It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.
~ Henry David Thoreau
Today I choose to see an insect that inspires awe and a little bit of fear every time I look into its bulgy eyes as it slowly and hypnotically waves its front legs.
Is there anything trippier than a praying mantis?
Ultimately, literature is nothing but carpentry.
With both you are working with reality,
a material just as hard as wood.
~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.
~ Loren Eiseley
When you find peace within yourself,
you become the kind of person who can live at peace with others.
~ Peace Pilgrim
And, I would add, with those no longer here.
There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.
~ Albert Schweitzer
Apparently, today is #WinnieThePoohDay. I just pulled my Winnie-the-Pooh collection off the shelf in search of a passage to quote. After getting lost in the pages/memories, I chose the following:
Sing Ho! for the life of a Bear!
Sing Ho! for the life of a Bear!
I don’t much mind if it rains or snows,
‘Cos I’ve got a lot of honey on my nice new nose,
I don’t much care if it snows or thaws,
‘Cos I’ve got a lot of honey on my nice clean paws!
Sing Ho! for a Bear!
Sing Ho! for a Pooh!
And I’ll have a little something in an hour or two!
(from In Which Christopher Robin Leads an Expotition to the North Pole)
I can’t help but feel a kinship with Winnie-the-Pooh. He finds great happiness in composing silly little songs, and the next smackeral is always on his radar.
Thank you, A. A. Milne for all the smiles and fun-to-sing songs.
Happy Birthday to you.
Tiddly pom.
I took this photo in October 2015 and never looked at it closely (I recommend clicking on the image for full efffect). After deciding to highlight it here today, I went in search of a fitting quotation.
The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place:
from the sky,
from the earth,
from a scrap of paper,
from a passing shape,
from a spider’s web.
~ Pablo Picasso
That quote feels particularly apt because today has been emotion-filled. SO.MANY.FEELINGS. coming at me from every direction. It was like being surrounded by a sticky web trapping every single one of them.
It’s cool, though. I’d much rather feel it all than be numb to it all.
Martin Luther King Jr. (Wikimedia Commons)
“We must recognize that we can’t solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power… this means a revolution of values and other things. We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together… you can’t really get rid of one without getting rid of the others… the whole structure of American life must be changed. America is a hypocritical nation and [we] must put [our] own house in order.”
~ Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), Report to SCLC Staff, May 1967.
(Go here for other quotes from MLK, eloquent dissident.)
Zippy and I just returned from our weekly date. It was his turn to choose and he chose Guillermo del Toro’s THE SHAPE OF WATER. I would not recommend the film. However, Sally Hawkins’s performance was lovely and the movie was so visually pleasing that I debated whether to recommend watching it without sound. Alas, I believe the heavy-handed characterization and plot line would still sledgehammer their way into your consciousness even without audio.
As a writer, I’m kinda pissed. The characters were lazy stereotypes, including Michael Shannon’s character who was so over-the-top I nearly burst out laughing. That character didn’t have one shred of decency. Not one. Plus, there wasn’t a whole lot of nuance in the film and absolutely zero question as to justice vs injustice. Zero question.
And you know that quote from Chekhov about the gun? (“One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn’t going to go off. It’s wrong to make promises you don’t mean to keep.”) Yep, THE SHAPE OF WATER committed that sin when a hard-boiled egg didn’t go off.
I’m out.
One of the best things about being a writer is that we can always learn and become better storytellers. Today, I happened upon two insights regarding character motivation (wants vs needs, and choices) that were worded in such a way that I immediately spotted what was wrong with my work-in-progress. What I read wasn’t new to me, but information doesn’t always sink in the first (or second or fifth) time I come across it. Today, things clicked. And that makes this writer very, very happy.
Art can’t be taught;
passion can’t be taught;
discipline can’t be taught;
but craft can be taught.
And writing is both an art and a craft.
~ Elizabeth George
Everybody needs beauty as well as bread,
places to play in and pray in,
where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.
~ John Muir
Tonight Zippy, Wildebeest, Zebu, and I are going to watch the Nuggets play the 76ers. I’m excited because one of my favorite former Michigan State players, Gary Harris, plays for the Nuggets. Also, I love basketball.
However, that excitement doesn’t mean I won’t be packing a pen and notebook. Yes, I’m a basketball fan. But I’m also a writer who likes to be prepared, and as Tom Waits says: Any place is good for eavesdropping, if you know how to eavesdrop.
Even a basketball arena.
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
The only two things you can truly depend upon are gravity and greed.
~ Jack Palance
Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.
~ Pablo Picasso
Portrait de Dora Maar, 1937 Print hanging in my writing room.
I guess that’s basically what I strive for with my fiction: to write lies in such a way the reader realizes some truths.
I loathe liars, but this kind of lying is a pretty good gig.
It’s been dry and windy, and this morning I noticed finches hopping around in the nearly-empty bird bath. As I filled the watering can I use to replenish the bath, I noticed other finches perched on the dogs’ water bowl that sits on the deck.
The birds were thirsty.
Soon after I went back inside, birds arrived. These finches (House and Gold), juncos, chickadees, doves, flickers, and magpies all came to drink at the community pool. In fact, so many birds came to visit throughout the day that I just cleaned and refilled the bath again.
Lucky me. And I mean that.
When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all.
~ E. O. Wilson
Striking a blow against November with an image from October:
Bright reds
– scarlet, pillar-box red, crimson or cherry –
are very cheerful and youthful.
There is certainly a red for everyone.
~ Christian Dior
There’s no limit to how complicated things can get,
on account of one thing always leading to another.
~ E. B. White
I don’t know the context for this quotation, but it speaks to me today as I struggle to revise my once tightly-plotted novel. The changes I’m making are needed and will strengthen the manuscript. I know this. But that knowledge doesn’t make the process any easier or less painful.
Every single tug on a story thread results in a temporary snarl that must be untangled in order for the revisions to flow. Today it feels as if I’m falling behind on the untangling process.
I’m hoping E.B. White was wrong and that there is actually a limit on how complicated things can get.
Grab the broom of anger and drive off the beast of fear.
~ Zora Neale Hurston
My writing often contains souvenirs of the day
– a song I heard, a bird I saw –
which I then put into the novel.
~ Amy Tan
Thinking back on my writing day, I didn’t include a snippet of song or any bird images. Instead, I referenced a heartbreaking news item about a ten-year-old girl with serious health issues who has been caught up in this administration’s xenophobia-on-steroids policies. Tomorrow, I’ll try hard for a bird.
The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you.
Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision.
So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.
~ Neil Gaiman
Started my day with some hoop dancing, and now it’s off to write.
Today feels like a wonderful day to be me.
Thanks for reading this. Now go be you.
“If a bunch of words are cut from a novel and no one is around to read them,
did they ever exist?”
To love beauty is to see light.
~ Victor Hugo
I love writing.
I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.
~ James A. Michener
And now, back to it . . .
There’s no palette as rich as a garden.
And the intensity of it – I make this statement all the time:
You can’t plan nature; you court her.
~ Robert Irwin
Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.
~ Albert Camus
I stopped during my run this morning to stretch my calves and as I leaned against a post situated at the edge of the open space, looked down to see that glorious display. Those leaves aren’t messing around. They are seriously red.
Tracy Abell 