Today I’m offering these words of
encouragement from the man himself, Mark Twain.
Here are a few more sung by another ‘man’.
To dream the
impossible dream
To
fight the unbeatable foe
To
bear unbearable sorrow
To
run where the brave dare not go
To
right the unrightable wrong
To
love pure and chaste from afar
To
try when your arms are too weary
To
reach the unreachable star
The
Man of La Mancha
“The
Impossible Dream’
Isn’t that what this quest we call ‘writing’
is all about – dreaming the impossible dream? I know how important validation
is, and everyone desires publication and phenomenal sales, but at the end of
the day - all you really have are your stories. Write good, really good ones,
and if you only save them to tell to your grandchildren; be happy that you have
passed a bit of yourself onto someone else.
This is my contribution to the Insecure
Writers Support Group today. If one person finds some encouragement and hope in
them, my job is done.
If you want to know more about the
Insecure Writers Support Groups go HERE. If you want to leave me a comment, you’ll
help and encourage me.
Whew! I almost didn’t make it here today.
This past week has been like a one-two, knock out for me. The first blow came
on Monday, when I felt like someone picked me up and threw me against a brick
wall. It seems that when you have an Auto-Immune Disease, you can be fine one
day and the next you’re flat on your back.Needless tosay I spent most of
this week in bed, and not having a bit of fun (for those of you who have very
vivid imaginations).
The second blow was actually the week before when this
‘dumb blonde’, got a notice that I needed to update and download a new media
player. I could have sworn the notification was a ‘Windows’ notice, but
apparently it was just cleverly disguised to look like one. Anyway…along with
this ‘new and not so improved’ media player came a ton of malware and my entire
computer was screwed up. It (the computer) had to make a trip down to Carson
City to the computer doctor to have its guts cleaned out. Now it’s working and
much faster, but there seems to be a problem with my router, so I’m hard-wired
into the modem with no Wi-Fi. In all honesty I have no idea what all that last
sentence means, other than I have to be plugged into my printer and I can’t get
my Netflix Streaming. Hopefully, that will get cleared up soon (but, it won’t
be by me).
I do want to Thank You all who sent me
emails worrying over where I was, and if I was doing OK, even if I couldn’t
reply. They really helped to cheer me up. I was able to keep up reading your
blogs from my phone, but the ‘dumb phone’ I own won’t let me comment, or maybe
that’s just me.
So, enough of the whining. There are some
exciting things happening with this BATTLE OF THE BANDS. First off, Mr. Stephen
T. McCarthy, the sexiest man on the planet (he didn’t like it when I called him
the smartest man I know, last time, so we agreed that this was more
appropriate), has a new blog. This blog is strictly devoted to BATTLE OF THE
BANDS. It’s called STMcC Presents ‘Battle of the Bands’ and you can find it HERE
Once you’ve finished up here, head on over
to this Exclusive New Site and see what STMcC has cooked up for you this month?
I can also trust that he will publish the links to all the other participants,
so you can visit every BOTB going on for August 1st.
The next exciting thing coming up is my
theme. At the Results Post for BOTB XXVI I promised a theme for August and
invited you to guess what it might be. I said that it was one word that might
be used to describe me. Only two of you were brave enough to guess, and you
were very kind also. The guess had something to do with BLONDE. Nope that’s not
correct. Ya’ll know I’m not really a blonde, don’t ya. ‘Dumb Blonde’ is just
one of those phrases that is kind of a catch-all for stupid human woman tricks.
In actuality my hair color is much more volatile than blonde.
ANYWAY…My theme for August is: ‘CRAZY’ An extra special Thank You to all of you for not guessing correctly.
So let’s get on with it shall we.
First up Gnarls (you don’t suppose his
mother really named him that, do you?) Barkley with 'Crazy'.
Next, Mr. Ray LaMontagne with the same
song.
Now, you know what to do and how to do
it. Leave me a comment with your vote and why. Then head on over to STMcC
Presents ‘Battle of the Bands’ by clicking HERE and casting your vote there.
THEN, visit all of the other participants. If you should feel that you want to
post your own BATTLE, please let me know in the comment box and if possible
leave a link, so everyone coming by here can find you also.
I’ll be back on the 7th – ‘if
the creek don’t rise and the devil doesn’t come for me first’ (just kidding),
with my vote and final tally.
OK, here we go with the results for
BATTLE OF THE BANDS XXVI. Before I get into all of that I want to reminisce a
little bit about the past year.
Mr. McCarthy and I have been at this BOTB thing
for a full year now. Wow! I can hardly believe it. There have been times when I’ve
been a bit discouraged and even thought about quitting, but then I’ve realized
that, at least recently, BOTB is about all I post (occasionally, I sneak
something else in, but for the most part, it’s BOTB and the RESULTS posts), so
I really wouldn’t want to quit and basically give up blogging altogether.
I do want to extend a great big thank
you to those of you who have been loyal followers of this little experiment.
Most of your comments crack me up. I appreciate that you keep coming back even
when I give you something like ‘Grupo Rush’ or this past BATTLE featuring the
always interesting Patti Smith. I enjoy your honest votes and the candor of
your comments, so, please keep ‘em coming.
This past BATTLE really wasn’t much of a
fight. Alvin Lee pretty much mopped the floor with Patti Smith in their
respective versions of ’Hey Joe’. As most of you probably know, just about
everybody and their dog has covered ‘Hey Joe’, so there are a lot of different
styles, voices, and genres out there. I like to give you as much diversity as
possible in my BATTLES, hence this paring. I thought by putting a female up
against a male, a hard rocker, up against the beat poet Patti likes to think of
herself as, was pretty diverse. Apparently, that kind of backfired on me here
because this was a total and complete shut-out (YES, even I am not voting for
Patti). I can see clearly that had I put Alvin against Gary Moore it might have
been more of a ‘horse race’. From my perspective they were fairly similar, so I
went for the diversity.
Ah well, ya live and learn. I’m not
really bummed about the shut-out. I did enjoy your comments about Patti. They
tended to be a bit diverse themselves, even if you all did agree – YOU didn’t
like her ‘Hey Joe’ at all. That even goes for the few of you who are normally
Patti fans.
The Final Tally (including my vote) - 13 votes for Alvin Lee
0 votes for Patti Smith
We’ll be back in August –
kicking off a new year, and there are some surprises in store. I personally,
have a theme planned for the entire month of August. Care to give a guess what
it might be? I’ll even give you a hint. It’s summed up in one word; a word that
has at times been applied to me. – Now, be nice, but leave me your guesses in
the comment box, and we’ll see you back here August 1 to start a Brand New Year
of BATTLE OF THE BANDS.
After all this talk about Gary Moore I'm gonna post one of my favorites of his here for your listening pleasure, if you have the time.
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