Wanting Spring, this Winter

If only I could live in perpetual season of spring; the perfect season.

A world filled with constant blooms, gentle warm winds and temperatures always in the 70’s.

But such is not life. There is winter right now, and while we don’t get much here in Georgia. We get more than I need or want. However, my daughter loves it, even when we simply get just a dusting of snow.

Snowball Fight!

This year we got enough snow for her to make a snow angel. ♥ 😉

Mommy, look at my snow angel

And even build a snowman.

Do you wanna build a snowman?

This post is in response to the weekly photo challenge at The Daily Post, this week it is Seasons.

Life Imitates Art: A photo challenge

 

Having a seat with Roosevelt at The Hall of Presidents, in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

THE HALL OF PRESIDENTS

 

And in this case…. she IS the art!

One of my favorites from our pumpkin patch a few years ago.

 

Each week – The Daily Post has a new photo challenge: This week is Life Imitates Art

Fake it ’till you Make it!

 

I am going to continue to force myself to pound out words.

I know that eventually, when I get back into the habit of writing that then I will begin to regain the inspiration. It always happens that way. Once I start allowing my brain to have the freedom to think about something other than the mundane things that fill my mind. I will find creativity.

Mundane things like:
What is for dinner?
What will my daughter wear to school tomorrow?
What does the 10-day forecast look like?
Where will get to go on vacation this summer?
Will we even be able to have a vacation?
Am I going to be able to pay off Mary’s credit card anytime soon?
What are the winning lottery numbers for last night?
Do I have enough money to buy everything on my grocery list this week?
Did I get enough steps in today?
What will we have for dinner tomorrow night?

See that kind of stuff will stifle creativity in a flat second and yet that is what goes on in my head every single day.

So, if I come here and I write every single day then maybe, just maybe, I will learn to push all that aside and begin to find the creative part of me that is hidden deep in the recesses of my mind. So until I break through the fog I will just keep doing this… and this will lead to ideas… and those will lead to stories and I will be on my way again.

Omit the Letter ……!

OMIT THE LETTER……

The simple choice would be

Write the post without the letter Z

But it would not be fun

To omit the senseless one

Everyone could write blog posts

Without the letter Z, of course.

So choose one which is tricky

The first one on the list

Seriously, I insist

Might you do it if you tried?

Hit on those keys to see

If in the Letters you choose

This one, you did exclude

Could you write the blog post, my friend?

Would we recognize, in the words you wrote

The single vowel you left out

In the entire post?

This is in response to The Daily Post, writing prompt:

TWENTY FIVE

There are 26 letters in the English language, and we need every single one of them. Want proof? Choose a letter and write a blog post without using it. (Feeling really brave? Make it a vowel!)

Share Your World: Week #10

Okay, So I am a few weeks late to the game, but hey, better late than never right!

I ran across this challenge while checking in on some of my fellow bloggers and really liked the idea. So here Goes…

These are questions from the Share Your World Challenge: Week 10…

When you lose electricity in a storm, do you light the candles or turn on the flashlight? How many of each do you own?

I guess I do both. If it is during the day I will open the windows and let the sun shine through. But at night I would definitely keep the flashlights close at hand but still light the candles as well. As for how many I have of each… Wow, we probably have  5-6 flashlights and tons of candles. I love the scent of a burning candle!

You are given $5,000 and the chance to exchange it for one of two envelopes. One envelope contains $50,000 and one contains $500. Do you make the trade? Why or why not?

No, I would keep the $5K – I am not greedy! And truthfully I could REALLY use the $5K right now! 🙂

What’s your first memory?

I have a horrible memory. But one of the first memories I have is sitting on my nannies bed and watching Sesame Street.

What do you do if you can’t sleep at night? Do you count sheep, toss and turn, or get up and try to do something?

If I can’t sleep there is a real problem. I am the worlds best sleeper. With that being said I have been known to occasionally have trouble and if it was real bad I would probably get up and read a book.

Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

I am grateful that I was able to celebrate my 23rd Anniversary with my sweet sweet Husband. I am looking forward to warmer weather.

Me and the Hubs… Pretty decent Pic taken by my (almost) 5-year-old!

A New Day Dawns

Just like the New Year we are embarking on, the day dawns anew over the ocean, near San Juan, Puerto Rico.

This is a part of The Daily Post’s, Weekly Photo Challenge – New

I am Back and Feeling Rejuvenated!

Hello!

I am back!

Oh, I just want to say what an awesome time we had on vacation. It wasn’t perfect and there were things I would change but any day on vacation is better than any day at work! Right!!!

Over the next few weeks I will post some highlights of our trip and maybe some in depth stuff on some of our shore excursions.

I do feel refreshed in more ways than one and actually have a new story idea bumping around inside the old noggin. (Aka…brain J )

Also, I am kind of considering doing the whole NaNoWriMo thing again this year. I did it last year and I got some good ideas and the beginning of a story started. I haven’t done anything with it yet, but maybe one day. It did spin off some ideas for other short stories, so it was helpful.

For now, I just wanted to drop and say hello and leave you with a picture that sums up my entire last week!

 

Dreaming of what’s to come

In a few short day’s we will be on the cruise ship and sailing out to sea.
So when the weekly photo challenge of Dreamy came up I knew instantly what I was dreaming about.
So below, I have posted a few pics from our Southern Caribbean cruise in 2007

Dreaming of our Cruise!

All Photos (C) Shelly Tennyson Taylor

Stress…. The Creativity Killer!

I feel like I am floating, suspended in time. I am not writing. I am going through a dry period. The thing is, I know it’s only because I haven’t sat down at the computer to write.

I am making time for all kinds of other things, but not writing.

Truth be told, it has been a bit of a nightmare around here lately. Baby girl was sick with a virus and running a fever for 6 days. The only way I could keep it below 102-103 was to consistently alternate Tylenol and Ibuprofen.

Then my brother and his boys have been staying at our place for the last 2 weekends. Hectic is an understatement. My house is a wreck and by the time I get something organized and cleaned, something else is a mess.

Top it off with the fact that I feel like I am a failure on my novel and my story is crap and it doesn’t lead to much creativity.

I have definitely found out that STRESS and DISORGANIZATION will kill my creativity.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel. In just over a week we will be climbing aboard a cruise ship and heading out on a Caribbean vacation. It will be a time to recharge and connect with my daughter and husband and hopefully come back refreshed and renewed.

In the meantime, please forgive my lack of postings and know that I am here… hovering around… and will be back regularly in no time!

The sad thing is, without the daily writing prompt of Ready, Set, Done…. I wouldn’t have even written this post… sheeesh!!!

The Original Beginning – How Things Change

 

Since my completion of the synopsis, I have started back sending out queries on my finished novel The Oyster King.

Today, as I was perusing my files I came across this original start of my story. Nothing in the writing below survived the cut and editing process. However, what it did do was set the tone of my main character. Without writing these words below, I wouldn’t have begun to understand him as well as I did. Actually the words below were the spark for the entire story.

Much like in life, when writing fiction sometimes the road you think you are going to take is not the one you end up on. The finished product has some of these details woven into the backstory, but while it didn’t survive the cut, if it wouldn’t have been for these first few words. The story would never have existed in the first place.

The moral of my story is: Be willing to let your writing take you on a journey where it wants to go. And don’t be so caught up in where you think it should go. Allow it to live and breathe and have a life of its own. You will find oftentimes your original vision is not the final outcome.

So here was the spark that created the novel that is The Oyster King.

I was born blind and deaf to a mother who wasn’t ready to have children in the first place. Maybe that’s why after seeing me for only seconds, and never even touching me, she sent me away with orders to the nurse to never bring me back.

At just three months old I began to gain my hearing and eyesight. The doctors told my adoptive parents they suspected I had some kind of rare abnormality that caused my vision and hearing to come in late, after birth. They never could figure exactly what it was so they labeled it a “rare abnormality.” But the Abbots had always told me that God had given me the gift of hearing and vision a few months late, in order to test the strength of my birthmother and when she failed God had found a suitable family for me. For at just two weeks old, the Abbots had taken me home and named me Jayson because it meant healer and I had healed the pain they carried from not having children of their own.