Monday, December 30, 2013

WAIT ON THE LORD

This blog is dedicated to an awesome sister Kym'ya Montgomery who has recently come into my life. Although she asked for my help she has been a blessing to me and has inspired me to keep writing and sharing my testimony. 

I love to hear that my experiences, rather good or bad are helping my sisters and brothers. 

The title of this blog is "Wait On The Lord." Sometimes our happiness emotions and salvation depends on it. 

Has anyone ever met someone a knew that they were going to play a significant role in your life. Well that's what happened to me. 

I had just broke up from a four year relationship. I have financial security in this relationship but I was not happy. See I was pregnant and he didn't want our baby. All he wanted to do was go to the restaurant and eat since neither one of us could cook. Lol. 

Now I'm not going to waste too much time on him because the story is not about him - that's another blog for another day. 

But to make a long story short, one day he strangled me and I fought back. And when I say I fought back, I FOUGHT BACK!  

Later I became very ill and learned that our baby had died in my stomach. Since our baby did not come out, but was in my stomach, but not living I had to have a DNC. A few more things occurred and I will write about that in another blog. 

When we broke up that's when I started to live. I was having the time of my life. I had a job that I loved and I had some awesome friends to hang out with. My weekends started on Thursday and ended Sunday. 

I'd drive to a club in White Plains New York on Thursdays. Thursday night was ladies night - Buy one drink and get the other one for free! The music was great and I had fun. 

Friday was the comedy show at BBQ's on Fordham Rd in the Bronx, hosted by my favorite comedian Capone. (this was way back in the day before he started hosting the Apollo and became well known) 

Saturday night was Open Mic Night in Harlem which was also hosted by Capone. 

Sunday's was old-school night which was at a club call Mingles on Boston Road in the Bronx. Mingles was across the street from my three-bedroom home. I rented this home because it was similar to the home that I grew up in with my grandparents.  

One week out of my many weeks of partying was special. My friend and I went to Madison Square Garden to see a comedy show. I had a few drinks and left feeling buzzed. I wasn't ready to go home and neither was she, so we went to BBQ's Friday night comedy show. I don't remember how many Heineken's I drank, I just remember getting up over and over and over again and going to the bathroom. 

After the comedy show my friend and I were headed to her car. It was around 3 o'clock in the morning.  A man stop me. 

He was taller me and I had on heels, so I was about 6 feet. I'm guessing he was around 6'2". He was light-skinned with freckles but not too many, sandy brown hair, and he had a mustache that was brown, sandy brown, and blonde. He wore a brown suede blazer,  blue jeans with a patch of suede and cream on the bottom, and brown leather shoes to match his blazer.

"Excuse me Miss, I saw you inside but decided to wait until after the show to approach you. You are beautiful. I was wondering if I can have your number so I can call you sometime."

I looked at him through his prescription shaded glasses that were not too dark to wear in the evening. "Okay, my name is Nadira."

I liked his style and his approach, so I gave him my home number my cell phone number and my work number. I even drew a heart underneath my name. 

He took the paper and asked "When can I call you?"

"Call me this morning when you wake up." 

My girlfriend was calling me. It was late and she was ready to go home. As I walked away I turned around and asked, "What's your name?"
"Jimmy."

I sat on the passengers side of my friends car and I watched Jimmy walk away. I wondered where is he walking to? Is he taking the train home does he have a car does he live in the area
















Friday, December 14, 2012

HOW TO OVERCOME TRICKY GRAMMAR

I trust that you all know the difference between who and whom, and I trust that typos are the only reason you use the wrong it’s. It happens to the best of us. For most writers, if you can just maintain your focus (perhaps with caffeine and frequent breaks), you’ll get the basics right. The following problems, however, may have you scrambling for a refresher.

1. Half can be both singular and plural.

Typically, subjects and verbs agree: If the subject is singular, the verb is singular. If the subject is plural, the verb is plural. Easy peasy. However, sentences that start with half don’t follow this rule.
Half alone is singular: My half of the pizza is pepperoni. Yet although half is the subject in a sentence such as Half of the pizzas are missing, we use a plural verb because of something called notional agreement. It simply means that although half is singular, half of the pizzas has a notion of being plural, so you use a plural verb. Follow this rule when half is the subject of a sentence: If half is followed by a singular noun, use a singular verb. If half is followed by a plural noun, use a plural verb. Half of the pepperoni is ruined, but half of the tomatoes are missing.
Compound words that start with half are quirky too. They can be open, closed or hyphenated (e.g., half note, halfhearted, half-baked). There’s no rule that applies across the board, so you’ll have to check a dictionary.

2. Companies are not exactly people.

Companies are entities, but they are run by men and women, so you could make an argument for referring to a company as who, particularly since U.S. courts have ruled that companies are people in most legal senses. Nevertheless, the standard style is to refer to a company as an entity and use the pronouns it and that: We want to buy stock in a company that makes hot air balloons.
If you want to highlight that people in the company are behind some action or decision, name them and use who: Floating Baskets was driven to bankruptcy by its senior directors, who took too many expensive Alaskan joyrides.

3. American is a flawed term.

American is the only single word we have to refer to citizens of the United States of America (U.S.-icans?), but technically, an American is anyone who lives in North America, Central America or South America.
In the U.S. we, the people, have been calling ourselves Americans since before our country was even founded (as have our detractors). Although all people of the American continents are actually Americans, most readers in the U.S. and Europe assume that an American is a U.S. citizen, since that is how the word is most commonly used.
Despite its failings, use American to refer to a citizen of the United States of America. No better term exists. Feel free to feel guilty.

4. The word dilemma can be, well, a dilemma.

The di- prefix in dilemma means “two” or “double,” which lends support to the idea that dilemma should be used only to describe a choice between two alternatives. The Associated Press Stylebook and Garner’s Modern American Usage not only support that limitation, but go further, saying that dilemma should be used only for a choice between two unpleasant options.
Nevertheless, Garner also notes that other uses are “ubiquitous.” Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage and The Columbia Guide to Standard American English say it’s fine to use dilemma to describe any serious predicament, and The American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style takes an intermediate position. What’s a writer to do? (Is it a dilemma?)
Unless you’re writing for a publication that requires you to follow a style guide that limits dilemma to a choice between two bad options, it’s not absolutely wrong to use dilemma to describe a difficult problem, even when alternatives aren’t involved, or to use dilemma to describe a difficult choice between pleasant options. Still, you’ll seem most clever when you use dilemma to describe a choice between two bad options. In other instances, before using dilemma, ask yourself if another word, such as problem, would work better.
Also, a cursory search of the Internet reveals that lots of people are confounded by the spelling of dilemma. Many were taught to spell it wrong. In fact, I was taught to spell it dilemna in school, and when I got older and checked a dictionary, I was shocked to find that the word is spelled dilemma. Further, the only correct spelling is dilemma. It’s not as if dilemna is a substandard variant or regional spelling. Dictionaries often note alternative spellings and sometimes even nonstandard spellings, but dilemna doesn’t even show up that way. As far as I can tell, nobody knows why so many teachers got it wrong. Perhaps a textbook typo is to blame.

5. Earth isn’t treated like the names of other planets.

In English, the general rule is that we capitalize the formal names of things and places (e.g., Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco), so we capitalize the names of other planets: Jupiter, Mars and so on. For some unknown reason, however, we treat earth differently. Sometimes it’s capitalized and sometimes it’s lowercase, and there doesn’t seem to be a hard-and-fast rule.
Typically, when earth is preceded by the, it’s lowercase, and when earth is listed with the names of the other planets, it’s capitalized—but you can find exceptions to even these patterns. (Of course, when we’re just using earth as another word for dirt, it’s always lowercase.)
If you’re a writer, check your publication’s style guide to see what it recommends. If you’re writing for yourself, the most important thing is to be consistent—so just pick a capitalization style and stay with it.

6. Gone missing might be annoying, but it isn’t wrong.

Gone missing is a Briticism that has made its way to the U.S., where reporters use it mostly to describe missing persons. Although journalists and newscasters seem to love gone missing, it’s easy to find vocal readers and viewers who hate it.
Haters argue that a person must go to a location, and missing isn’t a place, and that an inanimate object can’t go missing because it can’t take action alone—but English has never been so literal. In a tight labor market, jobs can go begging (be unfilled), for example, even though begging is not a location and jobs can’t take action. Other peevers suggest that gone missing necessitates an action on the part of the person or item that has vanished. Again, we have parallels that undermine the argument: Milk goes bad, for example, without taking any action on its own.
Gone missing is not wrong. The Oxford English Dictionary places it in the same category as the phrase go native, as in, We had high hopes for our new senator, but after he was in Washington a few months, he went native (i.e., adopted the same habits and attitudes as people who’ve been there a long time).
Even if you hate gone missing, you can’t legitimately criticize it as grammatically incorrect. But on the flip side, if you’re a fan of the phrase, be aware that it annoys enough readers that you should think twice before using it in your writing.
7. Kinds is always plural.
You have one kind of peanut butter but three kinds of jelly. Use the singular (kind) when you have one of something, and the plural (kinds) when you have more. Since these and those indicate multiple things, you have to use a plural: kinds. These kinds of situations always perplex me. (These kind is wrong.)
Watch out for the problem. Even though it seems straightforward, good writers often get it wrong.

8. Until is ambiguous.

If you have until March 4 to submit an entry in the National Grammar Day video contest, does that mean you can still turn it in on March 4, or is March 3 the last acceptable day? Unfortunately, the word until doesn’t make the meaning clear. People can interpret it different ways.
One of the most stress-inducing deadlines is the annual tax filing cutoff for the Internal Revenue Service, which makes a point to specify that the April 15 filing deadline includes April 15. It also refers to April 15 as a due date, not a deadline.
If you’re following instructions, don’t assume until means through. Turn in your item a day early or get clarification. And if you’re writing instructions, make them clear by using a word such as through or stating a specific day and time. The IRS doesn’t rely on an ambiguous word such as until, and neither should you.

9. Next is also ambiguous.

Just like until, next is ambiguous: Some people think next Wednesday means the next Wednesday that will occur, and other people think next Wednesday means the Wednesday in the next week, regardless of what day it is now. The sitcom Seinfeld even did a scene in which Jerry and Sid argued about the meaning of next Wednesday versus this Wednesday.
There is no definitive meaning for next Wednesday, so you should avoid using next to modify a day of the week. Be more specific in your writing.

10. The plurals of abbreviations aren’t always logical.

Acronyms are abbreviations that are pronounced as words (NASA), and initialisms are abbreviations for which you say each letter (FBI).
Even though it doesn’t make perfect sense, you make initialisms and acronyms plural by adding an s to the end no matter what part would be plural if you wrote out the whole thing. Therefore, even though you would write runs batted in, the plural is RBIs.
In the past, some publications used apostrophes to make acronyms and initialisms plural, so until a few years ago, it was common to see something like RBI’s or CD’s in The New York Times. But these days, the major style guides recommend omitting the apostrophe.

11. They and their may soon be acceptable singular pronouns.

English has a big, gaping hole: There’s no pronoun to describe a person when we don’t know the sex. (I’ve tried it with babies, and it hasn’t gone over well!) In days gone by, he was acceptable as a generic pronoun, but today it’s not. All major style guides recommend against it.
To fill the gap, many people consciously or subconsciously use they, as in, Tell the next caller they win a car. Doing so is allowed by some current style guides and actually has a longer history than most people realize. Even Jane Austen did it. For example, here’s a quotation from Mansfield Park in which Austen pairs a plural pronoun (their) with a singular antecedent (each):
Everybody around her was gay and busy, prosperous and important; each had their object of interest, their part, their dress, their favourite scene, their friends and confederates: All were finding employment in consultations and comparisons, or diversion in the playful conceits they suggested.
Although many people consider using they as a singular pronoun wrong, I suspect many of those same people use it that way in casual conversation without even realizing it, and that the singular they will become fully acceptable within the next 50 years.
Today, using they as a singular pronoun borders on acceptable. You can choose to do it if you aren’t bound to follow a style guide that opposes it, but be prepared to defend yourself. The safer route (when you can’t           just rewrite the sentence to make the subject plural) is to use he or she, or to switch between he and she (which you may have noticed is the style followed by this very magazine).
When switching between he and she, however, make sure you separate the examples enough so that you don’t confuse your readers. (Weren’t we just talking about a woman?) Also, I’ve recently started getting complaints from men who’ve noticed that writers switching between he and she tend to use he for the bad guys and she for the heroes. If you’re going to switch back and forth, give us some vixen ax murderers and hunky human-rights activists every once in a while.

12. Possessives of possessives can get messy.

When you have to make a possessive name possessive, you’re technically supposed to add another possessive marker to the end:
Kohl’s’s earnings were up last quarter. (The Chicago Manual of Style possessive style)
Kohl’s’ earnings were up last quarter. (The Associated Press Stylebook possessive style)
Avoid these kinds of sentences, though. They may be technically correct, but they look horrible. You can usually rewrite the sentence to make it better:
Kohl’s reported higher earnings last quarter.

13. Apostrophes can occasionally signify plurals.

We all cringe when we see a greengrocer’s apostrophe (banana’s $0.99), but did you know that in a few uncommon instances, we do use apostrophes to make things plural? In most cases, the apostrophe helps avoid confusion; single letters are one example. The first apostrophe in Dot your i’s and cross your t’s helps readers distinguish between multiple copies of the letter i and the word is. A less logical example is the phrase do’s and don’ts. Different style guides recommend different spellings (dos and don’ts, do’s and don’ts, and do’s and don’t’s). When writers use an apostrophe to make do plural but not to make don’t plural, the only reason for the apostrophe is to provide visual balance. Yet, it’s allowed.

According to Writer's Digest

Thursday, December 13, 2012

How to Create Powerful Imagery in Your Writing

We’ve heard the old montage “Show, don’t tell” so many times that it’s become stale–and what does it mean, anyway? It’s an easy phrase to utter, but how do you achieve resonant, meaningful description that will make your words come alive? This simple checklist, from The Writer’s Little Helper by James V. Smith, Jr., is a concise list of best practices for creating rich imagery that will have your readers clamoring for more.
  • Paint the image in small bites. Never stop your story to describe. Keep it going, incorporating vivid images, enlarging the action, and putting the dialogue in context.
A sponge carpet of pine needles covered the trail. It cushioned their soles and absorbed the sounds of their footsteps.
Rhonda stopped short and whispered, “Something’s coming. There. To the right. A bear?”
  • Incorporate images into action. Suppose I had written:
A million years of discarded pine needles lay on the forest floor, carpeting the trail.
That’s description. Static. The author’s talking. Can you hear him reading from an encyclopedia? The difference in the first version is tying their walking to soundless footsteps. This clears the way for Rhonda to hear and see.
She pointed at a looming hulk, for all the good that pointing would do in the ink of night.
Bill grasped her arm. “No. It couldn’t be.”
But the crashing of brush told them it could.
“Yes. Get up a tree.”
  • See through the character’s eyes. Hear through her ears. When you can, use the character’s senses instead of the author’s. It’s called character point of view.
She felt her pulse both in her throat and under the grip of that hand of his crushing her forearm. His breath. She heard it in short, chattering bursts. She smelled it, too. Fear stunk.
  • Use the tiny but telling detail.
She tore free of his grip and leaped off the trail. A spider’s web tugged at her face. Any other time she would have screamed. She ran into a tree, a rough pine bough slapped her breasts, and needles stabbed at her eyes. Any other time she would have cursed.
The spider’s web. Ever ran into one?
  • Choose action-bearing verbs. Cushioned, absorbed, stopped, whispered, pointed, grasped, tore, leaped, tugged, screamed, ran, slapped, stabbed, cursed. These words do so much more than say what is. They indicate first fear, then panic.
  • Choose action-bearing non-verbs. Looming is a verb form used as an adjective. Crashing is used as a noun.
  • Invent fresh viewpoints.
She climbed blindly. And so quickly. Like a ladder. That was scary. If she could scale this pine so easily, couldn’t the bear climb it, too?
She drove her head into a branch. But the sound of crying wasn’t hers.
“Help. It’s got me.”
Bill. Oh, God, Bill.
The bear had him. Still she climbed, seeing nothing but sparklers of pain in her head.
He shrieked at her from the dark below.
She did not—could not—respond.
This is the viewpoint of a woman in panic and pain. When she looks into the darkness, she sees only sparklers. Clearly, she’s so frightened, she’s only trying to save herself.
  • Create an image without saying so.
The pine limbs now bent like those of a Christmas tree. A fresh breeze chilled her skin.
“Bill,” she whispered. “Speak to me, for God’s sake, speak to me, Bill.”
But he did not. All she could hear was snorting and thrashing. She put a hand to her mouth. She thought she might scream but nothing came out of her mouth. Fear of attracting the bear kept her quiet. The pitch on her hand glued her lips shut.
And, yes, the shame. That silenced her, too.
The thin limbs bending and the fresh breeze tells us Rhonda has climbed high into the tree. The chill tells us she’s been sweating. And the pitch, though she and we didn’t notice it in the climbing, is there on her hands and face.

According to Writer's Digest. 

Monday, December 10, 2012

EVERGREEN UPROOTED (CHAPTER 4 EXCERPT)




Shockingly, Buck had become my new stepfather overnight.  I remember Buck and Mommy were standing in front of Mommy’s bedroom window, blocking the sunlight.  The light shined around the frame of their bodies.  I could see Mommy's cut-up face from the car accident.  She had on a look of gratitude.  I stood there, stunned.  I was unable to connect to my true feelings about my new daddy.  Mommy had had boyfriends in her past but she didn’t marry any of them.  I thought, What is so special about Buck?  I wanted to ask, “Why him?” but I wouldn’t dare.  I just stared, feeling dazed, as though I was dreaming.  Mommy swiftly snapped me out of it.  “Secret!  Stop daydreaming.  Now this is my husband and your father, I want you to respect him and call him ‘Daddy’ from now on.  Go tell your sisters that I got married and they are to respect my husband.”
“Okay Mommy.”
“Are you happy to have a father now?”
“I guess so.”



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Sunday, December 9, 2012

THRILLER WRITER

STEPS TO STARTING A THRILLER

Want to write a thriller, but stuck on the beginning? Novelist Daniel Palmer uses his own experience and that of his father (bestseller Michael Palmer) and lays out the essentials to get you on your way.

Step 1. Choose your rhino.

Michael Palmer once was asked to describe writing a book. His answer? Writing a book is like following a recipe for rhinoceros stew. The first step of which is to find the rhino—which isn’t your plot, character or hook. It’s that huge idea that defines the book, such as a deadly virus. Daniel’s latest rhino was identity theft.

Step 2. Formulate the What-If question.

Daniel said to think of this essentially as your elevator pitch—that pithy, snappy description of your book you should have at the ready should you be stuck in an elevator with an agent or editor. Cap it at two sentences, 25 words. It needs to be as tight as possible, and it shouldn’t delve into things like characters or plot twists. “I spend days doing those two sentences, and I would urge you to do the same with yours,” Daniel said.
One What-If example from Michael’s work: What if everybody involved in a surgery six years ago is being murdered one by one?

Step 3. Answer the What-If question.

The answer to this pivotal question is what’s known as the MacGuffin: the reason people think they’re reading the book. (MacGuffins can be a confusing subject, but they’re key.) Ultimately, Daniel said the answer is that it doesn’t matter—people read to the end of a book for the characters. But you need something to keep them flipping pages. The MacGuffin is simply that tool that gets them to stay with the characters.
Daniel said when you have the answer to your What-If, you should file it away and forget about it for a while. If you focus solely on the MacGuffin, your book will be plot-heavy and bogged down by it, and you’ll have lost your readers.

Step 4. Figure out who you’re going to write about.

“You’re looking for your character who’s got the absolute most at stake, and that’s the person who you want your story to be about.” Daniel said to develop your arc as they go along, chasing the MacGuffin, and they’ll change and grow.

BONUS: Step 5. Write on.

Daniel likes to think of plot as a “cannibal’s stew”—a simmering cauldron into which you drop your character in. Once he’s inside, it boils. But you don’t have your character simply jump out—you slam a lid on the cauldron and nail it shut so your character has to figure out how to survive the plot.

Article from Writer's Digest


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Saturday, December 8, 2012

EVERGREEN UPROOTED, Memoirs of Secret (Excerpt Chap. 4)




“One day Ace mischievously had his wife in my apartment while I was out handling some business at the welfare office.  Here is how I caught him.  Ace spent the night.  Before I left my apartment to go to welfare, Ace kept asking me, ‘What time you coming back?’  I was puzzled and thought it was strange that he kept asking me the same question over and over again.  So I decided to come back earlier than what I told him.  When I reached the building, I saw Ace and his wife standing in the courtyard arguing.  I walked up to them and said, ‘Ace, meet me upstairs.’  Then I walked away and waited for him in my apartment.  When Ace finally came upstairs to my apartment, he brought his wife with him.  Now everything Ace bought his wife, he bought me too.  So, he bought us these identical gold bracelets from the Caribbean Islands.  His wife noticed the gold bracelet on my arm and assumed it was hers.  She tried to snatch it off my arm, and she and I started fighting like animals.  Ace broke up the fight and hurried up and gave us some cocaine to distract us, given that he was a drug dealer.  Then he propositioned me and his wife to have sex with him at the same time.”



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Friday, December 7, 2012

SIMPLE WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER

SIMPLE WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER

1. Nix the adjectives.

“Treat adverbs like cloves of garlic,” Coulter said. “A few go a long way.” Moreover, listen to the way your prose sounds—“If you wouldn’t say something aloud, then don’t write it. All you’ve got to do is read it aloud, and therein lies the truth.” Coulter added that nothing any of us write is set in stone—you’re allowed to tear up the bad stuff, and start anew.

2. Avoid other words for “said,” and avoid redundancies.

Cut “She joked.” “He quipped.” “Damn you to hell, he yelled furiously.” As Coulter said, it’s like writing, “I’m sorry, he apologized.” You don’t need all the excess word fat. You want to be as straightforward as possible. Coulter said every time you use a substitute for “said,” the reader blinks—and you’ve pulled him out of the scene. Instead, you want constant forward motion. “Never let him escape with weak writing. … You’ve got to trust yourself that what the characters say will indicate clearly what they’re thinking and feeling.”

3. Excise the exclamation marks.

In Coulter’s opinion, you’re allowed three per book. Ditch the rest. Good prose shouldn’t require them, except in rare cases. “Three is all you get, so use them wisely.”

4. Forget the euphemisms.

Blue orbs for eyes? Nope. Coulter said to make your prose nuanced—you want the perfect word to convey your exact meaning, and you don’t want your readers to get stalled out for even a millisecond.

5. Don’t fall into stereotypes.

“Make your characters unique and true to themselves”—especially bad guys. “Make them real.” And concerning physical appearance, make your characters stunning knockouts only if that’s a key factor in how fellow characters see them. Coulter once gave a character a broken nose to prevent him from being too handsome. “Have a very good reason for whatever you do.” And give characters some sort of “tag,” some quirk that will make them real.

6. Use caution in sex scenes.

They’re difficult to pull off. Coulter’s advice: “Do not, on pain of death, do nitty gritty body parts.” “And do not overwrite.” “Don’t use dialogue that would make the reader barf.” Make the scenes funny and fun.

7. Avoid endless introspection.

Pacing is key, Coulter said. And too much introspection kills pacing. Furthermore, she said that if a character can say something aloud instead of think it, then by all means say it aloud.

8. Skip over-the-top violence and language.

Have an intense violent scene that doesn’t actually do anything for the plot of the story? Cut it. “If you’re doing it for shock value, it’s gratuitous and you don’t need it.”

9. “And above all, don’t take yourself too seriously.”

 

Article from Writer's Digest


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