The right cuppa
is both soothing and invigorating,
much like your company.
No wonder we are lovers.
May our relationship
be long and refreshing,
full of rich flavor and
bold choices.
Cuppa
Writer’s Group at Cuppa Austin
I am experiencing my first Writer’s Group that Lori invited me to. at Cuppa Austin on Parmer close to Mopac. It is a nice little coffee shop. I got a breakfast taco, hot tea, and iced tea. They have a selection of loose teas to choose from and the baristas were cheerful. My kind of place.
We have a row of tables and 7 people have shown up so far. This is already more successful than any Writer’s Groups I’ve ever hosted. No one talks. They just work. It seems like a productive group. I have gotten four chapters edited. I am now halfway finished editing my BlackIce novel. Making progress!
And yesterday, my best friend Erica helped me get my website “landing” page set up so when people go to marshallpress.net they will see something (instead of a fake page.)
I Started a Publishing Business!
Marshall Press
Today was exhausting! I am about to fall in bed, but must share the victories of my day.
- Set up my address for Marshall Press at the post office.
- Got my dba (doing business as) paperwork filed with the county for Marshall Press (which is good for the next 10 years.)
- Opened a bank account for Marshall Press with a company VISA and everything!
- Set up my account with my new banking information for publishing with Kindle Create / Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.
- Purchased marshallpress.net domain name for the next 10 years from NameCheap.
- Created an account on Bluehost for my marshallpress website to be hosted for the next year.
- Created an account with FreeImages to be able to use lovely images on my sites.
There is still more to do, but that is all for one day. I am going to relax in my comfy quarters for the last night of my retreat and enjoy one more glorious morning of tea and writing when I awake.
Writer’s Retreat
I rented a cabin on a river to do a 4-day Writer’s Retreat. I am on day 2 and have finally gotten into an actual honest-to-goodness project that resembles both productivity and creativity.
I took a break and looked back at some old posts on this blog. I found one from 4 years ago dreaming of doing a cabin in Colorado someday for the entire summer. That is still on my to-do list, but I don’t know if I would want to be without my sweet husband for 3 whole months. He has kind of grown on me.
The lighting was too bright, so I created my own stained glass window. Intermittent rain on a metal roof has been music to my ears.
I have a little air conditioner and two fans creating the necessary chill factor to keep me comfortable and my favorite snacks and beverages to keep me fueled. Of course hot tea is at the ready.
Nature has invaded my domicile twice now. I’m hoping that is as bad as it gets. Otherwise, the accommodations are quite satisfactory.
This is the novel I have decided to focus on as my project. It is an old one I wrote in 2008. A colleague made the cover.
I am on the editing and revising stage – about 1/4 of the way through. Once done, I have to put together the front and back matter (dedication, copyright, about the author, etc.) Then I plan to upload my first ever book for publishing. It is actually coming together.
I’m thinking of different names for different genres – too confusing?
R. Marshall – YA
Mrs. Marshall – Children’s Books
Juanece – Romance
- My thinking is that kids who love a chapter book about 3rd graders won’t accidentally stumble upon a wild adult romance novel.
- Teens looking for age-appropriate adventure won’t get tricked into baby stuff.
- It could possibly keep my different writing age groups separate and safe.
- Just something I’ve been mulling over for a while now.
Goodbye, my dear friend
-For Mary by Rebekah J. Marshall 1/20/19
Goodbye, my dear friend.
“The earth has arranged her skirts
and taken you back so tenderly.”
I know you have “vanished
into something better-”
“the dark hug of time.”
What is it like “after the last day?”
“Did you float into the sky?”
I know “you never intended
to be in this world,”
yet you still got on with
“building the universe.”
“Everything dies at last and too soon,’
so I will bathe in the
“moon’s bone-white eye”
while whispering
“prayers made of grass”
until “all the locks click open.”
No matter how “humble the effort,”
I will “move my grains on a hillside”
one by one if need be
for “neither power nor powerlessness
will have me entirely”
and “I am willing to be dazzled.”
Yes, “my spirit carries within it the thorn,”
but I “keep on trudging.”
And every so often
“green leaves emerge from the tips of my fingers.”
A “fox on his feet of silk” found
“a bride married to amazement.”
I “have changed my life,”
“announced my place in the family of things,”
and “invented the dance with the wind,” for
“death is a little way away from everywhere.”
This is the very reason that
“every morning the world is created.”
Thank you for living
“your one wild and precious life.”
I will “remember your beloved name”
until I am “washed out of my bones”
because “death isn’t darkness after all,
but so much light wrapping itself around us.”
Medication Experiment
I am taking medication
to relieve pain.
It is an experiment.
Does it help?
Am I better?
All I know is that
my mind is free to
feel joy:
for my best friend’s
IRS windfall,
my husband
on his way home,
our dog
not escaped,
the tea pot
boiling,
another episode of House
cued up,
my bed
waiting for me.
These are not new,
but my ability to
appreciate them is.
My pleasure is sincere.
The pain is still there.
I am not cured.
No marathons are in my future.
But there is a tiny space,
a slight cushion of awareness,
a sliver of hope that wasn’t
present before.
Like the absence of
intensity has given breathing room,
possibility of expansion,
a moment of focus on something
other than merely coping.
The pain is not gone,
but neither is my mind.
RJMarshall 6/2/16
Lay offs
My company had lay offs. Several people’s last day is this Friday. I am sad and feel guilty for having my own job. I have tried to help them as best I can with offering letters of reference, help with resume writing and cover letter writing. (I’m an English teacher.) I’ve offered tissues and emotional support as people have cried and talked about job options, fear, and stress.
I had some concern that I could lose my job, so felt immense relief when I did not get the call into the boss’s office on the day of lay offs. Then I felt guilty for that relief. Who am I to still have a job when perfectly hard-working other people now do not? The whole thing just makes me so sad.
My prayers and positive thoughts go out to all those struggling with this problem right now. I have been there and truly know how it feels…the fear, the concern, the doubt, the questions of self-worth…
A pay check does not define self-worth. Another person’s opinion does not define our worth. A good review, a bad review, a positive appraisal, a crappy appraisal…they are just snapshots – neither accurate nor truth, merely opinion. I need this pep talk as much as the next person. The opinion I value most is my own: my own conscience, sense of ethics, peace of mind…no one can take those away from me.
Creative Project
My best friend convinced me to participate in a project combining my poems with her photographs. I sent her this poem and she found the perfect photograph to go with it.
Lifted gently from my bed,
I dangle in your arms
safe and peaceful
riding dreams of breezy nonchalance
inside acorns of emotion.
Tiny kernels of light
speck frozen in vision’s grasp
just on the edge of horizon
the edge of reality
the edge of self.
A merging of wellness
and pain, fate and chance…
simplified seconds that
encapsulate infinity
between beats of my heart.
Each outward breath fills the universe
with life, spaces out the stars,
until the drawing in again
collapses solar systems,
visits death on the unsuspecting.
And as I lay me down you keep
my soul, my LORD,
my love in sleep.
-Rebekah J. Marshall
Photograph by Erica Smith. http://thebitties.squarespace.com/new-blog/
Creative Project
Photograph by Erica Smith. http://thebitties.squarespace.com/
My best friend convinced me to participate in a project combining my poems with her photographs. She sent me this rose and I had to write a paragraph about it.
Aging gracefully is overrated –
probably perported
by the stoic who know no other way.
Can’t a compromise be reached
between classy and ridiculous?
Let me wear sandals in winter
and white in the fall if I
have the notion.
I’ll refrain from telling you your business
if you forgive my lapses of social etiquette.
Let me grow round and happy,
be silly in love like a school girl,
and I’ll still sip tea on Sunday afternoons
as expected.
I happen to enjoy tea
anytime
anywhere
for any reason.
But you can think it is because
I am being proper
if that makes you happy.
And we can both be content
in the end because we
lived lives full of what
we deemed valuable.
All of our loveliness will shrivel,
but the fragrance of our souls
will linger in the smiles of our
children and grandchildren
and the stories they tell of us.
I want my story memories
to be adventures
full of laughter,
not faded photographs
posed with ankles crossed,
pearls placed just so.
-Rebekah J. Marshall
Mother of the Year
So…disregard my last post. Apparently, my daughter appreciates and loves me with all her heart. She even claims to be following in my footsteps in her attempts to be a good parent to her own daughter.
She gave me a beautiful little collection of gifts for Mother’s Day and wrote sweet lines in a Wonder Woman card. She even went to the effort to have my granddaughter “write”/scribble in a card. I was moved to tears.
In her forgetfulness, she dropped it off at my house, but accidentally left it in a spare room instead of putting it somewhere I would find easily. She finally asked if I liked my presents via text and I was quite confused. Was she joking? Did her text count as a present? I’m not even really a present person – or at least I didn’t think I was. I like words, sweet words in a card, letters, songs and stories, or good conversation over tea. That is what makes me feel loved and cared for. That, and acts of service (if we’re talking the love languages.)
Once the confusion was cleared up, I had the best belated Mother’s Day ever. She quoted the poem “Walk a little slower, Mom, for my feet are small. I’m following in your footsteps and I don’t want to fall…” The card featured Wonder Woman and said “Superheroes don’t always have a secret identity…sometimes they just go by Mom.”
She gave me some cute little jewelry items and a plaque that says, “The Best Moms get Promoted to Grandma.” My favorite is a journal. Inside she taped ticket stubs of movies we went to over the years as she was growing up. It was very thoughtful and took some planning. It was movies like Race to Witch Mountain, various Twilight movies, Harry Potter movies, The Help, Salt, Pitch Perfect, etc. Then, sprinkled throughout the journal are fortunes from fortune cookies she saved over the years and quotes from wrappers of Dove candies and various other types of saying. On one page she drew a lovely little turtle mama holding her turtle baby on her back. I’ve always called her my baby turtle.
I’m still glad I broke down that dilapidated old rocking chair. It was an eye sore and a hazard. It is time for rose colored lenses, as one of her quotes says in the journal. I am ready to start making my life beautiful, and some of that beauty might just come from re-framing my perspectives.
