Ramblings of a Happy Land

Don't ever, NO Never get up in the middle of a mindset. When you are writing and it is flowing, don't interrupt the flow.

So what to do when you are in the fully flowing river of the muse, herself, and class is upon you? I had to stop immediately and go to class. And I swear it was the worst coming back afterward to being again. I felt like I was amidst choppy waves, tossing me every which way but where I thought I needed to go. The flow was harder to come by. The river had slowed considerably once I returned. Oh the horrible wretched inconsistent flow of the muse. Darn her! You are so consternating!

I'm working on my list of favorite and most delight-some words. Can you guess any of them that I've come across in my reading that I suddenly find a space for? I'm a hoarder of words. Let me tell you.

I used to have this notebook that I filled with my favorite words. Somewhere along the way it went missing. So my goal is to get it back and simply refill another page with them. Page after page after page of glorious words.

I am obsessed. Clearly. But if you try to give me an intervention, I shall brain you with Oxford's dictionary. Try me.

In the meantime, here is more laughable and somewhat promising poetry from me. Remember all the poems, save the last are simply warm-up poems. And please understand that most of my aims are to play with words, with images, with surprises unexpected, and the overall craft. I am crawling out of my darkness and into the light, but I still have some dark humor. Take it as you will:

Within

“A travesty!” I

Announce. “A travesty

Behest!” No one speaks

Nor writes like such any longer.

“The shame, ‘tis the shame

Of us all!” I cry

Mightily within my heart.

But it’s locked

Away in the closet

the corner closet within

a box within

A safe within

A blackened tiny space within

A room within

A room within

The closet of my heart.

And ne’er will I divulge such whimsy

To the world at large.

But to you

I may just

Someone tie the rope just right

Someone tie the rope just right

The noose is loose

Now too tight

You must be joking at the sight

of this knot

I know knots and

You know not

The pain and sorrow of such sloppy work

Simply won’t do with all that effort

Do it now and do it right

Someone tie the rope just right!

So I can hang myself.

Unnamed

I won’t give you the rhyme

You seek you see

I don’t like rhyming, it’s kitschy and bland

All the writers sound alike

When they rhyme

And I lose all meaning in such light

Playfulness and fondness

Especially when the darker ones

Rhyme and tip the boat too far

Into rhyming and I want nothing more

Than to plunge that author further

Into the darkness

They seem to know so well

And ask if rhyming exists

In such a great and deep abyss.

Unnamed

Poetry is easy for me

Perhaps not you but all my words

When flowing like water over the falls

Comes naturally easily,

Little work at all.

But when I drift slowly,

Eroding the sandy rocks below

Etching and carving my words into stone

I’m carrying bloated wood, a dead crow.

The dam is built, the drops ensnared

Algal is coming to murder us all

So set my voice upon a hill

And watch it run gloriously down

without stagnation

Watch in me for the sky above

As I work to create the image of the heavens.

This week's writing assignment was as follows:

1.    Write two versions of a mixed feelings poem (about the same topic, think differences in tone and mood like "The Bells")

Note: He is referring to Edgar Allan Poe's The Bells. Take time to read if you have not. It's longer than short, but Poe is always worth the time, if not the shiver up your spine. Below is my take on the project. Needs work, but I think it is definitely a start:

A Day With Rain

A cool amber day

Turns foul and moody grey

sky kisses from a dead fish

black oil and last month’s dust

invading the taste of breakfast

stooped leaves on

mom’s tomatoes over

a somber pool that grows

like a silent figure over Owl Creek

hastening my steps to the bus

A day that ceases to end

As the sky just rends

Rends and Rends and Rends

With Rain

O Rain

O Wretched Wrothful Rain

Everywhere and everything is cold slicing rain

Rain will cease to end or end or end

Rain Just rain

Rain and Rain and Rain

Rain and Rain and rain

Rain Just Rain

Do not end or end or end

Everywhere and everything is cool shining rain

O Pattering Puddling Rain

O Rain

With Rain

Lends and Lends and Lends

A sky that just lends

A day I don’t want to end

Hastening my steps to the lot

A gleeful sprite in a spring-rain creek

Wishful puddles that flower

Her innocent daughter’s smile

In a joyful stomping hour

The invading taste of life

Earth and grass, a voltaic cologne

Enraptured frolic, bare and alive

Turns a foul and moody grey

Into an amber day

This poem's title is an homage to Enya's album A Day Without Rain in which exists my favorite song called Wild Child. The poem itself is a nice juxtaposition between today and how I felt about the rain versus a specific time when I was at camp (yes I was about 16, I believe) and it was just storming crazily outside. I was watching it and was just in awe of the rain, so I decided to go out and dance in it. So CD player tucked in my pants with Enya's album loaded up, I went out and danced in the rain for probably a good half hour to an hour, by myself, completely alone without eyes. I danced and jumped and frolicked in that rain and I cannot remember feeling happier about a single moment or time in my life that included simply me, existing in the world and being all that I am. 

I'm hoping this endeavor I am taking on will bring it all back. Leastways, that's my true goal. Where do I see myself in 5 or 10 years Mr. Faculty Mentor and Advisor? Happy. That's where. Enraptured. Frolicking with glee. Fully clothed, of course.

Word Vomit - Of Sorts

See below for my latest work. It is all poetry as that is our current focus in my writing course. It is available for a limited time only. The previous post highlights how I write and prepare to write for the day. Enjoy!

Currently Unnamed

Pop! Goes the winter storm

Frosting the town below

That sits astride an icing lake

A crafted bridge’s milieu.

Sprinkles of green conifers

white marzipan lights, garnishing

homes that brilliantly illumine

those subtle sugar windows.

Frozen dew - gelatin encasing delicate trees

The drifts of tasty snow

Piped rooftops in nature’s buttercream

Excite my innocent hunger.

At last the artist’s final touch -

And moving from a powdered sugar sky

Morning reveals soft limelight

Silent awe, to the delicious delight of the town.

Alone Should Not Be Me

Somehow I watched the wanderer

Wishing he were me

The aimless direction of his path

Seemed alluring to see

If I lost my way upon the sea

I’d have a direction to seek

Though lost I’d not wander aimlessly

As I have someplace to be

His feet shuffled freely

Eyes dwelling long upon things

Seeming content in his fruitless pace

I wished it to be me

To take a road less travelled by

Would be quite heavenly

I’d take my pack upon my back

And let my feet go free.

I’d say goodbye get on a plane

A bus, a train, or just run

I’d walk upon every place on earth

But did I wish this thing for me?

Then I thought of losing love

Of having to be on my own

It seemed to me in order to be free

I’d have to be alone.

A path has direction

Matter not the aimless walk

And suddenly I understood

Alone should not be me.

The heavy footsteps of the man

Felt sad instead of free

It must not be to wander so aimless

All alone and lost – should not be.

The road less traveled can be free

But one must never walk alone

Take a friend or family, even abroad

One must need a home.

Opposites

Sometimes you take the hit
to achieve the victory
You feel death
To know what it is to live
And you fall
To understand why you rise
An angry spurn
Can blossom from it, redemption
Losing your way
Discovers the path
But in the end, my dear, you shall see
It has been meant to be your beginning.


This last one was my actual writing assignment.  The others were my warm ups and word vomit of sorts in preparation of this particular poem. The instructions were thus: Write a poem featuring at least 15 words that are pleasing to you. Your goal will be to celebrate the beauty and pleasure of these words (there is reference to a poem we read in our previous reading assignments, but I did not use it while I wrote as I had a fairly good idea of what I wanted to achieve). The length of this poem should be at least 15 lines, but not exceed 30:

My own little dribble

I imagine one would ask

To see inside my head. Here are various words

One might venture are written

amidst the walls in my universe:

Tangible cerulean gossamer illumines

the swift autumnal breeze

Arithmetic, enigmatic, on a languid palomino

What a texture, or a shape, the shadow it creates

Slake the emblem! Elaborate!

Now delicate partake:

Pneumococcal hemophilia

Of a misanthrope may be best.

Pianissimo pizzicato

Now allegretto crescendo

And on to, who do I know?

Artemis and her hunting bow,

Aristotle, Sophocles:

Antigone, his creation. Erasmus

Snow, Socrates, Monet and Degas,

For show.

An ebb and flounder, in colloquial lilt ‘tis not,

Now a mighty decrescendo

Into lunar-soft reflection of the lush ether

Staring at the Blank Page

If you take a writing class, here is a tip from me. Don't ever start your assignments cold. Like exercising, you need to warm up. Stretch those little writing brain muscles. You want them to build up strong, not snap and go insane. Save your sanity. Start writing nothingness, or horribly, or for fun. If music helps, bring on the music. If silence helps, either soundproof your room and your ears, or go to the library. Or move to the middle of a forest, or Antarctica. But get yourself writing somehow.

Take at least five minutes to get into it. If you just don't know where to start, then start by writing that. I find that sometimes I come to my empty page with the whole day on my tongue, or annoying snippets of things just bouncing around in my head space. So get that out and onto the page (just have another notebook or file called Writing Warm ups or Word Vomit). Address it, don't just push it out of the way. Address it in a way where your brain is okay with letting it go elsewhere so you can focus on what you need to: your assignment. And once you feel that the words are starting to come as liquid, you are ready to move on.

Now if it's twenty minutes later and you are still struggling with getting words out, it may be anxiety about the actual project. But as long as you are getting words out a little easier than when you first came to the page, you can move forward and see where it goes. 

When I'm really clunky like this: anxious or having a hard time getting anything out, I try to do my assignment sooner rather than later. I do that because I might want to try a writing exercise on my own. You would be amazed at how many writing prompt books there are out there if you are short on ideas. 

If you are still clunky after that, then leave and return later (a few hours or even a day later), do a writing warm up and try again. And believe it or not, it is easier the second time. And even easier the third time. And soon your writing warm ups are about two lines long, if that. Sometimes only a sentence and you are flowing along like a river, caught up in its mighty current.

Now you can jump into your assignment. Normally what comes out now is far better than if you tried to start cold. I cannot tell you how many times I banged my head against a wall with nothing in my head for an assignment but desperately wanting to write. It's there, you're probably just clogged. So get the writing clog out and then go to the assignment.

Whether you look at it as a clog or as warm ups, all the great authors will tell you that writing anything is better than writing nothing. And the more you write, the better you will get. 

Stephen King gives a great tidbit of advice in his book On Writing. Give me a minute to grab his book because it's that important: "Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page." (p. 106)

He even emphasizes that last part in italics in his book. And you need to read his book to understand what he means by that. Or you need to be a writer. Or you simply need to write long enough to understand the meaning. Or you just aren't meant to be a writer. I don't think I was ready to be a writer for many years. I thought a little effort would give me what I needed. But what I needed was a good kick in the pants of reality of what life is like without writing. And now I get it. 

Now don't take this the wrong way, Mr. King, or Stephen, or however you'd like to be called. As much as I appreciate your words, I did enjoy Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury more than your book. Sorry, but maybe it's because he speaks my language more. Or maybe because I'm a huge nerd when it comes to Ray Bradbury's books. I like your books, Mr. King. I love his books. Sorry, you scarred me with It. So you deserve it.

Generalized Anxiety

Wanting to write and not knowing how to start are the two biggest ilks in my mind's life right now. My mind's life being my inner thoughts. My artistic wiles, my emotion's rest. I have a lot going on in life, but I am acutely aware of how the clock is winding down on a timeline I must follow upon a tightrope schedule. Tip too far one way or another, or even enough to jangle my nerves, and I will topple my life to the ground. So to speak.

Leastways, that is how I feel. I have pounds to lose, work to finish, homes to move, and a spouse to support. It all seems so much, yet so amazing in its movements. Though my logical nerves spin and fray at all of this, my inner self is at peace somehow. I'm not sure how. As if I'm sure I am still on the right path. The journey is still meted out and will still find a way. How can I be so sure?

Faith in most part. In the other, my imagination seems to lead the remainder of the way. I am unstoppable. I am alive. I am quoting Sia titles. Nevertheless, I continue on. Anxious, excited. But surely now, an unstoppable force. And there are no immovable objects to slow me down.

Don't Stop Me Now

My fingers are getting that itchy feeling. That sudden desire to claw at the keys to get words to escape in fours, fives, and hundreds onto a screen. I'm feeling that familiar pull to write. To just write and write and write. Finally after a few weeks, I've found a moment to do a little something about it. I certainly hope I don't have to wait much longer to do more.

My workload is increasing: at the office, at home, all of it. But with it comes this slow and steady build towards something. Toward what will be in four months, the next chapter outlining the beginning of the next adventure in my life, in my family's life. I am anxious to open it and begin writing. But as all good things, it cannot be sooner. Not yet.

In the meantime, let us prepare. Let us work, let me schedule my new classes, find our new home, and mostly, let me write. And write and write and write. Because if there is one thing I have learned in my life, it is that one can write wherever you are and whatever your circumstances, so long as you have the desire.

Pens and computers are merely a vessel. Your mind holds the meat of the story, the entire timeline, the characters, the setting, the plot and theme. All you need is that itch. That drive to create.

If you haven't done it, it is like learning an instrument or how to play a sport. You start with the basics, just the structure and the parts, then slowly, slowly, then faster as you progress, you create. If something doesn't work, cut the part that isn't working. Don't burn down the house because you don't like how the plumbing went in or how the bathroom looks. Just tear that part out and keep going. It can be done.

As for the rest of the day-to-day life, my highlights are reading nightly with my daughter. If you do not have that pleasure, I can promise there is no feeling as wonderful as reading a loved story alongside your child as they discover it for the first time. The laughter, the tears, their incredulity at the characters, or their confessions of love for other characters makes my heart full.

And then I think of my own creations. And how if I don't get them out, my children will never know them. Other children will never come to know them. Would that be a great tragedy? To not have my mind's precious stories shared? My husband assures me so. But the truth is, if I never share, the ones who may come to love them never get their chance to weigh in. Is that so fair?

So write for them, write for yourself. Write for the love of writing. Just write. And write and write and write some more. And eventually, something will come out of your mind that will make a difference.

Rewriting the Stars

This last month, it was 5 years since I started my current full time job. I have grown gracefully and a little wildly in places. And I have learned much. In all the things I have accomplished and set before me, I have sowed a seed that grew to reveal a very different plant than I thought I was going to get.

I thought that I was going to just work a normal 9-5 job, raise a family, and write in all the spaces in between. Instead, I have learned that for myself, that is not to be. Rather than filing and managing and working those numbers, I am a different plant than one that thrives in such an environment.

Despite loving who I work for, those I work alongside, and the meaning behind all of the work, I am finding that I am not happy there. I have tried being happy, and I feel I was, for a time. Now, however, I feel it is time to move on and do that which I have always desired to do.

It is time to leave the world we have created: the 9-5, the rush hour traffic, the Mondays, the "hump" days, and the office burnout. It is time to go back to what started all of this blogging and writing nonsense.

Stories. Books. Settings. Characters. Themes. Connection. Hope. My life.

And ironically enough, it begins with relearning the alphabet, words, sentence structure, and wordplay. In every sense, I am about to embark on getting those obnoxious ABC's down to no longer a science, but an art. It is time to go back to school. To study what I've always loved and had a passion for. To work to accomplish what I feel I've always been meant to do.

And so I go. Literally, I will go to school. To finish what I began years back; to set out on the next adventure of my life and of my family's. In this moment, it brings me peace to say such things.

Books Keep Us Free

There are quite a few books that I have had the pleasure of reading that have brought me a new depth and perception to my life that I never could have thought possible.  There are numberless books that have changed me.  There are so many many books that have caused me to lose hours and hours of much needed sleep, while I either read them, or relived them in my head.  There are only a few that have changed me, given me a new depth, and caused me to lose sleep not because I wanted to, but because I was haunted by them.

Hiroshima by John Hersey was a book that left images in my mind and heart that haunted me for a week afterward.  When I think of that novel, I feel the breath leaving my body, as if my lungs no longer work.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.  The difference of this novel is that it is a work of pure fiction.  So I was able to eventually crawl out of the abyss this one threw me into.  However, what happens to the main character in this novel is an occurrence that happens much too often when it should never even be a whiff of imagination.  Young girls preyed upon, obsessed by, kidnapped, raped, murdered and the people who get away with it.  It is nothing one should ever have to know about, much less experience.  And the families left behind, torn apart by the not knowing and the evil that such a mark can leave on the world.  This work left me aching for those who have been through this, whether or not they survived.  It left me aching for families that were shattered by these things, and made me, as a mother, a basket case for quite some time.

The book I just completed yesterday is in the same mold.  The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe. You can hear all the horrors and the heroic events of such a time, but it never prepares you for when it impresses itself upon you like a vice.  The images and the events spin around in my head like a whirlwind.  To imagine those who lived through it and had to carry on such horrifying nightmares from which most of their family never survived... there are no words that can comprehend it.  But there are words that can try.  This one mixes fiction with nonfiction, but to be honest, you knew when you were reading fiction and when you simply were not.

I couldn't even rate it on good reads because I could never say whether it was a good thing to have read it or not. I could never say I recommend it.  I could never say, "Read this, you'll love it." Because it terrified me. While immersed in its pages, reality felt like a dream that was too good.  I could barely comprehend the polar opposite that it was. Even now, I am left with these pieces of myself that I have to figure out how to reassemble.  And I know that when I am done, the picture will not be quite the same.

Each of these books has left a mark that will not come off.  I respect them for that, I thank them for that.  But I will never read any of these three books again.  I cannot experience them again.

I think of what I will write, and I think of why, and I know.  These books, this last one in particular, remind me of that.

The Case of Re-entering Normalcy

Life after vacation does not exist.  It is the void that you step into when you think there are no more stairs.  There you are, falling into nothingness and there is no semblance of a floor that will not jar your joints into oblivion. 

When you go on vacation, they always talk of the anticipation, the planning, the execution, the joy of returning to your own home and bed, and even the "jet lag" you may get even without switching time zones.  What they fail to warn you of is the lack of motivation lasting for weeks afterward.  The inability to comprehend not just falling back into your routine, but falling back into your life as it exists.

Who knew depression existed on the other side of fun?

When I returned that first night, I was so excited to get back into writing.  And then the next day happened. I came home, and plodded through my evening, sat down to rest and relax, to eliminate the need to "do" anything.  And did just that.

Eliminated doing anything. For days.  Weeks.  I existed. I slept, ate a little, worked, came home, existed, slept, ate a little, worked... and that was who I was.

Even my children seemed to fall into the routine of nothingness.  Today, after missing my alarm because of all of our contagious nothingness, I arrived to work an hour and a half late and we all finally decided that this nothingness was dangerous.  So we did something today.  We did something this evening.  We cleaned or cooked or even did a few crafts.  And now, now I want to write. 

It's been welling up inside of me.  And once again, I find myself here, painting on a canvas that is no longer blank because I dared to splash it with color.  I love this part.

Snickerdoodles and Summer Journals

My mind is always racing with all I need to do to get from A to B. It reels and rams itself over and over into more and more to-dos and lists and whats and whys.  I often cause more anxiety than there actually is because I am so afraid to miss something that is seemingly important but in the vastness of life, is nothing of note. 

Right now my mind is sifting from one moment to the next, preparing for a summer vacation that is on our horizon.  My list of items to accomplish grows longer by the second and more intimidating than facing a firing squad. 

Writing is a way to slow all of it down.  To stop it all, leave life hanging in midair, and move into a realm where anxiety does not exist for me.  There are times when anxiety in my writing comes out.  When I think of timelines of how long it will take to do something, or when I want to set my "deadline" and I cannot make it.  That is when I realize that I am squeezing out the creation and inspiration, and inflate my writing with superfluity.  It's all hot air.

And when it is filled with hot air, it is time to let it go: let it rise up and away into the sky while you watch from below.  And when it is hidden in the clouds shaped like Donald Duck or a rhino in a bath, you turn your attention back to what it has always been meant to be.  Your sanity, your worlds, your dreams and hopes.  And lay out the story once more and continue onward.

If only I could apply this to my actual life.  Now there is an idea.

Post-School Year Races

Making it to the end of a school year with children feels much like trying to run a marathon with kids strapped to your back, front, and lagging behind you in a wagon while you carry all necessary school supplies.  Somewhere along the line, you wonder if all this crap is worth it.  And you begin to wonder why in the world everything has to be left to the end: the recitals, the awards ceremonies, the events in which everyone MUST be there. 

This chaos did little to allow me the freedom to express myself.  Instead, I was up late cramming for spelling tests, washing laundry for much needed said events, making dinner, planning for Summer fun, and on and on.  This didn't even involve the normal life that inevitably occurs between all this. 

When exactly am I supposed to find time to write? Oh, that's right.  Somewhere in between the hours of never and ever.  And this pulls me off the rails. 

At least my runs aren't for nothing, that is, when I can get them in.  My brain just fills with my world and off I go.  Why have they not invented a DragonSpeak bluetooth for runners that downloads automatically to a phone?  Not that I could afford it anyhow, but it's sure fun to dream.

And now, a few days after it has all finally washed over us: the end of another school year, I sit peacefully at the foot of my sleeping children and write.  What bliss I feel as my hands stream across the keyboard and fill a white space with words. 

Words not of pure imagination, but words to charge the spirit and warm the blood.  That is the spark and the page is the kindling.  Off I go to warm myself by the fire inside.

Jumping from Draft 2 to 3.5

Combining drafts is more difficult than I thought.  Merging thoughts sometimes don't merge as smoothly as you would think, particularly when they are from the same person on the same subject, but delivered at different points in a timeline.

And so the inner struggle continues to weave together, ever stronger, the lines between the lines within the lines.  Sometimes I wonder if I am giving too much or too little all the time and all at once. 

This is forever a struggle in all I do, and when it occurs in my work, I wonder where I am going to land.

I have felt so ahead and so behind in everything. I know this cannot make sense to the vast majority of you, but truly I am pushing and I am pulling simultaneously.  And somehow, while I do this, I see my reflection working backward.  This is a fun house of thoughts.  I feel trapped and enlightened. I only hope I can remain this positive in the end.

And so it goes. And so it goes.

The Ties That Bind Tripped Me

The trick isn't about creating new problems. It's about solving the existing ones.  When I'm editing, I feel that my subconscious is trying to maneuver through the problems while my conscious self is consistently getting itself into trouble.

How do you disentangle yourself when you end up tied into knots in your jump rope?  I had an epiphany last night after writing on how to get myself out, but I was so incredibly exhausted, I couldn't put enough thought together to integrate it in properly.  So I had to just pray I'd remember how to weave my magic today almost 24 hours later.

Tip: That's not the best course of action.  If you have any drive or alertness in the fiber of any of your being, summon it and get back to work.  Unless you realize you are entangling yourself more.  Then abandon all hope and hide in a corner, sucking your thumb until morning.  Then repeat process.

Oh goodness me, what have I gotten myself into?  Why did I think I could summit such a monstrous thing as this?  It's not like it's just a book or anything...

What are your methods to undo a mass of knots and tangles in a section of a story?  Where you felt inspiration but conveniently ended up painting yourself into the far corner without a bathroom?

Any comments and suggestions are always welcome.  I'm going to make another attempt.  Let's see how this goes.

Rocket Man

Zero hour: 9 a.m.

For some reason this song seems so perfect right now.  I'm not the man they think I am at all.  I feel like I'm walking around my small little nook of the world carrying a piece of me that no one knows about.  That is, besides those who know me very well.  Besides my immediate family and a few very close friends, who truly knows me?

Who truly knows the worlds inside me? Who truly sees what lies hidden within my mind, my heart, my fingertips?

I am so fortunate that so many have paved the way in revealing their stories.  I am blessed to have been allowed access to so many other authors' dreams.  Take a moment and just think of all the books you have read, the stories you've heard, the lives and love and loss you've shared in them.  Think of who they came from.  We know so much more about humanity and its beauty than we realize.

Pick up a book, and you are picking up a piece of a person.  You are sharing in their thoughts, their hopes, their tragedies.  You are allowing a piece of them to become a piece of you.

I am in awe, and my heart aches. My fingers aren't fast enough, my mind isn't strong enough, and I weep. 

I am always going, unwilling to give up no matter the amount of time it takes.  But I have never felt so heavy and so light as when I contemplate how far I have come and how far I have yet to go.  I take a deep breath, let it out as I collect myself. And I continue on. 

Staring at Nothing

And I wonder: what will it be like tonight? What will I write, what will I advent? The whole point of this exercise, this post tonight is to roll the dough out underneath my fingers and get it nice and thin.  Roll out the creativity before me, get it nice and spread out before me so all I can see are my words and my worlds and then I can begin to etch them out of the vastness before me.

The point is to take it all and cast my normal everyday aside so I can pull from the depths of myself and find my characters waiting to show me what they've been up to since I was away and where it is all going to go someday.

I feel the waves begin to crash further into the shore.  The tide is still coming in.  Soon it will falter and the tide will begin to wash back out.  I must ready my vessel, so I can ride out with the going tide and sail upon the waters in this brisk beautiful moonlight.  The stars above will guide me.

And so it goes, and so it goes. And so it will always go.

Sleeping Sisters

While two little ones drift into dreams beside me, I, myself, drift into a waking dream of a world I've spun.

While two nestle and snuggle into their rest, their breathing slowing and evening into a soft whisper of waves upon the Eastern shore, my breathing slows and evens as I envelope myself into my written word.

While their bodies relax and the lullaby plays out into silence, my body relaxes and the silence blossoms into the narration of my heart.

As they slumber in the peace of the room, my soul alights in the fire of inspiration, and I am awakened in my verse.

I have waited all day and late into the evening for this...

Blackberry Lemonade

I've had some flights of fancy, finding the inspired winds and allowing myself to flow along them like a leaf caught up in the trail of it all.  And I've had my moments where I, the leaf, have gotten entangled in a branch and had to painstakingly extricate myself and wait again for that wind to blow.

It has been wondrous and chaotic and adventurous and worrying and more.  I am enraptured in it all because on it goes and on it flows.  So long as I keep coming back and doing all I can maybe someday I can do it everyday, all day and late into the night if need be.  And no longer would I be shackled to the idea of hiding away myself in order to "be the adult."

I may be an adult, but still will I forever dance in the rain and watch the wind flow through the leaves of the tree on a blanket in Spring.  Still will I forever be me and that I will never change.  Still will I forever dream, and still will I forever wish on a dandelion star, and still will I gaze at the stars above and wonder about the heavens beyond.

That is who I am.  That is who I always will be.  And that is my writing.  How I hope for it to be.

But without hard work, I know, nothing grows but weeds (Quote taken from the great mind of Gordon B. Hinckley).

A Storm's Beguiling

I was speeding along so quickly yet not quickly enough for my own whirlwind of inspiration.  And then it came.  Blowing in from the west southwest, came a storm wrapping our home in lightning, thunder, wind, and rain and taking our electricity with it.

It attempted to steal my fire with sirens keening somewhere amidst the storm, barely heard but sounding nonetheless.  My husband and I gathered our half-asleep children into the bathroom and we camped out for 20 minutes on the floor with our pillows and blankets.

Finally the sirens ceased, we put our children to bed and the storm finally began to ease somewhat so I could continue with my writing, albeit still without power.

Thankfully my computer still had a 31% charge.  So I finished out my chapter and was forced to call it a night.

The adventure was within and without my mind.  But thankfully both sides came out faring well on the other end.

Another chapter is down in a new edit.  And now I begin the next.  The prospect is most exciting,
and the sparks from my fingers are beginning to fire once more.

The Gossamer Touch

Oh Lois Lowry, how your magical writing inspires me!

I feel the touch, the touch of the author's hand.  It is stronger in me than it has been in a long time.  I haven't felt this clear about a path in writing since I wrote a short story called The Loose Thread.  I wrote it in one edit*.  And there it was for all to see. 

*I have since edited the story here and there so don't ever think anyone is that good.  But at the time, I went over and over and over it and could find little to edit in the story.  I will say that the majority of edits with that story were grammatical errors and sentence structure.

Do you have a moment, a tempered flash of when that clarity hits? It is a rare thing and I feel led by a hand other than my own.  I merely try to keep up.

Reveling in Readership

You know that time when you feel that you've rediscovered something wonderful? That moment when joy and glee and light and wonder just touches you once again.  Reading is just heaven.

It makes me want to write.

In joy and glee and light and wonder, I write.

My Mourning Period

Here I am again in the Overland.  And I'm at a loss as to what to do with myself.  I just finished reading quite a wonderful series: five books worth.  The first book I read, well listened to would be more accurate, while driving to and from my sister's home last month.  It was a 5-6 hour drive, and my husband was sweet enough to pick up some audio books for me to listen to on the way there and back.  I had seen this "new" series at the book store and realized it was an author I deeply enjoyed.  So my husband, the wonderful man that he is, found the first book in the series for me to listen to on my trip.

This last weekend, I was finally able to finish the last of the books in the series.  Relax, the series has been finished (Thank goodness!).  I guess the series wasn't as new as I thought. Now...

...what? What do I do with myself? I am here all alone, with the aftermath of a masterful story with strong characters and beautiful writing... and I feel like a lost fawn in the valley; alone, scared, and I have no idea what I am supposed to do now.

It is always a running joke in reading circles, that after a wonderful book or series of books, readers often find themselves facing the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

I felt like I hit all of those stages instantaneously. Denial that I was finished.  Anger at where it leaves us and that there are not any more to savor.  Bargaining with myself that I will buy them and keep them and read them over and over.  Depressed that it is over and there are no more and will never be anymore.  And now acceptance, that I loved them and I can go back to them whenever I want and love them for what they are.

Now I bounce back and forth between all 5 like a pinball machine until I can find a new novel or series of novels to invest myself into.  That is the hardest part.  Letting go.

I satisfy myself with the knowledge that I will always go back and think over and over and over them in my mind until I am satisfied that I have gleaned everything I can into my memory banks.  And when possible, read them again and again and again until they are etched into my brain.

So where have I been? Immersed in the great Underland of Suzanne Collins.  Her first series of books, mind you.  And I loved every moment of it.  They are wonderful, and it is a fantastic allegory for our lives and who we can choose to be despite what everyone says we must be.  Especially for a series written for 9-12 year olds.

Now where will I go?  I aim to use this push to re-immerse myself into my own world and push until I have stretched it into the wonderful shape I know it can be. That's the beauty of writing your own novel: you can live inside that world for as long as you want.  But don't forget that the best way to make it real is to write it, edit it, and watch it take shape.  I wonder how those 5 stages of grief will strike when I finish.