Hello again

Oh my goodness!  Just look at all the cobwebs!  I knew it would be musty and stale in here, but this!

Well, I'll just get to work then, and clean it up a bit.

Okay, that's much better.

Oh, hi there!  You came to see me!  You are so sweet to visit me here, after I haven't blogged for the longest time and I made all those nice-sounding promises last time, about moving forward and all that. Well, come in then, have a seat.  Oh this is just great.  Sit in one of those big fat comfy pink chairs, now that they're all dusted off and not a smidge of cobwebs remain.

You make yourself at home and I'll go put on the tea.  Milk?  Sugar?  Okay, that's just great.  I'll be right back.

There we go, some nice hot tea.  And look, I brought in some raisin tea biscuits from the bakery down the street.  Help yourself, please.

Who?  Oh, over there.  Yes, I guess he is a little creepy, but you see, I bought him at a flea market and he just goes along with--well, all this Victorian parlour  theme.  But, yeah, he's got those eyes that seem to follow you.  Well, of course if he bothers you that much, I'll just put the hobby horse behind that lovely antique partition so he won't scare you any more.  You aren't the first one to be spooked by him, let me tell you.

You know, there's a little history that goes with him, that little horse, but I can see you aren't very comfortable with the whole idea so I won't tell you.  These stories aren't for everyone.

Anyway, how have you been?

Me?  I've been busy not blogging, obviously.  But I have been writing and submitting.  After months of rejection slips--and some of them were very nice, but still--I finally seem to be getting some good news.  First, my story, "One Perfect Rose", was published at Every Day Fiction in August.  Then my story, "No Choice", went online at Inner Sins on October 1.  In December, there's an upcoming anthology, Robbed of Sleep Volume 2, and my story, "You Can't Take it With You" will be in it.  I'm pretty excited about it.  And, just yesterday, I sent in my round two submission to the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge.  So, I've been busy.  Just not blogging.  Sorry.  I really will try to be better.

Anyway, back to you.  What have you been up to?  What?  The horse?  Oh go on!  He did not move out from behind that screen, that's impossible. What an imagination you have.

You have to go?  But you just got here.  Okay, I understand.  Well thanks so much.  I really do appreciate you being such a loyal visitor.  Come again, soon, okay?  Here, take some of these raisin tea biscuits with you.  No, really, I insist.  It's the least I can do.

Bye!  Maybe next time I'll tell you the story...or not.  Your choice.

It had to happen sometime.

Well, I knew it would come to this.  I knew that at some point I'd feel self-conscious about blogging.

Maybe you've felt this way, too...you wonder if you have anything new or different or even relevant to share? Well, lately that's what I've been going through with this blog.

And it's funny.  I couldn't be more productive in my other areas of writing.  I recently finished the twelve week program, "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron (and I plan on doing it again).  I've been faithfully writing my morning pages, "showing up to the page" just about every day, submitting stories, (I made it out of the first round in the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge, surprising myself by placing first in my group).

The writing life is good.  So what happened to my blog?

Maybe it started when my brother Jamie told me he read it.  But he didn't post any comments. So, what did that mean?  (And by the way, he's a very supportive guy, having outgrown the need to torment his older sister.  Usually.)

Okay then, so who else was reading...and not commenting?

Were they not commenting because (gasp) they had nothing good to say about it?  Or worse, maybe they weren't leaving a comment because my posts didn't make an impression one way or the other (gah!).

The stretch of days between my last blog entry and current opportunity to blog grew to monstrous proportions.  The more time that passed, the less I felt I could say--or even have the right to say--out there in Blogville (and I'm the mayor!).  How could I possibly say anything when clearly I had nothing to say? (Even Seinfeld couldn't sell that idea.)

My blog would gather dust and disintegrate into the wind of disuse and then simply cease to be.

Well, that would suck.  Forget that idea.

The only thing to do, then,  is keep blogging, moving forward, risking the possibility of turning out crap from time to time and maybe...just maybe...writing a blog that makes a difference to somebody, somewhere.

Choices

I've been thinking a lot lately about the choices we make, and how each choice leads us to where we are now.  Maybe it's the whole New Year thing, the endless possibilities that lay before us, like fresh snow, no mistakes in it yet, still white and pristine.

I believe we, as mere mortals, get into trouble when we somehow forget we've made out own choices, written our own scripts.  We create our reality, today, tomorrow and beyond.  Does that mean that everything goes exactly as we want it to?  No, of course not.  It never can go precisely according to our plan.  (And where would the fun be in that, anyway?)

Maybe it's more accurate to say our lives are really a series of rewritten scripts, edited daily.

You make your draft and then something happens that causes you to react (rewrite the script), and so it goes.  It's an ongoing series of changing a word or a paragraph or a whole chapter and then forgetting we did it.

And that's when people will often say they "have no choice", that they "must" do such and such.  But really, how often is that the case?

You aren't really stuck.  You don't "have" to do something.  You choose to (or choose not to).  These decisions bear consequences, but still...the choice is yours.

Although there are circumstances beyond our control, we still have a choice how we deal.

How do you choose to live your best life in 2014?