Write with TLC

I've been compiling my poetry into a book. It might be more accurate to say I've been struggling to compile my poetry into a book. I thought I had it done. Then I started to read through it and realized it was overwhelming, too many poems and too many directions. At that point I decided to divide the poetry into three books. I thought this would be easy !! Really I did. I started working on it and kept trying to make it perfect as I tend to do. People who know me well know that I have a tendency to expect perfection from myself. I could go into all the childhood roots this belief grew from, but I know what they are. It doesn't change anything, and this isn't a therapy session. So, we'll skip that. Just suffice it to say, there are roots and they get fed regularly by my expectations and the expectations of certain other people in my life. Then there are those people who don't expect me to be perfect, who remind me that perfection isn't all it's cracked ...

Audrey Austin, author and blogger, liked my poem, Granny , so much she asked to post it on her blog, Calling All Writers, for her readers! Thanks so much, Audrey!! While you're there check out her information on the Elliot Lake Writers' Fall Festival!

Confession: I hate workout groups. There I said it. I don't particularly like to work out in front of other people. I don't do classes. I don't go to the gym. I don't find groups of strangers to work out with. I guess I don't want other people to see me hot and sweaty and stumbling and messing up. I'm not athletic. Never have been. Working out with other people makes me keenly aware of this to the point of becoming self conscious. I don't like being accountable to other people for my workouts. I fear judgment if I slack off. I fear criticism that I'm not doing the "right" workout or the exercises the "right" way. I've tried many different workouts. I hate running. Let me make sure you understand. I despise running. You can't make me do it. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. Don't even go there. Now, for those who enjoy running, more power to you. Keep at it and enjoy. I know many people who enjoy it. Don't try to c...

My poem, Granny, honoring my Grandma Cooper, who would've celebrated her 94th birthday today, is now available. Check it out !

Kindness is always a good idea. Kindness without expecting anything in return is an even better idea. Kindness that spreads from one person to another is an even better idea. Kindness that is genuine is one of the most important riches we can share with one another. Spreading kindness is not a new idea. The movie Pay It Forward was built around the premise of spreading kindness to create a better world. Several years ago, Oprah had a show about spreading kindness. I believe the show topic was "Random Acts of Kindness" and the idea was to combat "Random Acts of Violence" with positives in an attempt to change the world one "Random Act of Kindness" at a time. At least that's how I remember it. Books have been written about the idea of spreading kindness. Some promise if you spread kindness without expecting anything in return, good things will come your way. I happen to believe this. I also believe that anonymous acts of kindness are much better t...

Check out my poem, Caffeine . You might like it! :-)

I write about the human condition for one main reason, we are humans. We live in this world together. We all have that in common every single one of us. Regardless of skin color, religion, political persuasion, sexual orientation, gender, class, or any other labelling apparatus we use to create division between us. In the end, we are all human beings. The first time I had coffee with my friend and fellow author, Ray Ellis , I told him that my novel, All She Ever Wanted , dealt with racism. He looked at me for a minute then calmly and without judgment informed me, without having read a word of it, that it didn't deal with racism because there is only one race, the human race. It was a turning point in my life. I've never thought about racism the same since that conversation. That change in thought helped me find an even stronger conviction and desire to explore and understand the human condition. As human beings we hurt, we dream, we work, we play, we laugh, we cry, we love...

We've all been there. We're in love. The person we love makes a little request. You know, the first time he or she says "I really don't like it when you..." We shrug and think, okay, no big deal, I won't do that again. After all it's a little thing. The next time the person says "You really shouldn't..." We nod and say okay I won't do that again. All seems well. Then one day the person says "I wish you would stop..." This time it doesn't seem like the thing we did was such a bad thing, so our nod is a little slower but we still agree. Then one day the person says "Damn it. Do you have to...?" and this time it feels like an assault on our personality, but we're not sure. Maybe we really do need fixed. After all no one is perfect... Things go along and the person is happy, we smile but begin to feel ourselves dissolving. But, hey, the person is happy, and that's what matters. After all, this is love. He or sh...

Grandma, a poem honoring my Grandma , is available for your reading pleasure.

Three friends. Three meals. Three seperate groups of memories. Three consecutive years of my college life respresented. Three times the excitement. I'm a woman who values friendship to a very high degree - maybe not more than anything but it's definitely way up there on my list of things important to me. Friendship means so much to me that I find it hard to define. Yes, I know how to look it up in the dictionary, but that's not what I mean. In my opinion, the dictionary definition of friendship doesn't even come close to defining what true friendship is. As I was working on an earlier draft of this post, Keira Kroft posted "Who is your best friend?" as her daily get to know you question. I responded that I don't do best friends. I have way too many awesome friends to even go there. My friends are all special to me for who they are. There are certain things I value in friendship that create common threads, but each friend I have brings something a lit...

We finally arrive at Shuttle Launch Day which was actually July 8th... Just what you've been waiting for, right? We're not going to talk much about going with the flow in relationship to this day mainly because the flow for this day was completely beyond my control. And, that is in and of itself a lesson in going with the flow. The plan was to grab a few hours sleep because we had to be at the Astronaut's Hall of Fame by 6am according to the paperwork we received. Sleep wouldn't come. Try as I might I couldn't fall asleep. So, finally, after hearing on the late news that people were already arriving to watch the launch and debating the pros and cons of making the fifty or so minute drive and the wait, we left the hotel room at around 2:30 in the morning. We made a few wrong turns and ended up taking the long way around, but we arrived before 4:00am and parked. Sleep deprivation? Mostly but also because we'd been instructed to take a different route than th...

We awoke to clouds and pouring rain on our fourth day in Miami. My husband was incredibly amused by this. A big part of my desire to go to Florida was to enjoy the sun, and it appeared the rain followed me there. As we left the hotel, we decided that given the rain, we might as well just go ahead and head back to Orlando since our only plan for the day had been a walk on the beach in the sun! We found a restaurant north of Miami and plugged it into the GPS. I reminded myself to just go with the flow as we left Miami. I wanted to drive along the coast, but the route to the restaurant wasn't going that direction. Deep breath. As my husband pointed out, there was plenty of coast to enjoy after we had breakfast. Of course, the first place we tried to go to was... well, if it existed it was behind a gate in a gated community, so I'm not sure how we would've gotten to it or at least that's where the GPS took us. After several attempts to argue with the GPS (yeah, now that...