But they always wander back. And it’s always so good to have them home for a few days before they go back to their own lives. But eventually they leave again and the house is quiet but somehow it isn’t empty…it’s just waiting.

When the cat who has been your companion for almost 23 years has gone, the house isn’t just waiting. It’s empty and somehow stripped of its’ identity. It’s no longer a home, it’s just four walls and a roof, something to keep out the rain. And the wind… Have you ever noticed how the wind can sometimes sound like a cat’s meow?

I wish I could believe in the heaven that others talk about. You know, that bright shinning land that never knows winter and where you are reunited with your loved ones and the days are filled with love and laughter. Surely, if there is such a place, that is where our pets go to wait for us.

I’d like to think he is there, playing the way he did when he was a kitten, before age made it difficult to even stand and time had stolen his eyesight. I’d like to think of him meeting up with his predecessors, and there have been many, and talking about the good times they had with me. I had always had two cats at a time so they could keep each other company when I was at work. Then, when there was no more work (nothing lasts forever)…well, I just always had two.

Until I only had one. But I told myself that one was enough, especially now that it was becoming more difficult to do things and money was becoming tight. You see, while time was passing for my furry partners, it was also passing for me. I really hadn’t noticed until my employer told me they’d decided they needed someone younger. Was it a coincidence that I was laid off from work after 23 years of employment and he went away at 23? Maybe 23 years is some kind of universal expiration date that I failed to take note of. There seems to be so much of that lately, failing to notice things…. Evidently others don’t overlook it because my resumes are usually met with some variation of ‘no, we are looking for someone younger’. My current favorite is a very tactful ‘more recent graduate’.

So now the nights grow colder and there is no warm furry body curled up at my side to keep me warm. There is no soft paw to slap my cheek in the morning with a forceful ‘muuurrrrrowww’, which, after many years of association, I learned to translate as ‘I want my breakfast now’. And, now that there is no sleekly furred hunter to guard the citadel, the gray bleakness of late fall forces its’ way inside without restriction. Inside is outside so no reason not to beard the lion in its’ den, as it were. I miss my lion.

I turn on the walkway, careful on the frost slicked cement, and glance back at the window, almost expecting to see a little black nose pressed up against the pane. There wasn’t of course. It was just force of habit. Just like going out to collect the mail even though I know it will contain nothing that matters. So little matters these days. Most of the time I don’t see the point. I still write though, partly out of habit but also because I somehow feel better when I get things out of my head and onto paper. In that way, you could say that thoughts are a little like nightmares, expose them to light and they just aren’t so scary. It’s like the solidity of black letters on white paper makes them tangible and real and easier to handle. Just print them out, wad up the paper and throw them away. See? Gone…dismissed…handled.

I lowered the flag on the mailbox and reached for the latch when a scratching from inside made me withdraw. Last summer a lizard had somehow (I suspect one of the neighborhood children had a hand) gotten himself stuck inside. To say he was unhappy about the situation is to say the least. He popped out of the mailbox so quickly that for a moment I thought he was a snake and that gave me quite a scare. It was one experience I had no wish to repeat. So I waited a minute. All was quiet so I waited yet another minute before cracking the mailbox door gingerly. Then I stepped back to give the occupant time to escape.

After a long moment something again rustled inside and a tiny paw emerged from the darkness of the box. A tiny orange paw. Then, just as slowly retreated. I peeked inside and, huddled against the back of the mailbox was a tiny tiger striped kitten. Grey-blue eyes stared out at me warily as the little guy tried to make himself as small as possible in the darkness. I leaned in and tried to speak to him in a soft soothing voice. Again, I suspected that one of the neighbor kids had been tormenting one of the community’s feral kittens and had locked the little guy inside. I knew the best thing to do was to call the local chapter of Forgotten Felines and have the kitten picked up. Then he moved again and I saw the bow.

It had been hidden behind him as he pressed against the back. I reached toward him. He batted at my finger with that quick little paw. Then he actually jumped over my hand to bat at my glasses which were swinging from the cord tied around my neck. As he engaged my glasses (a bug eyed monster to be sure) in mock battle I could plainly see the writing on the tag attached to the big white bow. In a childish scrawl it said “To Ms M, with love. No one should be alone at Christmas”. As I gathered the little guy up, oops…excuse me…little girl, I thought *yes, no one should be alone for Christmas, not even the littlest creature*. I know Cinnamon won’t be here forever. Nothing is forever. But whatever time there is, that will be almost enough.

The BMW rocked side to side a couple of time but was otherwise immobile. What WAS this guy doing? Surely, he didn’t think he was parking here in the middle of the street. She wasn’t entirely clear on New York’s driving code but she was certain double-parking wasn’t legal. Of course, there were no police on hand and, with traffic the way it was, none likely to arrive in the immediate future. She craned her neck to see in the other car with little success. She honked her own horn, more to let the guys behind her know that she, too, was a victim, than to provoke any movement from the Beemer. She was sure that adding to the current bedlam was likely to have any effect on the situation.

Carla wasn’t stupid. There was no way she was going to get out of her car to see what was going on. In today’s world that was likely to get you shot. You could read countless articles in which road rage triggered a shoot-out and loss of life. She knew..she had written some of them. If the guy behind her wanted to climb out and take his chances, so be it. But she was going to sit right here, her windows rolled all the way up, no matter that it was sweltering outside, and wait for the incident to resolve itself. And, she reminded herself, she would be ready to duck or dodge, whichever the situation called for.

The car rocked again as the drivers door was thrown open and a leg appeared … clad in sheet metal? What the…. More movement, and a second leg, similarly attired, followed. The legs kicked, struggled, stilled then kicked again. No other portions of the driver emerged. Carla could no longer contain her curiosity. Her caution and stained clothing forgotten, she threw open her door and moved toward the now pitching BMW.

Peering into the front seat she saw a prone figure dressed in what appeared to be a suit of medieval armor, the elbow of which had apparently gotten looped around the gear shift and had now effectively tethered the ‘knight’ to his steed. The legs kicked again as the ‘knight’ tried unsuccessfully to extricate himself.

“Wait. Wait a minute!”, Carla jumped to avoid the wildly swinging legs. “You’re just making things worse. Let me help you so we can get the car out of here before this crowd riots and the cops show up.”

“Oh, yeah…ughhh..uh, hi.” The knight tried to turn toward her , but the metal plates encasing his torso made the action impossible.

“What the hell?”, a deep voice rasped over her shoulder. Apparently one of the drivers in what was now essentially a parking lot, had decided to address the problem at its’ source and was now staring incredulously at the prostrate ‘knight’.

“He’s hung up on the stick shift.” Carla said unnecessarily..

“Oh, for Christ’s sake! Let’s get him off the stick so he can move this hunk o’junk out of the way before war breaks out.’

I do love the California North Coast. We may not get all the colors of the northeast in fall, but we get enough that a drive in the country is an inspiration to any landscape artist worth their salt. And the smells…the smell of the North Coast countryside is like no other place in the world. The tinge of salt air mixed with the sharpness of Eucalyptus and the fruity richness of grape, apple, and pear combine to make a ‘window down’ excursion a veritable banquet for the olfactory senses.

But I wasn’t paying any attention to the bounty of my surroundings this morning, only to the encroachment of a season that would do nothing to elevate the funk I have been mired in for the past few weeks. Have I mentioned that I dislike Winter? I have heard of SAD or Seasonal affective disorder and I imagine that would be the diagnosis should I be inclined to seek out medical intervention for the physical and mental slump I suffer as days grow shorter and greyer and my energy and creativity diminish accordingly. The odd thing is that this feeling is relieved somewhat with the advent of a good storm. I get a lot accomplished when it is raining, the harder the better, and I can really get a real ‘kick in the pants’ from a good thunder shower. The rainy season is when a lot of my yearly chores get done. Sort of like Spring Cleaning only, in my case, it’s “Monsoon Mayhem”. I clean out the closets, go though my files and generally ‘batten down the hatches’ for the coming year. I get a lot done but it has to be the kind of activity that doesn’t take a lot of right brain activity. It’s as though my right brain hibernates from November until March each year. Reminder to self…self, look up hibernation and see if there is any human correlation. That’s all for now, self.

In any case, on this cold, frosty morning I wasn’t considering my blessings as I trudged toward the mailbox (if you can indeed trudge through a sixteenth inch of frost), I was feeling a veiled hint of depression and anxiety and dreading the prospect of more as I awaited the return of spring. I should also mention that I hadn’t had my first cup of coffee this morning and that never boded well for anyone. My entire ambition for this grayer-than-usual morning was to collect the meager contents of the mailbox and retreat to the warmth of the kitchen where I would inhale the days’ first cup of coffee at the small wooden breakfast table while I consulted the day’s allotment of catalogs, bills, coupon mailers and sale papers. Perhaps if I was lucky, the lot would contain a current issue of Writers Digest, Archaeology or National Geographic, something to elevate it from the realm of the mundane. If so, I would pour a second cup of coffee while I consulted the magazine and dreamed of lands where winter didn’t exist. Is it perverse that one of the places I really want to visit is Alaska? Nothing so common as a scant layer of frost there. But I think the attraction of Alaska is certainly not the surplus of snow but the abundance of wildlife. And I do love wildlife.

And with that thought, I was brought back to yet another contributor to this season’s more pronounced depression. My house was so empty….and quiet…and somehow, less of a home. Oh, I don’t mind living alone. In fact, I like it. I can do what I want, when I want and I don’t have to answer to anyone. I like it so much, I haven’t considered anything else since my divorce back in prehistoric times (well, not quite prehistoric times but it was a really long time ago). I’ve always believed that, as long as you have a book or a magazine, you are never really along. You have the characters in your current story to keep you company, and, through the pages of the book, you can visit places and do things that you would otherwise never have the opportunity to enjoy. When you look around at the state of the world today, perhaps the safest refuge is a good fantasy. Don’t get me wrong, I know the difference between fantasy and reality. I may prefer one over the other but I always know where I live. It’s just that, until recently, that reality always included one or more furry persons, my cats.

Sometimes I think cats are more sensible than humans. They are certainly stronger than dogs. You can kick a dog (you can, I never would) and he will crawl back and lick you hand. You kick a cat and he will jump up, punch you in the jaw and stomp off to greener pastures. Or, worse yet, wait until your back is turned and get even. If you have ever known a cat, you know how. You can never get the last word with a cat. And they are always there, somewhere close, as you go about your daily chores. It may be sleeping on the couch, snoring so loud the windows vibrate, while you are watching your favorite show on the television. Or it may be up on the desk lying across your manuscript, while you struggle to make your computer produce on paper what you see in your head. Whatever you are doing, they are there somewhere, filling your house with presence and thereby turning it from just a dwelling into a home. I still miss him. I knew in the beginning that it would not be forever. After all, nothing is forever. Nothing. But some things just don’t last as long as they should.

Practice Makes Perfect

Well, maybe perfection will never be in your writing future, but it is very true that regular practice is the only way to improve your work. While you may have a long list of ideas and projects to work on you may also want to employ prompts from time to time to fill in the gaps in your writing schedule.

Blast Writer’s Block

When you are experiencing writer’s block with your current project then force yourself to write through it with a series of prompts. This technique can be a very effective way to tear down your writer’s block.

Jog your brain

Do you have trouble getting your brain started in the morning or after a break? Then a writing prompt may be just what you need to get your brain going again.

Inspire your creativity

Do you feel your writing is going stale? Do you need some inspiration? Then using prompts can make a huge difference in your creativity and overall work.

Widen your horizons

Many times we fall into a niche, or even a rut, and forget that there is a much bigger world out there. Writing prompts can force us out of our respective ruts and challenge us to look further afield. This stretching can greatly improve your writing.

Improve your vision

Sometimes we get so caught up in our inner landscape we forget to look at the world around us for inspiration and fodder for our work. Writing prompts often force us to look at the world, specific aspects we may ignore every day, and perhaps look at something in a whole new way.

Make you question

Writing prompts make us look at our writing, our lives, and our world and question what we say, think, and write about — and the why behind those answers. Why and what if are two of the most powerful and inspirational questions a writer can ask of themselves as well as their audience.

Help you learn more about yourself

Writing prompts challenge you to formulate answers and positions on a wide variety of issues and questions. Some you may have thought about a great deal before and others that have not made it on your radar before.

Help you learn more about your writing

Early on in our writing careers and experience we often make judgements about our ability and work. While these may or may not have been accurate at the time, they certainly do not hold true in the long run. Every day, week, month and year that you work on your craft you improve as a writer. And as you grow older and mature, then your thought process will change — and those changes will also reflect in your writing. Prompts may help you more honestly evaluate your strengths and weaknesses.

Create your own swipe file

While you may not see a way to use the responses to your writing prompts today you may well find a market or use for those ideas and words down the road. Sometimes a description might come in handy or a character analysis, and other times simply reviewing some of your past work may well help you overcome writer’s block and inspire a new idea. While the use of prompts is never a waste of time, even if you never reuse a single word, you might be surprised down the road at how many different uses you can put this material to in your professional writing.

As you can see, the use of writing prompts can be tremendously useful no matter what stage your writing career is currently. You may find them so helpful and inspiring that you find yourself using a prompt every day.

Professional writer and writing instructor Deanna Mascle shares more writing tips as well as a free collection of prompts at her Writing Resources blog at http://word-craft.info

Author: Deanna Mascle
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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1. The first thing is that you need to set a schedule and live by it.

One of the problems with the freelance life is that interruptions are part of the game. Customers call. Prospects call. Vendors call. And that’s not counting the usual family and life interruptions. Writing can be difficult. It is often something that you will want to avoid doing. And interruptions give you an excuse to avoid writing.

That is deadly to freelance writing. One technique to avoid procrastination is to set a specific time of the day… every day… for your writing. Create a habit of writing. Get your body used to writing at that particular time of day. If you do you’ll soon find yourself no longer avoiding work. Make sure that no one interrupts you for anything less than fire or nuclear war.

2. Always deliver what the client wants when they want it.

In most businesses, the client is not always right. And it’s always better to over deliver and under promise. But freelance writing is different. The client will tell you what they want. An article of between 400 and 600 words. An eBook of 60 pages. A blog post of 250 to 300 words. And that is exactly what you must deliver. Not 601 words, not 62 pages, not 220 words. You need to deliver exactly what they have requested. And you need to deliver it on the day you promised it. In the freelance writing game the worst mistake you can do is not deliver exactly what you promised when you promised. And there’s only one acceptable quality — your best.

3. Staying the same doesn’t cut it. Sharpen the saw and charge your batteries.

Writing is first and foremost a craft. Freelance writing is a business based on that craft. It is not art. It is important that you continue to improve your skill in the craft. You need to always be sharpening and polishing the saw. There are many ways to do that including writing for yourself, taking classes and doing exercises. Taking classes is important because it gives you feedback on how well you have mastered the craft. Doing exercises is an alternative when you can’t afford classes and can get the feedback elsewhere.

But writing for yourself is not negotiable. You need to write some pieces just for yourself in order to recharge your batteries. In order to teach yourself why you love writing when the client is yelling, the words aren’t coming and the assignment is boring.

Do you want to learn how to write a book in 24 hours? Take my brand new free course here: http://www.learningcreators.com

Do you want to read more free information like this? Go to my blog: http://www.learningcreators.com/blog/ Glen Ford is an accomplished consultant, trainer and writer. He has far too many years experience as a trainer and facilitator to willingly admit.

Author: Glen Ford
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Seriously, sometimes (or even often) feeling like you are a lousy writer and you have no right to cut down the trees necessary to print out your draft is a normal part of being a writer. In fact it is probably just proof that you are a writer. I know this happens to me all too often, including this last week.

I was chugging along, finishing another chapter, and then I took a few minutes to read back over the last chapter. Big mistake! The structure was fractured, the backdrop was almost invisible, and the dialogue seemed forced and too much like an information dump.

In short, my writing stunk. I admit it. And from what I hear that is the first step to recovery.

After allowing a brief period of mourning and self-loathing, I stopped myself from wallowing in despair. Let’s face it, as writers we often can be quite overly dramatic. Time for a reality break.

Every writer stinks sometimes, especially in a first draft. In fact I would argue that the more often you write, the more often you will stink. It follows the principle that the most successful people are also the biggest failures, because it is just a factor of the number of times you try.

So do not give up!

Rally, charge, and brazenly spill out those words that may never see the light of day again in the same form. Try to stop those doubting thoughts. You will revise. The writing will get better, much better. You can do it! Time is your ally. Dedication is your tool of success.

As a practical matter, read religiously on the subject of writing. If you do not have any books on the craft of writing, set aside a shelf for writing books and start buying and reading them. I am a mere amateur, but I have learned volumes about the craft of plotting, dialogue, character, and so on from the wisdom of other writers. And do not wait until you finish your first novel or your latest project. Make a commitment to read a book on the craft every month. Believe me, it will improve your writing.

I should note that I think it is important to read a variety of different perspectives of writing because a single writing book that you treat as the bible for writing can become a crutch and make your writing stiff, static, or even repetitive. The goal is to learn the craft, not some magic formula to writing a best seller. In my opinion, the best seller is up to you and your imagination, tamed by the strictures and proven techniques of other great writers.

In summary, never let a few pages or chapters of stinky writing stop you from your goals. If it was easy everyone would do it and succeed. Press forward, remember it can be fixed later, and remain confident. After a few weeks or months of work, you may find you have developed a sweet smelling rose.

J Hugh Thomas is a database developer and a programmer who is writing his first novel. Read his blog http://onwritingmyfirstnovel.blogspot.com to see all of his writer’s resources and free advice.

Author: J Hugh Thomas
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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First of all, are we talking about talent or ability? Personally, I’ve been a writing instructor for more than a couple of decades. In my experiences, I’ve seen aspiring writer with loads of talent who did very little with what they had.

On the other hand, I’ve witnessed with sheer joy those who had a little tab of talent and went on to work hard and learn all they could about their craft. They were not afraid to face seeming failure, and were not afraid to produce a lot of bad writing on their way to learning how to create good writing. It’s ironic, but true.

Also in my experiences with writers, I’ve met those who want to know all about getting published in “five minutes or less.” Not exactly the type who will put their “shoulder to the plow.”

Notice I said the second example type of person “learned their craft.” Very important!

No one can endow you with talent to write. Whether or not you have that propensity is up to you to recognize. I recognized mine very early.

** Do you love a good story?
** Do you have story ideas floating through your brain?
** Do you get drunk on good fiction?
** Are you always picking up some novel or other and are apt to get lost in it?
** Have you dreamed about getting published?
** Were you at least “pretty good” in language arts in school?

If you answer yes to at least some of those questions, chances are you have the beginnings of talent to write fiction. But again, can it be taught?

The question that more fits the situation is: are you willing to learn? Are you willing to pay the price to apply yourself to the task of studying the craft?

If you have the basic talent, you can learn the techniques of the art form of fiction writing. And that’s a fact, pure and simple! I stand before you as living proof! (Well, sort of stand before you…)

It will be important to learn:

** What it takes to be a good writer
** How to recognize good story material
** How to construct a well-crafted story
** How to stay with your task and not cave in
** How to maintain your enthusiasm

Every good fiction writer will agree, you must continually read, read, read, and write, write, write.

It’s just like any other goal in life, if you want it with enough passion, you will do whatever it takes to make it happen!

Study everything you can on the subject of writing. And then write! Never forget: Every published novelist was once a wannabe!

Are you a fiction lover? Are you a student of fiction? A teacher of fiction? A reader of fiction? Let veteran, published author, Norma Jean Lutz help you enhance your knowledge and appreciation of fiction writing. Author of over 50 published books as well as hundreds of articles and short stories, Norma Jean is a popular workshop and writer conference instructor. She shares tips, concepts, and intricate writing techniques right here: http://www.fiction-aire.com/fictionaire.html

Author: Norma Jean Lutz
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Jackie wrote her first children’s book called Rainstones in 1991 but says that she has been writing stories since she was six years old. “Everyone from parents, teachers, guidance counselors had said, ‘No, no, no dear. You can’t make anything being a writer in Australia. This is a waste of time.’”she remembers. “So I wrote for my own…. compulsion.

“Often, it is as though a story gets its teeth into your neck and isn’t going to let go until you have actually written it down.”

Despite this passion for writing, Jackie kept her writing private during her marriage. But when her marriage broke down, she threw herself into writing with gusto. She says she did this partially because she needed the money. “I wasn’t earning anything as a farmer,” she says. “I just had a complicated caesarean, there was a drought, the creek had dried up, and I was absolutely completely broke. I needed $106.44 to register the car. I was living in the shed in the bush with no electric light, no hot running water. Things were actually pretty desperate, washing the nappies by hand and putting them on the fence. I didn’t have money for child care.

“And the only thing I could think of doing was sending a story off. So within a week I had sent a story to the Canberra Times, an article to a now defunct magazine called Hobby Farmer, and a story called Rainstones to Angus & Robertson now part of HarperCollins.”

Earning a living as a writer

According to Jackie, within three weeks she got positive responses from everyone, with Angus & Robertson asking to see more of her short stories.

“So suddenly after all those years I actually was making money as a writer,” says Jackie. “It was extremely sudden… Within three weeks I was actually earning a living as a writer and that’s how I’ve been writing ever since.”

However, Jackie admits that is wasn’t a very good living in those early years. “It was about two years after that first acceptance that I was walking home having bought a bottle of gin and I suddenly realised, ‘Good grief! I have bought something that wasn’t absolutely necessary without even thinking about it.’ And I realised things had changed. Since that time, I’ve been lucky enough that the income has been enough to basically do whatever we want to do.”

Jackie is also keen to impress on aspiring writers that they can hone their craft – and be successful – living anywhere in the world. “Never feel that you need to be in Sydney, New York or London to be a writer,” she says. “In fact, a surprising number of writers live in the bush. Yes, Australia does not have a large book buying population but, if your books are any good, they’ll be sold overseas. You’ll have an infinite market right across the world to sell your books.”

How to be a prolific writer

The country environment must be conducive to Jackie’s writing as she was published a whopping 132 books. Yes, you read that correctly. 132 books. (One hundred and thirty two.) Jackie points out that some of these do include very short books. So how can an author be so prolific?

“The answer to that is two-fold,” says Jackie. “One, because I write for a living… I don’t have to spend time earning money in other ways. So being a full-time writer really does mean you are enormously more productive than if you have to sort of fit it into here and there.

“I also write in different genres and that helps. I would go brain dead writing more than one book in any particular genre a year. The other answer to that too is I write compulsively. I write if I’m happy. I write if I’m sad.”

Jackie has also written a historical novel for adults and several books about Australia including To the Moon and Back, Tom Appleby, Convict boy, My Gran the Gorilla and The Goat that Sailed the World – the true story of the goat who sailed with Captain James Cook.

Advice to aspiring writers

With such success under her belt, Jackie is clear on her advice to aspiring writers. “Think about the ideas, not the writing,” she says. “Every novice writer I have known – including myself – has paid far too much attention to their writing style and not enough to what they are writing about… You need to have something interesting to say.”

Jackie also points out that talent, alone, isn’t enough. “There is, somehow, this belief that because you have a talent for writing, then you can actually sit down and write a novel,” she says. “And it doesn’t work that way. You have to learn your craft. The earlier you start writing seriously – actually working at your writing – the sooner you are going to learn your craft. And that’s the case whether you start writing at 10 or whether you start writing at 70.”

About the author: Valerie Khoo is director of the Sydney Writers’ Centre – one of the world’s leading centres for writing training. You can learn in person or online here: http://www.sydneywriterscentre.com.au/ To find out more on how you can learn about how to write children’s books through our online courses, visit here: http://www.writingchildrensbooks.com.au/

Author: Valerie Khoo
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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