I've moved!

Hello everyone!

I've moved to a new blog...please come and say hello.   Please click  HERE.  It will really make me TRULY happy if you follow me there as well!



BIG HUG to all!!!

My Blog Critique is up at Laura's

Hello everybody!  Laura has critiqued my blog! Yay!!!! (Sorry, Laura, I can't help it, I've got to use the exclamation point, LOL!)

Please head over and see what Laura has to say about Conversations with Self, what's good about it and what I need to change from a marketing perspective.

Please click HERE


Thanks so much, Laura!

My attempt to be funny

Oh my...is it really the 13th of January???  I can't believe I haven't blogged for that long!!!

Are you still there?  Hope you are.  I haven't disappeared.  Just really didn't have anything to say since Christmas.

A friend told me awhile ago that I don't post much about my writing.  I do, don't I? I don't?  Really?  Okay, to prove you wrong, I'm posting a writing exercise that I've done with a writer friend quite recently.  I have never tried humour before and she insisted that I should.  She gave me two sentences - one to be used as my beginning and the other as my ending.

Here are the two sentences:

It worked a treat, stopping for tea
The thought made her itch

Here's what I came up with:

My Nanny Knickers

by Len Lambert

It worked a treat, stopping for tea.  But it sure added at least two inches to her waistline.  She starved herself to death for a week to lose weight and now probably gained twice as much as she had lost in the last seven days.

Katie wanted to look good again for Pierce so today she bought six new pairs of G-string in different colours.  She had decided to try one on and now she looked at herself in the mirror.  Not bad, just a few more pounds to lose.  Tummy still bulging.  Hmmm.  Of course, she had just gulped down fish and chips at Lisa’s.  Must lose more tomorrow by not eating besides carrots.  That would do the same trick.

In the drawer, she looked at her old nanny knickers which almost went up to her chest due to their size.  But she must admit, they were comfortable.  She had gathered them altogether so she could throw them away.  That cleared her drawer, making room for the G-strings.  But she needed more so she promised herself to get a few more pairs at lunchtime at work.

           

Katie sniffed and sneezed, this cold she couldn’t shake off for three days now.  She went into the loo with all her old knickers.  She blew her nose in a tissue and sneezed once more.  She looked at her colourful nanny knickers.  Why am I feeling so gloomy over these?  They’re only knickers for Pete’s sake.  After a good few minutes looking at them, she folded them altogether and chucked them in the bin.  Once again, she looked in the mirror and pulled a face at her reflection.  She was never satisfied with her weight.

When she returned into the bedroom, her six-year old daughter Emma sat on the bed, scissors in hand.

           

“Mum, why are you walking around in baby knickers?  Don’t you know they’re way too small for you now?  You know that, don’t you?”

It was only then that Katie realised that she was still in her G-strings and a T-shirt, nothing else.  It took a few more seconds for her to see that Emma was holding scissors!  What was she doing with scissors? 

“They’re too small for you, Mum, but too big for Barbie so I’ve got to make them smaller to fit her.  You don’t mind, Mum, do you?”  Emma turned to look at her mother waiting for an answer but Kate just looked with mouth open, taking in what was happening.  Her new G-strings were cut in small pieces on her bed!

Without saying a word, she ran back to the loo and grabbed the rubbish bin under the sink. But as she crouched low, she felt the sharpness of the strings slice like a knife!  But something was more important.  She pulled her old nanny knickers out of the bin only to find out that they had gone all gooey with all the tissue and her own mucus stuck on each of them. 

“What am I supposed to wear tomorrow?”

She stared at the sickening sight in front of her.             

How am I going to wear these again?

The thought made her itch.

*******

I write MG and women's fiction and have never tried humour.  This was honestly the first time.  And I am open to all kinds of criticism, as long as it is not rude.

Tell me what you think.  Have you tried writing different kinds of genre?  I'm still trying to find my voice in my writing.  I know that soon, I will have to decide what to focus on.

If you aren't published yet, have you found your "voice" in your writing? If you are a published author, did you try different genres before settling on one specific genre?

Happy Holidays to all!

To all my friends, I will not be blogging from today until after New Year.  A very Merry Christmas to those who are celebrating and the Happiest New Year.  Most of all, I wish everybody peace, prosperity and health.

See you in a week or so!

Deja Vu Blogfest: My imaginary friends...

Today is the Deja vu Blogfest Day!  Hoorah!

I thought I'd re-post something that I wrote in year 2007, the year I started blogging. Why this one?  It's because in this post, I wrote about my imaginary friends which I still find amusing to this day. This is the story behind my blog title, Conversations with Self.  


And no, I did not exaggerate the story.  I did talk to imaginary friends...which worried my father.

Hope you enjoy reading it!


******


First posted on 08 May 2007

I don't know why, but for some reason, I tend to reminisce a lot about my childhood these days. Last week, it was Caroline (my doll) I was reminiscing about so I wrote about broken toys and then somehow found a way to connect it to broken dreams, etc. This time, though, it's all about this part of my childhood when I had imaginary friends. If you witnessed my childhood, you would probably think I was a looney. But think...children do have imaginary friends, don't they? Or was it only me? (Widens eyes and looks around)  Oh, no!

Anyway, let me tell you about some of these 'friends' that people never saw...or some probably did but never knew that they were my friends. One of them was that reflection in the mirror. yes, oh, yes, call me a nutcase, but I did talk to myself in the mirror! I would really converse with the other 'self.' And she talked back to me! Only, it was also me talking, of course, who did you think it was? I used to do this very often that I overheard my Dad saying to my Mom, 'Don't you think we should take our daughter to a Psychiatrist? I am getting worried.' My Mom, who was so used to seeing me talking to my toys, said nonchalantly, 'Oh stop that. She's just playing. Children do that all the time.'

Yes, I said toys. I did talk to my toys (although I didn't have much, really) - I remember talking to Caroline while she was behind that glass. What a pity. I could only talk to my doll behind a glass! (will post her story soon) I also talked to my paper dolls which I made myself. They lived in an improvised dollhouse. I used matchboxes as furniture and my dollhouse was a corrugated box, sometimes I used a cigarette carton. Ahh, a child's innovativeness. I wonder where did it all go? I don't seem to have the same creativity now that I am older. But that's another narrative. I think I can only produce rubbish now...and perhaps children? 

Hold it. That's not all. There is something far more special than that beautiful (oh ha!) reflection in the mirror that looked like me (Har! Har Har!) and my dolls. There were lizards as well. Yes! That's right, those tiny crawling creatures with moderately elongate body and tapering tail...some might have another name for it, though. They are sometimes called wall or house lizards. Other times they are called house geckos. But let me just call it that. Lizard. At night, I developed this routine to converse with them before I'd fall asleep. There was one time, if I remember it right, when my Dad came home late from work. Remember that in those days, there were no mobile phones...(and telegrams came after a week, not the promised next day delivery...so if you'd send it, you'd arrive at your destination before your telegram). When Mom started to get worried, I would listen to the clicking sounds of the lizards. Tsk, tsk, tsk. I would close my eyes and converse with them. 'Is - my - fa - ther - safe?' One Tsk is equivalent to a syllable. Of course, I would interpret the Tsk-Tsk to what I wanted to hear, what did you expect? Funny, huh?

All these imaginary friends come to mind now that I am away from home. I have forgotten them a long, long time ago and never spoken to them for years - if I ever did that at my age, I would probably be in a mental institution.

Isn't it a universal truth that from the day we were born, we already have the need to communicate? A baby's uttering of its first word is always a milestone, a breakthrough that all mothers rejoice in. I have read somewhere that there was an experiment done by experts where they formed two groups of babies. The first group was cleaned and fed but no one ever communicated with them - verbally or otherwise. The second group was cleaned and fed...and carers communicated with these babies. After a period of time, it was discovered that the second group of babies grew faster and were healthier than the first group. This experiment only proves that we do need to communicate. It is this uniqueness that sets us apart from other creatures.

This is most probably the reason why I am writing this piece. There is the internet now to communicate to practically everyone and anyone in the world. My friend, Rosemarie, was right in telling me that blogging helps. It would like to thank her for being an inspiration to create my own blogsite...(and to Makis for introducing Blogger to me). It sure eases boredom and makes me think. It fills my need to communicate.

So, this time, I don't have to stand in front of the mirror or listen to the clicking sound of the house lizards (there isn't any here, anyway) or get dolls. I only have to sit down and immerse myself in the world wide web. It does help.

PS: I will understand if you think that at an early age, I showed signs of a mental disorder - talking to lizards and all  - but don't worry, I don't bite. Aha-ha-ha-ha!!!