Sunday Paper

The best part of Sunday is getting up and grabbing my coffee along with the Sunday paper. I used to read two papers a day but it just got to be too much so these days I limit myself to the Sunday edition of the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel. Besides the ads for sales at my favorite stores and entertainment section with book reviews and bestseller lists, I enjoy the sports section. At this time of year, I can catch up on winning and losing football teams, especially at the college level. I've been a University of Miami Hurricane fan for the past twenty years. And sometimes--but certainly not at the moment--I'm interested in the Miami Dolphins.

So even though I'm sipping coffee--all relaxed and simply in the moment, I invariably reach for a pair of scissors and start clipping. It's amazing how many ideas for novels or characters come from reading this thick paper once a week. In particular, this week I found a terrific article titled, "Polo clubs changing to win more fans." Several of the polo clubs in my area are undergoing extensive renovation and at least one will now offer evening polo in a lighted playing field. Since one of my main characters is the captain of a polo team, this info was invaluable. I have several boxes of such clippings that I frequently sort through when I'm looking for inspiration. You can be sure I'll attend at least one of these evening matches this winter. (The polo season in Palm Beach county runs from about late November through April.)

This week I spotted an interesting website review for a site that translates English into other languages. It's www.freetranslation.com and will be a resource I'll use often. I usually have at least one character who speaks another language and so often need short phrases or sentences in Italian, Greek or German. I checked out the site and had fun plugging in some of my more normal responses and quickly had the translation. A real time saver for me.

Also, last week several of the boards I'm active on discussed a writer's fears and anxieties with much back-and-forth input for both unpublished and published writers with solutions and accounts of personal experiences. One member today summed up the past weeks posts with this observation, "The bottom line I'm hearing is to just do it and not stress out over things; to trust your inner creativity and talents."

Ditto.