Writer's block?

Who gets writer's block? Me, that's who! Well, I'm getting over it. I'm tired of it. I'm going to write until something clicks. Is that how you get rid of it? Someone let me know...

New lenses on Squidoo

I thought a lot about my lens on Duke Ellington and the author Andrea Pinkney and consulted a big Squid, Margaret Schaut. She gave me a lot of great ideas on how to write my new lenses. That's right: more than one lens. I'm going to focus on the author, then I'm going to focus on her subjects. Two subjects in particular are Duke Ellington, king of jazz, and Alvin Ailey, father Modern Dance. So, in the meantime, for the weekend, I've updated all six of my lenses. Check it out! Catch you later.

My writings

I'm very excited about my Duke Ellington page. I think it's very organized and it's going to include the author of this tween book as much as it is going to be about Duke Ellington. So this is where I'm headed. I love the writings of Andrea Pinkney. She writes for the tween audience and her books are really interesting. Other subjects she's written about include Alvin Ailey (I'm a huge modern dance fan), Ella Fitzgerald, and letters from a slave girl to Abraham Lincoln (historical fiction). Could I become a writer for the tween audience? We'll see...

My new squidoo page about Duke Ellington and author Andrea Davis Pinkney

The title of the lens is "Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and His Orchestra". This is also the title of a children's book written by Andrea Davis Pinkney and illustrated by her husband, Brian Pinkney. My 4th grader read this story from her school reader aloud to me. It was the story of Duke Ellington from a unique perspective. The book takes a look at his early days, learning the piano, hooking up with his band and their start in New York. This lens will provide a synopsis of the book, a short biography of the author, and listings of her other works. Points in the Duke's career will be highlighted, so as to round out the lens, providing a complete history (hopefully). I plan providing a link in which you can play some of the Duke's music. I'm thinking of including a discography and filmography, or at least links to those lists. This is the plan. My computer will not allow me to work on it right now - I will be getting a new notebook in early March (yay!) so I will be able to work much faster. "Tomorrow's another day" - Missy

Future postings

I have all these thoughts flying around in my head and I'd like to just write about them all right now. Only I need time to research them further. So, here's what's going on in my head today (and you will probably see some squidoo pages on these topics later): 1) A new documentary is out about "Media Malpractice". Its focus is on Sarah Palin and how she was treated unfairly by the media during the election process. 2) Red carpet fashion. I can't help myself. I love watching the stars on the red carpet and giving my opinion on what they are wearing. I'm not like the fashion police on E! though. They are almost mean sometimes. I don't always agree with their opinion. 3) I have to research this and find out what these banks and mortgage companies are doing with taxpayers' money. My first reaction is to be very angry. But I need to find out the facts before I get on my soapbox. 4) Sean Penn's acceptance speech for the Academy Award for his performance in "Milk" inspired me. I have a few things I want to talk about that cover equal rights. I am especially interested in women's rights. This is the just the first topic I'm going to cover that has to do with equal rights for all. My first thought (which may be your first thought about this) is "Oh, here we go again! These people are always squawking about how they're being treated unfairly." But in actuality, the truth is we all need to keep "squawking" until someone hears us. Way more to come on this later. 5) My husband was talking about the KKK and the fact that at one time they had 50,000 members. I have to research this because I was shocked at the different statistics he was spouting off. 6) I like to talk about simple things like my cat, my daughter's activities, my dog, where I'd like to go on vacation and what I would like to do there. 7) My inability to clean and do laundry and be a good little housewife. What is wrong with me? How do I turn this around? This ties into how I feel about myself, I think. I'd like to explore this in more detail. 8) My feelings on religion. What are my feelings on religion? My Catholic guilt, my upbringing... (dot, dot dot!!!!) 9) Harry Potter. I'm obsessed. I am the biggest Harry Potter fan of all. I win, I'm the greatest. I'm sure I have a lot more to talk about on this subject. 10) I love to talk about tv shows, movies, music, entertainment. I love all genres in these categories except I don't like country music very much. I always find something to talk about on these subjects. 11) A topic that I think has been getting some attention lately is: should marijuana be legalized? I'm not sure if I want to delve into that one right now. May be in the distant future. This is what I may be talking about on this blog and on my squidoo pages because I'm totally addicted to squidoo. Right now I think I'm going to start a new page. Thanks for reading, I'll catch you online.

Opening my blog

Well, this is very exciting for me. I'm opening up my new blog in which I plan to post my "musings". Sounds good with my name. Actually, I'm going to write about topics that are bouncing around in my head in an effort to clear up space in my brain and make it more orderly. That is the perfect description for my blog because there's a lot going on up there and it needs ORDER. Some people get out their frustrations by working out, painting, or expressing themselves with some physical activity. The best activity for me is to have my fingers moving on the keyboard. So this ends my first post! Nothing much exciting but I hope to have people enjoy this blog sometime in the future.