Every Writer's Gotta have a Little R&R

Every writer's gotta have a little R&R, don't they? I just got back from an overnight stay at one of the biggest gambling casinos on the east coast, Dover Downs (Dover, Delaware), known for their NASCAR and horse races, and of course, SLOTS. I'm not much of a NASCAR fan (don't kill me!), but it was kind of neat watching the horse race outside the restaurant window. But, the biggest thrill of all was those little greedy slot machines they have sprinkled underneath the hotel rooms to entice you to spend your hard earned bucks on.

I was fighting a head cold, but it was fun while it lasted. BF & I both lost our money, but we got a free room out of it anyway, plus FREE FOOD.

After the last of my hard-earned money was eating up by the machines, I went back to the room and tried to indulge in comfort, but this dang head cold was making me miserable. I took some cold medicine and went to bed and had this crazy dream. I was wearing my "Support a Starving Author...Buy My Book" t-shirt, going house to house peddling my book like an encyclopedia salesman. I REALLY hope it doesn't come down to that.

The next day, we got up and did some Christmas shopping with what little money we had left in the hotel room and came on home. Broker for sure, but it was sure nice to get away.

Now that I'm back home, work is staring at me - a how to article on promoting, my soul mate book that needs finishing, a relationship column and emails up the ying-yang. Arrggg....

The Goose That Almost Wasn't

I don’t remember having a television as a young child. We weren’t exactly poor, but let’s just say we had to stretch the food dollar a bit by relying on the generosity and good will of family and friends.

I never noticed. I was too busy playing “Red Rover, Red Rover” or “Hide-n-Seek” with the cousins and trying to think of ways to keep out of trouble. I wasn’t a mean kid, just ornery. Stubborn might be a better word for it.

One particular Thanksgiving Day, one of the cousins (sneaked) brought a goose over for the Thanksgiving main course. I was outside playing with my dolls and minding my own business when something caught my eye on top of the rusty oil tank at the back of the house. I knew that back yard like it was nothing and I knew this was something that wasn’t there yesterday.

As I was knee-high to a grasshopper, I couldn’t see exactly what it was and curiosity got the best of me. I ran inside and asked my mother, who was standing at the kitchen counter cutting up celery and onions and doing all those Thanksgiving-like things, just what it was.

“That’s the goose for Thanksgiving dinner,” she exclaimed rather too excitedly for my own tastes. “Wasn’t that nice of your uncle to bring it by?”

Uh. Yeah. My taste buds were just budding over.

I was aghast, putting it mildly. I had never eaten goose before and wasn’t about to start now. Visions of Baked Mother Goose danced in my head and I frantically raced back outside.

I stood there at the oil tank, gazing up at the white atrocity, but it was much too high to get at it.
Dinnertime would be here before you knew it and I had to think fast.

I searched the yard for something to climb up on and that’s when I heard an innocent mew coming from behind the lilac bushes. It was our cat, Boots, looking at me kind of strange-like. What a stroke of good luck, I thought!

I figured that if I throw the cat up high enough, he would land on top of the oil tank, grab the goose, take off with it and no one would ever be the wiser.

I grabbed Boots with all my might and with one gigantic thrust, I threw him into the air.

Mrrrrowwww, he growled, plummeting to the ground with all four paws outstretched.

He started to run off figuring this was some sick game I was playing with his life, but I grabbed the tip of his tail just before he got away.

I threw him up a second time and this time, he almost hit the target, missing the goose by inches.

My mother, who was known for never missing a beat, saw me throwing the cat up in the air and yelled, “Dotti Lyn! What are you doing out there?”

“Just trying to see if Boots can fly, Mommy.”

“Well, stop your horse-playing right now, young lady, and leave that cat alone!”

“Okay, Mommy.”

I waited until she moved away from the window and was out of site. I was making sure I wasn’t going to be picking any switches that day!

I found Boots, who was eyeing me pretty suspiciously by then, and threw him a third time.

This time, we hit bulls-eye!

I peeked around the corner to evaluate the situation, keeping one eye on the cat and the other eye on the kitchen window and I’ll be dang if that cat wasn’t just sitting there.

“Go on, you dang cat!” I yelled. “It’s a goose! Eat the darn thing or do something other than just sit there!”

The cat just sat there, ignoring the goose and making sure he was going to sit up there the rest of the day so I couldn’t get my hands on him again. I guessed he didn’t like playing airplane, after all.

“Dotti Lyn! What’s that cat doing up there on the oil tank with our Thanksgiving goose?” yelled my mother.

“Mommy, guess what?” I yelled back. “Boots can fly!”

I don’t remember how Boots got down that day, but I do remember eating goose for the first time. And I’ll tell you one thing. I’ve never eaten it since.

Special Holiday Savings on Romancing the Soul

Is it the holidays already? YIKES.

Are you hard up for finding that special present for that special person in your life? Does she/he have EVERYTHING and there's nothing else you can think of and it's driving you crazy?

Do you fear the mobs of people at this time of year when all you want to do is sit at home and do something meaningful like sleep or something?

How about the price of gas nowadays? Oops, that was last week. Well, gas is still gas and if you don't have to put gas in your gas tank, you can spend it on other wonderful things like...uh...beer?

And how about that mall. Isn't it the most fearful place you can think of going to? Eek.

Well, do I have the solution for you. See that pretty picture over here?

That's my book. It's a really neat little book. It took three long years of hard work putting that thing together and guess what. It's on sale. Only at Amazon, though. Yessiree bob, for a limited time, that little sucker is on sale at 32% off...I couldn't believe it myself (why, if I didn't have all these unsold copies sitting in my spare bedroom, I'd buy one myself!). That saves you $7! Just think what $7 can buy! Oh, lots of things. More beer? Extra toilet paper? A supersized meal at McDonalds? Heck, yeah. Doesn't get better than that, does it?

Oh, but it does...

I have a couple of presents for you, too! Man, I see you smiling now! All you have to do is head over to www.dorothythompson.net/holiday.html and read all about it. There's even a special holiday greeting waiting for ya.

Happy holidays to you and yours and don't forget, when that little missus or mister of yours opens up the package, I don't want to be responsible for any disorderly conduct, you hear? I'm not responsible, you hear me? Ha...enjoy the holidays and if you are one of the lucky poor folks who stumble upon this, I'm really a sane person. Really.

Childhood Sweethearts

Childhood sweethearts – that first time we feel the stirrings of romantic feelings – is a magical time in which pangs of heart-felt emotions touches us in a way that we’ll remember the rest of our lives and will shape our future in the romance department. Where boyfriends or girlfriends come and go as we grow up and eventually have families of our own, it’s that childhood sweetheart that we remember most. It’s something about our first real young love that we recall with fond memories because it is the first love that was genuine and bittersweet. Our heart is but a virgin organ until our childhood sweetheart walks into our life and changes our lives forever. It is that first love that we carry with us throughout life, never forgetting those sweet moments of innocence. They leave with us a legacy that time cannot erase.

Everyone remembers their first kiss and the first time they had intimate, physical relations, but do you remember your first childhood sweetheart where there were no pressures on either side? Why is it that this one sweetheart is unforgettable of all the other relationships you’ll ever have?

As we get older and fall in and out of love, it’s that one soul mate, that first soul mate – whether you are seven or seventy-seven – that introduces you to what it feels like to be in love. The reason why it is so memorable and so magical is that this is the time when you love someone outside of the family circle and it stirs emotions that are new to you, yet oh-so-wonderful. While it leaves you with many confused feelings because it is your first, it makes you feel alive like never before.

Just like any other kind of soul mate, our childhood sweetheart will, in time, leave us to embark on their own life journey, but they leave with us an urge to experience that same feeling with someone else again. It is that first experience with love that gets the ball rolling in a quest to recapture that exhilirous feeling of having someone love you and you giving love in return.
As a child growing up on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and then in Burbank, California, I was painfully shy. If a boy were to so much as say hi to me, I’d run. However, I found that boys didn’t want anything to do with girls at this stage so the most contact I had with them was trying to beat them up for different, odd-like things that boys of a young age do.

Also, there was a stigma associated with having a boy like you and that you’d get a bad case of cooties and would have to spend the rest of your life in bed which was something close to called “the kiss of death.”

When I entered into the fourth grade, I still had this mindset that boys were to be avoided, but there was one boy who stood out from the rest. His name was Bruce (his last name escapes me). Bruce and I attended Abraham Lincoln Elementary School in Burbank, California, in the early sixties. The face escapes me, but it wasn’t so much as physical looks, but what he was as a “person” that made me rethink the cootie theory.

Bruce was well liked by everyone. I don’t recall why, but I do remember that he had this unmistakable charisma that made you want to respond to his “hi” if the situation warranted it, even as red-faced as you were.

One day, the class was playing some kind of game where you take your fist and hit the ball against this backboard and the opposing team member did the same. They might have called it handball; I’m not sure.

I was terrible at sports. But, Bruce let me win that round that day.

The feeling that gave me is so hard to put into words. I knew that he could have beaten me hands tied behind his back, but he let me win. It was that very day that confirmed that Bruce and I were soul mates. He was the first boy in my whole short life who wanted to see me do something great and feel good about myself and that stuck with me the rest of my life.

I never found out what happened to Bruce, yet every now and then, I’d get this urge to see if I could find him. Internet searches turned up not much as I didn’t have a last name to go by, yet I’ve always had this urge to want to contact him. Why? I’m not even sure, except maybe to thank him for showing me a side of the opposite sex that was quite surprising, even for a nine-year-old.

Another reason I think he holds a candle to my heart could be that he was a part of my past – a part of my past I will never be able to capture except in my memories. And it is that past that people want to hold on to as it’s part of their history – part of them that shows them who they were at one time and, although our past has a lot to do with who we are today, they can never relive.

We can’t go backwards in time, but it’s those small things about our past that stand out more than the rest. It is our childhood sweethearts that we hold a special place in our heart and which shapes our future relationships in more ways than you’ll ever realize.

Do you have a childhood sweetheart that still holds a candle to your heart? If so, please email me at thewriterslife@yahoo.com or leave a comment here. There is a section in my book on soul mates (and another book in the works) that explains how our childhood sweethearts have an influence on our lives. If you would like to tell me your story, and would like to be interviewed, please let me know. It's an important part of our lifetime of relationships and my books will show you why. Thanks!

Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief...Dreamer?

Okay, I'm going to relieve you of all this soul mate stuff and give you something else to read here tonight. I took a test and well...here's the results....

You Should Get a MD (Doctor of Medicine)

You're both compassionate and brilliant - a rare combination. You were born to be a doctor.

What Advanced Degree Should You Get?

They are sooooo wrong. I don't even like looking at PICTURES of hospitals and those TV shows where they gruesomely show you every aspect of an operation down to blood and gore and human insides? ACK.

Before I graduated high school, I knew what I wanted to do when I got out and that was not stepping a foot in another learning institution the rest of my life. Where everyone else was talking about what college they were going to after they graduated, I was holing myself up in the bathroom dreaming of the day school was history.

Am I the only one who didn't have any ambition?

After I graduated, I flew to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida (by myself) fully intending on going to modeling school. What possessed me to come up with that idea is beyond me, but I never went. Again, a dreamer.

After I was bored with that, I flew back home and found a job in a vegetable packing plant. Talk about boring jobs. The conveyer belts made me feel quite nauseaus and since the manager didn't like it that I was spending more time in the john puking my brains out than actually WORKING, they let me go.

By that time, I had met my intended marriage partner and married. I thought...this is cool...no more having to work ever again!

Marriage was a big eye-opener. Bills were another.

I got a job working as a clerk in a record store. Now you would think that at twenty-years-old, this would be a job made in heaven. Unfortunately, I grew bored with standing around dusting the unsold record players and guitars and quit.

By that time, Hamburger Helper was getting pretty old, so my step-father hired me as a taxi driver. This was more my speed as I could get out into the fresh air and have more freedom than I could standing around a shop looking silly. And bored.

That job lasted a few weeks until some woman wanted me to take her dog to the vet and the dog turned on me.

My next job was as a waitress in a spanky seafood restaurant. The dollar bills I pulled out of my apron was such a high and I thought this was going to be a piece of cake. Then, the manager hits on me and I quit. Long story.

Marriage lasted for almost twenty years, I had two children and then when the ex left, I was forced again into the work force.

I tried other clerk jobs but nothing fulfilled me and it wasn't until I got back in waitressing did the money start coming in again and I liked the feeling of constantly being on the go.

While the waitressing pays the bills, I'm still a dreamer. Dreaming of that book deal in the future. Waiting for that lucky break when I can do what I've always dreamed of doing and that is living off my writing. Some authors are lucky enough to be in that position, but very few. I may be a dreamer, but that much I do know.

I don't know if I'll ever get to that point, but meanwhile, I'll keep my dreams and maybe one day I'll be able to do nothing all day but write. What a nice dream, though. They say you should reach for your dreams and make them a reality. That's what I'm doing. Whether I succeed or not, at least I'm doing what I love to do. There is a saying that you should find a job you love to do and you'll never have to work another day the rest of your life. That's a dream anyone can turn into reality if they stay on the right path, don't give up and reach for their highest expectations.

Perils of Being a Know-It-All

You know, the trouble with writing a book, especially non-fiction and one you've poured all your waking minutes into, is that when people see you coming, they run.

It's not that you're having a bad hair day or you forgot to put on antiperspirant, but because they know when that when they see you coming, you're going to give and give and give what newfound knowledge on your intended subject you loooooove to give to the point where they just know they are going to have to stay in the same spot for god knows how long and listen to your blatherings of whatever your intended subject is.

Take today, for example.

As I have to work to pay for my "writing hobby," I am presented daily with all sorts of people who know me pretty well, namely, my co-workers. Now, my co-workers and I get along great. However, they are soooooo politically-soul mate-naive.

So, of course, whenever the timing is right and before they have the chance to get away (run for high heavens), I grab that available opportunity to give my undying wisdom on my intended subject. And I feel that by giving this undying wisdom on my intended subject that I know like the back of my hand, I can help (save the world and have a statue erected in my name) them.

Keep in mind that my co-workers (victims) are all in their early twenties and go through the normal girl/boy relationship problems so as I had just written the section about this age group, I thought that today I was going to give this wisdom to them and they could do with (ignore) it as they want.

Take Paul, for example. Paul is in his late twenties and divorced. He's pining for my daughter who knows he's not her soul mate and he's accepting that. Well, Paul was talking about bowling and how he's aiming for the major league. I almost ignored what he said, but then I walked over him and said, "Paul, do you know that you are in the perfect position for your soul mate to enter your life?"

Well, he laughs of course, and says, "But who is my soul mate?"

He probably regretted saying that because instead of letting him work, I had him cornered, telling him all about how there is no "the one" out there for you, that you have many soul mates and that because he has goals and is working towards those goals, he's in perfect prime for his soul mates to enter his life.

This went on and on, but I couldn't stop.

A couple minutes later, after Paul was shifting from one foot to the other impatiently, another co-worker happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Leon and Michelle had been having major problems. Leon had a lot of inner hostility to get a handle on and Michelle was getting tired of his behavior. I usually kept silent, but I was on a roll.

"Leon, do you know that Michelle is your soul mate?"

Well, after he died laughing and called her a word I can't mention here, I explained that she came into his life for childbearing and sometimes when the "mission has been accomplished" and only negative feelings are present, it may be time to move on.

Well, I think I got to him. I don't know if I got to Paul who had managed to escape and was on the other side of the room, but for once I think I saw Leon really evaluate the situation.

Next was Travis. Well, Travis was smart. He knew what had been going on and no sooner than I started to explain why you have to be in the right place, at the right time, he exclaimed, "Gotta pee!"

I turned back around and my audience had disappeared. I felt like the kid in HOME ALONE. "I made my co-workers disappear!"

I usually don't give advice unless asked. I just hate to be a know-it-all. But, then again, anyone in here need help in the soul mate area? Huh? Where'd everybody go? Oh, come on, you guys. This isn't funny. Help....

I Hit 40,000 Words Tonight!

Eek, I'm so sorry...I've been really bad at stopping off at everyone's blog, but I am so proud to announce I've hit the 40,000 word mark on my soul mate how to book. I made my 5,000 word goal! I'm not sure if I'll hit 80,000 words, but that's my plan. I've still got more interviews to do and add a couple more sections and complete all the chapters to perfection, so maybe I'll come close anyway.

This has taken over my life. I have met so many warm people who I've corresponded with recently and it just warms my heart that there are so many soul mate couples out there. Okay, those without soul mates, hold yer horses, the book is coming!

Actually, I am anxious to get it finished so I can get back into my other books. They are calling but they're going to have to wait. When I'm on a roll, I've learned not to stop or it'll be months before I go back to it.

But, I don't know when I've been so happy or more prolific. Maybe this is my calling after all?

Hell yeah it is. Okay, I'm off to visit everyone's blogs!

Call for Quotes for New Soul Mate Book

Anyone else wake up freezing their tabookas off? Whatever happened to fall anyway?

Well, I got 4,000 more words written on the book yesterday. Didn't make my 5,000 word goal but as I had to take off from work because I was feeling poorly (wanted to work on book), that's not too bad, I guess. Grand total so far is: 32,084 words!

Oh, I just posted this to the Boomer Women board and it's going out in their next newsletter, but I wanted to give anyone who happens to stop by a chance to become involved in my book if you are interested. As you know, this is a how to soul mate book and one of the sections is related to finding your soul mate later in life. Later in life meaning in your later thirties and beyond.

If you have found your soul mate later in life, I have some questions I'd like to ask you.

Also, I'm looking for stories you might be able to tell me about your childhood sweetheart. Did you have one and how do you feel about them today sort of thing.

Be sure to let me know which (later in life or childhood sweetheart) when you respond and I'll clue you in on the details.

I'll probably need quotes for other sections, so mark this blog!

Email me privately at thewriterslife@yahoo.com.

Thanks a bushel and a peck!

Sad Story on New Orleans Writers Flooded Out During Katrina

There was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal today titled, "Words Can't Describe What Some Writers In New Orleans Lost." It saddens me to think that these writers lost every written word they had, some even on the bridge of being completed and ready to go to the publisher. You can read the article here, but please come back as this is really important.

Reading the article, you could tell the inhabitants of the flood areas didn't realize that the water would rise as high as it did and only placed their precious works only high enough that that thought the waters would rise.

Isn't this a lesson that all of us can learn?

If I had everything I have written wiped out, I don't know if I could or even want to start over. I would sink in a depression and I don't even know if I'd ever want to ever write another word again. Can you imagine what they are going through?

BACK UP YOUR WORK AND PUT IT IN SEVERAL PLACES.

I must be naive because not all of my work is backed up. If I were to have everything I owned wiped out because of this negligence on my part, I would only have myself to blame.

I know there are several ways to back up your work, but the one that works best for me right now is to send entire manuscripts that are finished to one of my email accounts. I can always access my email on any computer.

However, that isn't enough and since reading this article, I'm going to spend the better part of the day backing up my work by several methods and not just the one.

Speaking of my work, I got 5,000 words written yesterday. Is that wowzers or what. I'm now up to 28,148 words and I haven't even begun to write today. Feeling kinda poorly...think it's a cold working on me and I hope it doesn't go into a flu. Or bronchitis which I get once a year, but it's a little too early for that to hit.

I'll tell you what anyone who is reading this can do for me, though. I have a section in my book where I answer soul mate questions. It's a rather large part of the book and I need about thirty more soul mate questions to complete this section and I've run out of questions that has already been asked. If you have a soul mate question or a relationship question pertaining to your soul mate or soul-mate-to-be, would you send it to me? Muchos glacias. The book should be done by the end of the month, so if you could send that to me as soon as possible, I'd kiss the ground you walked on.

Anyway, back up those files and make it your best writing day ever!

Touching on the Karmic Soul Mate Subject

Surprise, surprise, we got no trick-or-treaters last night. Guess the lights out did the trick. In the soft glare of the only light I had on - the computer - I managed to get a little more done in the soul mate book.

As of this morning, here's my progress:

23 / 80 (28.7%)

A long ways to go but being as I've only been working on it for a few days now, that's not too bad.

I'm working on the karmic soul mate section, explaining what it is by giving examples. One is a young woman who used to live with us and another is a friend from high school.

We touch on each others lives everyday and if you give it some thought, you probably can come up with a few karmic soul mates in your own life.

Have you ever had anyone come into you life on a platonic level that touched you so deeply, you'll never forget them?

These are your karmic soul mates and can be anywhere from close friends, family, co-workers, even pets!