Susan's Scribblings the Blog

Tag: writing

• School Wisdom

  Posted at 1:20 pm by kayewer, on February 23, 2025

  (Originally Published September 03, 2017)

  Take it from somebody who has been there: if you get to school and wind up getting bullied, it’s not about you, but them. I lived through some powerful antagonism when I was in school, and my future came out okay.

  School is not really about who you are now, but what you need to build now to be better later. The truth is that you are all learning together, and you rise or fall differently all the time. Some days you sail through everything, but the next day nothing is right, and you may wind up walking through those doors and finding everybody else seems to be up while you’re down. It’s okay. It happens that way. Just heave a sigh and make it through one day, and the next day will change. It always does.

  The bullies always make it seem as if they are in the know and you are not. How do they know anything? Did they take a smart pill? Are they on a fast track to rushing through life without knowing what they’re doing? You’re all on the same track, but while some folks know some things about a lot of things, others know a lot about one or two things. That’s all okay: that’s what makes us individuals.

  Somebody may pick on you and say you’re ugly. The truth is, they’re probably feeling kind of ugly, and that is scary for everybody your age. You’re all changing so fast, it’s hard to look great every day, but your folks still make you go to school. So you woke up on the right side of the bed that morning, and they didn’t, or vice versa. They have the issues, not you.

  They may hate your clothes, or your accessories, because theirs are “better,” but that’s their opinion. Clothes get outgrown, break zippers or get stains that don’t come out, whether they cost $10.99 or $1,099.00. The difference is that you can replace the $10.99 ones easier, and the folks who spend $1,099.00 are simply broker faster.

  When a bully picks on something about you, have you ever noticed that they look a little nervous or scared? That’s because they’re having issues, and they’re taking it out on you. They don’t know you, or why you are yourself and not like them. They wonder if what you are is okay, just like they wonder if what they are is okay. Insecurity is part of anger, and it’s powerful. You really have nothing to do with their problems. They never come out and offer you a way to get their better clothes or accessories or beauty secrets to lend you a hand up to where they are in their lofty superiority, do they? So it’s not about that at all. They will get where they need to be, and it won’t be because they had to walk over you to get there, but because they applied themselves, just as you will.

  It’s been a long time since I got out of school, and some of the people who were bound to come out this way or that are nowhere to be found today. They’re not on magazine covers, that’s for sure. That’s because it’s all just about building yourself when you’re in school. When it’s over, you’ll be moving on to better things. Don’t pay the bullies any mind. We all get where we are destined to go, in much the same way. Your parents will tell you about the school bullies, the nerds, the unpopular ones, the beauties and the wallflowers they knew. This has gone on for ages. The bad ones get theirs, and the good ones still reach their goals.

  You won’t be this version of you forever. Look at the goal; that’s nothing to be afraid of.

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged bullying, education, life, mental-health, writing

• Scrooging Around

  Posted at 6:28 pm by kayewer, on December 21, 2024

  To all my old and new friends, I hope you have a wonderful holiday. This post is not for you*.

  To everybody else, I want to give you a shoutout, because I’m sure you get tired of always being called the “bad guys” in life. If you mean to do what it is you are doing, you should get recognition for it, right?

  Let’s start with the youngest of the crowd: the children and teenagers. You elementary, junior and high school folks have really set your feet on the path to greatness. You’ve managed to increase the number of successful self-inflicted exit strategies–especially among girls between ages 8 and 12–by 8% in 2024. Through a combination of verbal and physical abuse, not to mention the social media comments you managed to sneak (with fake accounts) into the feeds of people you have judged unworthy of life on this planet, you took out some people this year. Although, by your own admission, they were not equal to you, so why compete against folks lesser than you, or does that make sliding through school easier (along with the other cheating methods you successfully employ every day)?

  Now let’s go on to the men in the crowd. Did you make sure to tell the woman in your life how awful they are today? If you haven’t, you may be a few dozen repetitions behind. Maybe it’s because you haven’t gotten your daily smoke or drink to shore you up for the task at hand. Heaven knows you can’t function without some ingested courage and some choice words to keep your girly and the little brats in line. Be sure to make your actions take over for your lack of words (your short education being the fault of a school system that never liked you, either). Be sure to look long at the people in your home while they huddle in a corner or cower behind a chair, because this is what your goal has always been, and you should drink it in with as much enthusiasm as your next beer. Bravo, dudes.

  As to those women out there, I don’t know what happened between the good old days of congenial interactions with others and today, but nowadays if you’re not well-versed in behaving like an entitled person, what are you waiting for? Be sure to let customer service people know what a lousy job they are doing. Practice your impatient huffing and well-worded insults you will need for nail technicians and your kids’ teachers. Rules don’t apply to you, after all. They do apply to the hired underlings you need to deal with daily.

  Everybody also needs to remember that this whole experience of living is meant to be done in contempt of everything about it. How dare life be inconsiderate of your every immediate need every day. When you take Fido for a walk, leave his business on somebody else’s lawn; yours needs to look as if you don’t own a dog that actually poops, after all. Go to public places with obscenities printed on your clothing; little kids learning to read need to get a lesson in how real people speak, after all. Make sure you park crooked, or cut in line at checkout, because rules are for everybody else, and you have graduated beyond such little things that are for average folks.

  Business executives should be proud of all the extra money they made this year. Your bread still costs the same as your lowest paid employees’ loaf. Pay no attention to them or your customers, because they don’t matter.

  Customers should be proud of how they managed to get away with so much shoplifting and perpetrating scams that gave you stuff you needed this year. Pay no attention to the employees of the businesses you ripped off, because they don’t matter. Oh and yes, that stuff you got which was the hot trend is now in a landfill or at the bottom of the ocean after you threw it out. Not your problem.

  Employees should be proud of how little work they did this past year. Pay no attention to the supporting businesses in your company. They made sure you got the medications you needed for the affliction you got for yourself (due to some messed-up stuff in your life you couldn’t get through without some kind of ingested courage or new habit you picked up). Forget about your managers and supervisors, too. Whatever you got from working this year, it still wasn’t enough.

  While you’re fist-pumping in exaltation over your achieved goals this year, be sure to pay no attention to people who deserve and cannot find the most basic things in life, such as love and kindness, or a simple meal once a day. Senior living facilities and shelters will be full of unwanted people this holiday. It’s their problem because they’re still alive when nobody cares about them. Turn away from what you feel is ugly and inconvenient. Put others in their place with your words or your actions. This is what makes the world the way you want to live in it.

  Bravo to you.

  *(If you are among my old or new friends, and you read all of this despite my warning and are appalled, so am I. Life shouldn’t need to call out these things, but it won’t be a happy time for many, and if one person sees this and has an epiphany, it will be worth it. Making the world better happens one person at a time, and in seeing what is bad in us, we can do better at being good.)

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged life, mental-health, mindfulness, personal-development, writing

• Invasión española

  Posted at 3:07 pm by kayewer, on October 26, 2024

  We have often been taught about the conquering explorers of old who sailed to find and take over lands beyond the horizons of the great seas. In the past, we were taught, a bunch of men would run a small boat onto a patch of land, stick a flag in it, declare it the property of some great country’s regal leader and then set forth to kill anybody already living there, or put them to work making a new version of the same old country they sailed in from.

  Today, the conquerors just send email.

  My main account was blown up recently by a variety of offers from merchants I don’t even patronize, saying I won this prize or had a special offer on that merchandise. The peace of my email junk box was destroyed by some sender with a “dot ES” in it. On every single piece of junk, the same email address with a different company in front of it. Definitely potential scam material. I took a good guess at what it could mean, but looking it up confirmed it: I was being mail-bombed by somebody with origins in Spain, or España in the native tongue (thus the ES in the email address).

  Some of Christopher Columbus’ great ancestors are trying to conquer my inboxes! Nigeria, take up your things and go home; the Spanish are coming!

  The same sender was bombarding me with two of everything. My AOL inbox has been bad enough (even with spam blockers which I pay for), but I couldn’t tolerate this. I did what any American patriot would do. I began reporting and blocking. Yes, they had a link for unsubscribing. No, I don’t think it means anything. After that task was done, I checked AOL. It was much cleaner than I would’ve expected.

  I felt good that, the next time I sign in to check email, my junk mail will be less crowded. Then, just moments before starting to post this story, I sated my curiosity about some of the options available on my service by clicking on one. What came up was. . . .in Spanish.

  I’m trapped in a horror movie in another language (on Halloween weekend, no less). Messages in Spanish are coming back from the digital dead to torment me.

  The last time I took any Spanish was in college and, unfortunately, my abilities as an English-speaking writer don’t translate well to another language. I passed the courses, but have no command of it, meaning I couldn’t tell off the junk mail bombers without the aid of Google Translate. I also can’t ask my service provider to give me an English version of what I’m looking for. Well, that’s their loss.

  Queen Isabella, on the other hand, would have been incensed at my ignorance. She probably would’ve put me on the Santa Maria for a one-way ticket home to what she assumed were the spice islands.

  Imagine me on a boat with a hundred smelly men who don’t speak English. I think I would’ve had the entire vessel to myself in half an hour (and no lifeboats). I suppose the Pinta would’ve towed me.

  They didn’t have a boat club version of AAA in those days.

  So I’m dealing with dozens of Spanish junk mails and a benefit which I can’t use since I can’t read it.

  And I’ve gone off on a tangent about Spanish email employees and long-dead boatmen helping Columbus discover new lands.

  Please don’t complain to my inbox.
  

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  Posted in Commentary | 0 Comments | Tagged email, gmail, inbox-zero, technology, writing

• Fear: the Woke Killer

  Posted at 2:58 pm by kayewer, on March 9, 2024

  When a society chooses to introduce a new concept to the acceptable sphere of inclusion, there is bound to be some resistance from those who do not like to experience anything outside their present state of comfort. This has happened when any new thing comes into our world, and it isn’t going to stop.

  For those of us enjoying the release of the movie “Dune: Part Two” in theatres, we are familiar with the integration of outside influences, as well as the discomfort this integration can cause, so it’s a great way to introduce this week’s observation. Don’t worry, it won’t take long to appear. Just enjoy the setup.

  In the “Dune” universe there is a mantra called the Litany Against Fear. Folks recite the litany to better approach anything which could trigger a defensive reaction, by focusing on facing the thing causing fear and overcoming its power to diminish one’s inner strength. The promise at the end of the litany is that the fear will then pass and no longer exist. Fear, says the litany, destroys the mind.

  Our society is beginning to see things we never saw before, which can be somewhat frightening. A video I saw the other day showed a woman who has had the whites of her eyes (sclera) tattooed blue. My reaction was, “My, that must have been difficult.” I can’t imagine having somebody, expert tattoo artist or not, aiming a vibrating needle filled with dye at my eyeball.

  Did I throw down a social media reply decrying the evils or dangers of tattooing? Did I call the woman hideous? Did I mention a word about her split tongue or multiple piercings? No. I kept scrolling. It works for her. I wouldn’t do it. We’re still sharing the same spinning planet.

  Now for the “you won’t believe what happened this week” story.

  Some feedback came to my attention recently from somebody who had choice angry comments about a photograph online. Because fear is involved in the person’s rant to some degree, it fits here nicely.

  The picture depicted what looked like two businessmen, with papers strewn on a bed, and a laptop; the men were sitting on the spread and appeared to be engaged in a conversation about the information onscreen. Their faces show an officially casual demeanor. The background shows a side table with one lamp and non-descript accessories. The general look of the photo is that these gentlemen are on a business trip and reviewing documents and online content using the hotel bed (hotel desks usually have only one chair, so it makes sense).

  For purposes of privacy, let’s narrowly say the sponsor of the image is a business software company. I attempted to find the image, but it may be proprietary to that company. Sorry.

  So what was the problem with the photo? The complainant was livid about the image because the men were in close enough proximity to be touching each other on the sides.

  Call the morals police! Send up the “clutching my pearls” signal!

  Let’s put the person’s fear into perspective. I very much doubt that they never had side contact with another person of the same gender before. Would the reaction be the same if the two persons in the photo were women? The individual here took a harmless image and turned it, in their own mind, into an overt LGBTQ+ advertisement. Having a marked negative reaction to the acceptance of same-sex suggestive visual displays, the person disavowed anybody responsible for the final product. So the sponsor of the software company lost a customer because of a “woke culture” endorsement that didn’t exist in what was being touted as the proof.

  This poor individual will be casting out so many people and businesses in the future, that soon none will remain. All because of being afraid of two figures in a photograph. If they had looked at the picture without the filter of fear, there was nothing there. Heaven forbid two men on a business trip should get less than two feet away from each other. Perhaps they should have phone conferenced from their separate hotel rooms.

  Fear has killed the person’s mind.

  Funny thing is, LGBTQ+ people have been in everybody’s atmosphere since the dawn of human existence. It’s the integration of what is already there–the sudden clarity of knowing it’s there and has been–that has put the poor soul’s mind into overdrive.

  Hopefully the poor person will not be too badly affected by Daylight Saving, when we all won’t want to wake up for an extra hour. Fortunately more of us are woke when we’re awake. Maybe someday that person will find balance. Try the Litany Against Fear. That’s my prescription for the week.

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged faith, fear, mindfulness, poetry, writing

• Exchanging Papers

  Posted at 2:27 am by kayewer, on April 8, 2012

  I’ve been committed to an anthology being assembled by a group of women I’ve worked with for over a decade.  We’ve been at this particular project for some months now, and we’re at the stage at which the final manuscript is taking shape.  It was hard to part with my contribution, because the minute the writing leaves your hands, it’s like sending your child off to summer camp for the first time.  It’s a type of separation anxiety that only writers can feel.

  A short story like mine takes time to develop and nurture.  When I finally let go, another member of our team dropped me an email and offered to proofread for me.  I’m happy for the feedback and the second pair of eyes, because the DIY process becomes harder the longer you’re at it.  Once you have looked at your work 200 times, everything starts to look like drivel and you can’t look objectively any longer.

  A problem I’ve had with word processing is that documents tend to open on page one, even if I stopped typing on page 15.  This leads to a desire to read from page one all over again until I got back to where I left off.  I became so obsessed at one point that I began looking at the sequence of actions in the story to make sure my characters were not sitting down in paragraph one, and sitting down again in paragraph two, without the requirement of standing up or doing something other than sitting down somewhere inbetween.

  I recently shredded the editing copy on which I had noted “sat,” “stood,” “fell down” and other such margin scribbles, and then I ran a fresh one to look for overusage of favorite words.  One of my favorite authors has always stood out when I read her books because of a pet word, “miasma,” which has cropped up enough that I have noticed it.  It’s a harmless quirk, and because her work is historical fiction, there are plenty of chances for there to be a miasma description.  Usually it’s a plague or mid-summer ozone tainted by poor sanitary conditions.  Maybe, though, it’s the cloud of doubt that makes writers like me not want to let go their manuscripts.

  Other than dutifully using “said” in dialogue, I’m not sure if I have a pet word in my writing, but my volunteer editor will surely spot it if one does exist, bless her heart.  Or, if she wants this to all be over, she’ll smile and say nothing, because we are all writing with that same attention to detail, and in each of our manuscripts we see our own little obsessive shortcomings.

   

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged critiquing manuscript, editing manuscript, writer, writers group, writing

• The Period in the Paragraph

  Posted at 2:04 am by kayewer, on April 1, 2012

  When you’re a writer, your work becomes your young and you have to go through the parenting cycle.  A story starts out as a sentence, which you begin dressing up with all its special clothing.  I always start with a diaper, because I need something to catch all the poo that issues from a first draft.

  One has to feed a writing project with all the proper verbs, nouns and sentence structure.  Of course you’d like to take your child out in a stroller or carrier, but this baby is a solo project; if you show off a work in progress, your family will love it even if it is full of poo, and your friends will be afraid to tell you it’s homely because they feel it will develop as it ages.  In this case, they’re probably right.

  If the story starts to talk, it’s gibberish at first, but once you’re past terrible page two it starts refusing things you want it to do and makes demands.  Your stream of consciousness at three in the morning reads like a temper tantrum by the time you get around to reading it at noon the next day.

  You give it a physical with spell check, even though it’s a pediatrician no parent really trusts.  You innoculate it with anti-virus or protect it with a cloud as it grows, matures, rebels, and drives you batty.  Finally, you sit and take a look at your child and wonder if it is really what you started out to do.  You try to buy what you think are nicer clothes for it, dressing it up in prosy description or pleading to just let you cut a little off the top.

  Finally it’s ready to go out on its own.  The last words are spoken and you put a period at the end.  It may not get married or get a degree, but it will let you know how it is doing once in awhile when it gets noticed and does well enough to send some money home.  Unless you’re writing an expose’ and then you get sent all its dirty laundry.

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment | Tagged short story writing, writing

• About a Theme

  Posted at 2:13 am by kayewer, on August 7, 2011

  I am still working on the writers group anthology project.  We’re trying to come up with a theme, and I think I have one.

  Which also means I’m ready to face the idea firing squad when I share it with the rest of the group.

  When posing an idea to a group, the outcome is as unpredictable as using eight-sided dice with one side damaged.  That, naturally, is the side that always comes up.

  Sometimes your idea results in a blank stare, as if you’ve just magically spoken Lithuanian.  That silence is then broken by one person who says “Hmmmm” contemplatively.  The group pessimist may respond that it’s too much of something or too little of another.  The person who is the designated opinion to end all opinions may decide either way depending on which side of the hammock they fell out of that morning.  Just because you meet to exchange ideas doesn’t mean everybody is ready for them.  If your coffee hasn’t kicked in, the best ideas on the table might as well have been unsaid.

  In other words, just like in our government, nobody seems to agree on anything anymore.

  I don’t know what is so darned inconvenient about making concessions in life, so we can set a standard that might work well for the most people.  Sure, in a population as large as ours, for every 100 people given an idea on which to vote, 45 may totally agree, 15 may be on the fence, 10 will hate it and 30 will vote with their alliance, which could be anybody among the other 70.

  The ten who hate the idea won’t want to change their lives one iota to accommodate something new.  The allies don’t like to go against their gang.  It’s the other 15 who make or break an idea, because with the changes come suggestions from all sides, and some of them will alienate 1/2 to 1/3 of those 15 on the fence.  So as those swing votes go, there goes your majority.

  We have five people to vote on a theme for our anthology.  The first round of voting went about as well as the last two weeks in Washington as our supposedly elected representatives of the vox populi tried to iron out a deal that would cover our debts after we apparently (when and how, I don’t know) went to Chinese lenders for money we couldn’t pay (or something like that).

  But I digress.  Sometimes an anthology doesn’t have a unifying theme (unless you’re writing for a certain spiritual soup series of books), but other ideas have been panned curtly as not being suitable, and we can’t move forward without one.  Theme means the title, and the title makes or breaks sales.

  Mine will be simple.  I’ll put it to the group.  I don’t know how they will vote, but I’m ready to be rejected.  I’m a writer, so I should be prepared for that.  Maybe it will be a good idea that gets panned, or a bad one that gets the okay because everybody voted with their alliance.  Who knows.  I’ll suggest it anyway.

  It’s not as if I’m agreeing to a loan from China.

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  Posted in Commentary | 0 Comments | Tagged anthology, book title, theme, writers group, writing

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