Tag: mountain dulcimer

10 Random Facts about Myself in 2016, Revisited

In today’s blog post, I am revisiting my blog post from April 8, 2016. I had been asked to share 10 random facts about myself. It is interesting exactly eight years later to reread that post and see that little has changed.

Here are the 10 random facts about myself as I offered them eight years ago today, with new insights and details added within brackets:

1. I have what is called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) in the United States but is known as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) in the rest of the world. My energy and stamina are limited, and my memory problems and mental fog make my research and writing tedious and time consuming. I often feel as if I live in a vat of molasses. Nothing comes easily.

2. I started working on the manuscript of my proposed historical novel, The Doubloon/The Spanish Coin, in 2005. I am still tweaking it. [I was startled to be reminded that I started writing The Doubloon/The Spanish Coin 19 years ago! After editing that manuscript down from 120,000 to 96,600 words, I am now concentrating on turning the main character’s backstory into a novel to publish before I publish The Doubloon/The Spanish Coin. The tentative title of that novel is The Heirloom.]

3. As a young adult, I was a “fiction snob.” I thought there was nothing to learn or gain by reading fiction. You can imagine how shocked my sister was when, at the age of 48 in 2001, I told her that I had registered for a fiction writing class! That’s when I started learning to write [and truly appreciate and enjoy reading] fiction.

4. Although my appearance, manner, and personality give the impression that I am conservative, I am a liberal when it comes to politics.

5. After wanting to play the Appalachian lap dulcimer since first being introduced to the instrument as a college freshman, I finally purchased one and attended a four-day dulcimer workshop in 2010. Due to random fact #1, I still don’t play well and probably never will; however, I do play for my own enjoyment. I often listen to dulcimer music while I write. (I’m listening to some as I write this blog post.) [I still don’t play the dulcimer very well, but I am once again trying to practice almost every day. This is for my own enjoyment. A huge “plus” is that learning to play a musical instrument is supposed to be good for one’s brain.]

6. I live on land that has been in my family since the 1760s.

7. I sleep in a bed that my father made using timber from our land in the 1940s.

8. I wish I could sing.

9. I could drive a tractor before I was old enough to drive a car.

10. Taking the fiction writing course and attending the dulcimer workshop were life-changing experiences for me, and I will forever be grateful that I got out of my comfort zone and took advantage of both opportunities.

No matter your age, stretch yourself and follow your dreams.

What do you have to lose?

Since my last blog post

Photo by Janet Morrison at Joara

I participated in my first archaeological dig! I checked it off my “bucket list,” but I hope it won’t be my last one. If you want to read all about it, please subscribe to my every-other-month e-newsletter by going to https://www.janetmorrisonbooks.com and clicking on the “Subscribe” button. You will also receive my free downloadable historical short story, “Slip Sliding Away.” I will write about the archaeological dig in my May 2024 e-newsletter.

I submitted a 3,575-word contemporary short story to an international short story competition recently. It was the first time I entered a piece of fiction written in first-person to a competition, so I was pleased when I learned that my story was judged to be in the top 10% of submittals. In spite of that “top 10%” label, I opened the critique with some trepidation.

Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash

In a nutshell, the critique only had two negative comments: (1) The title (“Someone is Trying to Kill Me”) gave too much away and (2) I wrapped up the protagonist’s dilemma too quickly. The positive comments included, “It’s rare that I tell an author that the story we turned down needs to be significantly longer, because many of our entries drag a very thin, uninteresting idea out for many more pages than it is worth. But I think “Kill” needs to be a lot longer…. Detailed, interesting, step-by-step… this story has ‘detective novel’ written all over it… I’d read that story. It would be far too long for our magazine, but so what? Get it published somewhere else, or publish it yourself on Amazon or he web or something. Finish the story and put it out there.”

What a morale booster!

Until my next blog post

If there is a novel in you that is begging to be written… WRITE IT!

Read a good book or two this week.

Support your local public library and independent bookstore.

Remember the people of Ukraine.

Janet

Striking a balance in life

With my “Writing Plan of Action” in place as of yesterday, today I turn my attention to striking a balance. I have the luxury of not depending upon my income from writing to keep me afloat. I would have drowned a long time ago if that had been the case! My income from writing thus far officially qualifies it as a hobby, according to the Internal Revenue Service. That means it does not matter how much writing puts me “in the red” financially; it’s just a hobby.

Don’t get me wrong; I would love to be able to make a living by writing. That’s what all writers dream of and aspire to, but few of us achieve that level of success. It would be marvelous if my historical novel manuscript, The Spanish Coin turned out to be “the Great American Novel,” but how often does that happen? I certainly won’t gain fame or fortune writing vintage postcard books like The Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, but it is a thrill to see my name on a book as the author.

As I jump into my new “Writing Plan of Action” this week, I want to keep all facets of my life in balance. Writing and everyday life tend to leave no time for playing the mountain dulcimer. I’ll never become proficient at playing that lovely stringed musical instrument from the Appalachian Mountains if I don’t practice.

Playing the dulcimer a few minutes each day, studying the Bible, visiting the sick and homebound, walking the dog, quilting, sewing, doing needlework, and reading for pleasure are all things I need to make time to do. Those are the activities that tend to get squeezed out as I get absorbed by the self-imposed demand to write, write, write.

Tomorrow I will make yet another attempt to strike a balance in my life.

Learning to Quilt, too?

Learning to play the mountain dulcimer at the age 57 apparently wasn’t enough of a challenge for me. Or perhaps I’m having a midlife crisis. For whatever reason, this seemed like the right time in my life to do some of the things I’ve always wanted to do.

My new endeavor is quilting. I’ve joined a small quilters group in my community.  We meet monthly. Individually and collectively they have welcomed me with open arms and much encouragement.

I literally had to blow the dust off the old Singer sewing machine. It’s one of those old “thread-it-yourself” models from the 1960s. It took a while for the machine and me to get reacquainted. Thread tension is still a bit of an issue, but I’m confident that the end result will be something of which I can be proud.  Project #1:  a sample quilt made up of a dozen 12-inch square blocks, each block a different quilt pattern.

With Block #1: Roman Square successfully completed, this week I will tackle Block #2: Log Cabin. It is fun to see the various fabrics I purchased for my quilt coming together in blocks. I had not sewn since the early 1980s and had forgotten how exciting it can be to shop for fabrics.

My assignment before the February quilting group’s (Friendship Quilters) meeting is to sew sash pieces of fabric between quilt blocks sewn earlier by other members of the group. With some luck, this piece will turn out to be a table runner to be sold at our sponsoring church’s fall bazaar. Imagine something I helped sew being sold at a bazaar!

My blog continues to be all over the map when it comes to topics. It started out to be a way for me to put out the word about my writing. Life is too short and precious to be lived enjoying only one thing, though. I continue to write a local history column for Harrisburg (NC) Horizons newspaper every other week, but playing the mountain dulcimer and sewing also beg for my time and attention. It is said that a writer writes because he or she has to. I feel the same way about playing the dulcimer. If a day passes and I don’t play this beautiful Appalachian mountain instrument, I feel cheated and my day is incomplete. I play for my own enjoyment. It is one of the most relaxing hobbies I’ve ever had.

I wish for you the same desire to learn new things. Writing, music, and sewing continue to bring new friends and pleasures into my life.

What have you always wanted to do that you have never pursued?