Come on over and converserate

From RS Guthrie's blog, Rob on Writing.

I read a very interesting post yesterday (“interesting” being defined as “for anyone with enough of a geek/time combination to find a full-length blog on word meanings an enjoyable way to spend a few minutes. It’s called 10 Words That You’ve Probably Been Misusing and it was written by Tyler Vendetti. Now before I get into the meat of this blog, I want to make a few observations about the blog on which Tyler is a contributor (HelloGiggles) and about a few sundry items pertaining to said blog.

Tyler’s blog has 200,000 likes and has been tweeted 2,897 times (as of this moment). It also has about 20 pages of comments. Maybe 50. And comments on comments. And comments on pages that were linked-to in comments, referringback to Tyler’s post.

Tyler Vendetti is my new hero. That’s a lot of blog publicity. And she’s just one of the HG contributors. Plus her last name sounds like a cross between a crime syndicate and a guy bent on revenging the gruesome death of his wife and children.

I must be doing something wrong with this blogging thing. Not interesting enough or too harpy or maybe it smells like bad fish. As I approach my 200th post in just over a year and a half, I am left reticent about how well-spent is my time “blogging”? If 200,000 people were bent on my opinion or almost 3,000 people wanted all their Twitter followers to check out what brilliance had just flew from my fingertips well, yeah, of course it would be worth my time and effort.

Did I mention Tyler’s just in college right now? Doesn’t matter. I blog for myself. And for those salaciously witty few who get it. The craftily obfuscated humor, I mean. My readers. All six of ya. So I’m going to do what I do best; I’m going to climb the rungs of that soap box and give it to you straight, no chaser (apologies to the great a capella group).

Here are the ten words that Tyler says we all misuse/misunderstand (I’m going back to the proper writing form of spelling numbers instead of using them—something about getting all grammarly [<~~~MY word, dammit, and I think it's a good one] makes me want to be as technically correct as possible, even though it obviously doesn’t stop me from making up my own language):

(The list below is copied from Tyler’s blog but I snipped her snappy chatter in-between numbers so that I would have space for my own snappy witticisms afterword.)

1) Travesty

What you may think it means: a tragedy, an unfortunate event

What it actually means: a mockery; a parody

2) Ironic

What you may think it means: a funny coincidence

What it actually means: contrary to what you might expect

3) Peruse

What you may think it means: to skim or glance over something

What it actually means: to review something carefully/in-depth

4) Bemused

What you may think it means: amused

What it actually means: confused

5) Compelled

What you may think it means: to willingly do something, to feel like you need to do something

What it actually means: to be forced to do something (willingly or unwillingly)

6) Nauseous

What you may think it means: to feel sick

What it actually means: to cause nausea

7) Conversate

What you may think it means: to hold a conversation

What it actually means: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING

8) Redundant

What you may think it means: repetitive

What it actually means: superfluous, able to be cut out

9) Enormity

What you may think it means: enormousness

What it actually means: extreme evil

10) Terrific

What you may think it means: awesome, fantastic

What it actually means: causing terror

Okay, it made for a pretty damned interesting blog, I have to admit. Here was the comment I made (preceded by a little dictionary research of my own and never to be seen by Tyler nor anyone else because it’s literally already suffocated in the pile of comments both before and following it):

“Many of the words you chose mean exactly what you/we “thought” they meant. AND they mean what many of us didn’t know. It’s both; you’re simply using ONE of multiple usages of the word. That’s not the same thing as a word NOT meaning what you thought it did. Cute post, but you should have chosen fewer (more correct) words or written it under “Other Meanings You Did NOT Know”. Nice work with “conversate”, however. That’s one that should make all our skin crawl.

Ex. Redundant (and this is def #1): characterized by verbosity or unnecessary repetition in expressing ideas; prolix: a redundant style.
Ex. Enormity: #3: greatness of size, scope, extent, or influence; immensity
Ex. Peruse: #2: to look over or through in a casual or cursory manner”

I appreciate Tyler’s erudite blog and her ability to both entertain, entice, enamor, elongate, eradicate, electrify, ease, erase, and yes, even enrage. It really was (almost) a fun as trying to come up with so many “e” words a moment ago. Let’s face it; this is what blogs ARE. They are honeypots, hoping to garner enough attention that the writer lands successfully somewhere between “no one’s ever heard of ya, kid” and “twenty-year-old cutie slain by unusually articulate blog-stalker”.

Do we try to educate? (Another “e” word I spared you, at least until now.) Yes, of course. I wouldn’t have titled my blog the way I did if all I ever intended to do was rage against the machine. But do people ever really learn anything? As I poured through (seven) pages of comments to find my own, I perused a few dozen along the way, and I’d say the majority were pretty nasty.

Don’t FUCK wid my bidness, and don’t you MONKEY around wit my GRAMMAR.

No, seriously, one girl called Tyler’s blog “less interesting than a wet bag of potato chips.” Although a pretty damned funny retort, that comment was completely uncalled for (do any comments actually receive a call?). It really is a great blog, but in all seriousness, I could notbelieve the pages, and pages, and pages of comments and conversates  taking place over what I thought was a well-researched, slightly inappropriately-titled, very interesting piece.

If she reads through that plethora [<~~overused word; means just what we think it does] of comments, my guess is she’s already by now been institutionalized. No one—and I mean NO ONE—least of all a bright, joyful, ne’er say ne’er, Mary Poppinsesque college student should ever bear witness to the hideousness of a true cross-section of the World Public like that. It’s terrific. Or terrifying.

Or both, if you believe that little college dipshit’s blog.

Just kidding, Tyler.

But don’t ever fuck wid my grammar again, bitch.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The blank page is dead…long live the blank page.

R.S. Guthrie grew up in Iowa and Wyoming. He has been writing fiction, essays, short stories, and lyrics since college.

Black Beast: A Detective Bobby Mac Thriller (Volume 1) marked Guthrie's first major release and it heralded the first in the Detective Bobby Mac Thriller series. The second in the series, Lost: A Detective Bobby Mac Thriller (Volume 2) hit the Kindle shelves in December 2011.

Blood Land is the first in the James Pruett Mystery series and represents a project that is close to Guthrie's heart: it is set in a fictional town in the same Wyoming where he spent much of his childhood and still visits.

The sequel, Money Land released at the end of 2012 and Guthrie is working on the third in the series, Honor Land.

Guthrie lives in the Colorado Rockies with his wife, Amy, three young Australian Shepherds, and a Chihuahua who thinks she is a 40-pound Aussie!

Readers can catch up with what's new with the author at his official site, http://www.rsguthrie.com, discussions related to writing and other topics at his blog, Rob on Writing (http://robonwriting.com), or at his showcase of authors giving back to causes at the Read A Book Make A Difference (RABMAD) website (http://RABMAD.com/authors).

Daughter of My People

By Sandy Hartman            

Who are you?  asks Creation

What is your fate among your people?

What is the mark of all your kind?

To this eternal question I answer

I am the daughter of a willful people

Of a nation that struggles always

To find its better side

It dreams that all its citizens are equal

All must be free      

Worthy of its knowledge

Worthy of opportunity  

Protected by its laws

Deserving

Under laws equal to all

  

On this, I have considered well

In my world I stand my ground

I am free to come and go

Free to learn and judge with wisdom

I draw my circle close                       

The choices made are mine

I turn chin high to claim my truth

I walk my way in pride

I am a World Child

Daughter of this rare and wondrous age

A time that comes to some

But not to everyone       no, not to everyone

The good and the right

The wrong and the strife from every ancestor

Sing to me and make me bold

The dark strength of Earth 

Courses my veins and builds my bones

I breathe the dreams of sunshine and sky

The dust and the rain and winds that blow

Divinity echoes within my Soul

Yet in my heart are chains that still abide

I hear the cry of sisters lost in histories gone

Restless ghosts that never will be known

Innocent Souls forgotten, their stories never told

Their dreams enslaved, their freedoms bound

Trapped in fortune’s chance

Necessity and unforgiving circumstance

Dignity denied

Mistreated, abused, injured, raped

Heaped in unjust shame, given no escape

Helpless, hidden, bargained away       

Used for profit, sold

Betrayed, enslaved

Forsaken

Even now too many women smother

In heritage that leaves them mute

Denied the learning of their people

Denied justice

Their freedom shackled

Hopes shattered

Living without honor

Half of All Creation’s children

Robbed of half the sky

I am the daughter of a willful age

A precious breath of freedom  

That shines for me, but not for everyone  

No, not for everyone

What people can be proud 

Of women pressed against their will?

Kept captive by their custom

Forced to struggle all alone

What savage fists dare clinch in pride

Before the face of The Divine

What wayward power’s protection

Will defend the vicious tongues 

Of shameful stiff-necked fools

Who excuse their brutish acts as Heaven’s Holy Rule

Who choose to shrug their shoulders in indifference

As they say  

“We simply follow custom.  This is what we do”

What woman’s words will speak for them

Who come before Creation in the certainty of Judgment

If they dare defend their ruthless slights

And self-promoting righteous might

As they did in life

When they stood against their fellow Souls

And chose to judge them less than worthy

Fools who dared to set the knots and twist the ties

That ensnared those precious lives

Lives beloved of Creation

Other Souls

Who were half of Divinity’s infinite design.

Copyright   5/13 

Sandy Hartman

This poem along with a full set of photos and several slide shows and my audio appear on Sandy Hartman’s site, www.eonwriter.com

"We poets can help in the global struggles so many face."

The hour glass

Wikimedia Commons

By Deena Tunstall 

Intoxicate me.

Pour down and stream through tightly.

Awkward exchanges, sly glances.
Why do we do this to ourselves?
Muted emotion.

Crossing in every direction.
Tick tick.

Extraction of the pros,
revelling in the cons.

Packed so tight.
Bursting at the seams, ready to unravel.
Piece by piece,
just fall into place

or another’s embrace.

Yet this puzzle is still humoured.

Unto turned on it’s head and it starts again.

Deena Tunstall is a 23-year-old writer with an old soul, originally from the northwest of England but living in Nottingham. Besotted with the idea of interaction between individuals and how one presents themselves to the world. Trying to better her self emotionally and mentally and hoping to help others as well with written monologues, ramblings etc.

Visit her blog, Deenascribbles, and follow her on Twitter @DeenaScribbles.

When a trip becomes a blog becomes an Ebook

WGT founder Sigrun Buckley checks in at the mid-point of her sabbatical.

Greetings from Amsterdam from what I vaingloriously call our European Tour. As many of you are aware, hubby and I embark on multi-home swaps, exchanging homes with likewise adventurous travelers who have more dash than cash. How else could you afford to stay in Europe for a month or two?

Maybe you are even following my blog: www.Intrepidhomeswapping.blogspot.com. It’s worth a look just for the number of beautiful snapshots of each area. Then, of course, there are little stories and info. 

I started recording our trips on this travel blog and the first eBook was born. We’re now into Season 3.

Otherwise we would be traveling in style and reside in a Grand Hotel on nice côte or on padded loungers of a fashionable resort. Maybe even a cruise around the world.

We’re halfway through this year’s summer trip, having stayed in the former West German capital Bonn first, currently looking at sunsets or rainy night skies in Amsterdam and are almost getting ready for our last stop of three weeks in Swabenia, near the Black Forest.

The weather gods meant it very well with us this year, but too much of a good thing — without air-conditioning — can become tedious after a while, too. With the temperature at 33 degrees Celsius today, I hate to leave the house. A jump into the lake doesn’t have as much appeal to us as it does to the natives. How healthy can this murky brown liquid really be with ducks and swans around, the odd pile of flotsam that serves as nests for feathery friends, and spiders. We even spotted water rats, which probably have to be expected when you live on the water.

We enjoyed the experience of a different life and space — mostly the lack thereof, however — on a houseboat, even though we could have done without the mould in the fridge, some rotten floorboards that send off too much of an unpleasant whiff to our nostrils. Definitely the fleas were de trop! Yes, fleas. Three big flea spray cans later, the critters were alive and still hungrily biting.

I hear you say “Well, I would never entertain the thought of having strangers in my house.” But honestly, it’s not so different whether you have strangers sleep in your bedroom or you’re sleeping in a hotel.

And until now, we never encountered stuff this bad. This is our first swap among five that turned out undesirable. We’re very hopeful about our next prospect.

In a week’s time, all of this will remain a funny incident in our travel chest, a mere episode that might make it into a story. By then I will describe the situation in more detail, because by then our exchange partners will have vacated our precious flea-free home in Florida.

Thanks to you, readers and contributors whose loyalty keeps us going. And a very big thank you, of course, to the current man in charge, our dear friend Scott Bury.

Sigrun Buckley

On FB: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Intrepid-Home-Swapping-Insider-Secrets-for-Successful-Home-Swaps/144338212328193

On Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Intrepid-Swapping--Successful-Homeswapping-ebook/dp/B005N0N3CO/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375458727&sr=1-4

How we do Twitter

We were excited when we discovered Twitter and learned how to use it to promote our material. We’ve “met” a lot of terrific friends there and connected with fellow authors and readers alike. 

Since we started, we’ve developed our own method for using this wonderful social tool. Here it is in a nutshell:

When we get a new follower, we read the profile and then scroll down through the timeline. If we see they regularly retweet others, we follow them back and add them to our private list of retweeters. Then, when we go onto Twitter each day, we first choose tweets from that list to retweet. They deserve it because they are generous enough to RT others.

Each day, we also attempt to RT those under certain hashtags because we like them, and because we know they will return the favor down the line. The top hashtags we favor are #asmsg, #teamretweet, and #click1. But there are others geared specifically to authors as well.

And finally, if we see something we think our friends would be interested in, we will RT it.

Our personal approach to etiquette:

We do not ask anyone to RT for us unless we are willing to RT for them. Any other approach would be selfish on our part.

We try to keep at least one of our tweets near the top of the timeline so our followers do not have to scroll through tons of tweets to find one of ours to RT. We want to make it easy to retweet us, should anyone be so inclined.

We try to return each RT for an RT. This is our way of saying thanks to someone for taking the time to RT one of our tweets. We realize many people don’t do this, and that’s fine, but it is how we have chosen to express our gratitude for an RT.

Thanking us for an RT is very nice, but not necessary at all. A return RT is always appreciated, though! 
When we RT someone, we look for a tweet about the tweeters project or interest; if we can’t find one of these, we send a thank you for the RT.

We try to respond to all mentions, but we may miss a few. We truly appreciate every kind mention, shout-out, and FF.

We avoid RTing anything offensive or divisive. Our Twitter account is strictly for enjoyment and for the promotion of our books and those of other authors or helpful/entertaining information. Of course, every person’s definition of offensive is different, and this should be taken into consideration.

Wodke Hawkinson
Follow us on Twitter @WodkeHawkinson

Wodke Hawkinson is the pen name PJ Hawkinson and Karen Wodke write under together. For the true bios of these fantastic writers simply read on...

PJ Hawkinson grew up in the Midwest. She is a Hutchinson Community College graduate. An avid reader since childhood she is now the published author of Half Bitten. PJ's interest include sightseeing off the beaten path, fishing, and paint-by-numbers. She admits to no favorite writer but enjoys the works of Stephen King, JRR Tolkien, Kent Conwell, and Douglas Adams. PJ envisions life of writing, both on her own and with her long-time friend and co-author, Karen.

Karen Wodke attended HCC and Kansas Wesleyan University. She grew up in the Midwest and has played in various bands off and on since childhood, writing many of the songs herself or with co-writers. She is now narrowing her focus to creative writing. She has always been an avid reader, having a wide range of literary interests. Tangerine is her first co-written novel with co-author, PJ.

Our website: http://wodke-hawkinson.com/
Our blog:  http://wodke-hawkinson.com/blog1 

Freethought of the day: On soul and balance

The previous post by Doug Simpson revolved around the topic of reincarnation of immortal souls and the recorded statements of US psychic Edgar Cayce. In the interest of balance, Writers Get Together presents this republication of a statement about souls from bestselling writer Tom Robbins from the FreeThought of the Day, courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

On soul

Soul is not even that Crackerjack prize that God and Satan scuffle over after the worms have all licked our bones. That's why, when we ponder—as sooner or later each of must—exactly what we ought to be doing about our soul, religion is the wrong, if conventional, place to turn. Religion is little more than a transaction in which troubled people trade their souls for temporary and wholly illusionary psychological comfort—the old give-it-up-in-order-to-save-it routine. Religions lead us to believe that the soul is the ultimate family jewel and that in return for our mindless obedience, they can secure it for us in their vaults, or at least insure it against fire and theft. They are mistaken.

Tom Robbins was born in North Carolina in 1936. He attended several colleges, then became a copy editor, working for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer. His fiction books include: Another Roadside Attraction (1978), Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1980), Jitterbug Perfume (1984), Skinny Legs and All (1990), Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas (1994), Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates (2001) and Villa Incognito (2004). The Seattle author is private about his personal and convictions.

© Freedom From Religion Foundation. All rights reserved.

See the elephant fly by the window?

Most of us spend a lot of time looking out windows. Probably much more time than we realize. Car windows, bus windows, train windows, house windows, office or wherever windows, they are still windows. And how much do we really see when we watch out windows? When your eyes are looking out the window, is your mind often wandering elsewhere? I will bet you a dollar to a donut that many of us see a thousand birds a day out the windows, but how many of them do we remember. The same probably goes for people walking along streets or somewhere else. But, if you saw an elephant fly by the window, you would remember it!

What is the difference? Our conscious minds do not process to memory the commonplace and mundane occurrences that our eyes observe everyday because we are so used to observing them. But flying elephants and naked joggers we remember, and have even been known to take a second look at.

You may be already twigging to the idea that this story is not really about flying elephants, but memorable and significant moments or actions in our lives. Approximately forty years ago, my wife handed me a book and said, “Read this.” The book was There Is a River, written by Thomas Sugrue. Never heard of him, was my first reaction I suspect, and I probably responded with my standard, “Whatever. When I get around to it.” Definitely not a memorable moment. Sure! That’s how little I knew at the time, and that book turned out to be my flying elephant.

There Is a River is the first of over thirty biographies written about the legendary American mystic from Virginia Beach, Virginia, Edgar Cayce.  For those readers who are not familiar with Edgar Cayce, I will give you a very brief history. Edgar Cayce was born in rural Kentucky on March 18, 1877, and passed on in Virginia Beach, Virginia on January 3, 1945. He gave over 15,000 psychic readings in a coma-like trance state and there are copies of over 14,000 of these readings at his Association for Research and Enlightenment, or A.R.E. for short, in Virginia Beach.  

Approximately 10,000 of these readings were medical readings where in his deep-trance state he diagnosed medical problems and prescribed remedies, including prescriptions which had not yet been invented.  Many of these patients who received medical readings had been classified as hopeless by their medical practitioners and had come to Edgar Cayce as a last resort.  

Over 300 books have been written about Edgar Cayce and his readings, including at least 30 biographies, as mentioned earlier.  For more information on Edgar Cayce you should visit the A.R.E. website at www.edgarcayce.org. You can find the article that made Edgar Cayce a national celebrity in 1910 in the New York Times website archive. You can also read this article on an Edgar Cayce website at: http://www.cayce.com/nytimes.htm.

After medical readings, the next largest group of Edgar Cayce readings was reincarnation or past-life readings. What exactly is a reincarnation reading?  An individual, a parent or legal guardian of a child, or a caretaker of an incapacitated adult could request a past-life reading for the purpose of obtaining information about the past lives of the individual, information which might be beneficial in planning the future of this individual. Most of us have experienced dozens of previous incarnations. The heavenly source of Edgar Cayce's information would reveal relevant information for not all but only those past-life experiences which had a karmic connection to the current incarnation. Some readings, especially those for children, contained comments that further information could be revealed in the future when or if the individual were better prepared to understand or deal with the withheld information. 

The Edgar Cayce archives contain approximately 2,500 past-life readings for some 2,000 individuals, and it was these reincarnation readings that changed the course of my life. Almost thirty years later, after I had been given the golden handshake and a decent monthly pension check for life, I had too much free time on my hands and decided it was the opportune time to settle in and do some serious research on the Edgar Cayce reincarnation readings. Bingo! Another flying elephant sailed past my window!

I was hooked! Swallowed the line and sinker too, and didn’t even taste it. Many of you have not likely given much thought to previous or future lifetimes, as this one we are currently travelling through, often as if we were on a treadmill, can keep us busy enough. But, because I had the time and inclination to do some serious research on reincarnation and survival of our souls after the death of our bodies, I have no doubts whatsoever about this.

The last time the flying elephant coasted past my window, I grabbed its tail and held on for dear life. I commenced to write Edgar Cayce and/or reincarnation related article in 2009 and was thrilled when the first one was published in January 2010. Since that memorable day, my articles have been published in seven different countries, and my first novel, Soul Awakening, was published in October 2011 in the United States.

Now that I have a firm grasp on the tail of my flying elephant, I will never let it go. I sincerely hope that someday you can catch your flying elephant too.

© Doug Simpson 2013.

Doug Simpson is a retired high school teacher who has turned his talents to writing. His first novel, a spiritual mystery titled Soul Awakening, was published in the US in October 2011 by Booklocker. It was reissued in October 2012 by 5 Prince Publishing as Soul Awakening, Book I of the Dacque Chronicles. For further details visit them at http://5princebooks.com/. Soul Rescue, Book II of the Dacque Chronicles, was published in November 2012; Soul Mind, Book III of the Dacque Chronicles, was published in January 2013; and Soul Connections, Book IV of the Dacque Chronicles, was published in April 2013. His magazine and website articles have been published in 2010 to 2013 in Australia, Canada, France, India, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. His articles can be accessed through his website at http://dousimp.mnsi.net.     

Disclaimer: opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors of the individual posts, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or publishers of this site.