musings – Ned's Blog

Exercising ye olde inspirational muscle

**Barbed wire always catches my eye… (see what I did there?)**

As I mentioned a few posts ago, each morning I find a photo I’ve taken — sometimes for the sole purpose of creating these daily memes, other times to the chagrin of my kids — and turn them into a meme offering advice or an inspirational thought to share with other writers. After 25 years, I have acquired a lot of ~~baggage~~ wisdom on the subject of writing. I share these daily affirmations to my editing service’s Facebook and Instagram pages for multiple reasons.

Aside from the opportunity to offer a thought or insight that a fellow writer might be needing that particular day (it happens), it’s also a great way to jumpstart my creative day, whether working on someone’s else’s manuscript or my own. Though some celebrated writers like Hemingway had a different approach to finding their creative muse, I have found it beneficial — and this is just me — to not be passed out drunk by 11 a.m.

So, I make memes, blending images with a kernel of inspiration, knowledge, insight or occasionally popcorn. But generally it’s the first three.

No peeking at my stuff until tomorrow

**It’s Chapter Three, not porn! Sheesh!**

In the highly competitive world of unpublished mystery novel manuscripts (it’s a thing), one can never be too careful. Which is why I keep each chapter of my new book, No Safe Harbor, under wraps, cellophane and occasionally my bed until… well…

Saturday mornings at 9 a.m., when I post it for the whole world to see (apparently it really IS a small world.) So, sure, maybe I am overreacting. And maybe the teddy bear I gutted and stuffed with a Go-Pro aimed at my desk 24-7 is a bit much. But hey! It’s a M-Y-S-T-E-R-Y novel! Doesn’t this add an element of M-Y-S-T-E-R-Y by making it a secret until it’s posted? It’s so secret, in fact, that I make our dog leave the room while I’m writing each chapter in this final draft.

Sure, drafts one through three — who cares? I even let a stray cat into the room for that.

But the final draft? No way.

Giving the cold shoulder to Frozen Food Month

It’s been more than 80 years since Clarence Birdseye, inspired by ancient food preservation methods used by Arctic Eskimos, made history by introducing the very first frozen food option: “Savory Caribou on a Stick.” Though his first selection was met with little enthusiasm, Birdseye persisted and eventually created a line of frozen vegetables that many of us are still gagging on today.

I, for one, am still unable to walk past lima beans in the frozen food section without getting the dry heaves. This reaction stems from my childhood, and a spoonful of lima beans I’ve been trying to swallow since 1973.

Unless you’ve been hermetically sealed and stuck in a freezer, you already know March is “National Frozen Food Month.” Coincidentally, I should mention this happens to fall in the same month as “National Ear Muff Day,” “Extraterrestrial Abduction Day” and “National Pig Day,” meaning that, for anyone whose pig happened to be wearing ear muffs at the time it was flash frozen by alien abductors, this is a big month for you.

A photographic mind… sort of

**Even if this train will never leave the station, it doesn’t mean it can’t take us somewhere**

Photography has always been a big part of my life, stemming from my early love of cinema and continuing through photography classes in high school, my many years in journalism and, now, as a way to tap back into my creative roots.

Part of the journey in this new chapter of returning to creative fiction, conjoined with helping writers through my editing services, has been a daily effort to blend the two into inspirational opportunities. The result has been a routine of beginning each day by taking one of my photos and utilizing it to illustrate an important point, tip or simple encouragement for my fellow writers. What started out as a promotional tool has developed into something I hadn’t anticipated: a morning meditation of dovetailing two of the things I love most.

It’s kind of a version of haiku, challenging myself to find the just the right words, within a limited space, that embellish a photo in a very specific way.

Because Lynn asked me to…

After seeing my latest post offering survival tips for parents attending high school bowling tournaments, Lynn at “Life After 50” asked to see photos of how one of my tips — bringing a lifeguard chair instead of a foldable chair — can improve your viewing experience.

Here are just a few examples of how the experienced parent can avoid the rush for a good seat by showing up anytime they want… as long as they have their own lifeguard chair…

Why rush to stand in line at 6 a.m. when you can bring your own “Best Seat In the House?!?”

Survival tips for parents of teen bowlers

Today, in anticipation of the upcoming junior bowling leagues next month, I’m passing along a few tips to parents who may attempt to suffocate themselves with an empty bowling bag after listening to 24 lanes of crashing pins for five hours. Especially if, for personal reasons, you aren’t comfortable spending those hours drinking in front of teen bowlers.

My first suggestion is to invest in a tall folding chair. The taller the better. In fact, consider purchasing a portable lifeguard stand if possible. That’s because getting a prime seat to watch your son or daughter bowl depends on how willing you are to take the life of a complete stranger. Getting a good spot at the bowling alley during a tournament is like the Oklahoma Land Rush; once the doors open, parents stampede (some on actual horseback) to the most valuable territory, i.e., the mid-point between 1) the center of the bowling lanes, 2) the bar and 3) the restrooms.

Parents then frantically stakes their claim by jamming giant folding chairs together until the result is something similar to how homes are wedged together in poor sections of Hong Kong. Should something unexpected cause a panic — such as an earthquake or 300-game — it’s doubtful anyone will survive the inevitable catastrophic folding-chair collapse.

Empty nest syndrome? Fill it with a baby kangaroo.

I generally only watch nature shows on television when I want to appear as though I’m educating myself about something important, like the plight of the prematurely balding Rogainian monkey, when in fact I’m actually planning to do an independent study of the REM sleeping pattern on our couch.

However, while watching a documentary about the Kangaroo Sanctuary in Alice Springs, Australia, I discovered something I never knew:

I want…

We NEED our own kangaroo.

As I watched three babies snuggle together in a blanket and play with each other’s big floppy ears, I inadvertently let out a sound that my wife mistakenly thought was a joyful whimper.

“Was that you?” she asked from the dining room.

“What? No WAY! Ha Ha! It was the kangaroo babies on TV.”

“It sounded like it came from the couch.”

“Nope! Must be the Surround Sound,” I said.

Life lesson learned from a train car

First, let me put your fears to rest; I’m not living in an abandoned train car. I’ve been passing this graffitied relic for quite some time on my travels between our home in Florence (Oregon) and Cottage Grove (still in Oregon), shuffling between newspapers for which I was once editor. As I mentioned a few posts — and yikes, months — ago, I left journalism after 23 years back in 2021. For the next year-and-a-half, I worked as a mail carrier with the U.S. Postal Service (Motto: Bringing your Amazon packages… Oh, and the mail!). But this past October, I left the USPS after a year of 6-day, 70-hour-plus workweeks with no end in sight. Time with my family had been nearly non-existent and, after coming home one day and finding our dog had been given my spot on the couch, I knew it was time to make a change.

The dog had to go.

Just kidding.

We got a cat and now no one can sit on the couch.

Ok, not really. My end game had always been a simple one: Eventually retire and spend my days helping other writers with their manuscripts, short stories, memoirs, etc., IN BETWEEN time spent smooching my wife, making key lime pies, traveling in a fifth-wheel together and making sure the dog doesn’t get my spot on the couch again.

Proven tips on how to fail at your New Year’s writing resolutions!

For those who might be visiting for the first time, I should explain that I literally wrote the book on how to fail at writing. No, seriously. It’s an actual book. In it, I drew upon my 16 years as a columnist to offer tips that Writer’s Digest once called “… a shining example of why some writers go on to have successful careers as plumbers…” and what Master of Horror™ Stephen King has described as “The antithesis of precise literary implosion.”

See? I’m shucking an oyster, so it HAS to be good!

But enough with the accolades!

No doubt, many of you have begun formulating your New Year’s resolutions:

“I’m going to lose weight.”
“I’m going to drink less.”
“I’m going to change careers.”
“Ned is going to stop referring to himself in the third person.”

Ok, maybe that last one was just me.

Never turn your back on a turkey

Inquisitive?

Naw, this bird is just sizing you up.

In my early days as a reporter at Siuslaw News, I was once given the assignment of visiting a local turkey farm to write up a special Thanksgiving piece. As it turned out, “special” wasn’t really the right word after becoming the victim of an unprovoked turkey attack. In my defense, there were five of them (technically known as a “gang” of turkeys) involved in the assault, which started because of my proximity to a preening female turkey named Lucy who had apparently snubbed her suitors in favor of me.

Possibly because she was confused by my chicken legs.

Whatever the reason, the male turkeys didn’t take well to this and decided the best way to handle the situation was to join forces and — one by one — take turns flapping their giant wings at my [censored]. Before I knew it, I was being circled by an agitated turkey gang and wishing my editor had assigned me to something less dangerous, like maybe a Blind Axe Throwers convention.

The reason I was in this situation was because I was a journalist committed to getting the story, even if it meant risking my own safety by putting myself in harm’s way on the front lines just like those reporters in Ukraine, South Africa or Black Friday shopping at Walmart.

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