Vicki Abelson’s 30 Day Writing Challenge #7 – Secrets – Day 8

Photo Credit © 2012 – Veronica Marie Lewis-Shaw. All Rights Reserved

Day 8 of Vicki's WC7 - Secrets...

Morning pages... letter to Nana ("email" is a four-letter word to Nana)... work on my noir escuro... and about an hour working on some notes for this year's NaNoWriMo.

I was going to reveal another secret today, but as I mentioned earlier... I don't have that many secrets... I have to pace them out.  So today... a few words about secrets and power.

Humans need power... in some form... to some degree - some crave it to the point of bringing harm to others - we all need a little power.  Women especially, because it was denied us for so long.  But now... we know how to get power and we know how to keep it... unlike men, who only seem to piss it away.  But that is a story for another day.  We were talking about secrets and their need for power, weren't we....

Secrets hold power... secrets are power.  A secret will use its power to keep its owner from revealing it... because it knows that once the person reveals the secret... once the secret is brought out into the light of day... and seen for what it really is... the power of that secret is gone.  The secret can no longer hurt the person or hold them down... hold them back... hold them under... hold them to another whose time has come and gone.

Secrets, like their human hosts, need power.  Without power, a secret cannot survive.  Not all secrets are meant to survive... some play their role and then exit stage left.

But some secrets... some secrets will do whatever they must to survive... to keep their power.  They will, if necessary, turn their host into an addict... or worse...

And then, there are other secrets that were never meant to be revealed.

Fight the power.

~*~

Veronica Marie Lewis-Shaw

14 September 2013

(Writing under a large mushroom, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest)

Vicki Abelson's 30 Day Writing Challenge #7 - Secrets - Day 6

Photo Credit © 2012 – Veronica Marie Lewis-Shaw. All Rights Reserved

Day 6 of Vicki's WC7 - Secrets...

I've got a secret... see? Right here... *holding out cupped hands and lifting one thumb*

Technically, it's not "fucking for grades" if the professor isn't one of your current instructors, right?  I mean, at the time we were "wrinkling the Wamsuttas", the good (Good? Who are we kidding... she was fucking fantastic!) professor was no longer in a position to influence my grades.

Freshman year... spring term... my psych professor from first term had barely passed me... so it only made sense that, once I was no longer in her class, I should go after her like a greyhound after the rabbit, right?  Hey, this college thing was still new to me... how was I to know something like that was frowned upon?

Okay, okay... I knew... we both knew... exactly what we were doing and the morality of it. I can sit here and try to rationalize it, but I have a feeling you wouldn't let me get away with that.

So, no excuses... I make my confession... and another secret is out.

~*~

Veronica Marie Lewis-Shaw

12 September 2013

(Writing under a large mushroom, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest)

BOOK REVIEW - SHIRA NAYMAN: THE LISTENER

The Listener by Shira Nayman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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I enjoyed The Listener quite a bit more than I thought I would at first.  While part of the story-line was fairly predictable, I was nonetheless caught off guard with the ending.  Yes, I rather liked the ending.  It left me with one of those 'oh!' moments when I read the last paragraph... I like that feeling!

The Listener is certainly deserving of a four star rating here.  Shira Nayman has written, in her second novel, a most compelling story of human frailty.  Her treatment of the main staff and patient characters was especially well done, and she adds a nice depth to the secondary characters as well.

In The Listener, the author uses a descriptive and compassionate narrative style that easily engenders empathy in the reader for the characters Shira has created.  She deals with the subject of mental illness, both those being treated and the persons treating them, with an understanding and compassion that only one who has experience in the field can.

The author shows with a startling clarity that the casualties of war go far beyond those who served and their families.  The consequences of war are not unlike the ripples in a pond when one drops a stone in its center... spreading out and touching everything and everyone in their path.

None of us are immune from the fragile nature of the human mind.

I would recommend The Listener without hesitation.

Thank you.

Veronica Marie Lewis-Shaw
Silverdale, Washington
22 June 2012



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