This one is for Zippy and !!!
(Agnes is dressed as Wellness Woman, dispensing advice on healthy living . . .)
AGNES by Tony Cochran
Such is the danger of three-chord songs.
Author: Tracy Abell
Seeking Out the Unremarked
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.
© Tracy Abell 2011
Szent-Gyorgyi was a physiologist credited with discovering Vitamin C,
but this quotation gets to the heart of what it means to be a writer, too.
In fact, when reading it I immediately thought of something Marilynne Robinson told me (paraphrased):
Most experiences are unremarked. The tendency in writing is to focus on the already evaluated
and already delineated. Instead, as a writer, aspire to bring to the forefront the unobserved.
Every story has already been told; it’s the telling that makes each different.
On Running and Writing
Zebu and Wildebeest are distance runners on the track team.
They have a teammate who started the season training with the sprinters.
One evening Zebu told me this kid (I’ll call him Whiz), accidentally missed the turnoff
for the sprinters during that day’s practice and instead ran the distance practice (4-5 miles).
With awe in his voice, Zebu said, "He kept up the whole way."
A couple weeks ago, the coach needed to fill some slots because of injuries and
put Whiz into an 800 meter race (two laps around the track which equals one half-mile).
Whiz won his heat.
A few days later, Whiz was on the 4 X 800 relay (each runner does two laps and
then passes a baton to the next runner on team).
The boy passing the baton to Whiz accidentally stepped on the back of Whiz’s shoe and
Whiz spent valuable seconds trying to get the shoe back on his foot before kicking it off
and running his two laps with one shoe on and one shoe off.
Whiz’s time in that race beat Zebu’s best time.
This past weekend, Whiz ran his first 1600 meter race (four laps which equals one mile).
He ran it in 5:11, beating Zebu and Wildebeest’s best times.
Zebu is proud of Whiz, a fellow freshman and super nice kid,
but is also flabbergasted by his ability to run so fast without all the miles
Zebu and Wildebeest have logged in their training.
I can relate.
Not just in my own running, but in my writing life, too.
I told Zebu that there are Naturals and there are Work Horses
(and, of course, Naturals who work very, very hard to get even better).
I told him about the hardworking top-runner on my high school cross country team
who was knocked from her number-one spot by a freshman girl who just showed up
and blew everyone else away.
Then I said, "It’s a lot like the journey to publication. There are some people who write
the perfect book at the perfect time, and their careers take off. Then there are those
who have to work hard for a long, long time to get there. I’m one of those work horses."
His silence told me maybe I shouldn’t have put it in those terms.
Zebu’s had an up-close and sometimes painful window into my quest for publication,
and my unpublished status probably makes me a not-so-good poster child for Work Horses.
It’s true.
I’ve worked long and I’ve worked hard, and publication still hasn’t happened for me.
But whenever I wonder whether it’s time to let go of the dream,
I think about my kids witnessing my efforts over the years.
And while I know hard work is no guarantee of success,
I also know I don’t want them to think of me as The Work Horse Who Never Reached Her Goal.
So I guess that means, at least for the time being, I’ll keep doing what it takes.
I’ll be the Work Horse with one shoe on and one shoe off,
running hard for that finish line.
running hard for that finish line.
Hold the Bologna
AGNES by Tony Cochran
Maybe I should send Grandma some recipes.
Or not.
Happy Easter!
Happy Spring!
Happy Day-Without-Bologna!
Keep Your Pants On!
AGNES by Tony Cochran
Which just goes to show writers cannot possibly appeal to every demographic.
Stories involving little sailor pants are a genre unto themselves.
Wordless Wednesday: The Ghost Edition
© Tracy Abell 2011
Splash of Color
I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.
~ Emily Dickinson
© Tracy Abell 2011
It’s a gray day but these male House Finches are ablaze in their wooing finery.
Maybe I’ll go put on something bright and chase those clouds away . . .
Seeing Is Believing
I’m a woman of routines.
Every morning while in Hawaii, I got up and did yoga while the sun rose over the water just outside the window.
Then I’d take my coffee out onto the beach where I’d watch the crabs do their work.
Then I’d take my coffee out onto the beach where I’d watch the crabs do their work.
© Tracy Abell 2011
The crabs would sneak out of their holes with an armful of sand and scuttle away to toss it.
And then back down into the hole for more sand.
Some were a couple feet away but others were just inches from my feet,
and I delighted in their sci-fi features.
At one point I spotted some crabs farther off on the beach
and began watching them through my powerful birding binoculars.
Whoa!
These crabs were huge!
Could they be the crabs creating the large holes and the big piles of sand?
The crabs I’d never seen?
As I watched, one ginormous crab stopped next to a massive stick
and I lowered the binoculars to locate that stick on the beach so I could
witness the huge crab with my bare eyes.
Oops.
It was not a massive stick but a small twig.
And it wasn’t a gigantic crab; it was one just like the others moving around next to my toes.
The binoculars tricked me.
I laughed at myself and then watched through the binoculars some more
while The Crab That Ate Honolulu stomped around the beach.
You should’ve been there.
Epiphany!
While on the plane flying to Hawaii, I jotted notes for a new project as I reread highlighted bits from
EMOTIONAL STRUCTURE: CREATING THE STORY BENEATH THE PLOT by Peter Dunne.
And I finally, finally understood what writers mean when they say they have to know the ending
before they can write the story.
I always thought knowing the ending meant I had to know the "plot" ending, the action ending,
and I never understood how writers already knew whether their books would end with a car chase or picnic in the park.
But what knowing the ending really means is to know the "story" ending, the book’s emotional ending.
As Peter Dunne says:
The whole idea of beginning at the end is to create a target at which you aim all your action and emotion."
I get it now!
If I map out the emotional terrain ahead of time, I’ve mapped out the heart of my story,
and the action is just there to support those emotions, whether it’s a chase scene or picnic.
Emotions rule!
Then and Now
A couple weeks ago I was hiking in a tropical forest, scanning the ocean bay with my binoculars:
© Zippy 2011
Today I’m at the kitchen window, photographing a Mourning Dove hunkered down in the snow:
© Tracy Abell 2011
What a wonderfully diverse home we have on this big, blue spinning ball.
Wordless Wednesday: The Lizard Edition
GREEN ANOLE © Zippy 2011
Wildebeest Does Hawaii
Oh no!
A Wildebeest washed up on the beach!
Is he okay?
Whew.
Crisis averted.
(Next time I want him to smile, I’ll have to try a splash of cold, salt water in the face.)
Finding your audience
PEARLS BEFORE SWINE by Stephan Pastis
Maybe we should forget Facebook and Twitter, and drive traffic to our blogs via public restrooms!
(There once was a Tracyworld from Nantucket . . .)
Fort Wildebeest
Yesterday morning Zippy went to the basement to feed Lebowski the cat, and found this:
© Zippy 2011
Wildebeest and friends (all 17 years-old) came home on Friday night and built a fort to sleep in.
It all began with one sheet and a piece of yarn.
This makes me smile.
Here in body, not-so-much in spirit . . .
This is where I spent a week clearing my head:
I’m having a hard time adjusting to reality so am easing back into life.
I will blog with more details soon but wanted to pop in and shout HELLO! to my friends here.
I hope you’re all doing well and have only the desired amount of sand in your swimsuits.
I will blog with more details soon but wanted to pop in and shout HELLO! to my friends here.
I hope you’re all doing well and have only the desired amount of sand in your swimsuits.
Mahalo
Tomorrow morning (Saturday), Zippy, Wildebeest, Zebu, and I
are flying to Oahu for spring break.
We haven’t had a family vacation in about three years
because the last one we took (car trip) was a nightmare.
Arguing.
Sullenness.
More arguing.
Refusal to participate.
Bad attitudes and all-around-unpleasantness.
Zippy and I swore we’d never vacation with them again.
image from morguefile.com
Well, we’ve reached a new place (as a family) and now get along much better.
All of us.
So I suggested we try one more family vacation, this time to the destination of the kids’ choice.
They wanted Australia or London (which we couldn’t afford) and then agreed on Hawaii.
We’re renting an out-of-the-way place on the beach and bringing lots of sun block.
I’ve got high hopes for our time together, and believe we’ll create lots of good memories.
In the meanwhile, I wish everyone a splendid week filled with all-around pleasantness.
image from morguefile.com
ALOHA!
Can’t You Smell That Smell?
Somewhere in my vast collection of old photographs,
there’s a picture of my brother and his high school girl friend
sitting in crimson high-backed upholstered chairs.
On our lawn.
My mother had put a chicken in a pot of water and left it on the stove.
All night.
Our house reeked.
So badly that I missed two or three days of school in order to clean.
Furniture on the lawn to air out.
Cupboards emptied and scrubbed down.
Dishes washed because when the stench is bad enough, dishes can absorb it.
I couldn’t stand high school so was happy to be home.
It was springtime in Wisconsin and a friend skipped school one day to help me out,
and I still remember our lunchtime break and how we laughed as the warm sunshine washed over us.
and I still remember our lunchtime break and how we laughed as the warm sunshine washed over us.
"Give me rays! Give me rays!"
Cut to last night.
Zippy, Wildebeest, and Zebu went out for dinner but I chose to stay home.
I emptied a bag of frozen broccoli into the steamer
and left the room to check something on the computer.
Oops.
© Tracy Abell 2011
This is the pot after it soaked outside all night.
The house doesn’t smell all that bad right now and we didn’t have to move furniture.
I did, however, spend a lot of time walking through the house, spritzing the air with vinegar and water.
Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of this episode is why I felt compelled to eat the broccoli.
Penance?
Stoicism?
Idiocy?
Next time (and I’m sure there will be a next time), I’m tossing the broccoli.
Maybe I’ll just open all the windows and go out for ice cream.
Sound Effects
Have you ever felt insecure about the way you depict a sound in your writing?
The other day I struggled to come up with onomatopoeic words for an action in my story,
and ended up using "plonk" and "kerplonk."
Not genius, by any means, but usable words.
Except now I’m questioning how I hear things.
I’ve always used "creaky" to describe the sound of a Mourning Dove taking flight,
but just did research that indicates most, if not all, people would describe that sound
as "whistling."
Say what?!
Deep Thoughts
© Tracy Abell 2011
Marriage should be a duet – when one sings, the other claps.
~ Joe Murray
Speaking Out
For the past months we’re been treated to non-stop messaging on how the middle-class
must "make sacrifices" (which translates to massive cuts in services with threats to Medicare
and Social Security while the wealthy get tax breaks), because deficit spending is out of control,
and Social Security while the wealthy get tax breaks), because deficit spending is out of control,
and now our president, without any discussion with We-the-People or members of Congress,
is spending millions of dollars to bomb Libyan people who have the grave misfortune of
living above a huge amount of oil the greedy plutocracy wants.
Just in case you’re angered / baffled / incensed by this turn of events,
here are the phone numbers for your members of Congress.
And just in case, like me, you’re at wit’s end with the non-stop horrible news,
here is a laugh from our good friend and philosopher, Agnes:
AGNES by Tony Cochran
Friday Five: The March Madness Edition
1) Yesterday Zippy, Wildebeest, Zebu, and I watched four men’s college basketball games
from our seats in the rafters and
from our seats in the rafters and
2) had great fun
3) despite the sound of our brackets exploding with upsets (we’re looking at you, Louisville!),
4) and are now looking forward to Gonzaga beating BYU on Saturday
5) because in our collective opinion, BYU’s only redeeming quality is having female cheerleaders
who sometimes do back-flips when a player makes a free-throw.
image from morguefile.com
Keep your eyes on those dreams and have a grand weekend!
Hope is the thing with feathers
© Tracy Abell 2011
Nature Nurtures
When I start to panic and worry, I look to Nature for my calm.
Saturday I ran on the trails with Zippy while a Red-tailed Hawk soared above.
Today, I return to last week’s Starling visit for solace.
As long as there are birds in my life, I can find the courage to carry on.
As long as there are birds in my life, I can find the courage to carry on.
© Tracy Abell 2011
And because I’ve been reading THE ANNOTATED CHARLOTTE’S WEB:
I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.
~ E. B. White
Signs of Procrastination
© Tracy Abell 2011
“Artists can color the sky red because they know it’s blue.
Those of us who aren’t artists must color things
the way they really are or people might think we’re stupid.”
~ Jules Feiffer
Oops.
Signs of Spring
Yesterday was cold with a dusting of snow,
and this American Robin had to puff out its feathers to stay warm.
Today is sunny and the temperature will be in the high 50s.
Such are the joys of Colorado.
Sending and other cold-weather friends
a blast of warm air and sunshiny thoughts . . .
Tracy Abell 