I have the best job in the world.
I can say that from my perspective of being solidly ensconced in middle age, and having worked outside the home for most of my nearly 38 years of marriage.
I was never afraid of hard work, nor did I ever shun boring work. I learned early in life how to keep myself interested in even the most mundane tasks by having little contests with myself—and I’ve had some pretty boring jobs, too.
My first experience as an employee was working for a neighbor who sold dew worms. He would use the same flats you could find at any garden supply store, and when the worms were ready and removed from these flats into cartons for sale, it was my job to scrape those flats clean, using a putty knife.
I was ten at the time, and earned two cents a flat.
When I was fourteen, I picked strawberries for a summer—before the days of “pick your own” fruit. If memory serves (and at my age it’s only a 50/50 chance that it does), I earned the princely sum of ten cents for each six quart basket filled. I credit this job with my aversion, beginning just a decade later in life, to “picking my own.” I always sent my husband and children to do that.
At sixteen I had a summer job at the hospital where my mother worked, and there met the side of her she showed the outside world. This turned into quite the revelation for me, and I think that and the fact that I earned the respect of my supervisor did much to improve our relationship.
I stuffed envelopes for the company that offered “insurance” to school kids; worked in a department store credit office; and did a very brief stint in a shoe factory.
Returning to work after my children were in school, I gravitated to office work, and then, more specifically, accounting. I enjoyed that, working with numbers, doing payroll and group benefits and accounts payable.
But I like what I do now best of all.
I relish the freedom of being at home every day. I don’t mind housework overmuch, and I enjoy “multi-tasking” – dishes and dusting interspersed with writing. I love that I can do what I want, when I want. Some days, if I’m tired, I crawl into bed for a nap. I can go shopping, or to lunch, if I want to. I don’t, often, but the freedom of choice is fabulous.
You know how, no matter where you work, or what you do, there’s always that one co-worker who annoys the heck out of you?
I don’t have that problem anymore. And on top of everything else, I get to go to work every day in my jammies!
But the best part of my job by far is the number of people I have met online, and in person. It’s the emails I receive and the comments I read. I might occupy this space alone each day, but I know that I’m never really alone at all. I have all of you.
Like I said, I have the best job in the world.
Love,
Morgan
A novel so daring it could only be called...Brazen!
Labels: employment, jobs, Morgan Ashbury, Wednesday's Words, writing

Labels: Morgan Ashbury, snow, spring, weather, Wednesday's Words, Winter
Please welcome my guest, Ian O'Neill. Ian and I met years ago as members of the Otherworld Writers Group, mentored by Kelley Armstrong. Ian has a number of published books, including Afterlife, a quirky and touching look at one man's journey through the afterlife, and Endo, a thriller about a retired detective forced to solve a murder while taking part in an extreme mountain biking race.
How Do You Measure Writing Success?
By Ian O’Neill
Writing is, by its nature, a solitary task that leaves a person feeling somewhat dysfunctional, if not slightly off centre. Let’s be honest here, as a writer you’ve likely performed one or more of these slightly odd behaviours. You’ve talked to yourself about a story, most likely because you’re stuck. You’ve talked openly to a character (not in your mind, out loud) because you need them to behave – to toe the line so-to-speak. You’ve made very odd sounds, groans, yelps, howls … usually whilst slapping your desk or your forehead, or slapping your desk with your forehead. There are a host of others, some I’m sure I’ve never heard of but clearly mark one as a writer. These behaviours are best performed while alone, yet there are those times when writers venture forth from their caves; writing groups, writing conferences and conventions, or maybe to grab a glimpse of sunlight (very rare indeed).
When we first started writing fiction, we had a ready-made audience at our disposal. Our family and then our friends or vice-versa. Showing them our words was unnerving but, as family and friends are apt to do, they said all the right things; you are wonderful, fantastic, I loved it. There are a lot of experienced writers who scoff at this as some kind of hollow praise, but I’d argue that it is exactly what a new writer needs to hear. The longer one hears this deluge of hyperbole, the more eager one is to branch out to a new audience to extend their accomplishments to other willing eyes.
It’s only after a new writer ventures beyond the safety net of friends and family that they will know whether they are on the right path. Sure, some will take the criticism to heart and never show their work again. So be it. We always write for ourselves first anyway. Still, it’s great that a writer can recognize exactly what they want. Some may simply choose just to write for their own pleasure and never show another living soul their words. Others will push forward to try to get better at the craft for what is surely a common goal, getting published.
Therein lies the bar and just how high it’s set. I’ve often said that everyone can write, but not everyone is a writer. Showing our work brings clarity to our writing vision for good or bad. Once the path is set, however, it is always traveled at a very brisk pace. Why? Because writers write.
I believe that choosing a path, whether it be to not write and try something else, write for yourself, write only for a select few family and friends or write to get published, is in itself a success. Knowing one’s passion is truly a blessing.
So, you’ve made the decision and your way is clear: you are writing every chance you get. You’ve written one or more manuscripts, sent them out to a bevy of rejections. You tell yourself that this cannot go on forever. You’re a good writer and you will find success. As a friend is fond of saying, we hear no all the time, but all we need is one yes. Your writers group is going well and the feedback is wonderful. It helps you focus your energies and it helps you improve. Even giving critiques of other writers’ works helps you to see where you can improve. Still, that one yes eludes you.
How can you measure your success as a writer amongst what your beaten down ego can only see as failure?
Look backwards.
I once heard that a man with no future can be found digging in his past. Basically, one needs to look and move ahead. Nothing can be gained by going backwards. In the case of writers, I completely disagree.
Search your computer or file box right now for your first manuscript, whether that be a short story, a novella or a full novel. Whatever that piece of writing is, get it and read a few lines or, if you’re brave, a few chapters. The best way to see how far you’ve come, how much you’ve improved and grown as a writer, is to look at where you started. Think about it this way, you see your child every day so, you don’t notice their subtle growth. Then you look back at old photos and can’t believe how much they’ve changed. Your writing improvement is like a child’s growth, it’s there, but you just can’t see it.
Let me be the first to congratulate you on your success. You’ve come a long way. Just think how much you’ll continue to improve and you’ll be able to look back again and continue to measure your success.
Labels: advice, Afterlife, author, Endo, Ian O'Neill, success, writing
Growing up in Canada, I’m old enough to remember the great Flag debate of 1964-1965. For those of you who don’t know, up until then, our flag was the Union Jack. Now you’re all saying ... hmmm ... why does that name sound familiar?
The Union Jack is the flag of Great Britain. We have always been the shy, insecure child who did not want to let go of our parent's apron strings. Our first Prime Minister, Sir John A. MacDonald, is quoted as having said, “A British subject I was born, and a British subject I shall die.” That was during the negotiation of the British North America act of 1867 which created the Dominion of Canada. Whose Dominion? Why, the Queen’s, of course.
Then came the Statutes of Westminster, 1931, at which point Canada’s legislature was granted independence from Britain’s. Ha, you thought we were a free and independent nation in 1867, but no, it didn’t happen until 1931.
By the way, my mother adopted Sir John A’s sentiment as her own and darn near clobbered my brother for daring to put a red and white Maple Leaf flag on the family car back in 1964. Mother was very disappointed to lose the Union Jack (when Parliament adopted the Maple Leaf on Feb. 15, 1965) and the Canadian Ensign (an Ensign is less than an official flag – sort of like one of those team banners on Survivor).
Hell of a long time to wait to take our first steps, wasn’t it? We began to run in 1982, when we repatriated our Constitution from Great Britain. But to this day (as any of you may have noticed if you watched the opening of the Olympics), we have a Governor General who is the representative of our official head of state: the Queen. So we may be walking and running, but it feels as if we’re tethered. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-Royal. God Bless The Queen.
You’re probably all wondering where I am going with this history lesson.
Well, my point is that all of my life, I’ve been very aware of Canada’s “national character” and that character is of a younger sibling not quite sure of itself or its place in the world. Feeling as if it’s never quite good enough. In other words, we the people of this nation have always had an inferiority complex. We have always been your shy, quiet neighbor to the north, the neighbor whose patriotism always came out at the decibel level of a whisper.
To a certain extent, we’re still like that. So when the 2010 Olympics were yet months away, an ad campaign began (with the key line: Do You Believe?) to try and stir Canadians’ hearts to the point that we would not only actually yell and scream and wave our flags, but maybe believe that we deserved to stand with the best in the world.
In addition, in 2005, an actual technical program called “Own the Podium” was created with the purpose to prepare athletes and coaches with the best technical knowledge, leadership, and training with the goal of achieving prominence in the winter Olympics of 2010 (a worthy goal, since in the previous two Olympics held in our nation, no Canadian athlete won a single gold medal). This was not a “secret plan,” as I remember hearing about it on television during the coverage of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Why shouldn’t a nation invest itself in its young people, teach them that it’s okay to strive for excellence, to want to win? And yet everyone from Stephen Colbert to the British tabloids are heaping invectives upon my country over that program and these Olympics.
There is no question, the horrific accident on the luge track last week in which an athlete from Georgia, Nodar Kumaritashvili, lost his life was beyond tragic. No one expected such a thing to happen at such a joyous celebration as the Olympics, and yet many of the sports I see represented here can be very dangerous. Sports fans everywhere mourned the death of so young a man who had come only to do his best, and well they should. Obviously, the accident needs to be investigated, and the decision to move the starting point on the track to below the sharp curve that created such high speeds was the right decision to make.
Perhaps recommendations will come that will improve the safety of a sport which to me looks insanely dangerous to begin with. This is good, and necessary. This is what we, as a civilized people, need to do, so that tragedies need not be repeated.
I’m not certain it’s fair to blame an entire nation, to insinuate that with one mind we sought to harm this young man. Own the Podium is not—despite what some of the media would have you believe—synonymous with “win at any cost.”
We may dare to seek to stand taller, but we are still Canadians.
Love,
Morgan
Labels: excellence, Maple Leap, Olympics, Own The Podium, pride, sports, Stephen Colbert
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Dee says:
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Mail order bride Sabina Volt wants a husband like she wants a hole in the head. She escapes the cruelty of her fiancé on Earth by running to the remote planet C8282 and a marriage contract with a stranger. When she seals the contract in a bout of wildly fulfilling sex, she thinks Walt Sheridan is the one man she might be able to trust.Labels: All Romance eBooks, Bookstrand, cowboys, Dee S. Knight, Erotic romance, Futuristic, science fiction, Siren Publishing, Tasty Treats, western