Interior Management

Writer’s block. We all suffer from it, some more than others. Ideas and stories swirl around in my head. In the car. In the grocery store. Speaking with a friend. And then they simply disappear in the windmills of my mind. What was I going to say? “oh, that would make a good part of that story…” and later at my paper, I cannot recall what it is at all.

So, maybe I am not a writer after all! Gasp! I cannot even finish a chapter, and my 13 year old grandson just self-published an epic fiction novel and is selling it! Double gasp! Help me, grandson! “Just keep writing,” he says, “I wrote all day long,” he adds.

More self discipline is needed, I can see that. I keep looking for truths to add, and maybe I just need to knock it off. Maybe if it isn’t realistic enough, that’s okay. Fiction, right?

Talking myself up here, life is full of little ditty things that can be pushed into story lines. Maybe I need to satisfy myself with the short, one-page story, and let the chips fall where they may.

See? You, my audience, have perhaps inspired me, without even seeing this, but the anticipation is truly there.

A Writer’s Inspiration

I’ve started. Back to the basics, to prod me once more.

The preface has already juiced my brain.

I encourage us all.

Thank you, Natalie Goldberg.

Thank you, old used bookstore in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.

The Dress

Nowhere to wear it, so Olive started a wardrobe for her guest. She had bought it at a Fetish Lane concert, ironically held on the grounds of the old farm, once owned by a relative generations and a few cousins ago.

She wears it well. (“Rhoda would be proud,” thought Olive.)

Fanning My Flame

Surrounded by the comforts of my ancestors, words from the philosophies of Emerson and Thoreau, I am reminded of who I am and where my soul thrives. All of the outside world fades, for just this brief moment of time, and I fan the flame called my soul, into a roaring fire that drives me forward into 2019 and shows me that happiness is right here, inside of me.

Mary Poppins is My Middle Name

I have chosen this because I somehow believe that I am “practically perfect in every way!”

Nonsense.  Push it aside and you find an older woman (not even middle aged by definition, although I still consider myself in that age range) who tries so much to be practically perfect and be it to everyone.  STILL.

I actually chose the title of this article today because my great striving this holiday season is to go see the newest Mary Poppins movie.  I love Mary Poppins.  I want to be Mary Poppins.  Mary Poppins has every hair in place.  She wears wonderful hats.  She has a carpet bag that houses a mirror, a large plant, and all things magic.  She has an image that competes with her in the mirror!  Mary Poppins jumps into chalk drawings and creates an adventure. Mary Poppins sees the humor, and rolling her eyes, joins in as eccentric Uncle Albert rolls with laughter on the ceiling.   Mary Poppins spouts wisdom.  Mary Poppins looks at adults and says things like “supercalifragilisticexpialidoscus.”   Nonsense that no one understands, but eventually accept  and not grudgingly.  I want to dance on chimney tops with my Bert (yes, my Bert and I actually DO ballroom dancing)!

I love my grandchildren and want to be their Mary Poppins.  I want to look at their parents–my children–and have them see a crazy old woman who zips up and down staircases with their children, doles out sweet tasting goodies that are good for you to awe those little children into thinking their grandma is magical, when really she is just a crusty old lady with acceptance issues!  But the crusty old lady thinks her grandchildren are the cats’ meow and will do anything to love and entertain them.  Anything to leave her mark on their lives.  Anything to become a historical creature, without doing anything illegal, of course.  And when I leave, whether temporarily through the clouds, sporting my umbrella, or forever on that day, I want to be remembered.

That’s why I do the things that I do.  I write letters that I hope my children (and grands) read, I write journals, so they know who is living in the hyphen, and I become an historical person that actually LIVED, not a vague name on an ancestry listing.  I may never be a national figure, or international figure like Mary Poppins, I will never be a notorious queen, such as Mary, Queen of Scots, or poor Ann, who lost her head over Henry VIII’s whim.  But for what I am hoping is that, for two generations to come, I am.

So let me strip that Mary Poppins middle name from the title, and be Grandma.  Perfect in every way.  And not even practically!

You Pop!

I think I may have had a revelation in the wee hours of this morning.

Now and then I read about slowly waking up and becoming aware of your surroundings. I don’t. I just POP and I’m awake. I never even realize I’m awake, I just am. My thoughts do not idly turn toward the day. They just are. A mile a minute. Then the cats come up to pretend their snuggle, when in reality they want to be fed now. I’ve got to hand it to them, they are shrewd!

Anyway, I’m thinking that this is what happens when you die. You don’t slowly and painfully realize it, you just are. You don’t even arrive bag in hand and say “where am I?” You just are there. It’s so ordinary it’s probably too profound to realize.

I’m guessing that my friend, Ruth, went through that. She had a cold (flu?) and wanted the comfort of her cot by her wood stove. She had her tea and her daughter helped her lay down. She shuffled to become comfortable. She slept. I can just see her now popping up and saying, “oh!” and looking around her. And then she got up and, I don’t know where she went, but assume she resumed her journey into afterlife. It would be nice to run into her and talk about it, but I’m not sure that happens. I know I will find out!

“Oh shoot! I should write about this! Let others know!” are my first thoughts (hence this post). Heck, I bet you don’t need me to tell you that. We will all find out on our own! I’m only letting you know in case you have concern, and just want you to rest easy. It will be okay.

Writer’s “Cramp”

Reviewing this blog, I’ve noticed that I haven’t been very faithful.  So, I thought that, perhaps, you’d like to know how I myself am doing at this fiction writing exercise.  I’m interested in knowing what my readers are doing.  Are you writing?  Has the challenge tickled your imagination yet?

I admit, I haven’t written daily.  Out of all of my resources of books to grab sentences from, they all seemed to identify the book itself.  I know that, should I pursue any intentions, too, I have to rewrite that first sentence, so as to not to plagarize.

Here is what has happened so far…

The story of a small boy sitting in a tree, deciding the things that should be…

Houses shuttering their windows against the dust of the hot dry summer sun, taking their nap…

The rain set in early that night…

He picked up a copy of the early edition and studied the front page…

What I find most interesting is that each of the stories ended up with an entirely different take than what I had thought they’d end up being.  Then I wonder how in the world I came up with THAT?

These are all rough (very rough) drafts, but eventually I will come up, I believe, with something to construct my very own novel with.  Even if I don’t, the exercise is a lot of fun.  But like all exercise, it does take discipline and consistency in order to get results!

 

 

Much Ado About …

Random thoughts occur each day.  Every day I speak to my mind, “this is good book material,” and the rest of the day goes by, uneventfully, when it comes to the written word.

I said today, to The Farmer, “I think I’ll write a story and add to the Indian Joe legend.”   The Farmer, who listened to my rather profound thought, stated, “well, I do that!”  

So, I erase Indian Joe, and tell you the stories of The Farmer, who says many wise things.

The inspirational story of today comes during 90 degree heat (accompanied by humidity).

The Farmer, coming in from the field, rinses his arms with water to wash away the chaff and grass from his suntanned arms.  Mindfully, he soaks his wrists beneath the cool running faucet water, cooling his body temperature, because this is where the blood is closest to the skins surface.”

(Please note, Indian Joe would use the stream.)  

But The Farmer is here today, while Indian Joe is off in the woods, so The Farmer gets all the credit! 🐃🐄🐖🐓 

Journaling vs. Writing

Is there a difference?  I suppose there is, but it’s all that is inside just waiting to get out.  Whether you write about the boring subjects (self, as posted by one writer), or a mystical fiction book with suspense and/or action written all through it, it really is about SELF, and what happens inside of you, events that twist and turn your thinking around and develop story lines.

I am a writer of nonfiction.  I just cannot seem to develop the fictional story line, no matter how hard I try.  I love historical fiction, but lack the discipline to find out everything I need to find out about an era, the time and effort it takes to check and see if I can use famous names and/or places within my book, or do I have to change the names every time?

Benjamin Disraeli said, “When I want to read a good book, I write one.”  Amazing!  Astounding!  I wish I had said that!  Moreover, I wish I’d written that!  But I didn’t.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Lay this volume down.  You had better never see my essays than to be warped by their attraction out of your own orbit and made my satellite.”  Yet how many, including me, have become his satellite?  I think, what he did not realize, was the power he has, a master of words, to liven the soul, bring it out of the woodwork of my body, enlightening and challenging.

I’m encouraged, on a daily basis, to live to the best of my ability on this pale blue dot, Carl Sagan’s name for the planet, Earth.  We are here but a short while and we think we count.  We count to the generations living only about 100 years, beyond that we become merely a name with two dates separated by a hyphen.  Unless we are a ruler, an explorer with the backing of Spain, or a heretic, this is the only thing people will see on ancestry sites, and the pages that they carry to prove their worth, and that of me, a name that their seed comes from.

Live in the moment, for the moment, do the job you need to do in that moment, or relax, if that is what the moment deems.

Eat.  There is no chocolate in the grave.  Drink more milk, or your favored beverage of the gods.  Do both in moderation, for moderation is the key to our sustenance.

And while you photographers (finger points straight at you, while the thumb points right back at me) are out there preserving the memory, take the moment to reserve it in your mind.  Apples fall, make the applesauce while enjoying the moment of the work, cutting and cooking, and filling the jars, and remember this harvest and the activity and laughter in it’s creation, for this is the life we have.  It may be simple, it may be boring to another, but it is your life, and it is not boring to live it.  (For the sake of this article, I did NOT take any pictures, although my fingers were itching to do so.  Like a good book, we can place it in our minds eye and create it with our own imagination.)

Gleaning

Intellect, Ralph Waldo Emerson.

“Our intellections are mainly perspective…Each truth that a writer acquires is a lantern which he instantly turns full on what facts and thoughts lay already in his mind, and behold, all the mats and rubbish which had littered his garret become precious. Every trivial fact in his private biography becomes an illustration of this new principle, revisits the day, and delights all men by its piquancy and new charm.  Men say, where did he get this? and think there was something divine in his life. But no; they have myriads of facts just as good, would they only get a lamp to ransack their attics withal…We are all wise. The difference between persons is not in wisdom but in art…”

I could go on, but I won’t.  My encouragement this morning, though, is to light the lamp and start ransacking the attic of my mind, digging for that precious gold:  our treasure of stories, wisdom that we have gleaned based on experience, or non-wisdom!

Please excuse me, I need to light my lantern now…