Reflections and Nightmares- Irene A Waters (writer and memoirist)

Daily Prompt: Happy Happy Joy Joy.

Posted on January 6, 2014 by Irene Waters 19 Writer Memoirist

My brain is whirring. This prompt almost stumped me. It is such a strange title. Happy happy joy joy. It isn’t English. Not the way I know it anyway.What are my definitions of the words? Happy = contentment Joy = an explosion of happiness and pleasure. Could I somehow write about this, or an experience where this happened. I am often happy. Occasionally my happiness will be enhanced by an unexpected occurrence and joy will be the outcome – however, I don’t feel the creative urge at these thoughts.

Joy comes – I’ve suddenly thought what this title is reminding me of. The musical South Pacific. “Happy, happy happy, happy talk” (full lyrics at end of post.) This was going to lead into a post about my happy holiday in Tahiti on the island of Morea where the filming of South Pacific took place, the mountain featured above being Bali Hai. On checking out the lyrics of the song I’d never really thought much about, apart from knowing the first few lines ( I thought), it became apparent that this is exactly what this prompt is all about.

Happy talk, keep talking happy talk,
Talk about things you’d like to do,
You gotta have a dream, if you don’t have a dream,
How you gonna have a dream come true?

With a positive outlook, happy thoughts, dreams that you’d like to do and have happen the chances of joy being yours is highly likely.

Full Lyrics to Happy Talk from South Pacific

Happy talk, keep talking happy talk,
Talk about things you’d like to do,
You gotta have a dream, if you don’t have a dream,
How you gonna have a dream come true?

Talk about a moon floating in de sky looking like a lily on a lake,
Talk about a bird learning how to flyMaking all the music he can make
Happy talk, keep talking’ happy talk,Talk about things you’d like to do,
You gotta have a dream, if you don’t have a dream,How you gonna have a dream come true?

Talk about a star looking like a toyPeeking through de branches of a tree,
Talk about a girl, talk about a boy,Counting all de ripples on de sea
Happy talk, keep talking happy talk,
Talk about things you’d like to do
You gotta have a dream, if you don’t have a dream,How you gonna have a dream come true?

Talk about a boy saying to de girl: “Golly, baby, I’m a lucky cuss!”
Talk about a girl saying to de boy: “You an’ me is lucky to be us!”
Happy talk, keep talking’ happy talk,Talk about things you’d like to do,
You gotta have a dream, if you don’t have a dream,How you gonna have a dream come true?
If you don’t talk happy and you never dream,Then you’ll never have a dream come true.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/01/05/daily-prompt-happy/

Posted in Daily Post prompt and challenges, musings | Tagged Bali Hai, Daily Post, daily prompt, DPchallenge, South Pacific musical, Tahiti | 6 Comments

Silent Sunday: 5th Jan 2014

Posted on January 6, 2014 by Irene Waters 19 Writer Memoirist

Posted in Silent Sunday | Tagged Photography, Silent Sunday | Leave a comment

Daily Prompt: Beyond the Pale

Posted on January 5, 2014 by Irene Waters 19 Writer Memoirist

Beyond the pale

outside the bounds of acceptable behaviour.

“the language my father used was beyond the pale”

synonyms:

unacceptable, unseemly, improper, indiscreet, unsuitable, irregular,unreasonable, intolerable, disgraceful, deplorable, outrageous,scandalous, shocking, insupportable, objectionable, offensive,distasteful;

informalnot on, not the done thing, out of order, out of line;

datednot quite the thing;

informalover the fence;

rareexceptionable

“his behaviour was beyond the pale”

In Australia the above is the meaning for beyond the pale. The pale being the containment area for the British on foreign soil and anything/body outside of these boundaries being potentially considered unacceptable. Perhaps in the USA the meaning is different as we are to write about new.

As I cannot bring to mind unacceptable behaviour that is also new I am going to write (as requested) on going outside the box (? pale) and doing something which took me into new realms.

On our move to Vanuatu we took a kit home to build having been told that there were no builders and it would be cheaper ti bring a home with us than having something built on the island. This was the first house that we had built but we were directors instructing the local lads on their tasks. My husband picked up a hammer at times but I played no physical role. I was the plan interpreter and jigsaw puzzle solver when it came to putting the frame together.

Later, having opted for early retirement we decided to work as builder’s labourers in a large renovation we were having done on our house. This time we had a builder giving us the instructions and we were the local lads.

Having enjoyed the experience but finding that we did not enjoy living in town we purchased a few acres on which, with the knowledge gleaned from the builder, we would build a house, totally alone, apart from bringing in slab pourers, electrician and plumbers. These were trades that, by law, we were not permitted to do ourselves.

The slab layers we discovered did not know how to square a slab. Their eyes glazed over as my husband talked to them of the golden ratio/pythagorean theory. But luckily we caught them before the pour and managed to rectify the problem.

The next error was mine reading the plans. I couldn’t work out which frame to put to the corner of the slab and of course I chose the wrong one resulting in the frame hanging off the end of the slab on one side and slab over on the other. Luckily my husband twigged to this after the erection of only two rooms so we didn’t have to deconstruct too much.

The frame up it was time to put up the rafters. The first roof truss we erected on the ground then positioned on top of the frame. We tied a rope to the apex; the plan being to pull the rope whilst one of us prevented the base slipping off the frame. It would be elevated to its position and the puller would then race and screw it to the frame whilst the other held it . This of course was impossible. We tried other permutations but there was no denying it we were a man short and I just wasn’t strong enough. Luckily it was veterans day at the golf club so my husband managed to enlist an elderly husband and wife to help us. It took a day but the first truss was up and we worried how we would do the others as this one was the smallest as it was a hip roof.

We continued in this vein, success followed by difficulty or injury but eventually the house was completed, its final council approvals given and in we moved. Our sense of satisfaction and pride whenever we looked at the house was immense.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/01/04/daily-prompt-new-2/

Posted in Daily Post prompt and challenges, Memoir, photography | Tagged Australia, building houses, Daily Post, daily prompt, DPchallenge, memoir, owner builder, Vanuatu | 8 Comments

Daily Prompt: Truth or dare

Posted on January 4, 2014 by Irene Waters 19 Writer Memoirist

As a small child I was taught to tell the truth and this I did unwaveringly until I got into trouble for telling it. I cannot remember exactly what the incident was but I know it was something to do with the old man we had seen that morning from my bedroom window. We had watched, with the nasty type of glee that only children have, as the chaps’ toupee blew off in the wind. I must have later imparted the news that he was bald and I was left in no doubt that I had done the wrong thing. “But you told me I should never tell a lie” I informed my parents. The lesson of the white lie versus the black lie was then taught to me. Black and white became a little less black and a little less white, greying but resistant to the change.

It appeared that if what you were going to say was going to hurt someone then you must lie. If what you were going to say was going to hurt yourself you had to tell the truth – lying in this instance not being permissible. It seemed jolly unfair to me until my level of understanding increased with my maturing age. When I really did see things in grey.

So how does this fit in with memoir writing. You are writing about yourself therefore you must tell the truth. Your readers expect it. At the same time there are other people involved and at times what you write may hurt them so are you then compelled to lie? The question of truth and honesty in memoir is a much written about subject. There are instances such as James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces which have created much controversy as it was sold originally as a memoir when it was more fiction than fact.

Creativity is allowed in the dialogue used and in the blurring of time frames, otherwise a memoir must be true. When it comes to the truth in the narrative however, the situation becomes a little more difficult as each person’s reality (truth) will be different. Therefore if the author’s remembrances are not true but it IS the author’s reality, is this then the truth?

Then you need to consider the other people in the memoir. How important are they to you? I don’t believe that you can change events to protect as that is lying about yourself to your audience. Either the book cannot be written until that person is gone or written as fiction or under a pseudonym. Or take the dare, bite the bullet, talk to the person and hope for the best as in memoir writing, truth is paramount.

Daily Prompt: Truth or Dare

Other entries

You Can Take Your Bucket List And Shove It | The Jittery Goat

Posted in Daily Post prompt and challenges, memoir writing | Tagged Daily Post, daily prompt, DPchallenge, memoir, memoir writing | 15 Comments

Weekly Photo Challenge: Beginning

Posted on January 4, 2014 by Irene Waters 19 Writer Memoirist

Day begins early at Hoan Keim Lake (Lake of the Returned Sword) located in the historical old centre of Hanoi. At 0430 am with the thick blue fog it is barely possible to see from one side of it to the other. Around its edges, the teeming mass of people partake in many activities from meditating

to scarf twirling, table tennis and numerous martial arts and exercise routines such as tai chi.

As the mist lifts around 5am it becomes possible to see to the other side of the lake and the activities that are happening.

From the beginnings of their day exercising at the Lake these people will be at work – most by 6am; the time that most people are just considering beginning their day in the Western World.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/01/03/photo-challenge-beginning/

Posted in Daily Post prompt and challenges, photography, travel | Tagged Daily Post, Hoan Kiem Lake, Photography, postaday, Vietnam | 6 Comments

Daily Prompt: Progress

Posted on January 3, 2014 by Irene Waters 19 Writer Memoirist

By the 2nd of January I had hoped to write an About this blog page and post it. When I commenced this blog in August 2013 I had absolutely no idea what a blog even was. I certainly didn’t have a clue what I was going to write about. I had just completed my memoir Nightmare In Paradise and was on the search for a publisher. That road is proving to be a long and so far fruitless one and I am resolved that one way or another it will be published this year. It was because of this quest that my blog started to give me a presence in the world. Mind you, I already had a presence, albeit only to my family and friends, I needed to expand that. To this end I started writing this blog. I chose not to blog about my manuscript although I have no doubt my tale is riveting. I chose not to blog about my next manuscript After the Nightmare for the same reason. Perhaps, I thought, a publisher will not take on that which is already read. Whether I be right or wrong following this principle I started on stream of conscious writing looking at childhood memories. Not my best writing but it was fun for me though I can’t see that it would be of much interest to anyone else – apart from maybe being a prompt for their own memories. In the process of doing this my petmoir emerged. Interesting, at least for me, as it starts in childhood with a childish voice and moves through to adulthood, triggering a few memories, which I keep on the sideline, of some of the traumas of my life. Some of these I have never spoken about to anyone and expressing these, even indirectly indicated healing – progress made but in a way other than my blog. The other thing to emerge from my childhood reminiscences was the photo archives. Add that to the discovery of photo challenges and a whole new direction emerged. If only the writing prompts grabbed me in the same way – mind you, I am writing this in response to a writing prompt. A new past-time resulted from the challenges – the Haiku. More progress. I am starting to know what I want to do with this blog. This blog, this year will see the petmoir completed, will see photo challenges entered, haikus written, and stories written (some fiction, other not) woven in among these. Okay, there doesn’t seem to be much progress there as that sounds much as I was doing last year. The foundations have been laid and there will be a difference, by a layer or two, and that will be progress.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/01/02/daily-prompt-progress/

Posted in Daily Post prompt and challenges, memoir writing, musings, photography | Tagged Art, blog, Daily Post, daily prompt, DPchallenge, Haiku, memoir writing, Online Writing, Photography, Writers Resources, writing, Writing Exercises | 9 Comments

A Lingering Look at Windows: Week 1

Posted on January 2, 2014 by Irene Waters 19 Writer Memoirist

Drawing close to Shore

You wonder what awaits you

on land; hope, despair

A Lingering Look at Windows: Week # 1

Posted in Daily Post prompt and challenges, haiku, photography, poetry | Tagged A lingering look at windows, Haiku, Haiku and Related Forms, Photography, Poetry | 7 Comments

Cee’s Black and White Challenge: Cars

Posted on January 2, 2014 by Irene Waters 19 Writer Memoirist

I normally pay no attention to cars but I have been to two museums that I would highly recommend if you are in the vicinity. The first is the Sinsheim Technical Museum in Germany and this will one day be given its own post. The other featured here is the Southward Car Museum at Parapapaumu on the North Island of New Zealand.

We knew this museum existed and didn’t have plans to visit but, after lunching with relatives, decided to go. What a great decision. It has the largest collection of old cars in the Southern hemisphere and for my husband it was a trip down memory lane. My favourite was the 1950 cadillac gangster car owned by Mickey Cohen.

Other memorable cars they displayed included Marlene Dietrich’s Cadillac cabriolet and a 1915 Stutz Indianapolois race car, gull-winged Mercedes -Benz and an 1895 Benz Velo.

The museum collection was began by Len Southward in 1956 and his collection displayed in the purpose-built museum which opened to the public in 1979. Although there was a huge range of cars we looked in vain for my husband’s first car, which he bought when 16 years old whilst he was still at school. It was the first Bond mini car which was a three-wheeled vehicle with no rear suspension. Powered by a motor cycle engine, it had no reverse gear so it did not require a car licence to operate it.

They did have on display the three wheel Reliant.

The three hours we spent there flew.

CBWC – Black & White

Posted in Daily Post prompt and challenges, travel | Tagged black and white photography, Cadillac, cars, Cees black and white challenge: cars, Germany, Marlene Dietrich, Mercedes-Benz, Mickey Cohen, Museums, New Zealand, North Island, Photography, Southward Car Museum, vintage cars | 4 Comments

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Reflections and Nightmares- Irene A Waters (writer and memoirist)

Daily Prompt: Happy Happy Joy Joy.

Silent Sunday: 5th Jan 2014

Daily Prompt: Beyond the Pale

Daily Prompt: Truth or dare

Weekly Photo Challenge: Beginning

Daily Prompt: Progress

Cee’s Black and White Challenge: Cars

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Follow Blog via Email

Buy Nightmare in Paradise

Recent Posts

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Archives

Categories

Blog Stats

Pages

Irene Waters

Blogging Challenges Available

Monthly early each month Times Past

Every Weekend Weekend Coffee Share

Sunday: Sunday Stills

Meta

Blogs I Follow