Pam Webb

a writer's journey as a reader

Archive for the category “reflections”

05 Dec 2013
11 Comments

The Best of Books, The Worst of Books?


If  you are here, you are no doubt a Book Boosters. And in that case you may have checked out Book Riot. If you haven’t–I do declare, you truly should.  It’s all things books and then some.  I get a direct feed to my iPhone and love, love, love sorting through the various articles.  A recent article dealt with a poll Book Riot ran concerning the books readers most disliked (trying to not be hating on any book-remaining open to preference here). The interesting part? Many of the same books showed up on the most liked list.  What does that say about readership and perspective? Don’t know. But I do like this kind of meaning/ful/less kind of trivia.  Check out the entire post here:

Oh, yeah–this was out of 937 reader votes:

  1. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (102 votes)
  2. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (90)
  3. Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James (90)
  4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (53)
  5. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (41)
  6. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (41)
  7. Lord of the Flies by William Golding (35)
  8. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (33)
  9. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (31)
  10. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (30)
  11. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (28)
  12. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (26)
  13. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (26)
  14. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (25)
  15. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (24)
  16. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (23)
  17. Life of Pi by Yann Martel (21)
  18. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (18)
  19. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (17)
  20. On the Road by Jack Kerouac (14)
  21. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (14)
  22. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (14)
  23. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (14)
  24. The Pearl by John Steinbeck (14)
  25. Ulysses by James Joyce (14)

See a pattern? Most of these books were foisted on us in school. Forced reading either produced favers or haters of the titles.  Jury is out.  What is your verdict?  Are these repeaters or leavers on your all-time list?

Posted in Books, Literature, Reading, reflections and tagged , ,
30 Nov 2013
5 Comments

When Movies Meant…


A box of Junior Mints

Movies and Junior Mints. The perfect combo.(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Movies. I do enjoy a great flick. Admittedly, I rarely actually go to the theater anymore to watch a first run.  You will find me trawling the New Releases at my supermarket instead. Why? Oh, lots of reasons.  The main reason is because I remember when movies meant…

1. A Really Special Night Out.
We dressed up and anticipated An Evening. We selected the movie, the theatre, and piled into the family Buick and drove downtown. After parking, we promanaded along the sidewalk, anticpating the moment Dad stepped up to the little glass booth and announced out ticket needs: “1 child, 2 adults, 1 teen.” Stepping inside we handed the uniformed usher our tickets and entered into the lobby.  MyOMy–as a kid I felt like Dorothy entering Oz. Plush carpets, shiny brass rails, subdued lighting, posters of upcoming movies.  And an upstairs.  The bathrooms were marble and gloriously huge. Stalls galore.  Just going to the theatre proved thrill enough.

2. More For Your Money.
Not only did your ticket gain you admission into the glamour of the Rialto or Roxy, it secured two to three hours of absolute transfixing entertainment. The red velvet curtains parted, and the newsreel played, and then the cartoon: Bugs Bunny or Woody Woodpecker or maybe Tom and Jerry. The B feature (hence the term “B” grade film) played and finally the MAIN feature. I can’t remember all the films my parents brought me to and I don’t remember too many babysitters, but I do remember hanging out on the stairs while my folks watched Barbara Streisand in Funny Girl or Hello Dolly and the like. No problem if I wasn’t in sight. It was the good old days.  Safe and sane times. It was G, M, or X back then.  No, my folks didn’t take me to any X-rateds, but I do remember my share of shoot em-ups with Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Sean Connery. Dad picks. Barbara Streisand if Mom picked. If the adult fare bored me or if the folks thought I should “step out” for a bit I would traipse upstairs and perch on the steps to peer down on the those below. Maybe even sneak into the balcony section, at least until the usher checked through with his flashlight. 

3. Appreciation For Seeing the Film Right Then or Miss It.
A person anticipated a movie. The previews tickled our curiosity. The television adverts build up suspense. And finally the standing in line to see the newest. Because if you didn’t see it in the movie theatre you waited until it came out on Movie of the Week on the TV and then it would be sliced up by commercials or sanitized to neatly fit into alloted time slot.  No VHS, let alone DVD or Blu-Ray or streamed versions. WhoTube?

4. Snack Bar
Milk Duds or Junior Mints tasted far better being purchased from the theatre snack bar. Yes, they were more expensive, but the box was bigger.  You never found that size box at the local grocery store.  And there is something better about movie popcorn as well, especially the Dr. Pepper that went with it.

5. Disney In All Its Glory
My much older brother received Matinee Duty. Then again I am sure he derived some pleasure out of driving the family car downtown and getting movie and snack bar money, out of watching Lil Sis for a couple of hours.  There is nothing like watching a Buena Vista nature film prior to the REAL show.  Disney Movies do best on the Silver Screen. Moon Spinners, Jungle Book–ohgolly, those were the days.  The Walt days of Disney.  Yup, the best days of Disney.

I could do a whole separate blog on the Drive-In experience. Hmm, I probably will.

Though I will always and forever be a Book Booster, I do enjoy my flicks. These days though, it’s the big screen via the comfort of the living room.  Got my recliner and my remote control.  I also crave those Special Features.

My inspiration for the Old Days of Movie Going came from this here  Check it out.  If you remember Bugs Bunny days you’ll love the reminiscing.  If you don’t remember Bugs and the Merrie Melodies theme song–ah well, let’s just say, the good old days were really good in many ways.

The Essential Bugs Bunny

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Posted in America, Movies, reflections and tagged , ,
24 Nov 2013
5 Comments

Titular Epiphanies


Foto einer Glühbirne (an),

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sometimes I am embarrassed how lacking in literary enlightenment I really am. Here I am writer, reviewer, teacher, Book Booster extreme and I have to hang my head in embarrassment about my novel naiveté. Honestly, dunce cap time.

This has happened before, but really hit hard recently. Not once, but twice.

What do you notice about these two books?

  • author?
  • attractive illustration?
  • title?

All of these probably grab our attention. Granted there are different covers available, but the author and title remain the same.  Why then did it take me three or so reads, spread out over a few years, to finally get that light bulb-over-the-head moment of “OMY! This is what the title REALLY means?  Does it mean I’m dense or does it mean I’m getting my bearings as a reader finally?

With Room With a View I boldly (I mean in like SHaAZaM) I realized Lucy sees people as rooms, and how some people, like some rooms, provide a view or not. Views are important if you are going to spend time in them. Ditto for people.  It wasn’t about Italy. At least, not as much as I first thought. Silly, silly me.

Then we come to My Antonia. Such a magical book, how it transports me to the prairie pioneer era. Yes, it’s about Jim’s fond recollection of his childhood friend Antonia (that My part in the title)–but then the KA-TinK of the light chain which illuminates the additional meaning–Antonia is a metaphor for all those indomitable women of the prairie.  She is the collective My that Willa Cather so adeptly presented to readers in her trilogies and short stories.

Sigh. It’s a good thing I teach literature, because I still have a lot to learn. Because they so wisely say the best way to learn something is to teach it.  Now, I’m wondering how many other literary epiphanies are waiting for me on the shelf. I hope they aren’t giggling at me.  Maybe those are just giggles of anticipation as they await to pop up and say “SurPriSE!”

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Posted in Books, education, Literature, Reading, reflections, Teachers, Uncategorized, writers and tagged , ,
14 Nov 2013
13 Comments

A Bit of Bard for the Kidlits


List of titles of works based on Shakespearean...

How well do your kids know this guy? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Shakespeare. He probably isn’t on most parental to-do lists when it comes to childhood enrichment items. Then again–why not? We trot our kiddos to soccer practice, piano lessons, and the library to enrich their lives, why not foster the love of the Bard at an early age?
Acclaimed playwright Ken Ludwig believes infusing the Bard into our children’s lives is an essential, endearing adventure to undertake. His How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare is both inspirational and inventive in its approach. Although I no longer have kidlits at home since my progeny are now building their own nests, I can still adapt Ludwig’s methods by amending them to classroom instruction, especially since the ninth grade Common Core curriculum has a Romeo and Juliet section.

Teaching Shakespeare to our children is a notable endeavour. Ludwig states a few of his goals as to why he taught Shakespeare to his children on page 11:

  • giving them tools to read Shakespeare’s works with intelligence for the rest of their lives
  • enriching their lives
  • exposing them to literature to inspire them toward achieving great lives as they grow
  • providing meaningful shared experiences

Cool. Those are pretty much my intentions when I teach Shakespeare to my classroom kiddos.
Ludwig hits all the essential values of the “why” of Shakespeare:
1. The richness of imagery
2. The lilt of rhythm
3. The nuances and playfulness of language
4. The importance of memorizing and tucking away forever a few exceptional passages to pull out and nibble on throughout life
5. The joy of exploring character

Shakespeare’s plays showcase poetry at its best. Why wait until the kinder are all grownup before relishing the richness of English language? I am always amazed when I get a ninth grader who states, “Shakespeare? Who’s Shakespeare?” Admittedly that confession is rare. Unfortunately, the only Shakespeare most students know is Romeo and Juliet. On the other hand, by the time they leave high school they will become acquainted with at least three plays and a a handful of sonnets.  Sadly, I didn’t have any Shakesperience until I began teaching it.  That’s nearly thirty years of being Bardless.  Shocking, I know.  Now I’m a professed Bardinator and hope to put my acquired knowledge to page, one of these days.  We’ll see.  I have too many books in want of writing as it is.

For now, I am thrilled to introduce Shakespeare to my freshmen and strive to induce appreciation for his words and wit.

Mass-produced colour photolithography on paper...

Anyone out there have the Bard on their parent list? Is it squeezed in with ballet and soccer?

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Posted in Blogging, education, Family, Literature, Poetry, reflections, reviews, Teachers, writers and tagged , , , , ,
09 Nov 2013
3 Comments

Committed to Poetry or Was that Commentary of Poetry?


English: Former United States Poet<br /><br /> Laureate (2... Admit it–we like poetry
because for the most part it’s a quick commitment. Two to five
minutes we get our emotions stirred, we open up our imagery files,
and we tuck away a line to ruminate on.  This is not cynicism,
merely observation. We love, love, love poetry more than we love,
love, love short stories. At least, this is what I am beginning to
surmise as I dole out literary experiences to high school students.
Since I’ve been English literature teachering for the past
decade, I have discovered poetry is amazingly versatile in its
ability to stir up passion in students.  Students  run
the Richter scale of response of “Just hand me a dull spoon so I
can dig out my eyeball” (LOL–actual quote from a senior) to
“Poetry! I love poetry! Can we write our own poems!” (yet, another
true quote). There doesn’t seem to be much of the middle roading
when it comes to reading or writing poetry. Why is that, I wonder?
My students aren’t sure either.  Somewhere between Shel Silverstein and Shakespeare
sonnets the love of verse becomes irrevocably squashed.
I think Billy Collins presented oh so well:

Introduction To Poetry

I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its
hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s
room

and feel the walls for a light
switch.

I want them to
waterski

across the surface of a

poem

waving at the author’s name on the

shore.

But all they
want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with
rope

and torture a confession out of
it.

They begin beating it with a
hose

to find out what it really
means.

Thank you,
Billy. I am trying to convert my rubber hose approach into one of
ski rope handles.
One of my goals as a teacher is to inject the love of
words into my students.  I want them to turn to poems like
they do to their tunes.  After all, song lyrics are mostly
poetry with infused music.  Once students realize that if they
actually unplugged their buds long enough to actually read
their play list lyrics out loud they will see all those
literary terms of assonance, imagery, rhythm, rhyme, simile,
allusion floating around.
I try not to have them beat the stuffing out of
poems.  I much prefer them waterski and wave in
acknowledgement as we launch out on poetry’s
waters.  Grooving on poetry is, I hope contagious. My
excitement at reading a really marvelous poem out loud causes me to
have physical reactions.  The other day I read Seamus Heaney‘s “Digging.”

English: Picture of the Irish poet and Nobel P...

English: Picture of the Irish poet and Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney at the University College Dublin, February 11, 2009. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

 

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.
My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.

 

When I finished reading the poem
out loud I sucked in my breath and danced a bit in
place, so moved was I with Heaney’s wordsmithing.  My AP
students benignly tolerate my antics. I’m hoping my
unfettered appreciation will one day stir them  into
showing me their unabashed admiration.
Considering I had minimal
exposure to poetry during my own K-12 school days, and didn’t
really discover its merits until college, I am continually amazed
at its power to stir my emotions.  I valiantly want to pass on
this joy to my students and even before the Common Core required a
unit on poetry, I taught it anyway.
My commitment to poetry is my
commentary on how words artfully placed meaningfully lend a
dimension to our lives that makes us linger to inhale the
fragrance of as Coleridges states, “the best words in the best
order.”
Do you have
any poems that cause you to dance a bit in place when you read
them? Oh, do share.
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Posted in education, Poetry, reflections, Teachers, Uncategorized, Writing and tagged , , , , ,
05 Nov 2013
10 Comments

High Praise for Low Tech


Cover of "Six-Figure Freelancing"

Cover of Six-Figure Freelancing

Last month I had the pleasure of a lunch excursion of write-minded people with at least three different local writing groups being represented. Some of those at the table I knew and others I was glad to make acquaintance.  I hope we bump into each other while attending local and regional writer to-dos.

While it’s always a delight to mingle with other writers (because that gosh-it’s-lonely-in-the-garret thing does get tiresome after a time), it’s even more of a delight when the writerly get together involves eating and gnoshing with a known writer. In our case our writer-in-the-dining was Kelly James-Enger.

Kelly owns an impressive vita. A former lawyer, she’s also served a term as a contributing editor for Writer magazine, and has racked up some amazing credits such as:

  • written and published hundreds of articles appearing in over fifty national magazines
  • authored/coauthored/ghosted 12 books.
  • speaker at national writing conferences
  • blogger focusing on making money as a freelancer
  •  being a dedicated mother of two busy kids!

As much as I learned about the business side of writing from Kelly, my biggest take away was her lo tech savvy.

She and I share this nerdy joy of NEO. Not Matrix Neo, but the odd little wants-to-be-computer someday NEO. At first glance it resembles an overgrown calculator. At second glance it makes you wonder why a person would want to use it. At all.

Take a look at its amazing features:

  • no internet
  • no printer capability
  • no word processing
  • no large screen
  • no thumb drive save

I know–it’s a list of no nos. Why bother with such a low tech device?  That’s the beauty of it–it’s so low tech that it produces high results.  You know how easy it easy to fire up the laptop, iPad, MAC, whatever and go in with great intentions. Before long it’s rabbit trail time as social media is checked, updated, and read, meaningless research extranvagas commence, and general time wasting occurs.  The WWW really stands WhattaWastedWorktime. NEO won’t allow you to go there.  It can’t.

I first learned about NEO a few years ago when I offered to teach Creative Writing one semester. However,  computer labs at the school were not that readily available at that time.  I decided to get creative (desperation does this at times) so we could really get some writing done. By means of a grant I earned the use of a classroom set of NEOs. This proved to be a better solution than I initially thought. My students would practically squeal with delight when I announced “Grab your NEO.” Everyone had a dedicated NEO and they would merrily plunk away their stories and download them into my designated school folder on my laptop and I would print them later. I miss my NEO days. My former NEO students fondly reminisce about those days of low tech.

Unlike iPads and computer labs, there are no worries of diligently watching and waiting to sneak up on students sneaking in email messages, games, shopping, and stupid stuff.  NEO is happy to be low tech enough to simply take in words, m’am, just the words. It’s too humble to try and be pretentious.

So, after lunch I waited around by the fireplace lounge while I waited for the MEPA to arrive and whisk me away for some shopping. I happened upon Kelly who had also decided to take advantage of the quiet fireside setting and was diligently working on one of her many projects. She graciously allowed me to hang out with her and we had a great chat session about writing, being moms, and being busier than we know is better for us.  That’s when I noticed her NEO.  Expecting an iPad, or MAC, or even something really nifty because Kelly is after all, a writer who has made the magic six figure income, and would naturally use the best tech in her craft. Sha-zam was I shocked when I found a NEO propped up on her lap.  Even more amazing was her confession on how she  prefers her NEO for those times of serious writing. There is a lesson in this, I know there is.

Before you rush out to purchase your own NEO, I have to deliver the sad news that they are no longer going to be produced. Perhaps this is a rumor.  Perhaps I should check out Snopes and make sure.

At any rate, I recommend finding a NEO for those times when you need to just get the words down, when you simply need to focus. High tech has its place.  DO NOT even think about taking away my iPhone at this point. iPad maybe–but that’s another blog.

For now I’m all about  giving a High Five for the Low Tech NEO. I wonder if Kenau ever tried one out.

Posted in creativity, education, reflections, Teachers, technology, time management, writers, Writing and tagged , ,
02 Nov 2013
2 Comments

NaNo oh oh


November is such an incredibly packed month:

  • post first quarter grades
  • plan second quarter lessons
  • parent teacher conferences
  • vote when applicable
  • Thanksgiving
  • No Shave November

oh oh somewhere in there is NaNoWriMo

If I were truly a dedicated NaNoian this should have been my first NaNo post. Well, not wanting to be too crazy this year, I’ve decided not to NaNo in 2013. I have previously NaNoed and have the completion certificate hanging on the wall. I even have bounced the manuscript out to a couple of editors and agents.

This year, however, instead of something new I shall continue with my vow of completion commitment. No more new starts until finishing half-started projects–umm, those of merit.  Some projects should keep on hibernating for both our sakes.

Yes, I am intent on finishing the middle grade historical novel I’ve been working on for the last ten years. I know, that’s an awfully long time, especially when in just a month’s time I cranked out a YA novel a couple of years. Contemporary fiction , I’ve discovered, is so much easier than writing  middle reader historical fiction. researching for a historical novel is one big onion of peel and write. As soon as I peel back one layer of information another layer is revealed.  Yes, peeling historical onions do make me cry. Getting facts straight, setting up proper verisimilitude, along with creating catchy characters, scintillating setting, and convincing complications, conflict, and climax is tough stuff. At least for me. I’m determined to finish this odyssey of a pioneer tale I started, especially when I’ve had an agent express interest.

Sooo, Na No not now, but thanks for the invite. This year my RSVP box is checked “next year, perhaps.”

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30 Oct 2013
7 Comments

Poe Is the O in October


Word association time.  Let’s go with Poe:

  • creepy
  • scary
  • gruesome
  • mesmerizing
  • madness
  • death
  • Pits
  • Pendulum
  • Hearts
  • Ravens
Edgar Allan Poe Museum (Richmond, Virginia)

Edgar Allan Poe Museum (Richmond, Virginia) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yeah, ravens. Who doesn’t know The Raven? Don’t tell my freshmen, but after we get their poetry notebooks all turned in we are pretty much done with the curriculum poems and now it’s verse revelry. This is where I bring out poems that I’m hoping will be memorable.  I like to bring out The Raven because, of course, it’s well-done, it’s a classic, it’s a trademark, and plus it’s creepy.Come on, you know what I’m talking about. A guy passing a quiet evening in his library and a crazy overgrown crow bops in and redundantly cries “Nevermore!” That’s nutsy stuff.

There are scads of versions to pursue–everything from the smaltzy Vincent Price movie to Christopher Walken’s chilling audio clip to The Simpson’s animation silliness. While all these have their own value, I have discovered my new favorite.

I’d love to know what you think.

Christopher Lee is riveting, and the illustrations–I never knew they existed!

So–Poe is the O in October not only because he left this world in such an ambiguous way on October 7th, but also because he is Oh So Creepy and for me October is the creepy month. I’m not going there about the bizarre event of parading kids around at night in costumes to hit up strangers for candy (don’t get me going on that one)–no, no, it’s not really that. It’s more due to the fact that October signifies the diminishing of daylight and I sorely miss my daylight. It’s darn right creepy to wake up at 5 am in pitch black and then have it just as light deprived at 5 pm. October must have inspired Poe to dwell so much in darkness.  He definitely rates the King of Oh-My-Goodness-That-Freaks-Me-Out writing.

English: Cover of the pulp magazine Weird Tale...

English: Cover of the pulp magazine Weird Tales (September 1939, vol. 34, no. 3) featuring The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe. Cover art by Virgil Finlay. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Posted in Literature, Poetry, reflections, reviews, writers and tagged , , ,
25 Oct 2013
4 Comments

Oh Willa–Your Pioneers!


''The Song of the Lark ''Oil on canvas, 1884

”The Song of the Lark ”Oil on canvas, 1884 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As I continually research my own pioneer novel-in-progress, I return to favorites for inspiration.  Having reread most of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House of the Prairie series, I am moving on to more grown-up fare such as Willa Cather’s Midwest trilogy of My Antonia, Song of the Lark, and O Pioneers!

Cather’s writing continually surprises me with its subtle acuity. She follows the nineteenth century omniscient style of narration that is no longer in vogue, yet as I read her seamless insights into each character, I realize I am easily visiting each character’s thoughts while still in the scene. That’s art.  It adds so much more dimension to the reading  that I find myself slipping from third person limited into omni in my own writing. *Sigh* Maybe I shouldn’t be reading Willa Cather–at least until I get my manuscript’s revisions tidied back up.

In that regard, unless you have your own concerns about being overly influenced while writing your own pioneer epic, I suggest rereading or experiencing Willa Cather’s O Pioneer!

Cover of "O Pioneers!"

Cover of O Pioneers!

Why?

It’s good stuff.  Really good stuff. Setting, for instance.  Turn to page 97 of your Random House Vintage Classic version and feast:

(Part III: Winter Memories: I)

Winter has settled down over the Divide again; the season in which Nature recuperates, in which she sinks to sleep between the fruitfulness of autumn and the passion of spring. The birds have gone. The teeming life that goes on down in the long grass is exterminated. The prairie-dog keeps his hole. The rabbits run shivering from one frozen garden patch to another and are hard put to it to find frost-bitten cabbage-stalks. At night the coyotes roam the wintery waste, howling for food. The variegated fields are all one color now; the pastures, the stubble, the roads, the sky are the same leaden gray. The hedgerows and trees are scarcely perceptible against the bare earth, whose slaty hue they have taken on. The ground is frozen so hard that it bruises the foot to walk in the roads or in the ploughed fields. It is like an iron country, and the spirit is oppressed by its rigor and melancholy. One could easily believe that in that dead landscape the germs of life and fruitfulness were extinct forever.

Personification, alliteration, imagery galore, tone, diction–it’s a banquet of literary delight.  Cather dedicates this full exposition to set up how this coldest of seasons affects the characters.  Steinbeck did much the same in Grapes of Wrath. Remember the turtle scene?

Sometimes I think we forget the importance of slowly revealing the story in our pressing need to “let’s get on with it” plot modernity mentality. Yet, there is an absolute pleasure in immersing oneself in the cadence of well-placed and balanced words.

Oh Willa–your pioneers keep singing to me of your prairie love through your song of fields, seasonal cadence, and your indelible tribute to those who left their mark upon the land.

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Posted in America, Books, Literature, Reading, reflections, reviews, Words, writers, Writing and tagged , , , , ,
11 Oct 2013
9 Comments

How Not To Write Now


 

Writers, yes you. Why are you reading this post? Wait, don’t go quite yet. While you’re here you might as well avoid that write now feeling a bit longer.

 
Write now?

 
Yes, write now. I should be, and you should be writing right now instead of avoidance tactics. Oh yes, they exist. Beats me why I will suddenly germinate 50 + 1 excuses to avoid sitting down and getting down to business. It’s really no excuse that I have excuses because I have plenty of motivation. Look at this incentive list:

 

  • The novel is almost finished.

 

  • My writing group likes it.

 

  • A New York editor critique it favorably.

 

  • An agent from the same conference asked for sample chapters because she has clients looking for this genre.

 

  • I still like the manuscript, even after years of research, rewrites, and still more rewrites.

 

So why avoid writing right now?

 
Because…
I have to eat breakfast and since I’m really craving granola to go with the new lemon vanilla Greek yogurt I just bought I need to make a fresh batch and while I’m waiting for the granola to bake I might as well scrub the stove top, the Faberware pot, the sink, and start the dishwasher. I should check the woodstove–might need a poke or a new log. I should sweep up around the hearth, maybe sweep in general. I’ll get these papers out of the way, wait these are bills–I should sit down and pay these. But first I should check the granola.

 
Before you tsk at my total lack of discipline I did fire up the laptop with good intentions.

 

But, you know how it is…

 

Emails have to be checked, lesson plans filed, the classroom website updated. Check the granola again.

 
So–
The morning has slipped into early afternoon, which is not my best time of creativity, since I am a morning energy person. I best take a nap and recharge the mental batteries.

 

Two hours later…

 

The MEPA brought home a new batch of movies from the library and I haven’t spent much time with him today. He wants to know how the novel is progressing. Right now? Yes, I should write now.

 

P.S.

 

Later that night…

 

Five chapters roughed in (what revision number is this again?) and I squeezed in a movie. It’s amazing what a little fresh granola can do for the creative muse.

 

A bowl of granola.

A bowl of granola. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

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