inspirational Archives - From the Write Side

Digging Myself Up

No way to sugarcoat this truth, for me personally, it's been a shitty summer. Three rounds of antibiotics for various unusual infections followed by a Mohs procedure (www.skincancer.org/skin-cancer-information/mohs-surgery) for skin cancer that ended up costing me most of my left nostril and resulted in complicated facial reconstruction, which is not over yet. If my last name were Scrooge, I'd scream Bah, humbug! The combination of these events entombed me in a very dark hole. I've been digging myself up ever since. For a flaming [...]

By irvinjgdm|2022-07-31T17:04:33+00:00July 31st, 2022|contemplative, Essays, inspirational, motivational, philosophical|0 Comments

Mayhem

Ukraine means 'country.' Whatever happened to 'make love, not war'? Where do we go when madness rules the earth? And I think about the mothers... There comes a time in every woman's journey when she faces those two converging paths Frost wrote about...to be or not to be a mother. Instinct and societal norms provoke the desire. Individual goals and preferences incite the response. For me, the choice of family or career never arose, for I had selected a course that allowed for both. What [...]

By irvinjgdm|2022-06-22T23:41:23+00:00May 10th, 2022|contemplative, emotive, Essays, inspirational|0 Comments

The Importance of Reviews

As the year 2021 reaches its conclusion, it's feel like the right time to nudge readers toward reviewing the books they read. The publishing world has become reliant on the numbers game...how many books sold, how many Likes clicked, the number of positive and negative everything. Your simple rating of a book can power an author's career or sink it for the foreseeable future. Why do writers always ask readers to write a review? Because our success in the business side of this art and [...]

By irvinjgdm|2021-11-30T13:05:37+00:00November 30th, 2021|Essays, inspirational|0 Comments

While the fields are fallow…

January arrives with a dusting of snow, along with seed catalogs and clothing brochures featuring bikinis I no longer wear and island gear that mocks the winter creep of wind and cold. The former makes my mouth water for the produce so bountifully photographed on page after page, while the latter creates an unreasonable desire to pack a backpack and head on down to the Keys. Since my first trip to Florida's string of low-lying islands for a writers' conference, I have itched to return. [...]

By irvinjgdm|2020-12-31T21:09:27+00:00December 31st, 2020|Essays, inspirational, motivational, philosophical|0 Comments

Let’s Dance!

The summer grows hotter. The world roils with the pandemic. I stretch the limits of my housebound sanctuary and, when the mood strikes, I dance. Visiting our grandchildren last weekend, I was struck by the eagerness of my five-year-old grandson to hold a dance party. Cooped inside due to heat and COVID, regular outdoor activities have been curtailed. I understand the need to move, to shake our legs and shake off the anxiety that rides us like a shawl these days. He found his father's [...]

By irvinjgdm|2020-08-01T13:59:52+00:00August 1st, 2020|Essays, inspirational, motivational, philosophical, Uncategorized|0 Comments

How To Survive and Thrive With Uncertainty

If there's one thing we all know, here in May of 2020, it is that the future is more uncertain than ever. A funny little virus with spikes on its belly has infected the world, overwhelmed our hospitals, and thumbed its nose at our efforts to send it away. Life as we know it has changed. We sequester in place, using time in untimely ways. The rush to sports practices and music lessons, to grocery stores and fast-food restaurants has boiled away. We stare from [...]

By irvinjgdm|2020-04-30T13:44:55+00:00April 30th, 2020|contemplative, emotive, Essays, inspirational, philosophical, Uncategorized|0 Comments

Toward An Invincible Spring

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.” ― Albert Camus April, in the year of our Lord 2020 The map of the world via televised reports grows ever more consumed by red blotches detailing the spread of our newest nightmare - covid-19. Sporting teams cancel seasons and tournaments. Museums, [...]

By irvinjgdm|2020-03-31T13:10:19+00:00March 31st, 2020|contemplative, Essays, inspirational, philosophical|0 Comments

A TOAST TO CHANGE

It happens every year...the rehashing of the months gone by, the anticipation of the ones to come. Many of us make resolutions. Many more just keep rolling down life's path, content to face the challenges as they come. Me...I'm a bit of a charge-ahead optimist, plotting stories and events as though each one will move me farther along on the journey I'm making. So, I don't make resolutions so much as set expectations. The end may justify the means, but it is the means that [...]

By irvinjgdm|2020-01-28T20:25:28+00:00January 1st, 2020|contemplative, Essays, inspirational, motivational|0 Comments

The Literary Gardener

The last weeks of summer arrive on a hot wind and a prayer. Birds of unknown origin cluster in the wildflower patch and nestle in the branches of the pine tree. Our newest addition to the backyard scenery -- a tulip tree native to Ohio -- defies a summer planting, the promise of white-orange blossoms in the spring now only a long-distance hope. So much like the chapters springing up on my computer screen, a newly-drafted manuscript that settles now, resting, watered by revisions and [...]

By irvinjgdm|2019-08-04T15:38:32+00:00August 4th, 2019|contemplative, Essays, inspirational, nature, seasonal|0 Comments

Wandering the Classical World

I'm back from my trip to Greece, but my heart remains in the space between the blue sky and the blue-on-blue sea, in the waters that birthed Poseidon, the mountains that hosted Zeus. Wherever you dig, the Greeks say, you uncover another glimpse of the ancient world.The soil coughs up ramparts and pottery, imparting truth and mystery in equal measure. I walked the streets of Athens, immersed in the bustle of city life. I sampled the cuisine at a street-side restaurant and contemplated the adventures [...]

By irvinjgdm|2019-05-31T13:07:19+00:00May 31st, 2019|contemplative, Essays, inspirational, motivational|1 Comment