Winter fun

Today's Mood: Cheerful. Today's Music: Inner Genius--Creative Mind System. Today's Writing: Revising Black Dragon (down to 230 pages. It needs to be 224 or less)Today's Quote:

Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face. -Victor Hugo

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Our family hunted down the perfect Christmas tree on Saturday. It was an especially good year because it only took us 10 minutes, which is by far the record for the shortest time spent getting a tree. Usually we have to look at every tree on the tree farm--twice. But this year we wimped out and bought one off a lot. So even though we still looked at all the trees twice, there just weren't that many to look at. And my children were happy since it was next to a playground. Okay, I have to admit I was happy with the playground too. Let me tell you, going down the slide with ski pants on helps you catch some serious air! It's like a rocket launcher! (My daughter pointed out this guy standing there watching me go down the slide. I told her he wished he had snow pants on so he could do it too.)

Anyway, a lot of Anne Sexton's poetry is dark, but a fellow teacher shared this delightful poem with us last week. And I thought I'd pass it along to you.

Enjoy the snow!

Snow

Snow,
blessed snow,
comes out of the sky
like bleached flies.
The ground is no longer naked.
The ground has on its clothes.
The trees poke out of sheets
and each branch wears the sock of God.

There is hope.
There is hope everywhere.
I bite it.
Someone once said:
Don't bite till you know
if it's bread or stone.
What I bite is all bread,
rising, yeasty as a cloud.

There is hope.
There is hope everywhere.
Today God gives milk
and I have the pail.

Poem: "Snow" by Anne Sexton,. © Houghton Mifflin, 1975. Reprinted with permission.

Maine-inspired Poetry

Hey All! I'm stuck in the Portland, ME airport--my flight from Chicago to GR was canceled due to freezing rain, so the airline got me on a competitor's flight into Cleveland, then home. No biggie. Better safe than too dead to be sorry, as I say. However, I had to PAY to use the airport's wireless and there's only ONE electrical outlet for every hundred or so seats. I'm not complaining, just surprised that even this small airport hasn't moved to become more business-traveler friendly. The Starbucks tastes the same, though.

Yesterday, as I said my goodbyes to my Cottage By The Sea, I managed to write a few lines about the moornise the night before. The beginnings of a poem, methinks. Me also thinks that more will come as I process everything I saw and did. I think now that my non-writing while in Maine was more because of my desire to be on the road seeing and doing, instead of writing. Perhaps the next time, or the time after, I'll be more inclined to sit by the water and put thoughts on paper. For this first trip, I needed to experience everything.

The other thing is/was sensory overload. Sometimes I get so numb, or maybe paralyzed is a better word, because I have absorbed too much--too much color, texture, mental videos, information, too many smells, too many new ideas, etc. I tend to become unable to do anything but veg out. I play solitaire or online Euchre, stare at TV, or read, just to focus my senses on only one thing so my brain can process all the other stuff. Jigsaw puzzles are good for this purpose, too.

Does anyone else have this problem? Does it negatively affect your writing? How do you deal with it?

I also discovered on this trip that because I write so much on assignment, when I don't have an assignment to write about I can't come up with anything on my own. I go blank, and because writing then becomes a chore, I don't PBIC (Plunk Butt In Chair). If I did PBIC, chances are I'd come up with something to write about. Hmmmm. OK, guess I just solved that conundrum by writing about it!

Well, I'll be home tonight. I've decided that three days a week (Thursday, Friday, Saturday) I'm going to set aside 30 minutes first thing in the morning to write my own stuff. That will get me back in the habit of coming up with my own "assignments."

Blessings!
Deborah

Open microphone

Today's Mood: Good. (think clean 800-thread-count sheets, steak dinner, and a glass (or 2) of light but full-bodied red wine good), Today's Music: Sarah McLachlan--Fumbling Toward Ecstasy. Today's writing: only this blog. Today's Quote:

"Why is the dash the mark a la mode? Because it is so easy to use, perhaps; and because it is hard to use wrongly; but also because it is, simply, easy to see." -Eats, Shoots & Leaves Calendar Oct. 14, 2007

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On Friday I dragged my friend (my oh-so-patient and non-writing friend) along with me to an open mic. deal for poetry and prose sponsored by the Word Weavers Writing Circle (say that five times fast!). I think she was a little worried. I was a lot worried. Okay, downright scared. So why the heck did I do it? Because I'm a masochist.

I always laugh at the poor fools in movies who hear a noise down the basement and go down to investigate even though it is a horrible thunderstorm on Friday the 13th or Halloween (take your pick) and the lights don't work (of course). The idiots always take a candle, even though I tell them to find the heavy LED flashlight that Aunt Bertha gave them to fend off robbers, and then the candle blows out just when they see that horrible monster or corpse, which, of course, I told them would happen.

But now, oh-my-gosh, I think maybe, just maybe I might be that same kind of person! I mean, look, I didn't have to go to this open mic. with a whole bunch of strangers (who I didn't know!) and read a piece of my writing, which is a little like lifting my dress in front of strangers--who, by the way, I didn't know! But I went anyway. Without anyone holding a gun to my head.

And guess what? No one booed, or grabbed their pitchforks and ran after me. They did, however, clap. And afterward, they even came up and told me they liked what I read, and wondered if I ever did any story telling because I was such a good reader. And I talked about Peninsula Writers and Writing Passage and they talked about Word Weavers and it was pretty cool. I might even do it again. After all, isn't that what sequels are all about?

My friend, by the way, made the comment that poetry readings are so not like on TV. Not a single person was dressed in black, smoking a cigarette and looking snooty. So I promised I'd do better next time.

Primal poetry

Today's Mood: Reflective. Today's Music: Shawn Mcdonald: Simply Nothing. Today's writing: editing ch. 4 IFFY and two poems. Today's Quote:

"A good many young writers make the mistake of enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope, big enough for the manuscript to come back in.This is too much of a temptation to the editor." Ring Lardner

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First, let me just make the disclaimer that I am not a poet. Nonetheless, sometimes I love to write poetry. It frees me. I think it helps get past my internal editor because of the fact that I write poetry just for me. It's like dancing naked; I don't have to do it well because no one else is going to see it--the delight is just in the doing. Poetry takes place on a more primitive level--for me anyway. Not that it isn't demanding. It is--probably more so than writing novels because I have to pack image, sound, and meaning into few words.

It does make me wonder if I would have similar freedom by working in some other--uncommon for me--genres. I might just have to give it a try next time I'm throttling my internal editor as I try to write this novel.