COPIED THIS POST FROM MARK TWAIN

It still is fascinating how universal good writers are:
Came across this today from Mark Twain.

"Whenever I am about to publish a book, I feel an impatient desire to know what kind of a book it is. Of course I can find this out only by waiting until the critics shall have printed their reviews. I do know, beforehand, what the verdict of the general public will be, because I have a sure and simple method of ascertaining that. Which is this -- if you care to know. I always read the manuscript to a private group of friends, composed as follows:

1. Man and woman with no sense of humor.
2. Man and woman with medium sense of humor.
3. Man and woman with prodigious sense of humor.
4. An intensely practical person.
5. A sentimental person.
6. Person who must have a moral in, and a purpose.
7. Hypercritical person -- natural flaw-picker and fault-finder.
8. Enthusiast -- person who enjoys anything and everything, almost.
9. Person who watches the others, and applauds or condemns with the majority.
10. Half a dozen bright young girls and boys, unclassified.
11. Person who relishes slang and familiar flippancy.
12. Person who detests them.
13. Person of evenly balanced judicial mind.
14. Man who always goes to sleep.

These people accurately represent the general public."

Recommended by @MaraBG

After reading my post below, @MaraBG led me to this song--truly appropos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysgAbwKub7Y

Wishcrafting on Twitter: Isolation is the killer of Dreams

My friend @MaraBG on Twitter organized a book party @#booktweet. It was around Barbara Sher's book, Wishcraft, released as a e-book on her website as a 30 year birthday celebration. I downloaded the PDF format to my Adobe and saved it on disk. Then proceeded to read the first several chapters. If you haven't already read it, I recommend it. It's an easy read; not a full-of-herself type of self-help. I should say it is not a self help but rather an others help others book. Her premise is that we cannot do it alone: "Isolation is the killer of dreams." If we look in the front of every book published--at all the acknowledgements, we can see the tip of the iceberg of how it takes a village maybe even a world to get something done. The book provides a step by step series of exercises to do by yourself and then with others who are on the journey to making dreams be fulfilled. Numerous anecdotal moments both saddened and delighted me. The road to success is full of potholes, after all. Sometimes, when we get stuck, we need a towtruck, or a passer by's timely arrival. Those moments create the magic so that dreams become fulfilled.
BTW, if you're interested in being someone's towtruck or that Good Samaritan passer by, let me share how one did it: my true story of when my car broke down one night many years ago in a bedroom town on the outskirts of L.A.
The streets were vacant and dark. My friends and I called a friend that I knew lived in that town (I lived quite a bit farther away) and asked if he knew where an open service station would be. He knew of only one; he asked me where I was and said he'd be over. He came; pushed the car gently to the nearest station and after talking with the owner for a bit, told me that the attendant would work on my car as soon as they finished the one on the lift. I was ready to go into the station to sit on those hard plastic chairs smudged with grease stains, but he called me over to his car and unlocked the trunk. In it, he had a picnic basket full of tasty finger food treats and a bottle of wine with glasses, water bottles and a thermos of coffee. (He says he always has a basket ready at any time.) We all sat and sipped and nibbled and chatted--he'd brought enough for all four of us to enjoy over the next two hours waiting for my car to be fixed. We followed up with water and coffee (no drinking and driving for us) and I went home that night with a smile. A bad evening evolved into a wonderful time and I got by with a little help from my friends. I think Barbara Sher (and the Beatles) would have approved. :)

After a friend noted That Anonymous Poet wrote tons of bad poetry

Indeed, anonymous wrote much.
It really was a crutch
To speak of such and such.
Though often out of touch
Using too big words such
As forasmuch
Or inasmuch
Yet in the attempt to clutch
At fame, anonymous stretched overmuch
To arrive at silly poems; nonesuch
Earned as much
As a penny or such.

by Anonymous (unless you like it, then I wrote it :D)

Leelu My Cat Plays Paw and Pat

I present my foray into children's poetry

Leelu, my cat
Walks into my flat
Her tail in the air
As she smells here and there.
I smile and tap
Upon my lap.

She jumps
And bumps
And nuzzles my nose
To tell me
That she's glad she chose
To play
With me
This day.


Leelu, my cat
Says meow in our chats

She eats
Cat treats

And plays Paw and Pat


It’s a game we play.
And we like to say
That We made
It up so we show
How it’s played.

Others, I know
Play it too,
So it must be
They copied
My sweet Leelu.....

Let me know if you want to see the rest of the poem :)

LEELU EXPLORES

Leelu head buts me over the covers. I squint with one eye as her second attack moves in to remind me that IT's TIME TO FEED ME. So I stumble from under the covers tripping and stubbing my toes on whatever the animals have played with overnight that now litter the floor and head to the bathroom where a private dining area has been erected for her eating pleasure. She leaps from tile floor to toilet to her counter top where she whines while waiting for the pop and kawhoosh of the lid of cat food.

The kawoosh of a can lid screams the siren call to all animals--the dogs and cats line up for the licking (akin to kids getting to lick the spoon, bowl and spatula of the remaining chocolate icing.) Plop and scrape; the whining grows insistant.

I use a cat food spatula--tiny enough to scoop every morsel from under the rim, although nothing beats the camel-like-tongue of our doberman mutt; she can sniff a microscopic morsel from 200 yards and beat everyone off the line to get it. She shows a "gimme" attitude for when she arrives on any scene, if another animal beats her to the morsel, she'll wiggle her large behind to insure she gets more than her share. It's hard to argue with the biggest butt around.

Meanwhile, Leelu, impatient, bounds off the counter, skimming the toilet seat (it's important to keep it closed for her access as well as keeping the dogs from using it as an alternate water bowl) and tangling my legs until I bang the dish on her counter alerting her to her breakfast pleasure.

Ah pleasure; she mews her 'thank yous' intermittently between bites. Chomp. Mew *thank you," chomp, Mew "thank you", chomp, Mew "this tastes great", chomp, Mew "thank you," chomp, "I love you." chomp, Mew "thank you" and so on until she's done. She's a social buterfly. I think she keeps up the conversation so I won't leave her to eat alone. Now, Jaz is anther story. Jaz, the cat, loves her privacy. But that's another day.

DISCOVERING TWITTER

Writing a short phrase was never my strong suit. Perhaps that is why Twitter fascinates me. With the limitations of characters, it forces me to be precise and concise in my Tweets. It's also a quick fix into networking. Since the points of contact are short and sweet, perusing them is fast and furious. Suddenly, I'm at the doorstep of extraordinary people around the world that I can tune into with a click of my mouse. Blogs, however, offer me the chance to delve further into what others are doing and present more of myself.