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Why I Write
When I write, I draw on my experiences as a woman with a painful past, a rapturous wife and mother, a world traveler, and a spiritualist. For me, writing is an art form. Like an artist, the work becomes more than I imagined it would be. When I set out to write a story with a particular idea or character in mind, words I cannot claim as my own flow from a magical and mysterious place through me and onto paper. The work takes on a life of its own; it is living art. The process fascinates me, satiates me, and makes my life more meaningful.
Please read my stories! If you would like to offer me feedback on my work, please click here and sign up for a free membership: https://heftynicki.Writing.com
I hope to see you there!
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Blog, Blog, Blog
 
Welcome!
 In 2011, my main focus will be on writing a novel. Since I'm a novice novelist, I've decided to come at the project from different angles, exploring the genre and experimenting with its elements. This blog and its offsite sister blog will be my journals where I attack novel-writing one day at a time.
As I was creating my BlogSpot page, the inspiration for the blog solidified in my mind. I named that blog "One Significant Moment at a Time." In essence, I want to use the format as a reminder to walk through my life with my author's eyes open, taking in the details, feeling the emotions of the day. As moments unfold and I feel their affects on me as a person, a woman, a mother, a sister, a member of the world community, I'll let the writer in me talk about it.
Creative Nonfiction is the genre most fitting to describe what I envision accomplishing here, moreso than blogging or journaling. The style is best suited, I feel, for my ambitions as a novelist.
In addition, Friday entries will not be written by me. Instead, I'll turn the keyboard over to one of the characters in my novel. He or she will relate the events of the day as s/he saw them, through the filter of his or her perception.
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2011 Reading Goal = 25 Books in 52 Weeks. To see the list of books I've read so far, CLICK HERE 
 Leave me a comment anytime ~ even on older postings!
Thanks for reading!!
November 23, 2009 at 4:49pm November 23, 2009 at 4:49pm November 21, 2009 at 5:40pm November 21, 2009 at 5:40pm
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In a community near where I live just outside Atlanta, GA, a teacher, Ashley Payne was recently fired from her position at the high school where she taught English because of her FaceBook page. When I saw this on the evening news, I didn't know what to think, and it's become a colorful topic of conversation between myself and my girlfriends.
Appartently, this young woman posted pictures of her European vacation on her FaceBook page. In two photos, she is pictured holding an alcoholic beverage: she has a glass of beer in a photo taken in Amsterdam, and a glass of wine in a photo in Italy. In addition, she used the word "bitch" in a post someplace on her page. The story goes that a parent from the school saw her page and complained to school administrators about it, leading to her dismissal.
According to Payne, she doesn't know how a parent could have seen her page because it is set to private. She claims she never accepts a friend request from a student.
My knee-jerk reaction is here we have yet another example of Southern holier-than-thou attitude condemning anyone who commits such sins as drinking or cursing. And shame on them for working with God-fearing children being raised to walk the path of Jesus. (My cheeky explanation stems from the ridiculous hypocracy that I see every day where these types of people are concerned.)
Then, since I am a Libra who must examine each side of the coin, I think about my own children in school and I wonder if it isn't good to insist that the teachers interacting with them uphold a certain standard of behavior. I wouldn't want a teacher to say "bitch" in class, so how is that different from reading they said it on FaceBook?
Even as I type this, I'm shaking my head. After all, this teacher has a right to a life outside her job. I wouldn't blink an eye if I saw a teacher in a restaurant sipping a glass of wine! (If she was stinking drunk, I'd have a problem with it, though!) She had her FaceBook page set to private, so if she didn't invite this parent or any students to view it, why should she be fired for someone seeing it?
I don't have a FaceBook account, so when I asked my friends who do how someone can view a private page when they aren't accepted as a friend, I was told someone must have "tagged" the photos, making them accessible to any of that person's friends. Sheesh...that's why I won't open a FaceBook account. No guarenteed privacy!
This situation is still in limbo. Ashley Payne is suing the school district to get her job back. Her attorney is going at it from the angle that the school violated Georgia's Fair Dismissal Act when they fired her. If I were her, I'd try to get my job back and once I did, I'd quit!
The whole thing brings up the question whether your job should dictate the kind of private life you lead. Celebrities have to deal with the public scrutiny of their private lives, as do politicians. Where we should draw the line is debatable, for sure.
Word to the wise: be careful what you put out there about yourself. Information you offer on FaceBook, MySpace, or a blog can definitely bite you in the ass in more ways than one.
For anyone interested, here is the news story of Ashley Payne as reported by Atlanta's local Fox network:
{link:http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/dpp/news/facebook+causes+barrow+teacher's+firing+111009}
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November 8, 2009 at 3:08pm November 8, 2009 at 3:08pm
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I don't question whether divine intervention lead me to Writing.com. Two years ago today, I put the key words "copyrights creative writing" into my Google search engine and hit "enter." The first link to pop up was Writing.com; I clicked and never left!
In two years, I've made giant strides in my writing craft. I tell people I've learned more here than a masters program could have taught me. The friends I've made are many and I hold them close to my heart. I think about them, worry about them when I know they're facing difficult challenges in their personal lives, and look forward to hearing from them each day. But one of the most exciting aspects of my experience at WDC has been competing in the contests offered here.
I counted them up. I've written twenty-eight short stories for contests in two years. That's not counting the three book items in my port holding daily entries for contests lasting two weeks. Plus, I've penned five poems for contests. I've written more in two years at WDC than all other years combined. I owe my growth as a writer to this site, the contests its members hold, and the reviews those members offer to its entrants. I am eternally grateful! 
I've reached a place in my journey where I have more confidence in my skills than ever before. I trust my imagination. My muse and I have a strong working relationship. I'm ready to take the next step. Thanks to Nanowrimo, the first draft of the novel that's been outlined for eighteen months now is finally making its (computer) screen debut. The draft is rough  Ooh, baby, is it ever rough! So.....
2010 will be the year I work on rewrites. After November, I'll have a better idea how many chapters I'll be dealing with, although I already know there will be some restructuring of this monster along the way. Each month I'll work on X number of chapters, for as long as it takes. My goal is to have a final draft manuscript. I don't know whether or not I'll peddle it off to agents; it's just too soon to tell if it will be good enough for publication. But I know there's more than one novel in this noggin of mine, and I see Overcome (working title  ) as my learning arena. It's the project that is already teaching me just how different a novel is from a short story!
Today, thought, I'm celebrating Writing.com. What a wonderful community this is! I love the site, the people who gather here each day, and the opportunity to have my work read and reviewed. Most of all, I love being part of that community, interacting with my peers and commenting on their work. I am inspired everyday by all of you!!
Here's to many more great years to come! Vive Writing.com!
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November 3, 2009 at 10:56am November 3, 2009 at 10:56am
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An hour into my first Nano writing session of the morning, I was typing along in Word 2007 with my eyes closed when I heard a "tick." It was a soft noise, almost imperceptible. I opened my eyes and glanced to the left, where I thought the sound came from. Nothing was there; there was no obvious source for the sound. To the right I saw the cat, asleep in his window seat. Dismissing the sound, I went back to typing.
Nothing happened -- on the screen, I mean. My keyboard wasn't responding to my strokes; all that happened each time I hit a key was a soft "tick" sound. Panic.
My mouse worked fine. My system wasn't frozen up because I could navigate between Word and WDC pages. Then I noticed a new icon at the bottom right of my screen.
It looked like a stopwatch, and when I hovered the mouse over it, it said "FilterKeys." Ah-ha... WTF are filterkeys? I picked up the phone and called my sister, Noelle 
She did a quick Google search, and together we figured out my quandary. (Thanks, Sis! )
According to Microsoft, "FilterKeys is an accessibility option that adjusts the keyboard response so that inadvertently repeated keystrokes are ignored. Using FilterKeys, you can also slow the rate at which a key repeats when you hold it down."
Apparently, the default shortcut to filterkeys is holding down the right shift key for eight seconds or more. I must have done this in an indecisive moment while I was writing. How annoying.
There are several ways to turn off filterkeys. What got me out of suspended animation was holding down the right shift key again for more than eight seconds. When I hit the next key -- success! I was never happier to see fifteen k's in a row!
After reading up on the subject, I've learned there are other ways to turn off, or disable, pain-in-the-ass filterkeys. They are:
In addition to holding down "shift" for more than eight seconds, you can also hit both shift keys at once to turn off filterkeys.
To permanently disable filterkeys, go to Control Panel and double click Accessibility Options, then click Remove All Check Marks. Apparently, though, this isn't enough to disable filterkeys. After you do that, you have to go to the Settings submenu and remove check marks there, too. Click OK twice, and you'll be free of filterkeys for good.
Here are a couple off-site blogs I read with filterkeys entries:
http://engtech.wordpress.com/2006/08/30/stupid-windows-features-disable-filterke...
http://www.jesush.com/index.php/2004/11/15/how-to-turn-off-filterkeys-in-windows...
And just to be fair -- since filterkeys weren't designed solely to drive me crazy , here's a site that explains why the feature is a good thing:
http://dawn.thot.net/cd/13.html
Okay -- my writing break is over! Back to Nano-writing in a filterkey-free environment! 
Footnotes
http://www.microsoft.com/enable/training/windowsxp/filterkeys.aspx |
November 2, 2009 at 4:29pm November 2, 2009 at 4:29pm
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This process is KILLING me! I'm trying to embrace the "write-by-the-seat-of-my-pants" method for writing, but it feels foreign and strange right now. I'm 4300+ words into Nano, and the actual word vomit on the screen is not good  Am I the only one that's dealing with a real first draft, for the first time?
I have to say, though, (even though the whole thing sounded like my diaries from my teenage years!  ) as I wrote about the protagonist yesterday, I had several light bulb moments when I felt her character take a step out of the shadows. I've got to hang onto the belief that that's the point of writing like this. When you turn off your internal editor, close your eyes, and just let the words gush out of your head and onto the screen, you get "first thoughts." First thoughts are raw and ragged around the edges, but they hold the greatest energy of anything you will write.
Wrimos everywhere must be dealing with the same feelings I'm having. I have to do what they're doing: stop worrying about it, and write. Don't think. Don't talk. Just write. My dear friend Tornado Day   shared what she says to herself, and I promised myself I'd make it my Nano mantra: Just shut up and write!
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Where'd Ashy go??)~
