What is a Neo?

Spending long hours in waiting rooms is not my favorite past time, but I've found a way to ease the boredom, tame anxiety and create a possible piece of writing. Along with magazines, books and chocolate, I take my Neo. A Neo is simple to use. Just turn it on and start typing. Everything is saved as it is typed. I can change the font on my Neo, control the screen contrast, and when I want to store my files on my computer at home it is easy to do with a cable and a USB port.

On this rugged little light-weight laptop, which runs on three AA batteries or a rechargeable battery pack, I can spend hours away from home writing, in the car, in a coffee shop or restaurant, camping in the woods or anywhere I take it. My handwriting has become unreadable and my thumbs don't work as well as they once did to hold a pen. But my typing skills are fine.

The Neo was built for children to use in the classroom, and it has a tough exterior that withstands dropping or rough treatment. The Neo can be connected to another used by the teacher. I have learned just a few of the many things I can do on this little gadget, but all I have wanted so far is to write and to download my files to either my printer or my computer.

No wires, no internet and no email to steal my valuable writing time. With the Neo you get software that works with Windows or MacIntosh.

PET Scans take hours and while I've sat in the waiting rooms I have done character sketches of the men and women who, like me, wait. I've imagined what these people think and how they feel as they wait. While I'm concentrating on them, my anxiety level falls and my creative mind takes me away for awhile.

While traveling by car, I take notes on scenery or other things I might use in poetry or an essay. I note comments made between me and my husband that should be followed up later. I've never found such a handy tool for writing.

This product is by AlaphaSmart, a Renaissance Learning Brand.

My Neo was a birthday present. A famous writer said he takes his Neo when he flies so he can easily type and save his work.

I have absolutely no financial interest in this company, but I wanted to share this neat little keyboard with my readers. It has taken the place of a pad and pen and I take it almost everywhere these days.

Creativity, a Healing process

My father and mother when they were young and happy, never knowing what would happen in their senior years.

Today while exercising all alone in my "private pool" at Brasstown Resort, I thought about the lowest points in my life and how certain people appeared and showed me the way out of my despair. Both these people were creative women.

In 1975 my mother collapsed with a ruptured aneuryism that bled into her brain. Our family was decimated by this sudden event. After months in the hospital she recovered enough to come home. She knew none of us at first and thought my father was her Papa.
My family pulled together and worked out ways of sharing responsibility for the first six months. By then she had recovered but was left with no short term memory. My sisters had to go back to their families, my brothers had a business to run.
Over the next ten years I took care of her with the help of a good woman who came in half a day every day of the week. I deeply grieved for the mother who was gone, but loved the mother who was more like a daughter to me. That decade was exquisitely torturous. I adored the times I had with Mother telling me about her childhood, my father's young years, but I became depressed with all the responsibility and being on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I felt I'd had to give up my own life.
I was fortunate to find a wonderful art teacher who reached down and lifted me up from my despair. That was when I learned the healing power of creativity. In class I became absorbed in her teaching and my painting. Happiness settled over me like a warm and comforting blanket, and I left the studio every week smiling. Verna became a dear friend and shared her story of creativity healing.
When Verna's husband died, she was lost for a time, not knowing what she should do with her life. Trained as an artist, she decided to open an art studio for beginners, and through creating lesson plans and teaching others to paint, she became renewed. She healed herself. Her students adored her humor, her warmth and her caring way of teaching. I could never repay her for what she did for me.

My mother died in 1985 and once again I spiraled into despair. Verna had remarried and given up her studio. I seldom mustered the motivation to paint. I couldn't find anything I wanted to do that helped me with my grief. My husband saw my suffering and eventually he and my brother Hal made it possible for us to move to Clay County NC where Barry could continue with the company.
Once again a special person came into my life. Nancy Simpson, poet and teacher, called me one evening. Through her classes, I began writing on a regular basis and publishing my work. Because of her and Linda Smith, a fellow writer, I attended the Netwest critique groups, I signed up for writing classes at JCCFS and found that I loved learning in this non-threatening environment. Every chance I had I took a class, poetry, essay writing with Steve Harvey, memoir with Ruth Zefuss, classes with Carol Crawford, many poetry classes with Nancy Simpson and others. My creative juices poured out on the page and endorphins rushed to my brain and chased away the darkness.

Today I am happy although we have been fighting "The Beast" for months now. After a few months of losing the ability to focus on anything but my husband's illness, I am once again excited about creating poetry, essays, articles and now I'm learning photography.

I would advise anyone who is down in the dumps and can't seem to get back up, to take a class, learn something new, engage your passion in whatever you can do that is creative and will make the brain concentrate on building or making something new, something that is unique. Our self worth increases when we create anything that is of our on invention. People live longer who have hobbies or work that absorbs them in the process of doing. The hours fly by so fast you hardly know it when you get involved in a task or a project. Nothing makes me feel as good as a finished story or poem. Whether I mail it or put it away in a file, I am fulfilled.
Indulge your creativity and find a new life, a happy life and if you can share this with others, the joy grows more and more.

Read what Kelly L. Stone says on meditation and writing

For Writers:

Click here and enjoy a post by Kelly L. Stone, author of A Time to Write. I admire this writer's discipline. She has published two books and a third is forthcoming.



I attended a workshop she taught at the Blue Ridge Writers Conference in Blairsville, GA a few years ago. The subject was writing for inspirational anthologies. I took note of her advice and sold an essay to Cup of Comfort for Horse Lovers.



In this post her subject is how meditation helps her write.

http://www.petitfoursandhottamales.blogspot.com/

Glenda Barrett, Painter and Poet,

Before I became serious about writing, I painted in oils and I loved it. I will go back to it one day, the Lord willing, but my friend Glenda Barrett, author of the poetry chapbook, When the Sap Rises, is also a wonderful painter. See her work online here

Every painting has a softness about it that reminds me of Glenda herself, a mild mannered woman with deep roots in Appalachia. When Glenda had to stop working in the medical field due to a muscle disease, she turned to writing and painting and has been successful at both. Her work is listed with Yessy.com and can be bought through that online gallery.

Personally her life has been filled with challenges and stressful events, but she follows the rule to look for the good in everything and counts her blessings every day. She paints pictures with words as well as with brushes and color. Vist Yessy.com and you night find just the painting for your wall or for a gift.

Public Speaking, Selling and Submitting

Welcoming poets to CWP at Phillips and Lloyd Books in Hayesville, NC


In the 1980's I took the Dale Carnegie Course on Public Speaking. I was not planning to make speeches, but I was embarking on a new career -- sales. Confident to speak before a group of young children, my self-esteem took a tumble when I stood before a room full of adults. My company paid for my once-a-week class.

Speaking in public is considered one of the highest stressors we encounter in life. I certainly agree. The first time I spoke before my classmates in the Carnegie course, my knees shook and my voice quavered. All of us were nervous and even though we soon became comfortable with each other, it took awhile before we were able to stand and deliver our weekly speeches without trembling hands. With the help of an encouraging teacher, we learned to give a five minute talk without stumbling. At the end of the eight weeks, we left there feeling better about oursleves.

In that class I learned to use affirmations to build confidence. When my confidence is lagging, I remember Jessie, a tall dark man, who stood before his mirror each day, after he was dressed and ready to go to work, and repeated this mantra: I look good! I feel good!! He said those words over and over until he convinced himself he was ready to go out and meet the world. His classmates laughed, but we knew Jessie was on the right track.

My work in sales was the hardest job I've ever done. I worked to psyche myself up before every customer call. I feared being told no. It was hard to leave the business without an order, but I forced a smile on my face and a friendly good-by when I wanted to hang my head and slump out to my car.

Speaking before a group of strangers, or having the confidence to convince customers to buy a product, is similar to making ourselves send out our writing for the first time. We have to have enough self-confidence to submit our work knowing it may be rejected. In fact it is likely it will be rejected. We can't take it personally when we receive a form letter saying "this doesn't fit our needs at this time." Sometimes we want to throw the writing in the trash -- give up and decide to write just for ourselves and never let anyone see our work again.
It's difficult to judge our own work. That's why I like to have another writer or a group of writers I trust, look at my work before I submit it. I might not change a thing, but I might see my poem or essay in a different light.
I've talked with writers, authors and poets, and even those who are considered successful, seldom feel totally confident about their work. They always wonder if this novel or book of poems will be accepted by the publisher or by the public. That self-doubt lurks in all of us, even those who appear quite self-assured and even pompous.

Whatever the plateau of success, writers seem to need validation. Poet, Dana Wildsmith, in an interview, said, "But I also think it's not limited just to writing. Any time we are investing huge amounts of time and energy into something that doesn't (at least at first) come with a paycheck as validation, we need some other form of validation that we aren't being foolish or wasting our time- and the validation which seems to hold the most weight is affirmation from someone more established in the art."

After all, we create to communicate with the public. We want to know we have been successful. If our work is published (made public) where people can see it, if we are paid for that work, that is validation. If we are praised by "the right people" that is validation. If we receive awards or win prizes, that is also validation.

For a number of years I regularly submitted my poetry and essays. I needed to see my work accepted by editors to feel good about it. I have a folder full of rejections in my files, along with a goodly number of acceptances. I can take rejections in stride. I think my procrastination and my perfectionism are the major reasons I don't print my stories, essays and poems, take them to the post office and send them out tomorrow. I procrastinate because the work is not quite yet perfect. Will it ever be?

Not likely. So my manuscripts sleep in a file on my computer. And I do most of my writing on blogs. But, hey, I'm having fun.