Linguistic Liability

2003-10-25T13:19:00.000-07:00

Not sure what has happened, but my favorite group on Yahoo, CONPO, has disappeared. CONPO was a listing of writing contests and requests for submissions. Now I must search for new online friends and lists myself. Sigh.

2003-08-06T21:37:00.000-07:00

This makes me a little happier... "Company hopes to fill niche with new poetry quarterly" - maybe some of us writers will have a chance after all!

2003-08-01T14:59:00.000-07:00

If you're ever looking for an extensive list of women writes, a good place to start with is the Celebration of Woman Writers website. Their statement of purpose says, "Our goal is to promote awareness of the breadth and variety of women's writing." If you look under their link Authors & Books, you will find a very well-organized listing of female authors by name, date, and country.

2003-07-28T22:42:00.000-07:00

Here's a heads up on a good resource for writers wanting to find submission sites... go to the Yahoo group Conpo . This group is solely dedicated to posting notices of contests and calls for submissions for all writing genres.

2003-07-28T22:32:00.000-07:00

Well, the Aardvark of Freedom is up and running with at last count, seven blogs and a lot of unique perspectives on life. Let the good times begin!

2003-07-23T19:22:00.000-07:00

Coming soon to your personal space called a browser window, it's The Aardvark of Freedom (currently in beta mode).
What it will become is up to God, a group of friends, and the length of a very long tongue.

2003-07-21T15:10:00.000-07:00

Some notes about writing... I have this theory that when I get a writing idea, I have to put it onto paper immediately or the idea will disapear. I also feel like I have to write the entire piece, no matter how long it is, in one entire sitting. This last writing quirk is not always feasable, so I tend to do the minimum of other activities while writing. However, Saturday proved to be an exception to this norm. While I wrote four pages of a continuing short story, I also made and preserved apple butter and blackberry jelly, two very sticky projects. The good news is that I didn't get my keyboard sticky, and all the jars sealed!

2003-07-15T14:25:00.000-07:00

Today, I'm asking myself "Why did God bother with chiggers?" It's the same question with ticks and cockroaches. Why did the Creator take time out from the rest of his creatorial duties to make these pests?

I went blackberry picking Sunday, a recreational activity that results in sweet berries by the handfulls, thorns stuck in fingers and hands, and chiggers on any area of the skin covered by tight clothing and no bug spray - like my waist, for example. I sprayed myself everywhere but my waistband, and now I currently have about thirty or more chigger bites on my torso. I'm still digging thorns out of my fingers too.

I love blackberries. I love them a lot when the berries go on sale at the grocery store and I can pick them up off the display and deposit them in my shopping cart. However, I'm not sure what I think about actually working for my berries - trudging through knee-high weeds to the blackberry bushes, menacing with their thorns and bugs and holding their best fruit in the center of the bushes where I have to lean in through the negative elements to reach the prized squishable berries.

Oh well, the chiggers thank me for my time and my plasma donations.

2003-07-12T19:44:00.000-07:00

So, I'm people-watching at lunch today, and I see this couple in their late seventies get up from the booth across from me...
The woman has a walker with wheels on the front two legs and rubber stops on the back two while her husband's cane has a single shaft and four rubber-tipped prongs. The woman gets to her feet first, pulling herself up quickly between the legs of the walker, and she pushes herself a few feet away from the table. She turns around and watches her husband then. The man is slow to rise, using the table and his cane to provide stability. I can see his arms strain as he makes it to his feet. After this workout, he rests against the side of the booth.
The wife's only words are a question: "Ready to race?"
She turns and starts scooting her walker across the room, and the man follows with a "Yes."

2003-07-10T16:07:00.000-07:00

Sometimes people I've known for years hit me across the grey matter with details of their lives that I find unexpectedly interesting. I take interest in the little idiosyncrasies that appear as unrecognized opposites in their characters.

Take my friend Kirsten: at 19, she already holds an undergraduate degree in Digital Media but she is a Valley Girl from CA - and yes, she has been known to say "Just like that, but different." Kirsten's mom gets excited when she experiences rain storms on car trips, because in California, all the rain smells like asphalt. Her dad stockpiled their garage with gallons of water and freeze-dried foods in preparation for the potential "Big One" earthquake and the Y2K disaster, but he didn't get enough gas for the lamps and stoves to last much longer than a short camping trip. One other tidbit that I find interesting is that Kirsten's parents are so cheap that they refuse to run the air conditioner even in the hottest parts of the California summers, yet her dad gives her hundred dollar bills for spending money every time he saw her during college.

When I see how complicated every-day average not-so-average people are, I wonder at the audacity I and other writers possess when we attempt to create believable fictional characters.

2003-07-09T22:00:00.000-07:00

Since this can be edited out later, I'm just going to leave you with this: Coming soon - HardCorePoetic!