On the wall overlooking the sewing table in a far corner of my studio hangs my latest cut & paste collage.
These collages come and go. Serving as conduits of expression, they bring to light brewing intangibles. Those yearnings, thoughts, and insights within the inner self find their way and ‘voice’ through spontaneously selected images and words gathered from a myriad of sources.
This one emerged late in the year 2014, after more than five years of silence.
The lower left corner of the poster board backing reveals a magnificent tiger walking amidst snowy territory. His eyes speak – Survival, Determination; his body encompasses – Beauty, Dignity. The text reads – Be the voice for those who have no voice.
While this visual encompasses the overall view of this newly launched blog category regardless of actual topic, I can’t help but put a human face to that tiger. Walking amidst cold and snowy circumstances, I see human eyes speaking the same message; a human body reflecting unexpected grace while journeying a similar path.
When confronted with a potentially volatile subject matter, I tend to err on the side of documenting sources to support my findings. Unfortunately, that often kills the very (he)art and passionate force behind one’s need to Be the voice when done to the extreme. In that respect, the debut of this ‘ongoing series’ reflects my own attempts at balanced writing. Admittedly, the first subjects I have slated for exploration I find difficult to keep an objective tone. Yet that splash of subjectivity or personal investment is the very life blood of why I’ve been trying so hard to put this long promised ‘serious series’ together in the first place.
My sincere hope is that each Giving Voice post will be thoughtfully considered by the readers of this blog. Giving Voice in no way assumes to be an exhaustive reporting of issues. Balancing experience and exposé, feeling and facts, I am but one voice, with a very small reach.
As always, I welcome any genuine comments you may have to share, either in the comments area below, in an e-mail via the contact button or message via personal e-mail.
Agreement is not the goal; engagement/awareness is…one voice at a time.
Tag: blogging (Page 10 of 10)
So here it is, Day 4 of NaNoWriMo 2014. I thought I’d send on an update about this year’s writing focus and progress.
I already mentioned that I decided to use November’s NaNo time for a specific project I had in mind to work on and hopefully finish. If not finish, then at the very least bring it forward and closer to completion.
In NaNoWriMo terminology, anything written in the non-fic genre, editing of previous mss drafts, poetry, scripts, blog entries and a myriad of other categories, is considered being a Rebel. When one declares such a status, one’s project is called their NaNo Rebellion.
My NaNo Rebellion in 5 Bullet Points: Continue reading
Contrary to popular belief, I am a snapdragon.
Let the Daisy Dance begin…
I never thought of myself in flower terms before, but even if I had, I’m not sure I would have associated a snapdragon with my personality before taking this little quiz. Interestingly, I took it 8 times in a row and came up as a snapdragon each time.
But hey, I love giant purple irises, deep red orange poppies, daisies and…
Milkweed
Fractal Milkweed & beetle
Milkweed is one of my favorite plants. Such beauty in several stages of its life cycle: The fragrance of emerging flowers is intoxicating, the flowers themselves a gorgeous purple, and the resultant seed pods other-worldly. My family knows that I want milkweed to be planted on my grave when the time comes. 🙂
These past few months I have been preparing blog entries for a serious series I hope to launch before the end of the year; perhaps even before the November craziness that is NaNoWriMo! Coming across this little flower quiz, I realized it could be used as a sort of relief for you (my readers) once I begin the process of posting those entries. As a point of reference and contact with the little flower quiz as a ‘respite’ (just a click away), a snapdragon badge will be displayed in the sidebar through out the duration of that series of posts.
I am still in a quandary as to what to name this forthcoming serious series. Until that gets figured out, I will wait on presenting it.
In the meantime, take the little quiz and declare your flower identity in the comments section of this post!
I am a snapdragon. How about you?
Enjoy a virtual treat and a colorful quote in celebration of my First Blogiversary!
“who knows if the moon’s a balloon, coming out of a keen city in the sky–filled with pretty people?” ee cummings
In commemoration of my upcoming one-year blogging anniversary, I’m referencing Why Blog? Why Now? using it as a foil for reviewing the year-to-date. As the introductory post written on 8/30/13, it serves as a starting point for re-assessing goals stated therein: whether they were met and/or if they’ve changed. I guess you could say this is a sort-of evaluation post, re-examining the purpose of the blog along with how to proceed into its second year.
Why Blog? Why Now?
The obvious answer to this is of course, ‘Why not?’
Comment: And thus began my official entry into the blogosphere… Continue reading
(Hard to believe, but I am coming up on the first anniversary of the launch of this website/blog the end of this month.)
This blogging gig has proven to awaken my inner geek, requiring her to be on-call 24/7. In that respect, I can be quite grumpy and reluctant as regards the technical aspects of blogging. So time consuming! However I am greatly appreciative for the huge learning curves thrown my way that need to be fielded because they require an active attitude of ‘lifelong learning.’
For instance, the issue of updates and backing up data and the website in general has been an on-going concern. This being a self-hosted WordPress site, most of what needs to be addressed on a regular basis is done by myself rather than WordPress. The choice to be self-hosted was a deliberate decision as it offers a greater freedom in use of customizing WP templates and purposes. Learn-as-you-go works for awhile, but after awhile, much of what is labeled, ‘maintenance’ is far from being routine.
Case in point: a few months ago I took the bull by the horns looking for new options for backups in order to address the compounding update issues that cannot continue to stay ‘on hold.’ 
I realized my original ‘UpdraftPlus’ plugin wasn’t pulling its weight, so I went on a Google research rampage in search of a more suitable solution. Several hours later, I found an-in-your-face-obvious-option I hadn’t noticed at first sight, right on the cPanel of my website host service. A simple button named -you guessed it- Backups.
While I now have a better back-up plan, the updates are still continuing to accumulate. The next step is for me to learn how to implement a ‘clone website.’ That way, I can do updates and see how they change the overall site while not interfering with the live site. The fun part of establishing a clone site is that it will enable me to do all sorts of experimental things while not interfering with the live site. That is indeed a geeky creative desire on my part, I know. We’ll see. Continue reading
‘Every time I open a book or sit down at my desk, I’m hoping for confirmation that it is possible to understand and be understood by my fellow human beings.’ Kevin Powers
I have mentioned before that one of the guiding forces behind my starting this website/blog has been to showcase the vignettes written during our three-year journey between homes. I have been in the process of ordering these vignettes into a completed manuscript for quite some time and continue to come up short. And frustrated. Continue reading
Today, Friday the 8th, starting at 2:45 pm EST, I am being a rebel. In NaNoWriMo lingo this means, among other things, writing a non-fiction WIP for submission in the month long challenge.
In order to get out a blog post, I realized I’d need to write a proper blog posting during my nano time. I got it into my head that in order to keep pace with my writing, I’d then include it in my daily word count for submission in the month long challenge. In the NaNo world, fiction and non-fiction do not mix. Hence, the rebel aspect to my nanoing this year.
What was I thinking? Am I caffeine deprived or just immune to its effects on this 8th day of writing frantically? Overwhelmed by guilt, I retract my rebel word count plans.
This is my second year of nanoing, but my first year of blogging. I seem to have life’s routine down for the month of NaNo, but not so the rules of blogging.
In the blogger world, it is stressed that the single most important thing for maintaining a ‘following’ apart from delivering quality content, is to stay on a fairly consistent blogging schedule.
So, here I am being a rebel. Well, semi-rebel because I only thought it, but didn’t do it. And I’m finding I’m pretty rotten at it. I’m not convinced this is a quality blog posting, but feel the pressure to post something today as it’s been two weeks since my last posting.
I’ve got to think that God gets a kick out us humans trying to deal with all of the small stuff…and this really is only small stuff. Continue reading
The obvious answer to this is of course, ‘Why not?’ I, however, could think of many reasons ‘why not’ whenever it was suggested to me to begin blogging. The biggest one being: anybody and their uncle can write anything and put it up into the nether-land of cyberspace for all to see regardless of quality.
And then I remembered that was one of the main reasons I’d balked at recording my first cd. As a working musician, I’d done demos and was busy with gigging, teaching and performing. After all, anybody and their uncle can record anything for all to hear regardless of quality; it is all so easy to do these days…
Aha!
So that’s a good reason to disregard this idea of starting up a website blog?
I think not. Continue reading