Category: cats

I just want to say that television has really fooled us into thinking that a writer just pulls up a chair to a typewriter and POOF!!! out comes a full size novel! Bunch of hooey!

Take for instance, Murder She Wrote, which made it look like the woman could write so freely that she had plenty of spare time to run around solving murders.

In the series Castle, the novelist was not only free to help solve crimes full time for the local PD, but when he did sit down to write, he could roll out half a novel in a weekend.

Movies and television always depict authors to have the capability to go into some fugue state, feverishly emptying a novel out onto the page in one fell swoop… or maybe it is just my own inexperience and lack of concentration that blocks me from magically pulling a 60,000 word dream out of my noggin overnight.

All I know is that I have days where I need to go back and re-imagine my own dream, so as to get it right on the page, for you the reader. I can see the framework of the entire dream, big important chunks of action, and all that… but it takes a great deal of time to think on the tiny details necessary, to bring my dream alive for You! 

This has to be one of the most difficult, yet, beautiful journeys of my life! The dedication and patience required to do something right, verses fast, has begun teaching me more about the joy in the journey. I’ve always been on RUN cycle, in every aspect of my life! I completed 4 years of high school in only 2 years, with an accumulated GPA of 3.91. I had 8 pregnancies in under 6 years, only three of which survived! This fast lane living was running my rear end over!

The years are teaching me that it is better to do a thing well, than to just get it done as fast as possible. As for writing a full size novel, I am just a baby learning to walk. Everything from chapter length, context, as well as my Punctuation Fairy tendencies, has to be taken into consideration while I attempt to put my dream to the page for you to experience. 

Add to my more attentive writing style, the daily Life Interruptus that nips at my heels, or sometimes my heart. There is a fine line between passionate writing and emotional writing, if you get my drift. Emotional writing distracts me from the true value and meaning of the dream I attempt to breath onto the page. My passion is where the story is, where my true heart rests. This is the part I seek to share with others as I write.

Writing also requires one to section off a part of the brain for this one dream, while the brain carries many many more dreams, ceaselessly screaming for my attention. Fortunately, being as isolated as I have been, as well as, living in life’s furnace of constant Interruptus’s, leaves me ample time to write on several things at once. And YES, I invented my own word spelling of “Interrupt”!

I have discovered that by slowing down in my efforts to tell this story, it gives it time to breath and deepen in richness of details that may have been lost, had I rushed through to the end. I think that you will be glad for the time I took to write, as it will bring you much pleasure in the time it takes you to read it!

How free is free, anyway???

Free enough to keep, or keeping it because it was free?

If you don’t earn it yourself, will it just lay on your shelf?

If you don’t learn it yourself, it belongs to someone else!

If you pay for it, You’ll probably stay for it…

But if it’s merely handed, I’m going to be candid,

most things that are free, will soon cease to be…

For love to be of value, one must tend it with care,

don’t keep it or store it, way up on a shelf…

give some to all others, as it’s good for your health!

I’ve decided that if I were to be any fictional cartoon character, it would be a fairy!

Not just any fairy, mind you, but a useful fairy that sprinkles good wherever she goes!

My official title would be Wiwohka the Word Writing Punctuation Fairy!

You know how you always see a fairy that uses her wand to sprinkle either happy dust, dreamy dust, or silly dust all over her subjects… well, it would be kind of like that, only with things like commas, periods and quotation marks!

Commas are my actual favorite and I love nothing more than to go over the words on my pages, generously sprinkling them here and there and everywhere! 

Do you remember the movie, Rise of the Guardians? It’s an adorable animated movie involving Santa and a few others trying to save children’s imagination from the evil schemes of a dream stealer… this is a very loose description of the movie because I don’t want to ruin it for those who haven’t seen it. 

Anyway, near the middle of the movie, there is a scene where they got a bit wild with the magic dust they were using, causing a bit of a kerfuffle! Ummm… sometimes I feel like that happens in my writing, with all the flying punctuations ricocheting off the ceiling in my literary loft.

If I were living in a fictional cartoon world, I suppose it would be perfectly normal to see my magic commas and quotations afloat in all the ponds, waterways, cereal bowls, and drinking glasses I can reach… but in the real world, well, not so much!

They made it look so easy back in school, when we were given a sentence to punctuate, a pencil to mark it up, and two hands to clap out the phrases to see how many places to put our commas. Perhaps this was the reason Captain Kirk always talked as if there were major gaps between every 3 or 4 words he spoke. 

Whatever it is that makes me over sprinkle my magic punctuation dust, too much of a good thing can become unhealthy, infecting all the other good ingredients on the page!

Currently, I am having my wand looked at, just in case it needs repair or an update to its magic software. 

If I am to be an imaginary cartoon fairy, then I shall strive to perform my punctuation Fairy duties to the best of my abilities!

When I arrived at the office this morning, a letter was waiting on my desk. Folded delicately and wrapped in a soft yellow ribbon, the note shouted to me from across the room, since everyone here at WTL News is familiar with these notes wrapped in yellow ribbon. Our Benefactor always wraps His messages this way, so I quickly crossed the room and excitedly picked up the note to read its contents. 

This was the first correspondence I’d received since the office meeting last week, where I’d been promoted to being WTL’s first Time Traveling Journalist, so I was itching with curiosity and excitement for what might be inside the note. Could it be a traveling itinerary so soon? Or better yet, maybe it would instruct me to take an in depth training seminar, explaining exactly what my new position was? What exactly was I being expected to do, anyway? 

Sure, I am able to pack light and travel fast, capable of surviving out in the field for long periods of time. Interviewing folks and writing about it has always come easy to me, flowing from mind to page smoothly, as if I’d been born with a pen in my tiny hand. Ever since the office meeting, I’d been pondering what might be in store for this quirky girl from country, turned investigative columnist… or Time Traveling Journalist, as the new name plate on my desk boldly reflects.

The note from my Benefactor instructed me to report to the Archives Department, where I was to be given full access to all of WTL Historical Records for study! Apparently, I am to spend this entire week perusing all of the documents, making myself more familiar with all of our history. At the end of the week, I am to submit my first three choices in time, for my first On The Job Training assignment. 

My boss knows me so well, choosing to teach me hands on, as this is my natural way of really learning and remembering things. How better to figure out my new job, than to simply immerse myself in the task at hand. Reading a thing, talking about a thing, or even dreaming about a thing, doesn’t really make it work like it should until you DO the thing, if you get my way of understanding. 

With this in mind, I am off to the Archives to DO that which has been instructed so far, trusting that the records might reveal more of the What When Where and Who part of my new position. Personally, I have a handful of history participants that I have long since had a desire to investigate. Is it wrong to say that I already have a favorite in mind? She is someone that I’ve always found to be intriguing, as well as, incredibly selfless! I wonder how much I will be able to find on her in the records, as I’ve not found much in all my other research. 

Oh well, I shall report to the Archives for my assignment, trusting my Benefactor to make the right choice for me at the end of the week. I shall do my best to thoroughly study all that lay before me, selecting the top three destinations, even if my first choice isn’t the one He sends me toward. If nothing else, I can discover as much about her as I can, while searching through the records. Perhaps I can visit her at another time if things work out, as time it seems, has now become my career…

When you cannot see beyond the trees…

Keep to the path beneath your feet.

I believe!

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10

2 Timothy 3:16, 17 says, “ALL scripture is God Breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

My honest assessment of the situation is this… I think I am in training… in fact, I’m pretty certain of it!

You know, there is so much truth in saying that in ALL circumstances, it is so imperative to stay in the Word and pray without ceasing… I mean WITHOUT ceasing!

As difficult as circumstances may be and no matter how hard the wind and rain rock me… I am fully anchored by my Cornerstone… Christ Jesus!

Our current storm, if you will, is pretty loud… and yet… I am more at peace than I ever have been! How is this possible, you may be asking? I see God moving in and around my life in ways that can only mean that I am fully in HIS hands! 

Things are so rocky and uncertain that it often feels like I’m walking on a razors edge, with cliffs and darkness all around, save for the light I carry. Of late, I’ve been ravenously consuming passages from all corners of the Bible. From the book of Revelations, Job, much of the New Testament, and back and forth in Psalms, I am now entering into the book of Romans. I am 55 years old and for the first time in my adult life, I am learning that indeed there IS Power in staying beneath the Father’s shadow, steadily reading the pages of His word… over and over and over and over again!

Moment by moment, step by step, I am going to continue walking forward in obedience and faith, regardless of the outcome! Yup! I said, regardless! In all my readings, not once have I encountered a verse that said I would become invincible, nor did it reflect a life of ease coming down the pike for those who follow God… point in fact, it says quite often that we would have difficulties. Don’t get me wrong… getting INTO heaven is easy because Jesus did the hard part there! It’s the getting there part that takes effort… not in works, mind you, just in faithful obedience. And *Spoiler Alert*, we do get an E for effort!

When we get home, is the place that Perfecting happens! Until then, we are washed and covered in His blood, because we will never attain or overcome that which He has already done for us! 2 Timothy reminds me that the Bible has all that I need to get me home, not just to look at and read when I feel like it… it is my Manna, my bread of life, for my journey home! If I ate everything on the first day of the trip, I’d starve by the time I got even half way home! 

As with Manna, hoarding and simply carrying it with me spoils its contents… I need it fresh each day, taking only that which is fully offered for my “teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness”, sustaining me for that day, so that I’m able to walk on in faith towards the blessings that are ahead.

Knowing me, on the day He calls me heavenward, everyone will see an old rickety RV pulling up to the gates of Heaven and then hear one of those AWOOOGA horns begin to honk, announcing my sheer Joy at being HOME!

As I stand now in the Eye of yet another storm, I will not be shaken, nor will I falter! I am carried by the Righteous Right Hand of my Creator!