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 |   Second blog -- answers to an ocean of prompts |
 "Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself." CHARLIE CHAPLIN  Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you. David Whyte        This is my supplementary blog in which I will post entries written for prompts. |
| Everyone's addicted to something in some shape or form. What are the things you can't go without? --------- Aside from the basic needs, reading, books, music (but only the kind that I like because some kinds of music hurt my ears), full moon, sunsets, ocean, trees…well, my list is endless. This is because sometime in my life--it might have been my middle years--I fell in love with our planet and what humanity can do, though what it does is another story. Since I started rambling, I’ll go back and pick reading to write about, which at the moment, is my most favorite thing to do. As to the why of it, some of my reasons are in the open while others might be hidden, even from me. I read because I am curious just about everything, and curiosity didn’t kill this kitten yet as I might really have nine lives or more. Then, what is wrong with gaining information, enhancing one’s worldview, and learning just about anything from the crib to the grave? Second is the entertainment value, the drama of the story, watching the plot take shape, and feeling amazed at or finding fault with (internally and once in a while) an author’s art or know-how. I may also discover a powerful author’s hidden or obvious technique of writing and pat myself on the back when I feel I have done so. Then, while I read, I relax and enjoy my quiet time because I am a sucker for solitude. The other things I am attached to deserve their own pages, so for now, I am taking time off on them. |
| Prompt: "I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in." --Robert Louis Stevenson As writers, our craft is always with us. What do you carry? Me, I always have a notebook and a couple of pencils with me And fortunately with modern technology, Kindle on my phone when I'm stuck longer than I anticipated. I also take tones of pictures for later writing stimulation. ==== I am more of a reader than a writer, although I write quite a bit. Way back when, I used to carry a print book, and later, an e-reader in my bag. Now that I can read on my cell, the e-readers have been demoted to several places in the house with my favorite one taking on the night duty. This is because I am usually reading several books at the same general time, but I pick books with varying genres and settings and alternate fiction and non-fiction of different subjects since I don’t want to mix up the characters, plots, and information with one another. As to writing, Robert L Stevenson must have been more organized than me for I carry in my purse several pens and loose papers, actually scraps, and a couple of tiny pads that charities hand out. I also take notes on my cell or the e-readers. It would be better practice if I were to write my notes in one notebook or keep them in just one place. I tried to carry a notebook with me but it was too bulky for my purse. That’s when I got used to cut-up papers. Now, I am so conditioned to them that I even use them when I am at home. Still, I do have half-filled notebooks, hordes of them, because I like free-flow. Fact is, I tried to wean myself off those pieces of paper, but it didn’t go very well because a pen and those folded cut-ups in my shirt pocket are very handy and they feel like family. |
| Prompt: "Saying nothing sometimes says the most." Emily Dickinson Do you agree with Emily? ----- I certainly do. Sometimes, the meaning is within us, and the words and all that we say are only there to support that meaning. If we can’t find the proper words or even if we come up with a few phrases and they somehow fall short of expressing our meaning, it may be a better idea to say nothing. At times, silence also points to internal peace. It gives off, with immense power, vibes of acceptance, tolerance, and harmony. Some believe being the loudest is being the strongest, but then, don’t we all dislike or even hate loudmouths in the public arena? On this topic, note that I am refraining here from making a statement about the current political scene. Then, to train myself, I have a personal sticky note on my laptop’s screen that says, “When you are angry, be silent.” Of course, this doesn’t mean that when I am silent, I am angry. It is only there, so I don’t lose my head when things don’t go my way. Thus, I hope to sustain or bring internal peace by just reminding myself of silence. |
| Prompt: True Crowning Moments: Character, Choices, Courage, Compassion. Do you think the world will remember you by these crowning moments in your life? ------- Possibly, none of the above since consciously, I never was single-mindedly obsessed to attain any one of those virtues mentioned. I rather worked toward an overall vision for myself. Have I made a difference? Maybe so, maybe not. This unknowing is because our planet is a crowded place and what one can do, even at her utmost, is only a drop in the ocean, and also, after me, I want the world to go on without looking back at what was. There are some moments in my life, however, that have been important to me, and they include some fantastic people I have admired and the wonderful personal relationships or work affiliations I have had with them. Those moments are mine and they’ll stay mine. Only a few people are aware of some of them, and from where I stand, that’s a few people too many. What I have achieved, if those were an achievement, I like to keep them unseen and unmentioned. |
| Prompt: Creation Saturday. A twinkling eye can mean many things. Write a poem about a twinkle in someone’s eye. ------------ no shadows on your face but twinkles in the eyes a smile wide on your six-year-old self you hold your head to the side your gaze finds my face is it because you loved me more, then? still, so becoming your smile is and your eyes twinkle when they find mine, just like in that old photo, Son! |
| Prompt: "If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a great deal faster then it does." Lewis Carroll, Alice In Wonderland What are your views on this quote? ---- I do agree with the quote to some degree. On the plus side, your life can become surprisingly easier because then, you can attend your own business with full concentration, since the drama that comes from others is usually nil. On the other hand, how can you, unless you are totally detached from society and your loved ones, keep away from helping others, encourage them, and give them advice that is asked for, emphasizing the words “advice that is asked for” because unasked advice is meddling. On still a larger scale, it is impossible to only mind your own business and work for your own welfare when you know for certain in your country or state of systemic injustices; that is, rotten things being done to people or groups of people. Then, it is important to speak up and even take arms (metaphorically speaking) to right the wrongs, or else, you can be condemned by history for ineptitude, dereliction, or lack of concern for one’s civic duties. |
| Prompt: Are you participating/ hosting/ or preparing something on March 17th aka St. Paddy's Day? If you share your plans; if not, maybe discuss something you may not have known from the links. http://www.gpb.org/education/origins-of-st-patricks-day https://www.britannica.com/topic/Saint-Patricks-Day ==== We are not attending a dinner that we were invited to on St. Paddy’s, but I have been celebrating Ireland in my own way. Fact is, I am now reading The Great Book of Ireland, by Bill O’Neill, an author who has many other trivia books, but this book is more than trivia. It has excellent facts in it, some of which I had no idea. I can’t give away everything in the book, but I’ll talk about one that may be entertaining. The Blarney Stone, which I bet anyone who’s been to Ireland and isn’t afraid of heights must have tried to kiss it. There are many stories or legends about how the stone ended up where it is, in a wall in The Blarney Castle, which is located just outside of Cork, Ireland. One of the legends is that it was brought there during the Crusades; another is, it is of the same rock in Stonehenge. The legend I like the most dates back to 1440s when the Blarney castle’s builder Cormac Laidir MacCarthy was involved in a lawsuit. For good luck, he asked the Irish goddess of love and beauty Cliodhna, who told Cormac to kiss the stone before heading out to court. After winning the case, Cormac installed the stone into a wall in the castle. I like this story the best because of the fantasy in it. Yet, there’s another story about Cormac when Queen Elizabeth I wanted to strip him of his land rights. Cormac wasn’t an eloquent speaker. During his travels, a woman told him to kiss the stone. Cormac did that and was able to persuade the queen to let him keep his land. The second story about the same man has probably more truth to it, but I still like the one with the love goddess. By the way, “Kiss me, I’m Irish” comes from the Blarney Stone.  |
| Prompt: Discuss one of the quotes about the Ides of March. https://www.ibtimes.com/ides-march-12-quotes-about-loyalty-celebrate-march-15-18... ----- “Is loyalty still a commendable quality when it is misdirected?” – Cassandra Clare, “Clockwork Princess” I have to answer no because this quote made me recall of the followers of Adolf Hitler, but I don’t need to take it that far. Misdirected loyalty first begins in the family or the parental home. Children who have been brought up by overly disciplinarian parents tend to develop similar loyalties toward their parents and family members. Surely, not every strictly disciplined child shows such behavior as most stay away from abusive or extremely disciplinarian parents once they mature. Among other people, misdirected loyalty happens when a person finds it difficult to stand up against someone because doing that might feel like they are betraying their relationship with that person. This type of sick loyalty may happen not only between people but also between persons and institutions, such as political parties, workplaces, or religious affiliations. Then, sometimes, people are threatened to be loyal to something or someone, and that may be an inescapable situation, but misdirected loyalty happens even without a threat or any such force. This type of loyalty arises from personal feelings having to do with guilt, morality, or social pressure. In any case, misdirected loyalty is a dangerous thing because it threatens a person’s integrity, self-respect, and sanity. And if left to fester, it can lead to emotional complications of varying degrees such as codependency, snobbery, tyranny, and code of silence as with the Omerta of Mafia. Under these conditions, a person can at best lose his self-confidence and then, other more important things like his health, his financial well-being, and his life. |
| Prompt: "The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even felt with the heart." Helen Keller-Annie Sullivan Write anything you want about this quote. ========== What cannot be seen or felt by the heart are the tiny things that hold the promise or beginnings of wonderful, unimaginable, and sometimes larger things. Case in point, a tiny seed, the acorn from which the noble oak grows or the aliveness of nature in general. Within the same thought are those beginnings or seeds unseen or felt by us that grant us those things we so cherish like the moon, the sun, the cosmos, our dreams, the sights and sounds of waterfalls or rain, a mother’s smiling welcome of her newborn baby, a lover's kiss, the kind of music that talks and inspires a person, all arts, poetry, books, writing, kind words, helping hands, the company of friends and other people, the flag, the nation, and our global connectedness. In addition, we can experience and appreciate all those things and then some if we learn to live in the present moment. If we can manage to achieve focusing our attention on the present moment, we may be able to enjoy even the most insignificant, gloomy, or dull tasks and events because in every single thing is a kernel of life. |
| Prompt: Write about something that happened when you were eight years old. ===== It’s been so many years since I was eight, decades actually. I don’t really remember much, except for a few personal family matters, but one national incident that created huge noise at the time stands out in my memory. 1951 was when Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were accused of being Russian spies who passed on secret information to Russians about nuclear technology. I recall my mother talking to other women about it. “But how could they? They wouldn’t dare. Maybe there’s a mistake.” Somehow, she found it hard to believe that anyone could do anything so terrible. She kept hoping they would be exonerated since they had kids. She might have been alone in that because everyone else was deadly afraid of communism at the time. The couple’s older son was about my age and he was listening to The Lone Ranger on the radio when the agents barged in their apartment and took away his father, later on, his mother. I remember feeling very bad for him, maybe because he was my age. I remember the news of the two kids being taken to Sing Sing to visit their parents. They probably never saw their parents again, and I really felt bad for them. |
| Prompt: A Bird's Eye-- write your entry about the view a bird has flying over the mundane things you see every day, give us a new perspective on the repetitive places and tasks most days bring you. ----- My house: From above, the roof would be L-shaped with gray shingles. The palm trees would look like green flowers with thin petals opening. Our street would look like a long curvy river with greens on both sides and the tops of the boxes (houses) along the two sides of that river. I used to watch the ground from the windows of the airplanes during the time when we traveled a lot. The ground looked very much like Gulliver’s Lilliput.  Prompt: Discuss something that appeals to you from the link or something that happened to you personally on this day in history. ----- March 9, 1936 - The German press warned that all Jews who vote in the upcoming elections would be arrested. It was the notice of the end, I think. Although this wasn’t really the beginning of the end as the many other incidents pointed to what would happen many years earlier. At the moment, I am reading William Russell’s Berlin Embassy. William Russell (1915-2000) was a diplomat in the American Embassy in Berlin. This book was first published in 1941. Its e-book version was out last year, and I grabbed it. It is probably the most important and most telling book I came across about the start of the Holocaust. The book covers the time from 1939 to 1941. It has in it, the author’s observations, his newspaper clippings, the plight of the masses, especially that of the Jewish, and the overall atmosphere Hitler’s regime had created in Germany and in the world. He says, “If the United States goes into this war, there is one thing I do not want to forget. There are millions of people in Germany who do not agree with the policies of their leaders. And there are other millions, simple people, who believe exactly what their leaders tell them — especially when they tell them the same thing day after day.” He says the regime, just to confuse everybody, didn't let the real news out but created rumors. The people in Germany never knew of the news and their listening to the foreign news on the radio was prohibited. ~As an aside, there is a lesson here to be learned for our day with all the fake-news business going on.~ He also talks about how the people who wanted to leave Germany went from embassy to embassy to get a visa to get out. It is absolutely heart-rending and nerve-wrenching. This also involves me to some degree as my parents were in Munich in 1939 but they got out. Prompt: What books are on your Spring Reading List? --- I don’t have a Spring Reading list, necessarily, because I have more than 6000 books on my Kindle, which I probably read about a 1000+ so far since I read all the time. I read on the Kindle, Nook, and Book Bazaar reading apps on my laptop, or on my Kindle e-readers, or on my Cellphone. I usually have close to ten books going at the same time with one of them a print book. I also have at least ten print books waiting for me to get to them, I hope by the summer's end. |
| Prompt: "I keep my heart and soul open to miracles." Patrick Swayze What is your take on miracles? --- The word miracle may mean different things to different people. From its religious or supernatural perspective, it means an unexplainable happening that takes place against the rules of nature; for example, a person suddenly taking flight with no appendage, vehicle, or tool or a seriously sick person suddenly being healed by the chanting of a shaman. To me, every day is a miracle as the workings of a human body or the birth of a child. Sometimes, wild animals are not afraid of me even if they are much smaller than me while grasping that I could hurt them if I wanted to. Some days I suddenly recall some old information that has been buried in the depths of my mind, and just my recalling ability of such a far-away thing feels like a miracle to me. Then, there’s such a thing as telepathy when I am thinking of a person, they either show up or call, or the phone rings and I suddenly know for certain who it is at the other end. I don’t know what Patrick Swayze means by being open to miracles. To me, life is a miracle, and therefore, everything in it is. Prompt: “Every time you learn something new, you’re expanding your creative potential,” says Yonatan Levy in his book, The Other Ideas: Art, Digital Products, and the Creative Mind. What do you think is the relationship between learning and creative potential? --- I think not just any learning but learning with understanding helps a person to be creative. When we learn without understanding, that doesn’t help us with our creative undertakings; for example, memorizing material in school just to get a passing grade. Inside every creative project, there lies a kernel of understanding the idea that may inspire a project. Whether writing fiction and poetry or painting a picture or creating a solution for a scientific problem, the creative process is the same because the creative process involves learning or preparation plus imagination, then letting the ideas incubate, then letting an a-ha! moment surface just like the sudden light bulbs in cartoons, and finally, the last step of making sure the idea will work. With that process in mind, the most creative ideas are born to people who are physically, socially, emotionally and intellectually devoted and involved with their missions. This may sound a bit materialistic, but in essence, it is just the opposite. It has to do with following one’s heart and devoting oneself to a venture. Prompt: In what ways can you expose yourself to outside ideas, interests, and viewpoints to use in your writing, aside from your reading and the internet? ---- I like people and mostly write about people and living things; therefore. where people congregate and interact are the most important places for me, such as airports, waiting rooms, hospitals, police stations, train stations, parties, debates, meetings or all kinds, school playgrounds, libraries, stores, malls etc. I may be involved with the people in such places or I may just be an observer. The latter, however, is what I prefer the most. I also like nature. Thus, I like sitting quietly in one place in a park, a beach, the woods, and the nature preserves. For this, my mind always requires some stillness. |
| Prompt: "I have a writing addiction." Prince Do you feel like this? Write anything you want about this. ----- If writing is an addiction, I love my addiction. I wouldn’t call it an addiction, however. It is my choice I fell in willingly. No one forced me into it. Quite the contrary. I was always told to do something more worthwhile, translation: financially beneficial. Sometimes people wanted me to be like them, going after nonsensical, meaningless pursuits that they themselves were involved with. But I chose wisely, even if it was the only wise thing I did in my life. This is because writing is more beneficial than anything, and it comes so handy toward the end of one’s lifetime. Those of us who love writing are never bored. As far as writing is concerned, one doesn’t need to bend over her desk day in and day out. We writers write everywhere, even when we lack paper, pen, or something to type on. We write inside our heads. We write about our tough times, our good times, others’ tough and good times, what we observe around us, and what we think and feel about anything. Writing is the key to our living. It is as important as breathing. It refines us. It keeps us busy. It entertains us. It is our best friend. It is who we tell our most secret thoughts and beliefs. Writing is like our alter ego. Usually, it gets itself known on paper or screen. Even when it doesn’t, it keeps an office inside our minds. I think there is nothing better than writing. |
| Prompt: "If the person you have been talking to doesn't appear to be listening, be patient. It may be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear." Winnie The Pooh Write about a time you have felt this way about a person you were talking to. ----- Yes, of course. That type of behavior occurs with some people once in a while, and such a quote is why I love Winnie the Pooh so much. By the way, don’t some spouses (take notice that I didn’t use a gender) have that kind of fluff in their ears? The thing is, we can’t get inside people’s heads and make them listen, so we don’t feel like inanimate objects who make sounds that are lost in the great beyond. Then, what can we do? Sometimes, extremely talkative people bore others to death and cause them to tune out. In addition, there is that person who, instead of listening to what we are saying at that very minute, is formulating his or her next answer because what she says is more important to her than the topic in question. When that happens, what usually comes out of her mouth is a side issue, which can be titled as But She Digresses. When this happens, I usually tell myself that others’ behaviors have nothing to do with me and the other person is just distracted or uninterested or has his own problems. Also, the other person can be hearing-impaired. Some hearing-impaired people deny their lack of hearing and they act as if they are hearing us. Then, it might be me. I ask always myself if I am informed enough to carry that specific topic well enough in a conversation if the others are tuning me out. I don’t know what would work to make people listen to what we say, just maybe: educating ourselves in a person’s thinking and learning style; trying to speak more clearly and explaining things the way they can understand; not being repetitious; giving them a chance to talk; asking them questions; trying to create a meaningful relationship with them so they give more importance to what we say. Also, trying to talk to a person who is raging or overly emotional doesn’t work. In which case, we can let them blow off steam and calm down before they can listen to what we say. |
| Prompt: In W. E. B. Du Bois book, The Souls of Black Folk, he addresses the experience of double consciousness, a divided identity split between the consciousness of how one views oneself and how one is viewed by others. Have you struggled with representing yourself while being conscious of how readers may view you when they read your work. ----- Not really because I don’t think of the readers while I am writing, although those who write books on the subject say to target an audience. I sort of write for me and although I have been published, which happened because of where I worked as a linguist or because friends who published magazines and books picked my pieces on their own, I haven’t submitted my stuff as of yet. I may in the future, that is if I have a future, but it is a pain what an author goes through after their submission is accepted. Having said this, that double consciousness thing is a fact and. it does happen to me during the everyday living. I may be sitting in a room talking to people, but how I feel may be different than what I project and possibly what the way people see me. It isn’t that I hide anything or utter false stuff about myself because I don’t do that. I don’t need to do that. It may be because, in my life, so many people have projected things about themselves onto me and who they believe I am, which mostly isn’t true or complete. Not that what they projected is negative either. Mostly it has been overly positive, but to my understanding, that positivity is usually false or exaggerated. |
| Prompt: In your writing experiences have you considered spin-offs. A spinoff is not a re-write or a reprint but simply a window or an element in every article that can open into a different idea. One story often leads entirely to another, both are different and yet intricately linked. ------- In the last issue of Writing Digest, there is a good article on spinoffs. That made me think about this. At least two or more of my NaNo novels can have a spinoff involving one or two of the secondary characters. One of those can have a spinoff even with the main character because she was a child who grew into her later teens and in the last chapter, she learned something shocking about her background. I figure I can give her a few good flashbacks of that scene and that scene could decide the hang-ups and decisions in her later life. In fact, I think most any novel can have a spinoff because there are those situations, different secondary and supporting characters (they = are already developed, which is a bonus), and the setting. Using the setting would be fun because I develop the settings with care with maps and house plans. Having said all that, I think each novel that is a spin-off should be able to stand up on its own with all its loose ends tied at the end. An installment doesn’t mean series, but the writers and publishers just call any installment, a book in series, which I assume is for financial reasons. Case in point: Stephanie Bond is a writer whose books I enjoy reading just for the fun of it—nothing literary, but clean prose and good storytelling. Yet, a few months ago, I got a free Kindle book of hers from Amazon. It was a continuing series; however, there was no indication of it in Amazon’s intro or in the writer’s offering. The story finished at the end of the sixth book with each following book costing $2.99. But the story was written well with excellent hooks, and I bit the bait. I’d rather pay $15. for a good story rather than getting misled. Besides, it is a pain to go back and get another installment each time the story takes a turn. Such a practice is not writing a spinoff, it is something else. If the first book does not finish on its own, the reader should be warned before making a commitment. I have to repeat. Every spinoff should be able to stand on its own in a series. |
| Prompt: Describe your perfect weekend getaway. ----- A weekend getaway? A weekend is too short. I’d like at least a week’s getaway. Since I’ve traveled more than enough in my life, I’d like to go to a quiet place with a window in my room that has the water-view of a lake, river, or ocean. A place where I can take walks early in the morning and late in the evening. A place where the meals are sent to the rooms which have usable kitchens, too, where I could prepare things for myself if I so wish. A place where deliveries from the outside can be made, also, since I’ll need provisions. This I want because during the day, I’ll read and write to my heart’s content. Gosh, without realizing, I just wrote about a writing retreat, self-made, while sounding like Greta Garbo who is purported to have said. “I want to be alone,” which she later denied saying that but she admitted to saying, “I want to be let alone.” I don’t want to be alone all my days, but I’d like to have some me-time for reading and writing that is free of interruptions. |
| Prompt: "Independence means happiness." Susan B. Anthony Do you agree with this quote? ------- I don’t know if anyone who is independent is happy, but I value independence greatly. Maybe it comes from being an only child, maybe not. I was never a rebel unless pushed, but I like to decide for myself and most of the time I like finding solutions by myself, which is not a very good thing in old age, I am finding out. This quote brings to mind something on the independence of thought from Fahrenheit 451 by Bradbury. “If they give you lined paper, write the other way.” I tend to agree with that, at least with what it means metaphorically. Regardless of doing (or not doing) the opposite of what others push you to do, truly independent people like to think for themselves and perhaps cannot fit into a group that has its own rules. Then, if you don’t fit in a group, chances are you will be castrated. In that sense, does that kind of independence lead to happiness? I am asking this question because human beings are social people and most of us need to fit in a group or society that has to have at least some of its beliefs and actions come close to our own independent ways. “Live and let live” does not always work in many close-knit and tight societies with strict rules or even in those that do not censure your thinking. When the counterforces of thought do not agree with yours and they become strong enough, you either end up being alone or you may lose your independence and therefore, uniqueness. So, does true independence mean happiness? I think, maybe sometimes and only within the person, but not always. |
| Prompt: "As we said goodbye late that afternoon, I thought: Don't go, I want you in my life. And in a sense, she didn't go." Write a poem or anything you want about a friend who made you feel this way. ---- To My Best Friend When we were kids, you said, “All I want is to paint,” and I said, “All I want is to write.” You said, “I paint, and you write, such great combination,” but life is a home with many rooms a different décor in each and we got lost in different quarters trying to be unpredictable, although going with the flow, and how fragile were the wishes of youth! Now that the years have fled, you’ve begun to paint I’ve begun to write, untangling ourselves slowly from that home with many rooms, at the start of whatever comes next, and we both sing to each other in our secret language feeling our connection. from miles apart. |
| Prompt: What did you get in trouble for the most when you were younger? ------ I mostly got in trouble for sassing and wisecracking my mother especially when she crossed me. This was probably during my earliest teen years. Then, when my cousin and I were about 13 or so, we got into mischief together. The kind of mischief we got into wasn’t really harmful to ourselves or anyone else, but it was (supposedly!) humorous mischief, like changing the places of things. Once we had two sets of house guests in the house. When everyone else was in the living room talking, we sneaked upstairs and exchanged the guests’ bags. That is, in Guest A’s room we put Guest B’s bags and vice versa. I didn’t necessarily get into such silly trouble on my own, but when my cousin and I were together, we cooked up a whole lot of things like that. All of them were ridiculous and unnecessary. To this day, my cousin is my best friend, and surprise, surprise, we both ended up okay.  |
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