Favorite Books

What were your favorite books to read when you were a child?

A favorite series of mine? The Shoes books.

Noel Streatfield's Ballet Shoes, first published in the 1930s, was followed by many more, including  Theater Shoes, Skating Shoes, and my favorite, Dancing Shoes. Most of these books involved orphaned children discovering hidden talents for dancing, acting, or singing (with a few surprises).

The theme: Follow your dreams.

By the time I became fully engrossed in Shoe mania, I was ready to have my parents send me to London so I could attend some sort of stage school. I had forgotten I had the grace of a hippopotamus on the dance floor, sang perpetually off key, and was far too shy to stand up on stage before an audience.

It didn't matter; I was stagestruck. I started taking dancing lessons, belted out songs from musicals,  and searched the library for plays to read. I couldn't find any, so I used the section of Maeterlinck's strange play, The Blue Bird found in the pages of Ballet Shoes. In the privacy of my bedroom, I rehearsed playing all the actors' roles. From The Blue Bird, I used the play as a template to start writing my own plays.

My dreams of limelight stardom in the theater may be over, but I'm still writing.


What was your favorite book or books?

Stars

I went outside a few minutes ago to latch the garden gate (I don't want deer dining on my spring plants). I'm always a little surprised to look up and see so many stars. I forget sometimes about the stars--the billions of worlds existing elsewhere. I still remember the first time I learned that the stars in the night sky were suns and galaxies. I started thinking obsessively about other life--something alive watching me from another corner of the sky.

Possibility.

I've been busy editing a novel and training for a new job. My days filled with work and obligation. I stop to watch the stars and remember those child thoughts--and remember my imagination.

Impatient for Patience

Ah, Valentine's Day.
Chocolate, a romantic dinner, roses, wearing a great dress and slow dancing to a sultry jazz tune . . .

Well, not quite.
A mad dash to make dinner, help with homework, and remind the boys to clean their rooms.
Wrestling with a stalling Internet connection while I try to set up a grade book for a class starting tomorrow.
Dirty dishes piled up in the sink.

Not exactly romantic.

February.
I'm thoroughly tired of winter and am impatient for some early spring blooms. My work grows monotonous, and I long for some good news.

Patience.

Yes, patience. This is something I think I have little time for, yet it is exactly what I need. The daffodils will bloom (and soon). The days will grow warmer, and the frog and birdsong will return.

Most of all, I need to be patient with my craft. My writing works best when I take the time to pause and reflect.

A pause, and I can begin again in a flurry of passion.

I hope your Valentine's Day is filled with passionate activity!

Emotional Epic

I have this childhood memory of watching some movie on television (we were at a hotel, I think) and the main character was a writer--a perky, smiling writer--Doris Day or Sandy Duncan most likely. As I watched the grinning character plunk the typewriter keys effortlessly, I had a sense, even then, that Ms. Author was some serious fiction--even fantasy. No writer could be that happy and carefree while writing--could they?

My writing adventure has been more epic. Instead of Doris or Sandy, I am Hermione facing down the evil of self doubt, emotional land mines, and other tricks and schemes of the Dark Side of the Human Mind.



In my most recent revising adventures, I discovered my efforts to create wit and clever lines have overwhelmed my character's true potential for caring and emotional response. This, of course, will not do, and it's time to pull out the wand and use the delete key. Time to create from the heart this time.

Good will triumph in the end, but the darkness must be overcome first.

How are your writing adventures going?

First Day

The new year is born in a day of dazzling sunshine and snow lingering on the hills.
I spent the morning working in the garden. Cutting back spent hollyhock and foxglove stems . . . Pushing aside the worn feverfew and poppy plants to see what new life will emerge in a month or two.

1-1-11

There is so much anticipation in this year to come. My revisions should be done soon, and I'm working hard to finish up an intrinsic novel. At home, I will continue to enjoy the magic of my boys.

Exciting, healthy, delightful months ahead.

With writing, I want to work on the craft of imagery and detail. I will be returning to the lovely world of poetry to help me with this task. Who knows? I may get a few worthwhile poems out of the process.

Finally, I have a short phrase that has become my mantra or theme for the year to come. Some may find a little silly or peculiar, but those who know how darn serious I can get at times, may understand why I picked it.

Here it is my theme for the new year:

Lighten up!

What is yours?

Happy New Year everyone!

Winter Solstice

Happy Winter Solstice! 

The sun rose at 8:01 a.m this morning and will set at 4:19 p.m (four minutes from now).

I think of a time before electricity and central heat
Before colored LED Christmas lights and iPod carols
Those who celebrated by gathering in the darkness around a fire.

In recent years I've come to appreciate the significance of solstice.

The point where the pendulum pauses before swinging back the other way.

While in Eastsound today, I paused noticing a primrose blooming in front of Enzo's Cafe. Yes, it's too early to think of spring,
yet the life force continues.

I Dwell in Possibility

One hundred eighty years ago 


A poet was born . . .





I'm naturally drawn to the poetry of Emily Dickinson this time of year.

"There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons -"

I dig through my E. D. poetry book hungry for more moments of pure excellence (for lack of a better term).

This particular poem stands out, for I feel it is an ode to my calling as a writer:

"I dwell in Possibility -"

What a great line. Isn't this what a writer does? I think of it as What if?  What if this person in this place had this happen to him or her? What would happen? And the story begins.

The second line of Dickinson's poem:

"A fairer House than Prose -"

Many say this is her declaration as a poet rather than a writer of essays or fiction, but I see it as an explanation of the imagination. This place of possibility is enormous and endless. Possibility always exists.

The Final lines declare:

"The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise -"

The paradise? What can be created!

All of the possibility and what if moments flood with characters and situations, places and imagery. The writing comes from this place, and the possibility is what I hold most important to my own process.

Thank you for putting  up with my subjective literary analysis of E. D.

I hope your day is filled with possibility.

Happy Birthday Emily.