Will typhoid Sheryl strike again?

I was working a job I hated, for the possibly worse lawyer boss on the face of the earth, and decided to try a career of typing up transcripts for the Court Reporters. I knew one reporter, from my secretarial job, and she needed someone to do her typing. Things were going well and I was thinking about marketing and expanding, when they came out with a computer program that did it for the Reporters. Thus, ending my job.

Then, being an artist who loves painting people, I looked at my market and decided to do Native Americans. I was really tired of painting deceased children. This is what my "paint people" marketing was bringing in. It is a depressing thing to do on a daily basis and most of the parents, I was meeting, just did not seem to be ready for it.

I had a love of the Native American culture and was raised to believe I had Native heritage. I started exhibiting at Pow Wows and marketing my work in the Western artist market and before long, I was exhibiting in National shows, being asked to do things like deceased actor Will Sampson's (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) portrait. I was also getting written up in SouthWest Art Magazine. Then, as I start selling a large original every month, the bottom drops out of the native market. Shows started closing and frankly, I was out of marketing money, having made a bad decisions, based on SouthWest Art's Magazine add salesman. Sometime I will tell you about my opinion of advertising salesmen. Another career bites the dust.

We moved to Wyoming and I begin putting together my pottery studio and man that stuff sold so fast I could not keep up. I could barely keep up with the sales of my animal drawings and had a list of commissions to keep me busy. The time came when, Casper, Wyoming being a city, at the time of around 60,000 people, I realized that I had pretty well reached my clients. I could branch out into other states but my husband's health was deteriorating. So, when I was downsized at the College, we decided to move back to Indiana.

We decided that the artist town of Nashville, Indiana was our target. It had an active community of artists and was only three hours drive from daughter and husband's relatives. We moved, we remodeled a horse barn for my studio, I joined the local art guilds and the Brown County Studio and Garden Tours 2008. Actually, I joined the tour of 2004. That year I made more in sales than I had in two years in Wyoming, and my income doubled the next year and again the next year. Had I, at last, found my niche?

Some unknown illness was beating me down and I was gradually unable to do pottery. I quit the tour to build up my health and I, are you ready, began making eight inch tall polymer clay fairies and selling them on eBay. My last one sold for $700. That was about six months before emergency heart surgery. Recovering now, I could go back to doing that but since prices on eBay have dropped well over twenty-five percent, and still going down. I do feel I have again hit an occupation just as it was falling into the great abyss.

I refuse to believe I caused these things to happen. I just seem to have a knack for getting into things at the wrong time. I stay away from the stock market because, well- I can't afford it, but also it is in enough trouble already.

Now, my final edit is over half done and I am working on some marketing, and a lot of research to do the best query I can. So, it was with some delight, that I recently read The 26th Story: George Jones Q & A . This was actually a link on Nathan Bransford - Literary Agent blog. George Jones is the President and CEO of Borders Group, Inc. And, news is not so bad.

So, I hope you excuse if I am not posting as often as I would like, but I gotta hurry before the bottom drops out. Hopefully, with the confidence of Mr. Jones, it will stay strong for us and break my streak.

Wednesday with the Writer's Journal

It is again the Aspiring Writer's Journal Amazon.com: The Aspiring Writer's Journal: Susie Morgenstern, Theresa Bronn: Books for Wednesday.

I am not following it like a journal, doing each assignment on the correct date. I tend to jump around for inspiration. Today, I landed (after only three tries) on October sixth, "Become an editor!" and critiquing a friends novel. I do not have a friend writing a novel, at least none that admit it. Master's daughter is working on Children's Picture books, but says it is slow going with all the rest that life is handing her.

As an art teacher, I know from critiquing student's work that it is always best to begin on a positive. So find something, anything that you can say that is positive. There are many sites telling you how to critique a novel, including: Writing a Critique of a Novel.

We have a little joke in our family. My mother often provides these types of jokes and once she was asked, by a fellow art student, for an opinion on the student's newest painting. Mother had a dilemma: to lie and say something wonderful about it or to tell the truth and hurt the ladies feelings. She paused for a moment, ostensibly studying this great work of art, but really thinking about what to say, and she came up with, "It sure is green."

Amazingly, this pleased the student, who went away smiling and it resolved mom's moral dilemma. It also became family code for 'ugly.' It sure does sparkle, glow, have big flowers, is bright, etc now replaced "awful ugly." There is always something positive you can say, if you look hard enough.

There are many ways to save a writer's feelings and give them information that will help them improve their work. We all started somewhere and usually that was at the beginning. I've always thought that anyone can learn to paint well enough for their own enjoyment, if they spend the time working at it. Like playing piano, it is the hours spent in practice that make the difference.

Writing Dreams

I have worked on my current book for almost three years now. Since I have vibrantly realistic dreams, I find it odd that I have not dreamed anything for my book.

I have spent hours searching for the perfect name for some of my characters. (Be patient. I will link these two paragraphs in a minute) I was reading Pollyanna and the Random Weirdness of Baby Names « Pollyanna Rainbow Sunshine and the Needles of Doom's blog on the Random Weirdness of Baby Names and came across several potentially interesting sites for name generators.

I had to try the Harry Potter name generator Rum and Monkey: The Name Generator Generator, just because I love Harry Potter. But, alas, I turned out to be Hermione. Just between you and me, I think all women turn out to be Hermione. (Personally, I think all women must turn out to be Hermione in this exercise.) I may have been like Hermione in many ways when I was ten, but I am far from her now.

(The connection with those paragraphs will happen now. Just in case you do not get it.) That night, I dreamed I was Hermione and in a huge house and it did tend to go on and on pointlessly. Much as this blog is beginning to do.

Here's the thing. I have had dreams about Nicholas Cage about six times. I have dreamt about the Harry Potter world numerous times. I have actually had several dreams that were in the range of foretelling. But, I cannot get myself to have a dream about my book. Even though it is often the last thing I do, read, and think about.

I am just thankful I did not dream about my Indie Band Name:Rum and Monkey: The Name Generator Generator Silver Alligator Strange Castle.

Seeds for Seniors

Okay, second time I post identical posts. Sorry, but this one is important, to me.

I want to suggest an idea to everyone, and since I like to dream big, to everyone in the world. Okay, if it spread in the US, it would make me happy.

I like to garden but have always just planted enough to keep us, in tomatoes, hot peppers and green onions. This year I added my watermelons to the mix and I do have about five but I do not know if they will ever get big enough to eat before the weather gets too cold. When mom moved in with us, I threw in an extra tomato plant or two for her.

Now that she lives in an income based senior’s apartment building, I have been taking a box of tomatoes to her and she picks what she wants out of it. I planned on putting the remainder on the table in the entertainment room. Some stores will bring over breads and such and leave them there, so I figure whoever wanted tomatoes could have some fresh garden ones.

But, I only get as far as the elevator, from mom’s apartment. The ladies on the second floor are all over me for my tomatoes. I never saw them move so fast. It’s almost like Christmas to them. A lot of these seniors are totally alone in the world and they do not eat that balanced of a diet.

So, next year, besides starting seeds indoors, I am going to plant as much as I can take care of and take the extra to their building. Without having a lot of money to give, it’s a way I can feel like I am contributing to society and enriching their lives. Not only does it help them to eat a better diet (and believe me, they need help with that) but it lets them know someone cares.

So, how about it? Do you have income based senior housing in your town? Do you have a garden plot? You will bring joy and nutrition to an elderly person by just planting a couple extra tomato plants and donating the leftovers. And, when you see the delight in their faces and how fast those tomatoes disappear, I bet the next year you add more to your garden too.

So, what can we call this? We need a catchy name, like Seeds for Seniors or Tomatoes – no, never mind, that’s not a good one. Hey, and maybe someone is doing this already. It is along the lines of planting a garden in your front yard for the neighborhood to enjoy, like CrazyAuntPurl: The edible lawn...? talked about.

I'll be back later today

I am trying to post every three days here on Blogger. I am also trying to be more entertaining here. I think my first few posts were dry as sap. No, make that wheat toast without Brummels & Brown or Jam. Sap probably is not dry. It's smooth.

I post daily, almost, on Savanvleck’s Weblog. I usually post first thing in the morning, on both blogs.

Okay, so not exactly first thing. There is a little matter of feeding the rabbit, or she throws her ceramic dish around and makes a fierce racket. And, Irritating little Chihuahua, or she sits and looks at me and pouts. But, blogs are next. Well, unless I get distracted by other people's blogs and then lunch will be next before I get back to mine. (And, I wonder why I'm not finishing my YA edit. Oh, yes, this week it is back to YA and not Middle Grade.)

So, the whole point to this is that tomorrow morning, I am off to take my mother for her protime blood work (that's to find out if the Warfarin is making her blood too thin). This means that I will show up at her apartment, and she will get ready to go and then want to stop for breakfast and then go to the hospital for her test. Then, we will go to WalMart and/or the grocery store. And, then I will fix things that are wrong on her computer and take her garbage out and do all those little things and maybe get home around three.

Okay, so you could have just read the Title of the blog to learn that I'll be back later. But, be honest, that would not have been near as much fun now, would it?

Brains - all of them

Gaffer brought home two of Terry Pratchett's books this past summer and left them for me to read. I thought the first page of The Color of Magic was brilliant, but then I got bogged down by the made-up names.

Somehow my brain seems unable, at times, to wrap itself around foreign words. I did not study a foreign language until college, where they tried me in four different Spanish classes. The last Spanish teacherI had told me that I was speaking it perfectly. My reply was, "But, I don't know what I am saying."

I have finished The Color of Magic and am starting on The Light Fantastic, and I am now a huge Terry Pratchett fan. However, (head bent with shame/frustration/embarrassment) I have to admit that I have only, today, caught "Ankh Morpork," as in MORE-PORK. Geez, am I slow. I laughed out loud today when I finally got it. What a genius he is.

It makes me feel a century behind when I find a whole new world of books, conventions and genius. How did I go so long without discovering this? But, that does make it fun. There is always something new to discover around the corner.

Which brings me to the news I read today. At the end of 2007, Terry Pratchett announced that he has a rare form of early-onset Alzheiemer's, called posterior cortical atrophy. Posterior cortical atrophy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

He feels there is still time to "kill the Demon" Terry Pratchett: I'm slipping away a bit at a time... and all I can do is watch it happen Mail Online and, as us baby boomers age we should all be fighting the same battle. It is not a shame to have. A person has not done anything to have it.

My uncle went in for surgery and came out with severe dementia; who stole knives from restaurants and was scared to death of men with beards. My aunt developed Alzheimer's slowly. This normally sour looking old lady, became quite a happy person, who told us we could go swim in the fish tank and that she had a pet spider, who had babies, on the track her privacy curtain slid on. I missed both of them, while they were here and still do. Was I ashamed of them? Never, not once.

So, that is my soap box for today. Should you have an extra $5.00 in this crashing stock market world, remember that this possibility can strike any of us or our loved ones and Donate to the Alzheimer's Association.

Wednesdays with "The Aspiring Writer's Journal"

Wednesday may become “The Aspiring Writer’s Journal” day.

Today’s assignment is, because all writing is good practice:

“What would you like to never end?”

And, no, you are not allowed to say life. That’s what the book says, anyway. Frankly, I think it's a fair answer.

I would like to look up and see a never ending aurora borealis, or even better all the nebula, etc in outer space. (We don't see aurora borealis in southern Indiana.)

I would like my nighttime hallucinations to go on forever. These were black and white movies I saw when I woke up during the night, while taking certain prescription drugs after surgery, and actually once since I was off of them. They were much nicer than my bloody Melatonin dreams; which I have only had two of, thank goodness.

I wish there was always a baby to cuddle and revel in the smell of it’s hair.

I wish a cool gentle breeze always blew across my body at night

I wish good books would never end: Harry Potter, The Autobiography of Henry VIII by Margaret George, all Janet Evanovich’s mysteries,

I wish fall leaves fell from the trees forever. Actually, this year they kind of did all summer.

I wish snowmen never melted and you could always have snowball fights.

And that spring flowers grew up through all of it, always.

I wish there was a never ending supply of watermelon in the fridge.

I wish the feeling of that Halloween, when I fell in love with Zorro (who was also trick or treating) would have lasted forever. That’s the first time I felt that “in love” feeling.

But, if these things never ended, would they be as special? I think so.