Thankful Thursday: The Dan Quayle Edition

February 11, 2016February 11, 2016 / Tracy Abell / 6 Comments

Allow me to explain.

It’s February and I’m longing for spring when flowers bloom.
So I went to last year’s photos and found this clematis:
“Perfect,” I thought. “I’ll post it as Thankful Thursday: The Looking Forward Edition.”

But then I wanted to also include a quotation about the future,
so I searched for something eloquent to match my lovely flower.
And I came up with this:

“The future will be better tomorrow.” ~ Dan Quayle

A keeper, for sure, because not only am I longing for spring, I’m in desperate need of
laughter. But I won’t say anything more about that because as a ~~wise~~ man once said:

“Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.” ~ Dan Quayle

With a Little Help From My Cats

February 5, 2016February 5, 2016 / Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

I am revising and needed an aerial view of two chapters.
I was making progress with that birds-eye view until . . .

Scattered pages and chewed pens are one thing,
but clawing at my words brings “critique” to a whole new level.
“Animals are such agreeable friends―they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.” ~ George Eliot

Whatever you say, George.

Thread Count

February 1, 2016February 5, 2016 / Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

I am revising. Again.
(John Irving once said, “Half my life is an act of revision,” and Tracy Abell says, “Amen to that.”) My critique group The Writing Roosters gave me feedback on my middle-grade novel, and I began revising accordingly because they’re pretty wise and much of what they said resonated with me.

So far so good.

Then I got a read from my writer nephew who also had a handful of very wise insights. And yesterday I spent hours reworking one earlier scene over and over again until I’d finally gotten it right. I congratulated myself and moved on, only to realize that the subtle changes I’d made in that one scene have to be reflected in later scenes.

Ah, the curse of a tightly woven story.

Whenever I tug on one thread, there are repercussions throughout, and one of these days I hope to remember that. In the meanwhile, I’ll get back to these seemingly never-ending layers of revision and keep passing the open windows.

Procrastination: Exhibits A – D

December 7, 2015 / Tracy Abell / 3 Comments

A: This blog post.

B: This photo.

C: This photo.

D: This 30-second movie clip from ADAPTATION:

“Maybe banana nut. That’s a good muffin.”

A Little Pema for a Windy Day

November 3, 2015November 3, 2015 / Tracy Abell

I believe I’ve mentioned my aversion to wind. If not, suffice to say I do not like the blowy.
The blowy sets me on edge. I don’t enjoy listening to wind when I’m tucked into bed, I don’t like wind pushing me around when I’m running outside, and I don’t appreciate wind sucking (blowing) the life out of everything.

Today is a very windy day.

Enter Pema Chodron from When Things Fall Apart:

The way to dissolve our resistance to life is to meet it face to face. When we feel resentment because the room is too hot, we could meet the heat and feel its fieriness and its heaviness. When we feel resentment because the room is too cold, we could meet the cold and feel its iciness and its bite. When we want to complain about the rain, we could feel its wetness instead. When we worry because the wind is shaking our windows, we could meet the wind and hear its sound. Cutting our expectations for a cure is a gift we can give ourselves. There is no cure for hot and cold. They will go on forever.

Okay, Pema. I have met the wind and I hear its sound.

Friday Five: The Random Edition

May 8, 2015 / Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

(1) I used to be kinda indifferent about Led Zeppelin, but for the past couple months have been mainlining it at a LOUD volume.

(2) I’m still having to run back and forth on the one flat street in my neighborhood due to glute issues and yesterday did three miles with the help of Sly & the Family Stone.

(3) I’ve started working part time as a substitute library page which means I shelve books at various local libraries, and have developed a love-hate relationship with the Dewey Decimal System.

(4) I’m revising a manuscript and enjoying the process which I call a WIN.

(5) If this rain doesn’t let up soon, I’m gonna scream loud enough to be heard over the Led Zeppelin.

The Cover of Rolling Stone!

April 21, 2015April 21, 2015 / Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

Okay, I didn’t make the cover.***
Or even the Random Notes page.***
And I didn’t pull a Matt Taibbi and publish a muckraking Wall Street piece.***

However, I made it to the Correspondence page. That’s right, I have a letter to the editor in Issue 1233 of Rolling Stone. Woot!

Think I can use it in my clips file?

***Looking waay back to 1972 and those Shel Silverstein lyrics sung by Dr. Hook

*** Loudon Wainwright III references the Random Notes page in “The Grammy Song”

*** Go read this article that starts with “The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”

Revision = To See Again

November 2, 2014November 2, 2014 / Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

John Irving wrote in the opening to Trying to Save Piggy Sneed,
“Half my life is an act of revision.”

Ain’t that the truth.

I share Mr. Irving’s love of revision. I enjoy blue ink on paper, deleting the fat and plumping up the skinny parts. I love drilling down to find the essence of what I want to convey.

Right now I’m revising the first several chapters of my YA. Again. I recently received stellar editorial input on my opening pages that has allowed a minor miracle: I am reading the pages with new eyes. I’ve already worked and worked and worked some more on those chapters, yet this editor’s input changed my perception of what was there on the page. It’s as if her reaction to what she read is forcing me to “defend” each and every word, every motivation. I’m no longer reading the pages with the mindset of someone who knows the entire story and all the backstory, but as a brand new reader! I didn’t think it was possible to read stuff I’d already read gazillions of times with fresh eyes, but it is. It really is.

Wow. Amazing stuff. Yet I’m alternating between thinking, “This is so cool that I have this new heightened awareness!” and “What is wrong with me that it’s taken so long to achieve this awareness that any writer worth her laser printer should already have?!”

So, in an effort to be kinder to myself, I’m focusing on this quote from Ernest Hemingway:
“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”

Take that, nasty voice! I will prevail.

Eyes Forward, Fully Engaged

October 4, 2014 / Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

Sometimes as an act of self-preservation I have to turn my back on all the craziness in the world and focus solely on my needs. I block out most everything going on around me in order to nourish my body and spirit.
And then when I’m ready to re-enter the fray, I try to hold onto this kind of mindset:

Okay, going forth now . . .

Three Blossoms, Three Perspectives

September 30, 2014September 30, 2014 / Tracy Abell

“Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.” ~ Henry Ward Beecher

“The age I’m at now, you go from being a young girl to suddenly you blossom into a woman. You ripen, you know? And then you start to rot.” ~ Liv Tyler

“People think that their world will get smaller as they get older. My experience is just the opposite. Your senses become more acute. You start to blossom.” ~Yoko Ono

Monday, Monday: The Goldfinch Edition

September 29, 2014 / Tracy Abell

Today it’s Monday, gray and gloomy.
My antidote? Photos Zippy took a month ago.

“Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.” ~Pablo Picasso

Of Birds and Automobiles

August 5, 2014 / Tracy Abell

Another random photo find on the computer: an American Kestrel, which is a small falcon.

My intent was to find a kestrel or falcon-related quotation to include here, but nothing rang true. Until, that is, I came across this quote from Dave Barry:

“The Ford Falcon holds the proud title of Slowest Car Ever Built. In certain areas of the country you can go to a stoplight and find Falcon drivers who pressed down on their accelerators in 1963 and are still waiting for their cars to move.”

My very first car was a Ford Falcon Sprint. It looked something like this (except with an ugly, scabrous paint job):

Mr. Barry’s quote made me laugh even though I don’t remember experiencing acceleration issues. But there are all sorts of things I don’t remember from my L.A. life way back then, so maybe it’s true. At least I made it out of the intersection.

You Talkin’ to Me?

July 31, 2014July 31, 2014 / Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

“This is not a book that should be tossed lightly aside.
It should be hurled with great force.”
~ Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker was 50 years old when George Platt Lynes took this portrait in 1943.

Okay, so Ms. Parker was not referring to my work-in-progress, but the quote strikes a nerve. Wandering the wilderness of my creative mind is always a scary endeavor, and one which I’m currently going to great lengths to avoid. I would very much appreciate a sign . . .

Today I Showed Up

July 24, 2014July 24, 2014 / Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

A writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view, a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway. ~ Junot Diaz

image from Darren Hester at morguefile.com

The more things change, . . .

July 23, 2014July 24, 2014 / Tracy Abell

. . . the more they stay the same. (Or, for the Francophiles: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose)

I’ve written before about elder son’s (Wildebeest) penchant for doing things the hard and harder way. I didn’t exactly believe that that rock-headed character trait would disappear as he got older, but I admit to thinking it would, um, soften. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Whew.

I really do have to laugh, though, because when I needed an image for this post, I opened a photo file and clicked at random. This is what appeared:

Dreadlock Attempt (hey, that’s a great name for a band!)

Rather than believing that the Universe is peeing-its-pants-laughing at me, I choose to believe the Universe has my back.

One Very Average Dog

July 21, 2014 / Tracy Abell / 1 Comment

“The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.”
~ Andy Rooney

Zoey, of the unconditional love and bad breath, is at the vet’s right now receiving a “senior exam.” I’m hoping I’m wrong about what I sense. Either way, I’m leaving now to pick her up and bring her home to her best friend, Coco. The reunion will result in tail-wagging that would sting my legs if I was foolish enough to get in the way.

One Novel Idea

July 19, 2014July 19, 2014 / Tracy Abell

Looking at photos on the computer, I came across this:

This picture is in my bedroom. I bought the print when I was pregnant with Wildebeest because of the Kurt Vonnegut quote from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.**

One night while we were reading in bed, I mentioned to Zippy that I needed a new writing project. He pointed across the room and suggested I write the story of those five babies.
I did, and it became Framed: Toby Hart’s Official Police Statement. (In the second draft or so of the middle-grade novel, I had to kill off one of the kids. Well, not bump her off, but delete her storyline. Oddly enough, it was the baby who is front and center.)

The book didn’t sell and I have a bunch of notes on how to rewrite it, but in the meantime, despite the rejection, the babies and I share a kind coexistence. Kurt would want it that way.

** Full quote:
“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth.
It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded.
At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here.
There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”
~ Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Backyard Photographic Safari

June 12, 2014 / Tracy Abell

We just had a gentle rainfall and then the sun came out
so I ventured into the backyard with my camera,
searching for some images.

Here’s the untouched documentation (you may click photos to enlarge):

Bumblebee and Lamb’s Ear

Valerian and Moonshine Yarrow

Wild Rose

Apache Plume

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything
else in the universe. ~ John Muir

Twofer Tuesday: The Woodpecker Edition

May 13, 2014 / Tracy Abell / 7 Comments

Glanced out my window to see a dark shape at the suet feeder, and assumed it was a grackle. Instead, it was a bird I’d never seen before: a Lewis’s Woodpecker.

Here’s the one photo I snapped before s/he flew across the yard:
I ran to the other end of the house and took this photo from my standing-desk window:

Such a delightful start to this day. As Tom Robbins wrote in Still Life with Woodpecker: “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.”

“All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.”

February 11, 2014 / Tracy Abell / 4 Comments

Loki

Marcel

(If I were casting Sunset Boulevard, I’d choose Marcel to play Norma Desmond. Something about those eyes . . . )

On Being a Bad Birdwatcher

December 3, 2012December 3, 2012 / Tracy Abell

I glanced out the window this morning and saw a bird high up on the wire.
It was partially blocked by the bare branches of a red maple and power
lines, feathers fluffed against the cold wind.

Kestrel, I thought.
I grabbed the binoculars and, sure enough, it was an American Kestrel.

I smiled and thought about Simon Barnes who wrote one of my absolute
favorite books HOW TO BE A (BAD) BIRDWATCHER.**

Simon Barnes wrote about jizz*** (I know, such an unfortunate term), defining it as “the art of seeing a bird badly and still knowing what it is.” The more you watch birds, the more information you internalize, and as Mr. Barnes points out, “Familiarity enables you to process scanty information and interpret it in a meaningful way.”

When I see a bird in flight, one moving in a bouncy up-and-down pattern,
I know it’s a finch. If I catch a glimpse of a bird on the ground, scratching in the
leaves, I identify it as a spotted towhee. If a bird flaps past me, trailing long tail
feathers, I recognize it as a magpie.

This makes me happy. Because no matter what else is going on in my life —
parenting worries, frustrating quest for publication, search for part-time
employment, etc. — I am a bad birdwatcher and I’ve got jizz.
It’s a life-long condition and no one can take it away from me.

** From the opening chapter: “…[that’s] what being a bad birdwatcher is
all about. It is just the habit of looking. Born-againers talk about bringing
Jesus into Your Life; this book is an invitation to bring birds into your life.
To the greater glory of life.”

*** Apparently, it’s inadvisable to search Google for the etymology for jizz
so I’m content to accept the one theory suggesting it’s a contraction of just is.
As in: “How do you know the lower bird in the photo below is a northern flicker?”
“Just is.”

Thankful Thursday: Feathered Friends

October 11, 2012October 11, 2012 / Tracy Abell

Every single day I am grateful for the birds on this planet.

Words are a heavy thing,
they weigh you down.
If birds talked,
they couldn’t fly.

~ Northern Exposure (On Your Own, 1992)

Cat Scratch Fever

July 19, 2012 / Tracy Abell

mullets, goldfinches, etc 018

Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want.
~ Joseph Wood Krutch

Maurice Sendak on Melville and Diving

April 30, 2012 / Tracy Abell

Herman Melville was always using the image of the artist as diver.
He loved that word. Having to dive from some height, meaning, of
course, taking a serious risk. Because if you dive and you're lucky,
you'll come up with gold from the bottom of yourself. You dive deep
into the self. But you can also drown, you can smash your head upon
the rocks — there are terrible risks in diving from a great height. But
if you didn't dive, then you were not an artist in his terms. Without
risk you were just a middle-of-the-road type guy.

~ Maurice Sendak from Writers Dreaming by Naomi Epel

I'm afraid of heights
and sometimes I'm afraid to dive deep into myself.
However, I never want to be a middle-of-the-road type guy.

Inviting all my creative friends to join me in taking the plunge
today and every day.

Tracy Abell

Writer…Runner…Birder

quotations