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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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 Click this image to visit my Blog City neighbors!
Leave me a comment there, and I'll send you a WDC token of my appreciation!
Become a Follower there, and I'll send you a Supportive Merit Badge! -- You don't have to go to blogspot.com each day; in fact, I post much of the same entries here in this WDC blog. But building up a verifiable readership may prove important one day when I'm knocking on literary agent/publishers' doors!
 To Follow, just click "Follow" on the right margin of my blog page. You'll have to sign in using, or create, a Google account (it's free and only takes two minutes!), and then follow the short instructions. It's easy, and I'd appreciate it so much!!
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!!
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My stomach is in knots. I'm so surprised at my reaction! I've written articles before, even several newsletters for "Reviewing News and Views" which have become the official "unofficial WDC reviewing newsletter." But today the first newsletter I edited as a moderator -- the Action/Adventure newsletter -- came out. Yikes! I'm a mess 
So, what's my problem, you ask? Why the knots? Here's the thing: I worry that the topic is boring; that the article is too long; that readers will lose interest by the second paragraph and move on; that I've made grammatical errors that flush my credibility down the can; that my "voice" is irritating and pompous; that...that...(I could go on. Seriously. I could...  )
I know it's silly to indulge in these self-doubts; a rational voice in my head has been scolding me for a while now. I should listen to her, right? Quit spinning my wheels? Cha-ah! Easy for you to say!
If you happen across this post and don't subscribe to the Action/Adventure newsletter, here's a copy:
I have to say, though, I've really appreciated editing the newsletter. It made me think, contemplate what I've learned, and put me in a teaching role that I really enjoy. I took on a second issue, due out on April 27th. I will include in that edition any feedback and submitted items readers put in comments this time around. Feel free to include yours!  ... ...
Have a fab day!
~  out ~
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My blogging friend and writing partner, Jessica Bell, is looking forward to the November 2011 release of her debut novel, String Bridge. I've worked with her on this project, as a beta reader, but I haven't read the whole thing yet. However, I know how wildly talented Jessica is and how amazing the chapters I've read are from this book. I can't wait to buy a copy!
Here's her brand new book trailer! And, by the way, Jessica sings the song and plays the guitar on the track you hear in the trailer. The images are from stock photography sites -- but, Jessica herself appears twice. Both times you see a brunette playing the guitar on stage, you are seeing the real Jessica Bell! Enjoy!!
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The Challenge:
Write a flash fiction story (in any format) in 100 words or less, excluding the title. Begin the story with the words, “The goldfish bowl teetered” These four words will be included in the word count.
Inside a Fishbowl
The goldfish bowl teetered on the table’s edge. Marilyn jerked back her finger, leaving another greasy fingerprint. Inside, tiny swells crashed, sloshed backward. Marilyn glared at the fish. It hovered, serene, unaffected by the waves she caused or by her unwavering vigilance. She scowled and jabbed the bowl again. Too hard.
The bowl plunged from its perch. Shards of wet glass splattered across white, sterile tile. The goldfish floundered, gills gaping and yawning, sucking useless air. Marilyn’s mouth twitched. Balancing, she stomped, ground her heel. Lab coat-clad men scribbled on clipboards on the other side of the plate glass windows.
(100 words)
Thanks for reading!
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March 21, 2011 at 12:57pm March 21, 2011 at 12:57pm
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We rode together in Courtney's Yukon to the funeral home. It was the first time I'd been in her car, even though we go back nine years. Actually, in all that time, I'd never met her outside the hair salon.
With gas prices so high, it didn't make sense to drive separate cars the seventy miles, round trip. But the real reason? Neither of us wanted to be alone with our thoughts.
Courtney had called me the night before. Again, I'm usually the one calling her, to make my hair appointments. But she'd remembered months ago I'd asked about her training, about whether mortuary beauticians learned their trade in regular beautician schools, or if there were specialized schools for that industry. At the time, she told me there hadn't been anything in her curriculum about mortuary hair and make-up techniques. But she had worked on deceased clients.
Our eyes had met in the mirror. See, I was crafting a character at the time and was seeking avenues for research. I picked Courtney's brains that day, the whole while she worked on my hair.
So she thought of me when her friend contacted her last week.
Her friend's family was in the throes of tragedy. Courtney's friend's brother-in-law, Carl had been going through a lot recently. Work sucked. He'd been fighting with his brother. His girlfriend split with him. But no one thought he'd take his own life. He was just twenty-four.
On the phone, Courtney asked if I'd like to go with her in the morning to cut Carl's hair. It's one thing to want direct experience when researching for fiction, but the reality of this situation took my breath away. Still, I couldn't -- wouldn't -- pass up the opportunity. I wanted to know too much.
Of course, I wanted to be able to describe the inner chambers of a funeral home. What you see, smell, hear. But I was more curious about the people who work there. I'd read that mortuary staff view their work primarily as services they provide for the surviving family, to comfort them and minimize their grief by laying their loved one to rest in a way that honors that life. But the staff works, hands-on, with dead bodies. How, I wondered, do they maintain a level of professionalism that weaves compassion with the detachment necessary for their line of work?
We walked into the funeral home. A faint smell of cut flowers hung in the air. My heart was pounding. I couldn't really feel my feet as I walked down the carpeted corridor to a glossy, wooden door with a plague that read 'Business Office.'
We were led by a young, round woman, whose red beaded necklace jingled as she walked, to the end of a back hallway. She asked us to wait there and she'd "pulled him out." Courtney and I exchanged a nervous glance as the woman disappeared behind a door.
My body was in a heightened state of awareness but my mind had gone into numb survival mode. I felt like I'd accepted a dare and passed the point of no return, only now I questioned whether I wanted to -- could -- follow through. Too late. The door opened again and the woman ushered us in.
Carl lay on a gurney in the center of the small room. He was dressed in a suit but was covered from the chest down by a blue blanket that hung halfway to the floor. I could tell that beneath the blanket his hands lay folded on his stomach, and his shoes lay flat so that his heels faced each other, toes pointing at the walls to the left and right. The floral scent of the hallway was gone, replaced by what smelled like my fifth grade science classroom, the week we dissected fetal pigs. Only stronger.
Courtney told the woman she'd brought a drape from the salon. The woman thought it wasn't necessary, that normally they simply placed towels under and around the head to catch the hair clippings. From a wall of cabinets to the right, the woman retrieved two white, bath-sized towels. She plopped the short stack on Carl's chest. Carefully, she slipped a hand under Carl's head and lifted, pulling the neck stand away. His neck was surprisingly pliant. With her free hand, she snapped open a towel and maneuvered it to cover the end of the gurney. It started to slip, and Courtney grabbed the towel and held it until the woman had the neck stand back in place.
She tucked the edges of the bottom towel under Carl's shoulders, then draped the second towel across his chest. She pulled the center edge up under his chin and flattened the rest down the backs of his shoulders. When she was satisfied, she asked Courtney if she needed anything, then left us alone.
By now, I'd been in the room about five minutes. My heart rate had slowed, but when I walked closer to help Courtney get her hair dryer and clipper cords plugged in, I noticed my feet were still numb.
I've been to wakes and funerals. This was not the first time I'd looked at a dead person. But it was the first time I'd stood over one, close enough to see the wrinkles in his skin, the glisten of glue holding his lips closed, the stitches, barely visible, woven into his eyelashes.
Courtney misted Carl's hair with a water bottle, working the humidity in with her fingers. "Feels like mannequin hair," she commented. She worked the scissors at increasingly complicated angles, cutting as best she could considering her client was flat on his back.
During this time, there was a shift in my sub-conscious mind. All remnants of fear dissipated. I was at ease on a level that I couldn't have imagined fifteen minutes before. It was surprising to realize. It was very clear to me that Carl was not there. His life-force, his soul, his energy had moved on, and we were attending to his human shell, left behind. I can see people's auras. I tried hard to see Carl's. There wasn't anything to see, not a shimmer, not a color, not a thing.
Going around Carl's ear with the clippers, Courtney touched him. She'd been trying hard not to come in contact with his skin, out of respect, I think. But she looked at me after she nudged him. "He's so cold," she said.
I moved next to her, hovered my hand above his face. Cold radiated from him. With as much gentle reverence as I could muster, I grazed the tip of his ear with the the top side of my index finger. It was velvety soft and cold. Sadness squeezed my heart. Things could have been different for this beautiful human being. So sad.
Within thirty minutes, Courtney was finished. I asked her how she was feeling, as we packed up her gear. She said she never feels sad in here, working on people she knew. But she anticipated breaking down at the wake the following evening. She said, that's when it usually hits her.
The atmosphere in the car on the way home was more animated than the ride there. We talked a lot about what we'd just experienced together. I felt the exhilaration that follows a long period of fearful anticipation. Or maybe it was because I'd just lived an hour wholly present, in the moment. Either way, I felt good.
It took a few hours, though, before I didn't think I smelled formaldehyde everywhere. |
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The power of positive thinking can never be understated.
After months of mild, lingering depression, I have finally turned a corner. It wasn't easy to pull myself out of my computer chair, but once I did I was able to put into action a plan I'd devised to combat my sadness.
When you feel down, it's so easy to isolate yourself and wait for it to pass on its own. Sometimes it even works. But prolonged depression is a dangerous, slippery slope. Before I realized what had happened, the sadness had lashed itself about me, binding my arms, my legs...my creativity.
This week has been different. I feel light-spirited. Happy! I laugh with my kids, snuggle up with my husband, reach out to my friends. It's been a really, really good week.
So what made this week different?
On Monday morning, I headed to the Athens Botanical Gardens, maintained by the University of Georgia. The manicured lawns and plotted flower and herb gardens are gorgeous, but if you hit the trails beyond the electric enclosure, erected to keep deer and other forest foragers away from the plants, you quickly forget you are inside city limits. The trails are rugged, like being on the side of a mountain. There are stretches that follow the swift-moving Oconee River, or babbling brooks. When the trails head up steep hills, you have to lift your knees and reach with your feet, hoist yourself up the knobby, exposed roots of forty-foot trees. Really gets your heart rate up.
I was so invigorated from the four-mile hike that I went back yesterday. I explored more trails, felt the sun on my face, felt my muscles working.
(I'm working on a little project, born from these hikes, and I'll share it next week.)
The other outing this week was a "writer's field trip," of sorts. I worked on a character back during the holidays, a young woman afraid to live her authentic life, held back by the childhood death of her sister which she witnessed. I'd decided she would choose, as a career, a hair and make-up artist in a funeral home. Later in the story, as she faced her inner conflicts, she would leave that job to pursue her true life passions. I'd asked my hair stylist if she'd learned in beautician school about mortuary work. She hadn't, but she had been asked by family members to work on deceased clients.
Such a job came up this week. She called me. Would I be interested in assisting her? Wow. I was terrified, but I grabbed the opportunity.
On Monday, I'll tell you about that experience.
Until then, have a wonderful weekend!
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It's supposed to snow in northern Japan.
As if the monster 8.9 earthquake and ensuing tsunami weren't enough, or the terrifying 400+ aftershocks -- some up to 7.0 on the Richter Scale, now search and rescue operations will be further hindered by snow. Temperatures will drop to the 20s and 30s, while whole communities have no electricity, or experience rolling blackouts, as experts scramble to avoid a nuclear meltdown disaster. My heart goes out to survivors of this horrific natural disaster.
Puts things in perspective, doesn't it? I've been wallowing in my creative slump for too long. Yeah, it sucks feeling blocked. But I'm warm. I'm not hungry, or thirsty. Everyone in my family is safe and accounted for.
Today, I'm grateful for all I have. But that just doesn't seem good enough, to me.
I will celebrate what I have. It's an honor to have a roomy, beautiful home to live in. Beginning today, I'm going to kick-start my trusted daily cleaning schedule. Monday is Power-Clean-the-Kitchen Day. Each day this week, I'll focus on another room in the house. By next week, the whole house will sparkle and I'll shift into daily maintenance mode. A house is shelter, but it's more than a building. It protects my family life, keeps us together and safe, healthy and happy. I'm grateful for it.
When I'm finished cleaning, I'm getting out of the house! Away from my computer, away from my blockages. I need to stop trying so hard to write. Get outside, commune with nature, breathe. I'm driving to the Botanical Gardens in Athens. There's a great five mile nature trail that follows the Oconee River before wrapping around the wetlands that give rise to deciduous forests. I'm taking along fruits, nuts & raisins, and plenty of water. I'll have my camera and my journal. I'll celebrate my good health, my vitality, and the beautiful, powerful planet -- capable of supporting life...capable of whisking it away.
Today is about being grateful, celebrating blessings. And praying for those whose blessings lie on rubble.
What are you most grateful for?
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March 12, 2011 at 10:34am March 12, 2011 at 10:34am
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I launched a unique group last year, called TWIST, to help our community's teen writers learn what contests and activities were available around the site for them. I went on hiatus from the group, with the intention of getting the regular newsletter emails rolling again at the beginning of this year.
And here we are. In March. 
But my brand new mod-ship has lit a fire under my, let's say desk chair, and I'm getting together the next installment.
If you are a teen writer, or know any, or would like to be a part of the group as an adult member, please check out what we're all about:
Have a fab weekend, all!
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Today has been a complete love fest for me!! It's pretty lame for a writer to be at a loss for words, but I'm having a hard time articulating the elation I felt realizing I'd been promoted to Moderator or the bliss I've reveled in since, as all the congratulatory emails, C-Notes, Notebook Scribbles and Merit Badges rolled in. Thank you, friends and family!!
WDC is such a wonderful place to spend time every day. So glad I 'moved in', and here's where I'm going to stay!
Hope everyone is having as stellar a day as me!!!!
I  you all! |
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Where'd Ashy go??)~
