Read Writing is my Release

via The Go To Girls Blog said Writing is my Release…….

A blog new to me has turned me into a fan.

At first glance, this blogger shares glorious original photography. My, what generosity in each post. Also, I enjoyed the writer’s personal take on life. After reading three posts I read gave a charming yet down-to-earth take on an awakening to world watching. Plus one of her posts inspired me to write this one.

Discovery and seeking new elements in our lives tends to draw me to others. I have kept my sense of adventure and curiosity. As a reader, I expect good things. I expect exciting storytelling or news reporting. I love finding unique phrases, words, ideas, and characters or people in both fiction and nonfiction.

Why else would I become a writer?

Well, way back a couple of decades ago, I wrote for my own release. Same as The Go-To Girls Blog, Writing is my Release, the post I linked to above. We all need a release. People choose healthy or unhealthy habits to release or forget life’s complicated, and often sad situations. As children, we discharge our anxiety more freely. A yell, a sudden wildly abandoned dance or crazy explosive laughter. Children tend to be forgiven their lack of control. Adults who yell or throw things often frighten or upset others. Writing comes like thinking, it must be done for one’s self. Journaling or keeping a diary look and feel acceptable. These forms of an adult release of negative energy rarely draw a stinkeye from others.

The kind of stuff that gets blurted on social media, I dumped into notebooks. I journaled. Looking back, I see my self-involvement. As a private young woman, I admit I feared anyone reading my rants.

Now I see my past needs and wants in the young adults I live with now.

Back then, I wrote like there was no tomorrow.

But “like there was no tomorrow” is trite. A tried worn saying that shuttles readers into an airless room of yellow-paged books. Stuffy and boring, right?

So to speak. Another too well-beaten path pops up in this blog draft. So to speak sounds stale and colorless.  A phrase tossed out by those too lazy to forge fresh ideas.  Perhaps you get my drift? Of course, I could go on and on, teasing you with banal, hackneyed, vapid, and conventional word packages.

Then I visit the thesaurus to dig up more synonyms for “clichéd, platitudinous, commonplace, stock, conventional, stereotyped, overused, overdone, overworked, stale, worn out, timeworn, tired, hoary, hack, unimaginative, unoriginal, uninteresting, dull, uninvolving, etc.” I repeat, don’t use clichés.

I read like a writer.

As a reader and a writer, now writing for readers, I drive myself to come up with fresh phrases, poetic metaphors, oxymorons, and new similies. I want to keep my readers enthralled. Partly, I do it for myself. I detest boring writing and often stop reading if an author tosses too many stock phrases in. Stereotyped characters, dialogue or prose often makes me toss a book. With millions of books in English, why read a knocked out tepid novel? I also like and read nonfiction, too. You can read one of my blog’s book reviews on dogs and animals: Animals Make Us Human by Temple Grandin.

Day by day, I am NOT so easily bored because I have books.

Yet my reading time does not last for fifteen hours like in college days. These days, I read constantly. In between and during when I rise, dress, and eat breakfast. Somedays I can barely leave off reading to go out and garden (another passion).

My passion for reading acts as a brake on reality. I filter everything by carrying a book into every room in our house. I read to the point of being late for everything. This morning it’s my gym class, which I love but dislike being late for, that suffers.

The bulk of my time to read becomes squashed into late afternoons and before falling asleep.

So off I go in search of another word.

Much of my revision time for Red Sky at Night: Dog Leader Mysteries involved inventing fresh metaphors to fit the story.  Authors know the competition rises each year. To show what I visualized or imagined in my first mystery, I not only cut boring words, I twisted phrases to help readers follow my characters. The setting descriptions and action had to rate as exciting as the story I told.

News of my first novel

So far, Red Sky at Night: Dog Leader Mysteries has earned six five-star reviews on Amazon. Even better, people buy the book from me, which gives me the THRILL of putting a copy into their hands. My book goes into their imagination. I have been surprised at the things readers remember from my novel.

Shout out to my Aunt Wilma French, and Cousin Ernie Tavaras for buying my book.