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Bare and uncensored personal expression. Beware!!! |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** "This is pretty much what journals are all about, at least to me. I knew as I wrote them that even though they provided an excellent place for brain (and heart, and psyche) dump, they were mainly a map of me." --- Colleen Wainwright "Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it." --- David Sedaris "Please write again soon. Though my own life is filled with activity, letters encourage momentary escape into others lives and I come back to my own with greater contentment." --- Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey "In giving of myself onto these pages every day I allow myself to write regardless of the depth and meaning. I share myself with others without fear of recrimination for these are my thoughts, my feelings and my very being, and there are non who's opinion of me matters more than my own." --- Rebecca Laffar-Smith   The Writer's Round-About |
Well, since everyone gave such an encouraging response to my contest idea, I went ahead and did it.  Currently holding a Pre-Contest Contest for "Invalid Item"  Feel free to get your entries in, or come back after the 17th to enter Round One and write your response to the chosen letter.
It's morning and right before school so I'm not making an official entry right now. That'll come later today, but I wanted to let you all know that the contest is up and running. Thank you for your responses. I hope it's as much fun as it sounds. lol |
| Forever is missing me. So is Scarlett. And finally I decide to stop putting off getting back to my journal and start today. Each morning, I load up my PC, check my email, bank, emailcash, essential baby, and then writing.com email. I glance at my blog thinking, "I really should write an entry." But then I think about the shortness in time every morning and I don't want to be late getting Kaylie to school but I also don't want to rush my entry. I also keep thinking about all the entries I've missed by my favorite authors. I've been terribly guilty of not keeping up with everyone and there is so much I've missed. Is Nada enjoying her new home yet? Is Scarlett's tan nice and faded and is she dreaming of her next holiday. How are Dan and Tor and CC all doing? I still haven't found the time to check out Mavis's Boat Book. And I've had Forever on my list of to get reading but never get the chance. The truth is I'm not even all that busy. I'm no longer playing The Sims Online. The game was ultimately more destructive than enjoyable. Paying a monthly fee to play wasn't helping either but mostly there was too much drama and emotional turmoil. Sim romances coming and going and having to deal with everyone elses problems all the time. Not to mention the fact that it was often lonely because most of the players were asleep when I was awake. That's the trouble of being in a country in an opposing time zone to the US. I've been beating myself up about how little writing I've been doing lately. I've always known I was a master procrastinator but this last month or so has put that beyond measure. I've not even been keeping up with my budget and my finances are starting to show that fact. Another thing I'll begin again today. I seriously can't afford to neglect it. Mostly, I've been missing you all and trying to figure out all the dozen little things I can do so that I don't have a chance to sit down and think about all the dozen little things I should be doing. Writing is top of that list. I've made an effort to write a couple of poems this week but I've not been happy with them. Other than that I haven't written more than genealogy and shopping lists. But, today is the day to end it all. I'm back and will hopefully manage to get a journal entry in every day. I can't promise to get back to reading everyone, that list is still a little overwhelming, especially when I want to do some writing as well. I've been thinking about starting a writing.com contest. For some reason I'm still not a yellow case but perhaps it's because I seem to be so sporadic here. I do a wave of reviews every couple of weeks when I know I could be doing more reviews, particularly of poetry. But I'm getting away from the subject of this paragraph. A contest. Yes, I've been thinking about starting a contest that involves writing an advice colomn. The idea came to me when I was reading one of the many romance novels in my pile. The hero of the story wrote an advice column under the womans name of his dog. Dear Cordelia. I got to thinking that I'd probably be pretty good at writing advice columns and wondering if advice columnists have any qualifications for giving advice. Do they? What do you all think? Would anyone be interested in a challenge like this? I'd give a Dear You, letter and the contestants would then each write a response with a certain word limit. I'd give prizes for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places. I could even have people write the Dear You, letters and if I choose your letter you get a prize too as well as having all those contestants give you advice. I'm starting to like this idea more and more as I think about it. lolAnyway, I want to give a huge, public THANK YOU to Forever for the fantastic and detailed critique of my novels first chapter. From the feedback I've already recieved I've been ruminating on the changes I need to make and will be writing draft 3 before offering the reviewed first chapter. Depending on the feedback then I'll either feel I need to go back to basics again (like I did this time) or work on the changes as a fourth draft but put up my other chapters for review also. Of course that means I need to get back to the writing/editing aspects of my novel. That's a pretty scary idea.  It feels a little overwhelming. Thankfully the feedback has been great. People are loving the story and being very positive and encouraging. I've yet to come across a review that made me feel like this path mightn't be the one for me. That's saying something because I'm constantly doubting my abilities to be a writer. lol*sighs* Self-defeating, terrible isn't it, but I suspect every writer goes in wondering if they really have the right to write anything and believe others would be interested in reading it. Why would what I have to say be worth reading? It's when I'm asking questions like these I sit back and contemplate the fact that I'm a conduit for a message beyond myself. I just have to figure out how to hear that message and write about it. lmfao Goodness, I've talked the ears off a donkey. *cliche, don't you love it?  * Now, stop hiding behind a journal entry and get to that novel Rebecca.  I'm going, I'm going. Thank you everyone and it's great to be back. |
| I'm still fine and nothing really monumental has happened except that I returned to an online game I used to play and it kills a few braincells which means I rarely have anything interesting to say. Not to mention the fact that I tend to only check my email before logging into the game to start playing. I haven't written here because, as I said, I haven't had anything semi-interesting to talk about but also because I feel guilty about playing this game and not doing anything on my list that involves writing. I haven't even looked at my draft for The Dating Game in a couple of weeks now, haven't written any new poetry either. Some good news is my poem, Destiny Doom, won first place in the Alphabet Fun contest. I had a feeling it might because I was very proud and I must admit that I have some ego when it comes to my poetry Wish that extended to my fiction as well lol but I suppose it's a case of practice leading to confidence.I'm also feeling guilty about not reading everyone elses journals. I haven't done much reading at all lately, online or off and writing isn't the only thing I've been slack on lately. My budgetting doesn't seem nearly as important as playing this game and the housework only gets done because I don't have much choice about doing it. I know this game is an addiction. I knew it when I played it seven months ago and it took a shock tactic to break me from it. This game is in part to blame for the failure of my marriage. It was while playing this game my ex met the woman he's now engaged to. It's not really the games fault and the call of the game never really subsided. I also know this game probably isn't very healthy for me. But then again I know chocolate isn't very good for me and it doesn't stop me eating it. There are all sorts of things we do selfishly even though we know we probably shouldn't and at the moment, for me, it's to play this game. But it's amazing the effect a simple game can have on real life. Because this is an online game I'm interacting with people online, making friendships and getting involved in other peoples lives. This gives me the highs and lows that are involved in caring for others. I don't much like the lows and sometimes I just want to turn off the computer and closet myself up in my house. I'm also swearing more because of this game. I don't know if it's because of the emotional turmoil or because of a game I introduced to the players there. I played it once about a year ago and thought it was great. It's called Naughty ABC and the aim of the game is to list naughty words that begin with the given letter. It's really become a hit with the other players and I'm learning a lot of naughty words and interesting facts. Anyway, that's where I've been all this time and while I don't even care that my journal is mostly black except about this time in the morning when I know it's time to write an entry but I can't be bothered bringing my brain with me long enough to write one. Hopefully, this intensity with the game won't last too long and I'll start become reasonable about it all. I get tempted to quit about three times every day so maybe one of these urges will win out and I'll be back at full strength with some experiences to write about. Thank you all for caring about my wellbeing and for checking up on me. |
| Well the dentist had a good look and told me that it seems Kaylie has some mouth ulcers, on her tonguer, her lip and the inside of her mouth. She suggested using some teething gel to stop it hurting and warm salt water to bath it. Apparently, there is nothing much else to do and they should clear up in about 10 days. Of course, meanwhile, she wouldn't eat anything for dinner last night. I cooked what was on my meal plan, ravioli with a creamy sauce and pea's and corn. Wouldn't go anywhere near it so I cooked up some 2 minute noodles thinking that they were soft and she could manage them. She tried but said her mouth hurt. So I got out the teething gel and even with a numb mouth she wouldn't try again. I think she'll get soup from now on regardless of what she wants to eat. Unfortunately, Kaylie is the sort who is really picky about food. I've gotten into the habit of giving her a list of choices and letting her decide what we have for dinner. If she's picked what we have she is more likely to eat it. Thankfully, she does not have a fetish for anything in particular so we do get variety and a fairly balanced meal. Of course, she rarely decides that soup is the best option. Especially since she will have to have a strained variety because she won't manage the bits of meat that comes in the chunky soup I buy. But I guess for 10 days we'll have to live with her being a brat at dinner time and accept that she won't starve is she doesn't eat dinner. She's managed breakfast this morning, yoghurt. And so far she's done alright with her sandwiches at lunch time. From one mouth to the other, it's amazing how different Josh is. His teeth are so perfect, and cute, and white. He's got 12 teeth now. The four front ones, then a gap either side before two molars. And same again on the bottom. He loves having his teeth cleaned and isn't picky about his food at all.Anyway, I can't hang around much longer this morning. Just wanted to get in before noon so that I don't get another black mark on my calender. Now it's time to get dressed and get the day on the road. I think Kaylie has assembly this morning and the sky is looking menacing (yesterday was so beautiful, who knew weather travelled so fast?). I better make sure we all have warm clothes for today. Hopefully we'll get more rain, we need it for the dams, it's not looking promising for next Summer. *sighs* I can't end on an unhappy note today. I'm not unhappy. I had a hiccough with my connection yesterday but other than that it's working well. And a DVD I ordered on eBay arrived in yesterdays mail. There you go, some good news. |
| You know, I think all helpdesk technicians should have to pass a standards qualification to prove they know what they are talking about. You get some really inept ones who are text book only. If you work on a helpdesk you really have to be able to think outside the box. After all the chaos trying to get things working this weekend I called up again this morning and got an able techy. He talked me few a few new things, suggested a few options, decided to write up an enquiry for Telstra to check the line and since I'd only had this problem since changing to the new provider (on their modem) he thought perhaps it was worth trying my old modem. Guess what? That's what did it!!! He also looked at my records to see what was happening with the connection. Apparently it was dropping packets which means there is some sort of interferrance on the line. So after an hour doing various things (including a few minutes when I was trying to connect with the wrong phone line instead of the ADSL line we got it up and running again on my old modem and it's working perfectly now. I'm still keeping an eye on it to make sure the problem doesn't come back but I've got a good feeling that the problem is fixed. Woo Hoo!!! It's lovely having a stable connection again. Fingers cross that it's the last of my broadband difficulties and the next two years are trouble free. After all the stuffing around I've had getting this connection running smoothly it would be nice to have it working right for a change. Kaylie was complaining of pain in her mouth this weekend. Enough to wake up crying in the night. She had a dentist appointment last week and they noticed that her gums were a bit sore looking but suspected it was just where her teeth connected when she was eating. At the time it wasn't hurting her so they weren't too concerned. They took an X-Ray to rule out any other problem.Anyway, they would call back if the X-Ray showed anything but didn't. When Kaylie complained of pain this weekend I decided to call up and check. Apparently the X-Ray came back normal but I've asked them to see her again anyway to see if we can find out why her mouth is hurting. Hopefully they'll figure it out and get her sorted. She's cursed with dental problems it seems. Poor thing. |
| Well, I've got everything set up the way it was and I've given up for now trying to find out what's causing the problem. I suspect (like I did when this problem first appeared) that it has something to do with my ISP. I've had nothing but trouble since they finally (after four months) got me transferred at the end of June. I can't believe I'm locked into a two year contract. I'll bare with this problem for another day or two, depending how interruptive it is to my normal routine. Then I'll call the ISP helpdesk again. I've got some notes about all I've done etc. some of the suggested strategies and a link for a microsoft helpfile that stats that there may be a problem with the ISP's DNS server (which is what I suspect the problem is). There is nothing else I can do from here but next chance I get I'm going to see if I can log into my ISP from my mothers computer. If it happens on her computer too then I'll know that it is definately the ISP and not my computer. I don't think it could possibly be my computer now because I've completely reformated the hard drive. That means that I've closed down the computer, loaded up in DOS mode, completely wiped all information from the hard drive and the reinstalled everything. 1 hour to reinstall Windows XP another 2-3 hours for each of the regular programs I use and 3 hours for one of my online games. Basically, each time I reformat the hard drive it takes me a day to get my system back to normal. That has been how my time has been spent this weekend and I've had enough of it. Since nothing I do seems to make any difference I have to assume it's beyond my control. Thus it must be the ISP. I should never have switched ISP's. I never had this much trouble on my old provider. The only reason I switched was because the old one required a credit card and I didn't have one. Now I do so even that reason doesn't hold any more. But alas, I'm locked into a two year contract. I either pay a fortune to break it (unless I can get out of it via a loophole because of their failure to provide a reliable service) or I deal with the shoddy service for another 23 months. Oh well, till tomorrow when hopefully I'll have happy news and something uplifting to talk about. I wish you all an absense of computer gremlins and a Murphy-Free week. |
| Ahhhh!!!! A black mark on my calender. Just when I was doing so well getting an entry in every day I get to the point of over frustration with my computer. For the past week it's been rather temporamental about loading web pages. Some pages will load first time and others don't. Forms are the worst because it was almost guarenteed to no load the page after clicking submit. I called the helpdesk again and she goes on and on about how it's not an ISP problem but something on my own computer. She suggested a few troubleshooting ideas but ultimately gave up when none of that worked. I spent a few more hours at it trying various things, looking up solutions online etc (spending ten minutes refreshing pages to get them to load). Eventually I figure there was some spyware or something mean and nasty lurking where my antivirus couldn't find it. So I backed up the files I've been storing on my hard drive and stuck in my windows disk. About an hour later the computer is loading up with a freshly formatted hard drive and a bright and shiny new version of Windows XP. I started reinstalling stuff on my computer but then started getting the same problem again. So, rinse and repeat. This time I'm being a bit more careful about installing programs and I'm also doing the Windows Update first and foremost to make sure that is as up to date as possible.So far, so good. It all seems to be working alright. I hope it continues to work fine but I'm not sure it will. Thankfully, even when it wasn't working properly I could generally get webpages to load, eventually, after repeated refreshing. It's just very frustrating. Now I have to load up a few of my regular sites to put them in favorites. I did save my old favorites to disk but I don't want to risk there being some sort of contamination hidden in there too so I'll do it all manually. Well, that was my entire day anyway. And my excuse for not getting my journal entry in this morning; my excuse for that evil black blemish on my calender. Now I have to get my daughter to bed. Have a great day everyone. |
| Just when I'm starting to feel my TV viewing is getting regular with various shows I watch each week they decide it's time to rotate the seasons. We get two, or perhaps three, TV seasons a year. Thankfully the end of seasons is staggered a little, one of my favorite programs will end their season this week (on a cliff hanger, of course) and I'm very sad to see it go. It's actually toward the end of the season change and for the most part I've been pleased because the new shows coming into season are worth watching. Programs like, The 4400, Haunted, Taken, House etc. are new television series that are on my weekly watching list. Last night was the final of Stargate: Atlantis and I'm going to miss it. It was on late Thursday's which meant I would always get a late night that night because I always stayed up to watch it. I don't know what Stargate is being replaced by. The Amazing Race finished last night (and WTG the winners, I so wanted you two to win. ) Next week is the beginning of the season for Alias and I'll probably watch the premier to decide if it'll make my regular list. Alias runs long (because it's a premier) so whatever is replacing Stargate isn't listed. I'll have to wait till next week to find out. If I'm really lucky it will be more Stargate.I understand Charmed is due back soon. I was annoyed a couple of months ago because the season had just started when it was abducted by Big Brother. I suspect it will get the same time slot back now BB is coming to an end. Only a couple of weeks left, if that. I don't watch BB (unless it happens to be on the TV while I'm waiting for one of the TV programs I do watch to come on). Next Monday is the premier for a new medical drama. House is great although it makes me very worried about the medical profession, I mean the formula for the show seems to require that the doctors nearly kill their patient at least twice by taking a risk on diagnoses and treatment. They are rarely certain and a great deal of the patients survival comes down to luck and only a little to skill. It is however the main doctor, Dr. House, who makes the show interesting. He's an incredible character, kudos to the writer who came up with him, you can't help loving him because under all the facade of being a jerk, he's really is a caring human being who is brilliant. Anyway, I'm getting off track, House started a few weeks ago and obviously I'm enjoying it. The new medical show is called Grey's Anatomy and the main doctor is a real cutie. Probably a little old for me (aren't the good ones always too old for me?) but his eyes... *drools* I swear I'm not watching it just for this guy, it really does look interesting. On Monday I'll know if the show is as worth watching as its star. Maybe it will give me something worth watching on a Monday, Monday (and the weekend) are the only days on my calender that don't have a must watch TV program.Goodness, I can ramble. I came on wondering what to talk about and still feeling sad about the ending of Stargate. Managed to go on and on (and on and on) about television which you probably all think I'm stuck in front of all day. The truth is that the kids watch cartoons while I'm on the computer (typing my journal) in the morning before school. It stays off all day, goes on for two kids shows in the afternoon after school, sometimes videos after that (kids stuff like whinnie the pooh or geokids) and then doesn't come on again until the kids are in bed (after 7:30PM and sometimes later than that). Usually there are between one and three shows I watch each day. What sort of TV shows do you watch? Do you consider the writing involved, think over the story, find yourself predicting the outcome or events or saying a persons line just before they say it because you know that's basically all the writer could have written at that moment? Do you have any must watch TV programs each week? lol honestly, you could write a whole journal entry about it all. |
| Well, it's finally happened, a rating which I feel is completely unjustified. It brings me to question what it is that you give points for when you are rating. I would have thought the quality of the writing, the clarity of the meaning, the layout, they flow, etc. constitutes a large portion of what make a poem terrible, average, or excellent. Not according to one of my reviews for "Destiny? Doom!!!" With a 1 star rating jvm1983 wrote: It's a nice poem. You can more positive content to balance the negativeness. Just a suggestion and I understand all authors have their own styles. Now obviously this had me going, what the? Didn't he just say it's a nice poem? He suggested that the poem needed some positive to bring the negative into balance and then admitted that 'all authors have their own style'. Well, I figure perhaps he just didn't want to mention why the poem was so terrible so I wrote a reply asking him to tell me why the poem was terrible and not just average. I also explained why I felt this particular poem should remain entirely negative: In this case I've focused on the bad in a sense of silent scream, in a dark moment in life (the deepest moment of shame, or greif, or despair) it is impossible to see the light side of things. This poem instills that dark moment, seeing only the inherant evil of mankind. Well, he was kind enough to reply: Do not be discouraged if I gave you low rating. Let me tell you why gave you this score. It's not because your poem is terrible, in the contrary, its original and well written. The score given goes to the content. I don't write that perfect but I keep trying and practicing. But sometimes we as humankind feel desperate because of a grim future. However I believe that humankind can stop creating this reality of doom and begin to create a reality of hope. I felt this is what the poem was lacking: hope. Ok, stop me if I'm mistaken but didn't he just say the poem is not terrible, it's original and well written. The only thing that makes this poem only worthy of a single star is it's lack of hope? I can understand why we might prefer to see hope in everything in life but to be honest, when I wrote this poem I didn't see much in mankind as it currently lives. It would take a phenomenal event/s to bring mankinds current path away from the tragic end this poem foretell. Anyway, let me get off my soapbox. Obviously this is one reader who didn't appreciate my outlook and decided to display that in a low rating. Thankfully this poem has recieved enough 5 and 4.5 ratings to withstand such brutal opinionism. I'm glad I do not rate writing on content alone as there are a great deal of people here who do not share my opinion on things. This is a writing community and while content might cause a small decline from perfect to imperfect, it's the writing, and creativity that I judge for more merit. |
| I've on occasion used the Sponsered Items area for various things, promoting other peoples contests or items etc. and way back a contest of my own but I've never really used it for my own writing. Yesterday, I was tidying up my port a little, archiving older poetry to my Never Again Folder and removing some of the paid to review items etc. I decided I wanted more feedback on a couple of my poems so I topped up my GP balance and set two of my poems as Sponsored Items. In the past I've not had the chance to really see how effective it is because as I said, I've sponsored other peoples items and one contest of my own. It was lovely to wake up this morning to find half a dozen new reviews for the items I'd sponsored although not quite so nice to see my swiftly depleting GP balance. What's even better is that for the most part I got some great reviews. I'm looking forward to getting many more. Lately I've been thinking of getting more involved in the community here at WDC. The site offers so much and sometimes I feel like I don't return that as much as I could. I rarely review because I keep getting bogged down in everything else I do in a day. Lately I haven't even been writing much and entering contests. Part of what I want to do as a writer is to write short stories. I've never really gotten the hang of the art that is short story writing. I'm long winded (you may have noticed ) and it's hard for me to know what to put in and what to leave out. I can't help but feel that becoming adept at short stories will immensely improve my novel writing.As many of your know I also write poetry. I'm not interested in being a poet but writing poetry is another way to improve in the craft of writing. Poetry forces you to really break down your message, expand your vocabulary, focus on rules (and sometimes how to break them), and crystalize images and emotions. I've always felt that each poem can only be written one way, no two poems are ever alike because each poet is uniquely different and each approach to a poem creates a huge difference in the end result. So, on my list amongst the millions of other things is to write more poetry and short stories. Of course, again comes the question of priorities. Obviously, I can't do all things all the time. Today my priority is to catch up on Tor's Journal. He's next on my list, for those of you who've been following along with the same Member Blogs as mine you might have seen Scarlett mention my blog raid, then Dan, well Tor is next and then Nada, Mavis, CC and Forever. So, I better stop writing this journal and get started on Tor's because I also have to get into some housework (you can't see my living room floor under all the toys). All the best to everyone, and if you've got something you'd like more feedback on, I definately recommend the Sponsered Items. And if you have something but don't have the GPs to sponsor it, let me know and I'll see what I can do for you. |
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