This way, young lady, to your madness.
Category Archives: 2015
Photo finish Friday: “This way”
This way, young lady, to your madness.
Filed under 2015, photo by David E. Booker, Photo Finish Friday
Haiku to you Thursday: “Ragged moon”
The night sky fills with /
gossamer beauty opened /
by the ragged moon.
Filed under 2015, Haiku to You Thursday, poetry by author
Writing tip Wednesday: “Enemy Mine”
HOW TO COMBAT A WRITER’S WORST ENEMY
by Bruce Hale
source: http://www.brucehalewritingtips.com/
Bruce Hale
Or feed the cat. Or sort that box of old photos. Or clean the oven. Or check to see if anything has magically materialized in the fridge since you last checked it half an hour ago.
Ah, the siren song of procrastination! We know we want to write. We love writing (or at least we love the feeling of having written). And yet, when it’s time to apply the “bum glue,” we find reasons to wander. So many wise writers in so many different ways have said, “writing = derriere + chair.”
Still, we avoid, we dilly-dally, we find any and all reasons not to sit down and work. Are writers just a masochistic lot? Do we get some payoff from punishing ourselves?
Don’t ask me. I’m just as blind as the next writer. The last week or so, as I’ve been starting my latest book, I’ve noticed some strange occurrences. Time and time again, I sit down in my lovely, comfy, ergonomic chair to write. And then, an hour later, I find myself in the living room with no idea how I got there.
Alien abduction, perhaps?
Or I wake to find I’ve spent an hour futzing about with e-mail or surfing the Net. It’s frustrating, especially when I’ve set myself a minimum page goal for the day.
Am I just your basic psycho?
I don’t think so. (At least, not for those reasons.) Lately I’ve begun to look at this whole approach-avoidance thing as part of my process. Maybe this is just how my muse operates.
True, it’s not the tidy, organized method I’d prefer. But the creative process is a strange and amazing thing.
As anyone who’s ever tried to push a stalled car can tell you, it takes a lot of effort to overcome inertia. So maybe that’s what this behavior is — part of the push to overcome inertia and get the story going.
I’m finding that if I cut myself a little slack, it helps. Not let myself off the hook, exactly — I still have to show up everyday and make the effort. But I’m working on not beating myself up when at day’s end I’ve only produced one page instead of three.
After all, progress is progress. And I look at it this way: Hey, at least I’ve gotten my nails trimmed.
Filed under 2015, writing tip, Writing Tip Wednesday
cARtOONSdAY: “eARLY wRITER”
Reading the writing led Willard to wonder what went wrong.
Filed under 2015, cartoon by author, CarToonsday
Monday morning writing joke: “Scatology”
There once was a writer from Cincinnati /
whose prose was laced with profanity. /
Damn, shit, hell /
often started the tales he’d tell. /
Mom never let me reach their finality.
***
A wise person once said:
We all love to spend money buying new clothes but we never realize that the best moments in life are enjoyed without clothes.
Filed under 2015, Monday morning writing joke, poetry by author
Shelf catering: tourists offered chance to run a bookshop on holiday
For £150 a week, AirBnB users are invited to live in – and run – The Open Book store in Wigtown, Scotland
The Open Book in Wigtown, Scotland
by Allison Flood
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/21/tourists-offered-chance-to-run-a-bookshop-on-holiday-wigtown
For all those who agree with Neil Gaiman’s maxim in American Gods that “a town isn’t a town without a bookstore”, and who yearn to spend their days amongst the pristine spines and glossy covers of a small bookshop, what might be the perfect holiday retreat has just been listed on AirBnB: the opportunity to become a bookseller for a week or two.
For the sum of £150 a week, guests at The Open Book in Wigtown, Scotland’s national book town, will be expected to sell books for 40 hours a week while living in the flat above the shop. Given training in bookselling from Wigtown’s community of booksellers, they will also have the opportunity to put their “own stamp” on the store while they’re there. “The bookshop residency’s aim is to celebrate bookshops, encourage education in running independent bookshops and welcome people around the world to Scotland’s national book town,” says the AirBnB listing.
The Open Book is leased by the Wigtown book festival from a local family. Organisers have been letting paying volunteers run the shop for a week or two at a time since the start of the year, but opened the experience up to the world at large this week when they launched what they are calling “the first ever bookshop holiday experience” on AirBnB.
“I wouldn’t call it a working holiday,” said Adrian Turpin, director of the Wigtown book festival. “It’s a particular kind of holiday [for people] who don’t feel that running a bookshop is work. It’s not about cheap labour – it’s about offering people an experience … It’s one of those great fantasies.”
The money is “just essentially to cover our costs”, said Turpin, admitting that “it can be a hard life, selling books in a small town, so it’s not a holiday for everybody”.
“I suspect [the shop] would have closed, without this,” he said. “Wigtown is Scotland’s national book town, but it’s quite a long way from anywhere. So part of the idea was to get new people in – people who would hopefully end up having a good time and a long-standing relationship with the town. And also to keep the bookshop afloat. It might otherwise have shut down.”
The rest of the article: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/21/tourists-offered-chance-to-run-a-bookshop-on-holiday-wigtown
Random Act of Poetry: “White Wing Road”
White Wing Road
The road sometimes traveled.
I’ve been told
is a hard, hard road
to travel.
Take route 95,
it’s right before your eyes,
if you strive
and don’t prattle.
If you miss your turn —
cross the river of concern —
you might just learn
how to paddle.
When things go wrong,
ask for Wing O. Wang,
who will help you along
your channel.
O’ White Wing Road
I’ve been told
is a hard, hard road
to travel.
Take route 95,
it’s right before your eyes,
if you strive
and skedaddle.
–by David E. Booker
[Editor’s note: there is a road near where I live that is called White Wing Road. It is also known as route 95. It is a curvy road and it does cross a body of water.]
Haiku to you Thursday: “Decree”
Certainty is all! /
God has decreed this answer, /
Except to the quark.
Filed under 2015, Haiku to You Thursday, poetry by author
Writing tip Wednesday: “As bad as cliches”
Tip once, tip often.
Filed under 2015, writing tip, Writing Tip Wednesday
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