Blogging101: Day 11: From you to you. Write a letter to your 14 year old self. Tomorrow, write a letter to yourself in 20 years

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awareness, blogging university, blogging101, child abuse, children, compassion, father, hope, letter, love, mother, relationships, suicide, Support, younger self

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “From You to You.”

Today’s assignment, write a letter to your 14 year old self, seemed easy, but on second thoughts I am not so sure. It certainly seemed the easiest option. There were so many choices: some that I thought I could do, and others that I thought I wouldn’t know where to start. Sometimes I think when there are too many choices, it’s very difficult to decide which option to go for. Better, when it’s either this or that really.

Dear Marie

Yes, you, come on now, try not to let things get you down too much. I promise life will get better. I know that you’ve had it really rough and I know that you wish your first suicide attempt at age 11 had worked, but it didn’t and that’s because you are here for a reason. I know that you can’t see that now, because all around you is chaos, but you are a divine spirit and you need to know that.

Try not to internalise the pain. I know that you feel that you have no-one to confide in, but you do. Speak to your grandfather. I know he is no longer here. I know he died in 1959, but his spirit is with you. Speak your pain and he will hear and he will try to smooth the path for you and make life a little easier. I know you’re thinking, “rubbish!” But seriously, he came to help you that painful night when you were 11. It was him you saw, when he hovvered over you. It was not a figment of your imagination. He came to make sure those pills did not work.

You’re destined for great things Marie. Look at Oprah Winfrey, Maya Angelou – they suffered too but look how they have turned their lives around. They have have used their abusive pasts to build a solid framework in which to change their lives for the better. OK, so you’re never going to be Oprah or Maya with their very public profile, but you will be Marie blogging on WordPress, “sharing, hoping to inspire and motivate” others.

I know you think I’m crazy, and that this will never happen. Yes at 14, with a mother who clearly finds you an irritation and a father who gets a kick out of battering you, sending you to school with bruises on your face and body, with the explanation “If they ask you what has happened to you, tell them that you fell over some wire in the backyard”, makes the above paragraph seem like the ramblings of a mad woman, but honestly, you will survive.

People that you don’t know now, will be reading your poetry and will write to you telling you how much they love what you have written. People all over the world in France, Austria, USA, Australia will be commenting on your poetry.

There will be something called the Internet which will allow you to connect with others in a way that you can’t now. The world will be a smaller place in terms of contact and there will be vast opportunities for you to grasp and take advantage of.

I love you Marie and I want to take care of you in the only way I can. This is why I am writing to you, aged 14. I want to give you hope. I want to let you know that I am there for you.

Yours sincerely

(A much older)Marie xx

Blogging101: Day9 – Be inspired by the neighbours.

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blogging, blogging101, flower power, flowers, language, poem, poetry, role model, shower thoughts

Today’s assignment is to write a post which builds on one of the comments left by me on a post I read yesterday. As the eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that I haven’t done any of the assignments this week bar this one. So I hadn’t commented on any posts yesterday, therefore in order to complete this assignment I read a few today and left comments on a few posts. But the one I’m going to write my post on today is Shower Thoughts(writing as Superishness) post about “Flower Power – Mood Upper” where she talks about the effect that flowers can have on your mood. She says: “I was not feeling the best today and just wanted to stay in bed. Afraid to move, afraid to think… this is one of those depressing days for me.

My mother in law who is such a lovely lady kept on checking up on me to see if I’m okay and asked me if I wanted to go with her to get some olives. So I ended up going anyway. Well it’s a bit of a diversion I guess so I can stop thinking about the demons (problems) in my head.

After my MIL’s errands we went to the Flower Power Garden and I was just at awe!. Flowers are just so beautiful that even my worries disappeared.”

Role Model?

Flowers are always
beautifully dressed,
they don’t interrupt or
speak over you.
They are stylish,
well bred, thoughtful and easy on the eye.
Their language is universal
They speak love
They speak gratitude
They say “sorry”
They give selflessly
Something to think about?
~ MEW

Blogging101 Day 5: Love Your Theme

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blogging101, blogging101day5, coraline, fidelity, musing, themes

Love Your Theme: try 3 new themes.

Today is day 5 and it’s all about the themes. The task today is to to try out new themes, so I’ve done this. I am so obedient. At first I thought I’m very happy with the Chateau theme and don’t really want to change it. However, it’s always good to rise to a new challenge and I liked quite a few themes: Koi, Bouquet, Love Birds to name a few. Koi was pretty and appealed to the artistic side of me – loved the squiggles and flourishes, but wasn’t sure that it supported the things that I’ve written about or would like to write about in the future. Bouquet also grabbed me – loved the colours. I find pink quite energising. But on second thoughts the layout wasn’t what I wanted. I skipped back to the Chateau theme and drooled over that for a while before looking at the Love Birds theme. A lot of ahhs and mmmms and ohhs later, I have decided to go with “Coraline”.

I am going to see how I get on with this and maybe change back to Chateau because it was my first love. I love the gallery style effect and whenever I typed a post I always imagined myself wandering down it. I even imagined that I was in a different century – say the 19th – in flowing gowns, wealthy beyond my present situation, off to take tea in the drawing room. I can’t do this with the above picture, but I do like the colour green and I love the droplets of water which for some reason I find really inspiring. Maybe it’s because I find that the colour green reminds me of new beginnings and growth and water is somehow reviving. Maybe subconsciously, I’m hoping that this new theme (for however long I remain faithful to it)will induce in me a spirit of energy, regrowth, and the ability to write with clarity and wisdom. Maybe it will be an antidote to writer’s block. A tall order I know!

I’m going to stop wittering on now, because there is only so much one can write about why they chose a particular theme.

Day 4: Blogging101- write about your dream reader

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blogging university, blogging101, blogging101 day4, dream reader, guilty pleasure

My Dream Reader

I don’t think it’s possible to have a dream reader personally. So instead of trying to think of what that person would be like, I have decided to abandon this task. Instead I’ll talk about a blogger who has become my guilty pleasure. This person has only come to my attention just before Christmas and I was absolutely blown away by his (damn, I didn’t mean to give away the person’s gender because I didn’t want him to guess who he was)writing. His style resonates with me because it is original and I just completely understand the messages he tries to put across in the most articulate and eloquent manner.

I would love to be able to write like him. I almost feel as if he is my mirror image, because the things he says sound like things that I would say, although I really do not have his talent at all. Firstly, I only speak English and this person is definitely bi-lingual if not multi-lingual. I greatly admire anyone who can write in English as well as another language and still be so fluent in both languages. When I read what he writes in his mother-tongue, I do not understand it, but his poetry speaks to me emotionally and the strange thing about it is that for me, this is all that’s necessary. What the words actually mean, become secondary, because for me the pleasure of his writing his visual and touches the soul.

When I first discovered him, I practically spent the whole afternoon reading all his poetry and just imagining what he must be like. To be able to write so sensitively, he must be a very sensitive person, very emotional and very connected with who he is as an individual and must also must have a generous soul in order to share his thoughts and feelings in this way.

Ok, so that’s this task done! I haven’t answered the question put, but I guess I’ve turned it around and I’ve become the dream reader. In conclusion, a dream reader for me has to be someone sensitive, generous of spirit, fluent, eloquent and articulate. Someone with whom there is a connection. I by no means encompass all those attributes myself, but my guilty pleasure does and I’m glad he’s out there!

By the way if you are wondering what that picture has to do with my dream reader thoughts – it has nothing. The second part of the task was to incorporate something new into my post and I wasn’t able to put a picture into it before – so with WordPress’s simple instructions I tried it and it worked. Yippee!! I know those of you who are seasoned bloggers and doing something like this must be like water off a duck’s back will probably not be at all impressed, but I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself for having achieved this.

Goodnight!

Today’s assignment: write to your dream reader and add a new element to your post

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attempt to post, blogging101, plan b, plan c, post aimed at dream reader, post failure

My computer is playing up today and if I actually complete this post I will be very pleased. I started to write and then Aol shut me down while they attempted to sort out a problem. I’m back on again, but what I wrote before has been erased. It has not even been saved in my drafts like it automatically does. GREAT!

So I’m a little annoyed and I can’t think of anyone in particular to aim this post at. I’m sorry dear followers, but it doesn’t look as if I’m going to be able to type very much today, so plan B is to attempt to post an already written poem and hope that this works. I now find Plan B is not working either – ho hum!

So here’s a little ditty:

Plan C

I’m not happy today with my pc
It’s not doing what it ought to
This is really rather **itty
I’m going to get a glass of water!

I’m hoping I’ll be able to complete this tomorrow along with tomorrow’s assignment. Thank you for your patience.

Day 3 Blogging101: follow 5 blogs and 5 new topics

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blogging university, blogging101, ComeFlywithme, day3, new follows, new topics

I found today really demanding because I’ve never been told to do this as part of an assignment before. It’s all very well reading stuff that catches your eye and motivates you to read more, it’s quite another thing actually seeking out blogs and reading the content when you’d really rather not. This is really clumsily put so I hope I’m not offending any bloggers out there! It’s taken me the best part of this afternoon to accomplish what I set out to do today – I thought I’d only spend an hour on this task and it’s taken me over 3 hours. Perhaps I’ve done it too thoroughly – perhaps I should’ve only skimmed the articles, but hey ho it’s too late now to take that approach.

So here’s how I got on today:

My 5 new topics are: 1. Transgender issues in “It’s not about you” – secretmom2013
2. Fashion – How to be a Ladyperson in the Holidays: 10 important tips – When I Blink
3. Poetry – An Open Letter of Love to Black Students – Black Space
4. Photography – The Stray Cats of Korea: a photo essay – The Goat that Wrote
5. Writing – What happens when you go Viral – lilyellyn

My 5 Follows are:

1. http://When I Blink.wordpress.com
2. http://Black Space.wordpress.com
3. http://lilyellyn.wordpress.com
4. http://Miriam Jacobs Poetry.wordpress.com

I’ve just noticed I did not make a note of the site for the 5th one but the title of the piece was “We talked to our Kids about Souls” and can be found in freshly pressed on the Reader. And now I’ve checked I’m not sure that I’ve made correct site details about the 5 follows. This is sloppy I know, and I’m not really like this, but I’m getting tired now. All of these sites can be found on the Reader, in freshly pressed, so do have a look if you are interested please.

Although I’ve found this task demanding and tiring, I’m really pleased to have discovered these new sites and topics. I also got the opportunity to make new contacts on blogging101 with other bloggers on this course and I loved your posts, which gave me ideas on how to set mine out – thanks!

Blogging101 Day 2 – Assignment: Edit site title and tagline

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assignment, blogging101, changes, day 2, mariewilliams53, site title, tagline

Today is day 2 of Blogging101 and the assignment for today is to edit my site title and tagline. As you can see I have done this. I am no longer mariewilliams53 – sharing and caring and god knows what else. I can’t even remember what my tagline was and I only looked at it a couple of minutes ago, and I’ve been using it for the last 2.5 months. What am I like eh?

I sat for ages trying to think of something eye-catching and cool and have come up with this. I’m not sure if I really like this new site title and tagline, so I’m going to sit with it for a while and consider its merits. What would be wonderful is if I got some feedback from my faithful, lovely, devoted followers telling me that they think it’s good or if I should re-think this one. So please if you’re not too busy could you comment “Yes!” or “Go back to the drawing board!”.

What you say, will have a definite effect on whether I continue blogging or not. You don’t want that resting on your conscience do you? Do you?? :):)

Please remember that I am still Marie Williams (caring,sharing,hoping to inspire and motivate), but that my site title and tagline have changed as of today!

Update: Thanks to http://swimsonemile.wordpress.com, I have changed the tagline back to sharing and caring etc. I have to agree with her that this sounds much better. Thanks swimsonemile!