Janna Hill

Author

Tuesday’s Tell-All (I’m Just Not that Good at Being Smart)

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I tend to lag in technology, often years behind the rest of the civilized world. I never claimed to be tech-savvy or even civilized, okay?

Truth is I only got a “smart phone” this year for lack of choices. I went kicking and screaming into the “smart” realm with no intention of using it for more than basics.

After a few months [eight really] I installed the Facebook app. Apparently you need a second app for Messenger so I hit the okay/install that too button.

Alright. Welcome to the year 2017.

So there I was creeping Facebook on my desktop, minding my own business while the app did its thing and suddenly I am bombarded with alarms. The phone started chiming erratically,  messages were rolling in with GIFs and crazy stickers and emoji’s. At the same time my cousin is texting me, asking if I just sent her something.

No! Oh hell, this demon possessed phone has a mind of its own!

To make a long [list of deleting apps] story short… My daughter explained the particularly bothersome app; how Messenger notifies your Facebook contacts with a suggestion to wave/interact.

Oh.

Well I waved bye to most of the apps and went back to using the phone as a paperweight.

Yeah.

I understand now why people are glued to their devices. Bless their hearts, I’m just not that good at being smart.

 

 

Friday’s Free-for-all (Re-writing Rhymes & Riddles)

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Taking another stab at Writing for Children

Pete and Repeat sat on a wall

Repeat fell off

 

 

 

Now Pete can finally move on

TBT (Summer Blowout)

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Summer Blowout

Throw Back Thursday just became Rollback Thursday.

Remember (fifty or 100 years ago) when you could buy books for .25¢ to .99¢

Well we’ve partnered with Google Books/Google Play so you can throw it back to the good ole days.

When the chief suggested these penny sales (I’m talking 25¢, 33¢, 49¢, 54¢, 78¢ and 99¢ books) I was like, Whoa. I don’t think you can do that.

 

 

 

 

When he assured me we could indeed, I was quite amused.

 

 

 

 

So it appears we are slashing prices and doing away with dollar$ for the entire month of August. I know it’s cRaZy but it also makes cents.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now if Starbucks would follow suit…

 

 

No Such Thing As Ghosts

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Ernest Hemingway’s study in Key West, Florida.

Note the portrait in the background. Sorry, I don’t know who the artist is but I thought it meshed well with the poem No Such Thing as Ghosts. I snapped this photo last February after a long ride through the keys with Ernie. 😉

No Such Thing As Ghosts completes chapter 17 in Unjustified Favor (Clan Destiny Book III)  after an ordeal forces Lawrence Jeffcoat to rethink his beliefs.

… ghosts were manifestations of irrational fears and folklore. Ghouls, phantoms, spirits – those were make-believe stories invented for campfires and fiction.

HEMINGWAY'S STUDY OVER POOLHOUSE (1024x650)
Hemingways ghost in portrait

Embedded images leave their trace

Like fossil shells have marked their place

Many share this tiny space

Though each in their own time

 

The essence of an empty room

The hint of a gardenia’s bloom

A peek in to the sixth sense loom

All treasures of the mind

 

Shadows catch the outer eye

Wind railed whispers cross the sky

Nothing ever really dies

They simply pass beyond

—

 

Once Upon a Dead Gull (TBT)

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Throw back Thursday.

Rated G for gross

dead gull (4) (1024x682)

The gruesome photograph that inspired the title [and the book cover] for Once Upon a Dead Gull.  That was 3 1/2 years ago and [amazingly] this cover hasn’t changed.

A peculiar short story anthology, I admit, but it was written for the horror genre.
Even more peculiar is that none of these stories are about a dead gull.
The poor seagull’s parting gift to mankind…  to me, was simply to inspire a title I had been struggling with.

Spring by Edna St. Vincent Millay (A Poem & A Picture)

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SPRING FLOWERS A Poem & A Picture Spring

From Second April (Courtesy of everypoet.com Classic Archives)

SPRING

By Edna St. Vincent Millay

To what purpose, April, do you return again?

Beauty is not enough.

You can no longer quiet me with the redness

Of little leaves opening stickily.

I know what I know.

The sun is hot on my neck as I observe

The spikes of the crocus.

The smell of the earth is good.

It is apparent that there is no death.

But what does that signify?

Not only under ground are the brains of men

Eaten by maggots,

Life in itself

Is nothing,

An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.

It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,

April

Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

Don’t you love the last line(s)? They do strike a chord with me — maybe because I am just living out loud and flinging cake against the wall, right?!

Getting Me Back (The Voices Within) released this month and is now available in digital or paperback. AND to show my appreciation for your support there will be a gift of random books by ‘moi’ each weekend in April. Check in, check them out and follow my Author Page at Amazon for future updates.

P.S. A little history on Edna St. Vincent Millay: After her husband’s death from a stroke in 1949 following the removal of a lung, Millay suffered a great deal; she drank recklessly, and had to be hospitalized. A month later she was back at her farm (Steepletop) where she  passed a lonely year working on a new book of poems. She died in 1950 of a heart attack. For more about her works and life visit Poetry Foundation.