Category: blogging

Keeping Up With It All

On By dotluvs2writeIn blogging, Fiction Writing, Illness and Medical Treatments, Musings10 Comments

silhouette of woman facing sunset

Sometimes there are days when I feel overwhelmed and just want to burrow away in a cave or crawl under the covers and lay there until all the things in my mind and in the world stop spinning so I can catch up and gain some semblance of peace.  Truly, the last couple of months have been the busiest in my life since the baby and toddler years of my youngest son, Christopher’s brain surgeries and many medical treatments and therapies.

Obviously, this is a different kind of busy.  And really, during Great Lent, I should have a lighter load of earthly cares and an expanded and deeper spiritual regimen/practice.  I’m not doing too well there.  Lord, but I keep trying.  I am enduring.  I’ve got to.

These years of my life are a struggle as I have my usual medical issues since my early twenties of low blood sugar and general anxiety coupled with cantankerous peri-menopausal symptoms, like hot flashes and the dreaded night sweats that deprive me of decent hours of sleep and suck the nutrients and liquid out of my body making me borderline dehydrated.  So then I have to have a bottle of water on my nightstand to take a few sips every two hours I wake from burning up and being drenched in perspiration. Of course, while this is going on, my hormones are a mess, which triggers my anxiety and low blood sugar.  It’s a real balancing act.  But I am enduring.  I’ve got to.

menopause fan and water pic

My novel is in its last edits with my editor, and I’ve been working feverishly on the synopsis of my novel.  It’s written, but it needs to be culled of wordiness for which I’m so guilty. I also have other pieces I’m writing, but they have been put aside while I focus on my novel.

To add to this, I started British Literature class this past Monday, to which there are many things to read and write–journals and essays.  It’s one of four classes I’ve got left until I graduate, and truly, I’m running out of steam for courses with heavy analyzing and five to ten-page papers to write.  But I am enduring.  I’ve got to.

And, of course, my weekly blog posts.  I almost didn’t have anything to write about for Monday, until I thought about all I’ve got going on and figured, hey, why not write about that?  People can relate.  And with that…a Shout Out to all my anxiety-ridden and menopausal pals out there.  We endure.  We’ve got to.

Then there are the regular wife and mother hats that I wear happily and proudly.  My sons are getting through the school year well.  My husband is working so hard.  I love them all…words can’t really express how much.  They, along with God, are my support and life.

So to help ease my stress, I’m going to try to return to walking at least four times a week, do yoga stretches, and read more spiritual books.  Wish me luck.  But you know, I’ve got to do it.

 

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Reading Your Manuscript Out Loud

On By dotluvs2writeIn blogging, Fiction Writing, Writing Techniques8 Comments

sparkly book

Eureka!  What a difference reading your manuscript out loud is compared to reading it to yourself!  I bet you already do this, but for me, I’d read a few paragraphs here and there, but never the whole novel.  Well, that’s what I’m doing as of yesterday and today and tomorrow, and it is amazing!

Reading my sentences and dialogue aloud has helped me to hear how natural the dialogue is and how the words flow in my text.  I was pleasantly surprised how 98% of it already sounded great before I inserted my final revisions.  After I’m done, I’ll be sending it back to my editor for a final scan.  Then, it’ll be all polished up and set for submission, and if it’s not accepted, it will be self-published.

Share with me if you practice reading your stories out loud.  If this is a regular practice, what have you learned from it?

 

The Wood’s Song (3 Minute Video)

On By dotluvs2writeIn blogging, Inspirational, ReligiousLeave a comment

semantron pic

I never tire of watching this video and thought I’d share it with you. I love traditions from different countries and religions. I find them fascinating. Perhaps you do, too? I hope so!

Pictured above is a wooden board called a semantron used in Eastern Orthodox Christian monasteries where monks use mallets to bang against the wood, making a cool sound that is used as a call to prayer (like bells are used at churches). Here’s a history of the use of the semantron via Wikipedia:

The portable semantron is made of a long, well-planed piece of timber, usually heart of maple (but also beech), from 12 feet (3.7 m) and upwards in length, by 1 1⁄2 feet (46 cm) broad, and 9 inches (23 cm) in thickness.[2] Of Levantine and Egyptian origin, its use flourished in Greece and on Mount Athos before spreading among Eastern Orthodox in what are now Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Macedonia. It both predates and substitutes for bells (first introduced to the East in 865 by the Venetians, who gave a dozen to Michael III),[3] being used to call worshipers to prayer. 

In the portable wooden form, at the centre of the instrument’s length, each edge is slightly scooped out to allow the player to grasp it by the left hand, while he or she holds a small wooden (or sometimes iron) mallet in the right, with which to strike it in various parts and at various angles, eliciting loud, somewhat musical sounds (κροῦσμα, krousma).[2]

Although simple, the instrument nonetheless produces a strong resonance and a variety of different intonations, depending on the thickness of the place struck and the intensity of the force used, so that quite subtle results can be obtained.[5] A metal semantron, smaller than those of wood, is usually hung near the entrance of the catholicon (the monastery’s main church).[6] In the traditional monastic ritual, before each service the assigned player takes a wooden semantron and, standing before the west end of the catholicon, strikes on it three hard and distinct blows with the mallet. He then proceeds round the outside of the church, turning to the four quarters and playing on the instrument by striking blows of varying force on different parts of the wood at uneven intervals, always winding up the “tune” with three blows similar to those at the beginning.[3]

The video is three minutes in length.  I hope you enjoy it!

(Romanian monk hitting the semantron with wooden mallets for a call to prayer courtesy youtube)

 

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