SHORT STORY: It Could Just Be The Wind

 

Never wrote a short story before. Please tell me if the story spooked you, made you wonder too, or had no effect. Writers want the reader to have some kind of emotional feeling. DID I ACCOMPLISH THIS? Feedback of any kind appreciated. DO I HAVE A FUTURE IN WRITING?

IT COULD JUST BE THE WIND

 

Finishing my, as the book directd, prayer, “Lord, please forgive me of all my sins known and unknown. I repent of any wrong I have done to others, known and unknown. Cleanse me of all my sins and allow me to see your divine angels, In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen,” I feel a chilling puff of cold air on my right forearm. Goosebumps stand erect acknowledging what my eyes didn’t see. If all the other occurrences could be summed up as, “It could just be the wind playing tricks on you,” I would take it with no more questions asked. But this can’t be explained away so cavalierly.

I wonder for a moment, if the prayer to see angels I just performed really works. I was a little hesitant to say the prayer because the beautifully illustrated jacket of the book warned if there is any darkness or unforgiveness in you, you may see demons instead of angelic angels. Immediately after saying the prayer, I, with wide eyes, search for what will appear from my prayer in my sun filled livingroom. Nothing. It has always been my dream to see the angels and nothing.

Hearing the youthful sounds of children playing basketball in my yard, I smile and decide to take in some afternoon sun on the black iron garden bench and watch them play. As the kids laugh and try daring basketball moves, I become overcome with the nagging feeling there is a slithering snake at my feet. Unable to ignore the increasing sense that a snake is near, I fold my feet under me Indian style on the bench, which did not ease the feeling. Finally, I cautiously bolt to the security of the indoors. Once inside, I laugh at my foolishness.

Kids fed and tucked into bed without much complaint, I settle to watch my favorite show, ER, with lights off. Just me and George Clooney for an hour. Suddenly in the darkened room illuminated by the flickers of the television, my peripheral vision sees a black formless shadow dart from the side of the black kitchen refrigerator and disappear at the end of my side vision. Snapping my head in the direction of what I am sure I saw, I simultaneously think, “Did I just see that,” and “Who’s there?”

Just as quickly as the feeling of impendinng doom came, it disappeared as I laugh at myself, being startled by nightly tricks of the eye. Focusing back on the t.v., I settle in to enjoy my remaining time with George.and his gorgeous hair. I jump, startled once again, but this time by the extremely loud booming hum of the refrigerator, which sounds more like a hungry chainsaw in search of its food. It has never been this loud before. Frowning, as if pained from the audio assault, I must pee and pee badly. I gather myself to scurry past the cold loud kitchen to the powder blue bathroom down the hall. Relieving myself and exhaling my uncalled-for fear, I dismiss the previous frightful occurrances.

Why have I been on edge all day looking for something that doesn't exist? I’m never jittery like this, literally shaking like the last brown dry leaf holding on to a tree branch in the blustery fall wind. I twist and flutter, shaking but never giving in to the power of the destructive winds like that leaf. Of course, I’ve seen shadow figures before, but never several times like tonight. I need to calm down, breath, and relax. With that, I wipe and flush the toilet. The sound of the flushing sounds like bombs of war going off. The percussion sound blows me back, causing me to stumble. I feel a rush a wind again. Searching the tiny bathrrom, looking for an open winndow, which remains closed and locked, I can't find a sourch of the bone chiilling wind. shivering I run to the dark living room, hopping onto the couch, cowering under a blanket as the toilet roars from the bathroom like an angry lion. Praying for the toilet to fill and quiet, I wait, all the while I feel as if someone or something is watching me.

Trembling like a wet fearful dog hoping to be rescued by its master, I look out from the red wool blanket, searching the kitchen for the black formless shadow. After a few minutes, which seemed like an hour, the black shadow darted from the side of the refrigerator down the hall towards the bathroom and my baby’s room. Heart pounding like a startled rabbit, I question once again whether I have seen what I had saw. No! No, I didn’t. I don’t believe in ghos….

Suddenly it dawns on me; my prayer. My breathing quickens to pants reliving today’s earlier request to see etheral angelic angels. What if I unleashed demons instead of angels? No! My heart is clean! The prayer didn’t work! Its not possible to request to see angels. Good angels. The book warned me! Why didn’t I listen! No! No! No! I don’t believe such stuff, and yet I do in the secret creases of my heart.

The night dragged like a man lame from war as I waited for the snail-like approaching daylight. I removed the batteries from the clock hours ago, each tick of the second hand sounded like a grenade going off. Boom! Boom! Boom, striking terror with each explosive sound. Now I sit in a fetal position in the corner of the green velvety couch. I’m freezing, bone shaking cold, but too scared to move from the couch to put on warmer clothes. I had on sexy sheer lingerie for my quality time with George. The airconditioner is pumping out North Pole air. My brain is ping-ponging from one explanation to the other for the shadows and noise. Nothing is comforting or reassuring. As each moment passes, I feel my grip on reality slipping away. If only this was a dream, then I could make sense of it all. Even though I have vivid dreams, dreams I can manipulate while sleeping to start, stop, or change at my command, I can tell the difference between dreams and reality. Now I don't know what reality is at all.

This is something different. Something unearthly. I am between insanity and reality, not knowing which is which. If I am seeing dark demons from my prayer, is it real? If I’m seeing demons, is it from the prayer or am I just going crazy? I don’t know what is real right now, which makes me question my sanity even more. Did a mental breakdown happen to coincide with a prayer to see angels? Whatever is happening to me is terrorizing. Rocking myself, wanting to hum a soothing song but can't form any words in my head, eyes cast down, I pray for daylight.

As the dark night sky of mystery yields itself to shades of gray tinged with the oranges of a rising sun, I’m proud I’ve held on. I called hubby an hour ago who is out of town working. I didn’t know what to say except I need you to come home and take me to the doctor. Now I question what exactly I will tell my husband and doctors about what happened to me all night. Looking into the not-so-dark-now kitchen, I see no shadows and immediately question if I ever had.

Hearing the sputtering engine cut off from the truck hubby drives, I quickly decide, as I smile with relief, last night didn’t happen. I just had a bad bad day. I was just over sensitive to noise and now its over. No black shadows or bombs going off. It could be the presence of daylight, hubby’s calming presence, or my imagination, but none of the feelings from the night linger in the coming daylight.

I explain to hubby I was having a bad day and just felt off. I will go to the doctor if the feeling returns but all is okay now. We spend the day together having family fun. We put the children to sleep an hour after their usual bedtime. They got to stay up an extra hour because dad had come home early. Me and boo shut down the house for the day and snuggle, talk, and laugh in the middle bedroom. We hear at the same time the sound of little feet almost running from the kid’s bedroom heading our way. Laughing we know it is our nightly bed-jumper, our youngest. We listen as the tiny feet approach, waiting to hear the excuse of a four-year-old trying to worm her way into our bed. No child appeared.

With a questioning look, his usual furrowed brow and without words, hubby looks at me for a long minute. Climbing over me, his knees promising to do damage unless I sheild myself, he goes to the open bedroomm door and looks down the hall into the livingroom where the footsteps were heard. Confused, and with mouth open he stares at me for some kind of answer. All I can offer him is an ‘I know. I heard it too’. I pat for him to come sit on the bed next to me. I explain the prior night’s event, leaving out the part where I prayed to see angels. That never happened right? I'll never tell I prayed to see angels and was scared shitless instead.

I tell hubby I need to go to the doctor and tell him what I told him. We both agreed the doctors will think I’m crazy. Hubby offers to tell the doctors he experienced some weird shit too in the house and we both heard the unexplained footsteps. I can’t imagine what doctors will think if two parents came to them with such a story. We would probably lose custody of our children. No. Only I will confess to the craziness.

It does enter my mind to pray for the visions to disappear. But that will only work if the prayer to see angels worked in the first place. With hubby experiencing hearing the human-less footsteps, something occurred after the prayer. What, I can't tell you. On the other hand, I have a long family history of mental illness, schizophrenia to be exact. I’m sure I saw what I saw and heard what I heard. But so was my mother when she thought she was the Unabomber police were looking for because she once worked at the post office. The things she must have heard and saw with that delusion.

“I want you to place one of these pills under your tongue each time you have a panic attack,” the nice doctor said handing me a prescription for Xanax. My hubby watched as my shaky hand took the prescription from the doctor, nodding my head. Smiling, I felt as if I had the answer, anxiety attack. Sounded right to me even though hubby wants to hang a horseshoe over the door to ward off evil and says he will never stay in the house alone again.

I’m mentally ill. How relieving. It’s not schizophrenia though. I'm lucky. Sure, hubby is a little shaken. Okay, scared, but we have been okay for days even though I have to pop several pills at night when the noises and shadows come. I sleep with a fan running to drown out the footsteps at night. I believe it is called white noise. Many well people sleep with a television or fan on at night to help with sleep. My days are normal. No boogieman nor signs of schizophrenia. Just peace in the mind. Nights are another story.

Nights have become battles of thought. Are those who can see and talk to angels mentally ill or are those with mental illness able to communicate with beings on another level. Should I embrace being able to see what I see, good or bad, or continue to monitor my mental health for further decline. I brace myself each night at the mercy of a thing which I can not determine what it is. Menacing is the best word for it right now. Should I surrender to this unknown? What is my reality? Do I see what I think I see? What is a certain reality is the fact I have gone from one pill to six and this reality persists, and the torture is not knowing what my reality is. “Hello shadow, how are you tonight?”

 

A Writer's Life Defined

I believe people fail to realize writers LOVE words. They love the sentences when words come together. They spend a lot of time trying to create one perfect sentence that will grab ahold of every reader and become part of the mainstream venacular. 

Writers are akin to philosophers because they spend countless hours pondering subjects searching for unforseen new ways to spin old and sometimes overused subjects. They are always wondering "what if."

But writers are more than story tellers and philosophers. Many are historians, armchair scientists, detectives, criminals, women who are men, and men who are women. They are whoever their story needs them to be to give the reader a book worth reading and once opened, never put down.

Writers are made of thick skin, rubber skin, skin of armor. They are made of these many different skins because they have to be in order to be a writer. People read their work they may have toiled years to get just right and reject it, criticize it, mock it, have contempt for it, or declare they are a much better writer than they are. Writers are not weak in any form of the word. Their spine has to be made of the material of Iron Man's suit each time they present their BEST work to the public to be adored or trashed. It takes real nerve to be a writer.

If you are lucky enough to know a writer, aren't you amazed at how they can form a character in their mind, give the character a detail rich home, a tragic or eviable life, a love found or a love lost, and a life altering choice in their life that would be difficult for any normal person. Writers create crises and also solves them. How good are you at creating your own crises and solving them?

A writer stares at a blank page on their computer screen, and creates an entire world. How can they do this you may ask? Because a writer's brain is never really at rest. They are constantly thinking. Their imagination is constantly triggered with ideas, plot twists, or new imaginings from everything and everyone they encounter in their day. I know even while waiting to go into surgery, I was thinking about crafting a operation scene in a work in progress I was writing. I was taking mental notes on everything medical and would have loved to have had a pen and paper handy to jot down how I would describe my operation scene in my work.

The five senses are crucial to a writer. Writers have to impart an experience to their reader. How a lover looked, smelled, felt, tasted, and sounded. I know you are saying you can do that with your own love interest. But does your love interest have the ability to make thousands, hopefully, millions of the opposite sex reader desire them? Writers have to dig deep into sexuality, sometimes heavy handed (almost pornographic), at at time with the lightest touch to leave the reader longing. I guess writers are also sex experts or at least romantics.

Writers are magicians. Their aim is to entertain the reader, surprise the reader, shock the reader, and never let the reader know the secret to their magic. They take the ordinary and do wonders with it and the lucky few can perform something never seen before. Writers are magical.

Before I forget, I must add writers are psychologists. Psychologists study cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior by observing, interpreting, and recording how people relate to one another and to their enviroments. They use their findings to help improve processes and behaviors. To write about humans one must understand people. Using their knowledge of human behavior, writers make you love, hate, or even feel indifferent about characters in a book. Many books take the reader on a journey discovering good and bad things about the human psyche. Writers make the the reader relate to heroes and villians tapping into the readers emotions. The reader may see themselves in the characters artfully written about in the pages and decide to make the same or opposite changes just as the character/characters did. Writers can inspire, encourage, and give hope to their audeience. Writers draw out the reader's smiles, tears, anger, sympathies, compassions, and even hatreds. 

I started writing twenty years ago and as most writers know, my first books were crappy. I loved the subject matter of my books but my writing skills were really bad. Fast forward to present writer Dorothy, and I'm much better. The one thing I have learned is that writers continually sharpen their writing skills. Their writing becomes better due to critism, helpful feedback, just continuing to write, and from having their work published. The win - PUBLISHED! But, nothing is certain in a writer's life. One book can be wildly successful and they are heralded as genius and the next book is a flop and the public says they were never actually talented.

So why do writers write? Because writers love words. They love the sentences when words come together. They spend a lot of time trying to create one perfect sentence that will grab ahold of every reader and become part of the mainstream venacular. They are magicians with a story to tell. To all my writer friends, never stop making MAGIC.

Please share, like, comment, and follow. Thank you. 

You can do it too.

FAMOUS QOUTES FROM CLASSIC LITERATURE

• “Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.” —Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

• “I have been bent and broken, but— I hope— into a better shape.” —Charles Dickens, Great Expectations 

• “Anyone who ever gave you confidence, you owe them a lot.” —Truman Capote, Breakfast At Tiffany’s 

• “The thing is—fear can’t hurt you any more than a dream.” —William Golding, Lord of the Flies 

• “It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.” —Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland 

• “Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.” —Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man 

• “I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.” —Herman Melville, Moby-Dick 

• "It’s in vain to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present" —Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

• "It's much better to do good in a way that no one knows anything about it." —Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina 

• “If you tell the truth you do not need a good memory.” —Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

• “You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.” —Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

• "Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs." —Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre 

FAMOUS QOUTES FROM POETRY

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning.” —Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven

• “To be or not to be: that is the question” —William Shakespeare, Hamlet 

• “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the road less traveled by” —Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken 

• “Every time I travel I meet myself a little more.” —Yrsa Daley-Ward, Coordinates 

• “Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without words And never stops at all.” —Emily Dickinson, Hope is the Thing With Feathers 

• “You can trodme in the very dirt, but still like dust, I rise.” —Maya Angelou, Still I Rise 

• “Be an outcast, Be pleased to walk alone.” —Alice Walker, Be Nobody’s Darling 

• “I celebrate myself, and sing myself.” —Walt Whitman, Song of Myself 

• “To live a little better and  always be forgiving, to add a little sunshine to the world in which we are living.” —Helen Steiner Rice, A New Beginning 

• “Life’s battles don’t always go To the stronger or faster man,But soon or late the man who wins Is the man WHO THINKS HE CAN!” —Walter D. Wintle, The Man Who Thinks He Can 

FAMOUS QUOTES FROM ROMANTIC LITERATURE

• “He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” —Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights 

• “If you loved someone, you loved him, and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him love.” —George Orwell, 1984

• “Who, being loved, is poor?” —Oscar Wilde, A Woman Of Importance 

• “To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further.” —Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

• “All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.” —Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

• “The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” ―Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

• “When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.” —Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

• “We love the things we love for what they are.” —Robert Frost, Hyla Brook

• “How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you.” ―Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey

• “I am beginning to measure myself in strength, not pounds. Sometimes in smiles.” ―Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls

FAMOUS QUOTES FROM CHILDREN'S LITERATURE

• “Promise me you’ll be braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, smarter than you think.” —A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh 
• “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” —Aesop, The Lion and the Mouse 

• "Where you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow." —Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden 

• “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

• “The true courage is in facing danger when you are afraid.” —L. Frank Braum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

• “The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all.” —Shiamin Kwa, Mulan

• “The more he gave away, the more delighted he became.” —Marcus Pfister, The Rainbow Fish

• “But all the magic I have known. I’ve had to make myself.” —Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends

• “Real isn’t how you are made, It’s a thing that happens to you.” —Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit 

• “Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” —Dr. Seuss, Happy Birthday to You! 

• “Never hurry and never worry!” —E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web 

• “Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?” —Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables 

A WRITER'S LIFE: Tim Cagle

 

Have you heard the saying, Indecent Proposal? Well, author, Tim Cagle, had an "Indecent Rejection." Tim is the first of hopefully many writers I will be featuring on my blog in a segmaent tiltled, A WRITER'S LIFE, in which I interview writers and how they deal with the hills and valleys that come with a writer's life. 

Even though Tim is one in a million in his writing, he is also one of thousands of writers who have received the dreaded rejection letter from agents and publishers. But thankfully, he was not deterred from creating magic with words. What he did after reading the rejection letter is probably something some of us would love to do also (Or has done?).

I hope you will be inspired and encouraged in your writing journey after reading his interview. Make sure to check out his contact information at the end of the interview.

1.  I have been a writer since the 1990’s.  I was a medical malpractice, products liability and wrongful death attorney for decades and began to write as a way to share stories about clients I could not help because the law or the facts were against us. Unfortunately, at that time, I was working 100 plus hours a week and did not have the time to bring my books up to publishable standards until I retired.

2.  I have written two medical/legal thrillers, Unexpected Enemy and Class of Two, as well as one book about songwriting, Whispers from the Silence, based on the time I shut down my law practice after I passed the bar and went to Nashville to write songs. My big break never broke and I learned I would always be a songwriter trapped in a lawyer’s body.

3.  I have lost count of the number of rejections I have received. Most of the time, agents did not even provide the courtesy of a reply, and I consider that to be a form of rejection.

4.  The worst rejection I received was from an agent regarding my most successful novel to date, Class of Two. It is the story of two lawyers, one black and one white, ex-college roommates and football All-Americans, who reunite in Boston to go to trial against the country’s leading heart surgeon. They were the first black and white teammates to live together in Texas in 1964, during the height of the Civil Rights movement. It highlights what the turbulent 1960’s were like, and how the friendship of two men could overcome the evils of society.

I sent my manuscript to an alleged agent who wrote me back a scathing review. It was highlighted by the words, “I never knew one football player who was smart enough to go to law school, let alone two!” I was at my fiery, trial lawyer, take-no-prisoners, litigation self and wrote back to him the following, “Thank you for pointing how naïve I was to think that football players could have two separate IQ points to rub together. I am now on a quest to inform the following individuals that they are too stupid to survive, 1. Byron “Whizzer” White, J.D., University of Colorado and Pittsburgh Pirates (now Steelers) running back and US Supreme Court Justice, 2. Pat Haden, Rhodes Scholar, former USC and Los Angeles Rams quarterback, 3. Dr. Frank Ryan, PHD in Mathematics, former Cleveland Browns quarterback and considered a genius in geometric function theory, 4. Alan Page, JD. Former Minnesota Vikings defensive lineman and now Minnesota Supreme Court Justice, 5. Kris Kristofferson, Rhodes Scholar, Army Ranger, Pomona College end and prolific songwriter, and 6. Nick Buoniconti, J.D., corporate attorney and a graduate of Suffolk University Law School, my alma mater. I told the agent I would inform the foregoing individuals he considered them too vapid to exist and they should immediately withdraw from societal interactions.

5. The best way to bounce back is to keep writing!  This is the most subjective business I have ever seen. It is mostly based on guesswork and despite their frequent and multiple failures, even a bad agent occasionally guesses right.

6.  My best advice for writers is to be careful to whom you listen. Many writers consider agents to be god-like figures and all-knowing gurus, when in fact, they are often self-appointed pseudo experts. I once had an agent tell me a scene I wrote about a lawyer’s first meeting with a new client lacked form, originality, scope and substance. I told her that I was at a significant disadvantage because I only had twenty-five years of law practice and trial work upon which to base my descriptions, and would do my best to imagine how a Hollywood lightweight would write the scene.

Also, never forget that most agents have twenty-something year-old assistants whom they rely on to screen a writer’s work. I was also an Evidence professor for 25 years and have some insight into how the twenty-five-year-old mind works. Most consider someone of my maturity to be an irrelevant dinosaur and consider Taylor Swift to be a goddess songwriter. I have had conversations with them about GIFTED songwriters like Smoky Robinson, Jim Webb, Norman Whitfield, Jim Croce and John Fogerty and always ask how they would have handled Taylor’s insightful lyric about how “he didn’t like it when I wore high heels”, and wait for them to look at me with the same insipid glance as the agent who told me football players were too dense to do anything but run through a wall.

Finally, do not get discouraged. My success came after I abandoned the search for an agent as I can read and interpret my own contracts. Also, when it comes to agents, always consider the source. If the chance comes to become the next J.K. Rowling, Toni Morrison or John Grisham, make sure you have a top-notch advisor by your side. If success never comes, pull out every drop of fulfillment you can because you were able to so something few people can, finish writing a book.

Above all, keep writing and stay safe,

Tim Cagle, J.D.,  an ex-linebacker who made it through law school so I could deal with arguing with expert witnesses, after I finally stopped trying to run through walls.

PLEASE take the time to visit Tim's platforms, check out his work, and share with friends and family 

Twitter and Instagram:  @timcagleauthor

Facebook and LinkedIn:  Tim Cagle 

UNEXPECTED ENEMY https://goo.gl/joxZLH woman has interracial child after clinic gives her STRANGER’S SPERM;

CLASS OF TWO https://tinyurl.com/y2bsfgkt 2 lawyers, 1 black, 1 white, ex-roommates and football All-Amercans vs ELITE HEART SURGEON!

WHISPERS FROM THE SILENCE https://goo.gl/EVvYQZ two songwriters fall in love in Nashville & write songs by waiting for silence to whisper the lyrics....

***WANT TO BE FEATURED?*****

It's simple. Contact me at: rizerfall@yahoo.com

 

INTERVIEW: Natalie Ritchie, author

 WELCOME TO WEDNESDAY WITH WOMEN

Author Natalie Ritchie shares what drives her as a writer, and it is advocating for women no matter what role they choose in life. She is a strong voice reminding women as well as men women who choose to work at home as a homemaker are not inferior to women who choose a career outside of the home. Ritchie has to juggle many roles at once and writing is just one of those roles. Her work reflects the ongoing quest to define womanhood in the 21st Century by today's woman. Her interview does not shy away from the question, "What is womanhood?"

1     What is the name of your book/genre?

My book is a nonfiction work called Roar Like a Woman: How Feminists Think Women Suck and Men Rock. It calls for a feminism that actually includes the woman. The feminist revolution threw the baby out with the bathwater—it threw out the woman with the bathwater of woman’s oppression.

2.      When did you start your writing career?

I went straight into journalism almost from the get-go and after a long stint in public relations in the tourism industry, I moved into travel writing. I co-authored the Frommer’s Australia travel guide for several years. Later, I became features editor of Australia’s biggest parenting magazine. Today, I work full-time as a general-purpose editor. 

3.      Did you have support from family/friends/community?

Not really. But that’s because I like it that way. Mostly, I write alone. I know what I want to say. Even nonfiction writing, which is what I do, is an intensely personal and creative thing. To be honest, I just want to be left alone when I write. That said, my colleagues, most of whom are also writers of one kind or another, do have a lot of really good advice. I think the trick is to balance when to listen to others and when to stay true to your inner voice.

4.      What is most difficult about an author’s life?

Finding time to write is one of the hardest things writers do, especially mothers! And then when they do make the time, they sacrifice their rest, their hobbies, their home chores, time with their families or friends, time spent helping others, time to exercise—and time to read! Most writers love reading. I know a mother of five who got up every morning at 5 a.m. to have an hour to herself to write. Of course, for many of us, the kids are up at 5 a.m. too, so that’s not the answer for everyone!

I started writing my book in 2012 and finished it in 2018. I was working full-time most of that time and fifty percent co-parenting my two sons. It takes discipline to dedicate yourself to writing every moment you can. And then there is the work of self-publishing: proofing, hiring a cover designer and typesetter and website designer, formatting e-book files, distributing, publicizing, doing interviews, and more. What kept me going was the sure-fire knowledge that women matter.

5.      As a woman do you feel an obligation to write on women’s issues (in some form)?

Absolutely. Women need a voice, a voice that feminism far too often silences, when it should be our champion! Ever since I entered the workforce in the eighties, I have been frustrated at feminism’s refusal to acknowledge women’s role as mothers, as home runners, as the ones caring for elderly relatives or family members with a disability, as driving forces in the wider community, and as a powerhouse of change in their own right—and that’s all before we get to a career! To feminism, you would think a woman had nothing to do but join men at the office. It pours praise on a woman when she does the same paid work men do but ignores, denies, and often derides a woman without a man-identical career.

Here’s the thing—a woman is a fully human being in her own right. Without a career. Yet feminism sends a different message—that a woman is an inferior, passive nobody who only becomes a somebody, and her husband’s equal, when she joins him at the office.

6.      Do you create stereotypical female characters i.e., weak, need to be saved?

While there are no characters in my nonfiction book, it does contain the voices of many real women speaking on the miraculous joys and the grueling lows of motherhood and home-running and what it actually means to be a woman (rather than what our very masculinist version of feminism tells us it means). These are women with rich, exhilarating lives outside the workplace who defy the feminist stereotype of woman as weak and in need of rescue. Women are not weak. They are extraordinarily strong.

7.      Do you try to be politically correct or stay away from politics/controversial current events as plots?

Because I stand up for women as dynamic, valiant beings in their own right, with or without an achievement-packed resume, I am one of the most politically incorrect writers around! To say that a woman is an autonomous, authoritative, intelligent person without a career is not just controversial today—it’s heresy.

8.      What makes a woman a success?

One thing only self-respect. A successful woman sees the world through a woman’s eyes, and respects herself for it. Never mind whether she has a job, or financial riches. A woman is not a “failure” who becomes a “success” through joining men at the office or amassing wealth or accomplishments. Women are so much more than their job, and no woman should need to have a job to be considered a “success.” A woman already works every day of her life. A woman is a resonant, in-command, active, capable person, a force for good in the world, a locus of love and intelligence, all on her own. If she works, it is because she loves working or needs the income. She has her own perceptions and priorities that are not always the same as men’s. She stands up for her right to do all the things men do, but she also stands up for her right to recognition and respect for all that she does as a woman. 

Natalie Ritchie is mom to two teenage boys, a former parenting magazine features editor, and author of Roar Like a Woman: How Feminists Think Women Suck and Men Rock. She lives in Sydney, Australia.

Link: Roar Like a Woman | Natalie Ritchie

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IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE FEAURED ON WEDNESDAY WITH WOMEN e-mail me at rizerfall@yahoo.com

Comments and questions welcomed

Imporvement Begins With Reading

     

How important is READING to self improvement? It is so important until censoring what you read is a must. Anytime a leader wanted to control a people, they restricted their ability to read.

There are so many things in which I wish I could take credit for. I want a wise saying or philosophy to be attributed to me. There are already so many great nuggets of wisdom until I don't believe there are any new ones to come up with. I want to discover the key to success that will work quickly and efficiently. Many other people have come up with their formulas, but they include things like dedication and persistence. Sounds like a lot of work to me.

Even though I may not be known for anything earth shattering, that doesn't mean what has already been thought of and said is a waste. I have found many good self-improvement guides by several different people. There is a running theme to them all, "Improvement Begins With Self." Whether it is being a good leader, prosperous, or being a good Christian, you must begin with self. 

    Marcus Mosiah Garvey was featured in a newsletter in which I did not agree with the philosophy, but he made some good points. Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. ONH was a Jamaican political activist. He was the founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, through which he declared himself Provisional President of Africa.  His reasons for giving his "lessons" on bettering self are not reasons I can completely get on board with, but the lessons themselves are sound and I would like to share them with you.

Garvey has been quoted as saying, “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds.” “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” “Take advantage of every opportunity; where there is none, make it for yourself.” 

As I stated earlier, many people offering advice/instruction for self improvement hold to these main points and central theme of READING.

 1. One must never stop reading. Read everything that you can read, that is of standard knowledge. Don't waste time reading trashy literature. The idea is that personal experience is not enough for a human to get all the useful knowledge of life, because the individual life is too short, so we must feed on the experiences of others.

 2. Read history incessantly until you master it. This means your own national history, the history of the world, social history, industrial history, and the history of different sciences, but primarily the history of MAN. If you do not know what went on before your birth and what is happening at the time you are alive, you will not know the world and will be ignorant of the world and mankind. 

3. Read intelligently. Be able to master the language of your country. To do this, you must be well acquainted with its grammar and the science of your language. People judge you by your writing and your speech. If you write badly and incorrectly, they become prejudiced towards your intelligence, and if you speak badly and incorrectly, those who hear you become disgusted and will not pay much attention to you, but in their hearts laugh after you.

 4. A leader who is to teach men and present any fact of truth must first be taught in his subject. 

5. Never write or speak on a subject you know nothing about, for there is always somebody who knows that particular subject who will laugh at you or to ask you embarrassing questions that may make others laugh at you.

 6. You should read four hours a day. The best time to read is in the evening after you have retired from your work and after you have rested and before sleeping hours, but do so before morning, so that during your sleep hours what you have read may become subconscious, that is to say, planted in your memory. 

7. Never keep the constant company of anybody who doesn't know as much as you or (is) who is not as educated as you, and from whom you cannot learn something from or reciprocate your learning. 

8. Continue always in the application of the things you desire educationally, culturally, or otherwise, and never give up until you reach your objective. 

9. Try never to repeat yourself in any one discourse in saying the same thing over and over again except when you are making new points, because repetition is tiresome and annoys those who hear the repetition.

 10. KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. When you know a thing and can hold your ground on that thing and win over your opponents on that thing, those who hear you learn to have confidence in you and will trust your ability. 

Garvey's 11th point is directed to African Americans, about being wary of what they read because at times, it is written by particular authors with a perspective that may not be inclusive of the Black experience. It is worthy to note our country's interest in changing the history of what American children learn in the school classroom. 

We are now battling 'Critical Race Theory' being taught in American schools according to Republicans. Censorship of certain books and authors for the sake of not being 'offensive' is occuring. It is asserted our children can't handle the truth about how America became a country. Mark Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, in which he used the word 'injun' and 'nigger' was heralded as fine literature and taught to Black students without any regard to how reading the words and slavery might affect or offend them. No censorship for Black children's feelings.

The rewriting of history has always been an issue. People still argue on which translation of the Bible is correct or doctored. It is said that the winners get to decide what is recorded in history. Our education system running amuck is another post within itself. The above lessons in self improvement are lessons we should instill in our children as we teach them to read before they enter the classroom. Correct grammar and first impressions are something the parent should be deeply concerned about because it greatly impacts their child's future. Don't leave your child's future in the hands of ANYONE. Example these lessons at home so that it will be a natural part of everday life.

People often seek to improve various aspects of themselves, including physical health and fitness, mental well-being, personal relationships, career development, financial management, and personal growth. Reading credible writers is a sure for improvement in any areas of your life you want to improve.