Trying to be a Writer

I want to be able to take all these thoughts of mine and put them down in a way that makes other people want to read them. I want to write short stories and novels. So I am on a quest now trying to learn to put these words down for others to read. I have been told before that I have no imagination. I disagree. If you had ever been in one of my dreams, you would tell a different story. However, bringing those dreams to paper is not easy. I cannot write eloquently or cleverly. My words seem to run together and I have a difficult time using words with meat. Instead I find myself rewriting over and over again words and sentences that belong in the early "Dick and Jane" books. Why can't I remember all those vocabulary words that we had to write and write and write in school? Why can't my brain  unlock some of the things I learned in school. I know that I made A's in English and Grammar. I must have been in 2nd grade all 12 years. Or else, an Alien stole me from my home when I was 8 or 9 and induced me into a coma, while my alien look alike went to school, made all the great grades and then somewhere right before graduation, switched us back. Even now I am not using proper grammar or punctuation and I am running sentences together. I am blaming it on the late hour and the fact that I just read different authors advice to writers. Just write it and you can correct it later. I think I like that advice. However, don't look for me to correct this one, because it is still late.

 I stumbled on advice from one of the greats, John Steinbeck. He said that in school, he was told he should just move to England, because there being poor is a hardship, here in the US it is shameful. And that becoming a writer takes a long time. The great depression happened about that time, so everyone in America was poor ...He decided that he would never know if he was shameful, But the teacher was right about one thing....It does take a long time. His low scores on his College stories and the hundreds of rejection slips he got was not what he expected. He could read great stories but never really figured out why he couldn't.write them. Well his advice was just to write them and take his chances. We know how that worked for him. I think that I will keep writing, but I had better take some of those basic writing classes as well. I am getting started a little later in life than he did and I was abducted by aliens for at least 8 of my schooling years.

For many years I would read a book and think ...okay I am going to write a book now. Pick up my pencil and paper and sit there...And say Chapter One...She looked out the window.......it was raining, cloudy......hmmmmmmmmm hmmmmmmm. Well of course I can't write, because I have never been anywhere or done anything. How can I write about something I don't know. Excuse number 1....I don't have time for this...Excuse number 2....If I was a real writer, the words would just fall on the page...Excuse number 3...If if if if if if if if if if....I don't have a type writer (remember, I was born before computers, heck I had a manual typewriter in Typing Class) Then I don't have a word processor...If I had a computer...If I had a laptop....If if if if if if if if ...I did write some in journals, but thought I was too boring....Then I had a thought...Writing is a job...it is WORK..oh no..it suppose to be all fun if I was a real writer...then ..here come those words falling on the paper before I even thought them again....
So now I am ready to be real. The last couple of years I have had a few real writing jobs. Blogging for a cell phone company, doing a little web content. I got paid..Now I am a real writer. I figure if I got a check for writing, I must be real.

I am serious now and I believe I can at least write for my own pleasure. One friend I met, Diane Chamberlain, she has told me personally that her advice to new writers, is to take a class in composition and grammar. She has read more than a few great stories that were just badly written. So I am researching and compiling advice from successful writers. My daughter in law has suggested that I go to college. I am 50+ years old and sure that I would have to go to remedial college. I did tell her that I would take a writing class, and see how it goes. Who knows, maybe I will be a college student after all. Although it didn't do that much for John Steinbeck or Mark Twain, I am sure it can only be a positive experience for me. Oh, I forgot to mention that I am a long lost cousin of Mr.Clemmens.  Surely this apple has not fallen really far from the trees...Just kidding.

Well this is a red letter day; 2 blog post in one day:) And also, I am going to have to remember to not use all this texting jargon stuff.. I remember in class one day, a student asked me to read her short story. She was using U for you and LOL and I told her the story was very good, but she wasn't sending a text message.

When I get like this, I can ramble for hours making absolutely no sense. So for now, I think I will go to bed, dream and try to put those dreams on paper tomorrow...Maybe the aliens will take me again and send the smart Cindy back down until I finish a book and get it published. Sweet dreams for everyone.

June 22, 1978 Happy Birthday Lyssa

On this day 33 years ago, I was in the delivery room with a new baby girl squirming on my belly while the nurses were rubbing her down and the doctor was cutting the cord. Mike and I sharing one of the 3 happiest days of our lives. She was my second born and I was sure she was going to be a boy. I remember telling Mike as we were celebrating, that I guess we didn't know how to have a boy. And he was telling me that was quite okay as he was beaming from ear to ear for his brand new daughter.  I didn't know then that she would become my very best friend.

I have 3 children and I love them all with every ounce of my soul. Each one a different individual with different degrees of me and their dad and themselves that add up to be a whole person. Why then is Lyssa my best friend? I think it is because we think alike. We are not alike in the way that we do things, but the reasons behind them, I think are more alike than my other two. She and I enjoy doing the same things.


Lately we haven't been on the same page. We are not connecting as we have in the past. I choose to believe this is just a glitch in time and we will find our way back. She has some broken things in her life right now. I cannot fix these as much as I wish I could. I can't put a band aid on it and kiss the boo boo and the tears. I have to let her find her own way. I choose to believe that she will make the right choices in the end. Her babies need her to be whole again and I pray that God will lead her to the answers she needs.

She is beautiful, young, determined. She loves her family and friends and she tries to make the best of all that life gives her. I could not be prouder of what she has accomplished. She has learned some hard life lessons, she has had to pay the consequences of some very bad choices. When she figures out how to forgive herself, she will be able to put her life back together again. Right now she is just moving through the motions.

Lyssa, my birthday wish for you is very simple. I want you to remember who you are. Forgive yourself as others have already done. Figure out what it is you want and need. And put you back together again. Don't settle for less and keep reaching for the Golden Ring...I love you baby girl and I need you to be happy again. 

One Week a Year

Granny and Amos lived in Joshua, TX. This was about 9 miles from my house in Cleburne. And after we moved to Oklahoma, it was a short 211 miles. Living on about 16 acres, a mini farm. And although they both had day jobs, they were able to raise a few "crops" to help with their finances. Granny worked as a cook at the hospital in Cleburne. She was very proud of her job and the fact she had perfect attendance. Amos was my step grandfather and he worked at a convenience store.

She had two weeks vacation a year.  One week of that vacation, my brother and I spent at Granny's house. For some reason, memories of my childhood are sort of sketchy, but these are some of my best ones. In the 60's and early 70's, life seemed simpler.

They didn't have an air conditioner and I can't remember them having even a "Water Cooler". Well I think they did get a water cooler, but they didn't always have one. How did they do that? It was hot in the summer in the middle of Texas. My Granny and Amos slept in separate beds  and rooms. Mostly because she snored like a freight train. I am a lot like my Granny. Her bed was on the back porch. This back porch was screened in and in the winter time, the windows were sealed up. However, in the summer, the covers came off and the room was open on 3 sides. I know now that this is how they were able to sleep. We would take a bath of an evening and go straight to bed. When complaining about the heat, they would call us "Softys,  Softys"... And we would go to bed very early. When we would say something about it, She would say "You are not at your Daddy's house right now, You are at your Granny's." There wasn't much time for TV, but they did have one.

They lived in a small house on 16 acres I think. The house set back from the road and between the house and the road was a  peach orchard. I can so remember the taste of those peaches picked from the tree. The peach fuzz sticking your chin while the sweet warm juice of the peach ran down your chin. Yummy. The smell of the hot dirt between your toes. Between the peach trees and the house, was the front yard. In the front yard were a line of mimosa trees. I loved those trees. Climbing the trees was out of the question, but we still did it. In the afternoon the front yard was shaded with the trees. Amos showed us how to use quilts and rope to make hammocks. So we each made our own hammock. The scents of the afternoon sun beating down on the trees and warming the hammocks. They had St.Augustine grass in the front. It was so nice to walk barefooted on that grass. Unlike at our house where we had stickers, and had to wear shoes outside or pay the consequences.

Now Granny had a blackberry patch. She raised and sold blackberries. Her berry money she used to buy something she wanted. I remember when she bought a new kitchen stove. It was yellow and had two ovens. One on the top and one on the bottom. Even when she moved to town later, she had that stove.Amos grew green beans and sold them in town.  Our time there also include helping with the chores. We had to help pick green beans. Even when he didn't have to plow the fields, he would give us rides. He would sit on his lap and steer. That was so much fun. When the peaches were ripe, we would help him pick those as well. Sometime in there, and I don't remember if it was the week we spent there, or later in the year, we would get together and make home made ice cream. My uncle had a new fangled electric ice cream maker, but Amos had one that we had to hand turn. How much fun that was to take turns turning the handle. And when it got too hard for us, Amos or Dad would take over. The fresh blackberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream was so delicious just not my favorite. My favorite was the fresh peach ice cream. No cobbler, just ice cream.

 When I was really young, Granny had an old fashion washer. The one where you washed in the washer, than used the wringer to wring them out into the rinse water. Then you would run them through the ringer one more time and we would hang them on the clothes line. Laundry had the most wonderful fragrance in the whole world. I loved sleeping on those sheets. She eventually got a new washing machine,  but we still hung out all the clothes. I did miss the old washer, I am sure she didn't.

We didn't eat cereal at Granny's house. Every morning we had eggs, bacon and either biscuits and gravy or toast. She always ate tomatoes with hers. And she let us drink coffee. Of course it was mostly milk, we would pour it from our cup into a saucer and drink it. This was something we learned from her mother, my great grandma. Dipping our biscuits in the coffee, we thought we were grown up. She had chickens also, therefore she had fresh eggs. Some of her hens would lay brown eggs and some were white. Amos complained about the chickens all the time. They were too noisy for him...We loved loved the chickens.

I am sure all the memories are faded and colored, but remembering them, makes me smile. I hope that when my grand kids remember our days together, they remember only the good times. Remembering happy times spent with your grandparents, should help you when you are spending time with your grand children.