Thursday, October 1, 2015

Rubber Duckies, Dinosaurs and Moons


This Will Make You Smile, or Cry or Both


On the home front:

I picked up a little book at Goodwill the other day, a Newbery Metal winner. I should read this, I thought, find out what sort of writing wins the Newbery medal.

Well I was blown away. I read the entire book, Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech (Harper Collins 1994) Sunday afternoon, and I smiled and cried.

Walk Two Moons  is narrated by a thirteen-year-old-girl--suspense, sad, funny, poignant, healing, all the things that ought to be in a book.

Sal (Salamanca) is locked in a car with her Gram and Gramps for ten days while they drive from Kentucky to Lewiston, Idaho. “We’ll see the whole ding-dong country,” said Gramps. But that’s not why they are taking the trip—it’s a path to a missing mother.

I had to read the chapter “The Marriage Bed,” told by Gramps to my husband. 

Fascinating that the old folks didn’t like to use the words “Native Americans” but thought “Indian” sounded nobler, American Indian.

Injun to Indian to Native American, Grams concluded, “I wish they would make up their mind.”

I wondered if my high school sports teams, “The Dalles High Indians,” were now called The Dalles high Native Americans. We even had a bonafied Celilo Indian high school kid as a mascot. He had a charming personality, was popular, and we never felt we were exploiting him.  During many games or festivities he would dress up in native regalia and parade around the football field. We meant no disrespect. He made us proud.

About Walk Two Moons—fascinating that there tucked away in a stack of books at Goodwill Industries, I find gold. 

Goodwill Industries--is that the fate of books? 



P.S. The Second Chapter of One Year on the Island is now available

see Chapter Two on menu, or click



Saturday, September 26, 2015

Plunging Ahead



Regarding my writing skills, I don’t have another half-century to wait for the publishing industry to decide if I suck, and since I have the desire, the fortitude, and the belief that the Great Spirit does not give us a desire without also giving us a way to achieve it, I am plunging ahead.

One Year on the Island is open for anyone who wants to read it.


The first chapter is posted. A chapter a week will follow until the book is complete, or I die, whichever comes first.

My long-time blog readers will remember that I blogged as we lived the island experience. “Wait a minute,” they might say, “I’ve heard that before,” but there is more…hey, it’s been five years. I also contemplate, add data on the island we call Hawaii, the dance we call the Hula, and the belief held by the Hawaiians of Aloha. It is more that “Hello, goodbye, or love.” It is doing good without expecting anything in return.

And it is my hope that some motivation slipped in.

Motivation for what?

Well, whatever you want.

Aloha from Joyce

Friday, September 18, 2015

They Scoop Through the Sand to Find What Others Have Missed


Why read this blog?

For the same reason I'm writing it--I wonder where in the heck it is going. Isn't that the way with carving or sculpting, you throw the clay onto the wheel, it begins to form. It takes shape under your hands. You you pick up a chunk of driftwood at the beach. It clearly tells you what it wants to become. 

Perhaps we will meet in the middle, I write, you read. Or not.

Here are a few things I know for sure:

I am offering you advice when I find it, experiences when I have them, and the benefit of over half a century of living.

I am offering you a nudge into believing that the impossible can be achieved—well the near impossible.

I am offering you quotes from the greats, and absurdities from someone like this (man trying to push a dog into lake, and falls in himself) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzJYVuqoixA  Justice.

I am offering you a chance to believe in this life, an after-life, and life in worlds beyond. A discussion? That’s all right with me. I have friends from across the spectrum of beliefs.

They say that we live to experience life. We write about it to make sense of it. I am doing that, and I encourage others to do the same--it's better than therapy, cheaper too.

Perhaps I ought to change the name of this blog to Wishing on Pink Flamingos instead of Wishing on White Horses, for this pin from my #Pinterest site has more repins than any other. 


"They scoop through the sand to find what others have missed."




My daughter and I called ourselves The Pink Flamingo Real Estate Team when we were Real Estate agents--thus scooping through the sand. That endeavor lasted about a month, for we found that our ladder to success was leaning against the wrong wall. We didn't want to be Real Estate Agents. Besides my writing, there is something else in store...

I wonder what it is.





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Love to you,

Joyce

P.S. Oh, yes, don't forget to vote for me--as often as you can--no more than once a day. I'll love it, my dog will love it, my cheering section in the eithers will love it, the rest of the writers for #Harlequin will snarl in disgust.