Rambling words reflecting the real world
One of my favorite blogs is the Apocalypse Blog. It is a blog of a fictional character named Faith who survives the apocalypse. I highly recommend you start from the beginning and read the whole story.
but if you want to skip ahead and just read mine here is the link.
I hope you enjoy it and welcome any feedback.
I wrote a post about Collin Raye’s beautiful song “A Soldier’s Prayer” and was left a comment by Operation Kids.
Apparently they have teamed up with Collin Raye to offer free MP3 download’s of his song “She’s With Me” for every $5 donation until Mother’s Day.
I am a poor struggling writer so I couldn’t donate as much as I would like for such a worthy charity. So I offered to write an article about it. I hope it generates a lot of donations.
I did download “She’s With Me” and it is beautiful. Such an amazing song about Collin Raye’s granddaughter who is suffering from a undiagnosed neurological disorder. Love, love this song!
So, I wanted to ask everyone to donate money to OperationKids.Org. To get the Collin Raye download, go directly here
You can read my article about it by clicking here.
Please donate to this wonderful cause!
There is a contest for a 2 sentence story that several writing friends have entered. I am proud to say I know the first 2 winners!
So I decided to give it a try. If you read my previous blog post you know the inspiration for this one. Please vote if you like it. Here’s the link.
I finally managed to finish my accounting job. Feb 2 was my first day of freelance writing full time. I managed to get a lot of writing done.
I had a goal of writing 4 to 5 Demand.com articles a day. I focused on that and by Thursday had 15 done. I hated it. Demand requires a certain format for their articles. You can’t deviate. It is very restricting. But they pay you on time every week.
Did you noticed I stopped at Thursday? My son woke up on friday with a 102.5 temp. It was a scary day with his fever going as high as 103.9 and him not recognizing me for a few moments. He was sick on and off until wednesday. The doctor said he could go to school Friday the 13th, but I kept him home because his immune system was compromised from the steroids.
So week 2 of my freelance writing career was spent taking care of a very sick 4 year old. I managed to write one article all week.
I also found out that I am going to owe a hefty sum to the IRS for taxes, my husband’s car failed emissions and we have to get it fixed before we can get the tag for it. Oh, and I got a rejection letter.
Overall a very bad week. No income and a rainstorm of bills.
I wish I could say I stayed strong and knew my choice to follow my dream was the right one the whole time- but I didn’t. I have been having some major doubts and have barely managed to keep my head.
Week one had me so sick of writing and then week two had me worried sick about my son. It’s been tough.
But here is what I have learned, which I already knew but forgot. I need to write for better paying markets and I need to write for a variety of them. My mistake was thinking I could replace my income- or almost replace it right away. I could do that writing 32 Demand articles a week, but I would be miserable beyond belief.
I knew this would be a hard thing to do and I knew that it wouldn’t happen overnight. I need to keep working. Wash, rinse, repeat as my mentor, Michy always says.
I am not a risk taker by nature, so this whole journey has been scary for me. Plus I have always been really good at my job. I don’t get bad reviews. So rejection is hard for me. It is something I need to get used to as a writer, because I am going to hear it a lot.
One highlight of the last 2 weeks was seeing my name under pending interview here. Pending author interview. That’s right, Rissa Watkins, author.
So I am ready for week 3 of the writing career. Here’s hoping I get some good news and make some money. Otherwise I’ll be trying to pay the tax man with copies of the book.
It’s been a strange day. Last night I listened to one of my favorite Collin Raye Songs “A Soldier’s Prayer”. It’s a beautiful song that says God is there. My favorite part is:
Ask He’ll protect you,
Guide where you go,
Keep you from evil,
That tears at your soul.Speak to the Father,
Say what’s on your mind,
It just takes a moment
If you’ll take the time.
The song is about having faith in God and tells you that He is listening. Now if you’ve read my blog before, you might know that I have lost my faith. I believe in Him, but I turned my back on Him. I have my reasons and I thought they were good. I have been unable to forgive him.
But today, I feel like He is calling me. After hearing that song again after not listening to it for a while, I decided to go online to facebook. I connected with a childhood friend. I made the comment that she looks so happy in all her pictures. She told me about all the hardships she has suffered, but she has kept her faith and it has seen her through. Ring, Ring
Then I was on my favorite writers forum, Accentuate Services, and saw a post titled Why go to church? It was a paste from an email that we all see floating around. It was about letters to the editor of a newspaper about going to church. The final letter explained faith and how God nourishes the soul. First Facebook, now on my writers forum, hmmm. Ring, Ring
I made this post on twitter: “After turning my back on Him, I feel like He is reaching out for me, but I don’t know if I am ready to accept Him yet. God is patient right?” I received several wonderful responses that touched my heart and more importantly, my soul. Ring, Ring
I tried to push it to the back of my mind. I don’t have time to deal with this now, I need to write. After several hours of me trying to force myself to write, I asked my writing mentor Michelle L Devon(Michy), for help. As usual she gave me good advice. She said, don’t write. Work on promotion, search for leads and add non-exclusive articles to Helium.com.
I forgot there is more to a writing career than the writing. So I took her advice. I posted an article on helium.com. After you post it automatically takes you to a rating page so you can rate articles by other writers.
Shortly into rating, I was asked to rate this topic: Contemplating the existence of God. I read this beautiful article and recognized the author, Rodney Southern. His article about proving God’s existence, and how he had his faith reinforced brought tears to my eyes. Ring, Ring
I wish, I truly do, that I can say I heeded his call, that my faith was restored. It doesn’t work that way, correction, I don’t work that way. I have to hope it is enough that I am paying attention and I am listening. I hope that I will eventually forgive and ask for forgiveness.
So God, if you are calling, please leave me a message and I will return your call when I can.
I read the story about this high school girls basketball team that beat the snot out of another team. They won 100-0. Now they are apologizing and seeking a forfeit of the game. The head of the school thinks it is “shameful” and an “embarrassment” and “a victory without honor is a great loss”.
What the heck?
These girls played their hearts out, and they won fair and square. The other team is praised for their great attitudes and for never giving up. Why isn’t the winning team being praised for the same thing?
Did they make fun of the other team? no. Did they throw in their worst players or just play half-assed because they were winning by so much? no. Instead these girls played their very best. They played well. They should be praised not made to feel ashamed!
I think it is more of an embarrassment for the other team to have this huge stink about it. It would have been more of an insult if the winning team had not continued to play their best.
So, Covenant High Girl’s Basketball team- I congratulate you for your stunning victory and I salute your hard work. Don’t let anyone try to pull you down girls- you always, always reach as high as you can.
ya did good.
This used to be a big joke when I was in high school. Nobody wanted this St. Louis team. So my friends and I would throw out “how about those Cardinals” anytime we wanted to change the subject or there was a lul in the coversation and we would laugh thinking we were clever. (hey it was highschool)
I can remember working for a company with season tickets for the Cardinals game and we couldn’t give them away.
I gotta wonder, not that the Cardinals have made it to the superbowl-the superbowl can you imagine?- how many of those same people are going to be paying big bucks and wearing their red cardinals shirts to the game?
Bah! Fair weather fans annoy me. I am not a football fan. I am not a Cardinals fan. But dang it, you did good boys! The Cardinals should be proud.
So one more time, without the irony, How about those Cardinals!
Knock em dead!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I have been sick so after cooking all day in a daze, I sat down and couldn’t taste a darn thing. The turkey was moist and the family raved so it must have been good.
We have a lot to be thankful for this year. Most recently, I am thankful for screw ups. You see, dad choked on a huge piece of ham this weekend. The care home he is at is supposed to be cutting up his food. The caregiver gave him some water- something you never give a choking person because it cuts off the airflow if they had some. He managed to get the water out and was still breathing when they took him to hospital. But, when they took him to get x-rays he coded blue. My brother in law saw 15 doctors and nurses go running with a crash cart. He said to himself, man, that guy is in bad shape, then he realized it was my dad.
They brought him back with the paddles, got the ham out and he is fine. Here’s where the screw up comes in- he has a DNR. They aren’t supposed to be bringing him back at all. Luckily, the care home gave the paramedics the wrong medical info. If they hadn’t, we wouldn’t have had him at the table with us again this year.
I am also thankful for my funny little 4 year old boy. My mother in law asked him if he was going to say Grace. He asked, “What’s that?” She said, “It’s what you say before eating.” His response, “Oh I thought you say Bon Appetit”
He cracks me up! Happy Thanksgiving everyone and Bon Appetit!
12112 behind I am 12,112 words behind. Well actually by tonight I will be that behind if I don’t contribute. If I can write 12,112 words today I will be on schedule.
My hands are hurting from typing so much. My child is living off junk food and whatever dad can BBQ. I am writing in my sleep, in my dreams. I hate my novel, my characters and the whole writing world in general.
I was ready to give up. Then I got the NaNo pep talk email of the week. And well, I guess this is normal, so at least emotionally I am on schedule.
So I posted on Accentuate Services forum, which if you haven’t figured out right now is more than just another writer’s forum to me. It is friendship, support and advice-it’s part of my foundation now.
Anyway, one of my friends told me I couldn’t quit. She was using me as inspiration. Well crap. What can you say to something like that?
So, I NaNo. Not for me but apparently for the silly people watching. But come Dec 1st, let us not speak of it again.
sigh.
Wondering what the gibberish in the title means? It stands for National Novel Writing Month. Novemeber is National Novel Writing Month. 50,000 words in 30 days! You win if you finish the novel and the word count. What do you win? Bragging rights.
The point of the novel isn’t to win. It is to be able to finish a novel, crap or not. So many writers have a novel they are working on and have started- but not finished. NaNo gives people the opportunity to finish one.
So this will be my first attempt. Here is my page, stop and checkmy progress…
My NaNo page. I also would like to educate people on what NaNo does, besides encourage crazy writers to churn out crappy novels.
They help fund literacy programs, help build or establish libraries in countries where education is slim, they run a NaNo for kids to foster the love of writing for them, they even have a script writing challenge.
The reason I am telling you more about them is because I would like you to donate if you can. They are a non-profit, 501 (c) 3 organization, so your donations should be tax deductible.
Accentuate Services is trying to raise $500 to donate to the office of letters and light. If you can please contribute. All of the money goes directly to the charity. CLick here to help.
