Wednesday, June 23, 2021

Have We Learned from the Pandemic?



 


First, look what came yesterday, a proof for my novel, The Girl on the Pier. The stripe is to make sure I don’t sell it. Everything fit, the spine worked, no unnecessary blank pages. I choose a misty/foggy cover for it is a bit of a mystery. First, why would a customer offer two million dollars for the painting The Girl on the Pier? Second, when he saw it he said, “But that’s not the painting, there is another?”

Now, onto El Bloggo:

“There is more love than hate in the world, but hate gets noticed.”

Have We Learned from this Pandemic?

 

I don’t know. Maybe.

 

Today I heard someone say she was tired of commuting, tired of her job, just tired, and didn’t want to talk to anyone. She just wanted peace and quiet and to crawl off alone. She said that recently she had spent a lot of time in meditation. “Did I cause this pandemic?” she asked. 

 

The answer was, “Yes. Along with all the others who were tired of the way it was.”

 

Wow, that hit me like an anvil.

 

That’s a pretty out-there statement, but what if that is true? We were tired of the way it was. Competition wore us out. Long hours at the job were draining us. Commutes were pushing people to the breaking point.  Kids were getting shot at school. We still had racism and prejudice, and that was after we thought we were smarter than that.  We allowed a wall to begin at our border. We separated kids from their parents at the border. We were discouraged and feeling that we weren’t getting anywhere near to what we wanted. We felt impotent to instigate change when issues such as global warming were staring us in the face.  (Oh yes, global warming doesn’t exist, say some, or it is a natural earth cycle—well, maybe we ought to study it.) We are having more wildfires because of dry conditions. Why did the winter slip past with hardly a cold day? What happened to the snows of yesteryear? When I was a kid, it was so blooming cold in the Cascades that the water flowing over Multnomah Falls froze on its way down. and during this time the Columbia River had chunks of ice the size of Volkswagens.

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People like wild-caught salmon, but if the tributaries, the spawning grounds of salmon, dry up, there will be no fish. We take supplements, fish oil to make us healthier. No fish, no fish oil. We’ve come to accept such luxuries without thought of where it comes from. Californians are happy to have the electricity that the Dams on the Columbia River provide. That river needs input from other rivers. Other rivers come from snow-melt.

 

I wonder if we have learned anything. People are anxious to get back to “Normal” WHEN NORMAL SUCKED.

 

And now they call what’s coming the “New Normal,” insinuating that it means something not good. That further scares us.

 

I have tried to get people out of fear and into possibilities--I don’t know if I’ve been successful, for the fear mongers have a louder voice. And who am I anyway? Some little blogger sitting out in the sticks, taking walks in the forest, and proclaiming that we can create the world of our dreams.

 

Well, how stupid is that?




I tried to place a 30 sec video here, “Pond Ripples.” This site, however, had different ideas. The video is a moment of calm. The water was so clear, and the reflection so perfect we had to throw pebbles into the water to prove it was wet.



Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Oh Dear

A few days ago, someone asked me why I was doing this, writing, blogging, all that. So, I decided to tell you.

 

Long ago and far away—in San Diego, a long way from Junction City, Oregon, where I now live, I sat on a hillside overlooking Fashion Valley. Alternately drinking a McDonald’s coffee and orange juice, I asked one of life’s persistent questions: “What do I want to do with my life?”

 

I had just delivered my two girls, ages six and nine, to school, a 45- minute commute, and I didn’t want to drive home and be back by 2:30, so I parked. 

 

“Well,” the little voice in my head answered my question, “I’d write if I had anything to say.” 

 

That day I wrote a little children’s story and haven’t shut up since. 

 

This morning Amazon Kindle informed me that I was eligible for their StoryWriting contest. That’s good.

 

The rub is, a part of the judging depends upon people reading the book. That's the "Oh Dear," part.

 

Oh, but then all of you would love to read it/ them. There are two. Not to be pushy or anything, but people have to know it’s there, for they aren’t apt to stumble upon it. 

 

Here are what they look like and the links.




 

 

 

 

Where Tigers Belch is a novella, 8,424 words  

 

https://www.amazon.com/Where-Tigers-Belch-jewell-d-ebook/dp/B0965Y2K7V/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Where+Tigers+Belch&qid=1623779561&sr=8-1

 

One young girl’s search for her purpose.

 

 

The Girl on the Pier is longer. Most novels are around 90,000 words. This one is 43,718 words. Amazon.com : The Girl on the Pier

 

When a buyer offers two million for a painting but then says, “That’s not the painting, there is another.” It sends Sara and her newly found love on a world search to find the lost painting.




 

https://www.amazon.com/Girl-Pier-jewell-d-ebook/dp/B096G9GT6G/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+Girl+on+the+Pier&qid=1623779856&sr=8-1

 

  








It looks as though I can attribute my writing career on my girl’s schooling. More accurately, those long commutes did it, for I often spent those hours between delivery and pickup, studying, reading, and writing.

 

Now my girls have children of their own, and Grandma is still plugging away at the keyboard.

 

Blogging makes you notice things, allows you to make comments, and is a commitment, and, think of this…no professor will mark your page with a red pencil.

 

I must love what I do, or I wouldn’t keep doing it. 

 

“Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.”

 

Yes, I consider what I do art. It’s my creative endeavor, and I preach to others to find that thing that gets them up in the mornings. We are all artists. Find that thing that lights your fire. 


Why in the world are so many people on drugs, uppers or downers, when they have a fabulous endeavor at their fingertips? We have eyes to read and a beautiful world to enjoy. This is life, folks. 


When someone asked the Science fiction writer and person who coined the word ROBOT what he would do if he was told he had fifteen minutes to live, Isaac Asimov answered: “I’d type faster.”