Persistent or Ignorant?

Outside my front window, a very large evergreen stands, and it is a common place for many different animals to use as a home.  The latest resident is a beautiful red Cardinal; however, as much as I love nature, this bird is about to drive my family and me insane.

You see, this creature of instinct sees his reflection in my window each day and assumes he spots another cardinal trying to move into his territory.  As you can imagine, his bangs and bonks against the glass are highly irritating.  The amazing thing to me is, he will hit the glass multiple times in a matter of seconds and the assault continues for hours.

I've tried waving my arms, shouting, even trying to educate the poor brute by yelling, "It's YOU, you idiot!"  Yet, no matter what I've tried, he returns time after time, determined to defeat the "other" bird.

As I worked through my constant irritation, I reminded myself that I'm a writer, and all the world is fodder for material.  But how could some crazy bird inspire me in any way?

After thinking about his behavior, I was sure we had one thing in common.  Honestly though, I still haven't figured out if it's persistence or ignorance?  It could be a mix of both.

You see, though my writing has been rejected, misunderstood, ignored, and just plain dismissed, I continue to write and continue to submit, hoping for a different outcome each time.  Am I being persistent or am I just ignorant to my chances of being published as I continue to bang my head against the publishing world window?

In the end, to me, it doesn't matter.  Like that deranged cardinal, I refuse to quit until I've achieved my ultimate goals.  Nothing short of seeing one of my books on a bookstore bookshelf will satisfy me, so regardless of how much it hurts, watch me, I'm going in again.  Wish me luck!

Oh, and by the way, if you find yourself with a persistent/ignorant bird flying into one of your windows, a poster of John Cena in full wrestling wear hung in the window might seem weird to the neighbors, but will be too scary for a bull-headed Cardinal to take on.



Happy Writing!

Cherie


Into the Fire Amazon BuyLink: http://tinyurl.com/3f7vfnp
Into the Fire TWRP BuyLink: http://tinyurl.com/3mfn3zj
Facebook– http://on.fb.me/qRl1lD
Twitter— http://twitter.com/cheriemarks

Writing Plan

I'm a list maker. I love making them along with plans for large projects. In 2010 I created a 5 year writing plan in which I outlined exactly what I would do for my "career" from courses to take, to books I would write, edit or outline and how I would promote my name/brand as a writer. Like most of my plans, I was overly optimistic, and found I had to beat myself up at the end of the year for not accomplishing all of the goals outlined. I used it as motivation to quickly catch up at the beginning of 2011. Last year, I'm happy to say I accomplished all my goals ahead of time and gave myself a well deserved pat on the back.

As life would have it, things quickly changed when I found out I was pregnant, and although thrilled, I was terrified at what it would do to my writing and my 5 year plan. So far it's been an up hill battle for blogging and writing until late in the evening, but I still managed to carve out time here and there. I've also had to take a step back and re-evaluate my plan for this year and adjust a few things to make my plate a little lighter, but I remain optimistic.

How about you angels? Do you have a career plan or are you winging it as you go?

Facebook Fun

Well, I finally took a major step this weekend. I set up a Facebook account. (That’s fine. I’ll wait a moment until you stop laughing.)

Several things had kept me from doing so until now, the major one being the fact I have dial-up Internet access. That slow delivery leads to interminable (and sometimes no) downloads and frequent computer freezes, to the point that some days I can’t get online at all. You’ve all heard me complain about that often enough.

Still, Friday afternoon I finally decided it was time to try out Facebook. I’d been assured getting one done was easy as pie. For most people it probably is. But--well, here’s how it went. I set up my name and password. So far so good. It wanted my age. I tried to sneak the year by, but it crossed its arms, stomped its foot, and refused to do anything. So I compromised--and gave it want it wanted.

Then it wanted me to add an image. I didn’t have one. I thought I’d use the shield from a corner of my webpage which I’d used before. It started to download the entire page. I quick hit cancel. It didn’t. So for a period of time, my image was a thumbnail of my entire webpage. Now this was a problem--why? I set up the first ‘trial’ page under my legal name. A lot of people who’ll see that site I don’t plan to share the writing name with. I want to have other writers as ‘friends’ on that ‘writer’ one, and I feel awkward asking them to friend me under both names.

Then it wanted the schools I attended. I swear I followed every darned instruction and they still popped up wrong. Finally got that straightened out. Then I tried to write something clever about myself like a lot of you have. Nada. I lost count of the times I typed something in and it never did take. So now it’s a critic?

Giving that up, I decided I’d had enough fun for one afternoon and night and fixed a good, stiff cup of coffee (I forgot to buy wine.) Saturday I started again. Finally I was ready to add friends. But all these strange people I didn’t know kept popping up, and I realized it was trolling for people who’d listed my colleges as theirs. I didn’t know one of them.

How do I get rid of all these faces and names of people I don’t want littering my site? I didn’t ask for them. Why were they there? And then suddenly I got a friend request. I don’t know how that person got my name. Is there a secret grapevine I don’t know about?

I want to thank all of you for friending me--and if I haven’t responded, it’s because I still don’t know what the heck I’m doing.

And to cap it off, I had to email Jen to ask how to post. Honestly!

P.S. I haven’t found my wall yet. Are there four of them?

Is anyone else out there finding it hard to establish writing time? I find myself coming home after work, the stress from my new day job still vibrating in my head, doing housework and trying to stay awake long enough to type a few words.


It isn't working well.


I'm not sure if its the pregnancy or if its stress, or if I actually don't have the words to put down in actual sentences. I know I have stories in my brain, characters that want out, but as for right now they are staying put. 


I've been stuck before and this isn't stuck, this is just limbo. I'm hoping that the stress and the pregnancy nerves will calm down so that in a few days/weeks, I can actually do something with my writing.


How do you all cope with these kind of obstacles? Maybe I just needed a break and everything else will fall into place?

I will say this though, that pic inspires all types of stories for me!! :)


HUGS
Trish