Too Much Cheese!

Hanzel was a jolly Dutchman with a white shirt and a vest who liked to make cheese almost better than anything else in the world. He liked it so much that Hanzel was positive that his cheese was by far the best in the whole county of Leyden. Problem is every farmer for miles around insisted that their own was superior to any other made in all of Holland and that lead to quite a hullabaloo on market day. There were rows and rows of stalls in the cheese section of the market, and the competition was fierce. Many if not all of them had banners in varying colours advertising their wares. The bolder ones went even farther and hired drummers which added to the din. Even the shyest had to resort to calling out the virtues of their special product.

And what was the result? No one got very much business. Friends, I feel very much like that bewildered Dutchman. Since the market has been opened wide to thousands of authors through the advent of self-publishing we are being drowned in a cascade of literature just at the time when technology is causing the interest in paper books to wan. Tell me, what should I do? If you have any advise, anything at all, please let me know. www.marilynshistoricalnovels.com

Who Was the Victim

I’m finding it very hard to write this exact post, maybe it’s because I haven’t been completely reconciled with my past or something.

Okay, I know I am going to confuse some of you because earlier I leaped back into my eleventh year to bring out some Memory Files and this was after sharing what happened when I was a young teenager. Now I’m back into my teen years, got it?

Do you remember me telling you about being ‘kidnapped’ by a couple of uncles?

Well, here we are, a new life is before us. Now we are living in a proper home once again, one with running water, lights, and all that good stuff we were used to in this modern day and age. I assume Mom’s brothers and church family were instrumental in having that happen though it is a piece of the puzzle I never actually searched for.

We were given a warm welcome: I remember the girls my age, a couple of them which were my cousins, putting on a party which included presenting me with a homemade scrapbook where they had each added a page or two.  It was a very nice gesture.

But somehow, what lingers most warmly in my mind is going to school on that first day of grade ten. Just inside the glass doors of the big school were two girls waiting for me. They became my best friends.

  Okay, I guess I need to venture into what’s really hurting, can’t skirt it any longer.  Mom had gone home to her people but she wasn’t ‘one of them’ in spirit, if you catch the drift.

I’ve always shielded myself from this fact because it hurt too much. It was easier to say that Mom was depressed because of all the pain she had gone through, but the truth was I, we, were hurting and she wasn’t there for us. 

The silent disapproval I had already felt as a child remained, and I found her quite unapproachable.  Once, maybe a year or so after we got there, she shared her heart with me. It was a heady experience for a fifteen or sixteen year old, but I was too young to really help her. 

So what did I do? I turned to writing and finished my first novel while in my teens but later threw it out. I also wrote poetry that expressed my anguish and other moods. 

I still quote these lines from one of the poems from time to time: ‘Chains of darkness flung around me binding me with fear’, hmm, the rest of the words are escaping me. What were they? I wrote about the ‘echoes from the past’ meaning the sexual abuse that had such a damaging effect on my ego.

Teenage years can be tumultuous even for those from a stable home, and mine wasn’t easy. I had such extreme mood swings that on one occasion I took way too many aspirin in a desperate attempt to end it all. Did I have side effects? Not really. Did Mom know? Shrug.

But was God there? Yes, He most definitely was, and although at times I couldn’t feel Him, looking back I realized that what I thought were stumbling blocks were really stepping tones that shone like jewels on my way towards Heaven.

The Big Boo-Boo

The Big Boo- Boo!
I wrote this article at home the other day with the intent of posting it while at the library. Problem is I forgot to reread it, and there is a glaring flaw. I’ll fix it now, but it’s pretty awkward having a mistake like that in an article about writing! 
Hint: I missed the author’s name. Did anyone catch it?
http://www.createspace.com/4837922

Dare to Dream

                Are dreams worth pursuing?  Can they be pursued? One of my favorite poems as a teenager had the line “Don’t be distracted by less worthy deeds.”

                Okay, maybe you’ve guessed by now that I love to write. Writing to me is like painting was to someone like Norman Rockwell. It gives the mundane, the obscure a new shot of life. Writing can and should give new insight and vitality to commonly held conceptions.

                And so I write. Problem is there is a whole tidal wave of other aspiring writers struggling to the top, seeking to be noticed. We have challenges that weren’t faced back in the 1950’s. When To Kill A Mocking Bird was written the editor ended up having more faith in ---Harper Lee’s book  than she had herself. Apparently in frustration she threw the manuscript out the open window, but the editor encouraged her to gather up those papers and try, try again.

Who helps us? Self-Publishing has gotten a bad rap from people, ya, like me, who read their manuscripts a ‘thousand’ times and become blind to the ‘million’ little typos that glare at them after the book is off the press. UHH! Who wants to read that? Not even me.

BUT. We put a tremendous amount of work into it. BUT we are sure are ideas are great: if the reader can see past those awful typos: if there was a way to struggle against the human tide of other writers who are also flooding the market. Ever feel that way? Unless you are smugly holding the key to success that I haven’t found yet, of course you do.

And so fellow writers what are we going to do?  I know for a fact I will continue to write because I love to, and those earlier disgraces haven’t thrown me into despair. Fact is I redid Mary’s Diary, Jesus through His Mother’s Eyes because I believed in it, and now the present copy is far better than the first.

I’m doing the same with Two Mothers and Twin Daughters.  I can’t believe how enriching an experience it is to rewrite a favorite story after the earlier (humiliating) publication several years ago.

Okay, I admit I’ll just a little old oyster polishing, polishing that pearl inside me, but maybe someday you and I can, like Anna Pavlova, the famous dancer, learn the true meaning of success. Do you know what she said? Here is my paraphrase:

Success is having people loving what you do.

Just so you don’t forget my name, I’ll sign it. : )

Marilyn Friesen

Thoughts on Early Autumn

Thank you to Google Images for the lovely image of a loon. Autumn is always alluring Blossoms burgeoning and blessed Covering comely coulees Dreading the deepest drifts. Everywhere early enchantment Frosting on fernery frail Giving a gossamer glory Hardly the harshness of hail. Int'resting etchings enticing Joyously jived back in June Keeping the kiting kids carefree Loving the lingering loon. Many a mem'ry in making Never a nebulous naive Orchestrated opening to Autumn P'rading like prisms ablaze. Quaintly the quail are quibbling Rustling the russet rushes Sensing the seasonal shoreline Tightening its terrible trusses. Under umbrageous autumn Venison visions unveil Whispers of wintery wildness eXposure to ice in the dale. Yennings for yonder bright Yuletide Zeal for the zennithing year... Soon rosy cheeks will appear.  So what do you think of this poem? I suppose it sounds pretty rustic. It was for a FanStory contest and the requirement was 27 lines each starting with a letter of the alphabet. Critique  welcome. CreateSpace: https://www.createspace.com/4837922 Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1511783966 http://www.hollywoodbooktrailers.com http://www.ipayal.com

Silly White Stuff

“Isn’t it ridiculous picking up this silly white stuff day after day?”

“Shh, you had better be careful what you say. God sent it. Would you rather be eating… eating, well who knows what and dying of thirst like our forefathers practically did before Moses struck the Rock?”

“Yes,” a younger voice piped up, “And he sure got in trouble for doing that. Now he won’t be able to go into the Promised Land.”

“Promised Land,” the first one scoffed. “We’ve been wandering in this desert for nearly twenty years already. Why, you and I and everyone else our age was born after they were shut out of that so called Promised Land.” Dinah huffed as she swung a big basket over her arm. “I’m getting a weeks’ supply of that manna. I’m sick and tired of gathering it every single day just because Mama is so sickly all the time.”

“Go ahead,” her friend Lilka scoffed, “You know what Moses warned us would happen. I’ve heard rumors it has already  in some other areas of ‘tent city’.

Twenty four hours passed. Same time same station as it were, the only difference was facial expressions, mostly, and of course the conversation had changed.

Dinah looked so sullen, or was it subdued, that Lilka and Josiah didn’t dare say a word to her.  They had observed her, from a distance mind you, trying to dispose of a whole week’s supply of moldy wormy manna and trying unsuccessfully not to throw up over the whole repulsive mess.

Dinah learned her lesson, have we to? God simply does not want us to gather too many worries for example. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Some might wonder if I sit down at the beginning of every month and map out the topics I will be writing about for the next thirty days.

“ Nope, not a chance.”

“ Well, for the next week then?”

“ Uh uh.  Why bother, I want my manna (which comes from Heaven) fresh and new.” Give us our day our daily bread.  

Do You Know My Characters?

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