self-improvement | the Wakefield Doctrine

TT ‘o-anyways’ T -the Wakefield Doctrine- potluck thankful Post and impromptu Book Sale!

October 22, 2016 By clarkscottroger

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

yeah… back to guerrilla browsing at my local Staples!

You know that drawer you have, most likely in the kitchen on the opposite counter from where the forks and knives are kept, maybe (this drawer) has wisely been relegated to the basement hobby corner or even the garage workshop. In (this drawer) are the spare parts, used, batteries (well, because), extra plastic brackets from the last time you replaced the blinds and, of course, the owners manuals from the kitchen appliances (both those that you’re looking at and those that came before them), well today’s TToT post is pretty much that drawer, except made of electron-drawn letters and photos.

The link that connects all the co-hostinae is not yet up, so I figured, if this reality is as virtual as everyone says it is….then today’s post can stand in for a real TToT post, at least until our Founderess Lizzi.

So… since this is not quite office, but we still need to strive for Ten Things, let me start this off with some easy-to-enjoy-(and understand)-photos:

I don't some statement be-moaning the post-industrial decay of the environment or maybe a simple question, 'where are the ducks?'

I don’t know! perhaps I was intending to make a statement mourning the post-industrial decay of the environment or maybe a simple question, ‘where are the ducks?’

yeah, domesticated creatures who enhance the lives of those around them. sure thing

hey, seeing that Dyanne is co-hostinae and she, like, totally likes cats, lets post her blog here: I want backsides I’m sure she’ll tell us that the expression on the cat above is an elegant statement of open-hearted welcome.

The rest of this Post will develop over the day…. you will be hearing about:

Almira

Six Sentence Stories

Our arachnid rustler out (mid)west (that will be close enough, thank you)

Kerry

Denise

Cynthia (who has some very cool news about to break)

Cynthia’s Book is available at the Amazon (no, not the tropical jungle, the giant online seller of…. well, maybe not tropical!) Anyway, until I can get a photo, CLICK HERE

Val

Kristi and a bunch of other interesting things that will number in, at very least, a multiple of ten.

this just in:

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: Personal, personality types, self-improvement, the Wakefield Doctrine

Six Sentence Story -the Wakefield Doctrine-

October 6, 2016 By clarkscottroger

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

Late this week. No, really. It’s 9:15 pm Wednesday. I haven’t gotten my ‘word appetizer’ written down here yet! Best not delay. I can’t remember the last Thursday morning that I had to face a blank page.

Sorry! For the new(er) Readers, Thursday is Six Sentence Story day. Six Sentence Story is a bloghop that zoe hosts every week, in which she provides a ‘prompt word’ and invites all to write a story using, employing or otherwise involving the week’s word. Oh, and the story needs to be six, (no more and no less) sentences long. It’s fun and good practice.

So this week the word is ‘star’.

Star put her bare feet up on the dashboard of the very expensive car, (a Porsche 911 Carrera GTS, but she knew better say anything), as the yellow convertible flew down the Pacific Coast Highway at 90 mph. No longer concerned with her future, at least not any element of it more distant than, say 3 hours, the girl slouched sideways and let her long blonde hair wave to the beach bums, surfer dudes and other saltwater lowlifes staring at the car, now slowly cruising past the beach in Malibu. The sun was hot, the breeze was coy and the smell of the salt air, seaweed and body lotion was intoxicating. Star, having decided that closed eyes might enhance the variety of her options, felt the car come to a halt, the tiny crunching sound of car tires on a sea shell-paved parking lot announced her last chance to find a way to escape the driver of the car.

“End of the line, girl,” the driver’s accent, a confusing mix of Central European guttural aggressiveness and 18-22 year-old lazy charm, made her wonder what possessed her to stick her thumb, (and scantily dressed body) out on the highway entrance ramp only hours after freeing herself from the luxury condominium that held her for 2 nights and a day.

‘All things considered, this is still better than doing nothing,’ she thought, as the frothy roar of the surf tried and failed to mask the shouts of the approaching men.

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: personality types, psychology of personality, relationships, self-improvement, the Wakefield Doctrine

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine-

September 17, 2016 By clarkscottroger

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

(Hi! Lets join this Post, already in progress.)

So I’m sitting at my ‘desk’* Tuesday morning doing the final re-write on Chapter 24 of ‘Almira’, around about 7:00 am. Out the window I can see the backyard and the woods beyond. I realize this will be self-obvious** when you see the video, but frankly this writing jones has me by the throat and so I look at every damn thing I type in terms of ‘how effective a description is that’ and ‘does the reader sense the emotions of the POV character’…. and those are just the emails I send to set up showings to Buyers! (bar rump bump… seriously I am all into trying to learn to write real good.)

(yeah! no, you’re in the right place. This is the TToT weekend bloghop. It’s just that I went and almost completed the post you’re reading, but never got the chance to hit ‘Publish’… shh we’re coming to the good part)

…anyway, I see a disturbance in the woods. At about middle level of the trees, which might be 10, 15 feet up. My first thought was ‘Squirrel fight!’ but then I saw a shape moving between the trees that was the wrong shape and way to big for a squirrel. For some reason what came to mind was one of Carlos Castanadas’ books where don Juan is talking about an ally leaping from tree to tree. I thought, ‘damn! that’s weird’. It went away and I looked back at the computer. A couple of minutes later I looked up and here is what I saw:

So what is it we’re seeing here?

(While clark-from-the-past is figuring how to explain the nature vid in terms of the Wakefield Doctrine, let me just remind you that this is a bloghop that has been handed down through generations of the Lewis family (started, rumour would have it, by none other than CS himself! And this claim clearly has credence by virtue of how rumor is spelled at the start of this parenthesis?) Anyway, every week Ms. Lewis and the 8 co-hostinae invite everyone to stop by and share what gratitudiness things happened in the course of the week since the last TToT.)

1) First time totally has to be the license and latitude we enjoy when writing a List of Ten Things. The only requirement here is that there be Ten Things (or, lacking that, a clever and/or amusing explanation for the deca-deficiency). That is not only very liberal, but if you’re in a hurry and don’t have the time to make up something clever and/or amusing, we have a Book of Secret Rules (aka Secret Book of Rules)!!

2) the BoSR/SBoR is, like, totally full of exceptions, explanations, excuses and emergency exigencies (for example this last Item? SR 3.12.chap;12: ‘A[n] Item is valid and can be counted if the writer checks online dictionaries and, despite not reading the entire entry, uses one of those weird square parenthesis, like in the middle of a word! What could possibly be the grammatical rationalization that legitimizes such things/ …op. cit.

3) Phyllis and Una We went for a walk this evening. She enjoys the walks because she can stick her head out the window and sniff all the scents along the way (this is Una we’re talking about).

4) I better let the Post explanation have some time, otherwise this Post won’t make any sense.***)

Well, it was kinda depressing. It looked, (from my window) to be an injured or tangled up hawk, all, can’t-get-off-the-ground-and-fly-away, so I got up and headed downstairs to go out and see what the problem was. As I got to the doors out to the deck, I decided that I could get a blanket and maybe wrap the thing up, at least if it turned out that the bird’s feet were tangled up in something….

(yeah, yeah, yeah, Clarks gonna go all Marlin Perkins here… I should tell you about this week’s Almira, do a co-hostinea featured spotlight and let everyone get on about their weekend…)

5) so we have a cliff hanger in Chapter 24 of Almira…. if you missed if I’ll wait. …go ahead, click on the Chapter 24 link

6) Featured co-hostinae of the Week: Lisa (here’s a joke/cultural reference that no one will get without googling…’Lisa the Writing TToT’er’) Anyway Lisa has a website, two cats and a family and doesn’t live in a part of the country with: alligators, 8-inches-across-spiders, never-ending-waves-of-grain, the birthplace of a writer that more than 6 of us would recognize by the title of one of their works. She was (according to my interpretation/understanding**** of her ‘real’ life story) a teacher and now is totally full-time writer. She is the owner of both a 2015 Gravity Challenge and a Wakefield Doctrine tee shirt. And, I believe she was a English major. (yeah, I did that on purpose). And, of course, a cohostinae here at the blog that Lizzi built. Go totally mess up the bandwidth on her site: The Meaning of Me or her Facebook Page or her Twitter

7) damn… running out of time, lets get back and see what happened when our courageous blogger went out into the back yard. )

So I stepped out on the deck and we both stopped moving. Me and the hawk, (or falcon or whatever brand of bird of prey it was) looked at each other for a second. Then it occurred to me, I have the Wakefield Doctrine! Total guidance for all of life’s situation and puzzles and such! So I ran a quick (this bird is clearly scottian, I’m a clark…what to do, what to do) reflection and …..

8) Work has been muy stressfulito this week, but I’m grateful for the aforementioned Wakefield Doctrine in that it always allows me some ‘reflex breathing room’ in situations where bad might turn into worse. Thanks! Wakefield Doctrine

9) Item of hypo-gratitude (as clearly permitted by SR 1.78.4) ‘the ending of Summer’

Charging off the back deck I yelled (well, raised my voice) “Hey! bird!! What the hell!!” And, the thing totally flew off into between the pine trees, up off and out of sight. I waited around a minute or so, hoping that it would, like fly overhead and dip a wing in gratitude, which I would totally include as an item in this week’s TToTrainwreck, but no. It just flew away. Probably to kill something small and photogenic.

10) SR 1.3 y’all 1.3

* actually my ‘desk’ is one of those banquet tables with the fake wood tops and the ‘H’ shaped legs that fold up (that, in high school, a clark would know about how to do and tell a scott, who would actually do it… total lunch on the floor. ha. ha.)

** I claim that phrase… just in case you hear it out there, in the ‘real’ world, remember, you heard it here first. (Hey it could happen! I think I’m hearing “That’s not right” (where the inflection takes the phrase from a judgement of correctness and certitude and applies it to an everyday occurrence. ex: You drive away from Dunkin Donuts and your friend realizes that they put cream instead of milk in the coffee. You then remark, “That’s not right!” (As if the mistake was a direct affront to truth, justice and the american way.)

*** yeah, I know!

**** well, this is the blogosphere it’s all about the story we tell the ‘world’ around us

Your hosts

A Fly on our (Chicken Coop) Wall, Amycake and the Dude, Considerings, Finding Ninee, Getting Literal, I Want Backsies, The Meaning of Me, Thankful Me, Uncharted, The Wakefield Doctrine

Join the Ten Things of Thankful Facebook Group

An InLinkz Link-up

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: personality types, psychology of personality, self-improvement, the Wakefield Doctrine

Six -the Wakefield Doctrine-

September 15, 2016 By clarkscottroger

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

Yeah, one of those Six Sentence Stories. In my (partial) defence I will say, this writing thing has become all about practicing. But then again, zoe, the curatoress of this collegial collection of curious and captivating life commentaries and observances (whew! ‘Mr Thesauras don’t fail me now!’) never said we couldn’t use this weekly Six Sentence Story to practice the craft. With the skills and imaginations of the participants here, one cannot help but become a better writer.

BArk

Like a slow-motion film of an avalanche on a snowy mountain side played in reverse, the approaching car begins to slow as it nears the exit, the number of cars entering the shopping center is nearly perfectly balanced with those leaving it. It is not perfectly balanced because cars are leaving more rapidly than they should, given the traffic conditions. It’s early afternoon, the sun is mercilessly bright and over-bearing, if for no other reason than in September it has no competition from summer-afternoon shower clouds and is every bit the schoolyard bully when the teacher, suddenly called back into the colored-constuction-paper prison of brick and linoleum, leaves her young charges un-guarded.
He sees himself in the shinyhard-glass windows, safely slid up, reflected in the averted eyes of the drivers and feels a memory stir, the figure etched in coated glass familiar, but barely recognizable.

The window is down on one approaching car and from the back seat a dog barks a warning, head and forward-leaning ears projecting from the opening of the still moving vehicle.

As the car draws abreast, the driver looks away, the dog stares curiously, tongue now lolling and relaxed and does not bark, the man stares back and sees the acknowledgment of his presence in the simplest of terms, one life to another, the dog does not judge and the man feels the echo of a memory stir, the car moves out into traffic, the dog maintaining eye contact until the car turns away and the man turns back to face his shrunken world.

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: Personal, personality types, psychology of personality, relationships, self-improvement, the Wakefield Doctrine

TTo(reprint)T -the Wakefield Doctrine- ‘…like sand through the hourglass, these are the grains of our lifes’

September 10, 2016 By clarkscottroger

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks scotts and rogers)

Reprint from the First Year August 20 2013 … or maybe August 2001… and you totally need to click here for the really cool part

(Did you click on some of the links of the participants? Mr Peabody be totally eating his heart out.)

So, the reprint is from 2013, that’s 3 years times 10 equals 30 Items!

1) minimus cum irreductibile: Ms L and her co-hostinae and this here bloghop here

2) Una and Phyllis

3) Gravity Challenge… this is the second year, can you believe that?!

4) ‘Almira’ Chapter 24 due out this weekend. Very cool this book writing thing. This time last week I was all, ‘oh man! what am I gonna do?! There’s Dorothy and Eliza marching into St Mary’s, all bold as can be, to see the woman who is in the Charity Ward and here we are, that woman, or rather her story from when she was 16 years old in 1912. How the hell do I account for 27 years? Lucky for me I discovered that Cyril Sauvage (Emily Gale’s older brother who died in the Battle of the Marne in 1918) went to Dartmouth before he enlisted! So the rest is…well, you’ll have to read the Chapter. If you want a preview (sorta) try this Six Sentence Story. (you know… it’s an established fact that Cyril and Sterling went to Dartmouth… and, even as I type, I’m picturing the dates for this to work and… and they line up!… well, how many readers had relatives come and visit them at college, with, say a younger brother or sister come for a Fall Homecoming Weekend or something… maybe go to the Mixer…meet someone…. damn! I’ve said too much already)

5-8) the Reprint below (especially the old links)

9) Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules)

10) SR 1.3

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

I am ‘happy’ to have another Post to contribute to the Ten Things of Thankful bloghop. Created by Considerer with the aid, support, encouragement and participation of Christine and them, this is not your typical bloghop. While there is nothing wrong with the ‘typical’ bloghops (I participate in the Twisted MixTape Tuesday run by Jen (My Skewed View) and Kristi (Finding Ninee) and Finish The Sentence Friday Janine ( ‘mommyholic) and Kate (‘bottle of Whine) and Stephanie (‘for Real) and Kristi.

What makes our TToT different is that it is a true ‘weekend blog hop’. By that I simply mean that it starts this morning and ends tomorrow night. If you want to participate you can do so at any time this weekend…and (here’s the difference) people come and read and Comment throughout the weekend, so if you have trouble today (I am a great example, I have to work today, so I’ll get this Post in and read who ever is around…later in the middle of the day, I’ll pop in and see whats going on…then the end of the day and so on). And… Comments? thats a little different here too! Jump in anywhere we totally believe in cross commenting. So… I think I have put this off as long as I can… my List of Ten Things:

(…yeah, I know!)

(too late to quit now!)

(…lets wrap this up!)

Ok… I had fun doing this…. (did someone just imply that they were….?)

Number 10 I am grateful that I am able to submit the above as my TToT of this Week.

We’re here all weekend (‘try the veal’) Be sure to tip your Waitress… and Comment (‘dammit! Jim I’m a Wakefield Doctrine writer, not a videographer!)