A to Z '14 - Appreciation

Happy April 1st, gang!

Once again, I am doing the A to Z challenge. This year I am honoring my grandfather who passed away on April 3, 2013.


So let's get going.

A is for Appreciation.

Appreciation takes on a few forms here.

My grandfather had a great appreciation for the arts. He sang. He actually performed in many vaudeville competitions. We are all proud to say, "he never got the hook!" Have you ever seen the movies or cartoons where a big hook came out and pulled the bad performer off the stage? That's actually rooted in truth! The performers whose acts were...weak...would get pulled off stage. Thankfully, my grandfather never got the hook! :)



His love and appreciation of the arts still runs deeply in our family. My mother sings and plays the organ. My brother is an actor (who can also sing and dance well, he just doesn't admit it! LOL). I sing, I used to dance, and I write. My grandfather appreciated all of our various talents.


But I also have appreciation. I appreciate who he was and what he did. I appreciate his singing and love of the arts. I appreciate all of the support he ever gave me. I appreciate him and the life he gave us.


Appreciation in life is incredibly important. It gives us the ability to broaden our horizons, and it gives us gratitude for our own talents and those of the people around us.


A is for appreciation.

Writing is FUNdamental!

Good morning!

I'm sure I'm gonna be hit with some kind of licensing/copyright infringement thingy with today's title, but c'est la vie! :)




Yesterday I was washing dishes (exciting, I know), and I was thinking about my brother. For those of you who don't know (which is very few since I can't keep my big trap shut!), my brother is an actor. And if you haven't already guessed it, I am RIDICULOUSLY proud of him! He's been on some big shows, worked on quite a few movies, has made some great connections and has started to build quite a name for himself in good old Hollyweird! ;)





My brother has a great job. He's an actor - the great pretender! So far, he's been a lawyer, a doctor, a dead body, an advertising agent, and too many more to list! Currently, he is "the most irritating man in the world!" LOL. Check the link below to check him out! ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bzj_5scsOoA



So, as I was getting dishpan hands, I was becoming slightly jealous of his glamorous life. Then it hit me. I, too, have a glamorous life. It can be tough to find under the dirty dishes, vacuum cleaner, litter box, letting the dog in and out of snow mounds and so on, but it's there. My brother gets to BE people, but I get to CREATE people!




I get to create people, locations and events that my brother can merely play in. It may be his playground, but I built it! :) I created the person he might just be playing. I have created police officers, criminals, dancers, mechanics, computer geeks, Ph. D. students, and more! I have created cities, homes and events. I created people's stories. That's pretty cool, damn it! :)



I am proud that I can play make believe as an adult. I love the fact that I play in a way that is similar to my brother. Not many people get that luxury - at least not at this age! :)





It's fun being able to use your imagination to create and/or be someone else. I have lived vicariously through my characters, which means that I've lived a pretty exciting life! So, akin to my brother's various roles, I have been a teacher, a student, a hostage, a computer geek, a workaholic, a mechanic, a ballerina, a cop, a model, a writer, a friend, a daughter, a sister, a lover and more! How great is that?! Then, just to add the icing to the cake, I can play on storycasting.com (that has got to be one of the best websites EVER!!!) and cast the actors who I'd like to portray my characters! If I'm a nice sister, I can cast my brother. I can make ANY actor play ANY of my characters & that freedom is just plain awesome! :)

All of this excitement reminds me: What do you do for work? ;)




Yes, writing can be tedious at times. Editing is boring. There are times you're writing so much that the words become blurry or they suddenly look foreign (haven't we all had that happen? You look at a word long enough & it just doesn't look right any more. Crazy, huh?). The flip side to that negative coin is the creativity, fun and adventures we writers get to be a part of! Just as readers get sucked into stories, so do we! Trust me, non-writer folk, we get swept away in these stories and characters as much as you do! It's a blast!



So on that note, it's back to house work for me. Rest assured, though, my imagination will be running rampant later when I write!