Roland Yeomans's Blog, page 77
June 12, 2019
BLOGGING HAS SERVED US DIVORCE PAPERS
WHY?
The usual reasons:
1.) The Love has gone --
2.) The other party has grown into someone(thing) different.
Once we blogged for COMMUNITY
Now, we blog for SEARCH ENGINES
Remember how thrilled you were when you got your first comments on your blog?
How you joined bloghops to meet others, posted their blog buttons on your sidebar?
How you emailed special blogging friends?
You got to know those friends from their comments and their newsy posts on their blogs.
Then, they started to DRIFT AWAY from your blog, your received comments.
In the blogverse, it's gotten like that cliche in Western Movies:
It's quiet out there ... too quiet.
The community has dissipated to other outlets of SOCIAL MEDIA or other concerns.
Specifically to Facebook ...
where it is hard to get blog notice without paying extra for it ...
and not even then sometimes!
The demise of Google+ has relegated many of us to the shadows, forgotten in dim memories.
WHAT CAN WE DO?
Know that good writing is true writing.
Endure:
Do not be a weather-vane spinning crazily about, buffeted by the winds of the current fads.
Stay True to Ourselves.
Write posts that please us --
Seasons change, but we grow from surviving their storms.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
IS BLOGGING IN THE I.C.U.?
HAS BLOGGING GROWN AWAY FROM US?
DO WE CHANGE
OR
STAY THE COURSE?
June 11, 2019
THE SOFT GOODBYE
Do you humans feel it? The Sense of an Ending.
The iron snow of despair swirls all about and within you.
You do not sense it, of course.
It is like dining in a dim restaurant.
The longer you are there, the lighter it becomes ... to you.
The interior has not become brighter.
Your eyes have just become accustomed to the darkness.
Just as the eyes of your spirits have become accustomed to the darkness of the ever colder world in which you exist.
I would say "souls" instead of spirits,
but you have become much too sophisticated and hollow
to believe in anything which you cannot fondle or deposit in your banks.
Each of you is falling from this world as aimless and blind as a shooting star.
You speed through the darkness of your perceptions ...
burning yourselves up, drawn by the gravity of your deeds to the harsh destiny born of your choices.
Living this way is much like leaping off a cliff, hoping to build your wings on the way down.
It did not work out very well for Icarus ... nor will it for you.
Who am I, you ask, to speak thus.
I am sometimes called Guanyin.
The Chinese name Guanyin is short for Guanshiyin,
meaning "[The One Who] Perceives the Sounds of the World".
What I hear of late is the Soft Goodbye of that Concept for which I am considered the Goddess ...
Mercy
The Christmas Season is the Time when I call out to you with the most hope of being heard ...
But the sounds of cash registers and bitter recriminations
have all but drowned out my Voice in your ears.
Selfishness is catching; it rubs off on people.
Yet so does Love:
Infect those about you with Mercy, Compassion, and Love before it too late.
The Winter of the Soul is all about you ...
brighten what you can of it with warm acts of kindness and caring ...
Let the Soft Goodbye of the Soul have at least the glow of one caring soul to light its way at the End.
If you wish to read more of me, you can find me in THE THREE SPIRIT KNIGHThttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AD94EQE
June 8, 2019
Your GPS is shrinking your BRAIN!
In a 2017 study, researchers asked subjects to navigate
a virtual simulation of London’s Soho neighborhood and monitored their brain activity,
specifically the hippocampus, which is integral to spatial navigation.
Those who were guided by directions showed less activity in this part of the brain
than participants who navigated without the device.
They wrote:
“The hippocampus makes an internal map of the environment
and this map becomes active only when you are engaged in navigating and not using GPS.”
Studies have long shown the hippocampus is highly susceptible to experience.
(London’s taxi drivers famously have
greater gray-matter volume in the hippocampus as a consequence of memorizing the city’s labyrinthine streets.)
Meanwhile, atrophy in that part of the brain is linked to devastating conditions,
including Post Traumatic Syndrome and Alzheimer's disease!
When people use tools such as GPS, they tend to engage less with navigation.
Therefore, brain area responsible for navigation is less used,
and consequently their brain areas involved in navigation tend to shrink.
If we are paying attention to our environment, we are stimulating our hippocampus,
and a bigger hippocampus seems to be protective against Alzheimer’s disease.
When we get lost, it activates the hippocampus,
it gets us completely out of the habit mode.
Getting lost is good!
Done safely, getting lost could be a good thing.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
June 6, 2019
DWELLER WITHIN_ WEP/IWSG Flash Fiction
https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2019/06/june-wepiwsg-challenge-sign-up-caged.htmlThe Rules, as they are wont to do, have changed.
Any time from today until June 19, you can post for the JUNE 'CAGED BIRD' challenge
which is a combined undertaking by WEP and partners, the IWSG!
DWELLER WITHIN {998 Words}
The first time I saw the Ghost Train, I was 11 years old, a shepherd along the slopes of the Lombardy Alps in 1911.
The next minute, I was a 25 year old British aristocrat.
Confused? Welcome to my world.
Like the passengers of the Titanic the following year, the 106 passengers aboard the Zanetti train racing into the new tunnel were never seen again.
Except for:
Sir Lionel Atwell, pushed from the train by his fiancée,
and the British traveler, Samael Froth, who’d tried to keep him from falling.
Samael tumbled harmlessly into my sheep. Lionel’s head slammed into mine, changing our fates forever.
A heartbeat before, I’d looked up to see the train rushing into the tunnel whose mouth billowed in white fog.
As Lionel’s head hit mine, the world grew bright white. I fell onto my back.
I heard my voice come from feetaway. I saw myself screaming in English.
“Bloody Hell!”
I staggered to feet I did not feel, grabbing my head. “La mia testa!”
I felt insane seeing “myself” stare open-mouthed towards ... me. “I” stiffened, falling to the grass in spasms.
I watched “myself” die.
The newme fainted.
Strange whispers dug into my mind.
I awakened as the bunk beneath me rocked, and I groaned, “Mia teste.”
“Finally! I thought you’d never wake up. How do you feel, Sir Lionel?”
“Vertiginoso.”
“What?”
I fought for the right word. “Dizzy.”
Two voices warred inside my mind, as if two caged birds furiously pecked at one another.
I croaked, “Where are we?”
“Zanetti Railways sent a special train to bring us back to Rome. Me, they gave a free pass to continue my trip. You, my unlucky friend, are going back to your testy aunt.”
I studied his mocking face, and a name came to me. “Samael Froth.”
“The one and only.”
He got up.
“Wait!”
“Sorry, but your Aunt gave orders I was to leave as soon as you awakened. Should you need it, the loo is behind the sliding door to your right.”
He gave me a cheery wave and left. I looked about, marveling at the intricate wood paneling, deluxe leather armchair, silk sheets, and wool blanket for the bed.
Bed. Grass had usually been my bed.
A Loo? It was the bathroom. Its mirror froze my blood. A strange man looked back at me. I was no longer a child but a man! One I did not know.
My waking world having become nightmare, I collapsed back into the bed. What was wrong? I didn’t just look different; I thought differently.
The second time I saw the Ghost Train was in my dream.
The platform between the cars trembled beneath my feet. The sickly pale blonde beside me spun, glaring sheer hate.
“You! What does it take to kill you?”
Samael chuckled behind me. “Why do humans ask such useless questions?”
I turned and saw the flesh over his cheekbones squirm as if worms slithered beneath it. I recoiled, nearly falling off the train again. He caught me.
“Oh, no, little shepherd. I have things to show you.”
He smiled, and the frail blonde turned to mist.
He led me by the arm into the car.
“Even a peasant child must be realizing Samael is not my true name. A cruel clue since you are not learned enough to know that according to Jewish myth, Samael is a fallen angel. In fact, Samael is the chief seducer, accuser, and destroyer of Man. Yet, what you see is but a froth of my essence.”
Above us came an unseen chorus as of voices trilling from bleeding throats:
“To Nyarlathotep “A-As you say, I am only a shepherd boy. Do not put yourself out on my account.”
“But a boy caged in the flesh prison of a man. I grew bored. You are my new toy.”
The door to our right burst open and out staggered a wizened old man, and my guide smirked, “Ah, my old toy.”
The old man held out a portrait with paint-stained fingers. “I did as you asked! Free me from this hell!”
“Oh, my dear Watts, you earned this hell when you married a sixteen year old girl in your dotage.”
“No, you have merely re-painted your Dweller Within, I wanted the spirit of this boy housed in a man’s body. Like so!”
He flicked long fingers, and the paint blurred to become his description:
The shepherd boy I had been, misty within the body of the man I had become. Instead of the former wings, numbers and symbols arched around his shoulders.
“Algorithms,” said Nyarlathotep, giving me a cold side eye.
He touched my forehead with hot fingertips.
“Remember them, and you will be able to deduce where and when this train will next appear.”
“W-Why would I want to do that?”
“If you manage to physically board this train, you will stop its maddening trip through time.”
“What?”
“As we speak, this train is racing through Medieval Modena. Monks will chronicle it as ‘a sled with a pipe, dragging three smaller ones behind it’.”
Nyarlathotep faked concern. “Oh, two more passengers have just jumped off to seek refuge. Sadly, they will be thought devils. Monks burn devils here.”
His lips pulled up in a snake’s smile. “Next stop is to be 1841, Mexico. Of course, the authorities will be much too civilized to burn them.”
“W-What will they do?”
“I do not think they will keep them long in the psychiatric facility. After all, this train’s third stop is Balaklava in 1955.”
He slapped me hard. “Time to wake up, shepherd!”
My eyes snapped open to see a painting of my pale “fiancée” at the foot of my bed in the style of the old artist.
“Tick, tock,” whispered an unseen voice.
June 4, 2019
HOW TO CREATE SUSPENSE_IWSG post
The suspense is killing me ...
The FIRST rule ...
Create characters with such depth and resonance that the reader cares when you place them in jeopardy.
The SECOND rule ...
SLOW BURN.
The danger must approach relentlessly, slowly, seemingly unstoppably ... then BAM!!
The THIRD rule ...
SIZZLE sells the steak.
The problem of readers being bored isn’t solved by adding action but instead by adding apprehension.
Suspense is anticipation; action is payoff.
You don’t increase suspense by “making things happen,” but by promising that they will.
The FOURTH rule...
FORESHADOW don't TELEGRAPH the danger.
The FIFTH rule ...
Make Death not an IF merely a WHEN.
Make the suspenseful scene seemingly impossible to get of.
Now, get out there and raise some goosebumps on your readers!
June 3, 2019
May I Introduce You To ... MISS FISHER'S MURDER MYSTERIES
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1464206171/It is the end of the 1920s
The Honourable Phryne Fisher―
she of the green-gray eyes, diamant garters, and outfits that should not be sprung suddenly on those of nervous dispositions
decides it might be rather amusing to try her hand at being a lady detective in Melbourne, Australia.
Almost immediately from the time she books into the Windsor Hotel,
Phryne is embroiled in mystery:
poisoned wives, cocaine smuggling rings, corrupt cops, and communism.
It is a fun read.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01E1DJNV8/Award-winning actress Essie Davis (The Babadook, The Slap) stars as Miss Phryne Fisher,
a glamorous “lady detective” with a flair for fashion and a knack for solving crime.
Gleaming with period detail and high production values, this Australian hit sparkles with wit and intrigue.
You can watch it on Netflix:
https://www.netflix.com/title/70259338Or on Amazon Prime or Vudu.
I's a unique, well-written, beautifully photographed show,
with music that reflects or is from the Roaring 20s, but has all the full audio fidelity of modern days.
GIVE IT A TRY WILL YOU?
June 2, 2019
AMERICA IS ALMOST OUT OF BLOOD?
Human blood, unlike computers, smartphones, and cars,
cannot be manufactured, and no substitute for it has yet been invented.
At the same time, blood, like fresh produce, is a perishable product, with platelets lasting five days and red blood cells 42.
But why do we run out of blood, anyway?
Donors, who are the raw material suppliers of blood products, typically can donate no more than three times per year!
20% of blood donations come from schools.
During the summer months those schools are closed.
Summer Vacations with their trips and projects further diminish the number of those who donate.
To put it in more personal terms:
One of the hospitals in a near-by Texas city uses over 700 blood units a month.
In a year that is about 87,000 units of blood!
That is just one of the ten major hospitals that that city's center services.
Multiply that by the thousands of blood centers across America!
And all those summer road trips?
The number of summer highway accidents multiply worse than the number of flies on your picnic table.
You can see the problem for blood centers in the summer months.
So think about donating blood this summer.
A teaspoon of your blood can save the life of a premature baby.
May 31, 2019
HOW TO WRITE FLASH FICTION
If you obey all the rules,
you miss all the fun.
- Katherine Hepburn
When it comes to flash fiction you have to be clever. There will be instances where you will want to tell, instead of show.
One sentence may be all you need to explain a sordid past as a stripper, hitman, or crooked banker.
Think of the tip of the iceberg—
show us that, but not the entire mountain of ice and snow.
You must be clever with your title.
Let your title do some of the work,
but don’t give away the story resolution with it either.
Perhaps the greatest asset for a flash writer is the ability to create character through voice.
That skill is well worth exploring, and the best exploration is either through just doing it,
or by reading what others do.
EXAMPLE OF ALL THE ABOVE https://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2019/02/first-28-iwsg-wep-post.html
May 30, 2019
ARE YOU DOING JUNE'S WEP?
http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/That prompt opens up a lot of avenuesdoesn't it?
I'm entering my friend, Denise's challenge. It is what friends do. :-)
God loved birds and invented trees.
Man loved birds and invented cages. - Jacques Deval
My story begins in the Italian Alps the year following the sinking of the Titanic.
ARE YOU THINKING OF JOINING DENISE'S CHALLENGE?
May 28, 2019
ARE YOU LIVING A FULFILLED LIFE?
Living a fulfilling life
seems a mocking concept for many
these days.
Yet, it is not an impossible dream.
HOW TO START
1.) COME TO PEACE WITH THE WAY THINGS ARE
Animals in the wild endure bitter cold, injuries, and hunger without going IF ONLY.
They accept life is what it is and adapt
without the static of bemoaning that might keep them from finding another path.
2.) HIT THE PAUSE BUTTON ON LIFE TO ENJOY THE MOMENT
Not overlooking the beauty of the "mundane"world around you
will open your eyes to countless epiphanies, enriching your life and broadening your horizons.
And you might even find a much-needed laugh.
3.) ARE YOU BECOMING A GROUCH?
Focusing on the negative a good part of the day may well be turning you into a toxic person.
Challenge yourself to look for the good in each hour, in each person you meet.
That person who is just sitting at the light turned green
may well have received terrible news from the doctor or from a loved one.
Practice restraint and don't honk that horn.
4.) PRACTICE FORGIVENESS
Not just for others ... but for yourself.
You screwed up yesterday. That just makes you human. Today is a blank page.
Don't smudge it with the guilt of the past.
5.) EXERCISE IS A PRIORITY NOT A "MAYBE"
Exercise, whether it be walking, running or biking, cleans out the cobwebs and tones the body.
It also releases endorphines for free. A healthy body houses a happier spirit.
6.) STOP HANDING YOUR SELF-WORTH TO THE HANDS OF OTHERS
Those who focus on your flaws continually may do so to keep from seeing their own.
No one feels your pains, dreams your dreams, or lives your hours but you.
Each of us is composed of the very atoms first found in the hearts of stars.
You are a sparkle of life from the heart of a sun. You are special. Let no one tell you otherwise.
7.) OUR FEARS ARE ALMOST ALWAYS WORSE THAN WHAT THE TRUTH IS
Hiding from our fears always magnifies them.
Facing them gives us an idea of what to do next.
8.) CLING TO YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR
Laughter is one of the best forms of exercise.
It helps you live longer, reduces your blood pressure, and helps you enjoy your own company.
And since you are stuck with yourself 24/7, that is a good thing.
