Tag Archives: NaBloPoMo

NaBloPoMo Monday, November 18, 2013
Tell us about a blog post that you didn’t publish.

I wish I had a juicy story to tell here. I don’t.

Sure, I’ve started some flash fiction pieces that fell short of my expectations and never saw the light of day. But I’ve never drafted a personal memoir or a soap-box rant then refrained from releasing it into the wild because in the narrative I may have stepped on toes or crossed some line of privacy/courtesy/respect. It’s never happened because I am so concerned with what other people think and feel that I shy away from certain topics altogether.

As a wanna-be writer, it makes me uncomfortable to know that I am censoring my thoughts, words, and ideas before they even hit the screen. I struggle between needing the freedom to tell my story, whether it be fact or fiction, in any way I choose, with respecting the feelings of those who might read my words, be they family, friends, or strangers.

Will a family member be embarrassed if I recount a funny incident from childhood?

Will friends question my morals and my sanity if I dream up a gruesome murder or a racy tryst in next week’s flash fiction piece?

Will I incite a venomous riot of hateful comments if I share my views on gun ownership or Obamacare or animal cruelty?

Will the drunken rednecks who nearly incinerated my entire street last week with their gasoline-fueled idiocy vandalize my house in retaliation if I tell the story?

Questions like these make me wonder if I wouldn’t have done better writing in a personal journal rather than publishing on a public blog. And they make me doubt my ability to ever churn out a novel.

You writers out there, how do I get to a place where I don’t give a rip about anyone else’s opinion and can just set my story free?

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NaBloPoMo Friday, November 15, 2013
If you could quit one bad habit instantly without difficulty, which would it be?

I would quit collecting projects for a rainy day. At this moment, I would need at least one, but probably two or three, biblical rainstorms in order to complete all the projects I’ve been saving. So while the rest of y’all are building arks, I’ll be:

1. Refinishing a chair
2. Making a headboard
3. Re-upholstering a set of four chairs
4. Importing my collection of cut-out recipes to my digital cookbook
5. Cleaning out my email folders
6. Designing and planting flower borders around the house
7. Writing a book
8. Finishing a baby blanket for my cousin’s new baby
9. Purging the Word docs on my computer
10. Organizing five years worth of digital photographs
11. Repainting a dresser
12. Embroidering a Christmas stocking
13. Making a Japan scrapbook…
14. …then making an England scrapbook
15. Stripping and painting a pair of antique wicker chairs
16. Re-upholstering the cushions of the aforementioned wicker chairs
17. Cleaning out the craft room to identify projects I’ve forgotten I’ve collected…

NaBloPoMo Thursday, November 14, 2013
Are you a morning person or a night owl?

Living in England taught me that more than lark or owl, I’m simply a daylight person. The earlier the sun rises, the earlier I rise. The earlier the sun sets, the earlier I crash. During British summer time, I had some long, productive days, seeing as the sun was up around 3:30 a.m. and didn’t truly set till after 10:00 p.m. Winter, though, was rough. It was difficult to get out of bed before 8:30 a.m. and I would have happily crawled back under the covers when the sun went down at 4:00 p.m.

NaBloPoMo Monday, November 11, 2013
If you had to be trapped inside a movie for 5 days, which movie would you pick?

I’ve been wracking my brain for three days, desperately trying to come up with a movie I could bear for five days. It’s been a fruitless search.

However, I’ve come up with a list of ten movies I would NOT want to be trapped in for any amount of time:

1. Paranormal Activity (1, 2, 3, or 4)–too many things going bump in the night
2. Backdraft–too hot
3. Poltergeist–too freakin’ scary
4. Glory–too much of man’s inhumanity to man
5. Saving Private Ryan–too many horrors of war
6. Schindler’s List–too much hatred and bigotry
7. Titanic–too wet
8. It–too much clown
9. G.I. Jane–too physically/mentally grueling
10. Terminator–too many bad cyborgs