Free Write (how else should I begin?)

The following was written and posted originally on May 4, 2008 on an older blog of mine dedicated strictly to writing fiction. A first time endeavor for me, and this was the first post. I am slowly going to bring each of the posts from that blog here to share. This was also my first time ever trying to free-write. 

He stood on the grass in the middle of the park watching the activities of the day unfold before him. It was a typical spring afternoon. The sun was high in the air, the flowers were all in bloom, and the park was coming back to life after a long, cold and dank winter. Multiple families had come to walk around the park, play in the playground and walk their dogs. The birds were all aflutter, flying this way and that - grabbing twigs from one tree, dead leaves from another and diving down to the grasses where they would bite up a nice, slimy worm for the family back at the nest. He watched it all and didn't miss a beat.

Everyone was on the move, full of life, energy and springtime spirit. Everyone, that is, except the robin. He just stood there, in the middle of the park staring. He looked a bit strange, considering all of the hustle and bustle about him, but he knew his job - he is and always will be the Sentry of Springtime (SoS). 

The robin's markings were clear - the auburn breast, yellow beak and white-rimmed eyes on an otherwise black head were all the signs of an SoS. He was a chosen one, selected by the great Creator, to look after the arrival of what is considered to be the most important time of year. This may sound ridiculous, but Spring, as most people know it, could not exist without the legion of the SoS.

The legion of SoS began at the beginning of time. Some "great" books would have you believe that life began with light, but the truth is light could not even come into being if there was no one there to see it, so, in fact, in the beginning there was the legion. A select group of creatures were created to act as watchers, or, as they later became known, Sentries. Many different species were there that day, but there was no mistake which of the group did the best the job - the robin. When the robin was the first to spy the initial flickers of light and the slight nuances of all that it touched, he was chosen along with all of his descendants, out of all the creatures present, to continue his calling for generations upon generations. The robin would be called upon year after year to watch over the first light of every Spring, to bear witness to the beginning of new life and to ensure the successful start to every Spring so that life as all living beings know it could continue and flourish. It was an honorable post, no robin has ever turned his back on the mission and no other creature has ever challenged the position.

That is, none ever challenged the position until today...

Someone Stole My F-ing Car

Here I am locked in this office
chained to these keys
staring into a screen swearing it is my fucking window to the world...

But I know someone else is driving my car,
out on the open road
with windows down, music blaring and winds blazing through his hairs.

What the hell happened?
That's my car. That's supposed to be me.
Running from the fury and enjoying the freedom of the outside.

This is abuse of the worst kind - it is self-mutilating.
I handed over the keys, I said, "Drive for me, please."
And, at the time, I meant it. At the time, I needed it.
But honestly I let this shit go on too long.

I want to fucking DRIVE.

Now we've had a fight and HE gets to flee?!
Oh NO... that is simply UNacceptable.

Stuck here with my limited vision,
my god-damned limited health
and with it I can't even express fury the way I used to.

Justice is lost...

I am limited even in my humanity.

Is there anything else that can be taken?


The tears flow hot and heavy.
I lost this battle, but it's not with him.
Now I know it was never with him.
I still hurt over my body's betrayal to this soul....

So much more to heal,
still battling with the fact that, "I can't drive,"
Go on... say it again, the dogs aren't listening,
"I CAN'T drive."

You know why, too, of course.
"...it isn't safe..."
But, Nicole, that doesn't mean you can't LIVE.

Now remember why you love him,
remember what the hell HE'S been through.
He's just about the last person on the planet you should be fighting with.
Let him drive,
he'll be home soon
and he'll be bringing back your car.


This post was written for the Red Riding Hood Prompt. This week's assignment was:

This week, we want fightin' words.

Write a piece about a fight. What happened? Why? Who "won"? What were the repercussions? 

I actually had half of this written raw, in the middle of a fight (as you can probably tell) with no intention to post it, but when I saw this prompt I thought it must be kismet.

Where Do I Get My Degree in Blogging?

You've heard that blogging has turned out to be an honest-to-goodness career option for some folks. You're now wondering-

• Can I get a degree in blogging? 
• Is there a certification process? 
• Will it be too expensive for me to explore?

The answers: No, no and no.

First Start Blogging 

Let's make something clear: if you are reading this over an Internet connection and you have a keyboard in front of you, you can already be blogging. You start at any free blog hosting site (I use Blogger because I am sort-of Google addicted) and you start writing. The minute you start doing that, believe it or not, you can start calling yourself a blogger.

Recognize When You Need Help - Don't Give Up!

If you have already gotten that far then perhaps you have come to realize that just because you write something, no matter how brilliant it might be, that doesn't mean readers will be reading it. It's not their fault, they probably don't even know that it's there! This is when every blogger starts asking all those big blogging questions:

• How do I build my audience?
• How do I engage my readers? 
• How do I get people to actually follow my blog?
• How the heck does anyone ever make any money doing this?

This is a time when it seems like maybe you should throw in the towel and start using your time doing something else entirely - my advice? DON"T GIVE UP! While I have yet to rake in the millions, I am happy to say that I have learned the answers to these questions in the last couple of months, with help. Here's a sampling of my little success story so far:

• I have taken my food blog Searching for Sustenance from less than 50 pageviews in September of 2010 to over 4,000 pageviews in March of 2011. 
• I have started this blog, Rivera Runs Through It, written guest posts on blogs around the Internet and was invited to be a contributing author to The IH Brain Pain Blogs. 
• I have just started to begin to earn very small amounts of money (you never saw anyone get as excited as I did over $2 this past Valentine's Day), but I am now understanding how money can be made here. 
• ****I am doing all of this while on medical leave*** In other words, I about half as healthy as you are. I know that with just a little more effort - which would equal to that of someone working at this part time, or after work, real money could have been coming in by now.

So here's the real question: Where did I get my help? Simple - from the ProBlogger! Darren Rowse has been my professor in Blogging Basics, Blog Promotion, Building Audiences and even Finding Finances in Blogging. It's better than a degree in blogging because it is an ongoing conversation with a professional as you learn the ropes.

How to Learn About Blogging From THE Pro

1. Purchase Darren Rowse's eBook 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. This is the single financial investment I have made into my blogging endeavor up until this point and it was well worth the twenty bucks. (It was announced that the price will be increasing to $29.95 on May 10, 2011. That still works out to be less than $1 per lesson and believe me each lesson can be revisited day after day!)
2. Follow the ProBlogger blog. This is free and extends all that is learned in the eBook.
3. Follow Darren Rowse on twitter @problogger
4. Come back and let me know how it is all going! 

Extra-Curricular Activities

While going through the ProBlogger program is not exactly the same as the time spent at university, there are still some extra-curriculars you should not ignore while obtaining your new knowledge:

• Become a blog reader
• Join blog communities (I, personally, love Blog Frog)
• Build your web presence using social media

Come to think of it, this is sounding just like college after all: engage in classroom conversations, join groups like fraternities, sororities, clubs or teams, and, above all - keep your social life bubbling!!

Well, thinking of it that way maybe we DO deserve a degree after all! And, guess what? I just found one on Amazon:

 

Blogging Blogger Blog Degree: Custom Gag Diploma Doctorate Certificate (Funny Customized Joke Gift - Novelty Item) 

I stand corrected. You CAN get a degree in blogging if you really want one. Just keep in mind, just like any degree, if you want it to really mean something, then you will have to do some work first!

Related Reading from Rivera Runs Through It:  
How Darren Rowse Has Forever Changed My Life in 10 Days


Graduate and diploma image by LuMaxArt and used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License

Wash Away My Normal

Water is the building block in our survival, but as I'd seen many times in news footage around the world, it could just as easily unleash its wild force to devastate nations. She's a tricky one, our liquid love, but I've learned one thing in my dealings with her - no matter how she travels your way, whether through a peaceful pass of a glass to quench your thirst or a ferocious flood to level your status quo - it is her journey we are on, not vice versa.

My lesson came quietly on a Tuesday morning in March 2010. We heard and saw nothing until a single splash. We both stood.

"Something fell."

"No, I heard water."

We discovered we were both right. There was brown water past the first step of our basement and a bag of laundry had fallen into it, but there was so much more down there than laundry. It was a finished basement with a living room, a bathroom, an office and the laundry room with a pantry and a workbench.

As a child, the basement was the realm of my brother and I. The office was a playroom with a floor to ceiling bookcase. In the living room we'd watch cartoons and Star Wars over and over again. We'd play hide-and-go-seek, build enormous forts, play video and board games and hang out with friends.  Besides our backyard and the outdoors, it probably holds most of my childhood memories.

Here it was in all of its disgrace.

I had to look at it. I had to know what was going on. Where did this water come from? How were we going to get it out? But through it all one question kept penetrating my brain:

How did I let it get this way?

Because without all the sewage and water causing things like The Monster At The End of This Book, to float by me I was faced with one harsh reality - this basement was a mess long before the flood. 

In fact, truth be told, I was a mess.

Besides storage bins my husband moved in with and had yet to deal with, the basement was largely filled with my memories. Memories I was hanging on to with a clasp of desperation that no longer held sentimentality or love; only fear. Fear of complete and utter loss of all that I ever loved. This house and all it contained was the last place that evidence our family of four ever existed.

During the cleanup I was on a turbulent ride down memory lane, filled with happiness, nostalgia and loss. I had no idea how to face everything, or what to do with it. Then, without warning, I found two  bins of baseball cards that my father and I had collected together. That was our thing.

I stared into one bin. How could I let this happen?  I remember collecting all of these... and yet, I haven't looked at them for years.

More water came - salty, cleansing tears - I realized that's what I had always been missing. Seeing and holding the cards didn't make the memories any more real than they already were.

Memories and relationships are forever - things hold no domain over them.

There was so much water that week - rain, flood, tears - but it was all cleansing. It was a painful, brutal and merciless cleanup (my wedding dress was destroyed), but, without question, I needed it. The year that passed since has been one of change, renewal and upheaval. Learning to let go of my past in order to embrace my present was exactly the lesson I needed.






This post was written for a RemembeRED Prompt.
This week we want you to recall something in your life that seemed terrible at the time, but looking back, brought you something wonderful.

A positive from a negative experience.

A Book Club for Giants

This is not my husband.

My husband is a comic book guy. Wednesdays are important here - that's the day new comic books come out for those who are not in this literary loop.

As part of his fan-dom, my husband has joined a Graphic Novel Club in our fabulous local comic book store, Comic Book Jones. It has been great. He has been finding out about new books he wouldn't have picked up himself, and then he gets to chat with some like-minded souls about them once a month.

Last month, he told me, "You're not going to believe this, but the next book the group is reading is I Kill Giants!" I was overjoyed! This was my book. I had been championing it in this house all year! I bought it for my husband six months earlier with strict instructions: "You MUST read this." With the club's selection, I knew he finally would!

As the date crept closer, my husband said that I should join him at the next meeting since I had such a great appreciation for the book. I decided that would be right up my alley (I love book clubs!). Then some exciting news broke:

The author, Joe Kelly, would be coming to the meeting! 

That was pretty awesome. I met him back in October at NY ComicCon right after I first read I Kill Giants. I had already told him how grateful I was for his book, how wonderful it was and I had already asked him how he knew about all that he wrote, but my husband was not with me and Joe Kelly is a super cool guy!

The day finally arrived this past Sunday and it was awesome. First of all, Comic Book Jones is simply the coolest comic book store EVER, so it is always fun to just be there. Then the book club is pretty sweet as well. Joe Kelly was a little late, so I got the best of both worlds - regular book club chat with fellow readers about an amazing book and then a fantastic and surprising Q & A session with our special guests.

Oh yes, that's right, I typed GUESTS, as in plural. There were three and they were all AMAZING!! We had Joe Kelly, the author of the book, his daughter Claire, who was the inspiration for the protagonist in the book and JM Ken Niimura, the artist!!! Incredible Surprises (Ken does not even live in the US!)!!

JM Ken Niimura talking with a fellow book club attendee.

Joe Kelly and his daughter, Claire

For you Fellow I Kill Giants  fans out there, here is some cool "behind the book" stuff that I learned from our time with the team:

• Joe had written the script for the book and held onto it for years. He actually had thoughts of it being a movie before being a comic book. He also said that the movie idea was still floating, but he won't ever let anyone "mess" with this particular story (I think he saw the panic in my eyes!).
• Joe and Ken met in a comic book convention in Europe where they were placed at signing tables next to each other. It was because of that placement that Joe saw Ken's art and proposed his book to him.
• Claire had no idea she was the inspiration for Barbara Thorson until years after the book was published.
• The creation of the book was a labor of love on both writer and artist's part. They both took their time with it and are grateful to have worked with Image on this product. (We all agreed that the passion was evident throughout the book.)
• Ken designed everything in the book from the panel layouts to the paper choice and covers of all of the issues. 
• Joe was fascinated by Ken's technique. At one point midway through the process he excitedly asked Ken to see a page of I Kill Giants - it was then that Ken showed him that he does not work that way. Every single panel had its own full-page sketch. It was only later that each image would be uploaded and re-sized to fit into the design.

...there's more. Of course we talked about the story - what inspired it, why certain choices were made, what we thought of certain parts and what the original intent was - but I can't write about all of that stuff without ruining the story for you! Instead here are a couple more pictures from the day:

Blurry Ken (not my greatest photography!)

Joe signs my husband's book.

My super-cool signed book, now complete with a sketch of Barbara by Ken.

To understand my passion for this book, my need to meet Joe Kelly at New York Comic Con to tell him, and to see why the Comic Book  Jones book club agreed this is the best book they have read to date then there is only one thing you can do: GO READ I KILL GIANTS! If you need more convincing, here is my review of the book.

Have you read I Kill Giants?

Have you ever had the opportunity to meet the author of one of your favorite books? How was it? What did you say?