Under Lavender Skies

At the beginning of this year, I made a New Year's Resolution for myself as well as one large, and far-fetched goal, that I thought was achievable if I worked hard enough.  I have come to find out that it was a terrible goal.  My goal was this: to get some piece of my writing published.  It could be anything, a short poem or a story.  That probably sounds crazy but I have entered many contests, and there are a lot more of them out there than you would think.   Over the past couple of weeks, I have noticed that writing became more of a chore than something I jump to in the morning.  It’s really a terrible feeling, wanting to write and to be happy and excited about it, but just not.  I wasn’t writing to get better or to just write, I was writing to get something published.  Unintentionally, I was putting pressure on myself to write really well so that it would be something I would be proud to enter in a contest and in turn to achieve my goal....

I think these turned out really well and I hope you like them as much as I do! ☆☆☆

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I adore my blog and for over a year I have been gathering things, ideas, and, stories that I love, and putting them in a mixing pot and sharing a little bit of it each week with you.  But the pot has nearly run dry. I thought I would always have something to post, that no matter how late, something would show up. And for a while that is how it worked out, but recently I haven't been able to think of anything interesting.  I have had no motivation, call it writers block, to write blog posts, stories, or poems. It's difficult because I do want to write but the right words won't come right out.    Which is why I have decided that it would be better for me to post less often for posts that I worked harder on. I will probably post poems each week when I don't have a full post put together but I have a hard time considering poems full posts.  I am not cancelling my blog or anything like that and I will still probably post lots of poems as well. Hopefully you all under...

I thought this was a beautiful little poem that put a picture in my head right away. I hope you like it too! ☆☆☆

This book is a big one, it's 450 pages but also, and more importantly, in my opinion, the words are small and there's lots of them on each page.  Here's the synopsis from Goodreads because 'if it ain't broke don't fix it.'  In this new Zamonian adventure, Optimus Yarnspinner, a young writer, inherits from his beloved godfather an unpublished short story by an unknown author. His search for the author’s identity takes him to Bookholm the so-called City of Dreaming Books. On entering its streets, our hero feels as if he has opened the door of a gigantic second-hand bookshop. His nostrils are assailed by clouds of book dust, the stimulating scent of ancient leather, and the tang of printer’s ink. Soon, though, Yarnspinner falls into the clutches of the city’s evil genius, Pfistomel Smyke, who treacherously maroons him in the labyrinthine catacombs underneath the city, where reading books can be genuinely dangerous...

I have had lots of fun making these moodboard type collages recently.  Here's a fun this or that game that you can play!   ☆☆☆

One of my favorite things to post are short stories, I hope you all like them too.  This story is not really even a short story, it's really just the beginning of a much longer one. I have a hard time keeping my stories short, most of the time the idea develops into something that can become much longer, even a full book.  Without further adieu, here's my offering to you.  For the next couple of minutes follow Eloise and her father and peek into their life as they are starting something new and wondering how their lives will look for the summer.  You Look So Good In Green The car headed away from the paltry sunset as walls of trees steadily lined the road and came together behind them where it looked like the road met on the horizon.  Eloise had contorted her body around so she could watch, she watched the sky and the few colored clouds but mostly she watched the trees, it looked like they were running away from the car, trying to desperately get away.  The...

The weather is changing, day by day, and I always think of Mary Oliver's poems when I think of spring. They are all so heavily influenced by nature and animals and plants.  Here are three Mary Oliver poems that remind me of spring.  ☆☆☆

Hey everyone!  I present to you a very sad story about one of the characters in the book I am writing.  It is a short, but very important, part of her backstory crammed into only 1,500 words.   Please enjoy and comment your thoughts below!    The newsboy’s hat tumbles off my head and into the puddle of water in front of me, getting drenched by waves.  It never has fit well, I have been on the lookout for a new one, but I don’t like stealing.   I can’t do it anymore.  Plunging my fingers into my cropped red hair I dive into the memories that I have been working so hard to resist.  They come crashing back along with the waves and I am transported to a place so wildly different, a place clogged with sweat and grime rather than sand and seawater: the mines.  I know I won’t return from those choked and dirty skies until I relive every moment from my last days there.  Still, I am relieved that I can do it in the salty breeze, fa...

 Here is part two of last week's post!  Here are five more fun book related questions. Feel free to pick one or more of your favorite questions to answer in the comments below. I am curious to read your response!   1. What was the last book you finished in 2020? The last book I finished in 2020 was  Emily of New Moon  by L.M Montgomery.  This book also took me quite a while to get through but that's just because my mom was reading it aloud and any book that is read aloud just takes longer.   2. What book did you expect to like but really didn't? Last year I read  The Bookshop  by Penelope Fitzgerald, and I really expected to like it.   In 1959 Florence Green, a kindhearted widow with a small inheritance  risks everything to open a bookshop - the only bookshop - in the seaside town of Hardborough,  It sounds interesting enough.  A lady opens a bookshop, meets and deals with interesting people, things happen, ...

Hello everyone! Have you been doing lots of reading this month? I have and I thought it would be fun to answer some bookish questions.  I tried my best to write about books that I have read this year but I wasn't able to stick to that for every single question.   1. What is the first book you finished this year?  The first book I finished this year was Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.  My sister and I were reading this book together, trading off reading it aloud chapter by chapter.  And I did enjoy it but it was harder for me to get through and took a while.  One thing I would say about Jane Austen is not to read two of her books back to back, at least for me, it's just too much.   2. What book did you read from start to finish in one day?  I don't remember if it was last year or the year before but I (almost) read a whole short trilogy in one day.  One Crazy Summer, P.S Be Eleven, and Gone Crazy in Alabama by  Rita Willi...

Hey everyone!  I hope you are all doing splendidly.  This month I am working on the second draft of my book, it's a lot of writing for one month along so almost the entirety of my free time had been going towards writing,  I haven't had much time for anything else.  Let me know if you would like to hear about it!  I adore quotes, some might say I collect them, but I do have several absolute favorites to share with you today.  Every photo paired with these is my own and I use Pics Art to put the quote images together.   #1,  “ So we beat on, boats against the current , borne back ceaselessly into the past.”   #2,  “I knew who I was this morning, but I've changed a few times since then.” #3, "I have been  bent and broken ,  but —I  hope — into a better shape ." #4, "It is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in the broken world." Thank you for reading!   Did you find any of your favorite quot...