From reading and sharing our blogs, I realize how many of us are hoping to find answers and structure in something that is an art form.

Over the past three years, I’ve listened to many fiction, memoir, non-fiction and screenwriters, the most recent presentation I heard was Dean Devlin’s. He co-wrote and produced Independence Day, Stargate and Godzilla. and offered the same two messages as other successful writers:

1). The best way to become a good writer is to write every day. It doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad, just write.

2). Be passionate about what you’re writing. If you’re not passionate, the reader will sense it immediately.

I guess this is a lesson we can apply to all areas of  life. If you practice and you’re passionate about a sport, writing, photography, working out, studies, career, cooking, no matter what it is in life, you’ll become good at it.

So let me ask you this. Could someone mediocre, practice and practice and become a great singer? Which brings me to the question of TALENT. How much of writing is talent and how much is practice? I’ve never heard a well-known author bring up the word talent during his/her presentation. Perseverance and practice but not talent. What do you think?

I have not seen the movie AVATAR in 3-D, but a thought suddenly occured to me: How would a child from some remote African village, one who has never seen a movie react to wearing special glasses and watching AVATAR in 3-D? Would they think the characters were real? Would they run out of the movie theatre screaming? Or would they simply get hooked like most teenagers since the movie surpassed the $1 billion mark.

What are your thoughts on that?

My father lived in Nigeria for over seventeen years and mentioned his visit to a remote African village where the kids had never seen a white man. A mother picked up her three-year-old son who thought my father was a ghost and actually peed on his mom’s skirt from fright. Flash forward to the developed world, with all of our electronic devices and gizmos, i-phones, the new Nexus-One phone, Kindles and the i-Slate, a combination of a Kindle and a laptop (so I was told), and all the computer simulation games, especially war games. This has to impact our kids today and in the future. What are human relationships going to be like in 50, 100, 200 years from now?

One example, which stunned me, was a young couple in their twenties sitting so close together on an ottoman made for one; they looked like Siamese twins. I watched them at the shoe store while my son Jordan, tried on three pairs of shoes. Both husband and wife, yes they wore wedding rings, were involved in a texting relationship with their i-phones, rather than a conversation. I kept wondering: Are they texting one another instead of speaking? Is this what we call communicating today? How will couples relate when they get older? Perhaps this is a good thing for a relationship; at least they won’t be demanding of each other–timewise.

I’m not a huge fan of science fiction movies, but my husband is, so I watch them once in a while. Somehow I justify all this dependence on electronics rather than on real live people, to be necessary to live in the future. I think young kids are so involved with computer games and electronics because that’s the future way to relate to others.

Any thoughts?

 I want to give credit to Marla Jo Fisher from the OC Register newspaper, for her article on Video Games Were Invented by the Devil, this sparked my interest in writing my post today.

If you’re having trouble viewing my video, you can also click here.

Look forward to another year of growing friendships.

“You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

When I opened my comments this morning, Kaci from MY THREE SONS, gave me a beautiful gift. Her kind words made me realize how we can touch people with our written words.

You see Kaci is a single mom raising three sons: 14, 13 and 3, and she wrote: “I have a little story that I wanted to share with you. Last night my 14-year-old son was sitting with me in the living room and he was looking at my blog. He was asking me questions about some of the wonderful blogs I follow and we got to yours.”

Kaci wrote how she’s had numerous conflicts with Coltan, including one on mothers’ day last year, when he was rude and nasty and complained and whined the whole day. “So I have gotten my feelings hurt on more than one occasion with his behavior and words,” she wrote.

Now this is where I come in.

Coltan started reading a blog post I wrote, the one about what does number 11 mean?  I talked about my 21-year-old son coming back from college and that it had been 361 days since I last hugged him.

Kaci’s son looked at her and said, “You mean, you moms really count stuff like that?”  Kaci replied, “Yes, Coltan, a hug or a simple I love you means so much to us.”

Coltan continued reading the part where my son made a comment that truly hurt me, and suggested that he might be joking.