Category: struggle

Tuesday tunes

So usually I choose one song. Which really works… But today I want something slightly different. Today I want to do a small group of songs. A playlist if you will. I am pansexual, and I have had relationships with both male and female. I don’t plan on putting the details up, and I don’t want to put the lyrics up for these. My opinion is going to be on the topic more than individual songs. The songs were chosen for this playlist purposely.

Too many of the so called lesbian love songs don’t sit right with me. To me a true love song should be good whether it is for a female or a male. These definitely have a female target, but it would work for either gender. Many, if sung by a different singer, would be made hetro.

I love that idea. The songs excite the heart in me. The poet who loves to see love in all of its facets. See lyrics are not gendered. The singer, the tempo it is sung at, these all what affects our, as listeners, perception of it. That is why some covers come across better to an individual ear than the original.

Everyone I have ever had in my life has a song that reminds me of them. Some songs I only listen to if I need to pull them from the mind, for good or ill. The first song on this list belongs to someone I once loved dearly. She hurt me because she was raw from another hurting her. Still I love her and I miss her, even if it hurt me to have her near. I will never wish her ill. It is the only song that is that meaningful for me.

I am just going to share the playlist from YouTube. If you can think of any that I missed… Let me know.

Tuesday Tunes

Hello my lovelies. Welcome back for another song. Tell me in the comments what you are listening to today?

Today I bring you

Aerosmith- Janie’s Got a Gun

Lyrics –

[Verse 1]
Dum, dum, dum, honey what have you done?
Dum, dum, dum it’s the sound of my gun
Dum, dum, dum, honey what have you done?
Dum, dum, dum it’s the sound

[Chorus 1]
Janie’s got a gun
Janie’s got a gun
Her whole world’s come undone
From lookin’ straight at the sun
What did her daddy do?
What did he put you through?

[Verse 2]
They said when Janie was arrested
They found him underneath a train
But man, he had it comin’
Now that Janie’s got a gun
She ain’t never gonna be the same

[Chorus 2]
Janie’s got a gun
Janie’s got a gun
Her dog day’s just begun
Now everybody is on the run
Tell me now it’s untrue
What did her daddy do?
He jacked a little bitty baby
The man has got to be insane
They say the spell that he was under the lightning and
The thunder knew that someone had to stop the rain

[Chorus 3]
Run away, run away from the pain yeah, yeah yeah
Run away run away from the pain yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
Run away, run away, run, run away

[Chorus 2]
Janie’s got a gun
Janie’s got a gun
Her dog day’s just begun
Now everybody is on the run

[Verse 2]
What did her daddy do?
It’s Janie’s last I.O.U
She had to take him down easy and put a bullet in his brain
She said cause nobody believes me. The man was such a sleeze
He ain’t never gonna be the same

[Chorus 3]
Run away, run away from the pain yeah, yeah
Yeah yeah yeah
Run away run away from the pain yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
Run away, run away, run, run away

[Guitar Solo]

[Chorus 2]
Janie’s got a gun
Janie’s got a gun
Janie’s got a gun
Now everybody is on the run

[Outro]
Janie’s got a gun
Her dog day’s just begun
Now everybody is on the run (Honey honey, what’s the problem?)
Because Janie’s got a gun (Tell me it ain’t right)
Janie’s got a gun (Was it Daddy’s cradle robbing that)
Her dog day’s just begun (Made you scream at night?)
Now everybody is on the run
Janie’s got a gun

My two cents :

This song brought me comfort as a teen. I am an abuse survivor… And I was not believed. So I was a very angry teenager. I really think that most teens are angry. The injustice of being too young to do adult things and too old to be a kid. But I was fighting battles that I had no idea of how to deal with. This song spoke about vengeance against abuse. It spoke to the angry in me. I still love the song for that reason. It speaks to the part of me that has never seen justice. I have a lovely playlist that I may share… There is a lot of songs that talk about abuse… A lot more than most people realize exist.

Random thoughts of poetry.

Now I normally don’t do this. I don’t explain my poetry, or my art, because I think that most people see what they want to in anything creative. I feel like explanation ruins a piece. To be honest this post is not entirely an explanation… But rather an aside. I have been thinking a lot lately about accountability. About guilt and mistakes. About what I am responsible for in my life and what regrets I should have and what it all means.

I have thought about the regrets that others have expressed towards me. I find that I have very few actual regrets. Each of my choices I made with all of the knowledge that I had at the time. I have revisited some of them later… And hindsight makes regret easy… If you let it.

The problem comes in when you allow regret to consume your conscience. We are as a society, cold. We have lost the conscience. We have lost the knowledge of good and evil, or the will to care. When prison actually looks better than trying to make your way in this miserable world…lives of others no longer matter. That is not a mental illness thing… It is a wake up call.

We have a society where you can work 60+ hours a week and still not be able to afford to pay rent. We live in a society where there is often no way of breaking even, much less getting ahead. Where hate and violence is broadcast nightly on the news. So I have to wonder how we as a society can fix this? How can we take responsibility for the problem and fix it?

Thursday Tea Party

Hi all! Pull up a seat! So much on my mind… I am a wee bit squirrel brained lately. All that it takes to distract me is a shiny object in my side view.

First… I want to express my grief at the sad demise of Grant Thompson. He was way too young to die. *a moment of silence *😭

Now, I think that I promised a Tea recommendation? I love tea. Homemade, store-bought, hot or iced. I prefer sweet, but anymore I settle for adding splenda. One of my favorite store-bought teas are Stash Black Chai Spice. I prepare it with half milk and half water and it is a luxurious treat.

I have been working on the publishing company a lot here lately. It has been a learning experience. I am learning about contracts and the messy part of publishing… That moment when crap hits the fan. It is frustrating when it is your work with snafus… It feels like failure when you are handling other authors work. I am blessed with authors who understand and are patient with me.

Fae corps anthology Under the Mists is available in Ebook format… However as the platform that I chose to use for the paperback is still in Beta… We are looking at a month wait for the paperback. We are still going to be trying to get it in as many hands as possible because these stories are really worth the read.

I am quite sure most of you saw the call for submissions that I shared yesterday. Fae corps has two new anthologies in the works. We are going to do another fae story one, this one about light fae. We are also going to do a poetry collection.

Fae corps is also pleased to announce that we are going to be representing Ms Deedra Nichole in her In a small world series. We are in contract negotiations now, but I have no doubt that we will be able to do it.

I submitted 3 poems in a call for submissions that I found on wordpress. One of the three was accepted. My poem is supposed to be published on August 5th. With all of the feels of failure in the publishing… This felt like a win. I will take it.

Oh… And soon the next edition, the summer edition, of Creative Rising Ezine will be publishing. I will share the link to subscribe as soon as I get it.

Hmmm I think that is everything…. So I will be back tomorrow with some sort of tips on writing…. So for now… Time to gather tea leaves.

This is Thursday

Thursday is my weird day. I have found the groove on every other weekday. So every Thursday I sit here staring at the app on my phone and I wonder what to post. I look through the blogs I follow hoping for a clue… Throwback Thursday…. Hmmm. It would be easy… Just post old pictures… Nah man that is not really fair to the ones that actually do read the blog… Though I may be doing that on patreon today. Posting old art.

I saw one blog this time doing a pay it forward thing. That could be cool… But I have no idea what to do with that.

I am struggling with this because I want something that both is interesting to read(and write) and something that I am likely to engage y’all with. So far I am liking the way Tuesday tunes are working. Monday poetry always seems to be a good thing. And wordless Wednesday is good. Friday prompts and writing tips seems to work. So what the heck do I do with Thursday? Tea party works… But I don’t always have conversation for the tea. A good tea party needs a conversation don’t you think? So talk to me. Tell me what topics you would like me to cover at my tea party. Next week I will do a tea party with recommendations for a good tea and a topic of conversation hopefully suggested by y’all.

Negativity Disguised

So, I am about to rant. I am going to keep it civil… But I thought that meme funny and slightly appropriate. As you know, my new publishing company is doing a release event this week. Well yesterday was Serena’s day to post and bedtime loomed at 3pm as usual. So I was blessed when one of the other authors offered to do a live teaser reading for Serena.

Her reading actually caused ugly happy tears. Her video was full of comfortable homey behavior, very much of the southern charm that her writing is filled with. And somehow our event attracted a troll. This person, and I cannot be certain of their gender so I will be using they/them to refer to them, chose to complain about the sweet rambling on the video.

Yes, they have the right to their opinions. We are trying to sell books, and not everyone is going to want the book that these writers have put their heart and soul into. However, they do not have the right to be rude about it.

I have no problem with expression of opinions. I have a problem with the ones who are just rude in how they express said opinion. This caused the authors in the anthology to do something amazing. In a very professional manner, they came forward to defend one of our own. They did not confront the troll. They tried to reason with the commentor. We ended up deleting that comment tree, because we felt that the negative energy involved was not appropriate for the event.

People… You want to give constructive criticism or feedback? Fine. Be discreet. Be kind. You have no idea what the person is going through. You can be a light or a toxin, the choice really is yours!

Scheduled snafus

Last week I did some posts ahead. I scheduled them in wordpress thinking that would be it. Yeah, it’s never that easy. I have found that as I went in to post the last two posts I was finding ones in my drafts that did not post. I want to thank all of you for your patience. I believe that all of them are now posted. I will go back to posting on time and quit trying to schedule ahead, at least for now.

Talking tech

Technology is a major part of life in today’s world. In writing, and sometimes arting, I often use my phone or a computer. However, I also craft. I make jewelry, with a rare other craft. There are multiple technology options for crafting. Some that do not interest me. What do I even need a cricut machine for anyway?

That being said… There are technology that I have been wanting. Things that I think will open up new design options. Things that will be fun to play with. Technology doesn’t scare me. The only reason why I don’t have more than I do is the cost.

Now, that is not a whine, nor am I begging. Just stating truth. My priorities have always been raising my family over the desire to explore technology.

However, my boyfriend is going to get me a neat little bit of tech that is supposed to be fun to use. Comgrow Creality Ender 3 Pro 3D Printer with Upgrade Cmagnet Build Surface Plate and UL Certified Power Supply 8.6″ x 8.6″ x 9.8″

So in prep I have been researching everything that I can find on it. I can’t wait until I get it.

What bit of tech are you wanting? And why?

Tuesday Tunes

Hello my lovelies! Thank you all for your understanding and well wishes yesterday. I am not back to 100% but I am doing better. This weekend was a lot of me sleeping to recover. Today’s song took me some thinking. I like to use songs that have meaning to me, beyond just me liking it. That way I can perhaps encite a discussion, or try to. So there were several that popped to mind due to indepence day being this week…the one that won the spotlight in my mind isn’t some patriotic theme.

Today I want to talk about Independence Day by Martina McBride.

Well she seemed all right by dawn’s early light
Though she looked a little worried and weak.
She tried to pretend he wasn’t drinkin’ again
But daddy’d left the proof on her cheek.
And I was only eight years old that summer
And I always seemed to be in the way
So I took myself down to the fair in town
On Independence Day.

Well ,word gets around in a small, small town
They said he was a dangerous man
But mama was proud and she stood her ground
But she knew she was on the losin’ end.
Some folks whispered and some folks talked
But everybody looked the other way
And when time ran out there was no one about
On Independence Day.

Let freedom ring, let the white dove sing
Let the whole world know that today
Is a day of reckoning.
Let the weak be strong, let the right be wrong
Roll the stone away, let the guilty pay
It’s Independence Day.

Well, she lit up the sky that fourth of July
By the time that the firemen come
They just put out the flames
And took down some names
And send me to the county home.
Now I ain’t sayin’ it’s right or it’s wrong
But maybe it’s the only way.
Talk about your revolution
It’s Independence Day.

Let freedom ring, let the white dove sing
Let the whole world know that today
Is a day of reckoning.
Let the weak be strong, let the right be wrong
Roll the stone away, let the guilty pay
It’s Independence Day.

Roll the stone away
It’s Independence Day.

This song is so powerful. The lyrics speak so much about the other side of Domestic Violence. The side of those who are helpless, just watching and having no way of stopping that speeding mess.

Thursday Truth

Hi. Alot to cover today…and I am struggling with a migraine, so please forgive me for typos that may occur. Yesterday, I finished writing the poetry for Ink Splashes. I also started the next volume. The title of the next volume is Whispers of the Muse.

I will be working on edits and layout this week. Then next week I should be releasing Ink Splashes. I am also working for Fae Corps this week on the anthology we are releasing, Under the Mists. We have a Publication Date of July 26. We are in the layout/final edit stage there as well. I will tomorrow be posting the promo images we have for Under the mists instead of writing tips due to how covered over in work I am. The last full week in July should also see the release of the summer edition of Creative’s Rising.

I am hoping to next thursday do a release day link page. That is going to require some major layout work this week. I do not know if I will be able to get it done in time. I am going to attempt..I will likely be posting poetry from former volumes for Monday. That saves me from worrying about writing new for it. I will note which volume the poem can be found in.

Thank you all for your support. Now I am going to hide away from the light, as my head is trying to explode.