While following a symphony orchestra labor dispute recently, I was reminded of the public’s perception of professional orchestral musicians, i.e. these people don’t work hard or fulltime. Wrong! It’s the same thing with writers although with professional writers, the professional tends to go in quotes and work is actually hobby. Makes my blood boil.

It doesn’t help that getting paid for one’s art is so difficult. If I were to have gone into journalism and written as a journalist, there’d be no question that my writing was worth my salary. But a novel? Short stories? Just how much work goes into creating fiction? I’ve written before about creative writing as a job and what the job description would look like. There’s a lot more that goes into the work than people know or even think about. It’s not a matter of simply sitting at a desk and putting words…

Part of my mission has been to speak up against injustices, to tell stories about my truths, and to show how I have overcome the obstacles in my life to arrive at my most authentic state of being. It’s always a work in progress.

Change is part of perpetual growth. And such growth is necessary to mature and become insightful, not only regarding our own thoughts and feelings, but in understanding others.

http://five2onemagazine.com/breaking-legacy-silence-2-4/

Over the summer, my little sister had a soccer tournament at Bloomsburg University, located in central Pennsylvania. The drive there was about three hours and many of the towns we drove through shocked me. The conditions of these towns were terrible. Houses were falling apart. Bars and restaurants were boarded up. Scrap metal was thrown across front lawns. White, plastic lawn chairs were out on the drooping front porches. There were no malls. No outlets. Most of these small towns did not have a Walmart, only a dollar store and a few run down thrift stores. In almost every town, there was an abandoned factory.

My father, who was driving the car, turned to me and pointed out a Trump sign stuck in a front yard, surrounded by weeds and dead grass. “This is Trump country, Tori,” He said. “These people are desperate, trapped for life in these small towns…