Happy Anniversary!

July 5, 2004: This blog debuts with absolutely no fanfare at all.

July 5, 2007: 380 posts later, this blog is still droning on.

Okay so maybe it’s not really all that interesting when all is said and done but let’s all give a jaunty “thumbs up” to the 3^rd anniversary of the blog version of Bread and Roses anyway (Yay!)

Thanks to all of those who have read B&R over the years…and special thanks to everyone who’ve taken the time to comment.

In the future we only promise more random acts of creative stuff and optimistically cynical nonsense and whatever else the heck happens here (it’s a mystery even to us sometimes…we just go with the flow and hope that it makes some kind of sense…)

Onward…

* * * * *

MKW's Pop Culture Blogstuff: Neverending Rainbow

Okay, So I Couldn't Stay Away...

Yes I freely admit that I missed updating this blog. Bread and Roses was…and hopefully will be again…a great place for me to exercise my writing muscles…to publish pieces that were too short or too offbeat or too whatever to market…and to interact with other writers.

In the two months since I stopped updating this site, I haven’t found an agent but I have completed most of the principal writing on my most personal novel to date and that’s all good (and a good week before my self-imposed deadline of March 13th.) But there are stories and thoughts and vignettes that come into my head and I haven’t had a place to work them out.

And thus I return to this blog (maybe not by “popular demand” but what’re you gonna do? :-)

Multi-tasking is the key. I’ve always been good at that and I’m anxious to get Bread and Roses back into the flow of that.

So ready or not, Bread and Roses is going back online with semi-regular updates.

Perseverence furthers (or so I’m told anyway.)

Hail and Farewell

The year was off to a promising start…quiet, relaxed, filled with the promise of new creative avenues to explore and new horizons to reach for…and then the water heater sprang a leak…

Okay, it’s not that big a deal (well, the unexpected cost of replacing the water heater…more than 10 years old…with a new one was not welcome...those puppies are expensive...but what are you gonna do?) but it made me realize that something’s got to give.

I need to redouble my efforts to find an agent and/or to get published more often (and with more reward…I write because I need to and because I have to but my creditors can’t convert my passion into anything worth their while :-) or, failing that, seek other ways to keep the home fires stoked and the tax man at bay. I need to focus a bit more on the many things I have to do and something’s got to give.

I love this incarnation of Bread and Roses (a scant few of you will know that there was a self-published, subscription-based, pamphlet version of B&R some years ago) but something’s got to give and this blog unfortunately falls into that category.

Time and circumstance are not friends of mine right now and so Bread and Roses is done for the nonce (updates had become increasingly sporadic as it was...)

I can’t begin to tell those of you who have been regular (or semi-regular or even casual readers) of this blog how much I appreciate your kind attention, your comments (positive, negative, or in-between), your positive energy, and, most importantly, the gift of discovering your own writing, observations, and slices of life through your blogs (of course, that includes all of the great sites on the blogroll on the left…all HIGHLY recommended…and many, many more besides.)

I started this blog on July 5, 2004 and I'm putting it on hiatus on January 5, 2006...not a terrrible run and I've had a ball doing it.

Namaste, y’all,
Michael

p.s.- I’m not abandoning the blogosphere completely…my pop culture blog, Neverending Rainbow, will continue to be updated on a semi-regular basis.

Christmas Annex 2005

For the second year I've set up a temporary blog for my fan fiction Xmas tales (including ones featuring the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation and a certain Man of Steel).

"Christmas Annex 2005" can be found by clicking here.

Happy Christmas, y'all :-)

Not So Cynical Christmas Writing Contest

The 2005 winners of Cynic Online Magazine's annual Not So Cynical Christmas Writing Contest are posted as of this writing and yours truly did okay (see here).

Being more optimisitic than cynical during the Christmas season, I have written a number of Christmas stories and I submitted 3 (which was the limit) to this contest. I placed first with one story ("Prodigal Street") which would have been very cool in and of itself but I also took one of the two second place prizes with a second ("The End of the Rainbow") and got an honorable mention for the third ("Another Christmas Story".)

I'd be lying if I said I didn't think it was all very cool.

The stories on the the site (see link in the title or the first paragraph.)

As I've said before, I love this writing stuff (think I'll keep doing it for a bit.)

Thanks

Thanks to everyone who took the time to leave a message on Delurking Day, I really appreciate it.

I just came away from the American Red Cross site after the making the promised donation for every comment (plus a bit more for each of my fellow other Delurking Day participants and a bit more to make it a round number :-) It was much easier to get onto the site than it was a few days back...I hope that is more indicative of increased capacity (or, more likely, the fact that so many have already given) than of anything else.

Special thanks to Ella (yay you! :-) and all of the others who participated in the event.

there's a blood red circle
on the cold dark ground
and the rain is falling down
the church door's thrown open
I can hear the organ's song
but the congregation's gone...
my city of ruins...my city of ruins...

now the sweet bells of mercy
drift through the evening trees
young men on the corner like scattered leaves
the boarded up windows
the empty streets
while my brother's down on his knees...
my city of ruins...my city of ruins...

now with these hands, with these hands,
I pray Lord...
I pray for the strength, Lord...
I pray for the faith, Lord...
I pray for your love, Lord...
I pray for the strength, Lord...

come on, rise up! come on, rise up!
come on, rise UP...

"My City of Ruins"
words and music by Bruce Springsteen
(c) 2002 Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP)

Delurk for Hurricane Relief

The amount of relief needed to help the people on the Gulf Coast survive in the short term and return to some semblance of normalcy in the long term is going to be staggering. Ella of the delightful blog Occasionally Glamourous of a Misused Youth has organized a blog community fund raiser and even though I've already made a contribution to the relief effort, I accepted the invitation to participate.

In a nutshell, for every unique comment left here on "Delurking Day"...Saturday September 3, 2005...I will donate $1.00 to the American Red Cross Hurricane Katrina Relief fund.

Say "hi"...send a prayer or a wish to the victims of the hurricane and its aftermath...read the "New Orleans" post just below this one (or any others here)...just make yourself known. It'll only take a couple of minutes. It's a small thing, of course, but every little bit can quickly add up as the blog community reaches out to one of the other communities that we all belong to (and anything that keeps attention focused on the crisis is, to my mind, all good.)

Namaste.

The Official De Lurking Day Participant List

Ella M. at The Occasionally Glamourous Results Of A Misused Youth
Kay-Dee at The Life Of A Dreamer
Jon at metempsychosis rhetoric
Woodstock at Thoughts That Come Unbidden Department
Jim Carson
J. at Tastes Like Burning
Barbara