For Auld Lang Syne

This morning with little remaining of the year Good Morning America did a montage re-cap of 2011. As I watched I reflected on where I was when these major events took place. Like many of you I watched from my television set as Japan crumbled from an earthquake and tsunami.  While driving in the car, I listened to the BBC as I heard about Europe’s economic crisis. And sitting in a café I picked up a newspaper to read about the Middle East dictators being captured, imploded and dropping like ashes. 

As I take stock of my year I think of where we are headed as a nation.  Our economy continues to be in shambles, and so much of our news is wracked with strife, that it’s easy to forget the good that comes our way.  To end the year our troops came home from Iraq and Afghanistan after almost a decade. And although we may never regain the trillions of dollars spent (at least not in my lifetime) the war that was based on poor reasoning is over.  Now we can turn our full attention to pursuing long-term strategic plans for the U.S. to build or should I say re-build our future. There will be no more casualties of the brave servicemen and women who fought abroad and I hail that as our biggest victory of 2011.  Ring out the old, ring in the new. Have a happy and safe new year.

Surrendering Talents

Here's the last post of 2011 from guest blogger and Canadian writer Shane Joseph. 

Monday, September 29th, 2008

I had a dream. An old man was dropping objects from a bag into a lake. I seemed to be able to read his mind. The first items to go in the water were a cricket bat and a ball; they eddied and floated away. “Goodbye little friends, and thank you for the joy you once gave me. My limbs are too stiff for you now.” A theatrical mask followed. I recognized it from when I played El Gallo in amateur theatre, years ago during my youth. “And my voice cannot hold that tenor anymore,” the old man said. “But it was a happy time. Thank you.”

I walked closer and there was an odd familiarity to this old man, I had seen him somewhere. He took out a guitar and set it adrift in the water. “And this can go along too. My fingers cannot reach the chords fast enough anymore – arthritis.” It was a good Catania, one I had played often but never owned, and therefore, always desired.

A tear rolled down his cheek as he took out a well-thumbed notebook. He flipped the pages, smiling at some lines, getting angry over others, looking proudly at the horizon from time to time. “You are hard to give up,” he said hesitantly. “You are all my thoughts, desires, and machinations. You are the messages that came to me from across the water, in the middle of the night, that I recorded; the seeds of the novels and stories I wrote for many years. Until you stopped coming.”

He rose and paced, slowly at first, reaching a furious march, to and fro, scratching his head, gesticulating, pleading with some unseen entity, reluctant to let go of the book. Finally, as if embraced by an invisible but caring hand, he calmed down and turned towards the horizon once again. “What is in here does not belong to me; it was placed in my custody and stewardship, for conversion into lessons for others – my readers. And that I have accomplished. Now, like me, it must return to its source.” He set the book floating out into the middle of the lake, where it weaved and bobbed with his other talents. As he removed his clothing and prepared to enter the water, I rushed over, determined to rescue him, yet knowing I was going to be too late. Who was I to save him? I caught a glimpse of his face as he slipped into the inviting lake. The old man was me.

A tribute to fairy Godmothers

My hunch is that most kids prefer younger adults. As a child, I did not. The perceptions I drew from elders influenced me.  I remember older neighbors and how I made it a point to befriend them. Such as when I watched Mrs. Flory watering her lawn how I learned about the intrinsic value of nature. Sitting in the Irving’s living room snuggled into a big chair and being served liverwurst for the first time while being told about far-away lands.  Sipping lemonade with Mrs. Stokes while she fanned herself southern style I listened on why good manners were to be cultivated. Inside the Bogue’s dining room I got my first introduction to Jazz and the Big Bands.  And last there was my godmother, Aurora who lived in a big Victorian house that had all the trappings of another era; the enormous porch, a cast iron stove, the glass kitchen cabinets, a pond in the backyard, and the foot stool I had to step on to get into a high rise poster-bed.

If any woman could be said to embody and to be confined to a 1930’s cinematic era, it would have been her. Although she wasn’t an actress, like the famous contemporaries of the time—Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, and Dolores Del Rio—she made a number of smart, savvy, sophisticated, moves that poured out of her in the years during my childhood.  She’s as much a part of the 1930's milieu as, say, the glamorous cast of The Women.    

Today I remember her since it would have been her birthday.  But also, like the aforementioned actresses, she personified what was then an era of chic—a time of glamour, attractiveness and magnetic flair.  As a child she came across as gentle and patient, forever a people watcher—forever curious about everything around her she would ask me adult-like questions about my ideas and increased my ability to symbolize, pushing my intellect making me think long after I had given my answer.  And when I gave her responses she asked me for definitions.  In my eyes, no one set the trends and pushed the limits better than she did. She was the quintessential star of my day, and she set the style, the vogue, and the trends in her social circle.  She was dubbed, the brightest, the best dressed, the most elegant, the jewel in the crown.

See No Evil

Having won numerous spelling bees during my childhood and adolescence it’s hard for me not to see errors. My husband is astonished whenever I point out a continuity mistake during a television show or film. And my hairdresser marvels at how I can visually see when he’s off a quarter of an inch on one side. What this boils down to is a miss-nothing-stare. Although I’m not perfect nor claim to be, I thought about Hemingway and his 4 rules of writing, and devised my own list. It includes the 4 most common grammar mistakes I see among bloggers, with suggestions.  

Grammar Mistakes 

1. Your vs. You’re

This one is extremely common among bloggers. All it takes to avoid this error is to take a second and think about what you’re trying to say.

“Your” is a possessive pronoun, as in “your car” or “your blog.” “You’re” is a contraction for “you are,” as in “you’re messing up your writing by using your when you really mean you are.

2. It’s vs. Its

Another common mistake easily avoided by thinking through what you’re trying to say.

“It’s” is a contraction of “it is” or “it has.” “Its” is a possessive pronoun, as in “this blog has got its audience.” Here’s an easy rule of thumb—repeat your sentence out loud using “it is” instead. If that sounds odd, “its” is likely the correct choice.

3. There vs. Their

This often gets overlooked.

“There” is used many ways, including as a reference to a place as in, “let’s go there” or as a pronoun; “there is no hope.” “Their” is a plural possessive pronoun, as in “their bags” or “their opinions.” Always do the “that’s ours” test.  Are you talking about more than one person and something that they possess? If so, “their” will get you there.

4. Affect vs. Effect

As with any of the other common mistakes people make when writing, it’s taking that extra minute to get it right that makes the difference.

“Affect” is a verb, as in “Your ability to communicate clearly will affect your income immensely.” “Effect” is a noun, as in “The effect of a parent’s income on a child’s future is well documented.” By thinking in terms of “the effect,” you can usually sort out which is which, because you can’t stick “the” in front of a verb. While some people do use “effect” as a verb such as an attorney- “a strategy to effect a settlement”, you should avoid this if you want to write in the manner in which people speak.

Five Rules

I often refer to Ernest Hemingway masculine declarative sentences. I’m almost finished reading The Sun Also Rises one of his masterpieces and a classic example of his spare but powerful writing style. Rather than embracing the flowery prose of the literati, he chose to write simply and clearly. With that in mind I’ve come up with five ways to emulate his style.  Let’s see what he can teach us about effective writing.

1. Use short sentences.
Hemingway was famous for a terse minimalist style of writing that dispensed with flowery adjectives and got straight to the point. In short, Hemingway wrote with simple genius.  Perhaps his finest demonstration of short sentence prowess was when he was challenged to tell an entire story in only 6 words: For Sale: baby shoes, never used.

2. Use short first paragraphs.
See my opening.

3. Use vigorous English.
Vigorous English comes from passion, focus and intention. It’s muscular and forceful. It’s the difference between putting in a good effort and trying to move a boulder…while sweating, grunting and straining your muscles to the point of exhaustion!

4. Be positive, not negative.
Since Hemingway wasn’t the cheeriest guy in the world, what do I mean by positive? Basically, you should say what something is rather than what it isn’t. Stating what something isn’t is counterproductive since it directs the mind in an opposite way. Even a word like inexpensive, can have a more positive tone; instead use economical. Another example; the word error-free can be stated as either consistent or stable.

5. Never have only 4 rules.
Although Hemingway only had 4 rules for writing, they were those he was given as a reporter at the Kansas City Star in 1917. But, as any writer knows, having only 4 rules isn’t really possible. So, in order to have 5, I had to dig a little deeper to get the most important writing tip and this quote says it all: “I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit,” Hemingway confided to F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1934. “I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.”

A great feast of language

What exactly does it mean to get acquainted with a literature classic by watching a television show? What happens when students are exposed to great works of literature by what they view versus what they read? Does this cultural literacy mean that literary classics have become part of pop culture and should be viewed that way?

Certainly a producer can argue when defending a TV adaptation of a classic that students who would have never read a book would at least watch a TV series based on it and get acquainted with literature classics in this way. And that argument seems to be valid. But there are those who can also argue that contemporary TV adaptations of classical novels are often simplistic and add elements of vulgarity believing it will keep the viewer engaged when it pollutes the storyline.

So which is correct? Both may be correct to a certain degree. But they are missing one important point: literary classics have become part of pop culture and should be viewed in that way; not as something whole or pure.

A good television or film adaptation can certainly provide pleasures of its own, but they are the pleasures available in that medium. A good film requires careful attention, just as a good novel, but the kind of attention being paid is not the kind required by fiction. Films can provoke us into immersing ourselves into the scenes since the image moves and forces us to keep track of the information conveyed through editing; it is ultimately the work of the eye and ear keeping pace with appearances. We have to look and listen. Fiction requires a kind of looking, but even our visual registering of a word, phrase and sentence, and the way these elements arrange themselves in a style distinctive to the author we're reading, is an internally-oriented mental process rather than an externally-oriented process of sorting sights and sounds.  Our imaginations then have to finish the job the writer has started. We have to mentally transform the words, phrases, and sentences into actions, thoughts, and the emotions of the characters. 

Seeing a film as either a supplement to or as a replacement for reading classic works, doesn’t make sense to me. It's based on the assumption that works of fiction are stories about characters and that, since a visual medium is able to tell stories about characters, if you faithfully tell the story and present all the characters you've adequately reproduced the book. While it's true that some literary classics, especially those written in the 18th and 19th centuries, have stories and characters, surely it isn't the case that they are conveyed to us in the same way.  What gets lost in the adaptation is narrative voice, fluctuations in point of view, subtleties in characterization, and shades of description. Most importantly, what gets lost is the encounter and richness of  language.

On Editing

A fellow writer and friend Shane Joseph is my guest blogger. His post, On Editing was written over three years ago, but is timeless and has relevance to the writing life.

 

Shane is a strong writer and his wit sparks. We met in San Francisco and in many ways; our paths have been very different.  He was born in Sri Lanka, I, the United States. He has lived in four countries; I have lived in two. He works in the corporate world; I teach. He plays in a rock band; and I sing in the shower.

 

And yet, we are also similar: we are both avid travelers and share a philosophy of visiting a foreign location every year.  And we both have lived in the desert. He said his time there was an intellectual void; I call it a hypnotic placidity that floats where nothing ever falls or changes.

 

Please welcome him.  You may enjoy his style, or you may not, but please make your comments known.  We are trying something new to support each others' creative endeavors, which I appreciate.  I hope you do too.

On Editing

Friday, August 1st, 2008

A writer once went out into the fields of imagination and created an animal with a lion’s roar, a giraffe’s neck, a cheetah’s speed, and a horse’s gait; he gave it the vegan diet of an elephant, the conceit of a cat and the faithfulness of a dog. The animal, which the writer decided to call “Novel” due to its uniqueness, took on the colours of the rainbow as it danced in the light of a fading sun. Both writer and his creation played and frolicked until it was time to go home.

 

At home, he met his friends, fellow writers, who did not like the lion’s roar (too frightening) and the cheetah’s speed (too racy). The writer took them off Novel to please his friends. He met his editor, who was livid that a giraffe’s neck should go with a horse’s gait (inconsistent). The writer met his publisher, who said, “How can I sell this…this…thing?” More cuts were made to appease all aggrieved parties. Finally, the publisher was happy and petted the animal, saying, “Now you are understandable and non-threatening. Everyone will want to have a clone of you in his house. They will enjoy you on their lap in their armchair beside the fire on a winter’s evening. They might even let you live in their bookcase.”

 

As the publisher walked away figuring out how many clones he would make, the teary writer sat dejectedly with his animal, now reduced to a tiny dog, and said to it, “Who are you?”

 

Shane Joseph is the author of three novels and a collection of short stories. His work After the Flood won the best futuristic/fantasy novel award at the Canadian Christian Writing Awards in 2010. His short fiction has appeared in international literary journals and anthologies. His latest novel The Ulysses Man has just been released. For details see www.shanejoseph.com

Blog Smart

In talking with a screenwriter friend about blogging I was asked how many hits does a writer need to be recognized.  I’m guessing it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 100-300 hits a day. That would make 3,000-9,000 in a month and is achievable.  But 9,000 Twitter followers and  thousands of Facebook Fans? Not so easy.  In fact, you’d have to be an author endorsed by Oprah to make those numbers. So are we all wasting our time?

I originally began to blog two and a half years ago as a way to market myself and a book.  But as the Internet is becoming more saturated, I believe it will be more of a strain for a new blogger to make waves in the blogosphere.

There’s a difference between having a writing platform so tall that you can snag a book deal based on your reputation alone and having a well written book with a little social media behind it to show agents and publishers that you’re out there making connections and that you’re book-marketing savvy. The key is to make sure the book-writing comes first followed by the blog, Twitter, and Facebook.  I say this to remind writers that there are times when we feel like we are spending more time on social media than on a book, which is counterproductive. Because without a great book, what’s there to market?    

While I don’t think blogging is a waste of time, I think blogging poorly is a waste of time. The key is to find your niche and delve in. Write about what interests you, what makes you unique. If that’s rock climbing, gardening or speaking Portuguese, then that’s what you should blog about because people with those interests will find you and follow you and read your work.

What about you? Do you have a particular niche, something that makes you different from all the other writer/bloggers out there?
In my next post I’ll be having a fellow writer join in as a guest blogger.

Evocative

Some of my more mature students come to class with a desire to write a memoir. My question follows –what memoirs have you read? I recently put one down, The End of Boys by Peter Brown Hoffmeister that was filled with gripping and disturbing anecdotes from his past, including being asked by his mother to kill a neighborhood cat to perpetually participating in fights, drug-use, and mischief.

In the book, Hoffmeister demonstrates not only the strength of his writing but also his fearlessness when confronting the trauma of his childhood. With sobering honesty and gripping narrative, Hoffmeister has created a riveting memoir, one that will leave you shocked at its content while thankful for a story that can turn such pain into something beautiful.

The cover alone immediately demonstrates the perilous state of his childhood. The family photograph is a striking image of two young, blond boys–Peter inhaling a cigarette with deep concentration while his brother looks on, completely mesmerized. And one need not question where their parents are– their mother, an artist is the supplier of the cigarette, as a way to make them artists like Picasso, she claims.

His parents, both educated don't apply intellect or common sense into their home lives. I found myself thinking– why do people assume they can parent just because they can reproduce? An unconscious animal can procreate but only a conscious living being can parent.

This memoir captures such a lonely story and it's not an easy read but when you put it down, I think it will make you a better parent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOHWCSs2mHU

Anybody Home

Students ask me if creativity can be learned. My answer is– we owe it to ourselves to open the door to our creative urges, honor it and its challenges and by doing so we sustain passion and joy.     

We all have our definitions of what it means to be successful with our creativity. All too often, those definitions are based upon the insatiable appetite of the ego, for external recognition.

Not that there is anything wrong with external recognition. Recognition can lead to success and that can be fun, remunerative and reduce, for a while, one's anxiety about –how talented am I really.

Problems arise when we give credence to the ego story that writes external success as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Even if we chance to dip into that pot, its riches are never enough for the insatiable ego; thus any perception of loss acerbates feelings of failure and sends us on a desperate search to redo the success and, should that fail, to give up. 

When we hand over validation of our creativity to others, we become victims of their judgments.

Creativity in its infinite expression is our most vital experience of life energy and the adventure of life itself. When we answer creativity's call, we give our self one of the greatest gifts that life can offer. We give our self... there is tremendous power in those words. For what we give our self, no one can take away, unless we allow them to. The creative part of you will never give that gift away, but the ego will and does.

Just another crazy woman

Again I'm taking a detour. Every Monday night I look forward to the HBO show Enlightened (http://www.hbo.com/enlightened/index.html). When it came out last month, I had three immediate reasons to watch; first, I was attracted to the name, second, because Laura Dern has always reminded me of my eldest niece and third, how can anything on HBO not be good? As I watched, I identified with character Amy. It took me back to a professional moment when I wanted so desperately to change the world and all I witnessed was television corruption and cowards that hid in the shadows that wouldn't take a stand. 

Main character Amy has an affair with her boss that costs her a breakdown. She goes to a spiritual retreat to mend her brokenness and returns with a fresh and very honest approach to life that no one seems to be able to handle. What her co-workers, ex husband and mother do is dish out their superficial attitudes with their judgmental stares and intolerance for her being different a.k.a., being in her integrity. The company she works for– Abaddonn (it's Hebrew for Hell) tries to shun her and facing a wrongful termination lawsuit demotes her throwing her into a basement where she won't be seen or heard.

The last two weeks have left me in tears and feeling hopeful at the same time. It's creators, Mike White and Laura Dern are geniuses and first-rate artists for stepping out of the mold. If you can stomach these issues then stay tuned: embracing your inner Zen can be isolating. Grief can be grotesque. Mental instability is rarely tolerated. Deportation can split families and be painful. Alienation from your parents can be painful.  Mothers can be strangers.  Corporate America is soul-shattering. People can be shallow. Men can be philanderers.

Enlightened is not filled with mundaneness or laughs except for dark humor.  If you're looking for ordinary and light that eats up your time and leaves you empty, then don't watch the show–you won't find it. What you will find is a show about an intense and sane woman trying to make the world a better place through serving humanity– and ultimately isn't that the reason why we were given life?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9Nj5xLuT6c

Did any of you watch Enlightened last night? If so, what were your thoughts?

Gutenberg's Invention on the Decline

It seems that Amazon can do everything. First they taught readers that they do not need bookstores. Now it is encouraging writers to cast aside their publishers. Publishers say Amazon is aggressively wooing some of their top authors. And the company is gnawing away at the services that publishers, critics and agents used to provide.

It has set up a flagship line, to bring out brand-name fiction and nonfiction. But can Amazon create its own best sellers?

I'm certain publishers are terrified and don’t know what to do. If you’re a bookstore, Amazon has been in competition with you for some time. If you’re a publisher, one day you wake up and Amazon is competing with you too. And if you’re an agent, Amazon is stealing your lunch because it is offering authors the opportunity to publish directly and cut you out.

If writers have one message drilled into them these days, it is this: you have to hustle yourself. You are told you need to build your platform, start a blog, get on all the social networks, make yourself known and put your work in the viral spotlight. And do all of this marketing in addition to your writing to get an agent interested in “you” and do it at your own expense because publishers will pay you as little as they can get away with.

As far as I can see, traditional publishing is now fading into the sunset.

I have to admit, I'm still unsure what I think of this particular development. Amazon's apparent desire to remove every one else from the book chain is a concern. Crowding out smaller players, concentrating buying power, narrowing publishing towards a certain device, these are all trends that I don't feel are strictly business models but are based on greed and consumption. Big bully Amazon is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Aggressively pushing its' way into the hearts and minds of readers, dictating all the rules to gain control. The concept that comes to mind is a monopoly– will Amazon be infringing on our first amendment; and will we be able to read what we want or simply that which becomes available to us?

A Humble Abode

             

If you think of “Halloween destinations”, Paris should top the list. Yes, the lovely city of lights has a creepy past.

Around the 10th century, when Paris’s population was on the increase and cemetery space became scarce, a decision was made to bury the less wealthy in mass graves. Maybe it was due to the Parisians untenable burial practices that there was a lack of ideas for disposing of the dead exhumed from the city’s intra-muros parish graveyard. Seven hundred years later, bones were exhumed and transported to old abandoned quarry sites. The Catacombs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bElIDgAFaiM&feature=related) was one such site, where skulls and bones were deposited and later on arranged onto a bizarre wall.

The Catacombs are open to the public, and run beneath the city’s 14th arrondissement — at least that is what is open to official tours. When I first saw them as a student in 1980, it was months before Halloween. After descending down narrow, spiraling stone stairs and cold curving corridors, there they were. Prior to that my trip had been more intellectual than sensory– but the image reminded me that I am human and alive and sent a tingle up my ingenue spine, but it didn’t deter me. They captured my imagination and as a traveler because I didn’t know when I’d be back, being in the presence of a vast piles of bones and wanting to stay awhile I convinced myself that they looked like decorative Art. I don’t think I would have gone any further, not at least without an amulet; perhaps a necklace strung from raw garlic. 

What about you? Have you ever done something wild or wicked in an innocent act of horror where you surprised yourself?  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVjd5w2iRAg&feature=related

Love Color

Originally I started this blog with my travels in mind, there are so many places I've gone that I still haven't covered. Then I switched it up a bit, and included my thoughts about life, current events, my adventures, love of fashion, books, music and the cinema. I never included much on food, cooking, or restaurants, because they don't interest me, much. Although I still remember three years ago going to L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon for my birthday, known as one of France's best chefs, where the cost of our dinners combined could have fed an entire African village for a month; I was more interested in “the luxurious experience” vs. the meal. 

Once I wrote about jewelry. I like bold and delicate, ethnic and estate pieces but today's looks of wearing more crystals and sparkle than the average diamond mine, isn't me. Then I began to focus and blog on writing but today I'm taking a departure and am going to write about another favorite topic, one that I haven't discussed and that is... beauty. I get hyped being inside Sephora http://sephora.com/ it's a girls candy store! 

I love color so much, and have a fetish for lipsticks and nail polish. Although I would never paint my nails green, blue or purple and black isn't my style, I break the rule once a year when I dress up as a witch and give out Halloween candy. Years ago, before self-tanners were as good as they are now, I read that brewing tea bags and placing them on my legs could prolong a tan. I applied that principle to my hair and found a brunette tip that's worth sharing. I'm hoping it will cause less fading and prolong color. Brew a small pot of coffee or espresso (depending on your shade) allow it to cool and pour into a spray bottle. After you shampoo and condition, spray your roots and throughout your hair, letting it sit for 10-15 minutes. Follow with a quick cold rinse to close the pores. The procedure will boost and enhance your color adding richness.

Tropic Thunder

Even though it's assumed I've read all of the classics, I haven't. I've spent the last few weeks reading Herman Melville's Moby Dick. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moby-Dick 

As a child I read Treasure Island and enjoyed adventure stories but as an adult I didn't think I'd like Moby Dick. Without a female lead, or romance, I can lose interest so I put it off. Not so in this case. The voice of Ishmael, the novel's narrator caught me by surprise. He sounded like a friend, a beloved soul mate and adviser. Not only is he funny, wise and bighearted, but he is the consummate survivor, for he alone lives to tell about Ahab's encounter with the great whale. Moby Dick is not only a great classic, it's a metaphysical survival manual. Published at this time of year, 160 years ago, it's a guidebook for us now facing an impenetrable unknown; the future of civilization in this storm-tossed twenty-first century, with all the conflicts and ideals of America.

After hearing of Turkey's earthquake and thinking how can we help them when we haven't helped ourselves? I ran across Ishmael's advise, “Doubts of all things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this combination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who regards them both with equal eye.”

And Many More

Yesterday was my birthday and after coming home from a small celebration dinner there was a choice of watching either Modern Family or Dick Van Dyke. I choose the latter knowing I would get more laughs from old-fashioned smart comedy writing versus current day writing of sexual overtones. I think it's a cheap trick for writers to rely on the mundane aspects of life and it takes real talent to use your wits.

I find it ironic how a few new ABC series are set in the 1960's and have visual appeal replicating Mad Men, but they combine current day writing tactics done by those born twenty years later who don't rely on imagination.

I’ve written about my like for Laura Petrie as the character on The Dick Van Dyke Show once before so I’ll spare you since I could go on and on. I’ll end with what may be my all-time favorite scene from the series. Rob and Laura are at their neighbors’ house for dinner and they are acting bizarre. Unbeknownst to Millie and Jerry, their kids had set up walkie-talkies in the two houses and Rob and Laura accidentally overheard Millie and Jerry saying some not-very-nice things about the Petries before the party. Here’s the result:

Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore are clever indeed. And so is Carl Reiner, Rose Marie, Morey Amsterdam, Richard Deacon, Ann Morgan Guilbert, and everyone else connected with this show. Starting this month, to honor the 50^th anniversary, the show is back on TV Land. Hip, hip, hooray!

Dick and Jane

A couple of weeks ago I advocated that saying yes to life we open the door to possibilities.

Today my day was filled with mechanical things, writing this blog post came as a creative thought and by writing it, I am following through on my own advise. Hooray.

I’ll admit, though, that it’s a steep challenge to shut out the follow-up thoughts, such as: Who cares? Why are you writing about the challenge of writing when you could be working on some other more concrete (not to mention commercial) idea you’ve had cluttering your brain for years, which people would probably enjoy more? Of course, then you’d have to decide which of the other possibilities to execute first. The one most likely to sell? Or the one you’re burning to write? You are aiming low by writing a blog post– because, come to think of it, no one reads your blog.

I realize it is possibly a waste for me to display those secondary thoughts for you here. Maybe you can relate.

Some of my best ideas, the ones I’ve followed through on in my life, have come to me while walking by myself, whether on a quiet hiking path or a bustling, noisy, narrow city street. One time, when I was jogging through the Rose Bowl, I felt compelled to call my answering machine and borrowed a jogger's cell phone, so I could record a story idea that came up. I got home, and wrote it as an essay. I trust my instincts. But I have confidence in my ideas and when they start to percolate, and every time I went with them, it paid off.

When I hit a certain plateau in my writing, people around me, expecting more started asking, “When are you going to publish your own book already?” Already. What an awful, disappointment-saturated word – one I’d already sent knocking around my brain on my own. Not that those people deserve any blame for what's happened in my life or in the publishing landscape. I am not blaming them – they say those things with the best of intentions, to be encouraging. The implied message is, “When do I get to read your book? I can’t wait! I know it will be good!” As a perfectionist, it was an expectation I had of myself, but I took so long to do it, because of my fear of taking a chance unless I was guaranteed a positive outcome, and that's what made me hear their encouragement all wrong. It's why I can now perpetuate this message to my students –don't let your inner critic keep you from conceiving and then aborting what are probably decent ideas. What are you waiting for? Live and write now!

Poetry an echo

It’s truly heartwarming to see the Literature prize go to Tomas Tranströmer. One can see how the Swedish Academy might have resisted giving the prize to a local boy out of some sense of propriety, so it’s great to see that sense of propriety gave way to a more proper sense of the proprietary. 

Although many Americans haven't heard of Tranströmer, Sweden should be proud to honor a poet who has meant so much throughout the world, and who confirms the notion held that poetry can take on the exterior world and can be politically charged. From what I've read a wide public has embraced a poet who does not necessarily tell the nation what it thinks it wants to hear. For many of us poetry with its use of everyday subjects and images is an examination of the interior-world , a view into the unconscious with a syncopation of rhythms and simplicity of diction. American poet Carl Sandburg said, “Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.” If that means anything to anyone, there’ll be dancing in the streets of Stockholm tonight.