.

For the record?

I have nothing against people who:

work at a pizza joint,
drive old Hyundais,
still live with their parents,
are 5'3",
overweight,
like scifi,
are asthmatic,
have never been to second base (literally or figuratively).
who like football (American or otherwise),


OR SNAKES, I DON"T HATE SNAKES.

(That's for Bryan in Arizona who I didn't even know existed on the planet before about 5 minutes ago and who thinks I'm a horrible, sanke hating, person. True I wasn't happy about the snake taking a nap on the threshold of my front door. Nor was a thrilled about the rattlesnake who took up residence two feet from my dog pen.

That said.  Thanks for reading my blog Bryan. No hard feelings. Peace and love. Hugs.
I am a writer. I write. Well keep reading and you'll get the idea.)


well you get the idea.




I don't, however, care for folks who deliberately try to deceive kind hearted people on the Internet for fun, profit, sympathy, or because they are having a crap day.

I don't want to be,  nor am I,  one of those people.

Which is the point of this blog post.


AND


Despite what WB (there really is a WB by the way) says,

I am a writer.


That's what I do.


.
.

NB

Read the next post too. It has the doorway to where I'm writing on this blog.

It's an active blog.

I'm just writing in the comments.

Author Ann

.

.

Sigh.
Here we go.

Was reading the Twitter when I came upon a group of folks talking about writing poetry in order to deal with ones feelings.  I think that's a great idea.

However

That's not the purpose of 12dotsandablot.

As a matter of fact?

12dotsandblot is real as this video.
Is there fact in it?  Yes.
Is there something to learn from it? Yes.
Do folks relate their actual life to the fictional story?
Yes.
Except for me walking down any run way in designer under pants, I really do relate to the "reality" of this video.  Real people really do get up and keep going. Even if they fall flat on the "runways of life" during fashion week.
And like the song, "...got to be real.."

Are the people in this video real?

Yes but they are actors playing roles.

It may have been based on the author's life but it was not an autobiography.

Carrie is a character based on the author's real life.

This blog?

It has elements of reality but it's also got fiction.

No not lying.

I am a writer that is what I do.

It's not a way to get in touch with my feelings but is is a way to experiment with "writer's voice" and character development.

I'm not sure why that's a difficult concept for some folks but it is. For instance, WB thinks that it's a waste of time. I think that he thinks that writers just sit down and write the great American novel.  I try to tell him that it's alot of work and believe it or not practice.  You have to sit down and write things because if you don't  how will you finally write the great American novel that people will not only read but actually pay to do so.

Now that is real. LOL.

And yes, a real live editor did agree that a  short story that I wrote was good enough to not only print in their magazine but  he also wanted to PAY ME FOR IT. 

A writer.




So.

Here it is again
Get used to it because this is real.


The 12dotsandablot disclaimer.

This is 12dotsandablot.

It's a writer's journal.
I'm a writer.
A writer and a poet.

Fact and fiction co exist here.

If you don't know which is which?

Don't ASSume.

Ask.



As for my real life?

LOL I'm just not that interesting in real life.

A long time ago, I had someone come on my blog and comment that they were worried about me because of what I was writing.

At that moment I realized three things.

One.

There were nice folks who cared about me. Thanks!

Two.

People whose names I didn't know were reading my blog.  (Ha Take that WB who said I wasn't a writer. That's exactly what writers do. Write things interesting enough for complete strangers to read.)

Three.

I needed to put a disclaimer on the blog to let folks know that the blog is about creating characters. Believable characters. If I do my job correctly the reader will think it is real but know it's not. 

While it is true that I was disinherited?
It is true that I own a boat? 
While the part about my dad being sick was true as was the tornadoes?
This blog isn't my personal diary. It's my writer's journal.  There is a big difference.

I'm not an Internet jerk trying to get views by writing things that aren't true.

I am not trying to get sympathy from people by trying to deceive them. 

There are people on the Internet who'll do that but I'm not. 

I'm a  writer. 
I may make things up but I don't do it to deceive.

Not a jerk.

If you want to know what's true, because there is true in this blog, (My dad was very sick.),  you can always ask me in comments.

But seriously? This blog is about writing.

I'm learning how to hear the world and then translate it into a good story.
I'm trying to find my writer's voice on the Internet.
I'm trying to write and edit.
I'm writing in public to see if the story I'm writing makes sense to the complete strangers who are reading it.

LOL I'm trying to learn to spell and stop using "alot" in a sentence.

I'm learning to write.

For real.

Gentle Readers,

You're going to have to either guess the parts that are true and those that aren't.

OR even better? You're welcome to say hello and ask what's real and what isn't. I'd be delighted to hear from you.

But be very very careful what you read here as true or not. You must NOT ASSume. You really must ask.

Got to be real.

Hugs,

Author Ann

PS True story.

Two true stories.

One. I wrote a story on my old blog about a fella who goes to Cuba. Someone who I'd chatted with was reading it. Got a comment that they liked it and then got a comment that made me smile. I was trying not to write as a man or woman. Even used a nick that was gender neutral. Apparently the person who'd been reading this had decided from my stories what my gender was before he'd read the story about Cuba. In that story, the main character didn't identify themselves as anything other than the child of the narrator. That is they didn't say gender until the very end when the narrator used the feminine pronoun and the word "...daughter..."  At that point I got a comment from the fella reading who was asking me if I were male or female. Apparently they'd assumed one and because of the story they were surprised and wondering if it was the other.

Don't ASSume. Ask.

Two

(and the reason for the disclaimer)

LOL I love stories about people and I love writing fiction. To practice I would try to write dialog and fictional stories that were believable as people. My goal is to write stories that you suspend disbelief and are so into the story that you forget that it's not real. We'll I was doing such a good job that I got a comment from someone saying that they thought I had multiple personalities. They were kidding but I got to thinking, "This is the Internet and folks lie in order to take advantage."

So after that comment just about every other post had the disclaimer, "This is 12..." I'm alot

Anyway. The way I'd look at this blog is that it's not the journal of someones life. It's the journal of writing. Like a photo album of fiction

.

Although I must say that the Give Your Stress A Rest idea is a good one real or not.

Happy holiday.

NB

Read the next post too. It has the doorway to where I'm writing on this blog.

It's an active blog.

I'm just writing in the comments.

For the summer.


Kind of like a summer break. LOL Alot.


.

.

.

.


..





Welcome to 12dots and a blot

This is my writer's blog

Fact and fiction co exist here.

If you don't know which is which.

Please don't ASSume.

Ask.


Hugs,

AuthorAnn


.


Real?

.

Update...

Dad to rehab as soon as there's a bed available. WB gave me something to read about the aftermath of ICU stays. Mom is with him 25 out of 24 hours. She's like a little humming bird. She flits around dad doing things that the nurses and the doctors tell her to do.  I can still see her face when dad was first coming allert. Her face right next to his asking him, "Do you know me?"  She looks at him and then points to me, "Do you know who that is?" Everyone is monitoring for focus and lucidity. Watching each breath and then for the next. Preachers come and go and pray over us and over dad. The pray outloud and I silently pray for them to ,"Go away." We all have our "game faces" on.  We're determined to think good thoughts. We pray. We make foolish promises to God if he'll just let dad live. I let my optimistic side believe that he's just playing possum. He's mad at me for going my own way.

Any minute he's going to sit up and yell, "Fooled you."

I'm exhausted. My mom is exhausted. My brother yells at me later  about my not being around.  Outside of the ICU the game face melts and old horrors surface.

Each of us sure that the other is either an idiot or a selfish prick.

from

Live From the ICU

c anne ford, 2-16-11

all rights reserved by the author.

Why I avoid sick folks and funerals...

.


Caution: Dark Irish humor ahead. Best read by folks with a sense of humor.




.


Happy birthday Thomas Edison.





Now my father is much better. Where last Friday he was at deaths door, he's now (kinda) up and flirting with the nurses. It's been a rough week for a disinherited writer.

Need humor. Stat.


Love,

Ann

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.

Songs of DawgAubie (not the mascot)

.


"Well I started to tell her, "I'm a logger." but I didn't. Instead I told her, "I'm a writer."..."

Someone with life and death in their hands asked me what I do. We were looking down the hall where not minutes before they'd run to where someone was coding. Now I don't mean coding like writing code for a computer. This was someone whose body was telling us all that it might just give it up. She was one of the people set to save them.

When someone who has that power to save people looks at you and asks, "What do you do?" It makes you think.

I'm a writer, Honest. I have poems, stories, and part of a book written. You might not could tell from this blog. The typos, misspelled words, and fragmented sentences might have you thinking, "Writer? Yeah sure." but it's true.

So I thought that I'd rummage through the "junk drawer o'writting" so that you could see that I really, really, do write. Then I'll go back to writing this nonsense.


Anne


And so that you'll know. My dad is alert, coherent, and fighting. He's no longer in the land of death's door and is now just plain vanilla sick.

Yay.




.
Now a story


Here’s his story.

“When I was a young man, I ran away from home to work on a big freighter. It was all so romantic. When the ship reached the dock in Cuba, I was ready. Here this country boy stood on the shores of Hemingway’s home. Pocket full of money and ready for the ladies I had heard so much about on the freighter. It didn’t take long to find them. There off a side street was a tropical paradise. A small courtyard bar with “ladies” in colors that dazzled my eye. Hey! I was young. I was ready to find love among the “flowers” and to prove to the fellas I was a man. To knock the dirt of my home and my father’s ways off my shoes. One particular lady caught my eye. Dark hair, dark eyes, and what I recognize now as a very “dark” look. What I thought was ‘hunger” for love that look was not. But in my young and stupid mind it only took me a second to know that she loved me. And love me she did! Days of love! Nights of love! She was a delight in my inexperienced hands. With every move, she exclaimed more that I was truly the only love she had known. I thanked her with drinks and gifts. Round of drinks I bought for her and for her many, many friends. So the big spender. For her love, I was spending with abandon.

Till the day that came time to pay the bill.

A shipmate came to find me hung over and broke. When he saw me, the look on his face. Humilation. But I would prove him wrong just like my running away was proving my dad wrong. She loved me. She’d lend me the money to pay the bill. I knew it. She’d told me so. Or my new friends, they would perhaps pitch in. It was then I learned a hard truth. As the fellas, my friends, at the bar watched? A bear of a bartender beat the heck outta me. No one lended a hand to stop it. At least not until it looked like he might actually kill me then at that point, my shipmate stopped him and paid the tab.

With tears in my eyes, as my friend helped me to my feet, I heard the words that even now I hear clear in my head.

“You said that you loved me!”, through my tears I said.

And here in daughter is the lesson I want you to learn without heartache. Why I sent that young man away. Because I remember that pain that you will be spared.

Her answer? This “beautiful flower of love” told me?

“LOVE!!!

Oh my dear stupid boy. In this place?

Business is business and love is bullsh*t!”

That was the painless lesson my father taught me. No loss not dating that musician I can tell you.

But….

It would sound as if my father was a cynic. That the beating he’d gotten both mentally and physically had made him hard against love. No. And I’m not saying that because of a daughter’s blindness to her father’s faults. The man has hard edges because of his life. You aren’t the only one with the hard life or the life lessons. No. The difference is that my father not to many years later married the woman that he still after years and years really does still love. As she loves him.

He wants me to know that. So he told me this story in order that I shouldn’t trivialize the word. That I should know the difference. You remind me of my father. All cynic and hard won edges. However I suspect, because the punch was thrown gently that under hard edges is a kind nature. Maybe not.

That’s what I’m trying to find out.

Go find a copy of the Sara Bareilles song “Love Song”. Listen to the song but read the words too. She said the words with dignity and honesty. When she was asked a love song that she just didn’t want to write she wrote “love song”.

No “wheel of cheese” needed.

Then if that doesn’t do it, I’ll give you a few glimpses at my own hardships

That’s it for today.

Exit is this way

Hope you have a great day!


c anne ford june 7, 2008


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Public service announcement....

.


Please note.

This is 12 dots and a blot.

It's a writer's space.

Fact and fiction co exist here.

If you don't know which is which?

Well the next couple of posts could be disturbing.

I have to do this because of the nice folks who might read and worry.

I have to write this because I am a writer. Part of writing is the creation of characters who you will react to.

Good or bad, if I do my job right?

You'll read the words and forget if they're fictional.

So, please, don't ASSume.

Ask.


Enjoy the show.


Anne


.

Hello Gentle Reader

.


Hi ya.

Okay it's official. I actually have folks reading my blog.

I kept thinking that it was just my posts showing up but after looling at the stats I know that can't be it. So welcome, welcome, Gentle Reader.

So so you chat back?

I'm curious to know who you are.


Could you at least say hello?


AuthorAnn


.

Hey.

.







For the record.

Even though I write to "Gentle Reader", I'm honestly surprised to find that folks read this blog.

Happily surprised.

I'm just wondering who you are.

You can comment here. Reference your blog, or if you tweet?

I can be reached @GoatHerderBoy

(LOL, it's a long story. I was looking for a way to keep underbrush cleared on a piece of land. The hope was that it would be income producing.

A neighbor suggested goats... )

I'd love to hear from you.


Ann

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