This Side of Invisible

Fun Facts about Hand-Writing Letters:  Results from several studies have shown that both children and adults learn more and remember better when writing by hand. Now another study confirms the same: choosing handwriting over keyboard use yields the best learning and memory. ( Neuroscience News )  A few experiments have shown that the brain only recognizes symbols that it learned if they were printed by hand, not if they were typed. When we are learning new letters, math symbols, or other symbols, it is much better to print them by hand than to type them. ( Frontiers for Young Minds )  The ability to read cursive matters. As Michel Martin points out on NPR, "many of the most important historical documents in the U.S., everything from the Declaration of Independence to the Bill of Rights, are written in cursive." What happens when we require a translator for our most precious founding documents? ( Treehugger.com )  Writing by hand makes us slow down. When you write b...

In the memorable words of Dr. Ian Malcolm played by the incomprable Jeff Goldblum, "Life finds a way." Even when we don't want it to, when we can't keep up, when we're exhausted... it just keeps coming. Life simply happens. But we must remember that we are created to be agents of action, not simply objects to be acted upon. Life comes at us unbidden, but we too can create the life we want. We can be the life unbidden. Life isn't merely something that happens around us, it's not just a force happening to us. Life happens within us. And with each exhale, we can speak life into existence all around us. We just have to be intentional, choosing moment to moment how to expend our energy. You are a child of God, the Great Creator; the DNA of creation makes up your every molecule. Don't wait to be bidden. Don't wait for approval. Listen to the beating of your own lifeforce. What life will you release into the world today? Now available: Life...

Thanks to the brilliant C.J. Anaya, I get to introduce you to one of my favorite characters today.  C.J. invited me to be a part of this blog hop and few weeks ago, and, finally, it's my turn. But before we get to my man Luke, please meet C. J. Anaya. C. J. Anaya began writing short stories for family and friends when she was thirteen years old. This soon morphed into an extensive project every year during Christmas as a way to create a fun and inexpensive Christmas gift. Now she is the author of “The Healer” . Ladies and Gents, I've read this book and it is FAN-Freakin-TASTIC! I recommend it wholeheartedly. Her passion for reading and writing led her to following her own dreams of becoming a published author. She was born in Utah and raised everywhere else. She even lived a few years in Brazil, enjoying the people, the culture and learning the beautiful language of Portuguese; a language she is still fluent in to this day. As a result of her exposure to...

I'm woman enough to admit that last week I had a small nervous breakdown.  A mini meltdown, if you will.  It seems a bit silly now in retrospect, but I assure you it wasn't silly in the slightest last week. All my life I have been a busy body.  I don't mean the gossipy, busy body; I mean the real deal, genuine body that must be busy doing something meaningful.  As a young child it was gymnastics or dance or both, plus t-ball, then later softball.  I started babysitting when I was eleven.  Not just here-and-there, but nearly every weekend and on many occasions over night.  I played volleyball, basketball and was a cheerleader in middle school and I was a peer tutor.  In high school, I was involved in color guard, cheerleading, youth camps, leadership camps, more peer tutoring, drama club, church youth group, early morning bible study, the drug-free group at school, student council and I worked at Burger King and babysat on the side.  In coll...

A few posts ago, I shared The Parenting Manifesto by Brene Brown.  Now it's time to share my own Manifesto. I wrote this sometime ago, in the Spring, I think.  I wish I had dated it, so I could pinpoint that exact moment when I chose to make my life my own.  I didn't.  I jotted this down one day in Relief Society in the back of my manual.  I don't remember the lesson that provoked these thoughts.  And for time, I forgot that I had even written them down. But just yesterday, I found them again.  And I cried.  I want so much to live this life.  It's time to take the bull by the horns, to dare greatly, to give myself what I want. So here it is: My Own Manifesto I choose to live by choice and not by chance. To make changes, not excuses. To be motivated, never manipulated. I choose self-esteem, not self-pity. To be useful, never used. To excel, not compete. I choose faith, not fear. I choose to listen to my own inner voice, To ne...

Our brain is a marvelous machine.  For a multitude of reason.  One of the things I find most fascinating is the ability it has to suppress memories.  Yes, this is a true concept.  There is research from  Stanford  that has proven that there is a neurobiological response in the brain that shuts down our ability to retrieve traumatic memories, a type of voluntary forgetfulness.  As it is, I have gaping voids in my childhood memory bank and I am beginning to understand why.  And I can see how my tendency to suppress memories created a void rather than small holes.  As I have worked to resurface suppressed memories (a painful and debilitating process) I have noticed that I have gained a greater capacity for remembering everyday things.  There was once a time when my memory maker was so focused on suppressing that daily life became muted, fuzzy, static that I couldn't remember.  I have decades that passed this way for me, includ...

Since announcing "I finished my book" and then posting the first chapter online, I've had a lot of comments, really great endearing comments, about how awesome it is, how awesome I am for doing it.  I love the encouragement, but at the same time, the strokes to my ego rake down my spine with painful unease.  Please, let me explain why. I am excited and amazed and humbled by my own accomplishment.  I am thrilled that after nearly three years, I was able to get my story out of my head and on paper... well, computer.   That being said, I don't want people mistakingly thinking that I did something they couldn't.  Nor do I want anyone thinking I'm some sort of super-mom able to do it all with grace and poise.  While the world (or at least my little corner of the world) sees that I have finished a novel, here is what they don't see: The world doesn't see the days I spend at the computer in my pajamas with a red-headed afro and day-long morning breath.  T...

Let the world know that yesterday, July 4th, 2013 around 1:15 p.m. I finished my first novel. Amazing.  If you're wondering.  That's how it feels to finally finish something that's taken nearly three years of hard labor to complete.  I feel so accomplished.  So satisfied and happy.  What a weight off my shoulders.  I FINISHED A NOVEL! In honor of finishing, and to keep myself motivated through the editing process, I'm posting the entire first chapter of I Am Guinevere by Miranda L Marrott  :)  Oh, I just got a chill writing that.   Without further ado: Chapter One:  My First Real Dose of Teenage Drama... and Then Some Dreams are answers to questions we haven’t yet figured out how to ask.  ~X-Files Further proof that fairy tales are not real:  Though I woke up to the sun warming my face and the birds greeting me with their joyous chirping, my hopes set high on losing myself to nature, the day quickly tur...

I've done a lot of writing lately, though not on my blog.  It helps me relax and unwind, escape when I need to, channel my emotions into something else when they are too many or too big for me to get a grip on in this world.  Writing takes me to new places and helps me gain perspective.  If you don't write, I highly recommend it.  It can be very therapeutic.  And I find that a lot of self-discovery happens when pen is put to paper... or fingers to keyboard, whatever you may choose. Life is a highway... write about it. Recently, I've been working on my WIP (the novel that still isn't finished), and on revamping a short story I wrote a few years ago (with the intent to submit it for publication), and on a new short story (which is turning into a much more in depth story... I should know better, I am very wordy) and poetry. I love poetry.  It's a way (for me) to use imagery to express my emotions.  Sometimes my poetry can be quite dark and creep...

I've recently started participating in a women's group devoted to overcoming shame.  The idea of shame is new to me.  Not that I didn't know what shame was, I simply didn't think I had any.  I don't have conscious thoughts of self-loathing, self-questioning, feeling incompetent (not overly anyway), feeling worthless, etc.  I don't look in the mirror and hate myself.  I don't often get embarrassed or worry about what others think.  Very little in my conscious thought process suggests shamefulness.  However, I have come to discover that a lot of my behavior suggests that I don't value myself as I should and that, in fact, I do suffer from a shame-based identity. I am working, really hard I might add, to do a 180 and obtain a worthiness-identity.  I want an identity that says, "I am good.  I am enough.  I am worthy of love and belonging.  I matter."  I want everything I think, say, do to emphasize that.  I want the way I co...

Well, the deadline came and went yesterday.  And no, my book is not finished.  If it was, I would be shouting it from the rooftops on a megaphone attached to sub-woofers, broadcasting at sonic-boom decibels.  Sigh. I have been trying not to be super depressed or down on myself the last few days as I came to realize that I wasn't going to be able to meet my goal and have my work-in-progress completed by September 17th as I had made a pact with my BWFE (best-writing-friend-ever), Becca, that I would.  To pull myself out of the dumps and come a terms with how imperfect life is and how plans, even cemented ones, have a way of crumbling into microscopic dust, I have decided to make a list of all my non-accomplishments over the last six weeks and see if I can find a reason why my WIP is yet to be finished. (I must say though, I am uber close, like 2-3 chapters away from the end! I will finish within the next 2 weeks!!) My Non-Accomplishment List In the last six we...

A long time ago--6 weeks is a long time, right?--September 17th seemed to be a really far away almost elusive date.  Today, it's turned into a proverbial black raven pecking on my window sill, incessantly reminding me just how much I have left to write if I want to make my BWFE(best-writing-friend-ever)-promised deadline.  Peck, peck, peck.  Knock, knock, knock... the deadline cometh. And, of course, instead of writing I have been stalking people/photos on perusing fb and checking my email and watching random youtube videos like this one --which actually isn't totally random, it's a memorial for 9/11 and very cool and touching, not a waste of my time at all--and playing on iTunes (have to have a playlist to write with) and flossing.  Really?  Flossing?  Yeah, I'm all kinds of ADD and lame at the end of the day. And to further procrastinate, I am posting another snippet. *If you haven't read any of my snippets yet from my manuscript please first click ...

As of this minute, I have 14 days, 1 hour and 8 minutes to finish my first draft of my current manuscript.  It's been slow going, and by that I mean, it's been at a stand still for the last week or so... mostly because my kids started a new online school this week and I've been working on a script for a short play my church is putting on... Details.  I am focused and really want to finish this. If you would like to read any of the other snippets, please click here and here . In this snippet we find our hero, Dee, after her first day of school and her run-ins with Dane, the One she has been training to protect, which have left her feeling inadequate and confused, exhausted and angry.   And what does a 15 year old weapons expert do when she's angry?  Whip out a bo staff and beat the sap out of trees, of course.  Enjoy ;)

It’s like being adrift at sea, constantly having to fight the waves and current so that you don’t slip under. Occasionally a piece of drift wood might float by and if you’re lucky, you’ll catch it. But even at that, it being drift wood, water-logged and rotted, after some time it starts to crack and break apart under your weight. You cry out in panic as it begins to disintegrate in your hands, leaving you floundering, trying to recover, coughing and spluttering, gasping for air, praying someone will save you or that maybe, you can figure out how to save yourself. photo credit here You know land is out there somewhere. Once or twice you’ve caught a glimpse of it. You thought you even saw a small group of people there. They were partying, gathered around a fire and possibly dancing. Damn them! While you’re trapped out here, treading water, completely exhausted. You start praying another bit of drift wood will come along, you’re always praying for ...

Here's another little snippet of my WIP.  Seriously, putting it out there that I'm desperately trying to finish this thing has actually helped me stay focused.  And thanks to all of you that offered your kind support.  It's extremely encouraging. In this snippet, having gotten lost on her first morning in a new school and now running a few minutes late, Dee has just walked into her very first public school class ever--high school English.

Normal : noun the  usual , average,  or   typical  state or condition  Normal :  adjective conforming   to  a  standard ;  usual ,  typical ,  or   expected   According to my dictionary app: Most  people want to be regarded as  normal , an adjective that implies conformity with established norms or standards and is the opposite of abnormal ( :  a normal body temperature; normal intelligence ). Regular , like  normal , is usually preferred to its opposite (irregular) and  implies  conformity to prescribed standards or established patterns ( :  their regular  monthly  meeting ; a regular guy ), but  normal  carries stronger connotations of  conformity  within prescribed limits and sometimes allows for a wider range of differences. photo credit: here What do you think?  Do you buy into this definition?  Do you think normal is such a ri...

I recently made a pact with a dear friend of mine, my BWBE (best writing buddy ever), Becca.  We have both been working on a book for nearly two years.  We both want to finish.  We decided to vow to each other we would finish within six weeks, making our finishing date September 17, 2012.  I need too stay focused and not get to lost in details of what I've already written so that I can just push through to the end.  I'm getting closer and closer everyday, but I need a little more push behind me.  So I've decided to share with the world my goal in the hopes that having it out there will help push me through to the finish line.  I'm really trying to keep myself accountable to the goal I've set. I am posting right here, right now, I will have this book finished (the first draft, mind you) on or before September 17th!!!!   To keep me excited and maybe (hopefully) to gain more people to cheer me on, I've decided to share just a few bits and pieces ...

Triumph Truth Prevails                                 When Hope Prevails You should all know that means writing.  My kids are too old to blame my few hours of sleep on them. A good friend and I recently made a pact that we are GOING TO FINISH our WIP's (works-in-progress) in 6 weeks... that was about a week ago, so we have 5 weeks left.  Hold me to it, please! I have lost a ton of sleep over my WIP the last 2 weeks, but last night, I lost sleep over this: "What is this?" you say.  This is Spine Poetry.  I found the contest on  LibraryThing.com.   So I thought I'd try it.  Here are the rest of what I've been playing with.  Tell me what you think.  I can enter as many times as I'd like, but I want to put in the best entries that I can.  I started to get really frustrated.  I really wanted to go to the library to check out book...

Been having the writing itch/ache for a fews days and actually had a day today when I could sit and write. My writing program scrivener (if I haven't mentioned it's amazing qualities yet, know it is amazing) would not open. Went to the website and re-downloaded, no problem. Went to get to work... MY FILES WERE GONE!!! THE files. Lainey and Varick and Dee and Lance and Dane. Gone. I tried to calm myself as I searched for them. I'm sure they're here somewhere, just got shuffled around when I downloaded the new version. Calm down, slow your breathing... DO NOT CRY. Nope, not in that file either. Let's try under Documents... things always get lost in the documents folder. Ok, not there either, but they have to be somewhere! Keep looking. I was hyperventilating by this point. My hands were shaking as I tried to maneuver the mouse. My chest started pounding. My panic-meter was rapidly rising. The kids were getting restless and starting to fight... yeah, I knew ...

Just realized that I had posted about gratitude and meant to post something everyday... but let's face it, that's what facebook is for. *sigh* This was my last gratitude post on facebook: i'm grateful for endings.... sometimes they are sad, sometimes they are sweet and sometimes they just provide blessed relief. On a totally related note: I am determined to finish this novel this month! I've just signed up for NaNoFiMo, National Novel Finishing Month! Let it begin... or rather, let it end.