I’m a woman of routines.
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.
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 . . .)
This is where I spent a week clearing my head:
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.
Well, we’ve reached a new place (as a family) and now get along much better.
ALOHA!
Somewhere in my vast collection of old photographs,
This is the pot after it soaked outside all night.
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?!
For the past months we’re been treated to non-stop messaging on how the middle-class

image from morguefile.com
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.
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.
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 . . .
I really and truly wonder who Obama thinks will be out knocking on doors and making phone calls for him in 2012.
Read the following, and weep:
Obama Stops Pretending by Craig Murray
Any last pretence that Obama is substantively different from Bush was abandoned yesterday when Obama signed an executive order providing for indefinite detention without trial at Guantanamo, which will not close. He has also abandoned the idea of giving detainees a reasonable process in civilian courts, and instead is resuming the kangaroo “Military tribunals”. About the only improvement on Bush is that any detainees who happen to be multi-millionaires can have their own civilian counsel before these kangaroo courts, if they pay for it themselves.
Washington Post here
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Here’s Digby from Hullabaloo with quotes from Obama-the-candidate on Guantanamo (scroll down).
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Here’s Glenn Greenwald on Guantanamo and habeas corpus including this vital point:
As always, the most harmful aspect of the Obama legacy is that he has converted what were once controversial right-wing Bush policies into unchallenged bipartisan consensus, to endure indefinitely and without any opposition from either party.
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And just in case you’ve missed the whole Bradley Manning / Wikileaks issue,
read about Bradley Manning’s mental deterioration due to solitary confinement and being stripped naked.
The Bradley Manning Advocacy Fund has been established to help.
100% of contributions to this fund will be used to pay expenses related to the advocacy and support of Bradley Manning. And thanks to the non-profit group Institute for Media Analysis hosting the Bradley Manning Advocacy Fund, your donation is tax-deductible.
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If one more person defends Obama by saying "he inherited a mess,"
my head’s gonna pop off.
Yeah, the man inherited one helluva mess.
But now he owns it.
Micheal Moore went to Madison, Wisconsin, to speak to the courageous
people who refuse to budge in the face of greed and lies.
Here is the transcript. If you read nothing else today, please read this.
Here’s an excerpt:
"Let me say that again. 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer "bailout" of 2008, now have more loot, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can’t bring yourself to call that a financial coup d’état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true."
The powers-that-be pit us against each other, relying on cultural and social issues (gays, guns, and god)
to fracture what should be a united front against the nauseating greed of the upper class.
So, while moneyed people around the country bemoan the "greed" of public employees
fighting for their right to collective bargaining, these courageous people in Wisconsin stand strong.
We ALL owe them an enormous debt of gratitude.
As Michael Moore says:
"Never forget, as long as that Constitution of ours still stands, it’s one person, one vote, and it’s the thing the rich hate most about America — because even though they seem to hold all the money and all the cards, they begrudgingly know this one unshakeable basic fact: There are more of us than there are of them!"
Here’s a YouTube video of him in Wisconsin on March 5.
The opening is especially inspiring because of the emotions expressed by Moore and the protesters,
but also because he reveals this powerful, spot-on piece was written in a couple hours at the end of a very long day:
We need heroes now more than ever, and I salute Wisconsin workers for drawing the line in the sand!
One morning in late January, we woke to this:
© Zippy 2011
I couldn’t believe none of us heard this going on right outside our windows.
Not me.
Not Zippy.
Not the two dogs.
And now Wildebeest informs me this was the work of the entire girls basketball team
(one of the girls "confessed" during track practice).
Who knew teen girls could be so stealthy?