I Man'I'festo

My Manifesto

By Joy Quarmiley

I enjoy writing because I enjoy sharing. Sometimes it’s my own thoughts I share and at times it has been others’ thoughts that I felt were significant enough to share. I like to make valid points in my writings. Provide a message. The things I tend to write about are my family, my children…These are, to me, though very much the same, still quite different in the way that I think about them and talk about them in my writings. I’ll explain further in a moment. I also tend to write about television (shows, especially ‘reality’), moral dilemmas/thoughts, and just interesting everyday happenings at work or wherever funny or interesting things happen. If it amused me, I assume it will amuse everybody.

            I write about my family and my childhood memories with them, because those were the happier, less stressful times. There are times in my stories that I might be writing fictionally but throw in a nonfictional incident that happened with me and my siblings. I think of my family all the time and often times find it difficult not to want to write about them.

            Like I said, my children are on a different brainwave and in a special, separate heart chamber than my ‘family’. I talk mostly about my ‘family’ in past tense. What ‘used’ to be…How it ‘was’… I tend to write about my childhood. When I write about my children I write about now. I write about my motherhood and their childhood. I believe I write about them with a different kind of joy…A motherly love. This is why I can’t include them entirely in the term ‘family’ though they are indeed that to me. Then there’s my husband who rides solo on his own nerve…er..um…brainwave. J (Love you, babe!)

            I love writing about reality television (this includes the daily news/headlines). I like to write up funny critiques and thoughts that everybody else out there in Couch Potato Land is thinking. I throw in little bits of actual knowledge here and there to keep my readers grounded, but like the show I write about, it’s all for entertainment purposes only. If a reader gets hold of one of the seeds I plant amongst all the jokes and broken language, I’ve accomplished much more than I originally set out to do.

            My moral dilemmas/thoughts writings are where I am purposefully planting seeds. I joke a lot but I do have a serious side and I like to show ‘her’ every once in a while. I want my readers to know that I do know and understand everything is not a laughing matter. I talk about everything from spirituality to parental concerns. I like tapping into my more serious side every now and again…I like to think I tell the truth and keep it 100% real and hope that anyone who reads my deeper, more serious thoughts gets that.

            You can also find a lot of my everyday run-ins in my writings. If I laugh at it, I want you to laugh at it. If my mouth hit the floor in disbelief, I want your mouth to hit the floor. If I cried…I want you to console me. J I was the kid that looooved Show & Tell. If I found something in my huge four acre yard, like the tomato bug I found once, no matter how afraid of it I was, I would jar it up and bring it in. (There I go mentioning childhood memories.) I think that’s why I took so vastly to Facebook once I discovered it. You mean I can post my every thought…my every day happenings…Jokes about my workplace ‘characters’?!?!? I was on it…am on it! Addicted. I have even gotten to the point that if something happens that is way interesting, I have said to myself, “I can’t wait to post this on Facebook!” Then I started my blog (www.j-quiz.blogspot.com) and all I got to say is, the blog world is no longer going to be the same. I need to just go ahead a set up an account on it to get paid because I will be blogging a LOT. If you’re interested, please visit and become a follower.

            Well, I guess I put the ‘I’ in my man’I’festo. These are the reasons I write. If I couldn’t write about these things, I could only imagine the mess the explosion of my brain would cause. I honestly don’t know what I did with all my thoughts prior to some of these outlets. I mean I, at times, wrote poetry…but I have never written like I am currently writing. And I’m not going to sit here and front…Facebook sparked my desire to write. However, I do know, by the monster that’s been unleashed since the creation of my Facebook account, writing has been embedded and was lying dormant in me for quite some time. My Facebook friends encouraged me to start taking my writing seriously and I am now enrolled in a Master’s program with a Major in Creative Writing. I’m glad I listened.