Writing

Bloopers, Typos and Laughter

/ Sheila McIntrye Good, Author / 1 Comment

We’ve all heard the warning, check and double-check spelling, punctuation, and grammar before submitting a piece for publication, but … what can I say, mistakes happen to the best of us. 

If you’ve made a mistake recently, relax. Laughing at one’s self is a sign of maturity, or in some cases, getting ahead of the other guy.

"If you find it hard to laugh at yourself, I would be happy to do it for you." 
Groucho Marx                                                                         CLICK TO TWEET
"Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone..."
―Ella Wheeler Wilcox                                                      CLICK TO TWEET

So, kick back and have a good, old-fashioned belly laugh. It’s good for your health and good for the soul. As demonstrated by these wonderful church ladies with typewriters. 

I can’t take credit for finding these tidbits of laughter. I received them from a dear friend. I tried my to find their origination but was unsuccessful. I did manage to locate them in numerous other places on the net. Angelfire.com,  Beliefnet.com, Lotsofjokes.com, to name a few.

These Bloopers and Typos actually appeared in church bulletins or announced during church services.

    1. The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals.
    2. The sermon this morning: ‘Jesus Walks on the Water.’
    3. The sermon tonight: ‘Searching for Jesus.’
    4. Ladies, don’t forget the rummage sale. It’s a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.
    5. Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community.
    6. Smile at someone who is hard to love.
    7. Say ‘Hell’ to someone who doesn’t care much about you.
    8. Don’t let worry kill you off – let the Church help.
    9. Miss Charlene Mason sang ‘I will not pass this way again,’ giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.
    10. For those of you who have children and don’t know it, we have a nursery downstairs.
    11. Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.
    12. Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.
    13. At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be ‘What Is Hell?’ Come early and listen to our choir practice.
    14. Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.
    15. The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment, and gracious hostility.
    16. Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM – prayer and medication to follow.
    17. The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.
    18. This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.
    19. Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B.S. is done.
    20. The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the Congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.
    21. Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door.
    22. Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance.
    23. The Associate Minister unveiled the church’s new campaign slogan last Sunday: I Upped My Pledge – Up Yours!

Thanks to my friend Jo and all her friends for forwarding these on. I hoped you enjoyed them as much as I did and took them in the spirit they were intended, a good belly laugh and a gentle reminder – check and recheck. Typos happen to the brightest and the blessed of us. No pun intended.

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What are Your Writing Priorities?

/ Sheila McIntrye Good, Author / Leave a comment

To be successful writers, we are encouraged to set goals, make writing a priority, establish a daily routine, stick to it, and we do.

We set word goals, weekly goals, join challenges, write story prompts, and enter contests, all to improve our craft, establish a platform, and reach the ultimate goal – A completed novel, publications in a prestigious literary magazine, and validation.

However, life isn’t always that simple. I attended my critique group for the first time in six months or so. It was like a breath of fresh air and a shot of energizing encouragement. Maybe, I would resume writing. I hadn’t stopped writing, I couldn’t write. It wasn’t a lack of time or writer’s block. I just couldn’t write.

I have an autoimmune disease, which I’ve lived with since 1983. Last June my disease became active and the last year has been a battle. In times like these, you choose your battles and rearrange priorities. I’ve read a number of articles recently about finishing the things you start. I believe it’s an admirable value and one I do my best to live by. I have two novels and memoir I plan to finish when is not as clear now as before.

I realize die-hard writers will say you can find five minutes a day to write. Hell, I think in one my last blogs, I said ten minutes. Sometimes, we have to eat our words. The truth is, it boils down to choices, sometimes you have one, sometimes you don’t, and sometimes you have to make one.

When I began writing, I wanted to leave a legacy to my children and grandchildren. I thought completing my novel would be an incredible accomplishment for me and a gift for them. We all want to be remembered.

This year has been tough not just on me, but our entire family. I’m improving, but as I prepare to sit with my forty-year-old, step-daughter for her first round of chemotherapy, comfort the other step-daughter as she helps her forty-three-year-old husband recover from his first heart attack, or babysit my grandchildren when my daughter is recovering from an acute Crohn’s attack, my priorities must change.

I’m not negating all the advice we receive as writers to work hard toward success. I embrace them, I too pass them on and encourage others to set those same goals and priorities. I love to write, I want to write, and hope one day to have books and stories for my children and grandchildren to pass down. But, the legacy I want most to leave is, Mom was always there when we needed her. 

Do you choose your writing priorities or do they choose you?

Sheila’s Morning Pages: A laugh a Day..

/ Sheila McIntrye Good, Author / 2 Comments

Flicker

You don’t stop laughing because you grow old; you grow old because you stop laughing.”  Michael Pritchard

Okay, I admit this is not mine; I can’t take credit for it. This little gem, as the rumor goes, has been making the Internet rounds, but based on the last six months around our house my husband and I could relate. We enjoyed the best belly laugh we’ve had in a long time. It felt good. Laughing together gave us a moment we shared the rest of the day.  So laugh away. Laughter is indeed good for the soul.

A Senior Moment

The tale is about a woman’s senior moment at the office and the search for her car keys.

The keys were nowhere to be found in the office, so she figured she must have left them in the car. She headed for the parking lot, thinking about the many times her husband had scolded her for leaving the keys in the ignition. As she reached the parking lot, it was empty.

She immediately called the police to report her car stolen. Then she made the most difficult call. “Honey, she said when her hubby answered. “I left my keys in the car, and it’s been stolen.”

“Are you kidding me? I dropped you off at the office,” he said. Embarrassed she said, “Well, will you come and get me?”

He retorted, “I will as soon as I convince this cop I didn’t steal your car.”

Spartanburg Herald-Journal

You can’t deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants. – Stephen King

 

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So It Is With Writing…

/ Sheila McIntrye Good, Author / Leave a comment

Aw spring, my favorite time of the year is finally here. Budding new birth is everywhere you look; people are taking inventory, spring cleaning, clearing out cobwebs, and the clutter of their lives.

As a girl, we started every Spring by opening the windows and letting fresh air blow through the house removing the winter’s stale air. Then, we moved down mama’s list, decluttering closets, washing windows until they sparkled. We whitewashed scuff marks off baseboards, mopped, waxed, and polished the hardwood floors until they shined.

It was an exhausting time for my sisters and me, one we always dreaded, until lying on our beds late at night we inhaled the smell of a freshly spring-cleaned house as the breeze stirred the sheer curtains and the sounds of crickets serenaded us to sleep. Some things are worth the hard work.

So it is with writing …

You outline a novel and fill in the plot or as some do, fly by the seat of your pants until you reach the end of the story and a satisfactory word count. Of course, I’m over simplifying, but you get my drift. When things need to be done, you do them and cross them off your list. Not unlike when I was young and checking off mama’s spring cleaning to-do-list.

Perhaps you’ve wondered why no one was minding the Cow Pasture. Suffice to say; I was hard at work. Not writing, but working on something much harder so I could get back to writing – my health. In 1983, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, Sjogren’s syndrome and others, but over the last five years, things had stabilized.

I thought I had this plot figured out, so to speak, but then what’s a good story without a twist, right? After many years of being manageable, the sleeping giant began attacking my central nervous system. Talk about a twist I wasn’t expecting, this was it. I didn’t know how to talk or write about what was happening, even in the Cow Pasture.

Over the last six months instead of working on my novel, blog or writing short stories, I’ve been outlining a plan to combat this disease and improve my outcome. I’m happy to say things are on track.

Some things are worth the hard work. 

I’m writing again, not using many outlines or sticking to a strict schedule, but writing when I can. Musing from the Cow Pasture Chronicles may include exerts from my novels, Hello Hell, Call Me Florence, a short story, flash fiction, writing topic, an opinion piece, or a chapter from my memoir. Who knows what I’ll share, I’m pretty much a panster these days.

Some things are meant to be enjoyed.

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