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Feeling Happier in Difficult Times

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Created by Pauline in Canva The only thing in this world that you can count on is yourself. Really. It doesn’t matter who is in office and what they are doing. If you have the energy, raise your voice and speak to your government representatives. If you don’t have the energy for it and feel beaten down, well, that’s what I am thinking about. Think of it this way. If you are in a dismal mood, it doesn’t matter one whit what the weather is outside, the health of your bank account, or even your own health. Dismal feelings can pull you down. Bad moods have always been able to pull us down and will continue to derail all our good intentions unless we do something about them. You can change your feelings. My first assault with bad feelings happens when I listen to the news or to social media. I am not really in a position to speak loudly. I’m too old. My health isn’t in the best shape, and I want to protect it. I’ve got a big job to do, and that is to write. Specifically, to write upli...
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About Writing and Keeping a Schedule

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  Created by Pauline in Canva As a writer, there is nobody to force you to work. You can wait for your muse to strike, or you can go seeking something. Anything. It depends on what you are writing. During the month of November 2025, I have decided to write a story. A novel. It hasn’t quite solidified in my mind. Part of the fun is just seeing what happens. I know I want to aim for 50,000 words. Likely, it should be longer than that. It will be fiction, something new for me. It will draw upon the woo-woo in my life. There is a lot of that. When you have a job that you go to, you need to start and end your day at specific times. These days, when a person works from home, I don’t know how different that might be, although I have some ideas. Like you might have a quota to meet, if your supervisor, who might be in New York, checks up on you and you are not at your keyboard ready to respond quickly, well, I could see somebody getting upset. I don’t think I would like a job like that....
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Location: Oakland, CA 94619, USA
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How A Psychic Writes Fiction

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  Created by Pauline in Canva An interesting thing happens when I write fiction. The characters talk back to me. Well, they aren’t belligerent or anything like that. They just have opinions about things. I spent part of this morning talking to Gloria, my lead female character in the piece of fiction I’ll be writing in November. I suppose you might call this the equivalent of a vacation for anybody else, but I am looking forward to it. Will it ever be published? I don’t know. I’m tending toward doubtful, but you never know. Why am I doing this? Well, I love reading fiction. Old fiction, contemporary fiction. Just all kinds. I’ve not written much of it, though. So, this will be mostly new for me. Anyway, I was asking Gloria’s opinion on the story, on names, on possible settings. The idea, with this book, is to have two people who keep reincarnating together. It’s like they can’t get away from each other. They also love each other, but in this story, they’re going to be coming bac...
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Location: Oakland, CA 94619, USA
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Who Are You and What Do You Want?

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  Created with the help of Spirit in Canva by the author How this title came to me, I do not remember. At the time, it was significant. Now, I cannot remember. Does it matter? I don’t think so. Perhaps, this might be thought of as an exercise in writing. A teacher could think up any number of likely titles for a short essay, perhaps printed on a piece of colored paper. Would it need to be the same piece of paper? I’m not sure how random the game should be. Technically, this would be an assignment, yet even I, a 70-year-old lady, feel the fun that lies around this lesson is more of a game-like nature than that of an academic assignment. Let me ask you: would you prefer candy or carrots? Enthusiasm for anything is worth more in terms of getting something done rather than grousing around about it. If fire eating were a fun thing, then everybody would be doing it. Right? I’m not sure that’s a good example. I can hear my husband’s mother saying, “If your friends think it’s a goo...
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Location: Oakland, CA 94619, USA
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Thinking of Fiction

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  Created by Pauline in Canva                                                       Okay, it’s on my mind right now because in a few days, five to be exact, I’m going to start writing a book. The original rules at NaNoWriMo – which is now defunct – were that you write your heart out in November on a novel. Quickly, rushed, no holding back. The goal was not only a novel, but 50,000 words. Okay, so a novel is likely to be more than 50,000 words, but you do the best you can on this first stab. You will be doing rewrites as time goes by, and you move into either finishing it, and with the polishing and editing that happens after November has come and gone. When I first started doing the November challenges with NaNo, I could hardly conceive of writing that much in a month. Interestingly, among all the platforms I write on the internet now (I’ll lis...
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Location: Oakland, CA 94619, USA
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Spinning Words

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  Created in Canva by Pauline Saying you are a writer without any books to point to is sort of lame. I’m one of those people. However, this is the year that I finally got my own author’s website. Right now, it isn’t much, but I’m turning over new leaves left and right and have been on a relatively strict writing regimen. I used to think that a writer needed ideas and a great story from somewhere outside of themselves. Like I could see myself staring off into a beautiful sky and suddenly, abruptly start pounding out the first draft of something that would inevitably end up as a Pulitzer Prize-winning book. Nope, that doesn’t work. Writing is noticing things. It’s being able to grab onto a fragment and then turn it into a whole 20 yards of beautiful material. Spinning words out of dreams. Sounds like a good title. I’ll use it for this piece. Writing is also believing in yourself. I went for many years as a wanna-be writer. As I am generally uncomfortable in large groups, I wo...
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Location: Oakland, CA 94619, USA
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Taking Stock and Accountability

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Created by Pauline in Canva I know traditionally we take stock at the beginning of every year. It is not yet January 1st, and I feel the need to take stock sooner. The reason for this is that I feel the march of time more so than I did when I was 27 years old. Now, I am 70 years old, and the one thing, right now, that I regret is that I haven’t published any books. To that end, I need to take stock more than once a year, and I need to get busy on getting some books published. I tend to see problems where none actually exist. It’s like I deliberately put bumps in the road that are going to jar my teeth once I roll over them. I think that’s the idea of life. You’re supposed to have bumps and bruises. Maybe that’s the only way you can learn to ride a bicycle. Without losing face. Okay, it’s a deal I’m making with myself. I will post a list of five things that I want to do that I really want to do. Have them on my wall. Promise myself that I will look at them every day and then w...
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Location: Oakland, CA 94619, USA
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