Tea Time Awards!

I know that Thursday is supposed to be my tea break from blogging.  In reality, Thursday is anything but a break for me.  I am still a mother on this day as I am on any other day of the week.  As far as writing is concerned, I am typically working to complete my flash fiction piece for my Friday post, or working on one of my WIPs (it seems impossible for me to keep my mind reigned in half the time).

However, I am breaking my Thursday blogging silence to accept two awards that Diane Carlisle of Are We There Yet? was kind enough to send my way.  These are the Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award! and the Tell Me About Yourself Award.  That seems like as good a reason as any to interrupt my tea break, right?  My tea (or coffee) will still be waiting for me when I finish.

To accept these awards, I must share 7 things about myself and pass them along to 7 lucky bloggers.  Here we go!

1. I'm considering e-publishing a compilation of my stories to see how it goes. Please, if any of you out there have experience with this, any opinions or tips would be greatly appreciated.
2. I'm becoming more convinced each day that there's a hole in the space-time continuum hidden somewhere in my house.  It's the strangest little phenomenon, because it seems to selectively eat money, ball-point pens, and hair ties.
3. I tend to watch episodes of Star Trek (either TNG or Voyager) or Babylon 5 when I write.  Yes, I've seen them all many times by now, so they don't distract me as much as one might think.  They seem to serve as a nice, comforting creative force while I work.
4. I'm in the midst of a philosophical examination of my personal beliefs.  That seems to be coming across a lot in my writing.  I've never been the type to blindly accept belief systems.  I love science and trust it more than I do ancient religious texts.  That's just the way I am.  In college I learned a lot about Buddhism through my philosophy major, and I loved it.  They are open to new discoveries and ideas, even when they conflict with their doctrine.  I admire that flexibility and openness.
5. As a little kid, I honestly thought I'd have a successful writing career by the time I graduated high school.  I'm almost a decade late on that one.  Please don't laugh about my naivety.  Or if you do, just don't tell me about it.
6. I've read every article I can find about the Higgs Boson in the last week.  I also look for cartoons about it.  Yes, I love science cartoons.
7. I can't wear a skirt without wearing a pair of shorts under it.  Unless, of course, the skirt is well past my knees.  And even then, I check the material to make sure the wind won't easily catch it before deciding whether or not I need shorts under it.  This paranoia started when I was in college.  Wearing a short skirt and high heeled boots are not what you should be wearing while walking down a steep hill.  I fell and flashed an old man my underwear.  I didn't like the way he looked at me after that.

Okay.  It's time to move these awards on to the next group of deserving people.  I chose these ladies because I genuinely love reading their blog posts and nice comments.  There are plenty of others who also fall into that category, but if I'm trying to adhere to word limits (an all but impossible task for me), I may as well adhere to this limit too.

1. Mina Lobo @ Some Dark Romantic
2. Christine Rains
3. Scribbles From Jenn
4. Laura @ My Baffling Brain
5. Laura @ Stranger Than Writing
6. Jennifer @ A Creative Exercise
7. Clare @ Clare Dugmore Writes

There.  I believe my responsibilities as far as rewards are over for the moment.  Time to get back to my kids and my other writing responsibilities.  

Darn Those Dichotomies!

I don't know why, but I've been thinking about this world and feeling increasingly discouraged by our prospects.  It isn't entirely based on language, but there's a linguistic component to this post, so please indulge me in this.

Humans naturally classify things.  By lumping people or ideas into nice little groups, we enable our own understanding of our world.  This tendency can, however, hinder our understanding if we aren't careful.

There is a broad spectrum of political views.  There is a broad spectrum of belief systems.  There is a wide variety of just about any social grouping or affiliation that you can think of.  The world isn't typically black and white, though people seem to see it that way more often than not.

Our own language structure makes this tendency quite clear.  You have positive and negative statements: "American vs. non-American", "Christian vs. non-Christian", "believer vs. nonbeliever", "white vs. non-white", "heterosexual vs. non-heterosexual", etc.  There are countless examples.  It seems like we're geared to split everything into splitting things into two simple groups.  


At the end of the day, this tendency leaves us with the "us vs. them" mentality.  Human beings are always talking about the battle of light vs. dark, or good vs. evil.  If we believe that we're right and that we're fighting for what's good, it's easy to jump to the conclusion that the people we see as "them" must be fighting for evil.


Perhaps this sounds a bit extreme.  We don't always see the people who oppose us as doing or advocating for evil things, though I've seen plenty of people in the news making such extreme claims lately.  And even if you don't see the people who think differently than you as evil or just plain bad, you still may see them as a threat.    


The impulse to create dichotomies runs very deep in us.  I'm sure many of you can think of examples I haven't even mentioned here.


In the days when humanity was much less advanced and lived in smaller groups, outsiders were typically perceived as a threat.  We survived because we trusted those who were like us, while we fought off those who weren't.  Survival required an "us   Though this is no longer quite the case (we still fight plenty of wars, I'll admit), we still tend to think of the people who aren't with us as being against us.


We're split into two sexes, male and female.  This may explain a little bit about why we tend to lump things into two groups.  It's deeply ingrained in our psychology.  The world has been run in two separate spheres, public vs. private (namely the home), for much of human history.  For a long time, people operated in each sphere within specific roles based on sex.  This is still the case in many instances.


For better or worse, these dichotomies aren't going away.  All I can do is make a simple plea.  Maybe we need to reexamine the "us vs. them" mentality.  There are situations where it's still appropriate, certainly.  Unfortunately, even in civil society, we have decidedly uncivilized encounters on a daily basis because people can't listen to one another.  We hold dearly to our beliefs and lash out at those who disagree.  Instead of talking and trying to be rational in our encounters, we degenerate to name-calling.  Politics gets uglier all the time. 


Lately I've read articles that weren't even about politics (at least not overtly), and people from the left and right start hurling insults at one another for no discernible reason.  It makes me wonder how we'll ever resolve anything.


I'm disgusted.  If only we had a strong third party.  The two party system (darn that dichotomy as well!) isn't working for me anymore.  We need more options.  If the two existing parties are too mired down in their own ideologies to listen, they don't deserve to lead us.


This is just my opinion, of course.

Sharing the Creativity of Others

I found this the other day, and I thought it was creative and funny.  It reminds us of our youthful aspirations and not to lose that passion that we had as children.  Whatever your passion is, embrace it.  Play around with it.

I think Jeremiah McDonald is brilliant.  He is obviously a great writer to have written this.  He is also a great artist, and as you could tell from the video, that's his true passion.  To see more of his work, visit his blog HERE.  It's a brand new blog, but you can see he has talent.  Trust me.

And if any of you have a passion you've abandoned, maybe you should consider giving it another try.  You may not rekindle that love again, but you never know.

Well, that's enough of my spiel for the day.  Until next time.

Monday Musings

I'm going to try to meet with my muse when my youngest takes his afternoon nap. She's still a little miffed by the definitive lack of work done last week.  I did write the final installment of my serialized story last week, but a piece of fiction less than 1,000 words long wasn't enough to impress her.  I know I need to do more, but holiday weeks are always strange that way.

For now I will outline my goals for the week.  Hopefully going into our meeting with goals in hand will help appease Pleiades.  If not, at least having them prepared should shorten deliberations.

I need to brainstorm ideas for my Friday flash fiction early in the week.  I got so used to adding on to the same story that this is going to be a definite shift in gear for me.  I will try to have ideas in hand and start writing it by Thursday morning at the latest.

I also must get back to my editing.  When my editing is not going as planned and I feel like I can't achieve what I need to do, I will not give up in a huff and turn to episodes of Star Trek TNG on Netflix to make me feel better.  Instead I will turn to one of my short story ideas I've been mulling over in my head.  Failures on one project will only turn me temporarily to another.  This way, I will at least be accomplishing something.

I will use social media to communicate, but not to distract.  It's so easy to get lost in Facebook.  This mustn't happen to me this week.  I need to get back on track.

I will get back on track.

Now, I just need Pleiades to cooperate.

Hmmmmmmm . . . . . . . . .

Blogspiration 7: Our Mote of Dust

There's nothing like looking up at the night sky to make you realize how large it all is. Even more humbling is the view of Earth from 4 billion miles away.

Taken from HERE.

Sometimes we get bogged down in politics and suspicions and forget about how much there is to see beyond our world.  Looking at our world this way, I think we just may have far more in common with one another than we might think.

Flashing You the Final Installment

This is the final installment in this serialized story.  I hope you enjoy it.

And as always, if you haven't read the other parts, I've provided links to each of them so you can get caught up.

Part 1: The Sounding
Part 2: The Blank Slate
Part 3: The Infinite Jest
Part 4: The Third
Part 5: Portals
Part 6: The Dream Reader
Part 7: The Deity's Bedroom

You can also read the story in its entirety on the separate page I created for it.  You can find the tab at the top of the page, or I could just be nice and give you the link HERE.

The Absurdity

Part 8: Explosive Ecstasy

“I think I have all I need,” I said quietly.

The Dream Reader nodded.  “I figured you would.”

I walked away from the Dream Reader, filled with more questions and confusion than I had when I arrived.  When I followed him into that room, I felt so certain all my questions could be answered.  That hadn’t been the case at all, but at least I had the answer to the most important question of all.

I knew where I wanted to be.

Once again in the Dream Reader’s lair, surrounded by the faces of countless people I would never meet, I waved my hand.  I felt the familiar sensation of my fingers catching on my destination.  When I pealed the fabric of the world back and stepped through, I felt an upwelling of anticipation. 

I emerged next to Jester, though the configuration of celestial bodies below looked different from when I left.  She was lying face down, spread-eagled, directly over a giant red star.  Her long, jeweled hair was now unrestrained and fanned out around her.  The starlight set the long strands ablaze, creating a fiery, multi-colored halo around her head.

“This star is going to go supernova soon.”  Jester’s voice sounded distant, contemplative.  Maybe even a little sad.  “I feel like I’m flying over it.  How often do you get to fly above a star as it dies?”

I considered that for a moment.  “Here, where we have all the time we need and the whole universe beneath our feet, we can probably do it more often than most.”

She turned her head to the side and brushed her hair aside.  Her eyes peeked out at me, though I couldn’t see enough of her face to get a good feel for her mood.  Then she laughed.  “You make an excellent point,” she conceded.  “Still, I thought we might watch it together.  I was hoping you’d get back in time.”

I dropped to my knees and stretched out beside her.  “Here I am.”

The two of us lay side by side, and as I pressed my cheek against the ground, I found my fingers entwining with hers.  My eyes focused on the big ball of dying light. 

“When it goes, the power of the explosion will destroy the planets nearest to it,” she narrated.  “Their surfaces will be burned away in seconds.  Yet, in that moment of destruction, the star will generate new elements, the basic building blocks of life for the universe on the other side of this glass.  The light from this will be visible for thousands of light years.  More than a millennium from now, people will be seeing this light for the first time, and they’ll see what we’re about to see.  They will be laying eyes on something that will have provided the building blocks for countless new species.  It’s all pretty incredible.”

“It is,” I agreed.  “Assuming that all of it’s real, of course.”

Jester squeezed my hand.  “Real or not, I’d like you to enjoy it with me.”

“I can do that.”

Several silent minutes passed after that. 

The change inside the star came suddenly.  The colossal wave of energy unleashed by the collapsing core burst forth, hurling away the star’s outer layers.  The billowing cloud of light raced out in every direction, filling the entire room with light.  The star, undone by its own gravity, was now being scattered across the universe.

“Amazing,” I breathed.  Then I turned on my side, and I saw that Jester had done the same.  The explosion cast her in a crazy pattern of light and shadow, and she looked so hauntingly beautiful that my mind went fuzzy.

We reached out for each other at the same time.  Though I’d already kissed her before, this time felt just as new and exhilarating as the last.  Her tongue was more daring this time, darting out to push past my lips.  Not that she had to try too hard.  I was more than willing to allow her entry.

She wrapped her body around mine, and my hands explored every curve of her, searching for a way past her garments.  Soon enough I found a point of entry and began to peel them away, revealing smooth skin.  I knew she’d feel smooth to the touch, but the way she trembled in response triggered an urgency I never dreamed possible. 

It wasn’t long before we’d both shed our outer layers, much like the star below.  I hovered just above her, moving against her body as powerful waves of sensation crashed over me.  The light behind her was so bright I couldn’t see her face, but I felt every inch of her, and I heard every moan and sigh.  She touched me with eager hands, and I welcomed every moment of it.

The climax felt like an explosive release of warmth.  It radiated from me like ripples in a pond.

Afterwards, I lay down beside Jester, and she rested her chin lightly on my shoulder.  “How are you feeling?” she asked lightly.

“Transformed,” I replied.  “I think my name should be Nova.  It seems appropriate somehow.”

She smiled glowingly.  “So you’re definitely staying?”

“I can’t imagine being anywhere else.”

What's the Word?

I know that lately I've been posting a lot about word play, but I found some fun pictures that fit the theme of word play nicely.  Besides, it's a holiday.  I'm giving myself a little permission to be lazy.

Taken from WomanFreebies

Taken from Pinterest

Taken from Fantasy and Sci-Fi Rocks My World

Taken from George Takei

Taken from The Dork Side

Since I'm posting this on Independence Day, it seemed like the day to be thinking of the good ol' red, white, and blue.  Just remember to behave responsibly, otherwise you may be singing a different tune about those same colors.

Taken from The Dork Side

Feel free to let me know in the comments section which words you got and whether or not you think they describe you.  It's kind of fun.  It told me I'm elegant, but I don't think that's true.

To those of you who live in America, have a great holiday.  To everyone else, have a great day!