Joni Zipp

Poetry Sunday ~ I See What You Do

I see what you do

In the dark hours as you surf through

Pages upon pages I know what you do.

Do you think that you can hide

All from me to whom you abide?

You gave your soul to me I see

Now it lies in jeopardy.

You cannot peek nor can you thrust

Sorry my son, there’s no room for lust.

I am the ruler to whom you bow

Was it all for naught, you ruin it now?

Lay your trust into able hands

We can make it through the stands.

I gave you freedom of which I can take back

For the ignorance of all you lack.

Secrets are storms waiting to rise

Unleashing pain from the skies.

Know that nothing is hidden from me

Each step you take, I always see.

Quotation Saturday

TRUST

You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment unless you trust enough.
~Frank Crane


I trust everyone. I just don't trust the devil inside them.
~Troy Kennedy-Martin


People ask me why it's so hard to trust people,
and I ask them why is it so hard to keep a promise?
~author unknown


I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you”
~Friedrich Nietzesche


Trust is like a river. Sometimes you can go with the flow. At other times it drives you downstream at full force, spitting you out on the shore!
~ Joni Zipp

TRUTH

God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please - you can never have both.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson


I never dreamed of being Shakespeare or Goethe, and I never expected to hold the great mirror of truth up before the world; I dreamed only of being a little pocket mirror, the sort that a woman can carry in her purse; one that reflects small blemishes, and some great beauties, when held close enough to the heart.
~Peter Altenberg

Truth is the breath of life to human society. It is the food of the immortal spirit. Yet a single word of it may kill a man as suddenly as a drop of prussic acid.
~Oliver Wendell Holmes


Truth is hard for some people because it shows an inner vein they don’t want exposed to the light.
~ Joni Zipp

HONESTY

A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.
~William Blake


Honesty is the rarest wealth anyone can possess, and yet all the honesty in the world ain't lawful tender for a loaf of bread.
~Josh Billings


I never lie because I don't fear anyone. You only lie when you're afraid.
~John Gotti

Worse than telling a lie is spending the rest of your life staying true to a lie.
~Robert Brault


Honesty is like a warm blanket wrapped around your body, layer it with a lie and it becomes a blanket of thorns to your skin.
~ Joni Zipp

LOVE

Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry


When you're in love you never really know whether your elation comes from the qualities of the one you love, or if it attributes them to her; whether the light which surrounds her like a halo comes from you, from her, or from the meeting of your sparks. ~Natalie Clifford Barney

Take away love and our earth is a tomb.
~Robert Browning

Love is the fire in the soul that burns for eternity. Allowing the flame to go out is certain death.
~ Joni Zipp

FREE Audiobook Giveaway!!!

Did you know you could win a free audiobook, just by commenting on this post at Audiobook Heaven? I think this is the seventh audiobook giveaway this year. Every first of the month a new book is offered and while in the beginning he was getting emails like crazy on the post, the numbers seem to be dwindling.


Everyone likes something for FREE, so why the dwindle of responses for a free audiobook? Maybe people fear giving out their email? It’s not like millions of people will see it! So go give it a shot, you have nothing to LOSE and a FREE book to gain!

In other news, I’ve found a new place to meet like minded people. That would be Twitter. Unlike facebook, Twitter doesn’t allow you to write a whole bunch, just 140 characters I believe, so what you post must be tight and concise. Twitter isn’t bogged down with ads and very rarely am I offered porn. Erotica to me is soft porn and I do find people who are suggested to me who are into that sort of thing, but that is NOT for me. For anyone who knows me knows I’m a prude when it comes to that stuff, so I stick to ‘following’ the audiobook industry, writers, authors, publishers, and a few causes to stop child abuse. Porno freaks beware, I WILL NOT follow you just because you follow me, sorry!

I’m also a member of LinkedIn and there are discussions on writing that will keep you busy for days! LinkedIn, yeah it’s one word, is an insightful site with groups galore where very intriguing discussions are had about the writing industry. I don’t see many in the audiobook industry there, but if you’re a writer and heading into the ‘Professional Writer’ status, then LinkedIn might be something you’re interested in to get your career headed in the right direction. At least you can share your opinions, craft tips or whatever you wish. A pretty cool site for the networker in you!

Well that about covers what I’ve been doing these days to further my career in writing. Facebook I leave for socializing with friends and family (far and few between, I might add) Twitter I like to call the meeting of the mind space, for me. And LinkedIn is all about discussion of the field out there for us writers! I seem to have all my ducks in a row, as they waddle to a new future away from the village that kept my lil ducks busy for years.

Onto brighter and better waters!

Phishing, Spamming, Hacking, Oh My!

Phishing:

Phishing is a fraudulent attempt, usually made through email, to steal your personal information. The best way to protect yourself from phishing is to learn how to recognize a phish.


Phishing emails usually appear to come from a well-known organization and ask for your personal information — such as credit card number, social security number, account number or password. Often times phishing attempts appear to come from sites, services and companies with which you do not even have an account.


In order for Internet criminals to successfully "phish" your personal information, they must get you to go from an email to a website. Phishing emails will almost always tell you to click a link that takes you to a site where your personal information is requested. Legitimate organizations would never request this information of you via email.


Spamming:
Spam is flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it. Most spam is commercial advertising, often for dubious products, get-rich-quick schemes, or quasi-legal services. Spam costs the sender very little to send -- most of the costs are paid for by the recipient or the carriers rather than by the sender.


Hacking:
Computer hacking is the most popular form of hacking nowadays, especially in the field of computer security, but hacking exists in many other forms, such as phone hacking, brain hacking, etc. and it's not limited to either of them.


Due to the mass attention given to blackhat hackers from the media, the whole hacking term is often mistaken for any security related cyber crime. This damages the reputation of all hackers, and is very cruel and unfair to the law abiding ones of them, from who the term itself originated. The goal of this website is to introduce people the true philosophy and ethics of hackers, hopefully clearing their name and giving them the social status they deserve.


***
You might ask why I’m informing you of all of this. Well let me tell you. I’m not too naive where the internet is concerned but I’m no techie either (and proud of it). I like the sources of writers I find on Twitter, along with the audiobook communities, bloggers, writing friends, publishers, all at my fingertips that I can follow and be informed.


I’ve only began going back to Twitter recently because facebook does not have the great information that I can get on Twitter. I’ve been following, been followed, been a favorite and a retweeter, but something happened the other day.


I’m following a lot of Audiobook reviewers, narrators and such so when in my email I found one from HA, (I won’t give their name for obvious reasons) that said “someone is talking about you” I inadvertently clicked the wrong button thinking I was going to be taken to twitter to respond. No biggie, right? Wrong!


I later found out that the same notice went to all my followers that joni sent them. I didn’t! It was some kind of viral spam, that if anyone clicked it, it too would be sent to all of their followers too!


I thought I had been hacked, so I took measures of protecting myself, then I went to HA to see who they were and if I should STOP following them. Their page had been hacked! It was no longer reviews, it was a page full of links to erotica writing and so on, as you can use your own imagination.


I continued to protect and send out my apologies and many were very understanding, informing me that they knew it wasn’t from me, which is good to know that people respect me in that manner! Thank you Twitter followers! I AM legit, the real deal, nothing phishy or scammy about me! I’m a writer in a world of viral pigs who have nothing better to do in their lives but to try and hurt people!


Later that day, I went back to HA only to find that they too were made aware of the hacking scam and their page was back to normal! Whew! We dodged that bullet, twitterers!


I would never hurt a fly! Okay maybe I would kill a few flies, ever live on a farm where flies bite like dogs? But seriously, I would never hurt anyone; my followers know that and respect me, as I them. I’m a writer building my following, and networking with like minds.


Thank you all, you’re a great bunch of people. Give or take a few phish in the sea! ;)

Poetry Sunday ~ Soul Harvest

Soul Harvest

***

The time is near, the hour nigh,
moonbeams droop in a blackened sky.
Blazing sun scorches the land.
Earth erupts in a quivering stand.

Encircling us is ravaging hate,
lust and greed severs our fate.
I sit and watch as lives unravel,
the boulder of strength now merely gravel.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
souls bewildered by mistrust.
Doubt and fear, they give rise.
to muted pleas and mournful cries.

As souls ascend and souls descend,
it is our own that we must mend.
Bringing forth joy, love and peace,
the decorum of beauty will never cease.

Firmly tread as the time is here,
to boldly proclaim, all we revere.
The harvest of souls its beckoning plea.
It's craving you; devouring me.

Come forth and share your wholesome beauty.
Unleash love, as if our duty.
Reap what you sow, seek and find.
Then you my friend, won't be left behind.
Copyright ©joni zipp

Quotation Saturday

DEATH

“It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.”
― Anaïs Nin

“I'm the one that's got to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to.”

― Jimi Hendrix

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“That was the thing. You never got used to it, the idea of someone being gone. Just when you think it's reconciled, accepted, someone points it out to you, and it just hits you all over again, that shocking.”
― Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever

“Life is for the living.
Death is for the dead.
Let life be like music.
And death a note unsaid.”
― Langston Hughes, The Collected Poems

FAITH

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
― C.S. Lewis

“God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas but for scars.”
― Elbert Hubbard

“Do not think that love in order to be genuine has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired. Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”
― Mother Teresa

“Faith is not the belief that God will do what you want. It is the belief that God will do what is right.”
― Max Lucado, He Still Moves Stones

“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

TRUTH

“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
― Mark Twain

“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.”
― Flannery O'Connor

“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”
― Winston Churchill

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

Surviving...NOT Writing!

A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.”

― Maya Angelou

Well writing friends, it is 80 degrees here in Nebraska at 8:30 in the morning. I haven’t done much writing as of late as the days are loaded with heat and exhaustion. The gardens are looking nice, the pumpkins are flowering like crazy and the birds find relief in my makeshift birdbath. The grass on the other hand is almost non-existent, burnt to a crisp as temperatures have topped 100 for almost two weeks and what seems forever!


What a heatwave! Storms rocked my hometown of Maryland last week enough to scare my 73-year-old mother into the bathroom as winds topped 75 miles per hour! The days in Texas look cool compared to this. I’ve grown accustomed to Nebraska’s nice temps, but this summer is not good temperature wise. And as I read the morning news, not many states are being left out of this bake-bath!


Beau (Stormcrow) is awaiting glasses, job hunting, and license renewal. If you remember he was blind for two-and a half years and now has sight restored in one eye. Adam (my son) has had his own illness to contend with and the heat of the summer is not helping any! And me, my back issues are not resolved, but I still get out and weed (or de-weed) the garden and water my flowers. What a lovely summer thus far.

We missed the family bar-b-que on July 1st, due to these illnesses plaguing us. (But we’ve had many visits this year, so it was okay) Here in Nebraska there were many firework displays going off for what seemed like five nights in a row. We sat out on the back porch, in the sweltering night heat, watching the many light shows, so all was not lost for the holiday.

I’ve not returned to my writing community as of this date. I just pop in, friend request, and check out what is happening in the world of writers. I no longer feel it is the family of writers that I’ve known and loved throughout the eight years spent there. I’ve maintained a few friendships via facebook, but to get into the site and get writing done? I think that (site) is now a part of my past. I sweep it under the rug, and move on to a more professional writing site where people are there to write, not gossip, back-stab, demean and hurt. I say, if those types of people surround you, they are only going to bring you down. Surround yourself with the positive so that a positive flow and outcome will be your reward.

While it has been a bumpy road so far these seven months into the year, I’ve become stronger and I feel a renewal of spirit that has welcomed me into the wings of growth. I’m a better not bitter person because of the entire experience and I go into my future with my head held high and with great expectations as the road is paved smoothly, not buckled from the sultry heat! Now if only I could remember my name…

“I know God won't give me anything I can't handle. I just wish he didn't trust me so much.”

― Mother Teresa

Poetry Sunday ~ Winds in the Willow

Wind in the Willows

***

The wind in the willows walking away;

Cats in the cradle carrying this day.

Harps will be humming a soft melody

Birds are bound for the top of the tree.

Flowers are flowing in fortitudes stance

Branches bending a soulful dance.

Life it lulls and stills the soul

like bud to blossom becoming whole.

Ants are artfully aiming high

Powered persistence playfully ply.

Hypocrites hiss hypothetical spew

Willfully whispered for all to chew.

Soulful spirits sing songs of praise

Unleashing light through the haze.

Darkness dawns here nevermore,

Sleeping wake on a new days shore.

Quotation Saturday

MARRIAGE

Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband a month before she marries him and what she thinks of him a year afterward, and you will have the truth about him.
~H.L. Mencken


Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years.
~Simone Signoret


Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate.
~Barnett R. Brickner


In a time when nothing is more certain than change, the commitment of two people to one another has become difficult and rare. Yet, by its scarcity, the beauty and value of this exchange have only been enhanced.
~Robert Sexton


An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit.
~Pliny the Younger, Letters

FRIENDSHIP

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


Only your real friends will tell you when your face is dirty.
 ~Sicilian Proverb


The friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you.
~Elbert Hubbard


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 language of friendship is not words but meanings.
~Henry David Thoreau

TEAMWORK

The nice thing about teamwork is that you always have others on your side.
~Margaret Carty


One piece of log creates a small fire, adequate to warm you up, add just a few more pieces to blast an immense bonfire, large enough to warm up your entire circle of friends; needless to say that individuality counts but team work dynamites.
~Jin Kwon


Team means Together Everyone Achieves More!
~Author Unknown


Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishment toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.
~Andrew Carnegie

LOVE

There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved. It is God's finger on man's shoulder.
~Charles Morgan


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


Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.
~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry


Do I love you because you're beautiful,
Or are you beautiful because I love you?


~Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II

Poetry Sunday

The Souls Descent

Plummeting downward I watched it fall.
The deep abyss the shadowed wall.
Gripped by pain and tidal emotion.
Wrought with fear an inner devotion.

In this fissure of my being,
analyzing all I'm seeing.
The foulness of vengeance lurks throughout,
seeds of hatred sprinkled about.

Where once there lay a fluent stream,
drought and hunger fuse a team.
Lust it lingers in this pit.
I try to flee...but here I sit.

Liquid anger claws at me,
my very essence squints to see.
Howls and screams~~a wailing sound.
crimson walls melting 'round.

Fires racing torments edge.
keeping me from realities ledge.
I struggle within this master's plane,
as wilted red walls fall down like rain.

My soul has found a resting place,
torrents of tears stream down my face.
Trickling along like glistening sand,
I hold my pain in the palm of my hand.
 

Copyright ©joni zipp

Quotation Saturday

TEARS

Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.
~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, 1860

Heavy hearts, like heavy clouds in the sky, are best relieved by the letting of a little water.
~Antoine Rivarol


Tears are God’s gift to us. Our holy water. They heal us as they flow.
~Rita Schiano

Tears are the silent language of grief.
~Voltaire

TRUST

You can as easily love without trusting as you can hug without embracing.
~Robert Brault


Deciding whether or not to trust a person is like deciding whether or not to climb a tree, because you might get a wonderful view from the highest branch, or you might simply get covered in sap, and for this reason many people choose to spend their time alone and indoors, where it is harder to get a splinter.
~Lemony Snicket


Never trust a husband too far, nor a bachelor too near.
~Helen Rowland


Trust until it is broken. Then beware the man with a broken smile!
~ Joni

BETRAYAL

“Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard
Some do it with a bitter look
Some with a flattering word
The coward does it with a kiss
The brave man with a sword”
~ Oscar Wilde, The Ballad Of Reading Gaol

“It was a mistake," you said. But the cruel thing was, it felt like the mistake was mine, for trusting you.”
~David Levithan, The Lover's Dictionary


“He, who had done more than any human being to draw her out of the caves of her secret, folded life, now threw her down into deeper recesses of fear and doubt. The fall was greater than she had ever known, because she had ventured so far into emotion and had abandoned herself to it.”
~ Anaïs Nin


“If you're betrayed, release disappointment at once.
By that way, the bitterness has no time to take root.”
~ Toba Beta

“Do you believe a man can truly love a woman and constantly betray her?Never mind physically but betray her in his mind,in the very "poetry of his soul".Well,it's not easy but men do it all the time.”
~ Mario Puzo


Betrayal is common for men with no conscience.”
~ Toba Beta

FUTURE

Our faith in the present dies out long before our faith in the future.
~Ruth Benedict


We should all be concerned about the future because we will have to spend the rest of our lives there.
~Charles F. Kettering

The past can't see you, but the future is listening.
~Terri Guillemets

I have seen the future and it is very much like the present - only longer.

~Kehlog Albran

Links, Files, Writing! Oh my!

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
~Scott Adams

In the world of writing there are many useful toys in our body of arsenal that we use on a daily basis. I myself like links! Links to many different writing sites to where I can stick them in my favorites file and thank goodness for a history link in my browser because if I begin something on Monday, surf through some sites, get busy doing something else by Wednesday, I can check my history and find the sites that I was perusing and all is right with the world.

Unless your a delete freak who deletes the history daily. Sure, deleting the history on a weekly basis keeps your machine running smoothly but does doing it daily really need to happen? I’m not as young as I used to be (well, are any of us really?) and by Wednesday, I forget where it was on the net that I was reading from and doing my research on. I need the history intact! I need the history button to let me know where on Monday I visited, to get information, so on Wednesday, I can finish what I started!

Now if you live in a household on a shared computer, I can see why when you accidentally type into the google search, Naked Asian Women, you might want to delete THAT, but seriously, you, the writer, need to inform the other users of the computer to leave your writing links history intact or you’re going to be faced with a challenge of a research do-over.

I started this post on Monday, all my links were deleted so I had no idea what I was researching. I often go to writing sites because I’ll be reading about the structure of a story, or outlining a novel, and I’ll start tapping at the keys with an idea for a blog post. But when the history is deleted, all my ideas went with it and I have to start over.

I was going to do a blog about this being National Audio book Month, but lo and behold, my links were deleted, I lost my train of thought of where I was going to take the post, and I wound up scrapping the idea altogether. We writers are not image searchers. We don’t surf through pages and pages of images in hopes we don’t get snagged by the nudity bug. We search through words! Writing words and anything to do with writing. Now I have fallen upon sites with picture writing prompts, but that is not for me. I am a woman of substance who hangs on the written word.

What am I trying to relay in this post? Hold onto your writing links for at least a week. Delete around them if you must; if you’re hiding something or unscrupulously doing nasty searches of the Geisha Girls on Mars, by all means delete them from the computer, because many-a-times along with the nasties, comes a virus or spy into your computer that eats all your hard work anyway! But the writing links, leave intact so you’re already fried brain knows exactly what it had in mind, and where it was going!

*DEEP SIGH* Did you get all that? Good. Now get back to writing, researching, and hold onto those links! They DO help you as a writer.

Poetry Sunday ~ Lighthouse of My Life

Job 29:3 When his candle shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness;
 

The Lighthouse of My Life

***

There comes a time in ones life
that changes do occur.
One foot in front of the other
we tread as life's a blur.

We turn to strength and guided hands
to show us where to roam.
We look to our father for his armor
our haven; a stable home.

He stands in the shadow of silence
giving advice when we seek.
He lends to us a pillar;
a beacon when we are weak.

On the shore of stormy oceans
his kids all out at sea.
The lighthouse of my youthful years
was all he gave to me.

He gave me courage to stand afoot,
to be strong when seas were rough.
To ride the ebb and flow of life,
while always remaining tough.

At times when tears begin to flow,
to him I would never bother.
I'll stand ashore and see the gleam,
of the eyes of my loving father.

Quotation Saturday

WEATHER

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.
~John Ruskin


Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
~Langston Hughes


Weather is a great metaphor for life - sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, and there's nothing much you can do about it but carry an umbrella.
~Terri Guillemets

It is one of the secrets of Nature in its mood of mockery that fine weather lays heavier weight on the mind and hearts of the depressed and the inwardly tormented than does a really bad day with dark rain sniveling continuously and sympathetically from a dirty sky.
~Muriel Spark, Territorial Rights, 1979


During a drought, you look forward to rain. After the rain you look forward to sun. After a storm you look forward to a rainbow. In any kind of weather, you are always looking forward to something!
~ Joni Zipp

SUMMER

I walk without flinching through the burning cathedral of the summer. My bank of wild grass is majestic and full of music. It is a fire that solitude presses against my lips.
~Violette Leduc, Mad in Pursuit

I question not if thrushes sing,
If roses load the air;
Beyond my heart I need not reach
When all is summer there.
~John Vance Cheney


Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit. A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all's right with the world.
~Ada Louise Huxtable

DAYDREAMING

I was trying to daydream, but my mind kept wandering.
~Steven Wright


To lose one's self in reverie, one must be either very happy, or very unhappy. Reverie is the child of extremes.
~Antoine Rivarol


When ideas float in our mind without any reflection or regard of the understanding, it is that which the French call revery, our language has scarce a name for it.
~John Locke


Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in reverie.
~Henry David Thoreau

Zombie Apocalypse

To himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead.

~Samuel Butler

The age of a new era is upon us, it is the Dawn of the Zombie Apocalypse. While life is imitating…I won’t say ART because nothing about zombies is artistic; the writers who write about, the readers who feast, or the cannibals scouring the planet.


If you’re a reader/writer of zombies and are fascinated by the flesh eating ghouls, then there is something wrong in your brain that turns you on with cannibalism? A fascination with the unknown perhaps? The wonder of death, but with a sickly spin?


Recently in the news, body parts are being found missing from corpses, people have been arrested and confirmed that they ATE the organs. Fiction couldn’t do much better than the gruesome news of todays headlines. Zombie Apocalypse!


From Wikipedia: “The zombie apocalypse, the civilised world brought low by a global zombie infestation, has become a staple of modern popular art. By 2011 the influence of zombies in popular consciousness had reached far enough that government agencies were using them to garner greater attention in public service messages.”


Art? There’s that abuse again! I cringe when art is associated with the zombie lure. Is it just me? Or do many of you feel that way about zombies, witches and vampires? Zombies and vampires are folklore but that doesn’t stop humans from eating brains and drinking blood. Wicca is a very real religion and to me, MY OPINION, to get caught up in the likes of witchery you are selling yourself short of your faith. Gods, mythology, folklore, astrology, all pull us away from the belief in ONE God. (opinion not judgment) Or at least fill our minds with things OTHER than God!


You’ll tell me it’s ‘just’ fiction, no harm/no foul, but really? You believe that? When people are taking ‘fiction’ to new heights and actually devouring brains and organs for dinner, you see no foul in that?


Yes even I have had nightmares where the dead are coming out of these here cornfields, brought on I imagine by all those early horror shows like Night of the Living Dead, Children of the Corn, etcetera etcetera. But now that I’m an adult, I understand that there are some people who will take what is written in fictional tales and think it reality, and make it happen, thus bringing about the new era, Zombie Apocalypse.


Yes my friends, your fascination with the undead has brought the creeping ghouls back to life to haunt and taunt the living like in all the (humorous) fictional tales you’ve read and loved. The collective conscious of you, who think there is no harm/no foul have thought the very things you feared and were fascinated by, into existence. I hope you’re happy with yourselves.


Maybe I’m the one insane, thinking loving God and writing about all the miraculous things He has done will bring about a change in the conscious of the planet and the universe. “I think, therefore I AM.” Attributed to Rene Descartes. Simply put: THINK it and it becomes so!


A great philosopher who also wanted to change the thinking of a downed society. And now you zombie freaks, I mean fans, think them AWAY! Come on, you can do it. Not as fascinating or adrenaline rushing for you folk, but hey, save the world, and you save yourSELF!


Is the Zombie Apocalypse real or fiction?


Now back to your regularly scheduled program, “and so are the days of our lives.”

Writing: Talent or a Learned Skill?

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

~William Shakespeare

Well this turned into an interesting discussion in a writer's forum.

Is writing learned or an inherent trait (talent)?


P. said: "I suggest the answer is "yes and no". I don't accept that the skill is innate. It is an art, and like any other form of expression, has to be learned. No one can be a good writer without learning the craft, but one can have the mechanical skills and still not be a good writer. But we have to try."

How many of you agree with this?

I personally don’t feel you can force yourself to learn how to write skillfully. Sure you can learn the skills, you can learn until your face turns blue, but to carefully and skillfully pull off a tale of art? Can you learn that?

R. said: “Writing is an art and, as such, it can be improved. Practice without talent won't work, however, since you have to have a minimum of culture and preparation to write something that makes sense.”

B. wrote: “You have to want to be creative and have a love for the writen word. That's the talent part. The learned part is pracitce, practice - write, write, write, read, read, read and always invite and accept constructive criticism.”

I like B.’s response. A talent innately, but it falls on wood and not paper if you don’t practice writing itself, read a lot of books, and be strong enough (criticism) to be told your work stinks! Just like a musician. He may have the talent to play an instrument, but if he never plays, will his talent heighten or lessen?

This response was almost comical in my eyes from M.: “It would be very difficult to determine, because an infant cannot contribute in words or writing, we must assume it is a learned ability, but by that I would shy away from a person's ability to gain that skill without being prone to do that. Because the experiences in a toddler's life are not related very well, but early impressions may influence a later leaning toward writing.”

This person must not of had kids for he could not witness the intelligence that newborns exhibit! Yeah, it was ‘impressioned’ upon me to be a left-handed person. I mean really? Listen to this; All (three) of the J’s out of six kids are left handed in my family. Each one of us has excellent cursive writing, drawing abilities, and we can write very well, as writers. They didn’t pursue a writing career and only I showed an interest in becoming a writer, but it was not impressed upon me from any form of well-bred functional familial upbringing. I just knew, innately, that writing was within me, and have been writing poetry since I can remember!

I like this woman M.’s response: “Intriguing question and intriguing answers! I lean towards those who say "both," but also believe that without a spark -- elusive and wondrous -- neither talent nor training produces good writing.”

So that sums it up for us, ladies and gentlemen. It is a talent, when nurtured, can become a great tool in your path of pursuing your writing dream.

One final comment from K.: I dreamed of being a writer since the first grade. The desire to write has driven me to aquire the skills needed to achieve my dream. A person can learn new skills, but I believe we're born with the determination and passion that drives us.

Born with the determination that drives us. So all in all… if you’re choosing writing, be determined and the dirt road will become a yellow brick road that you can follow all the way to successville!