Could you live without your basic amenities?

How much do we all take certain things in life for granted?  I think the answer to that is most of us.  We expect the lights to come on when we flip a switch or the water to come out of a faucet when we turn it on.  But…what if this changed?

 My water meter

 

If you suddenly found yourself out of luck with the usual things like water or electricity, would you go into crisis mode and flip out, or simply adjust and deal with the situation until things are resolved? 

Right now, I’m dealing with this condition at my house.  I had to turn my water off on Saturday morning and we’ve been living with no water service in the house since then.  It’s now late Monday afternoon and I’ve yet to see the plumber show up to assess the situation.

 After the towel mop up, I used the wet and dry vac

 

To make a long story short, I discovered the carpet in the master closet was soaking wet on Saturday morning.  I grabbed towels to start soaking up what I could.  They were wet enough to wring out.  I called my husband who freaks out when things like this happen and he insisted I turn the water off at the street.  What really threw both of us off is there’s no water supply near this closet.  Our first thoughts were a ruptured pipe in the slab. 

 This is my mechanical room.  I didn't think to take a pic of the standing water.

 

Luckily, my neighbor works for the city and was home, so he came over to help me.  I couldn’t get the valve turned using a wrench.  I might mention it was 110 outside.  Both of us had sweat dripping down our noses and splattering onto the ground.  My neighbor has a handy tool just for this purpose.  He got the valve turned in two seconds.  Then he came in to look at my water heater, which he thinks is the problem.  My mechanical room had water standing in it.  He turned the main valve back on and just cut the water coming into the house until we could call a plumber.  Naturally, it was the weekend.  Of course, things this major always happen on weekends and holidays.

 Then I brought in the super duper fan from the garage and an extension cord and blew it on the carpet all weekend.

 

The last time it was a power outage in July a few years ago when it was 114 and the power to the entire city was out for five hours!  Can you imagine that?  But I think this water issue is almost worse.

With this heat, I had to break down and go to a girlfriend’s on Sunday to take a shower.  One can only use so many wet wipes.  The next stop was the dollar store for lots of bottled gallons of water.

Supposedly, hearing my desperation, the plumber is working me in somehow so I can at least get cold water into the house until he can properly fix the problem.  We’ll see if he shows up later today.  I’m not holding my breath.

In times like these, it makes you appreciate running water.  I wonder how I can use this in a future story.

Thoughts on Creativity

Sometimes, calling up my creative self and staying in writing or rewriting mode can be a challenge when I’m not in the mood or not feeling creative.  I think this is natural because we all have to incorporate our regular lives in with our writing ones and it helps to remember some things.  I’m usually thinking about areas in my book or certain points I can make better, or perhaps eliminate or condense.  The greatest breakthroughs seem to burst into my head when I’m trying to get to sleep.  Go figure that when I couldn’t get things to mesh all day.

During these times, I look for inspiration everywhere.  What I like best is to read tips and articles that inspire me, perhaps even a book.  I especially like quotes.

Look at this one:

"A student of life considers the world a classroom."

--Harvey MacKay

Think about this.  We are never too old to learn something new and we'll never know 100% of everything.  I feel we can learn from all sorts of things in daily life every single day.  What a wonderful thing this is.  We can apply this quote to writing by being open to new ideas and constructuve criticism.  

Of course, we all want to hear how wonderful our work is, whether it's writing, painting or taking photographs, but the problem is none of us can learn this way.  We need objective people we trust who can help with a constructive approach, not a confrontational one.

Creativity will never go away if we were born this way, but we should keep boundaries in mind or we may find ourselves daydreaming the day away.  Setting limits and implementing schedules is a good idea.  This isn't something I necessarily like to do, but if I don't keep my mind reigned in, I'll be off on some fantasy adventure instead of pursuing the goal at hand, which is the rewrite of my mystery manuscript.

Baby chipmunks in my backyard

Right now, it's so beautiful here that it's easy to be swept away watching all the new wildlife babies passing through my yard daily. This would be great inspiration if I were writing a children's book.  I find myself making up short animal stories in my head.  Yes, I'm being creative, but not in the right way.

I realize I'll never finish my book this way, so it's nose to the grindstone while I wait for my last chapter to come back to me with some helpful criticism from the ladies who are kind enough to read it for me.

Is anyone else out there working on a rewrite?  How's it going?  Do you have any tips to share?

Does your mindset influence real life outcomes?

Research shows that the way we feel about ourselves does influence our lives.  This is a no brainer if you really think about it.  Naturally, we’ll attract a negative outcome if we think we’re not good enough at whatever it is we’re undertaking.

You may believe you are destined to think a certain way and be a certain way, not believing that personal growth is possible.  If you think you’re not good enough, it will affect your long-term skills.  When asked to do something you consider out of reach, you may feel unmotivated or demoralized.  Of course, this will how you feel if you believe you were born with all the talent, interests, temperament, etc that you’ll ever have.  With this sort of mindset, it will be almost impossible to achieve great things because you’re limiting yourself. 

On the other end of the spectrum is the growth mindset.  Most people know they aren’t geniuses but they believe that accomplishments are possible with work.  If we make the effort, we can build our skills.  We can succeed and overcome our challenges.

This concerns everything in life, but in this case, we can apply it to writing by reading and writing as much as we can to learn as much as possible.  Patience and repetition is the key here.  Eventually with enough practice, the right procedures will become a part of our thinking and it will become second nature to us.

I hope this motivates you to get to work on your manuscript.  You can do it!

The subplot in writing

As I’m rewriting my mystery book, I’ve been thinking about this a lot.  We all know it’s good to build depth to our characters and show them as real people with real issues that we all have in life.  To write a book that is like real life should be the goal.  We want our readers to feel like the story is really happening, or could happen as we write it.

Real life is a messy business.  We all have issues to deal with on a daily basis and things that crop up and surprise us too.  If we put our characters into some of these situations, we’re showing more about them and the real people they are underneath the persona they display to the public.

The subplots running under the main narrative make our characters real, believable people who are tackling their own demons as they solve the crisis going on in the main storyline.

Subplots work to make the story better in any genre.  There are so many ideas to choose from, such as an impending divorce, turmoil on the home front, addiction, an old flame or enemy emerging on the scene, betrayal, revenge, an unpleasant discovery about someone the protagonist never really knew at all, or something else that would cause the hero internal conflict that interferes with the current problem. 

We all have things to hide.  How well can you ever know anyone?

Showing versus Telling

All of us have heard this at least a hundred times.  I found this quote in Writer’s Digest.  I think it sums up this concept well.

“If you tell a reader that Bull Beezley is a brutal-faced, loose-lipped bully, with snake’s blood in his veins, the reader’s reaction may be, ‘Oh yeah!’  But if you show the reader Bull Beezley raking the bloodied flanks of his weary, sweat-encrusted pony, and flogging the tottering, red-eyed animal with a quirt, or have him booting in the protruding ribs of a starved mongrel and, boy, the reader believes!”

 – Fred East, WD

What do you think?

Review for Far Outside the Ordinary by Prissy Elrod

5 stars

Sad but enjoyable story

I usually don’t read many memoirs for pleasure, but I picked this book up because it’s an account of what the author went through when her husband was diagnosed with a brain tumor that would take his life.  Glioblastoma is an aggressive tumor that’s hard to remove surgically because of the way it grows into the brain with finger-like projections. 

My sister-in-law died of this same tumor in 2009, so I was interested in this story.  It turns out this man, Boone Kuersteiner, finally ended up at the Stanislaw Burzynski Clinic in Houston as a final effort to save his life.  This MD is from Poland and uses an unconventional treatment for cancer patients.  The FDA doesn’t approve his infusion therapy and he has claims against him for fraud and non-compliance, but when you’re desperate, what else can you do?  Boone’s wife, Prissy, was ever hopeful that she would find a cure in time to save her husband.  He had undergone brain surgery, chemo, radiation, and even visited an Indian shaman for his disease.

Prissy attended seminars on brain cancer and kept looking for cures, until all was exhausted and Boone was tired of fighting.

This book does have some funny moments despite the dismal nature of the outcome.  These times mainly concern the help that Prissy hires to get her through this awful time taking care of Boone.  It’s amazing what she was able to do and to put up with for Bonne’s care.

After he passes not all is lost after all, as she assumed it would be.

This book is a fast read with short chapters.  I recommend it, especially to readers who’ve lost a loved one to cancer.  I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Available at Amazon

Busy…busy…busy…

I’m still working on my rewriting, which is slow going.  I took a couple of weeks to write all my blog posts for the A to Z Challenge that starts on April 1.  I’ve got those all scheduled, so it’s back to my book rewrites.

Have any of you participated in the A to Z?  This is my fourth year doing it.  Coming up with a topic for each letter can be taxing on the brain.  Mine is always so busy thinking and working out issues that maybe I’ll never get Alzheimer’s.  That would be one consolation to all the sleep I miss.  Sometimes I wonder if I’m putting my brain into enough situations to sort out.  I think I am. 

Spring is in full swing here now so that means allergy season and yard work on top of all the other daily stuff.  Sometimes it’s tough to squeeze in all this writing and things I’d rather be doing.  Even so, I’m happy to kiss winter good-bye.

I’ll leave you with some nice quotes.