It’s almost a whole week now that the new site has been up and the new blog going out to readers. I am slowly getting used to the new process here at WordPress, and only once put a blog post in the wrong place. 🙂
Despite all the time working on the site has eaten up this week, along with more time spent setting up the garage sale at the Winnsboro Center for the Arts, I did get quite a bit of writing done this week. I am now well past the half-way point in this new book and can’t wait to get to the end.
How has your week been?
After reading about how the citizens of North Korea are controlled by the government, I’d say we have it good here in the USA. Here are just a few of the human rights abuses in that country as compiled by the United Nations.
- Virtually all social activities are controlled by the Worker’s Party of Korea.
- Dictating where all citizens live and work according to the songbun system, which classifies people’s social class, political opinions, and religions. Nonfavored individuals are relegated to live in marginalized areas.
- No outside information is allowed. Telephone calls are monitored, and citizens are punished for watching or listening to foreign media sources.
- Food has been distributed based on the songbun, favoring those in the capital of Pyongyang. During periods of famine there has been mass starvation, and the state has impeded the delivery of food aid. Deliberate starvation has been used as a means of controlling detention facilities.
This next item makes me wonder even more about politicians and how their mouths disconnect from their brains. Texas State Senator Don Huffines from Dallas recently announced support for a bill to let Texans openly carry handguns without a license, and he was quoted as saying, “Texans don’t need a permit to go to church.”
Huh? Does he not realize how absurd that is? Of course, you’ve got to understand that, sad as it is, guns and church and football are the three most important things to some Texans.
Just for fun I thought I would post this older picture of my dog, Poppy, and one of her favorite cats. Poppy has always enjoyed the cats, as long as they are cats that belong here. She has been known to chase off strays. But once she is told the cat lives with us, she quickly accepts them and likes to play with them. The cat in this picture is John, who was first called Little John, then soon became Big John for obvious reasons.
Friday’s Funnies: This one is from Dustin by Steve Kelley and Jeff Parker. Dustin’s father, Ed, has just returned from a business trip and his wife, Helen, is picking him up at the airport. She greets him with a kiss and then asks, “How was the trip home?”
“Fine I guess. Although the flight attendant drove me crazy with her announcements.” He puts suitcases in the trunk of the car and continues, “She kept beginning everything she said with the same redundancy.”
Helen has that look we all recognize and thinks, Here we go…
Ed is oblivious and just continues as they get in the car and Helen starts to drive. “It was like she gave no thought to what she was saying. ‘At this time you may now use your portable devices.’ ‘At this time you may now move about the cabin.’ Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t ‘at this time’ mean the same thing as ‘now?'”
Helen gives him a look and says, “Ed?”
“Yes.”
“At this time, you may now change the subject.”
Writing Wisdom: This is from John Vorhaus at Writer Unboxed. He wrote a terrific post about the delight in making a real mind-to-mind and heart-to-heart connection with a reader. Here is an excerpt:
What does this tell all of us about all of us? That communion is what we should seek. We’re not here to inform, instruct, entertain, any of that. We’re here to touch. And when we touch, we feel it like an electric shock from the top of our heads to the soles of our feet. At least if we let ourselves – if we allow ourselves the moment of openness and vulnerability and, yes, gratitude, that looks past all the bullshit about sales and marketing and audience. Our audience isn’t readers, it’s reader. A reader. Just one. That’s all it takes to feel fulfilled.
When I read his post, I was silently saying, Yes. Yes. Yes. Nothing is more thrilling than getting a letter from a reader that indicated we did make that connection of the heart.