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Thursday, 25 December 2008
A Mother at Last
Topic: Miscellaneous

 I was tagged to write a Christmas story. This was first started my Marvin Wilson over at http://inspiritandtruths.blogspot.com/ and he passed it onto Ron Berry over at  http://unwriter1.wordpress.com/ who passed it onto me.  I decided to write of the one Christmas that will forever stand out in my mind.  I hope you enjoy it--and feel the joy that was felt that Christmas.  May your most heartfelt wishes become reality this year!

 ***

She had taken them in one by one.  First came the boy that was passed from one person to the next.  He found a home with her, a home of love and caring.  Next came a brother and sister.  They had lost their mother to death and their father to anger and pain.  She went to the children's home and brought them into her own--giving them love and nourishment of both body and spirit. 

Last came the little one, not yet a year old.  "Merry Christmas, she's yours." The words came from the bay's father--not wanting the baby. She was in her fifties, but took the girl under her wings and raised her--giving her a home, love, a chance.  Only this one called her "Mom", but there was always the slight nagging that she would be lost before she grew up. After all, her dad lived les than twenty miles away.

They all grew and had families of their own.  Aunt Rheuie they called her and she accepted this.  She was unable to bear a child from her own body-but she loved each one as though she had carried them herself.

***

The snow fell that December. It had been thirty years since that last wee one was left with her.  As she watched the snow grow deeper her heart sank-would she be alone this Christmas?  Surely nobody would travel in such a storm.  Rheuie barely heard the knock on the door, but there it was again. Her heart sang with joy, seeing the woman and three children on the other side.  Her "bay" had made it.

With shaking hands, grown frail with age, she opened the litle package slowly.  Inside was a small box of dark blue velvet, holding a ring of gold, with four tiny stones.  Tears fell when she read the single word engraved on the band, the one word that made all those years worth it:

Mother!

 ***

I will let everyone know later this weekend who I pas the New Year's story onto.


Posted by joyceanthony at 3:10 AM EST
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Tuesday, 16 December 2008
Honest Scrap Award
Topic: Miscellaneous

I received the Honest Scrap Award today from Nikki Leigh ( http://virtualblogtour.blogspot.com:80/2008/12/honest-scrap-award.html  )

Below are the guidelines when winning the Honest Scrap award:


1. List 10 honest things about yourself (make it interesting, even if you have to dig deep!)

2. Pass the award on to 7 bloggers who will be brutally honest with their answers


So let's start with the 10 honest things about myself:

1. My eyes were blue until I was twelve-then they turned brown.

2. The first Bible verse I ever memorized was John 3:16.  I was four years old.

3. I collect railroad memorabilia.
4.  I have my own Pokemon deck-and can win with it!

5.  My college career placement test said I should be a forest ranger.

6.  I once ate rattlesnake and mountain oysters in the same meal.

7.  I once beat a metermaid over the head with a broom.

8.  I have an obsession for pens and blank legal pads.

9. Two sounds I find physically painful are a phone ringing and an alarm clock.

10.  I say what I mean and mean what I say.  People who only have listen or try to figure out "what you really meant" anoy me to know end.

Here are 7 blogs (in no particular order) I believe deserve this award now. Remember, this award is given to those who have the gut to say it as it is, to tell the Honest Scrap:
Free Spirit -- Marvin Wilson -- http://inspiritandtruths.blogspot.com/
Kat Logic -- Katrina Wampler --  http://katrinawampler.wordpress.com/
Musings of a Quirky Loon -- http://www.quirkyloon.com/
Straight From Hel  Helen Ginger --  http://straightfromhel.blogspot.com/
Emma Larkins --  http://emmalarkins.blogspot.com/
Unwriter --  Ron Berry --  http://unwriter1.wordpress.com/
Double M's -  Morgan Mandel --  http://morganmandel.blogspot.com/

Posted by joyceanthony at 8:13 PM EST
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Wednesday, 10 December 2008
Writing Blogs to enjoy!!
Topic: Miscellaneous

This Writing Blog Discovery Project (a meme) and the first Writing Links originally started off from the Juiced on Writing blog.

Here’s how it works.

  • If you write a Writing blog take all of the links on this page and add yours to it (if not there already), and also think about adding a writing friend’s blog link to the list (tell them you’ve done it, so that they can then add their own entry on their blogs also), then publish a blog entry like mine. It’s like a wrapped surprise gift - explore the writing blog world by just clicking on a random link in the package.
  • Add your new discoveries to your blogroll if you keep one. Simply republishing this list as a blog entry also benefits the writers on 
  • These are all blogs with a focus on writing - that’s the one rule. Some are award winners, some are entirely personal, some are extremely popular, some are group blogs, some are part of a community of blogs, and some are just getting started. There are freelance writers, ebook writers, novelists, non-fiction authors, article writers, copywriters, published writers, professional writers, and non-published writers in this list. There are aspiring writers, writers who also have other interests, and there are writers who coach or teach about writing.
  • Blogs from writers of all ethnicities, cultural and religious or sexual preferences are encouraged. I respect all values when talking writing. I’m sure you’ll do likewise.
  • Most blogs on here should be current - with at least a blog entry from the past month. If your blog has gone into hiatus, please don’t add it here, unless the archives contain lots of useful information. An example can be found in the Miss Snark blog, which provides ample information even a year or so later.
  • To link to your blog, try not to add it by writer name, if possible. A Blog name is preferable, just to add to the surprise for readers clicking on these links.
  • The blog links you find below -  in this format, have all been browsed to personally, and are confirmed as belonging to writers with writing content. .
  • You do have permission to republish this list, and add to it with further writing blog links, on your own blog. In fact, this is encouraged!

Here are the links --More than 100!

Writing Blogs from around the World :

Juiced on Writing | Writing Career Coach | Nick Daws’ Writing Blog | The Ups, Downs and Sometimes Insane World of Freelance Writing | The Writer’s Roadmap | Grammar Girl | Cute Writing | Tumblemoose | The Writers Manifesto Blog | Murder & Magnolias | The Fictorium | Writer…Interrupted | Pix-N-Pens | Juiced on Writing | Girls Write Out | Novel Journey | Write Thinking | Confident Writing | A Life in Pages | Write to Done | Foxy Writer | Story Hack | Writing Journey | Advanced Fiction Writing | Scribereglyph | No Excuses, Just Write | Rantings and Ravings of an Insane Writer | A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing | Acme Authors | At Home, Writing | The Rejecter | A Writer’s Edge | Remarkable Communication | Men with Pens | Freelance Parent | The Golden Pencil | Ink in my Coffee | Inkthinker | All the Write Stuff | BK Birch’s Writers Blog | Chronicling the Novel | Freelance Writing Jobs | eWrite Life | Miss Snark | The Renegade Writer | Writing White Papers | Pub Rants | The Well-Fed Writer | Writer Beware Blogs! | Gotta Write Girl | PoeWar | Tip Booklets | 1WriteWay | Enriched by Words | To Breathe Underwater | Annie on Writing | The Interminable Writer | Just Another Writing Blog | Not Enough Words | Paperback Writer | Writing Time | Writer Dad | Pocket Full of Words | Tech for Writers | Writing with Zette | The First Book | Buzz Balls and Hype | Big Bad Book Blog | Diary of a Wordsmith | Freelance Writing Tips | Inky Girl | The Urban Muse | Mike’s Writing Workshop | Write to Travel | Something She Wrote | Wordcount | Write-From-Home | Writing the Cyber Highway | Write on Wednesday | Writer’s Roundabout | The Writer’s Technology Companion | Writer Unboxed | Backstory | Editorial Anonymous | Murder She Writes | SlushPile.Net | WOW - Women on Writing | Rejection is My Middle Name | Emerging Writers Network | Writing Power | Writing Hermit | Write Anything | Always Try a Little Harder | Pecked by Ducks | Bookends LLC - A Literary Agent | writerjenn | Daily Writing Tips | Freedom from the Mundane | The View from Here | Books and Authors


Posted by joyceanthony at 9:23 PM EST
Updated: Thursday, 11 December 2008 1:34 AM EST
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Thursday, 2 October 2008
Re-launch of Writers and Authors
Topic: Miscellaneous

Jo Linsdell has returned to the Internet at full-speed.  Her re-launch of Writers and Authors   http://writersandauthors.blogspot.com/   is seeing wonderful changes.  Just look at what you can find there:

  • Links to sites for writers
  • Link to dictionaries, thesaurus, idioms, etc...
  • Writer competitions
  • Tips and advice from people in the industry (e.g. writers, publishers,   editors, etc...)
  • Upcoming events
  • Book reviews
  • Writing prompts

    • The site will continue to grow and is a wonderful resource for writers.  More features are being added regularly, including author interviews.  This site promises to be not only a resource for those wishing to hone their craft, but also a place for promotion of author's work.

    Tomorrow, Jo stops by to answer some questions for us.  Please stop by, read and ask your own questions! For today, let's find out just who Jo Linsdell is.

    Jo Linsdell
    Born in Gillingham, Kent (UK) in September 1980. Married name Joanne Denise Feliciani. She uses her maiden name, Linsdell, as her pen name. Having passed 10 GCSE’s, she went on to study Business Studies, History and Art A-Levels at Yateley 6th Form. She left England and moved to Rome, Italy in June 2001, where she now lives with her Italian husband and their baby son. She has had various jobs including working in hostels, being a tour guide and teaching English as a foreign language. She now works full-time as a freelance writer. She writes regularly for various websites, newspapers and magazines. Her books, Italian for tourists and A guide to weddings in Italy plus her ebooks; Il dolce Natale: Christmastime in Italy, Some risks are worth taking, INSIDE.OUT, La Befana and The Patron Saint of Lovers are all available to buy at www.lulu.com . Visit her at http://jolinsdell.tripod.com  or http://www.lulu.com/jolinsdell or http://www.myspace.com/jolinsdell  

    Posted by joyceanthony at 2:01 AM EDT
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    Thursday, 25 September 2008
    Stop Believing in Your Own Weakness--A Special Message
    Topic: Miscellaneous
    Stop Believing in Your Own Weakness

    It is our fear of being alone and in doubt, of wanting to feel certain that
    what we are doing is right, that compels us to seek the approval of others. So this tells us that the chief cause of why our lives so often wind up in the hands of others is not that they are superior or that the world is too strong for us, but that we don't want to face the uncertainty and aloneness we think we are too weak to bear. This is the real cause of all of our wrong relationships in life. We have been betrayed by a belief in our own weakness.

    The conscious refusal to go along with what our weakness wants us to do to escape its uncertainty is what invokes and finally delivers real inner confidence. This new kind of strength gradually becomes the
    cornerstone of a true individual existence -- the life we've always wanted. The stakes are actually eternal -- but self-victory is as
    certain as the fact that light always triumphs over darkness.

    Use the following ten key lessons to help strengthen your understanding of these vital ideas. Think about them; welcome their healing insights as "lights along the way" to true self-liberation.

    Special Study for Lasting Self-Possession

    1. When you don't know what to do with yourself, someone will always be happy to tell you.

    2. Why seek the approval of someone who doesn't even approve of himself?

    3. Fawning before an angry person is like asking a rabid wolf for its
    approval.

    4. The more approval you get, the more you have to have.

    5. Keeping any person or circumstance in your life that demands you
    surrender your right to be a whole and happy human being is wrong for everyone involved.

    6. When you are out standing in a storm, don't blame the weather.

    7. Real strength always follows uncovering one of the roots of weakness.

    8. Don't seek yourself. Dare to be yourself.

    9. If you were really doing the right thing with your life, you wouldn't
    need anyone to tell you that you were.

    10. Permitting your life to be taken over by another person is like letting the waiter eat your dinner. (Vernon Howard)

    No human being has any authority over you. Your life belongs to you and to you alone. No scowling face or irritated manner, no challenging posture or threatening tone, has any power to make you feel nervous or anxious, frightened or angry. Your true nature answers to no one. This is a fact, and anyone who is tired of letting someone else tell them how to feel can use this self-liberating principle to win true and lasting independence.
                                                                     -- Guy Finley

    Posted by joyceanthony at 2:07 AM EDT
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    Thursday, 11 September 2008
    Where were you when.......?
    Topic: Miscellaneous

     

    I stopped over to visit Lynn at http://lynnmcmo.blogspot.com/ and she had the most interest Meme going, so I thought I'd share it with you guys :-)  It is interesting to see where people were during events we all remember!!

    Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster - January 28, 1986

    I was on my way home from work, on a city bus, when this happened.  I walked into the house where I saw a replay on television.  I remeber feeling completely numb.

    The Oklahoma City Bombing - April 19, 1995

    After a very hectic day with a two-year-old, I finally settled in for a quiet evening and turned the radio on.  I remember crying, then praying for the families, then going into my sleeping son and thanking God that, in spite of all the difficulty we had, he was safely home sleeping.

    Princess Diana's Death - 31 August 1997
    I didn't find this one out until the next day.  This was a time when I was trying to work full-time and get help for a four-year-old who was being consistently thrown out of day care centers.  He had just started getting counseling and I was juggling that, taking care of the house and working full-time.  This event didn't effect me as deeply as it did so many.  I remember thinking how tragic it was, but it seemed so far removed from what was my life at the time.
    Attack on the Twin Towers - 11 September 2001
    This one tore me to pieces.  I walked into my first counseling session and, as the elevator doors opened, I was facing the television and saw the plane crash into one of the towers.  I felt as though someone had just told me the world was ending.  I rmember crying, then getting angry and then shaking.  I wanted to go and pick my son up at school, but didn't.  I met his school bus that day and didn't think I was going to let him go when I hugged him.  We walked to the Lake where I founds out he had watched the attack on TV at school and I answered what questions I could to help him understand (he was only seven)---I wasn't completely understanding the whole thing myself.
    Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster - February 1, 2003
    I didn't find this one out until later.  I had spent the day visiting my son in the residential treatment center he had been in for four months.  I prayed to God that night, asking if this was His way of trying to tell people they should not be trying to travel in space.  It somehow reminded me of His anger at the building of the Tower of Babel.

    7th Harry Potter Book is Released - 21 July 2007

    I was asleep at the moment this book came out.  My mother knew my son and I had read the first six and had already pre-ordered a copy of this one. I couldn't see standing in a line, in the middle of the night--among a BIG crowd of people!--for a book we would be getting in a day or two.

    Michael Phelps Wins His 8th Gold Medal - August 16, 2008

    Uh..don't shoot me, but  WHO is Michael Phelps???

    So, what about you? Where were YOU when all of this happened???


    Posted by joyceanthony at 1:10 AM EDT
    Updated: Thursday, 11 September 2008 1:16 AM EDT
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    Sunday, 17 August 2008
    The Name Game
    Topic: Miscellaneous

    Lacresha Hayes ( http://learntofeelpretty.blogspot.com ) went and tagged me again!!!  Here is a fun name challenge--I hope everyone leaves me a comment with their "names" :-)

    1. Your real name: Joyce

    2. Your Gangsta name(first 3 letters of real name plus izzle): Joyizzle

    3. Your Detective name:(fave color and fave animal) Yellow Tiger

    4. Your Soap Opera name:(your middle name and street you live on) Ann East

    5. Your Star Wars name:(the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name) Antjo

    6. Your Superhero name:(your 2ND favorite color, and favorite drink) Black Nofear

    7. Your Iraqi name:(2ND letter of your first name, 3rd letter of your last name, 1st letter of your middle name, 2ND letter of your moms maiden name, 3rd letter of your dads middle name, 1st letter of a siblings first name, and last letter of your moms middle name) Otaursn

    8. Your Witness Protection name:(parents middle names) Ann Gerald

    9. Your Goth name:(black, and the name of one of your pets) Hmmm...Black Sam/ Black Venus/ Black Spirit...the rest just sound strange :-)

     


    Posted by joyceanthony at 4:22 PM EDT
    Updated: Sunday, 17 August 2008 4:26 PM EDT
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    Saturday, 9 August 2008
    I've Been Tagged!!
    Topic: Miscellaneous

    My dear friend Lacresha Hayes ( http://learntofeelpretty.blogspot.com:80/ ) tagged me with the follow meme.  Read on to see my answers and find out who I tagged!!

    1) Computer, longhand, or other? 

    Both.  My emotional pieces are always done longhand first.  My non-fiction, freelance stuff on the computer.  My creative writing is done almost as channeled writing and I find this hard to accomplish on a computer.

    2) Coffee or tea?

    Neither--well unless the tea is iced.  My preferred drinks are ice water and No Fear, sugar-free energy drink

    3) Day or night?

    Night--I am not a day person--and I definitely don't do mornings.  I do most of my work at night.  Creativity and calmness both set in at that point.

    4) Favorite genre to write?

    Anything that inspires or provides hope and meaning to others. 

    5) Pencil or pen to edit?

    Pen.  I print out my draft and use a pen to make notes and changes between the lines.

    6) Unusual writing quirk or trait?

    I'm not sure how unusual this is, but I use specific types of paper for each thing I'm writing.  Storm was written on rainbow-colored legal pads.  My latest, as yet untitled, is being written in a journal, as that is the format of the story.  Somehow the "right" paper brings about the mood for me.

    7) Writing from home or writing in a cozy café?

    This gets complicated.  Home has too many distractions except late at night.  Depending on what I'm writing, I go different places.  My favorite place is a toss up between Presque Isle State Park and our public dock.  The history is rich, the water is inspiring, nature sooths my soul and allows creativity to flow.

    However....

    If I am trying to understand a character or get into the feeling of a piece, I find somewhere that will help with that--someplace that can help me feel the scene or get inside my character's head.

    8) Music or silence while your write?

    Silence or the sound of rain or waves.

    9) Favorite motivational writing quote?

    Something that was actually said to me when I was brave enough to tell someone I wanted to be a writer.  He looked at me and said in his matter-of-fact manner: "If you want to be a writer, then write!"

    10) Favorite bookmark?

    I honestly don't have a favorite.  Mine are just practical places I need to be at various times.

    11) Favorite fictional character of all time?

    Again--no particular favorite.  I have met so many wonderful characters, each with something to tell me or teach me, that it is impossible to choose just one.

    12) Most admired living writer today?

    Richard Bach--no thinking necessary.  That man is a literary genius.

    Now the extra fun part:

    Phillip Beebe
    http://phillipbeebe.tripod.com/Fiction/Fiction_Factor.html
    and
    Jessica Kenendy
    http://jessicakennedy71.blogspot.com/
    You two are up!!!

    Posted by joyceanthony at 7:28 PM EDT
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    Tuesday, 29 July 2008
    More Fun Ahead!!
    Topic: Miscellaneous

    You guys are awesome!!!  I just checked stats and see you have stuck with me during my vacation.  Your loyalty will be rewarded over the coming weeks.

    First, there will be at least three four-day blog tours here--some excellent books and authors, folks!!  In addition, a few book reviews are forthcoming.

    We'll be meeting some real characters--literally!  An added feature of the blog will be character interviews from books you know and love--or will by the time I finish.

    In addition, I'll be allowing the kids a chance to speak their minds.  Let's see what they really think of Mom and Dad being writers!!!

    Let me know if there is anything in particular you would like to ask of characters or kids!!!


    Posted by joyceanthony at 12:01 AM EDT
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    Friday, 4 July 2008
    Apology
    Topic: Miscellaneous

    I would like to extend an apology to all my readers.  I have had major computer problems the past two days and this has delayed sweveral important things.  I will be posting the remainder of Ms. Lee's blog tour and announcing the winners of both the book drawing and writing contest on Friday--after I get a few hours sleep.  It has been a VERY long two days and I thank you for your patience.

                                Joyce


    Posted by joyceanthony at 4:51 AM EDT
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