A Trip Down Memory Lane: What I Learned in the Hub Patron of the Arts Contest

The hub below is called " I Don't Do Bugs" and was based on a real life experience I had in my kitchen recently. This story actually ended up being in the horror category, much to my surprise!:

I DON'T DO BUGS!

This hub was inspired by a baptism that I recently attended: Don't ask me where I get my ideas from because I have no idea where the story-line for this one came from. The only "real" thing remotely related to this story was the baptism itself!

THE BAPTISM

This next hub was based on another experience I had with someone filing a restraining order against someone I know - and this is how that story played out:

THE RESTRAINING ORDER

And a parents worst nightmare (and yes I will write part 2 for those of you that are wondering what happened to Kristan) Stay tuned!:

When I first learned of the Hub Patron of the Arts Contest, I got so excited that I could hardly sit still! This contest appealed to all my creative senses and every creative process that I love - art, photography, poetry and creative writing. Although I had not written fiction for many many years, I found myself dreaming up stories in my mind - thinking about characters and interweaving parts of my own life into pieces of fiction that had that "what if?" scenario attached to them. Like my hub on abortion: Abortion: It's just a "Fetus"? I found myself reliving a long ago abortion that had left scars on me, and I was able to express something I had always wondered about - what if my baby had really been born alive? Those "what-ifs" had always haunted me and now I was able to express my inner most thoughts in a creative and safe way.

Then came more works of fiction with similar thoughts about some real life experiences that I had gone through. The fictional story about a schizophrenic brother in "A Schizophrenic Episode". As I dug back in my past and relived some tragic moments with my own brother who has schizophrenia, I found myself wanting to share about the the "other side" of my brother - thus The Strawberry Shortcake: A Story about Homelessness was born - a true story about my brother and his struggle with schizophrenia.

It's funny how the creative process works, because as I dug even further into my past, I found some pictures of my brother that brought up some sadness - but also brought me joy as I looked at pictures of him and I growing up. I scanned one of those photos of him and I then published it in the hub. Now I look lovingly at that photo and have fond memories of my only surviving sibling.

One of the awesome things that happened this month was that I found my old wooden box that held much of my older writings from over the last 25 years. I found myself motivated to not only share the Strawberry Shortcake story but to include cute sayings that my children had said growing up. The Funny and Cute Things that Kids Say; Part 1 was born along with it's sequel The Funny and Cute Things that Kids Say: Part 2. I had an absolute blast looking back at all the cute things my sons had said growing up. The 2 days spent writing those hubs gave me a great sense of joy. I found myself laughing at some of those things my children had said so long ago - and now I have actually published that part of our life for others to enjoy too!

One of the cutest things that I found in that box was a slip of paper with a little heart shaped drawing on it. One of my sons had drawn it for me long ago and it has the word "mom" next to it. Absolutely precious!. I know that if I am having a bad day now, all I have to do is go to that hub, take a look at that drawing, and I feel better!

One of the other sweet surprises was finding the copy of my unpublished book Smelly Kelly: A Childrens Book, that I had written back in 1994. This discovery was so exciting that I proceeded to not only make a hub about Kelly but I also scanned the original illustrations that I drew for the book. Seeing all that come together in one place gave me a great sense of accomplishment, and the support I have received from other hubbers has spurred me on to now consider how to actually follow through with getting Smelly Kelly published as a hard cover children's book.

I just love how the creative process works!

Come and Have a Seat on the Porch

(a photo hub that turned into a poem)

The Rose Garden at Shinn Park: Part 2

(another photo hub that turned into a poem)

One of my greatest desires for the Hub Patron of the Arts contest was to publish some poems from a poetry book that I wrote when I was 16. I had taken an awesome class in high school with an instructor that had us write a book with lots of different types of poetry forms. Unfortunately, I was not able to find that book (it's in storage - not lost but simply "buried" right now)

Not deterred however, I pressed on. Because one of my first loves was poetry, I found myself really wanting to connect to that poetic side of myself during the contest, so I decided to give myself a shot at writing verse again. My first poem that I published this month: Abused in the Shadows: A Poem, was the first poem I had written in many many years. The name of this poem was one that had been swimming around in my brain for a couple of years - and I found myself finally expressing some thoughts that I had about verbal and mental abuse.

Another interesting thing also happened during this merging of poems and photos - some of my photo hubs ended up becoming a poem entry because of something in the photo that spurred me to put verse to to it! (Then came the decision: How do I categorize this hub? Under photos, creative writing or prose?)

Decisions...decisions...

Last but not least was the photo entry portion of the contest. This was a category that I absolutely loved because my "day job" is to photograph new born babies. Although I do not own a "professional" camera - I used many of my photos that I have taken with my simple point and shoot camera. One of my favorite subjects that I love to shoot is my favorite "secret spot" - Shinn Historical Park and Gardens in Fremont California. I ended up publishing several hubs on Shinn Park - even one with a video of a "ghost" that I took back in 2005: The Ghosts of Shinn Park in Fremont California.

I did alot of editing and adding of special effects to one of my favorite photos of the sun and moon that I captured together one lucky day. From these photos I ended up making a collection of US postal stamps for my Zazzle account here in this hub: Sun and Moon Photo Gallery - Shinn Park in Google Picasa.

My other favorite photo hub was of my 2 darling room-mates children who posed for me one day at Shinn. Although I used a very low resolution camera because I broke my point and shoot, I showed how anybody can take a "poor" resolution photo and turn it into a masterpiece by using Special Effects and Edits in Photobucket .

My other photo hubs that I published this month are:

The Water Fountain

How To Take Photos for Posting on Craigslist

Gazebo Photo Gallery: Shinn Park in Fremont, California

Shinn Park in Fremont, California: Water Features Photo Gallery

The Rose Garden at Shinn Historical Park in Fremont California: Part 1

And how could I forget the Most Interesting Cat in the World photo hub?. This was such a fun hub to do, poking fun at my classy cat Zorro - who answers to "Wussy Wussy" (it's a parody of the Dos Equis commercials on the Most Interesting Man in the World)

There is also the hub that I put together about the The Art of Calligraphy which talks about my love of calligraphy, it's many applications - and how I learned to be a calligrapher.

And beezy best not forget the "The American Urban Slang Dictionary" - this is where I fo sho got to chill and relax sending Muah out to y'all!

In summary, I have to say that this month at HubPages has been my most productive ever. The Hub Patron of the Arts contest appealed to every aspect of my creative self - I even managed to crank out another chapter of my book :Dorsi: A Story of Redemption(Chapter 13 dealing with infertility) I have written over 25 hubs this month, the most I have ever published in just 3 weeks!

As writing therapy, I was also able to reveal my heart through my last hub: Dear Zach: A Letter to my Grandson. This month I have worked my butt off and my friends and family knew not to bug me because I was in that "zone" (you writers know what I am talking about) I have gotten to sift through old memories, scan in new ones, create galleries of photos of people and places that I love, talk about my distress over not being able to see my grandson, sparked my creative side by adding special effects to photos that I love - and to think about those "what-ifs" through writing fiction again.

I want to publicly thank HubPages for supporting all the writers here and always coming up with new and interesting ways to get us writers to think out of our boxes. The Hub Patron of the Arts Contest was a great way to stretch our imaginations and open our creative artistic souls. For me, this has been a tremendous walk down memory lane in so many respects. Through photos, writing, art and poetry this has definitely been a month I will never forget!

Now....can I rest?

Signing off for now, Dorsi