Tag Archives: #Writing/ #Learn to Write/#Publish/#Critique/#Short Story

Streaming AKA Screaming

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Photo by Matthew DeVries

Take a Leap

Just do it! Get on board. You’re going to have to do it sooner or later.  

These were a few, among many, thoughts I had while surrendering to  streaming and a cell phone only existence. There was no other choice, so I jumped in.

The leap was and continues to be traumatic!

I dislike this fast pace, speed talking, push a button. . . data collection, artificial intelligence life style.

Do you?

And Streaming aka screaming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The learning curve is high. But my cable bill was $246.

So let’s talk about AI.

Someone else writing your term paper is plagiarism. Am I wrong?

I was befuddled to learn WordPress now offers an AI component to help bloggers write a post. An individual’s uniqueness is what readers like.  Will this have a cookie cutter effect? Personally, I will not put my name on someone else’s work, especially if it enhances, and enriches my writing.

In my opinion, that would be cheating.

I would love to hear your thoughts.   

. . . just saying

Below is the email sent by WordPress. Perhaps I don’t understand the program.

WordPress.​com is built for writers.

One of the key elements of an effective website is its content. And because high-quality writing differentiates your website from others, it’s the primary reason visitors return and is instrumental in attracting new traffic.

But what if you’re not sure what to write, or you’re dealing with writer’s block? No worries! Your WordPress.​com plan gives you access to Jetpack AI Assistant, which will help you create engaging posts in a jiffy.

Start a draft

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With everything you need to get started at your fingertips, we think you’ll enjoy planning and writing your posts even more than ever.

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Metaphor Dice January 2nd 2024

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Today I rolled the Metaphor Dice. The words; wonder, memory and unspoken spoke to me. If you would like to use the words in a poem or short story in a post please do. After you post, copy its link in my comment section.

Photo by Philippe Donn on Pexels.com

Unspoken

Memory is an unspoken wonder

Disappearing quickly over time

Delete the past to make space for the present . . . or vice verse.

We cling to the passage of time.

Fond memories become fonder, an unspoken wonder of days gone bye.

       . . . Claudia just saying

 

Happy New Year 2024

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Photo by Anna Tarazevich

The temperature is forty-five degrees this morning in Ormond Beach and I am sitting outside with blankets and a hot cup of coffee. My nose is cold and occasionally I slip my hands into my robe pockets to keep them warm.

 I feel optimistic about the new year, and don’t know why. Certainly world affairs and political agendas paint a dismal picture at best. Perhaps it is the realization of  how little power or influence I have. Frequently I have offers, from other seniors, to help me load my groceries into the car. I accept their help gracefully.

As I look back on 2023, the highlights are trumped by health events and staying alive. Please don’t be nervous. My husband and I are well, however, it is a time consuming effort.

Moving forward into the new year, call them resolutions if you like, I’ve decided to stop worrying about; recycling, global warming, the wars in Israel and Ukraine, and how to get people to delete stored emails, or if a semicolon or comma should be used after about in this sentence.

Good health and publishing my novel, Morningside Drive, will be my focus. I planned to publish in February, because Roxanne Hart marries on Valentine’s Day. However, staying healthy got in the way. You’ll be hearing more about Joy Webb, the main character, and her return to Daytona Beach after missing thirty years, to confront her father about the past.

Thank you for supporting my writing.

I wish each of you good health and happiness in the year ahead.

. . . Claudia just saying

Pumpkin Bread

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As Autumn as it Gets in Florida

The temperatures have dropped in Florida and today, I wore a coat outside to enjoy my coffee in the dark at 6:45 A.M. I made pumpkin bread to celebrate. The recipe was from a Lafayette Cook Book published in 1995 as a fundraiser for the historical society. It called for two and two-third cups of sugar, too high for me, so I reduced the sugar to one cup. The reason I baked vs bought, was to control the sugar.

The chopping and measuring took time because I’m 75 years old and things. . .take time. I have to remember if I put in the baking powder in or not; and loose count of the cups of flour. Then need to be extra careful not to burn myself, etc., but it makes two loafs.

So, I purchased a box of pumpkin bread at Aldi’s, and other than the amount of sugar, and prep time about fifteen minutes. It was marketed as a limited edition item. That caught my attention.

This lower left picture is the dried pumpkin coming to life once introduced to liquid. The middle, ready to go in the oven and the third, a comparison of all three breads. You can see, we sampled the loaf bread because the pumpkin smell was, well like_____ Fall in New Jersey.

The box pumpkin bread smelled like Fall in New Jersey, too.

…just saying

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What Do You Like to Cook?

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Today, I was befuddled when asked, “What do you like to cook?”

I do like to cook, have been cooking for all of my married like, fifty-two years, and think I’m a good cook.

However I was stumped.

So I shared what I was fixing for dinner; turkey burgers with honey mustard sauce, Aldi’s Asian Salad (it comes in a bag you mix up at home), and sweet potatoes fries.

The sweet potatoes look burned because they are. . .I have a new oven and haven’t mastered the air fry, but we prefer crispy to soggy.

The honey mustard sauce I improvised. It’s honey mustard thinned with apple cider vinegar and softened with mayo or Greek yogurt.

The turkey burger recipe is my friend Betsy’s; diced,onion, apple and celery, one pound ground turkey, brown and cook on each side for five minutes.

The wine was cheap. . . and romanced our palate

I totally enjoy the dinner. The humidity lifted and we ate out doors.

What do you like to cook?

…just saying

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How I Spent the Weekend

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The Alphabet Series H is for Hanky Panky

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The Alphabet Series

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New Thoughts on Words

H is for hanky panky, two words joined by alliteration, not meaning.

Tommy James and the Shondell’s song, “My baby does the hanky panky”, creates a picture of a couple making out in a 1966 Mustang convertible. There is a mischievous fooling around atmosphere and we know the girl is easy.

But what is hanky panky?

Webster’s (Standard Reference Works Publishing Co. 1956) definition; The meaningless professional talk of a juggler or magician, jugglery or legerdemain.

Sounds like politicians talking about the sequestration.

The term hanky panky is sighted in the first edition of Punch magazine Volume 1 September 1841.

In London, a con-man said to a judge in court; “Only a little hanky-panky, my lud. The people likes it; they loves to be cheated before their faces. One, two, three-presto-begone. I’ll show your ludship as pretty a trick of putting a piece of money in your eye and taking it from your elbow, as you ever beheld.”

A later reference is from George Bernhard Shaw’s Geneva, 1939:

She: No hanky panky. I am respectable; and I mean to keep respectable.

He: I pledge you my word that my intentions are completely honorable.

Hanky panky makes us think things are unethical, and referenced as Hocus Pocus or Hokey Pokey, grew in popularity when sexy and illicit acts were included.

It was playful and school children wiggled to the hokey pokey to practice eye hand coordination skills.

The closest we can get to that ridiculous fun for all is the Harlem Shake.

Google Hanky Panky and you will discover many companies sell lingerie and naughty items, but only one company makes the lace.

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Klauber Brothers is a sixth generation family business and creators of an exclusive Signature Lace for Hanky Panky, a leader in intimate apparel.

The Klauber family was lucky to escape the treacherous trickery that forced them to surrender their business and never considered they would be in the  hanky panky business. They fled Nazis Germany on the SS Manhattan. It was the last boat to America in 1939.

Their story and craftmanship adds sobering thoughts to hanky panky, but I still hear lyrics in my head and think about a randition of the Harlem Shake, me mouthing the words…My baby does the hanky panky. I saw her walkin’ on down the line You know I saw her for the very first time A pretty little girl standin’ all alone “Hey pretty baby, can I take you home?”

…just saying

                                                                                        

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The Alphabet Series F is for Insanity

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  The Alphabet Series –  New Thoughts on Words

F is for Flummoxed Filibuster was originally published on March 10, 2013. Ten years have past and although the post was never about Senator Rand Paul, I believe his latest shenanigans are worth noting. The Senator has referred Dr. Anthony Fauci to the Justice Department for a criminal probe for lying to Congress about COVID. And one of his staffers was stabbed (the young man is okay) by a U.S. citizen who is incompetent. This is insanity!

First-Senate-Debate--304

Flummoxed and Filibuster

March 2013-Things looked good for Senator Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, this week when he announced he would filibuster the confirmation vote of John Brennan as Director of the CIA, the old- fashioned way, by talking and said, “I will speak until I can no longer speak.”

Evidently, the old-fashion filibuster has lost popularity and there is a non-talking version making a filibuster like phone sex. You do not need to moan, and staying on the phone is optional. Rand Paul could declare a filibuster and kept his mouth shut. Then, sixty votes would be necessary to break the gridlock and clear the floor for vote.

Visions of Jimmy Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” came to mind, and a general impression of Paul as a man of consciousness prevailed.

Rand Paul, the son of Ron Paul, said he did not oppose the confirmation, but this was an opportunity to make a point and find out for sure if the President’s policy on international use of drones includes shooting American citizens on United States soil. Attorney General Eric Holder’s letter did not eliminate the possibility.

Paul said in a statement, “The U.S. Attorney General’s refusal to rule out the possibility of drone strikes on American citizens and on American soil is more than frightening – it is an affront to the Constitutional due process rights of all Americans,”

Not everyone agreed and in the morning, people were flummoxed, you know confused bewildered and baffled when Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham criticized Rand Paul calling the filibuster “a political stunt that cheapens the serious discussion about US policy to the realm of the ridiculous.”

Paul held his ground, would not admit to shooting himself in the foot, and considered Eric Holder’s letter of clarification released later in the day, a surrender.

You can agree with Paul, the government’s drone policy needs discussion.

Is that all this was about? Because it was a flummoxed filibuster.

. . just saying

P.S. Rumor has it Rand Paul’s head is now pointy.

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The Alphabet Series D is for Disappear

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Photo by Dids on Pexels.com

D is For Disappear

D is for disappear as in the New York Times Best Seller novel, “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn.

Nick and Amy Dunne, two out of work New York City writers, move to Nick’s childhood home in North Carthage, Missouri when they learn Nick’s mother is fatally ill.

Nick is a journalist.

Amy writes surveys or opinion questionnaires, e.i., Which of the following will lead to personal happiness.

A.  Caring more about others than yourself

B.  Discovering a passion

C.  Exercising and eating well daily

D.  All of the above

Nick persuades Amy to invest the last of her Trust Fund in a business for him and his twin sister, Margo. They name the bar, “The Bar”.

Amy disappears on their wedding anniversary, and Nick becomes the prime suspect.

However she didn’t disappear, she’s hiding.

Gillian Flynn has written a plot driven novel that I read quickly and was reviewed favorably, but I could have put the book down easily. The twisted ending was a turn off for me. The movie also has the same distortion of love, or love gone crazy ending. I like happy endings.

“As The Washington Post proclaimed, her work ‘draws you in and keeps you reading with the force of a pure but nasty addiction.’ Gone Girl’s toxic mix of sharp-edged wit with deliciously chilling prose creates a nerve-fraying thriller that confounds you at every turn.”

Amy’s disappearance is not to vanish, perish or cease to exist. Her vanishing act is one of revenge and dysfunction, concocted when she discovers Nick’s infidelity. Victimized and  bamboozled Amy plans to get even and does.

I can imagine the survey/questionnaire Gillian Flynn might ask readers to take about her character, Amy.

What makes this character happy?

A.  If you can’t have the one you love make sure no one else can either.

B.  Make everyone who hurts or disappoints you suffer for the rest of their lives.

C.  Inflicting pain on others is key to personal happiness.

D. All of the above

The author, Gillian says “she was not a nice little girl,” and “Libraries are filled with stories on generations of brutal men, trapped in a cycle of aggression. I wanted to write about the violence of women”

“The point is, women have spent so many years girl-powering ourselves — to the point of almost parodic encouragement — we’ve left no room to acknowledge our dark side. Dark sides are important. They should be nurtured like nasty black orchids.”

Have you read the book or seen the movie?

                                                                                         . . . just saying

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The Alphabet Series C is for Curmudgeon

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photo by Claudiajustsaying

New Thoughts On Words

C is for Curmudgeon

Cranky, cross, and Cantankerous

Quarrelsome

It’s someone else’s fault

Is being a Curmudgeon a choice, or about loss?

Crappy, critical and uncompromising

Like a Republican who is sore

Callous, cautious, careful

A Curmudgeon ruminates the same thought

Perhaps their hippocampus is shrinking, their dreams forgotten, or tossed

Left alone to commiserate

A connoisseur without a cause

Realizes a critical point

Dick Chaney could be their new boss

A special thanks to my friend Mary for suggesting the word Curmudgeon and to Michael Ray King for encouraging writers to write poetry.

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