Looks like it's time for my annual post! Actually I'm not trying to post annually. I still have my weekly reminder, only I think it's like three days a week. Doesn't matter! I stopped paying attention to it long ago. But now, it is time for me to rectify that.

My tutoring days are over, at least for a while. Life is changing once again. I'm bracing myself for that weird feeling that comes in September when everything within me tells me I should be going to school either to learn or to teach. It took me years to get over it the first time. Even when I was working full time I'd get a weird feeling when the kids started back to school. It always felt like something was missing. Perhaps I'm a born academic. Nah, probably not.

So, I've hung up my tutoring hat and now I have my Official Freelance Writer Hat firmly stuck on my head. It only comes off for my Storyteller Hat and that's about it actually. Writing and storytelling are now my bread and butter. Milk and eggs, hamburger and rotisserie chicken, frozen vegetables, avocados, rent, electric bill, car insurance, co-pays, yeah, you get the idea!  This is called sink or swim! So far, all summer long I've been swimming!

This choice, though extremely rewarding, is not easy. I've heard about people staying up all night to get an assignment done for publication or a grant finished for submission. Now I know only too well what that is like. In fact I'm writing this post after having finished an assignment that I worked on literally all night. It is now morning and my fingers are sore, I've been typing so long. Hours. Over nine hours to be exact.

Now that it's almost nine in the morning, and my work is done for the day, I'll work on winding down so I can actually get some sleep. Then, when I wake up, I'll start on my next assignment. It's a long one and will take over 40 hours to complete. I'll be working steadily for the next seven days stopping to eat and hopefully sleep. But that's okay because I'll be able to pay rent next month! And that's always a good thing!

Ressurecting the Popcorn

Well, it's been quite a while since I've been here, and looking at my last post I was attempting to resurrect this blog the last time I posted! Interesting. A bit sad too! My stats look bleak and I can't say that I have put any effort in trying to keep this poor blog site going. I think of it from time to time and I always have good ideas for posts, but I don't take the time to write them down, much less get them posted! Such is the life of a procrastinator.

But this is not a post about procrastination. I'll leave that for another day! This is about getting back in the saddle of posting my spontaneous, eclectic thoughts once again and hopefully on a somewhat regular basis. Ironically I have a time marked off on my calendar that comes up weekly for writing my blog posts. It's been there for a few years now. I think I set the reminder at "always" or something like that so it will remind me until I die that at Monday at 9 am I'm supposed to be settling down and writing my blog posts. Nevermind that currently I'm tutoring students at that time and have been for the past year and a half!

To end the reminder is to admit that I'm just not going to take the time to post anymore.  I don't have the heart to do that. Not that I'm such an amazing writer that I believe the world can benefit from my thoughts. No. Nothing so grand as that.

I want to make the attempt to keep up with my blogs. Yes, I said blogs. I have a few of them and all are neglected. There's dust and cobwebs on each one. Well, almost all. Last week I did dust off Journey Upstream with Jesus and write a post.

As much as I would like to say I am committed to making posts on a regular basis, I know how I've been and though I am working on changing my behavior, it is not an easy endeavor. Can one be addicted to procrastination? I don't know.

So, I will not promise anything as far as that goes. I will make attempts to keep this alive and kicking. There are plenty of good reasons to do that. After all the world needs us eclectic thinkers for one reason or another! And besides, it's good practice for my writing!

So  here's to resurrecting the Popcorn!! Maybe this will keep the brain cells active and youthful, cause Lord knows they are plenty of old maids in this bowl of a head of mine! We will see how it goes! Thanks for reading and hopefully there will be more for you to read soon!

Wonderful Writer Friends

I have some wonderful writer friends, two of whom kind of hold my feet to the fire. Particularly Ravyn Whyt whose blog, Random Acts of Writing, is steadily gaining quite a following. Another of my writerly friends, Kathleen Krueger, whose blog is Crafter of Words is also keeping me busy with learning new things. Between the two of them I've made a decision to resurrect Popcorn for Brain Cells. Thanks for the inspiration Ladies!

This blog began as just a fun way to get my crazy thoughts out in the world. It's something I wanted to do for quite a while but never had the nerve to do it. Blogging is simple enough, for sure. Only putting yourself "out there" in the world can be rather intimidating, especially if you don't really know what you are doing. So, I started the blog, then let it stagnate. Life happens!

When I stop to think about it, a lot of life has happened to me since my last post. My mom celebrated her 90th birthday. I won that second attempt at NaNoWriMo in 2013 and again in 2014. We will see how I do this year. I also won the People's Choice Award for two years running at the Poetry on the Wall competition in Brainerd, Minnesota. The pressure is on now! Can I make it three in 2016?

But the really exciting accomplishment is publication of one of my stories in the anthology Blues Vision, a collection of writings by African American writers in Minnesota including Gordon Parks and August Wilson. That is a special honor that I will always cherish. This project by the Minnesota Humanities Center and published by the Minnesota Historical Society is the first anthology of its kind to be compiled in over 30 years. The extraordinary thing is that this volume is going to be used throughout the state in high schools, universities and colleges and indeed is already being used is a variety of places to give voice to some of the missing pieces of Minnesota's literary history.

Well, I could go on and on about that. However, I think I'll save it for another post. After all if I am serious about resurrecting PFBC then I'll need things to write about. Lucky me . . . I can always find things to write about. The trick is to post them and hit Publish!!

If you are a blogger, what challenges do you have with your blog? I'd like to hear about them.

Lessons from NaNoWriMo

Last year at this time I wasn't thinking about writing a book. In fact the thought didn't really sink in until late October when I came across an offer for some materials from Writer's Digest. They were offering a package deal for something called NaNoWriMo which is National Novel Writing Month. I did a little digging and well, you can check out the post from last year. Anyway, this year I've been thinking all summer about whether I'm going to finish the book I started last year or go with a completely new book which has been rattling around in my mind. Either way, November 1st I'll be at it again in a race to the finish with 50,000 words.

Meanwhile, I just happened to run across an old email I sent out to friends last year after completing NaNoWriMo victoriously; not finishing the book, but at least writing over 50,000 words in one month. I learned some valuable lessons through that process. I sent that list of lessons to my friends last year and now I share them here:

Things I learned:

1. One little comment can lead to an odyssey - this entire journey began when Reggie made an analogy about salvation. (I'll have to finish the book and you'll have to read it before I go into details!)
2.  I do have the tenacity to stick to a goal if I want it bad enough - there were a few times I thought about quitting, but then I remembered that I had told you all that I was doing this and the thought of not finishing was just unacceptable. No, that's not completely true, it was partly that, but mostly, I just really wanted to prove to myself that I could do it.
3. If I really pace myself I can do just about anything - helping with Mom and going back and forth to the Cities and working on other things at the same time meant a lot of juggling.
4. It's okay to change goals along the way - my stretch goal was to reach 50k by the 18th at midnight. I thought that would be an awesome birthday present to myself but   things didn't work out for me to be able to keep my pace which was 3,000 words a day in order to make it so I needed to let go of that one and create another one which I did, but didn't make it because of Thanksgiving, so I had to create another one, which I did, but didn't make it because I got within reach of the goal and did nothing (aka procrastination) BUT, I still finished before the 30th! (That would be the day before the 30th! Kind of like $3.99 is less than $4!!) Minus all the days I didn't write anything, I probably actually finished on the 23rd (Happy Birthday William!) 
5. Any little bit of encouragement is like a glass of water in the desert - haven't figured out why that plays such an important role, but really it does, so if ever you get the chance to encourage someone on with a project, jump in with both feet!
6. 50,000 words is not a lot for a novel - I honestly thought I would be near the end by now, but really, I'm probably a little over halfway finished... maybe...hopefully! It depends on the people I'm working with. (see #9 below!)
7. Classical MPR is very conducive to writing important scenes when the right music is playing - during the day I had MPR on most of the time. When the book is published and selling, I'll have to remember to send them a hefty donation!!
8. Richard Souther is very conducive to writing, period. - At least for me; his Innermission CD was most likely worn to a pulp during the process. I'm afraid to open my CD player and see what it looks like now!! I don't think I'll send Mr. Souther a donation though, he makes money from selling his CD's; although I might send him a thank you note!
9. Characters have a life of their own and some just barge on in and take over - I've never written a novel before so it's been very interesting and amazing to me how these folks can seem like they actually exist. A minor character I created just demanded that she get major time for one section. Bossy little thing! But she has issues so I'll just have to be patient with her. In another scene I was writing about the grief of a character and he was so destroyed that I had a lump in my throat and wanted to cry too. I had to leave that scene and come back to it; it was just too emotional for both of us!
10. Writing a book is like going to a movie - except the movie is in my head and it just unfolds before me. Wow! I understand now why some writers go into seclusion and write for days on end. It really is like going off into another world. 
11. The answers come - I'm not sure if it just works this way naturally or if it's because I've been praying through the process, but I've been completely awed by how the answers to my dilemmas and questions just appear; not always immediately - for instance, this morning I just got the answer to why things are the way they are in the story. One would think I had that part worked out in the beginning. Nope!
12. A wide variety of tea is a must - so I've got about ten different kinds of tea, black, green, white and herbal. The tea pot stayed on until the wee hours of the morning and occasionally until dawn. 
13. Jicama is an essential writing food - Jicama sticks became a staple for me. Somehow the crunch helped the thinking process and calorically speaking, the price is right!
14. Sunflower seeds and Snyder's Honey Mustard pretzel pieces are almost as important as Jicama - I say almost because cracking the sunflower seeds made me a little apprehensive in the middle of the night; I was afraid the noise would wake up Reg and Karen; it's amazing how when the house is quiet every little noise sounds like it's broadcast through a megaphone! And the pretzel pieces are great writing food, but they are a bit pricey in the calorie department plus I had to be watchful of crumbs.
15. Reggie and Karen really love me! - A HUGE (read billboard size big,big,big!!!) shout out of thanks go out to them. My despondency early on about finishing had to do with the many crashes my laptop went through; I ended up hand writing several pages then putting them into the larger computer to send them to NaNo and praying for a way to get a new laptop early enough in the process to make a difference.(yeah, right, with no money!)  Have you ever written by hand for four hours? Chris Crutchfield sent me a text asking if I'd be interested in getting a new laptop in exchange for doing rail roads (Bless you Chris, I really think God was working through you to give me enough hope to keep going and not get too far behind!) to which of course I said YES!! However, somehow it just didn't work out. But God apparently tapped Reggie and Karen on the shoulder and whispered in their ears because they gave me a (drum roll please!!) BRAND NEW ASUS KSOMETHINGWHATEVERTHEMODELNUMBERSARE LAPTOP COMPUTER!!!!! Making the beginning of the last year of my fifties the best year ever!! Fully loaded with everything I need, then some. I've been smokin' on this baby ever since! It's even a step or two up from the one I had my eyes on! (I confess I wanted an Asus because the name was close to Jesus (Asus - Jesus) I figured it was a good sign and the fact that this company has been making the insides of Apples and all the upper PC's for years I figured they must be pretty good and so far it's been as great as I thought!

Well, nearly a year later and I'm still smokin' on my Asus! I love this thing!! And I love my peeps for being generous enough to get it for me. I'm looking forward to National Novel Writing Month this year and I believe I'll be a little better prepared. I'm adding pistachios to my writing food and I think Lex de Azevedo and David Lanz to my play list. I'd love to add Seal, but I can't write to music with words!

To all those people out there who want to write but are afraid to, or don't think they have the talent or are just holding back "because" I encourage you to join NaNoWriMo and take the challenge. Reread the lessons above - the ones that could apply to you - then look up National Novel Writing Month and join. You can even look for me, I'm StoryCoat and I'll be writing my buns off in November!

A Matter of Semantics...or not

Has your imagination or curiosity been "peeked" by something you saw or heard? Maybe it's been "peaked" by a beautiful piece of music or a gorgeous sunset. Interestingly, I've seen very little mention of anyone's imagination or curiosity being "piqued" by anything.

From as far back as I can remember words have intrigued me. I anxiously waited for the newest copy of Reader's Digest to arrive in the mail so I could take the Word Power quiz or try my hand at the analogies game. I enjoyed doing crossword puzzles and even created some of my own. When teachers required that we write our spelling words in sentences for practice it was not unusual for me to come up with a poem or little story. It took me a long time to find a word in the dictionary because there were always so many other interesting words along the way that begged me to read their definitions first.

When I was told I didn't have to major in the sciences to get into dental school and that I should major in a subject I really liked since I would just have to repeat all the upper division science classes anyway, I changed my major to English Literature. I loved it.

Words, dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopedias, pens and paper are all so very dear to me. I'll tell you right now that I'm not perfect in my writing. My sentence structure sometimes leaves something to be desired and I often suffer from comma trauma. I too, occasionally fall victim to the misuse of a word or two. I've always told my children, now grown, and I tell my grandson: don't use a word unless you know it's meaning.

That was part of my training growing up. If we didn't know what a word meant, well then, we were told, "Look it up!" We had several dictionaries in the house. There was the old blue one, well worn and falling apart that my father received when he was in the service. My Godmother gave me an American Heritage dictionary when I went off to college, which I truly treasured. My mother bought a 500 pound behemoth dictionary from someplace (of course that's an exaggeration, it was only about 100 pounds! {just kidding, but it was really big and heavy!}) and Dad built a special stand in our library to hold it. Then there were all the sundry smaller dictionaries that we acquired throughout the years. One Christmas, my mother gave all the grandchildren dictionaries; nice, hardcover, Webster dictionaries.

These days of information overload when I peruse the blogs and websites I am constantly astounded by the lack of care in choosing words or forms of words. I'm sure it's mainly because people don't know better:

• a pear of jeans
• going for a plain ride
• having a really grate time
• having trouble finding there way over they're to see what their doing
• writing something that will really peek your interest

And the list goes on. It was the last one that inspired this entry. To peek is to glance or look quickly. A peak is a high point or something that comes to a point like a mountain top and to pique is to arouse or provoke.

There are some people who may label me as a language cop. Nah, I'm really not that vested in other people's use of the language even though it sometimes makes me cringe. However, coming from a long line of educators of one sort or another and as a person who values education and correct speech, I believe these beautiful United States could benefit greatly from her citizens taking a little more care in their approach to language. But hey, that' just my opinion. Did this article pique your interest?

Swag Bags, Teachers and Entertainers

Today my daughter shared with me something I thought very interesting, yet incredibly sad...at least from my point of view. Some of you may remember comedian Rodney Dangerfield - the man who got no respect. That was his tag line. Most of his jokes had to do with how he never got respect in any given situation. He was quite humorous.

Well, in my estimation, teachers truly get no respect when it comes to the value of their place in our society given the scope of the work they are called to do. And it's not funny at all. It has always frustrated me to no end that we place more value on sports and athletics and the people, companies, and entities that support and promote them than the men and women who scrounge to get by, work endless hours, give up countless luxuries and make all kinds of sacrifices in their personal lives to make sure that all those people and everyone else can read, write and figure out how to add up their pay checks, i.e. teachers. Don't get me started on the disparity between teachers and the sports industry!

One of my daughter's colleagues won an award for teaching. The teacher was given a small sum of money and the school received a check and all the teachers in the school received "swag bags." Each bag held a mug, a pencil, a note pad and so on. Of course everyone was delighted with the unexpected gift. I'm sure it was a much needed lift to these folks who have really been through the mill this year with curriculum changes, pay cuts due to alleged misappropriation of funds and the economy, lay offs, larger class sizes, lack of supplies and books (one book to teach an entire 5th grade class? Seriously.)....the list goes on. So getting a cup and a pen is probably a bright spot in an otherwise stressful and frustrating day.

Meanwhile, one of my daughter's friends attended an affair in the entertainment industry and that person also received a "swag bag." Let's just start with the $300 earphone set. We can end with that too. Of course the bags were filled with a plethora of other not quite as expensive items. This affair was to honor those in the music industry, many who write about .... well, I don't use that language and certainly won't include it here. Let's just say, folks like myself consider it all ridiculously inappropriate. And would they please stop giving God the glory for being successful at writing such sexually explicit filth and otherwise insidiously demoralizing crap!

Certainly there are some great songs out there and I know what goes into writing a song....I've composed my share of them. It's wonderful that these folks get honored and showered with gifts for their work, but hey people, when are we going to start doing as much for our teachers? Could we at least go a little over and above the usual? Don't they deserve some red carpet treatment? Shouldn't they be getting "swag bags" at the beginning and/or end of every school year?

People like to say that the children are our future. Now, picture a future without teachers. What kind of a future does anybody have? Good teachers are those who understand that their work is a calling. They show up. Physically, mentally and spiritually. They care about the kids. They love watching the lights come on in those little eyes when the kid finally "gets it" or when some obstacle has been overcome. They try to work with parents to understand what's happening in the child's life. They give of themselves to make a difference and they work hard to build a firm foundation on which a future of endless possibilities can be built. I submit that good teachers are national treasures. They are to be honored and respected and given the place in our society that they deserve.

There are bad teachers out there, certainly. But there are bad athletes, bad singers, bad actors but they still get the bling and the hefty paychecks and the adoration of faithful fans excusing their indiscretions; good and bad ones entertain us, but do they prepare us to fill out job applications? pay the rent? read the label on the medicine bottles? Even a bad teacher will do that much. Anyway, we find ways to deal with bad teachers. The question is, how do we honor the good ones? Certainly we need to do better than a mug, a pencil and a note pad.


When I think about the importance of our teachers to the future of our county and to the world in general, I can't help but believe they really need to be among the highest paid of the nation's working stiffs. Their job is vital to our national security - a heck of a lot more important than tossing a ball around or acting or halfway singing a song about diddling or getting diddled. Our teachers are worth a heck of a lot more than a mug, a pencil and a note pad. It's high time we do something to let them know how truly important they are. If we can spend hundreds of dollars on a season ticket, certainly we can do a little something for those who teach our kids to read the souvenir programs for the games.

All Saints meet NaNoWriMo

November first is All Saints Day. I never quite knew what that was because I'm not Catholic, although I have many Catholic friends and growing up I always thought how fortunate they were to have no school the day after Halloween. The public school kids would trudge off to school working through the sugar hangovers from the night before and the Catholic kids got to stay home and finish off their bags of candy or sleep in and sleep off the sugar high.

Those were the days! We didn't worry about our candy being contaminated or tampered with. Word got around quick as to which neighbor was giving out the best treats. Our biggest concern were the bag snatchers, older kids who would come up behind unsuspecting young ones and steal their stash. And the bags we had back then! Not the fancy schmancy things kids tote around these days. We had brown paper bags and pillow cases. Some kids were lucky and had the little plastic pumpkins with handles but most kids made due with what ever they could come up with.

We'd come home with tons of candy, sort it out, trade with siblings or friends, eat our selves silly and maybe save some for later. And of course the public school kids had to go to bed early if November 1 fell on a school day so our sugar intake was limited.

That was then, and now today, November 1st holds a new meaning for me. This is the first day of NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month. This is the day I started my first real novel. I'm not going to write much about it today, only to say that I must write 50,000 words by the end of the month. I believe I'm off to a decent start since I've written almost 4,000  words so far.

I'm amazed at how this project is going and how my mind is sifting through things gathering material for the novel. It's an interesting process. I get to be participant and observer at the same time. Everything I encounter goes into my mind and gets examined for whatever pieces may be used in the story. Images get expanded upon and stored for later use. Phrases get scrutinized for their applicability to certain dialog. Ideas get morphed into usable scenes. It's all coming together bit by bit. I'm almost 10% done. It's a very good feeling!