________________________________
>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>
Around the Bloc
January, 2009
>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>
1. Note from the Editors
2. The Editor’s Corner- Lydia Rule
3. Devotional by Elizabeth Zanders
4. Featured Fiction: Rebirth by Jordan Binkerd
5. Devotional by Judi Weiss
>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>
Psalm 90:9a
… we spend our years as a tale that is told.
>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>
1. Note from the Editors
>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>
The newsletter has been a little delayed in coming (thus breaking my New Year’s resolution to be on time!). Nevertheless, the
newsletter has arrived! There’s a valuable writing lesson to be gleaned here—persistence is what makes you a better writer, so keep
on going (even if you get behind, don’t stop!). J Enjoy!
-
-Debra Weiss
Contact information: thewritersblocgroup@yahoo.com
>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>
2. The Editor’s Corner –Lydia Rule
>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>
You’ve written a masterpiece. You can feel it in your fingertips as you magically type the last word. Unfortunately, no
one else around you feels the same about your written jewel. Rejection letters flood in, and even your parents politely (and maybe even sympathetically) say that what you’ve written is “nice”.
It’s hard to let go of something you’ve written—especially if you’ve poured a lot of emotion and heart into it. But while
emotion is necessary for writing, emotion can also cloud your message and confuse your readers, thus resulting in an unpublished
piece. So how do you know when to let go of something you’ve written?
You don’t let it go.
You recycle it.
Recycling means editing, cutting, deleting, and lots of other words that are rather unpleasant. Use the “Recycle” acronym to
help keep you focused while looking at your beloved masterpiece with a more critical eye...
R- Reuse what you can. Is there sentence with great descriptive power? Use it somewhere else! Is there a plot or theme that could
be reused in a different article? Save it!
E- Energize your words. After you’ve taken all that you can reuse out of your manuscript, give it new life! Make the reusable parts
into a creation of their own… In other words, start over with the gems you’ve collected from your original manuscript.
C- Control the urge to look back. Don’t lose focus and start trying to re-write the original manuscript. Trust me, if everyone dislikes
it, there’s a reason. J
Y- Yield to creativity. Think outside the original boundaries of your first manuscript and dare yourself to come up with something
more meaningful. If you’re having a hard time, ask friends, family, or other writers for ideas. J
L- Let go! If all other recycling measures fail, then it is really time to hit the “delete” button and send your manuscript far far away
where no one will ever find it.
E- Enjoy your writing! Just because you may have written something that didn’t turn out the way you expected, doesn’t provide
you reason to be discouraged! We all have hidden manuscripts safely tucked away in the trash. You’re a writer if you keep going
and tackle that next writing project (hopefully with more success!).
Bio:
as her own.
3. Devotional by
>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>
Burnt Efforts
This morning, I woke up hungry, so I decided to make pancakes. The thought of melted butter running down the sides of
soft, brown cakes, drizzled in syrup, and sweetened with chocolate chunks made me hurry through the preparations. I gathered the
ingredients, mixed them together, lit the stove, spilled rounded portions on the pan, and eagerly waited for them to cook.
As I pulled plates out of the cabinet, I smelled a trace of charcoal.
They had burnt.
I stared in dismay at the blackened cakes, and wanted to groan when my
family members asked if the pancakes were done. "Yeah, um, they're done now." I yelled. "Really, really ,really done." I
muttered underneath my breath.
I had baked the pancakes with good intentions, wanting to make breakfast for my family's enjoyment. So why had they burnt?
What made that happen? The answer came to me quickly. I had taken my eyes off of them, and lost interest.
Have you ever felt that way in your Christian life? Have you started something for God with good intentions, but you took your
eyes off of Him, and became distracted? We can get disinterested in godly things so easily, and it's difficult to stay focused. But
thankfully, we have a loving, understanding, and forgiving Lord!
In 1 John 1:9, it says "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness." No mistake is too big for Jesus! He will forgive us no matter what, and will always love us. We serve an amazing
God!
To keep your eyes on God, learn from your mistakes, and don't repeat them! Think pure thoughts, hang out with good friends
who will help you in your walk with God, read your Bible daily, and try to honor God in everything you do. "And whatsoever ye do in
word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him." Colossians 3:17
>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>
4. Featured Fiction by Jordan Binkerd
>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>
Part 1 (To be continued...)
Blood pooling on the floor beneath me.
Thump-thump…
My shattered knees and shoulder sending screaming sensations throughout my body.
Thump-thump…
My guards, straightening to attention at the sight of an officer entering the room.
Thump-thump…
Thud! Being knocked over onto my back, pain aching through my wounds.
Thump-thump…
Looking up into the face of the Russian officer, cruel and snarling.
Thump-thump…
The officer screaming incomprehensible obscenities and questions into my face.
Thump-thump…
Being kicked in the face for refusing to answer his questions.
Thump-thump…
Looking down the barrel of his sidearm, aimed right between my eyes.
Thump-thump…
Bam! A flash of pain.
Thump…thump.
Darkness…
Understandably, I awoke screaming. Somehow I knew, instinctively, that I had been the principal actor in the previously described drama; disjointed and fragmentary as the memory was. I think that under my circumstances, it was understandable that upon waking up I thrashed about in a frenzy, making a mess of the lab I found myself in—not to say that I’m proud of it, but I think it was an excusable reaction. Papers and datapads were knocked aside and strewn everywhere as I stumbled about trying to process my macabre vision of death.
My first conscious thought was that I wasn’t dead—seemingly self-evident, but unexpected nonetheless. My second conscious thought was to wonder why I wasn’t dead. Not many men can survive being shot point-blank between the eyes, and I’m fairly certain that I was not among the few statistical survivors. My third conscious thought was the realization that not only did I remember dying, but that that was all I remembered.
Once I had regained a measure of control and had calmed down slightly, I began to examine my surroundings. My initial impression was that I was in some kind of medical facility—to be expected, in the unlikely event that I had inexplicably survived my execution. However, the equipment seemed…odd...like something out of a futuristic holovid.
Even stranger was the fact that while checking for evidence of facial damage, I could find nothing. No scar tissue. No stitches. No bandages. There was also no evidence of the injuries to my shoulder or my legs. In fact, I could find no scars on my body whatsoever, and my physique seemed somehow more developed than it should be. However, as I had no memory except for being executed, I had no real standards to judge this last observation against. The absence of scars bothered me…
It finally dawned on me that I had made quite a mess, and I began to try to clean up, picking up datapads and papers and stacking them on the counter. Most of the paper I glanced at were written in cryptic and incomprehensible medical gibberish—but there were also several military dossiers. Printed ones, rare in this age of computerization, as well as ones accessed on datapads. I paid them little attention, intent on trying to fix the mess as much as possible before whoever had apparently saved my life found the room in such disarray. I didn’t want to appear ungrateful, after all…
Like I said, I paid these documents little mind until I spotted my name on one of the dossiers. I somehow knew it was my name, and with it came a flood of images, memories, feelings. I could remember. Everything!
Call me Joshua. I think my name is Joshua Traviss. If that’s not the name I was given, it is the one I have taken. The one name that fits perfectly with the memories in my head. That doesn’t make any sense, of course. Joshua Traviss is—should be—dead, killed in action during a raid on a Russian genetic research facility. I remember—vividly!—dying, yet here I am.
I am—I was—a sergeant in the United States Armed Forces. I had just joined up when World War Three broke out and, in a moment of exuberant patriotism, signed up for Special Operations training. SpecOps training isn’t fun, and I’ll say no more about it here. I was eventually promoted to Sergeant, and over the course of the war my men and I ran numerous SpecOps or BlackOps missions culminating in our ill-fated infiltration of that Russian base that ended—or should have ended—with the inside of my head decorating a wall.
It’s true what they say—that your life flashes before your eyes when you die. It also happens when you’re reborn. I remembered everything—important moments, and random ones. My sixteenth birthday, when my parents bought an old, used, beat up, and totally awesome blue 2049 Mustang, my first job, my promotion to Sergeant… Random flashes from countless missions and exercises flashed before my mind’s eye. Some of the memories were sobering, to say the least. Some of the things I’ve done I’m not proud of. Hard decisions made under pressure that turned out to be wrong, mistakes made that cost the lives of my men…
However, this did confirm my subconscious belief that I should have multiple scars and a couple tattoos, all of which had mysteriously disappeared. It appeared that death had done wonders for my physique. I hadn’t been this fit…ever! Not even in the run-up to SpecOps training, when the stakes were high and only the best made the cut. Things kept getting stranger, as if my mysterious survival wasn’t enough!
I started paging through the dossier. Everything indicated that my memories were legitimate, not an illusion or wishful thinking. But there was something else, something that only deepened my confusion. It was right there in the basic information about me—or about Joshua Traviss, at any rate. It was all there. Name, rank, serial number, date of birth, date of death... Needless to say, this just made me more confused. I tried one of the military datapads, and a basic search turned up the electronic version of the file I held in my hands, excepting the data on my BlackOps missions.
But then I stumbled across a second file, a subsection of a larger report labeled “Project Phoenix.” The file was a mainly medical one, full of terms I didn’t understand. Diagrams and figures varied from the incomprehensible to the easily recognized, like a diagram of a specific DNA sequence or the numerous brain illustrations. It meant almost nothing to me, just more pieces that I couldn’t make fit together. Now I wonder how I missed it.
Zap!
One moment I was standing facing the counter where I had the dossier, trying to make sense of this new information and the next moment I was lying on the floor, gritting my teeth against the pain and muscle spasms. If you‘ve ever been hit with a taser, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, I can’t even begin to describe it to you.
The soldiers that were suddenly crowding the room wore a strange uniform, one I’d never seen before. They were a dark khaki color, and in place of the traditional flag they had a globe with the initials WDF above it and GPK below it. I could make these strange initials fit with any military force I had ever encountered, and as a SpecOps commando I had met them all.
While I was trying to regain firm control of my limbs, another man entered the room. He was short, and was dressed like a stereotypical scientist. He moved nervously, but looked at me with something like mixed fear and awe. He was in turn followed by a younger-looking man whom I assume was his assistant.
“Don’t hurt it!” The scientist pushed through the throng of soldiers. “That thing is valuable property! It’s harmless for the moment, don’t damage it further!”
At his insistence, all but two of the guards left, and one of the remaining soldiers locked the door behind the exiting men. The effects of the taser having worn off by now, I spoke for the first time.
“My name is Joshua Traviss. I’m a Sergeant in the United States Armed Forces. I demand to know who you are and what I am doing here!”
This got quite a strong reaction. The guards, who had relaxed at the insistence of the scientist, were suddenly flanking me once again with death-grips on my arms. The scientist took a couple steps back and became pale. His assistant swallowed audibly. I looked around at them, and tried my hardest to look tough and intimidating. Inside, I was quivering.
The scientist took a couple steps closer, hesitantly. “It’s not possible…” he muttered to himself. “He had the file so—but no, it can’t read. This can’t be happening...” He raised his voice and actually spoke directly to me. “Who do you think you are?”
I looked at him like he was an idiot, trying to provoke him in the hope that he let slip more information than he intended. “I told you, my name is Joshua Traviss,
His voice took on a scolding tone. “Now, now—we both know that you aren’t really Joshua Traviss. You just picked up that name off of the file. How are you able to read?”
How can I read? Who do they think I am, a first grader? I continued my condescending glare, for lack of a better plan. “I’m a Sergeant, in case you missed that. Did they drop the literacy requirement for joining up in the last week or something? Now tell me who you are and where I am! I demand my rights as a prisoner of war!”
The scientist picked up the datapad from where it had fallen when I was stunned by the taser. The scientist started pacing, staring at the datapad, typing, muttering and spewing medical jargon. This is getting weirder by the minute… I caught the eye of the assistant. “What’s he saying?” I asked.The assistant nervously looked at me. “I’m not sure you’d understand,” he said, “but this is all very exciting… It would seem that the abnormal brain scan activity we observed before we awakened you is responsible for this phenomenon.”
“Before I- How long have I been here?” I demanded angrily, prompting the guards to tighten their grips on my arms again. The assistant was saved from answering by the scientist’s interjecting voice.
“What is the last thing you remember before you woke up here?” the scientist asked. “Or can you remember anything? And if not, how did you read the file?”
If I cooperated, I decided that there was a greater chance of finding out what was going on. I described my memory of the execution, ending with “So if you’d like to tell me why I’m here and not lying dead somewhere in
As I told my story, the scientist had gotten visibly excited. He started mumbling again, pacing and studying the datapad, then moved to a wall console and started typing. In a few minutes the console sounded a tone, and a panel opened. The doctor reached inside and removed a hypodermic needle. That made me nervous.
Turning, he started back across the room. “So…you actually think that you’re THE Joshua Traviss? That is VERY interesting. I think I’m going to enjoy running your autopsy! Now hold still—this will only take a minute, and should be relatively painless.” He laughed. “Good thing Charles never loaded your combat training programs, or this might be a bit tricky!”
____________________________________________________
This two-part story will be continued in the next newsletter edition!
____________________________________________________
>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>
5. Devotional by Judi Weiss
>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>
Earthquake
I’ve always thought I had plenty of time. I always thought there wasn’t any need for rush. Then, last Tuesday, an earthquake hit my town, the first one to hit my town since the 1800s. Although no one was injured, it really made me think about some things.
The same thing I heard over the next few days was "The Lord’s coming back soon", and it made me think about if He were to come, would I be ready? The answer, of course, is no.
No one can be ready because no one knows when He will come back for us. What I do know is that I need to stop living like I have so much time because in reality, I don’t. Although I want to go to heaven, just like every other Christian, I’m not sure how ready I am. Especially when there’s so much more on earth that I want to do before my time is up.
I have decided to write a list for everything that I want to do in the upcoming weeks, months, and the year of 2009. It will mean a lot to me if I can cross them all off by this time next year. Some of them I’ll be glad to cross off, more so than others.
When you’re planning what to do next year, no matter how crazy they are, think of the things that really matter to you, and then write them down. Write that book you’ve wanted to write for years now. Publish that poem that you know is worth it. Witness to that someone who needs to know about Christ. Grow closer to your family. Become more involved in your church.
Although it took a small earthquake for me to realize what I’ve been yearning to really do, I’m thankful for it. Don’t wait for an earthquake to shake your world before you do something. Because, chances are, the world won’t wait for you.
Create a free website at Webs.com