J.R. Williams

Whoa, it’s been a while folks. Sorry, I’ve been you know, living life. But I’m back on the regular.

Recently, one of my friends came by my house and showed me his current picture book project, which is almost complete. It was rather impressive. He’s been working on this project for a while now, so it’s great to see him progressing. Whenever a friend of mine is doing what they love, it’s easy for me to be happy for them especially when they’ve been supportive of my goals. But this visit did something else to me too. It made me want to finish all of my works in progress. It made me want to take inventory of my life.

When was the last time you took inventory of where you’ve been, what you’ve done, and where you see yourself going? You’ve never done that? Well, maybe you ought to try it. It’s a great focusing tool. I try to take inventory of my life about once a year around my birthday. This is always a good time to start anew, don’t you think?

So how do you do it? Here are some questions taken from the My Simpler Life blog to help you get started:

1. Where do I see myself in the next year?
2. What am I passionate about in my life right now?
3. Am I living by my values? Is there any place I am not in integrity?
4. Are my needs being met? Am I meeting the needs of those close to me?
5. What are my strengths? Am I using them?
6. Am I doing things to the best of my ability or is there a place I need to raise my standards?
7. How are my boundaries with others? Do I often feel taken advantage of?
8. Is my daily routine helping me or boring me? Is there anything I want to add or take away from my routine?
9. What is standing in my way of doing my dream? What can I do about it?
10. What am I tolerating in my life that is draining my energy?

Good luck with your life evaluations folks!

When I was fifteen, my dad was admitted to the hospital. He was thirty-nine.

When he came home, he was on tons of medication: teensy pills, horse pills, white pills, orange pills. I didn’t know what they were for. All I knew was he needed them. I could’ve asked him what they were, but the truth is I didn’t want to know. I wanted his sickness and everything that came with it to go away.

It wouldn’t go away though. His pills began to slowly invade, assault and take over our normal lives. First they lived on the kitchen counter, then in the bathroom and finally in the corner cabinet that held our drinking glasses. No matter where I was, there was a bottle of pills in my face and I began to hate them. They signified everything about my dad’s sickness that I loathed. Strange thing was, a week prior I equated medicine with health. If I had a headache, I took an Aspirin. If I got a cold, I took Sudafed. They always made me better.

I asked my dad if he needed to take all of those pills daily. His answer: if he wanted to live. Something clicked inside of me the moment he said those words and I knew he would be dependent on pills for the rest of his life. This was the point when I started to dissect what I was doing and eating. I realized I could make myself healthier. I began cleaning up my body by running, cutting out soda pop, going vegetarian and never smoking or drinking. Of course, I now realize that was my naivety talking. Sometimes intention and action don’t coincide.

Nothing I did in my teenage years or my twenties could prepare me for what was to inevitably come in my thirties. As much as I tried to control my health, I couldn’t. I won the lottery.

Winning the disease lottery is a game that nobody wants to win, but sometimes you don’t have a choice. It took me a long time to realize that sometimes diseases strike at random. It’s not a punishment.

As luck would have it, I now have to take a pill a day. I’m not angry. It is what it is. I’m convinced there isn’t a single person that wishes to be dependent on a pill for the rest of their lives, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I always ask myself this question to clear my head: what’s worse, a pill a day or impending death? I would say the latter, but that’s just me.

I just filled my pill case for the week. Sometimes I leave it in the kitchen. Other times it’s in my bedroom or the bathroom. Maybe it too has invaded my life. Sometimes I feel like I am turning into my father. Sometimes I think I finally know how he feels.

I used to have this gym teacher in grade school who always said, “If you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything.” He doesn’t know how right he was.

One of the best things about living in Chicago or any big city is having access to a plethora of restaurants, live theater shows, concerts, literary readings, sporting events, art installations, transportation, cultural events, and shopping among other things.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve seen some pretty fascinating stuff that has blown my mind. I’d like to share two of those things with you.

At the Bulls vs. Nets game, I got to see one of the funniest shorts put on by Big Ben and Benji the bull. Check them out below:

To learn more about Benny, Big Ben, Benji and the entire Bulls family, check out this site: iwantbenny.com.

Another cool thing I got to see was this incredible light sculpture at the Chicago Auto Show. I’ve never seen anything like it and I had to get it on video. Turns out, it was created by Chuck Hoberman, of the Chuck Hoberman Sphere. Check out what it does and be amazed:

Well folks, there you have it.

If I find any other cool things around Chi-town, (and I’m sure I will) I’ll be sure to post a video.

Stay tuned for more awesomeness and in the meantime, peace and happiness.

Maybe it’s the holiday’s, but this past month my home has been filled with numerous visitors and frankly, I’m exhausted. I think it may be because I’ve been hit with the unexpected guest. They simply ring my doorbell and ask to come in. No warning, no phone call, just a buzz of the doorbell to announce their arrival.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I need the warning phone call. I desperately want the warning phone call, even if its ten minutes before arrival because I need those few minutes to clean my place or at least to pick up the big chunks. So just call or better yet, text and ask if it’s a convenient time to come over. If it takes too much out of your day to call, then ask yourself this: are you just too caught up in your own life that you don’t realize that other people have lives of their own too? Makes you wonder, eh?

Don’t get me wrong, I like visits, but I need some advance notice here.

Which brings me to this: is showing up unexpected the new, modern thing to do? I hope not. I don’t think I could handle the added stress.

The truth is that I like entertaining. I like putting out hors d’oeuvres on nice dishes and making drinks and having interesting conversations, but if I’m not given the advanced notice I need, then I can’t do that properly and that makes me frantic. Frankly, it robs me of providing the excellent hospitality I am known for and that’s just not cool. So please, call first.

How do you all handle unexpected guests?

In September of 1999, I was traveling thru London. It was rainy, then sunny, then rainy again. One night, I decided to see what the London nightlife was all about. I wanted to call a cab since I wasn’t all that familiar with the Tube. Turns out, I couldn’t make outgoing calls from inside my hostel, so I left. It was 10 p.m. I headed towards the little red phone booths outside of St. Paul’s Cathedral. It was a few blocks away from my hostel, down a long, cobblestone street filled with random wine bars and the such; mildly populated. Up to that point, I was fearless. I was a Chi-town, street-smart cookie. Besides, I had just traveled to Paris by myself and I was careful, I watched my back and I always trusted my instincts. Up to that point, they served me well.

When I reached the phone booth, I opened the door and went inside. I shut the door behind and began dialing with my back towards door, with my back towards the door. This is when I heard a noise; a boom-like sound. It was startling. I turned around. A man was pulling the door open. He was white. He had long, curly hair and was wearing a parka with black jeans. His eyes were black, saccadic and wild. He attempted to pull me out of the phone booth by the lapel of my jacket and he didn’t say a word. His silence frightened me. I had no time to think and just enough time to react. I watched the phone drop from my hand in slow motion when this voice came from my mouth; a shrill B-horror movie scream. I’d never heard it before and haven’t heard it since. And then my words: “What are you doing? What are you doing? Get off of me! What are you doing?” And then it happened; my fight mode kicked in. I lifted my hands and gave the guy one solid push to the chest. He barely flinched. I pushed again; harder this time. He flew back, feet in the air and all, and that’s when I took off running back to the hostel looking back the whole way; warning other women of a predator near the phone booths.

When I got back to the hostel, I called the police. They came and took my report. They said if he wanted to do something, he would’ve done something, but I disagreed. My fighting response startled him, almost as if he never anticipated it and I think this is what saved me. I used to think my fight response came from growing up in Chicago. I was taught to always make scene, to scream fire instead of help if anybody ever pulled me into a dark alley, to fight no matter what and that’s exactly what I did. Could my fight response be cultural? Maybe, maybe not. Looking back, I’m just glad I had it.

I continued to travel from London to Poland without any other incidences, but I was always on edge after that; especially when I was in a phone booth, when somebody that looked like him passed nearby, or if I was the only woman on the street. For a long time after, I saw that guys face in my head when I lay down to go to sleep.

The good news is that nothing physically happened to me. I am still here, alive and doing well. I protected myself the best way I knew how and for whatever reason it worked. I don’t ever think about what could have happened and in a lot of ways I have moved on, but I would be a fool to say that it didn’t scar or rob me of that safe feeling we’re all supposed to have.

Before this incident, I felt fearless and after, I was afraid to venture out in the dark alone in my own city. To this day, I’m always afraid of what could happen. I know that some people may view this as silly or stupid even, but I was the one who lived through it and in some minute way, I feel that I can control this from happening again if I’m cautious enough. Of course, I know this is just a false sense of security, but it gets me through the day. And now a cliché thrown in for good measure; I never thought it could happen to me, but it did.

Although I wish this never happened, it helped me realize what kind of reaction I would have if I were ever attacked again. I’m positive that I would fight. Do you know if you’re you a fighter or do you freeze when you feel threatened? How do you know?

For years, I retold this story in a humorous way, but it’s not humorous. It’s scary.

I’m not telling this story now to warn people to watch their backs, although I think everybody should. I’m telling this story because I think it’s incidences like these that you can pull from and use in your writing. Not the actual account, but the feelings, the emotions.

This is what I believe is meant when people say, “write what you know.” It’s not writing about a specific incident that happened to you, it’s writing about the emotions surrounding those situations: the fear, the rush of adrenaline, the idea that somebody you don’t know is trying to inflict some sort of harm on you. These are the things that readers relate to. These are the things that make writing authentic. It’s the reading and knowing that you’ve felt those same things that is reassuring and appreciated by many readers. So to all the writers out there, use what you have and use what you know. Dig those memories out of the recesses of your mind and put your feelings to the page.

I’m convinced that luck comes in waves. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve noticed that a few people around me are going through rough and tough times, while others are at their optimum. Case in point, one family member was recently laid off, while another was offered a promotion and raise. His wife was also offered a job with a competitive salary. Earlier this year their situations were reversed. What the heck is going on? Is this some kind of reversal of fortune? Is it their turn to get showered with good luck from the universe? Does good and bad luck come in waves? I’m starting to think yes.

This good luck occurred within the last couple of weeks, which brings me to this - the moments before the New Year always count. Whatever you want to do this year, whatever dreams you have can still be reached. Things can still happen for you this year. Don’t give up just because you may be in the midst of a bad luck wave. Keep pushing along because if good and bad luck does come in waves, then good luck is headed your way. Confession: I’ve been putting off the completion of my novel because I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it scares me. Sounds strange, I know, but exposing my inner most thoughts is a frightening thing for me, hell, for any writer. It’s a vulnerability I didn’t expect to have and one I didn’t prepared for, but I’m pushing forward. There’s not much sense in keeping my manuscript hidden on a file folder on my desktop. My plan is to finish my novel by the end of this year and edit it early next year to get this pony in the publishing show. I want to leave this year on a high note. Don’t you? If so, then take this as your sign to sprint to the finish line and get whatever you need to get done - done. I’m wishing all you writers and artists out there good luck on your current project! You can do it. “Let me know – do I still got time to grow? Things ain’t always set in stone. Let me know, let me know. Seems like street lights, glowing, happen to be just like moments, passing in front of me, so I hopped in the cab and I paid my fare. See, I know my destination, but I’m just not there.” -“Street Lights” by Kanye West

It’s holiday time: time for eggnog, coquito, for bowls of chili, for snow and of course presents. If you have a writer friend, why not hook them up with a gift for the holidays? Here are some ideas…  

• A well made journal. 
• A five in one Pen. What writer wouldn’t want one of these?! 
• A portable scanner, which is a dream come true for any paper hoarder. 
• The Storymatic game just because it’s fun.
• A yearly planner with lots of room to write.

 

• Bookmarks. I don’t care what anybody says, bookmarks will always be in style.
• A classic book collection like this:
• This shirt because it’s hilarious:
• This mug because sometimes you need a little inspiration. 
• And last, but not least, the real secret to happiness (Just kidding… kinda):

Well folks, there you have it. Numbers eight and nine were gifts ideas I learned about from reading the blog Writerland. Check out Meghan Ward’s post for more gift ideas for writers. Good luck with your holiday purchases and please remember that the best gift is an unexpected one. Am I right? I think I am. Happy holidays! *All images link back to the original photo source.

Are you one of those people that can’t create unless your mind is clear and relaxed? What a coincidence – me too! This is why I spend a lot of time organizing my work space and my home. I want to be as productive as possible. Here are some organizational tips that have worked for me and may work for you. 1. You know that pile of paper you have sitting on your desk? Go through it and dump what you don’t need right now. Do it! If you don’t, you’ll have a bigger pile waiting for you next week. Think paperless. 2. Check off all of the unread messages in your e-mail account at once and delete them all. Each morning, read and respond to the messages that matter and delete the ones that don’t. Unsubscribe from e-mail lists you care nothing about. This will keep your e-mail inbox under control. At one point I had over 1600 unread e-mail messages. I tried this and now I get about 50 messages a day, which I look through and delete first thing in the morning, which makes me feel as though I’ve accomplished something huge! 3. Do you know what you spend your time on? For a single day log how you’re spending your time hour by hour. Create a pie chart to identify your time wasters. Now eliminate them. 4. Every week spend time filing all of your bills and important papers in your file cabinet. 5. Go through your magazines. What you can’t or don’t have time to read, toss. Pull out clippings of the stuff you think is important. Scan them, create pdf’s and organize them by subject in folders on your computer. Throw out all clippings once scanned. 6. Back up your computer every week. Trust me, if you work on your computer, you will need to back up your ish every week. This is especially important for writers. Backing up is a way of life for us. If you don’t have an external HD look for an online place to back up your stuff or e-mail your files to yourself just in case. You never know. Better to be safe than sorry. 7. If you’re anything like me, then you keep a lot of stuff, even product guides. These are the bane of my existence, but I refer to them often so I can’t toss them. It’s too much to scan, so mine lived in a drawer for a very long time. Big mistake! Here’s what I did to organize that mess:

Step 1: Tossed all guides in other languages. Step 2: Organized the guides I kept by subject. Step 3: Utilized large plastic zip-locking bags. Step 4: Slapped a label on each bag and stuffed them with the appropriate product guides. Step 5: Got a bin and put the zip-locking bags inside. Step 6: Labeled the bin “Product Guides” for easy reference. Step 7: Stashed them in my closet and out of my way.

8. Designate blocks of time in the day to get things done. Try not to spend more than a few hours at a time on anything. You could burn yourself out and not want to do anything and that would suck. 9. Everything has a place. If you take something out, put it back in the same place by the end of the day. 10. Take time to take care of yourself and your family: exercise, laugh, sleep. Do things that are good for you and you’ll be at your best and most productive self. I recently finished reading, The Productive Writer by Sage Cohen. It’s excellent and tackles a lot of the issues us writer’s face while trying to organize our “writing life.” There are several detailed and clear-cut examples to follow. Cohen’s advice is practical and makes sense. I enjoyed reading this book and recommend it to other writers. If you’re drowning in clutter, then check this video out and follow the one-minute rule: I am so going to read The Happiness Project soon. Have a happy and productive writing week y’all. :)  

This is the true tale of one Wii’s survival against all odds.

Call me Wii. I was developed by Nintendo back in 2006. Wii’s come in many colors; I am white, classic, original. Over my lifetime, I have been touched, poked, and pushed by many hands, but most dangerously a few weeks ago by a three-year-old. He found a jar of pennies and decided that I was a piggybank. He stuffed the coins inside and his parents did not notice. So there it sat; the copper coin destroying my insides like a cancer. For some reason my agonizing pain wasn’t apparent. A few days later, they caught their son red-handed, stuffing pennies inside of me again! They picked me up and shook. The newly inserted coins fell out. Woo-hoo! It felt good until they stuck it in – a disk! I felt it grind against my bones. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! You should’ve seen the look on their faces when I made that sound. They were frightened, scared of the repair fees. They ejected the disk and contemplated what it could be: a scratched eye, a twisted piece of metal? And then it hit them, what if there were more coins stuck inside?! Bingo. They shook me again. I rattled and they knew.

Let’s fast forward to two weeks later when a package of tri-screw drivers arrived in the mail.

Yes, I was saved! With the mom’s laptop on hand showing her how to open and repair a Wii, she went to work on me and like a surgeon removing a tumor.

For two hours, I watched her every move: a screw here, a screw there, a pad lifted, my insides opened.

Under the metal, in the drive was a lone penny trapped inside. She maneuvered it out and I was saved. She put me back together again and turned me on. I worked!

It was worth the painful two-hour surgery just to be able to work again.

Parents: protect us Wii’s. We are a fragile bunch. Put us somewhere high where three-year-olds can’t reach. Thank you.

This cautionary tale was brought to you by electronics everywhere. Please protect us, even from your own children, especially from your children.

It’s time for R. Harrie’s third campaign challenge and here are the rules: Write a blog post in 300 words or less, excluding the title. The post can be in any format, whether flash fiction, non-fiction, humorous blog musings, poem, etc. The blog post should show:

• that it’s morning,

• that a man or a woman (or both) is at the beach

• that the MC (main character) is bored

• that something stinks behind where he/she is sitting

• that something surprising happens.

My piece is just under 300 words. YES! Check it out: Hannah’s Tomatoes Hannah sits on the bench; knees bent, feet firm on the seat. Sweat drips down the small of her back as tiny wet beads form on her upper lip. She brushes them away and breathes in the sticky air. There is a smell, familiar, but pungent. A dead rat maybe? Ah, the joys of North Avenue Beach. She coughs and unscrews the cap from her bottle. The water rushes down her throat, a short relief from the heat. Sweat drips from her hands. She presses them against her head and slicks down the loose strands of hair. She picks at a piece of skin hanging from her fingernail as a slight breeze presses against her body. He is walking towards her, the blur of a boy folded into the distance of the hazy sun. The closer he gets, the harder her heart beats. When he gets close enough, she stands up. He paces towards her disturbing the dust with each step. They walk off the concrete walkway and into the sandbank. Her toes sink in. The gritty grains brush against the pads of her feet. Dirty, orange-colored mountains form around the sides of their heels. They set their blankets down and run towards the edge of the pier. She crashes into the water. Bing. The clasp of her bikini top flies open for all the world to see. Her face reddens like a tomato. Now two tomatoes are hanging out. She pulls her top shut trying to push one side of the clasp into the other, but it is pointless. The thing is busted. With a hand against her chest, she runs from the water. She leaps down, pulls the towel from the sand, and wraps it around her body. She shouldn’t have done that cannonball after all. Thanks for reading! I am #46 on the linky list if you feel so inclined to vote for me here: Rachael Harrie’s Third Campaigner Challenge.