What’s Changing, What’s Not!

June 3, 2013

(sneak peek)

CHANGE IS IN THE WIND! 🙂

My New Site:

The blog address will change. Unfortunate but necessary.

The page format will be so much more compact and easy on the eyes!
Fun, fresh, colorful and soothing!
Bye-bye black background!

Content: my new blog will be called
“The Inspired Life.”
And you will recognize its content and writing style if you’ve been reading me here.

There will be a few other things on the site for others as well. I will also have resources for fellow writers like myself, contained on a special subpage, and a page for sharing what I’m reading.

You will finally be able to sign up to receive a brief email note to let you know when I have new content posted. If you like.

I will likely archive the most popular and favorite posts from this site into the new site.

I will be more public on the new site.
But you know me, I will always find a way to share,
even the personal stuff.

If you want to follow me to the new site,
please send me your email address
and I will send you the brand new address!

If you’ve been reading me for this long,
you know I don’t bite, and won’t send you spam. 😉
I won’t be contacting you with that email address
for anything after I send you the new blog address.

WriteShephard @ gmail.com

Here’s to more content, regular writing and sharing!
~Shephard 🙂

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Finding My Inspiration for my new website!

March 7, 2013

What will my new site feel like?
This is an eclectic mood board, consisting of color palette ideas, fonts and images I’m drawn to, as well as a little Midcentury creeping into it all. I hope the new website will capture some of this, though these random images will be more inspirational than literal.

Aqua, leaning slightly toward green. Perfect shade.

Above: pattern set in Aqua, but maybe not the flower element…

White and Aqua… clean.

Above: One of my absolute favorite images. Feels clean, but lacks a bit of contrasting color.

High Contrast pattern…..

It’s just a pretty sunset.

Midcentury fresh.

Combination of colors.

But it does need a little something warm ….. like….

Fresh, clean orange.

Not so much orange that it would dominate… but a little does really perk things up.

More Midcentury inspiration

Orange, blue, green.

I decided against purple… it can be overwhelming. But a pop of violet, little elements here and there could be fun.

A little blue goes a long ways. But combined correctly is nice. And I do like a little Art Nouveau. But it would have to be very subtle.

I love glass.

Glass, light reflected through things.

I do like some details that make things feel “crafted.” Doors and things.

***

The following 2 images… honestly, they’re garish, but in some small decorative way, might be refreshing. A pop of color always draws the eye to the most important elements in a design. Maybe as a small logo or button/tab element somewhere.

and… below… I love an illustratory feel, contrasty graphic design.

And some stars never hurt to make you think about your place in the universe.

FONT and TYPOGRAPHY.

I’ll need a font for my name, and one for reading that is easy on the eyes and maybe one for headings, banners and tabs. Fonts have to marry well as similar or as complementary contrast.

They can’t be hard to read, and they can’t lean toward any genre or theme too strongly.

I love the handwritten quality of the font below. In fact, it might not be a font at all; just someone’s handwriting, but the point it, it feels personal and casual, and not too self-important.

Below, definitely a font. Or someone who can write like my 9th grade Geometry teacher.

The color palettes and how to accent them. None of these are perfect but contain elements that feel right.

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The Three Most Powerful Words

November 24, 2012

It was the very last day of high school, in a classroom full of students, with my favorite teacher.
And it was probably the most interesting dream I’ve had in a long time.

My favorite teacher gave us a special book, and a last assignment. She told us we had to complete it during class. We were told to use the book, and that inside it somewhere, we would find the 3 most powerful words in the English language.

I couldn’t find it. The book was so confounding, talking about everything on the planet. I even tried using my phone (!) to look it up on the internet (!), and even the internet refused to cough up the answer.

She told me to keep looking, because she believed that of all her students, I lived my life by these three words, and would appreciate them more than most (in hindsight, I know the clue in the dream to finding those words… was that I was a very emotional, expressive teenager).

I couldn’t find them. She gave me a hint. She said read every word on pages 16 and 17, and I would find it.

I used up the entire hour of class searching that damn book.

I had 5 minutes left.

I searched for a blank sheet of paper.

I used orange and black ink.

And wrote these choices to “show my work.”

Eat more Vegetables

Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary

(I overheard a girl say she chose this… she was so confident)

Funk and Wagnall’s (smart ass)

Believe in Yourself.

I am strong

Peace not War

Never Give Up.

And then, my final choice, which I thought I saw on page 17:

I Love You.

I was coming to the very bottom of the page, with barely any more room to write.

And it was the very last day of high school, and I would never see this teacher again. And since she was my drama teacher and mentor, I wanted to tell her how much I would miss her. So I chose a quote:
Dorothy to the Scarecrow: I think I will miss you most of all.

Then I signed it.

And I do miss her most, of any of the teachers who taught me in school.

When I think back on her, she was the first person in my entire life to talk to me about being gay, and what the choices would hold for me. Kids made fun of me, it wasn’t something I could hide, but most chose to ignore it. She chose to talk to me about the future of being gay. Although she had the future wrong, because back then, being gay was a fearful thing, and she had friends who lived their gay lives fearfully . . . I never forgot that she was worried about me, and wanted me to be happy.

The Dream Ended

I never learned if my answer was correct or not.

But since humans are such emotional creatures, who are moved by the tides of loyalty, generosity, devotion and kindness… I can only assume that my answer must be correct.

Although they are the most powerful words, I think they are the words most taken for granted.

When B & I were young, I went to an unusual source for “counseling” (If you know me well, you know what I mean by that)…. and that source told me that I said I love you too much. She told me it would lose its depth of meaning for me if I say it too much. … to choose it very carefully. Don’t say it so often that it just becomes three words, no more powerful than hello and goodbye.

We never forgot that. It became a very careful guideline for our relationship. We didn’t avoid using it, but we avoided using it unless the emotion was behind the words. Because the three most powerful words in the English language should be used with care and intention.

It was one of those dreams that played out more like a message than the usual unconscious mind working things out while I slept. I’m still a bit puzzled.

But I have a nice memory of a teacher I loved, who believed in me, and one more chance to talk to her than I had yesterday.

~Shephard

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