Tag Archives: write

Prologue Page 2

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It feels almost like a movie, but the sights and sounds are as real as the pain I am feeling right now. This pressure around my heart that makes it want to crush itself.

The window frames the picture of the city of my birth and begins to age with the clouds of my depression until the screen looks like an old fashioned television show.

And then I see her. I don’t know why my eyes are drawn to her, but I notice a woman walking quickly down the street holding the hands of two young children behind her. She looks so familiar, like the glimpse of a memory I can’t remember, and I know that I know her and yet I don’t. The older of the two kids, a young girl, looks around obviously confused by the early morning adventure into the city. She is too far away for me to make out her face and I feel suddenly frustrated by my lack of view, I feel like I must see her. Behind her struggling to keep up with the group is her younger brother.

The mother has a face of determination as she marches by purposefully with a need to see the deed done, whatever deed that may be. Again I have this haunting suspicion that I know this woman as she passes further from my view. I keep watching as the young boy turns his head quickly and shoots a furtive glance in my direction. Our eyes meet and I look at myself in the mirror until he turns away to find his mother suddenly stopped in front of a building.

I can tell they stand in front of a sleeping police station that hasn’t started protecting people yet for the day. The mother seems to gather herself for a second before gathering her family around her. She gently pulls the two children closer in and hugs them while saying words I obviously cannot hear, but somehow I know them in my heart. I can tell she is trying to make the moment last a lifetime that can’t last forever as she abruptly pushes the children away with some last words given forcefully towards the eldest daughter, before quickly walking away. She doesn’t look back, I wait for her to turn back. The children instantly look scared and confused as all they know walks away. I can almost hear their cries and the sorrow of the moment brings me back to my moment and the sorrow that waits for me.

Jason C. Cushman

-Opinionated Man

44.1

@smokendust

#SoCS – Volition

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Check out and join SoCS!
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Linda G. Hill

Gah! Why do I struggle so much to write something positive these days? To write something – anything – of my own volition? I swear, if it wasn’t for these prompts, I might not write at all for weeks on end. Which is strange, really, because when I start, it’s natural. It just goes. Before I go off on a tangent, I want to say thank you. To all of you who help me keep going with my prompts. Because though they may originate here, if it wasn’t for all of you reading and participating in them, I’d have no motivation to keep it up some weeks. Thank you. 🙂

I’m not going to get this posted on Saturday, but I’m happy I at least started it with a minute or two to spare. I’ve spent the day working and occasionally tending to my son Chris’s needs.  And talking to…

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Why I don’t ask before I reblog

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WordPress gives you the option to disable the reblog button.

I don’t reblog for views and I get very few from it. I also disable the comments. I try to send interested readers your way. What actually happens is that I lose subscribers when I reblog because they hate the extra email and the fact they then find out it isn’t even my post.

I still reblog. I always have here on WordPress and probably always will.

It helps share and that’s why most of us are here. That’s why I’m here.

-OM

@smokendust

Motive

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One thing I share with bloggers that are interested in networking is to not lose your focus. There will be so many distractions that will come your way and all those distractions will serve the same purpose of taking you away from building. Building is what most of us networkers love so anything that takes us away from that is annoying.

But you can’t just ignore everyone or you won’t build anything that resembles a social network. So you use your time and you help where you can, respond as you can, and you keep building. The main thing to remember is “you won’t get to them all.” And that’s ok!

In the blogosphere there are readers, writers, people that do both, and people that want to do both. There are also bloggers that will get offended if you don’t meet them exactly in the middle and don’t read exactly the same amount of posts of theirs as they have of yours. I don’t play that game. I’m a writer and entertainer, but I also enjoy reading blogs. I don’t set a standard of equality though and I don’t believe I have to. Those that have set such a standard towards me have since found their way… over there. I’m ok with that. That’s blogging.

Motive. I’ve grown wary of one type of blogger though. This type of blogger is extremely friendly when you first meet them. They shine all the praise your way and blow bubbles up your butt. They ask all the questions newbie bloggers ask, all the wrong questions everyone asks, and keep pining away for more info so they can “create a blog like yours!” Once they get traction going they disappear. You end up visiting one day just to see what they are up to and you notice something… your advice is all over there blog! But your name is missing. They’ve taken your ideas and are now selling them as their own. Look they even have an ebook now claiming to have all the blogging secrets!

This presents the worst type of blogger in my book and I’ve seen lots of people like this. People sell my posts all the time. You might trick a few people into buying your stolen ideas that you are passing off as your own, but is that truly the type of blogger you want to be? Have some integrity people. Just blog and be yourself, unless yourself is a thieving butt pirate.

-OM

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@smokendust

Reflecting Souls

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Growth from blogging. It does make me wonder what kind of smudge I would be… -OM
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Mah Butt Itches

Inspired by a comment convo with Honest K. Almost a year ago – to the day, I wrote in my Live Journal about Reflecting Souls.  I just re-read the post, and my first reaction was, fuck me, I used to write too long – it was 3k words! The second reaction was I’m really kind of blown away with how much I have learned since.

Call it synchronicity if you’re a Jung fan or a new age-r, call it fate, call it dharma, but there’s plenty of theories out there that coincidence is not a coincidence.  I used to say, “everything happens for a reason”, but I realized that is both a cop out, and it opens the door for me to obsessively find the reason.  Einstein said it best, “God does not play dice with the Universe.” A lot of people misinterpret that: he’s not talking about God…

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How do you keep from annoying your subscribers?

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You can’t.

I’ve had bloggers ask me this because they are worried that their blogging methods are going to scare people away. They don’t want to respin a post because someone will be annoyed and they don’t want to reblog too much because their email subscribers will get pissed off. If they post photos all the time their poetry readers will be angry and if they don’t forget to do the prompt of the week their writing community will riot. We haven’t even gotten to the virtual dog yet.

That all sounds really tiring. I stopped caring a long time ago if people unsubscribed from my site and it happens constantly. They thought I was a poet or they thought I was a photographer. They were here for a food blog… boohoo.

Well whoever “they” are, they will live. That is what I say. If you try to please everyone all you end up with is a bunch of constrained nothing. If you try to please no one at least you are pleased in the end.

-Opinionated Man

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@smokendust