About Me,Age,Choices,Courage,Future,Life,Love Yourself,Time

The Coat of Me

What color is my coat? Green? No. I do not like green.But is it magic? Yes.Wool? No.Waterproof? Yes, when it needs to be.Hurt-proof? Yes, when it can be.(For without water or hurt, we do not grow.)Warm? In winter or when I want it to be.Buttons? Yes. Big FUN buttons.What does it remind me of? My mom.How does it make me feel? Authentic.The best thing about it? It is my only coat! I don’t need twelve. It has an endlessness to it. A timelessness. I wore it young and I wear it old. It is young Kathryn. Old Kathryn. All Kathryns:...
Aging,Children,Choices,Time

Things You Can’t Get Back

TimeYour kids as childrenThoughtless wordsYouth (different from time in a way)Virginity I was going to put innocence on the list, but I think older people can circle back to being innocent in their senility. The other things on the list we should think about before we toss them away.
Authors and Writing,Choices,Fortunes,Grateful,Happy

Another Way to Write a Story

Picture a stick figure in your mind’s eye. Got it? The stick figure portrays a unique way to shape a story, poem, or song. Anything creative. Starting at the feet…create from the feet up to the head. One caveat: the left foot is the unhappy foot, the right foot is the happy one. Let’s go. Feet = SetupKnees = PropellingHips= EscalationHeart = ClimaxHead = Resolution [Setup.] A person of unknown origins walks along a curb in Any City. They are young. No old. Rich. No, poor. Doesn’t matter. Right foot moves. Left foot sloshes through the dirty gutter water. Step, sploosh,...
Adulthood,Chances,Choices,Fear,Life,Lucky

Changing Names

I listened to a Duolingo French Podcast today, and it talks about a young man who discovers that his grandfather changed his surname from a Jewish name to a French name during the war. The young man tried to change his name to his grandfather’s name but was told he could not because of the French laws at the time. * Spoiler Alert*: Eventually, he was able to change his name. Times and laws change. Photo by Djalma Paiva Armelin on Pexels.com Our names are particularly important to us – both our first and last names. I changed my first name from...
altMBA,Choices,Creativity,Life,Purpose,Time,Truth

Checking Boxes

I took Seth Godin's altMBA class. It had been on my list since 2017! Yay. I finally took it. Check. Photo by Ivan Bertolazzi on Pexels.com I wanted a one-and-done. I wanted the magic ticket from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The golden ring on the Merry Go Round. You’d think I was old enough to know that checking a box and doing the work are two different things. I checked the box. The checked box stares at me. I stare back. We know one of us will lose.“I have to go on to the next box,” I say.The...
Authors and Writing,Choices,Creativity,Fiction!

Villains

Novelists Need to Know! Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com What is a villain, anyway? What do you think of when you hear the word villain? It's the 'bad guy.' Okay. Yes, but it's more than a bad guy. Villains are without remorse. They. Are. Evil. They have no moral compass. No sense of right and wrong. They are motivated by things we cannot fathom, but we know a villain when we see one. Most of the time. The Literary Terms site indicates that the villain "comes up with plots to somehow cause harm or ruin." There is no good side...
About Me,Choices,Life,Lucky,Time

Micro-Memoir

I went to a micro-memoir workshop this last weekend at the Southern California Writers Conference. What is a micro or flash-memoir? Short lives? No, Judy Reeves, author and memoirist actually says that mini-memoirs can be anything from sentences to short paragraphs, and combined into works of various sizes from small books to larger works, usually with a theme. So, I didn't even know it was a genre. It is! There are tons of people who write and publish micro memoirs. Beth Ann Fennelly, for instance, published Heating & Cooling--52 Micro-Memoirs (Norton & Co. 2017). There are dozens of others. Who...
Age,Choices,Plans,Purpose,Time

Age

How old am I today? "Age doesn't matter."Les Snead, General Manager of the Rams talking about then 30-year-old Ram's Head Coach Sean McVay Let me start by saying I am not a football junkie. In fact, I largely limit my viewing to the Super Bowl. But as we find out, the Head Coach for one of this year's Super Bowl teams, the Rams, was 30 years old when he was hired. He is now a whopping 33. So let me say this about that. Age is a number. A state of mind. I could be seven. I could be ninety-nine....