New Year New Start

Hello readers, here is hoping you are having a wonderful Christmas. My wife and I had the kids and grand-kids over for Christmas morning. Our family tradition is biscuits and gravy. Not real healthy but very good. We find it is a terrific way to say we love you to our kids, with the admonishment not to eat like this everyday. To keep the spirit of giving alive (a nod to the greatest gift ever given, the birth of the savior) we give gifts to our grand-kids and the adults, (my grown children and their spouses) give gift cards to each other by drawing numbers and picking one with the ability to steal or pick one from the table. It saves having to buy six separate gifts for things they don’t really need or want anyway.

I would love to hear how you celebrate Christmas. What are your family traditions? Maybe this year something went so well you want to start a family tradition. I would like to share it with my readers. I also invite you to sign up as a follower. I plan on making more blog post this year and would love to have you come along. If you are not satisfied feel free to cancel your follow, no hard feelings.

This is the time of year that most people look back on the previous year and find ways to make the new-year better. The list of things to improve is endless. Everything from “A”lways being on time for work, to never forgetting to “Z”ip your pants. I would like to hear what your goals are for the coming year. I like the sound of setting goals better than the old cliché “New Years Resolution”. Goal setting is what we all should do on a regular basis anyway.

Setting goals is healthy and stimulates growth. The good thing about goals is they can be reset as often as you like. The secret is never give up and if you do not reach the goals you set, applaud your efforts and keep track of the changes you made. Don’t beat yourself up about not reaching a goal; be proud that you even set one. That shows you have a desire to improve.

This year in my creative life, I have set some goals for writing. Writing is important to me, but I struggle with doubt and a very mean internal critic. I have learned to silence the IC and celebrate the small victories. I am celebrating this blog post. It is late and would have been much easier to call it a night and go to bed, but here I am banging on the keys. I invite you to share one goal that you plan on setting and keeping this year, and with your permission I will share. I think it is encouraging to hear what others go through. It’s good to know we are all alike in many ways.

Thanks for stopping by, Merry Christmas

Cliff

Pictures

Hello friends,

it is summer time and the weather is heating up. I have had the pleasure of working for an Ag company as one of their field scouts. My job is to set insect traps for specific bugs and once a week I count the number of pest that have been trapped. It is a fun job I work four days a week and travel almost 500 miles in those four short days. I have seen some pretty cool things.  Below is the latest of interesting things. A mother dove chose one of my traps to build her nest and lay eggs on. When I found the nest there was already an egg. I decided to let it go and below you can see the results.

 

Here is a picture of an almond tree in the grip of winter. What's weird is this is in California and it never

Freezes here. Or does it?

 

 

That's all for now, I'll post more as they are found.

 

See you later

 

Cliff

 

 

 

You Are Enough

Hello friends, this post has been entered into the writing contest: You Are Enough, hosted by Positive Writer.

You are enough is a statement that carries a measure of subjective thought. The word bifurcates in meaning mostly by connotation. What is enough? When is there enough?  When I hear the word enough, I see my mother on a warm summer day stomp her foot and say “Enough” as her three boys argue over some injustice. Another obvious use that most of us can relate to occurs at the end of Thanksgiving dinner when offered another helping of gravy and mashed potatoes, hands go up in the air and the cry “enough!” is heard echoing through the house.

The basic idea of enough is there is no need for anything else, enough is enough. When applied to you as a writer the small three word phrase offers power and confidence to conquer any writing project that comes your way.  You have enough creativity, enough imagination and enough great ideas to be a successful writer. When faced with the daunting task of editing remember you are enough. When you hit the wall of silence you are enough to scale it and conquer the citadel of beginning, middle and end.

We all need a good “Let’s Go Team” once in a while, but a good dose of reality is important as well. The reality is that life will hand us failure and adversity. Every day of the year since the beginning of time people have failed at task performed and life in general. Businesses go under, buildings burn and rejection letters clog the postal system. However failure is not the last word. There are a dozen platitudes to emphasize the importance of never giving up. The point is “Never Give Up”.

We all know Michael Jordan as one of the best Basketball players in the history of the game, but may not be aware that his path to glory was not always easy. In high School he was told he was too short to play basketball. But instead of giving up he used the negative to drive him to greatness. He is quoted as saying, “I’ve failed over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed.”  In his own way he told himself that he was enough. (http://www.beliefnet.com/inspiration/galleries/9-famous-people-who-overcame-major-failure.aspx?p=4)

Dr. Seuss the well know children’s author received twenty seven rejections for his first book before it was finally published. He is quoted as saying, “And will you succeed? Yes! You will indeed! (98 and ¾ percent guaranteed).” Dr. Seuss is no longer with us but were he alive I think he would agree that “You are enough”.(http://www.beliefnet.com/inspiration/galleries/9-famous-people-who-overcame-major-failure.aspx?p=10)

My fellow writers, we are as different as the flurry of snowflakes in a January storm, yet we are united by the same daunting task of putting meaningful words on the blank page. It is time we unite and our battle cry will be “You are enough”. Right now take a blank piece of paper and in an act of defiance write in bold block letters, You Are Enough. Tack it on the wall and anytime the internal critic accuses you of being a want-a-be, look at the moto and tell yourself that you are enough to handle any task that faces you. Personalize it and say it until you believe it, I am enough. I am enough to build believable character. I am enough to show and limit my telling. I am enough to write in a way that people long to read my material. Always remember a writer writes, so write away my friends because you are enough to finish any project you start.

 

Happy New Year

Happy New Year,

It is the middle of February and this is the first post of 2018. Lots of reasons but no excuse for not posting sooner. Tomorrow I am attending a writing conference in Livermore CA. I attended a two day class last year at the same location. I wrote about it in February of last year. This year is a one day course intended for more advanced writers. I do not consider myself advanced, but I am serious about learning and have a goal of publishing. If this year is anything like last year it should be very informative and helpful in the advancement of my writing career.

I will, Lord willing, give and outline of what I learned this year after the conference is over. I can say without any reservation that if you are a Christian writer and are serious about your craft, these conferences are the place for you to be. Compared to many conferences I have come across, they are very affordable. Last year was the first conference I had the pleasure of attending. I plan on making this a regular routine.  For more information you can go to the website (westcoastchristianwriters.com) and find out more about upcoming conferences and other opportunities that are available.

 Tell a friend about this blog. www.writetheway.com. There is more to come this year in the way of encouraging articles and update on my books. I am currently working a historical adventure that takes place in 1860, called Cherokee Clay. More about that later.

God Bless and keep writing

 

Cliff