Thank You

We say it so many times that it loses its meaning or at least it's punch. I do not know how else to say it.
Perhaps, You have made my day. That also tends to sound phony to me. Perhaps if the written word had the expression in it that the vocal word has it would be better.

Wait.

I am on a computer. I can express expression in colors.

Thank you. Hm. That looks like you may be angry. I thought red would be warmer. 

Thank you. That's faded. Don't want faded thank you's. 

Thank you. That might do. It reminds you of growing things. Thank you can mean you want to grow a relationship because of what was done for you.

Thank you.   Now, that might work. Except the words fade into the background.

Thank you. Nah, that's not right. 

Thank you. Hey! I may onto something.

What I am trying to do here is to make it known to one and all how much I appreciated the guest post from 
C. Hope Clark. Hope you all enjoyed it. 

It is also a thank you to all of you come and check my posts. Have a great day.    

Guest Post from my friend C. Hope Clark

When I Decided to Become a Writer

By C. Hope Clark

            We ask this question often of writers we consider ahead of us in this journey. For some reason, we want to measure where we are in comparison.

            I decided to become a writer in 1999 when I realized my soul was dying at the day job; it needed resuscitation through something more passionate, less affiliated with form filing and paper pushing. So I set out with a three-year plan to save my money, pay off my bills, negotiate an early retirement that left me with a small pension, and relocate if my husband so chose, in order to make up the income difference. Then on September 27, 2002, I walked out of the Strom Thurmond Federal Building in Columbia, SC where I worked, and I never looked back.

            We moved a few months later from South Carolina to Arizona then back to South Carolina, my writing ever mobile. I morphed from a mystery writer to reviewer, then from a freelancer to an entrepreneur with FundsforWriters. Today, I’m a mystery author, editor of a website/newsletter with thousands of followers, and a blogger.

            I’ve learned that this job never sits still. It moves under your feet, sometimes taking you with it, sometimes knocking you down. The Internet changes exponentially with improvements, or setbacks, depending on your personal experience, so we never find our niche and sit fat and happy anywhere. Sitting still is when we get passed by, run over, and forgotten. Assuming you want to earn a living at this business.

“Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." ~Howard Thurman, theologian

            While my 25 years with the federal government had empowered me to assist many people, my flame dimmed, my enthusiasm waned. In my middle-aged life I had more to offer the world than  my small cog in a bloated bureaucracy. My creative side needed an outlet. As an intelligent woman with an ample supply of common sense, I knew I could logically navigate this path, and it was time I tapped my right brain and make art, to make myself happier and leave a better imprint on this earth.

            Within a couple of months, my college-aged son approached and said, “You act a lot happier now, Mom.”

            I teared up once his back was turned. I was absolutely happier, which seemed to feed into my family’s dynamics. That’s when I decided that life was too short to fear a venture into a more passionate, more self-sustaining endeavor. Because what the world needs more of is indeed people who have come alive.

BIO: C. Hope Clark is author of The Carolina Slade Mystery Series and editor of FundsforWriters.com, a website and newsletter service for career writers. She has published in many freelance venues and speaks nationally. She lives on the banks of Lake Murray in central South Carolina. www.chopeclark.com / www.fundsforwriters.com

 

Writing

I started writing in earnest about twenty years ago. By that I mean intentionally writing stories and I took a course on writing for teens.

I started signing up for newsletters on line that encouraged writers and were resources for money and prompts and just generally good to read.




The first one I signed up for was Funds for Writers and Funds for Writers Small Markets. I learned to love C. Hope Clark and enjoyed her stories as the editor for FFW.
 She let us into her life and encouraged all to write more and more and more. Her answer to anyone who said what do I write about was: everything. If your child is sick. Write about it. If your chicken gets out. Write about it.
If you are bored. Write about it. Her mantra has always been to just write.



It took me years to get to where I would write about it. I thought my stuff was silly and incorrect, but there are ways to find out if it is incorrectly written, as in wrong verbs, wrong voice, etc. Silly is just a frame of mind and you may think it silly, I may think it enlightening.




I joined a writing challenge that has helped me immeasurably to get to writing. It is called 500 Hundred Words a Day and was started by another of my e-mail mentors: Jeff Goins. Both Jeff and Hope have the same mantra: write. Just put your bottom in the chair and write.



You can write first, then edit. Try to put your editor out to grass while you write, you can always invite him back in after you have written the end to the story or rant or blog post, whatever you write. If you leave him in place while writing, you may only get three words done, if you put him out to grass, it may go to three hundred. You will need to edit, anyway, so write as much as you can before you do that edit.
 And ALWAYS edit.


 Who wants to send your first stories out into the world without straightening their ties and brushing their hair?

Changes

Change is the way we grow. We may not like some of them, but through them we learn and grow.
Change can be of our own making, or a result of the universe. It can be a change of heart or a change of locale.

The change of heart can be in your thoughts or the love you thought would be there forever.Someone can come into our lives, and someone can go. How we handle the change is way more important than what the change is. If we accept it as a challenge to go on without what or whoever is gone, we learn more of ourselves and others than if we fight it to the bitter end. They will still be gone. Hanging on to them in heart, mind and body will make the final acceptance harder and will leave some lessons unlearned.

If it is a change of locale, you can try to make the new place exactly like the old place, or you can adapt to the new one the way it is. If it is smaller than where you were, you can downsize your stuff to match it, or throw it all out and start anew. If it is larger, you can expand to match it. If you decide to live in just the space that you have stuff for, you will loose the opportunity to grow into something.


I believe that change is a chance to grow and learn.


Here's to growing and learning. Growing into new things and learning what old things will help us in our growing.