Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Packing Peanuts V: Time is a Spice

Today's Packing Peanuts are from an interesting time in my life when I worked on the editorial side of a publication and had the opportunity to read thousands of submissions to help decide what would be accepted or rejected for publishing.

These are parts of three pieces that weren’t accepted for various reasons, but still pulled at my heart strings. They are reminders to me that:
  • You don’t have to be verbose or perfect to hit home.
And,
  • Just because one publication doesn’t accept your work doesn’t mean your words aren’t important and touching. Always try, try again. 
link to original here

Anonymous older person

Anonymous younger person

Anonymous younger person



Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Packing Peanuts IV: Success

Today's Packing Peanuts have more to do with others than with me, because something I love is when people I know succeed in doing things they’ve been working hard to do. Things that are hugely daunting but likewise immensely inspiring.

Things like this.

And things like this.

And working through this realization.

And then there’s Brandon Ax who has been pushing to get his YA novel Elemental published for quite awhile, and now it’s happening. April 20 is the release date. I can almost taste the excitement, the nervousness, the pride. All the things there are just no words for.

Someday I hope to be there too, but meanwhile, my packing peanuts have something to do with the idea that successes, both the small ones and the big, can be attained by real people. This seems like such a large idea I can hardly wrap my brain around it because... Because? Well, because then perhaps I can succeed too. 

Someday. 

When in doubt, these are just a few people I know who are proof. Who inspires you and why?

Below are Ax’s cover and excerpt:

link to original here
“Hello pretty,” the dark man said in a haunting voice that chilled to the bone.
          My voice shook as I formed the words, “Who are you?” It felt stupid, but nothing had come to mind. I managed to get my foot back on the step.
          He stepped from the pole and said, “Me? I’m no one. You though? You are something special, in fact you’re so special I have a feeling I'd like to take you home with me.”
          I turned and ran knowing it wouldn't be fast enough. I felt him grab my shirt from behind and push me to the metal stairs below. I kicked out and struggled to pull myself from his hold. A gust of wind rushed past me, it blew my hair wildly and I was free.
          Not waiting to see what happened I scrambled up the steps and quickly unlocked the door. Slamming it behind me I slid down with the cold white wood to my back. My breath came in quick gasp, I felt my whole body shaking. What was that, why did he let go? I quickly stood up peering through the peephole in the door. No one was outside. Putting my ear to the wood I tried to listen for any sound that would lead me to believe he was still out there.
          After a few seconds I backed away from the door and sat in one of the chairs by the table. I had just calmed my thundering heartbeat when the handle of the door started to twist. I scrambled for anything I could find to defend myself with, settling on a picture frame that was on the wall next to me. As the door opened I drew back ready to swing with every ounce of my strength.

 


Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Packing Peanuts III: Beauty Personified

More info on the Packing Peanuts Posts can be found here. And then here’s today’s piece of Deb-stuffing:

 
The magazine I pulled this picture out of nearly twenty years ago was already old at the time. Now I don’t remember which magazine it was from, what the article was about, etc. I just remember seeing this woman and wanting to be like her when I’m 86. 

I’ve had to leave a lot of things behind in my life through various moves and such. But I’ve made sure to always tuck this picture in with things I have to keep. It is my visual of Someday. 

She is the epitome of beauty, to me.

Who personifies beauty for you? 


Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Packing Peanuts II: Who's Who?

For background on the Packing Peanuts Posts, go here. Today’s nuts are brought to you by Sleepy Joe’s challenge to expound somehow on a myth. This is one of my favorites, and I’ve purposely used more ambiguous names of the two main characters. Can you guess who’s who?
 
                                         Fruit Offering

Aidoneus stood again, hands clasped behind his muscled back, black eyes focused down. The blue-green glow of fungi sprawling up walls in the dark, underground room lit his pacing. 

          From the direction of a couch came Hermes’ bark of laughter. He shook his head as he picked at the fruit spread overflowing a low table. “Relax. She’ll come,” he said through a mouthful of grapes. “You know that.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“You say that every autumn but she always comes.”

“Which isn’t a guarantee she’ll continue.”

“But your brother promised…”

Aidoneus snorted. “That doesn’t guarantee anything either.”

“Well then. She’ll come because she loves you.”

“Does she?” 

Aidoneus slumped into an overstuffed chair, pulling at his recently trimmed beard. Everything about Aidoneus and his underworld palace had been recently groomed, cleaned, set into order. Even the three-headed hound had learned some new tricks.

Glancing around the dim space, he eyed the candles and oil lamps with a sigh. They wreaked havoc on his retinas but Kore would need them until her vision adjusted. The bioluminescent flora here was impressive, but nothing to the lighting she was used to above. 

Nothing here was like above.

“This place has to be Tartarus for her,” Aidoneus said, feeling his inadequacy deep. 

“My Lord,” a messenger’s head poked through the door. “She approaches.”

Aidoneus nodded, starting up. The messenger disappeared.

“Well if it’s not you she loves,” Hermes stood, lobbing a crimson orb Aidoneus easily caught, “it’s your pomegranates. I told you she’d come.”

Then Hermes too disappeared and Aidoneus was left alone to watch a soft flickering down the hall slowly approach. Kore held only a single flame, yet her image still made his eyes water. He bowed deep, offering the fruit. 

She took it. But her lips searched for something more.


link to original here


So what are some of your favorite myths, and how would you change/expound on them? Why have they made an impact on you -- Why are they your packing peanuts?

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Packing Peanuts I: It Begins Here

link to original here
We can all blame it on the water.

I’m going to, anyway.

My friend sat across the kitchen table and we were talking for who knows how long before she finally stopped me mid-sentence, one hand up, and said, “Okay, I’ve just got to ask.”

“Hmm?”

“What’s up with the water?”

Head cocked to one side, I looked at her with a question-mark. “Water…”

Pointing at the sink faucet she nodded, “Yeah, your water.”

It was only then that I realized I had no idea when it’d been turned on or how long it’d been running. You can call it supernatural, or super-pregnant. Both would apply.

So I’m going to take the water as a hint to back off the multi-tasking and focus more on fewer things until our Golden Edition comes out in July.

Simplify.

That includes my blog. I’m reverting to packing-peanut-mode, wherein I think less about the awesome and interesting things going on outside the package and meditate more on the filler. The little pieces inside that keep the important stuff from getting smooshed by all the awesome, interesting things.

So what’s a piece of Deb? This is something I scribbled down in a journal years ago when 'risk taking' meant simply opening my mouth to express my own opinion. Here’s your first of the Packing Peanuts Posts:

The Ten Commandments of Risk Taking -- Irene McMahon Cummings
  1. Thou shalt know that all growth requires risk. 
  2. Thou shalt access all options. 
  3. Thou shalt be willing to look foolish and feel uncomfortable.
  4. Thou shalt seek emotional support. 
  5. Thou shalt be willing to pay the price. 
  6. Thou shalt know it is okay to change your mind. 
  7. Thou shalt know that being rejected is not the worst thing that will ever happen to you. 
  8. Thou shalt be willing to be without answers. 
  9. Thou shalt know that if you don’t try, you will never know. 
  10. Thou shalt acknowledge, in the very deepest part of your being, that life is precious and all too short. Trust yourself – listen to your heart.

So join me over the next 15 weeks, if you wish. Link up a post or just share below -- What are your packing peanuts?


Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Speaking of Magic

Today we found out gender…



And it’s a girl *big grins* All I could think as I lay there while they probed my belly was...well, something along the lines of how magical it is to live in such a time when we can see our babies before they're born. 

Words don't even do justice.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Super Villains?

Only one question this week: In your opinion, what constitutes a villain?
 
Answer in the comments, link up a longer answer from your blogs, etc. I’m very much interested in your thoughts.



Bonus question: Who is the best villain you’ve read/watched/met, and why?

And here's something to get you started...



Tuesday, February 19, 2013

My Blue Looks Like This

And my results from this are:


Trump

Today you said I’ve come full circle,
Round and round I go.
Uroborus
Munching my own tail.
Please. Give me benefit of spiral instead, movement rather than ground zero.

link to original here
 __________________________
 
Lurch

“Lands gad,” he says to my lad.
“Up there ahead, do you see?”
Reeling left, my son lifts his great heft
Calling, “Harbor ho!” bitterly.
He hates coming home to see me.

link to original here
 ___________________________

Bowl-Over

Because I said I would.
Our love started on a night
When the moon was round, and the stars hung
Low. Now my belly is round, and my breasts hang low, and

Only you could love me so
Voraciously still.
Each memory is a chemical balance, fermenting with age until we are
Ripe with such fullness. I partake of this drink, with you, because I said I would.


___________________________

For another rendition from the same palette check out Sleepy Joe's lovely story here. Much thanks to her for sharing part of her world.


And for your final piece of magic today I bring you some love from Xavier Rudd:

 

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Same Palette, Different Blue

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we’re all working with the same proverbial palette – red, yellow, and blue. No idea can be truly original, right? And yet in a world crowded with people, we are each so very individual, original in our own ways. 

My green doesn’t exactly mirror your green. Your purple is perhaps a little more bright.

So this is an exercise in both faith and diversity. I’d love to see how many people will join in, then see how different and amazing our stories can be regardless of the fact that we’re working with the same limited prompts.

Please participate and share with those you think would be interested, then link up in the comments by next Monday night (February 18) so we can all see your masterpieces. Here are the parameters:


Write a short story no more than 500 words long. It can be any genre, fiction, non-fiction, lyrics, poetry, whatever. Just be sure to include three of the five words below (or some past, present, future derivative), as well as one of the pictures.

Words (choose at least three) –

Lurch
Bitter
Haggle
Trump
Bowl-over

Pictures (choose at least one) –

link to original here
link to original here
link to original here
link to original here
link to original here

Optional, use one of the following songs as soundtrack (they're all instrumental; I would suggest ignoring the images and just listening to the music) –



Battle/Victory


Celtic/Fairyland
  

When you’ve finished and posted your work, don't forget to link up in the comments. Thanks for playing along . I'm looking forward to reading and sharing pieces of your worlds.



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