Tag: don’t give up

Monday Monday (repost)

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 7 Comments

Over the weekend I went back into the black hole depths of this Humoring the Goddess blog looking for posts that had Monday in the title.

There have been quite a few attempts to comprehend and write about the first day of the work week. I smiled as I read all of them. So many different directions on the same topic. 

That’s the beauty of Creativity. Looking behind is just as much fun as looking ahead.

So for all of you reading this this fine Monday morning — DO IT.  And don’t stop.

From —

MONDAY MONDAY     

 

Bah-da, bah-da-da-da
Bah-da, bah-da-da-da
Bah-da, bah-da-da-da

(do you know the song yet?)

Monday, Monday (bah-da, bah-da-da-da)
So good to me (bah-da, bah-da-da-da)
Monday mornin’, it was all I hoped it would be ..

All the oldies out there knew the song by the first six syllables. Funny how engrained music is into us. Even when we don’t think about it.

Was trying to come up with a topic, a theme, for this cloudy, cold Monday. But if there’s nothing there there’s nothing there.

Then a slip of lyrics passed through my head.

Monday, Monday (bah-da, bah-da-da-da)

I was a freshman in high school when the Mamas and Papas sang this song. I was escaping the horrors of middle school at that time. Those were rough times, especially for a geeky, smelly kid like me.

Not really stepping back, but I do know that even back then music made a difference in my life. The Beatles were my saviors, the Dave Clark Five my happiness. No one could break the bond between me and Paul or me and Dave. My writing started way back then, too. I used to have a notebook with my first love story written in it, but it is long gone. Perhaps it disappeared when it served its purpose.

Music was an escape when I was young. An emotional booster, an answer for self-consciousness and self-doubt. I didn’t think about doing drugs or getting drunk or having sex back then. (Shows you how backwards my freshman year was.)

But Last Train to Clarksville by the the Monkees and Summer In The City by the Lovin’ Spoonful and Five O’Clock World by the Vogues were songs that wrapped around those hard times and cushioned decisions in my life like why I never had a date Saturday nights or if my girlfriends wanted to have a pajama party or should I try out for the school play when I couldn’t sing.

I wonder if kids today have an inkling of that innocence. If they ever have a chance to be kids. If they ever have a choice to not be a part of the violence and discrimination and hatred that swirls around all of us.

I suppose songs like WAP by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion (I wouldn’t look up the words if I were you) reflects the current needs and desires within a high-school education, the need to be free and understood and in control. Maybe innocence in its banal form is not needed anymore. Better to be smart than be exploited.

These days I find myself wandering back to that innocence I probably never really had. I have had enough of death and prejudice and politics to last a lifetime of discovery. Time for a bit of innocence to return to the world.

Do you believe in magic in a young girl’s heart
How the music can free her whenever it starts?
And it’s magic if the music is groovy
It makes you feel happy like an old-time movie………..

 

 ~ 

You are never too late to get creative and fully enjoy it

~ humoringthegoddess ~ Leave a comment

A repost from a fun, insightful writer who knows how not to quit. I haven’t — have you?

 

Source: You are never too late to get creative and fully enjoy it

Start Your Strategy Now

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 5 Comments

militarycatStrategy.

A powerful word. A plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim. It could also be coined for military operations, but that’s not where we are today. (At least I’m not…I dunno about the cat on the right, though).

Sounds so easy. Set a major or overall aim. Write out a plan. Follow the plan. Achieve the major or overall aim.

Why is it we start out with such good intentions on getting to that “policy” yet find we are wandering down the Yellow Brick Road?

I know a number of you out there are creative souls. You write, you paint, you go to art fairs and gardening seminars and are speakers at conferences. You know what you want to do, make a plan, and carry that plan out. That is why you are successful.

I am not. Yet.

It seems that every time I turn around another light bulb goes off, lighting my way to fame and famine of the writing kind. This is not the 70s — you must be a part of what confuses you in order to be a part of the bigger confusion. I must say I love those light bulbs going off, though. It’s like the Goddess has smiled down upon my pudgy body and says, “Hey girl! You done BoHo-ing for the day yet? I’ve got an idea here! ” And somewhere between all the confusion of my life I find  time to listen.

I had an idea for a new novel. Exciting, challenging. A lot of research, a lot of medical stuff. I used a prologue from a different story I started a few years ago (and never finished), and adapted it to the New Novel.

That’s the last I’ve worked on it.

I have so many other projects that fit into my time schedule that writing Gone With The Wind Book 4 just isn’t in the picture. And that’s just the fact, Jack.

You all have projects in different stages. Some are realities, like actually finishing a novel, or entering a writing contest, or finishing the painting or sketch you’ve worked so hard on. But time isn’t the same across the universe. Where you have time to do an art piece with mosaics, you don’t have time to  write a blog. What started as a three-section painting now may have to be reconditioned as a one-piece masterpiece. We just can’t do everything we set out to do.

And the sooner we “get” that, the easier our strategy becomes.

As you know, I am a BIG advocate of getting out there and putting your Creative Mark on the world. Whether you are 20 or 80, if you’ve got a goal, a gift, go for it. That’s where strategy comes in. Figuring out the pros and cons of your forward movement.  What would it hurt if you e-mailed or Twittered a favorite author/columnist/blogger and asked them to take a look at your work? What harm is there in sending off a letter offering your presentation skills or your gourmet talents?

All they can say is NO.  All they can do is ignore your efforts.

BUT THEN:

Last July I went to the Art Fair on the Square in Madison, WI. There were hundreds of different artists in hundreds of different venues. I found the artwork that I thought would work in my Sunday Evening Art Gallery; took their cards; and e-mailed three so far. They all were honored I liked their work so much and had no problem with me highlighting their work and their website.

All that angst, that fear, walking around the art fair, telling myself I’m not a curator or a famous art critic, was for nothing. These people were friendly and open … and said YES.

So now my strategy is to produce what I promised.

And how much fun is THAT?