Not much going on this weekend. Parents came and visited our new place, did some errands, and now tacos for dinner. Yum!
Yesterday, got a new book at the used book store down the street: In the Lake of the Woods, by Tim O’Brien. I remember reading this book in school and I loved the writing style. The voice through out the story just flows and you don’t want to put it down. I also loved The Things They Carried, too.
Do you guys have a favorite writer whose writing voice just speaks to you?
I bought peaches the other day. And every time I think of eating one, lately, I can’t help but think of that poem by T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”
If you don’t know the poem I am referring to, I found it here on this website. Most of my English teachers throughout the school years had us read the poem.
Mostly because of its evocative language. You can tell the way the narrator feels by the certain words he uses. The poor guy really does paint a sad picture. Anyway, the peach eating.
In the poem, the narrator questions:
“Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.” (T.S. Eliot)
What is up with this peach eating business?
Well…peaches are messy. If you are going to eat one and have the juice drip down your chin and elbow, you better do it with confidence. Especially if you are wearing white trousers.
But all I can think about is how sad the speaker sounds. He describes himself as something scuttling across the floor in some dark, deep, sea. A bottom feeder?
Poor J. Alfred Prufrock. He doesn’t think very well of himself…
And neither have I lately. That’s probably why I keep thinking of this poem.
But enough of that.
I ate a peach tonight for dessert actually, and it was fabulous.
I sometimes think I am the only one who actually liked reading this poem when they made us dissect it in school.
What do you guys think?
I am currently obsessed with this little free library in my new neighborhood. The idea is to take a book and share a book. I’ve already taken a book – Water For Elephants, by Sara Gruen and left one of my own in its place – Ember in the Ashes, by Sabaa Tahir.
I think it’s so neat and people definitely use it, because every time I walk by there is something new in there.
Lately, I’ve been plagued with the thought that there are so many great books out there in the world and not enough time in the world to read them! Does anyone else have this anxiety?
I guess what I’ve been thinking about the past few days: Which book would you share? And why?
Happy reading everyone! (And writing!)
Looking for a little inspiration tonight. Liking the new location, but still struggling to become comfortable with new surroundings and this is very important for us writer-types. We need to be able to find our writing voice anywhere, and I want to make sure mine is still there alive and kicking.
Got this prompt off creativewritingprompts.com because the book I usually use is packed away somewhere and I haven’t opened all of my office boxes yet…whoops. Not sure if its supposed to be a short story? A poem? Where it goes, nobody knows…
(Oh, and it totally isn’t # 147 on the website, I lost the number when I clicked away from the page. Oh well, it’s somewhere!)
Sorrow croons for love lost
tomorrow is another day
today is an opportunity
The young woman closed the book in her lap with a snap. “What a bunch of hooey,” she muttered.
Love wasn’t an opportunity for her…far from it. She grabbed her black shoulder bag where it was squashed against her legs on the concrete. She stood up and brushed the dirt off her clothes. Like it would matter. Her skin crawled and her head ached. Her dirty-colored blond hair fell in tangled waves around her pale face.
She walked on. The streetlights cast the street in a strange green type of glow. The road looked like it was full of molten lava, all cracked and glowing as cars rumbled over the potholes.
The librarian she’d met while she was rummaging through the library’s trash bins didn’t know what she was talking about.
“Here, honey,” she’d said. “I was going to take this home and shelve it…but you have it. You look like you could use a little love in this life.”
She’d taken it with numb fingers. She’d never been one of those people to remember gloves. And the old woman had looked so clean and smelled of lotion. The kind that her mother used to wear before she’d had thrown herself out of the window after Daddy shot himself.
She wasn’t sure if she had even said, ‘thank you.’
The woman had given her a weak smile and then had shuffled off. Like she knew already that Sarah didn’t have the words to say what she should have.
Sarah found a more comfortable place amongst the moss and the concrete, and the trickles of water underneath the red bridge which cut across the only dirty water-way in her not-so-small town.
She opened the crinkly pages, ran her fingers over words that were clean and very old but brand new to her. She pondered that for a brief moment, how words were never the proper age to anyone. They were always becoming something new, meaning something different to anyone. Somewhat…timeless.
A frog jumped and she with it, and the croak he left with a splash gurgled across the empty spaces, the cool night, the sound of concrete rumbling, cars and artificial light.
“Words are timeless,” she read.
age is but a number
crawls across space
and time, and I with it
“Don’t be just another number,” she continued, eyes glued to the page.
be the delicate words
you are reading so much about.
So, Mike, the other half, and I will be moving to a new location this coming weekend. While, the change is a much-needed one and nerve-wracking and hopefully the start of new adventures and story inspiration, I can’t help but be sad by it all.
Our new location is smaller, but in a better location, but I will no longer have an office. At least…for now.
So, this is me packing up my books in boxes, lovingly stroking their covers, feeling sad like I’m packing away old friends. Thinking in my head: I’ll come back for you…this is only for a short while.
Already missing my collection of Knickknacks, my odes to Star Wars, and squeeze stress cow.
Already missing all of the more memories and story planning and writing I could have done here…but.
But.
It took me a long time to feel like I even had the words to say to even justify me having an office. It’s no joke that this gal here has struggled with a terrible writer’s fear after college.
Back then, I had the words to say in my head and my writers voice would just go and go and sometimes went even when I was supposed to be doing other things.
After graduation, it felt like that voice was buried under a thick sludge of self-conscious. I went to the page with fear in my heart and self-doubt. I started a blog, I wrote, I stopped, I wrote again.
And then somewhere along the years of this, I discovered that I was being ridiculous. Oh, the fear is still there, of course. I feel it now wanting to creep it in, but I won’t let it.
I didn’t need an office to validate me as a writer, although having one is certainly a perk. Being a writer is something much more than that; and even though I’m sad I’ll no longer have this place to call home, I feel like, home is where the heart is.
My writing home can be the same way. It’s like a state of being. It’s where I most belong…I just have to make it so.
Happy Writing Everyone!
I write a lot of notes in my phone’s notebook. Grocery lists, dreams, story ideas, names, blog ideas…you get the picture.
Found this in my phone written about a year ago. I guess I was going to submit it somewhere, but had forgotten about.
Going back and reading my dreams, too, are a hoot, but I think that’s worthy of a post all on its own. Anyway, enjoy. 🙂
The Proposal
A man leans against his black SUV in the early morning chill and stares down at his burning hands. His girlfriend left him, or maybe she died; it doesn’t matter now.
He thinks it might matter when he can get back inside and finally warm his hands, but he can’t decide what to do. His thoughts are jumbled, and panic ignites in his chest. He fumbles with the door handle behind him and climbs back in the SUV, rubbing and blowing at his hands.
He eyes the velvety box sitting in the glove box, which has spilled open, papers sliding down to the mat on the passenger side floor. He calls 911 and starts to sob into the receiver.
“Fiance,” he gasps. “Floor. Not breathing.”
He relives the scene etched forever into his vision as he begins to describe what happened. Her collapsed body on the sofa, her arm dancing towards the floor. The other one pinned awkwardly underneath her chest. She could have been passed out from drink, she could have been drooling into the sofa cushions, but she wasn’t.
Yesterday, she had told him yes, but today doesn’t feel like an affirmation.
Later, they will tell him that a complication with her medications was the cause; a misuse of sleeping aids. It haunts him to think that maybe she couldn’t sleep because she wasn’t happy, or that maybe she was too happy and sleep wouldn’t come.
Either way the cold continued, and he could never warm his hands.
Already had my glass of wine, and in bed before 9:30 on a Friday night…but there’s some silver lining here; going to try to write some!
“Gonna try to write something,” I told Mike, the other half. “Escape from the shit in the world for a while.”
Isn’t that the case most of the time, though?
When the world gets too much, or when it’s just not enough, we disappear into the fictional one for an adventure, a distraction that gets us out of this dysfunctional funk we find ourselves in half the time.
Maybe this is why I also love Children’s Literature. There’s always an adventure, always something to be learned but usually a positive outcome in the end.
And we could all use a happy ending, every once and awhile.
Happy Writing!
10pm on a Friday
And already in bed
Mike shooting in Halo
Book waiting to be read
I might as well be dead
But that’s not nice to say
Snuggled in the covers
Saying goodbye to Friday
Goodnight and good evening
Happy weekend and farewell
Another day is gone
Another tale to tell
Eyes droop with sleep
Face relaxed and still
Time to say goodnight
Time to change the will
Hmm, that took a strange turn lol Soo tired! Good night all!
I just finished listening to Jenny Lawson’s Furiously Happy on audio today and I absolutely loved it.Furiously Happy is a memoir about Lawson’s life; specifically her struggles with mental illness which she explores with amusing essays featuring her blog, her family, and her life.
It is exactly as she described it: a funny book about horrible things, and for anyone who suffers from mental illness, like depression or social anxiety, it is an easily relatable book and comforting when you learn how the author counters her illness.
Some of my impressions:
You can’t take yourself too seriously.
That much is obvious. You have a bad day, you embarrass yourself, you cry about it, but you move on. There are many things that happen in her life that I would be mortified about but she seems to have master the knack for laughing about it sometime down the road.
She relies on family and the comfort of friends.
Relying on the comfort of loved ones on those really down days is a good option. You feel so alone inside, but you don’t have to be physically alone. Loved ones are there to provide support when you need it.
She has mastered the art of pretending.
She is good friends with Neil Gaiman who gave her some great advice when she was having doubts about being able to read her own book on audio. She told him she wasn’t any good at it, and he told her (something along the lines of), “pretend that you are good at it.”
Take a deep breath and step forward.
It’s not always easy to move forward when your mind is telling you that you can’t possibly leave the house right now, because then you’ll have to talk to people and sometimes there are days when that is just exhausting. In that case…
Learn how to push yourself.
Even when it is very difficult; because the rewards are worth it in the end.
And that’s it really. I’ll probably end up listening to it again in a few days. I found it a great comfort and relief to know that I shouldn’t have to make excuses for myself on my bad days. Because those that also experience the same things that I do, completely understand.
What do you guys think? Have you read or listened to Furiosuly Happy? What were your thoughts on it?
Been having a hard time sitting down and working on projects lately. Maybe its the warmer weather. Maybe it’s that good ol’ writers fear again; creeping in and telling me I’m not good enough, that I’ll never write anything worthy.
How horrible. How crippling.
I was thinking of something to write for a blog post this afternoon, and of course, I can’t think of it now. Figures.
I thought a Dory meme was just perfect, considering that Finding Dory came out this weekend – which I really want to see!
I got to remember to just keep writing…to just keep at it. But how?
Discipline.
The mind kind of rebels at the thought of more rules, and such things as…discipline. We get enough of it at work. We get enough of it from society.
Always rules. Always things that we can’t do…or shouldn’t do. Always holding back, when really we want to shout at the top of our lungs: You are stupid. Enough, already!
(That last bit is mostly aimed at the political crap we’ve had to deal with, lately.)
But why do we have to have rules when it comes to writing, too?
Well, without discipline, I would never get anything done. I mean…I DON’T get anything done. And it takes a good deal of discipline to sit down at your desk even when there a million other things that you think you ought to be doing instead.
And I think at this point, it also comes down to your priorities. How does writing rank in your list of things that need to be done? Are you putting it off for other reasons? Writers fear? Self-doubt?
Sometimes I turn to other activities because I doubt myself, and approaching my desk is close to standing in front of a crowded room and delivering a speech. (Please excuse my wobbly knees.)
But enough already! I know I definitely need to work on setting a time for writing each day. No more Netflix for me. Maybe it means cutting out things in my life that I don’t exactly need. I know I scroll Facebook less and less now.
And especially…no more putting it off because of fear. Discipline, discipline, discipline!
What are your guys take on this? How do you get done what needs to be done?
A. J. Morse 