New Year’s is just around the corner, and like many, I couldn’t help but reflect on the year gone by. As I do so, I realize it hasn’t been that great of a year. Personally, it was a stressful year as we were building a house on top of all our other work. Anyone that has built a house knows the stress involved. I chuckled when a friend of my asked whether my husband and I were still together during the nerve-wracking ordeal. We lost six people very dear to us; God rest their souls. With our teenage son, there were a few grey-hair moments that we would have preferred not to experience. And even with my writing, I had missed a number of great opportunities that literally put me into tears.

 

 

The more I thought about all the things that were terrible about 2012, the more depressed I got. To get out of that depressive mode, I began to make a list of all the good things that happened, or things I learned from the things that did not go well, making me a better person.

 

 
• All the effort, time, and money that we put into our new house, produced a beautiful dream-home for us, and the stress our relationship as husband and wife endured made us closer as a couple.
• There is nothing nice about losing a loved one, but we cannot stop the circle of life. We have our cherished memories that enrich our lives, and  others are expecting new bundles of joy to help fill the gaps.
• Through the trying ordeal, that we endured with our son, in the end, it worked out and made our relationship with him stronger and better, something that could have easily taken a turn for the worse, causing us to lose him.
• As for my writing, my husband said, “Don’t cry over spilt milk.” And he is correct; there will be many more opportunities that come along. The time was obviously not right for me, and it gave me the opportunity to be better prepared to find those opportunities and be ready for them when they come my way.
• In the greater scheme of things, my problems seem miniscule and unimportant when I compare them to some of the catastrophic events that have taken place across the globe in 2012, shedding a new light on what I should be focusing on.

Trials and tribulations will always come along; it is, after all, a part of life. I guess what is important is not to dwell on hardships, but to learn from them, being better prepared for them, and maybe even avoiding some from happening with the wisdom that has been gained.

I look at the coming year of 2013 as being a new opportunity, allowing me to clear the slate and start a new year with optimism and hope. I need to remind myself that ‘viewing life as the glass half-full’ makes it a far better ride.

I wish all of you a happy and healthy New Year! May all your dreams and wishes come true in 2013.

Regards!
Alandra CL

I love to hear from you, so email me at acl@alandracl.com

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Jamie rushed up to his best friend, excited about the prospect of making the football team at school. Tryouts were the next day, and he had signed up.
“Hey, Sam! Guess what? I’m trying out for the football team this year.” He was hopeful, having trained all summer to be in shape.

 

“You’re joking, right?” Sam asked, shaking his head. “There’s no way, with your size, that they’ll pick you. Have you seen the size of the guys they choose?”

That was not what Jamie wanted to hear. He’d had such high hopes on making the team after training so hard. Doubt wedged its way into his thoughts.
He had grown several inches in the last year to reach five-foot-five, and his scrawny physique had filled out considerably with all the weight lifting he had done. But Sam was right, he was short compared to the five-ten-plus players that usually made the cut. Would talent be enough? Maybe at his height, it wasn’t enough to get him on the team. Maybe he should wait or pick another sport. If only he loved another sport as much as he loved football.

 

 

How often has someone said to you, “That’s impossible!” or “You can’t do that,” instilling doubt of success in your mind, perhaps even causing you to give up.
These statements are anything but uplifting and often hold us back from experiencing our true potential. Physically or mentally, we can all be so much more if we stop putting limits on ourselves.

Here are individuals who succeeded despite the odds against them:

Michael Jordan had been cut from his varsity basketball team during his sophomore year. At 5’11”, he was considered too short back then. He went on to become a legend in the sport.

Thomas Edison, the American inventor of the light bulb, was told by his teacher that he was too stupid to learn anything. He had in his lifetime 1,000 U.S patents to his name.

Ludwig Van Beethoven was deemed hopeless and told by his first music teacher that he would never succeed as a composer. He became one of the greatest composers.

J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter Series, had her first book rejected by numerous publishers. She became the first billionaire author.

 

One of the things I do besides writing my novels is writing magazine articles. Although not all topics are extraordinary, I do get opportunities to write about fascinating people with unbelievable feats. One such person is Chad Netherland, 10-time Guinness World Record holder in strength. Two years ago, I wrote an article about him for the Inside Kung Fu magazine (See article below). Then already, I thought his feats were miraculous- unbelievable even. Since that time, he has gone on to break his records and set many new ones. This type of dedication to success is commendable. If people used his level of dedication to achieve their goals, the sky would be reachable.

 

 

Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another. - Napoleon Hill

 

Click on pages to enlarge print.

 

Regards!
Alandra CL

I love to hear from you, so email me at acl@alandracl.com

Official Blog of Alandra CL

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When Melody stepped out the door that morning on her way to work, she gasped with surprise, when she saw a fallen tree trunk lying straight across the end of her driveway. The windstorm must have knocked it down during the night. A sigh of resignation followed, realizing the trunk was blocking her exit.

How was she to get to work on time? And, she still had to drop her son off at daycare. As a single mom, she couldn’t afford to miss more work. As is, she often needed to ask for extra time off when her five year old son, Billy had emergencies.

“Mommy, what happened?” Billy shouted as he scooted out beside her, noticing the tree lying there. He rushed up to it with his backpack bouncing on his back. “Cool!” He hopped on top of the trunk and walked across with his arms spread out as if he were on a balance beam.

“Cool” is not the word that came to Melody’s mind. The word that she was thinking of was not appropriate to utter in front of her six year old. She walked up to the long trunk dejectedly. Who did one call to remove a fallen tree? And how long would it take?

Melody tossed her purse and keys onto the grass and then bent down to try and lift it. Although the trunk was not too large, the many branches made it heavier than it looked. The stump didn’t budge. “Great!” she replied sarcastically.

Just as she scooped up her purse to fetch her cellphone, Mike, her neighbor from across the street, stopped as he was jogging by.

“Hey, do you need help?” he asked, trotting up her driveway, surveying the problem.

“I’m not sure we can lift it,” she admitted.

Mike bent down to grab the trunk. He raised it slightly, but it was obviously too heavy for one man to carry away.

Melody realized, she’d have to call her boss after all and talk her way out of another late arrival.

“Wait with calling someone.” Mike signaled over. “I’ll get Greg, Bob, and Michael from up the street to come down here. I think they’re all still at home.”

Melody didn’t know what to say. She’d always been friendly with her neighbors, waved at them, brought flying garbage bins back to their doorstep and even shoveled snow from their sidewalk when she was doing her own, but she never had time to chat or socialize with any of them. As a single mom, she never had time. She felt guilty for putting them all out of their way, but before she could utter a word of refusal, Mike had already left. The only one that seemed happy about the fallen trunk was Billy who was busy jumping on and off it.

Melody couldn’t believe that within fifteen minutes, the tree trunk had been moved off to the side of her driveway by four of her neighbors. One of them even offered to remove the trunk later at no cost because he wanted firewood.

 

 

 

Now that is teamwork.

 

Just recently, through a social-network discussion group, a large group of us helped each other out. It was amazing how in a short time, through teamwork so much had been accomplished. It’s at times like these that you experience the power that comes together through group effort, and then you feel like anything is possible.

“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” – Henry Ford

 

Regards!
Alandra CL

I love to hear from you, so email me at acl@alandracl.com

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“Peter!” his wife called out from the kitchen. “Can you return this dish-set to the china store for me? Today is the last day it can be returned for a credit.”

Peter grumbled, not interested in the slightest to leave while his hockey game was on TV. “Does it have to be done now?”

“Yes,” his wife insisted. “The store is only open for another hour.”

“All right,” he said, grudgingly rising up from his comfortable chair. “Where is this place?”

She strode over to the doorway to face him. “You go to the end of the road, make a right. Then drive about five kilometers until you see the new town houses on the right side, make a left there. Then drive until you see the big bank on the left and a small pizzeria on the right. There, you make another left and then you take an immediate right. Go another block until you come to a white church, turn left and then just before you hit the four-way stop sign, it’s the red brick building on the left that says Traditional China.”

Peter furrowed his brow with utter confusion. “Never mind, I’ll put it into the navigation system.”

 

If you make things complicated, you run the risk of  being misunderstood. 

A writer’s blog that I follow talked about writing practices that worked for highly successful authors (Writing Secrets of Prolific Authors By David Masters - http://writetodone.com/2012/01/23/writing-secrets-of-prolific-authors/), and I realized how valid and true these suggested practices are.
David states in his blog that one practice of Isaac Asimov was to write clear and simple. How often have I heard that writing should be invisible and should flow and be uncomplicated?

Isaac Asimov (500 books)quoted, “I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing—to be clear. I have given up all thought of writing poetically or symbolically or experimentally, or in any of the other modes that might (if I were good enough) get me a Pulitzer prize. I would write merely clearly and in this way establish a warm relationship between myself and my readers, and the professional critics—well, they can do whatever they wish.” -

Isaac made a good point; simple and clear writing probably won’t get you a Pulitzer prize but what it does do is make reading easy and enjoyable for your readers. And that is who we are writing for, our readers. Especially today, when lifestyles move faster than the wind, most people want things quick and easy.  I think all of us writers like to show off now and then, but in writing, it is something no writer can afford to do. Writing should be invisible. Invisible means that readers don’t notice the words they are reading but grasp only the idea the words relay.

Invisible writing is simple writing.

 

As I comb through my writing, I look for areas that have too much complex wordage, areas where I can say things in a simpler way that makes it effortless for the reader to comprehend.
As usual, editing my own work is a difficult task. I don’t always see my mistakes. To try to catch areas of my writing that are overdone, I go through the following steps:

 

• Remove ‘big’ words and replace them with simple ones – Try to remove unusual or uncommon words. If an unusual or uncommon word is used than limit one of those per sentence.
• Write for your audience – Write sentences so that whoever is reading it, they will understand it. I gear my writing to approximately a grade nine reading level to ensure almost every one’s understanding.
• Clarify unfamiliar words – In fiction writing, especially in fantasy, where some words are ‘made up’, the reader needs to know what those words mean – no dictionary will tell them. Through dialogue or added information, explain the meaning to the reader. Specialized terminology or abstruse words, I think are often better replaced.

By taking away complex wordage, it makes the writing more understandable and enhances the story.

 

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Leonardo DaVinci

 

 

 

 

Regards!
Alandra CL

I love to hear from you, so email me at acl@alandracl.com

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“I hate you!” Becky screamed at her mom, crossing her arms over her chest defiantly.

“You can hate me all you like, but you’re not leaving until your bedroom and bathroom are cleaned!” her mother yelled back at her for the third time, finally having lost her patience.

Why did parents have to be so unreasonable? What difference did it make if her room was tidy or not? “It’s my room!” she barked back.

“All the more reason to keep it in order.”

Becky rolled her eyes.

“How do you ever want to learn respect for your things if you treat them with disrespect?”

Becky shook her head.  “You just don’t want me to go!” Every time, she wanted to go away, her mother would have her do one chore or another before she could leave.

“Keep your room tidy and clean, and I won’t have to nag you to do it. It’s called taking responsibility for your things.”

“It’s called child slavery,” she mumbled as she marched up to her room, resigning to the fact that there was no way to talk her mom out of it.

 

 

I was sorting through an old file box in my office closet and found some prayers, ones that I had cut out from a newspaper column many years ago. Although dated, I still think they apply as much today as they did back then. The authors of these two wonderful pieces are sadly unknown.

 

 

A Prayer for Parents

Oh, God, make me a better parent. Help me to understand my children, to listen patiently to what they have to say and to respond to their questions kindly. Keep me from interrupting and contradicting them. Make me as courteous to them as I would have them be to me. Give me the courage to confess my sins against my children and to ask them for forgiveness when I know I have done wrong. May I not vainly hurt the feelings of my children. Forbid that I should laugh at their mistakes or resort to shame and ridicule for punishment. Reduce the meanness in me. May I cease to nag; and when I am out of sorts, help me Lord to hold my tongue. Bind me to the little errors of my children and help me to see the good things they do. Give me a ready word for honest praise. Help me treat my children as those of their own age. Let me not expect from them the judgment of adults. Allow me not to rob them of the opportunity to wait on themselves, to think, to choose, and to make their own decisions. Forbid that I should ever punish them for selfish satisfaction. May I gran them all their wishes and are reasonable and have the courage always to withhold a privilege that I know will do them harm. Make me fair and just, considerate and companionable, so they will have genuine esteem for me. Help me to be loved and imitated by my children, Oh, God. Give me calm, poise, and self-control.

A Prayer for Kids

God in heaven, I am young and don’t understand what it is like to be a parent, but it must be very hard because so many people are failing at it these days. I pray for mom and dad, God, that you will help them to be good parents, strong in the ways you want them to be, so I can look up to them with admiration and feel confident that their instruction is right. Help me, dear Lord, to understand my parents. Remind me that when I don’t get my way it is because they love me and not because they want to be mean or deprive me of anything. Help me, God, when I become stubborn and refuse to listen, to accept the fact that they have wisdom and experience because they were once teen-agers, but I have never been a parent. Put in my heart the respect and consideration they deserve for their years of hard work and sacrifice. They raised me the best way they knew how. Let me now repay them with no grief or shame, rather help me to give them obedience, respect, forgiveness, and love. Help me to appreciate my parents!

“We begin to learn wisely when we’re willing to see the world from other people’s perspective.”  - Toba Beta

 

Regards!
Alandra CL

I love to hear from you, so email me at acl@alandracl.com

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