Dear Wonderful
Person who is wonderful because you’re managing your life among the chaos.
And because
you’re here.
Have you heard
of Substack?
Substack is
kind enough to give writers—free of charge—a forum and will forward their
latest posts to readers also free of charge. And, of course, you can go into
Substack and read everything a writer has posted on their site.
A writer can
post free content for as long as they want. And you can read for free as long
as you want. There are no other charges. Writers do not have to search blog
platforms, buy domains, pay for websites, or pay an email service an arm a leg
plus all ten toes to send emails.
The only way
Substack makes money is for you to become a paid subscriber. Then they will
take a small fee.
A writer can
make money by writing something specific for paid subscribers. That way, they
can have both free and paid content.
Substack
contains excellent writers. (I follow Garrison Keiller. Now, you know he is a
master storyteller. One girl hand-paints an image for every post. Terry Cole
Whittiker, her book: What You Think of Me is None of My Business, has
posted videos.) It scared me initially to be a part of that illustrious group
until I mustered the courage to say, yes, I will jump in with the best of them.
And on
Substack, Newsletters can be short. And you can write whatever you want. There are
categories to choose and you might wonder, if you are a writer, where you fit. Google
has little to do with content, algorithms, SEOs, etc. Since the Newsletters come
in your email, bloggers don’t get penalized for writing less than 2,000 words. (Who
has the time to read that much anyway?)
Here is Jo’s
Newsletter, my first. This will give you an idea of where I’m coming from. I would love to hear where you are, for for
you to say yes or no if you think this is a good idea.
I would be tickled
to have you follow me on Substack. It would help others find me, and I would be
honored to have you as a reader.
When you enter
your email, you will only get my latest post. However, you can go to Substack
and read all my posts plus anyone else’s’ that piques your interest.
Dear Wonderful Person who is wonderful because you’re managing
your life among the chaos,
And because you’re here.
Have you heard of Substack?
Dear Wonderful
Person who is wonderful because you’re managing your life among the chaos.
And because
you’re here.
Have you heard
of Substack?
Substack is
kind enough to give writers—free of charge—a forum and will forward their
latest posts to readers also free of charge. And, of course, you can go into
Substack and read everything a writer has posted on their site.
A writer can
post free content for as long as they want. And you can read for free as long
as you want. There are no other charges. Writers do not have to search blog
platforms, buy domains, pay for websites, or pay an email service an arm a leg
plus all ten toes to send emails.
The only way
Substack makes money is for you to become a paid subscriber. Then they will
take a small fee.
A writer can
make money by writing something specific for paid subscribers. That way, they
can have both free and paid content.
Substack
contains excellent writers. (I follow Garrison Keiller. Now, you know he is a
master storyteller. One girl hand-paints an image for every post. Terry Cole
Whittiker, her book: What You Think of Me is None of My Business, has
posted videos.) It scared me initially to be a part of that illustrious group
until I mustered the courage to say, yes, I will jump in with the best of them.
And on
Substack, Newsletters can be short. And you can write whatever you want. There are
categories to choose and you might wonder, if you are a writer, where you fit. Google
has little to do with content, algorithms, SEOs, etc. Since the Newsletters come
in your email, bloggers don’t get penalized for writing less than 2,000 words. (Who
has the time to read that much anyway?)
Here is Jo’s
Newsletter, my first. This will give you an idea of where I’m coming from. I would love to hear where you are, for for
you to say yes or no if you think this is a good idea.
I would be tickled
to have you follow me on Substack. It would help others find me, and I would be
honored to have you as a reader.
When you enter
your email, you will only get my latest post. However, you can go to Substack
and read all my posts plus anyone else’s’ that piques your interest.
https://joycedavis.substack.com/
Here we go...
Jo’s Newsletter
Why am I Here?
Have you ever asked yourself that question?
There you have it, two questions to start off. I like the
words "start off" better than begin, for it insinuates the beginning
of a race. Which is what life is.
This is NOT to ask why I am here on this planet. I know
that reason. I got it from Lorna Byrne this week. "Your purpose is to live
your life."
Too simple?
No, I think she's got it. We're here to live our lives
and find what we want to do with it.
I ran into this headline the other day:
"Life is Hard."
It gave me some weird comfort, for I said, "Hey,
we're doing pretty good considering."
Sometimes, we (I) run into a wall, and I wonder, not what
I am doing here on the planet. We covered that but putting squiggles on pages.
Everyone has their own thoughts, so why would they care what I think? And what
has called me to do this writing thing, considering what some scribe masters
have raised it to an art form. I'm stepping into water too deep and too cold.
Is my self-expression essential to run my fingers off
week after week?
Well, yes, it is.
I want to swear a bit here, punctuating a few sentences
with expletives for emphasis, but I'm refraining lest I offend delicate ears.
Although I do not consider it a sin to use a taboo word
now and again, for they pierce through our filtering system, the trouble these
days is that they are used as adjectives. And to use one in every sentence is
just plain lazy and inconsiderate. They are so punctuated into speech that they
have lost their shock value.
Once, in a children's story workshop, I used a slang word
in a story. The teacher said I was too good a writer to use convenient slang.
That's what I remember from that class: that he said I was a good writer and
should not use slang. Although I often break both of those critique offerings.
Slang is a colloquial speech that most people understand.
And why is the cliché "Cool as a cucumber" so apt and picturesque?
Indeed, it has stood the test of time. However, when you pick a cucumber fresh
from the garden, it is not cool. But everybody understands the analogy.
And, with
stories, people also know that a story follows a particular structure. It is
familiar, comforting even. Give your protagonist a flaw, kick them out of their
comfort zone, throw rocks at them, and then see if they can escape or solve
their problem. Create a resolve, hopefully a successful one. Happy would be
good. Celebrate.
Well, last night was a cold, dark night in Junction City.
The entire city was without electricity.
Lights—off. Electrical heating—off, Propane stove—off.
There was no electrical pilot burner, and I was in the middle of baking
lasagna. The water was in our well, but we had no pump to get it out. No
flushing toilet.
Luckily, we had drinking water.
And I think of people who have lost electricity for
weeks, maybe months. It is good to have a backup system.
The electricity went off in the early evening and came on
this morning around 9 a.m.
It was a cold night.
The pets didn't know what to do except snuggle in bed
with us. No internet. Everyone rushed to their phones, and my daughter and her
son intended to watch a movie on her tablet and ended up talking until 5 a.m.
What a great
use of the time.
I wondered how others on our street were fairing in the
dark cold as some were elderly. Not that they don't have resources, but they
are more vulnerable. I should have walked down the street and knocked on doors.
I might have gotten some good stories, but I just now thought of it.
Phones were our solace. Candles were our light.
I freaked (slang) in Hawaii when we lost our solar
electricity, which we sometimes overused, or a storm shielded the sun for a
day. However, it usually came back on at about 11 a.m. the following day if the
sun came out, and it usually did. We had a water storage tank in the backyard
with a spigot, so we had water. We also had two burner propane stove that
required a match to light. That way, we could have warm water and cooking
facilities. We wouldn't freeze because the temperature never got that low. And,
if needed, we needed food; we had coconuts that fell like bombs during a storm.
That is, if we could get into them.
People who live off the grid find ways of living. Yeah,
solar needs batteries. It continues regarding energy and a carbon footprint,
but I trust we'll figure it out.
I remember my husband said his grandparents had a battery
system of some sort in their house.
I called him
and asked what that was. He didn't know for sure, but it was from Uncle Harry, he
said, who sold these units house to house in the 20's. They had few advertisement opportunities in
those days, thus the traveling salesmen.
Hubby remembers
seeing glass cylinders about a gallon in size with wires attached in the
storage room of his grandparents' home. The energy that supplied them was from
a windmill outside. But he doesn't know what acid they used if it ran the
lights, or what. And no one is alive to ask.
Hey, that's a good reason to write, not to say those were
the good old days, but to keep some of their ingenuity alive. If people know
such a thing once existed, they can create it again.
While waiting yesterday for the bank clerk to fix
something online, with them saying the computer was down, didn't give me
confidence. I hope rockets contain better computer systems.
On the other side of my husband's family, the paternal
grandparents had a stream on their property, and they built a little house over
it where they cooled the milk after the daily milking. Probably before putting
it in the separator. Not high-tech, but clever.
I do not like getting into politics, but sometimes it
knocks so loudly that we cannot tie our mouths tightly enough to keep it in.
I wanted to be a Kennedy kid and would have joined the
Peace Corps if I could. On TV, I saw kids crying when they didn't get in. I
loved the enthusiasm of those days. And believed in Kennedy's definition of a
Liberal, which is now considered a dirty word.
"Don't talk Politics or Religion" is touted in
many polite circles. Yet both subjects get our blood boiling. And both are
worth a good discussion. We talked of our definition of God around here not
long ago with the rest of the family, and no one got mad or argued, yet
everyone's view was different. I use the term Spirituality instead of Religion,
for Religion is plagued with dogma. To baptize or not baptize, sprinkle, or
emerge? Ridiculous. And again, people develop a need to convince you of their
way of thinking.
Fanaticism can quickly come from dogma and has. Wars,
killings, all in the name of God. Cultures destroyed. People were made ashamed
of their bodies—like, hey, they were given to us. We didn't design them. (I had
a science teacher who said he wished he had a coat like a collie dog.) Many
have been made to comply with the beliefs of those more powerful or with better
medicine. Innocents were stolen from their families and made to believe they
were sinners. Heavens, the hula dance, was driven underground for years.
One's
relationship with the Divine is an ever-evolving subject.
I am into woo-woo, although I am a moderate woo-woo by
woo-woo standards. Some go off the deep end. That's fanaticism—unwilling to
accept new ideas, but that is the way with many things.
My daughter
and I even observed fanaticism in Ferret meetings (As in the animal.) They were
telling the audience who could have a breeding pair and how you should not sell
an unneutered ferret. In their effort to control the species, they managed the
owners. (Teaching would be a better answer. Like females need to carry
pregnancies regularly, less they wear out their endocrine system with too many
estrus cycles.)
People want you to believe as they do and are offended if
you don't. Yet, if everyone agreed, we would have nothing to talk about.
People who have researched the
canonization of the Bible found that the chosen books were at the discretion of
the ones in power. And the ones who came after said, "The Bible said it, I
believe it, that's it."
Some people thought the same about the Jewish Vedas.
There are many Holy Books. God didn't stop inspiring. And
the way I see it, He didn't pen the words either. History is HIS- story.
It drives me nuts when you muck up, or something terrible
happens, and people say, "What did you do to create that?" That
insinuates that if you are on the straight and narrow, that life should go
smoothly with no bumps, which is unreasonable. Let's get help with the bumps,
not incrimination. Neither do we need fanaticism, which can lead to militarism,
as we have seen.
Sometimes, life is a pinball machine that we sometimes
get right.
If you don't like black jellybeans (my favorite), don't
eat them. It's the same with ideologies.
When my niece's six-year-old daughter asked her what God
was, my niece answered, "God is Love." And that satisfied the child
for now.
Dear Wonderful Person who is wonderful because you’re managing
your life among the chaos,
And because you’re here.
Have you heard of Substack?
Dear Wonderful
Person who is wonderful because you’re managing your life among the chaos.
And because
you’re here.
Have you heard
of Substack?
Substack is
kind enough to give writers—free of charge—a forum and will forward their
latest posts to readers also free of charge. And, of course, you can go into
Substack and read everything a writer has posted on their site.
A writer can
post free content for as long as they want. And you can read for free as long
as you want. There are no other charges. Writers do not have to search blog
platforms, buy domains, pay for websites, or pay an email service an arm a leg
plus all ten toes to send emails.
The only way
Substack makes money is for you to become a paid subscriber. Then they will
take a small fee.
A writer can
make money by writing something specific for paid subscribers. That way, they
can have both free and paid content.
Substack
contains excellent writers. (I follow Garrison Keiller. Now, you know he is a
master storyteller. One girl hand-paints an image for every post. Terry Cole
Whittiker, her book: What You Think of Me is None of My Business, has
posted videos.) It scared me initially to be a part of that illustrious group
until I mustered the courage to say, yes, I will jump in with the best of them.
And on
Substack, Newsletters can be short. And you can write whatever you want. There are
categories to choose and you might wonder, if you are a writer, where you fit. Google
has little to do with content, algorithms, SEOs, etc. Since the Newsletters come
in your email, bloggers don’t get penalized for writing less than 2,000 words. (Who
has the time to read that much anyway?)
Here is Jo’s
Newsletter, my first. This will give you an idea of where I’m coming from. I would love to hear where you are, for for
you to say yes or no if you think this is a good idea.
I would be tickled
to have you follow me on Substack. It would help others find me, and I would be
honored to have you as a reader.
When you enter
your email, you will only get my latest post. However, you can go to Substack
and read all my posts plus anyone else’s’ that piques your interest.
https://joycedavis.substack.com/
Posts
P.S. I’m attempting to
get Jo’s Newsletter off the ground. 
