A Dash of Words with Loleta Abi Romance Author

History, Will We Ever Learn Our Lessons?

Traci Kenworth

Will we ever learn our lessons when it comes to history? Sometimes, it doesn’t seem so. Instead of each of us growing more at peace with one another, more united, and willing to face the future together, each day we fall more and more apart. I suppose it’s only natural with different races, cultures, and moralities but I wish we could find a way to get past our differences.

Why can’t we just let others be who they want to be? What does it deprive us of by doing so? You say you don’t want your children influenced by so and so. Well, the truth is, with social media out there and so many other avenues, there’s always going to be that possibility. It doesn’t mean your child’s going to turn gay or become a drag queen. Your values are still instilled in your child. They will just learn to accept that others are going to be who they are.

Listen, I was raised to believe so much was wrong too. But I believe in a loving God, and he surely wouldn’t want us denouncing one another. In fact, he said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto yourself.” We’re not to judge others. That’s his job. And I don’t think it’s quite in the way that certain groups believe. He doesn’t encourage hate or violence. That’s the enemy.

It’s hard to explain to someone how loving God is when all they see is the evidence of war and condemnation. You have to have a deep, personal relationship with God. A lot of the past has been manipulated by men that worked to keep others under their control. Case in point: indentured servants who were to serve seven years and be released. Not live forever in a binding chain of poverty and brokenness.

I get it. Change hurts. But getting through it brings so many blessings. We can’t change history, but we can learn from it. Grow from it. Together, we can build a future for all to be welcome. I don’t know. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking. There’s always going to be people with differences. Those who want to fight and tear down. But if enough of us stand up, and say this is wrong, we don’t want to live this way, maybe we can turn the pages on a new history.

One that brings us all together. Celebrates our differences. We don’t have to be alike. We weren’t made that way. And please believe me, I’m not trying to shove my religion down your throat. You’re free to believe what you want. I’m just saying that as a people, we can do better, be better. We don’t have to fight. We don’t have to hate. There are ways to work things out without violence and destruction.

Happenings: I have to make an appointment to see a new GI here closer to me as my primary doctor does not feel my other addressed the liver issue appropriately. It’ll mean my visits won’t take as long to get to (an hour-and-a-half drive). I also have to start calling around for someone to install heat tape before September’s deadline. They will be around to check. But the idiots still don’t seem to realize that heat tape doesn’t work without electricity which we were out of for a week-and-a-half around Christmastime. They pushed my breathing test back to August 7 as the machine broke down.

Here are some links around the web you might find interesting:

1. Writers Helping Writers https://writershelpingwriters.net/2023/07/conflict-choices-character-agency/ Consider, if you will, a story about a woman who wants to gain esteem by winning an important legal case. Things are going along fine until she gets fired from the firm for her unusual fact-finding practices. She ends up being forgiven and rehired, but her babysitter bails, leaving her with no one to watch her kids. Then, at a critical point in the case, she gets so sick, she’s unable to keep working. It could be an interesting plotline. Obstacles are blocking her from her goal, which is a good thing. But it falls flat because the character isn’t driving the story; the events are. Instead of making things happen, she’s just reacting to what’s thrown at her. She has no control over her destiny.  But look what happens when we rewrite the story with her in charge: 
2. Life in the Realm of Fantasy https://conniejjasperson.com/2023/07/12/schadenfreude-schrodingers-tea-cup-and-gallows-humor-amwriting/ My teacup has a fundamental problem. I no sooner fill it up than it is empty. I feel this is a prime example of particle physics in action. I set the cup filled with hot tea on my desk, write a few words, and it is empty when I reach for it a short while later. It’s a mystery. The cup is full, and then it is empty, a Schrodinger’s cup of tea, there and not there. But I digress. A few years ago, I reconnected with an old word, one regaining popularity in the English language: schadenfreude (shah-den-froid-deh). This word from our Germanic roots describes the experience of happiness or self-satisfaction that comes from witnessing or hearing about another person’s troubles, failures, or humiliation. It’s a feeling we are all familiar with, as we often experience it on a personal level. When the rude neighbor steps in the pile of dog doo her puppy left on the sidewalk (and which she chose not to clean up), we feel a little schadenfreude. Schadenfreude is a complex emotion. Rather than feeling sympathy towards someone’s misfortune, we find a guilty pleasure in it. Writing a little hint of schadenfreude into our narrative makes our characters feel more natural. Decent people don’t promote bullying or harassment as a positive thing. But in the written narrative, we do want to inspire that feeling of “payback” in the reader whenever a little instant karma temporarily halts the antagonist. It’s an uncharitable emotion, but it is natural. I agree. Seeing a villain in a story or someone unsympathetic get their payback does bring a bit of a giggle forth.
3. Writers in the Storm https://writersinthestormblog.com/2023/07/explore-the-deep-structure-of-story/ We’ve been telling stories way before we started writing them down. The structures they follow are embodied within us. There’s much we can learn about story—and about ourselves—from analysing the patterns that stories follow. But how? Tracing the Path of Story My approach is to trace the patterns that each character in a story follows. Characters experience events. The events are related and follow in chronological order. The events, when whittled down to their bare minimum, form sequences which are recognisable as story structures. To analyse the story structure(s) in a given character’s story line, I mark the opening of their story line with a mark of recursion (r) and identify the character in their initial situation using Spencer-Brown’s mark of indication (m) drawn from his Laws of Form (1969). I then reduce the events to a series of ‘bare bones’ events—the minimum number needed for the story to be meaningfully related and arrange them in chronological order. Following that, I map the events qualitatively according to whether they either impel or delay the character in their attempt to reach their goal using a forward barb (⇀) or a backward barb (↽) respectively. At the end of their story line, the mark of indication is again used to denote the character in their final situation (m) and the story’s close is symbolised using another mark of recursion (r). A bit complex for me. I like mine: beginning, middle, and end framework-wise.
4. Angel Messages https://annetterochelleaben.wordpress.com/2023/07/14/angel-messages-jul-14-2023/
5. Books and Such https://teripolen.com/2023/07/13/the-broken-hearts-club-by-susan-bishop-crispell-and-lose-you-to-find-me-by-erik-j-brown-bookreview-ya-romcom-lgbtq/ When the perpetually single daughter of a magical matchmaker reconnects with the boy she’s pretended to be in a relationship with for over a year, she may finally have met her match. Imogen Finch has never been in love… despite being the daughter of a matchmaker. Her only relationship to date was a fake one with a near stranger named August Tate that she made up to stop people from asking about her love life. To fill the void, she’s channeled her obsession with love into her passion for photography, using her ability to literally see the rose-gold glow of a person in love to capture stunning portraits. But when her adviser says her photography portfolio is “one note”, she’s desperate to diversify. After hearing her forever crush, Ren, was recently dumped, she decides to photograph the broken-hearted, starting with him. Imogen is hopeful she’ll finally find love and get the right photos. So, the last thing she expects is for the real-life version of her fake boyfriend to show up in town asking why they “broke up”. Before she knows it she’s juggling August and Ren and falling for the first time in her life. Imogen (Mo) is the daughter of a professional matchmaker and shares her mother’s ability to see the emotional colors of love and heartbreak that surround people. Mo believes this gift intimidates potential boyfriends – she’s never had one or even been asked on a date. Which is kind of embarrassing considering her mother’s job. So, she invents a fake relationship with August, a boy she briefly met over a year ago. He lives on the other side of the state, so he’ll never find out, right? But when Mo’s longtime crush is suddenly single, she creates a breakup with August in hopes of having a chance with her crush. Then her best laid plans go way off the rails when August shows up in town asking why they broke up.
6. Chris the Story Reading Ape https://thestoryreadingapeblog.com/2023/07/14/how-to-protect-your-social-media-accounts-from-hackers-by-kathy-steinemann/ Has Your Social Media Account Been Hacked? Let’s review the definition of hack: use a computerized device to gain unauthorized access to a computer network, system, account, etc. To gain unauthorized access to your social media account, a hacker must know or guess your email address and password. Did someone “hack” you, or did they impersonate you by opening a new account under your name and copying photos from your profile? If so, they “cloned” your account. clone: make a copy of This Post is About Hacked Accounts Hackers are everywhere: overseas, next door, in the mall, on the subway … Protect yourself! The following tips will help thwart someone from guessing your email and password. Once they do that, they can assume control of your account, change the login credentials, and there
7. Story Empire https://storyempire.com/2023/07/14/echoes-how-to-avoid-echoes/ Greetings, Storytellers. Diana here today to talk about echoes in our prose. Echoes aren’t always as obvious as the echo in my title, though repeated words definitely fall into this category. There are a number of ways that echoes occur in our prose, and though they aren’t technically incorrect (like spelling errors), they have similar disruptive consequences. They tend to draw a reader’s attention out of an immersive story and into noticing the mechanics of writing. Our readers’ wondrous and powerful brains work against us in a variety of ways. First, the human brain is naturally attuned to patterns, rhythms, and rhymes. And second, it loves novelty, and written echoes are not novel compared to writing styles that keep prose fresh and varied. How to avoid them comes down to recognizing them and making simple editing changes. There are writing programs that will identify some of the echoes below but not all of them. One of the best ways to uncover echoes in our work is to read our prose aloud. Here are some examples of what to listen for:
8. Roberta Writes https://roberta-writes.com/2023/07/14/roberta-writes-thursday-doors-lodge-afrique-st-lucia-orchids-thursdaydoors/
9. Syl’s 65 blog https://syl65.wordpress.com/2023/07/14/fridayinspiration-%f0%9f%92%99-tobymac-move-keep-walkin/
10. Library of Erana https://libraryoferana.wordpress.com/2023/07/14/changing-tide-blog-tour-sci-fi-romance/ I had to do it. I wouldn’t let anyone else I love die. What did I do … A wild adventure that takes you on a journey from the California coast to the depths of the Grand Canyon. Dive into this fast-paced, suspenseful Sci-Fi fantasy novel that melds sizzling romance, action, heart-stopping horror, and a high-stakes battle to save humanity. After her father’s tragic death, eighteen-year-old Skye Conner and her mom visit her Nana on the California coast. There, Skye stumbles across a mystical conch shell in the surf. Suddenly her dull, empty life takes on a thrilling and terrifying turn. Skye has had to endure a despondent mother drowning in grief, living in a private world of darkness. Nana is a feisty, intelligent, take-no-bull grandmother with a flaming sense of pride and heart of gold. Then comes a handsome, mesmerizing alien on a mission to save the Earth. But are his intentions sincere, or does he have another agenda? Skye has finally found someone to love, but can he be trusted? Changing Tide is a witty, original page-turning thriller that will make you look at First Contact in a whole new way.
11. Smorgasbord Magazine https://smorgasbordinvitation.wordpress.com/2023/07/15/smorgasbord-book-promotions-summer-book-fair-2023-prehistoric-adventure-jacqui-murray-ya-dystopian-teri-polen-fantasy-magic-humour-chris-hall/ This year in the second part of the Summer Book Fair, I will be sharing my recommended books from the last 12 months and sharing either my review or one of  their top reviews. The first book today is the last in the Dawn of Humanity trilogy by Jacqui Murray. I can highly recommend this book and the other two in the series. Here is one of the many other reviews for Natural Selection (Dawn of Humanity Book 3)
12. Fiction Favorites https://johnwhowell.com/2023/07/14/friday-johnku-aka-tgif-fri-yay-good-news-50/ It’s been a long and successful year for the James Webb Space Telescope, and to mark the anniversary of its entry into service, NASA has shown off Webb’s vibrant picture of a small star-forming region in the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex. “From our cosmic backyard in the solar system to distant galaxies near the dawn of time, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has delivered on its promise of revealing the universe like never before in its first year of science operations,” NASA stated. The first-anniversary image displays star birth “like it’s never been seen before,” full of detailed, impressionistic texture. The subject is the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the closest star-forming region to Earth. “It is a relatively small, quiet stellar nursery, but you’d never know it from Webb’s chaotic close-up,” boasts NASA. “Jets bursting from young stars crisscross the image, impacting the surrounding interstellar gas and lighting up molecular hydrogen, shown in red. Some stars display the telltale shadow of a circumstellar disk (dust and matter), the makings of future planetary systems.”
13. Myths of the Mirror https://mythsofthemirror.com/2023/07/14/i-did-it-i-did-it-a-review-of-the-rose-shield-tetrology-by-d-wallace-peach-dwallacepeach-fantasy/ The writers out there know it’s a pleasure to discover a review of your book on someone’s blog. But what if that someone read and reviewed a four-book series in one fell swoop? Author Noelle Granger did just that. And she wrote a stunner of a review that I could barely wait to share. Thank you, Noelle! Looking for a summer read? Noelle is the author of the Rhe Brewster Murder Mysteries series and a historical fiction novel The Last Pilgrim. I’ve read them all and encourage you to pick one up: Noelle’s Amazon Author Page. Here’s Noelle’s review of The Rose Shield series: Catling’s Bane, Oathbreakers’ Guild, Farlanders’ Law, and The Reckoning of Kari:
14. Entertaining Stories https://coldhandboyack.wordpress.com/2023/07/10/on-the-air-again/