Friday Snippets 22

That Was a Mistake
by Joy Renee

Jan began to wonder if waking up was a mistake the minute she put her foot on the floor that morning and it landed in a squishy pile of cat barf. Her consternation was reinforced when she pulled an ice-cube tray out of the microwave instead of the bowl of oatmeal she thought she had put in there. She found the uncooked oatmeal in the freezer. And again when she sat down in front of the hot bowl of cereal with her mug of coffee only to find it was the jug of cream and she had put her freshly poured coffee in the fridge.

Things continued to happen to set off the warning alarms that it would be a mistake to leave the house that morning. But she had a couple of dozen library books and DVDs due that day and failure to return them would result in loss of library privileges until the fine was paid. Now that would be the worst mistake of all. So she plunged ahead, getting ready to go, maintaining her determination to stick to her plan even in the face of finding her hair lathered with shaving gel and her loufa lathered with shampoo.

Even when she forgot to zip up the backpack before she picked it up off the bed and all of the books and DVDs fell out and scattered all over the floor, she just methodically repacked them and grabbed up her sunglasses and sun visor and headed for the door. Out on the sidewalk she turned left and walked at a good pace for three blocks before she realized she was headed to the park where she liked to watch the ducks and swans while she read or wrote instead of to the library. Keeping her mind on what she was doing in the moment was one of Jan’s biggest challenges. She would always rather be thinking about the story she had been reading or the one she was writing than about the curb that was coming up or even her next meal.

That is why she was hardly surprised to find herself sprawled on the ground having just fallen over a tyke on a small trike. Luckily she had not landed on the toddler and his mother was full of concern over her skinned knee and embarrassment with her son’s gleeful laughter.

“Oh, let him laugh.” Jan said as the woman tried to shush her child. “He knows funny when he sees it.”

Her knee cleaned up with the damp paper towels the woman had brought to her, Jan continued on her way. At the library things went surprisingly smoothly and she thought maybe she had been jolted into good sense by that tumble. But apparently it had just been that being in the library, handling the books and movies--the stories--was just one of those things that could manage to keep her in the moment where mistakes were more easily caught before they were committed.

One of the books had been so captivating she had to pull it back out of her rolling backpack as soon as she was out the door and sit on the bench under the cottonwood tree to read until it was brought to her attention by a series of combustible sneezes that she had made another mistake in not noticing that the cottonwood was shedding its fluff. When she discovered that she had forgotten to pack her allergy meds and eye drops, not to mention tissues, she knew she had no choice but to head home and hurriedly packed the book and her reading glasses into the front pouch of the backpack instead of in the roomier interior where the glasses could ride safely atop the pile of books. With visions of the books spilling out as they had done that morning, she thought it would be safer to not open the main compartment.

When she decided to hoist the pack onto her shoulders rather than pull it along behind her on its wheels, she thought she was insuring a safer return trip home for herself, the books and the glasses. But that was a mistake of monumental import she realized as she found herself laying in the crosswalk ten minutes later, having had to throw herself backwards to avoid being hit by a red pickup that had just run the red light. Of course it was a mistake not to have looked both ways before stepping off the curb the moment she saw the walk signal. But all she could think about, even as the bicyclist who had slammed on his brakes just behind her as she fell back and was now somersaulting over the top of her, was her reading glasses in the front pouch of the backpack which were now undoubtedly crushed. Even the realization that she could not move her legs was not as alarming as the thought of not being able to finish that story.

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The above was a short-short story written to a prompt for a Creative Carnival in Septeber 2006. The prompt was 'making a mistake'.

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Thursday Thirteen #63

Thirteen Things About Longview, WA

1. It is the town where I was born and raised.
2. It is at the juncture of the Colombia and Cowlitz rivers on the border with Oregon.
3. It is connected to Raineer, OR by the 8288 foot long Lewis and Clark cantilever bridge designed by Joseph Strauss, engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge.
4. It was founded by Missouri timber baron Robert A. Long for the thousands of lumber mill workers and incorporated in 1924.
5. It was a planned city with every street mapped and named before construction began.
6. Films shot in Longview include Into the Wild (2007), Men of Honor (2000) and God’s Country and the Woman (1937).
7. Beautiful Lake Sacajawea Park a popular recreational site in the middle of town is where the July 4th fireworks display is held. Year around walking and jogging on the path that circles the lake and fishing and canoing on the waters. I fondly remember feeding the ducks as a child.
8. It is home of the Nutty Narrows Bridge built for squirrels and strung between tree across a busy city center street.
9. My high-school, Mark Morris was one of two the other and once the only one was R. A. Long our arch-rivals. Ed and I first became friends while hanging out in the school library.
10. It is home of the Port of Longview, the first full service marine port on the Colombia River.
11. The Monticello Hotel, one of the buildings on the Civic Center circle facing R. A. Long park, was the first permanent structure completed.
12. R. A. Long Park, originally named Jefferson Park, is in the center of the city and the main streets of the city radiate outwards like the spokes of a wagon wheel.
13. The Longview Public Library on the opposite side of the circle from the Monticello Hotel was the third building completed and was a personal gift from R. A. Long. This was my first library and like a first love will always hold a special place and my heart. I got to visit it today and my sister checked out some items for me. That being on my mind was the inspiration for this TT list.


Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It's easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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Running On Empty

Is it possible to run out of words the way one runs out of gas on the road?

I don't know if it was the intensity of the last ten days of NaNo or of the last three days of visiting with family but I just seem to have nothing left once I am sitting in front of this screen again after my Mom, sister and nephew have gone to bed. Tonight it was nearly midnight before I got access to the Internet and after midnight before I was alone with my thoughts in front of a blank screen. And even though I know it could be late evening or later again tomorrow before I can get back on, all I can think about is how comfortable that water bed I've been sharing with my sister the last two nights is. And that pillow made of memory foam. And the cuddly gray kitty named Bradley who seems to think I'm the bees knees.

I can't think of anything that could compete with the notion of trundling myself down to the basement and crawling under the quilt.

Here kitty, kitty, kitty.... Bradley.....

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Unsettled In Longview

When I posted my poem for the Poetry Train Sunday at noon, just as I was leaving on a 300 mile trip to spend two weeks with my Mom, I sincerely expected to be able to start visiting other poems no later than noon today. But it didn't work out that way. By the time I got online here in Longview, WA Sunday night I was just too exhausted. I had spent most of Saturday packing and preparing for the trip. Then Sunday morning Ed and I went out to breakfast with my Mom and sister and her son. It was Mom's treat in honor of our 29th anniversary which was Sunday. As soon as we got back from the resteraunt, I got on my laptop and posted my poem which I'd prepared in draft the night before. Meanwhile Ed and my sister were dragging my bags out to the car. Moments after leaving my comment at Rhian's my laptop was hibernated and slid into its bag along with power cord and I was out the door.

The trip north was one long gab fest between two sisters and their mother. My sister and her son live with my Mom but I've not seen either of them for a year. And the last time I was here at Mom's house was two years ago when I came to say good-bye to my Dad who was loosing his battle with cancer. My Mom and sister have been living in this house without Dad for two years. For me it is as if he is going to walk in the room any second or he is just in the other room. At this moment I am sitting at what used to be his desk in his office. It was disconcerting last night when I first got here. I expected that but hoped it would be easier by tonight.

We stopped in Portland Sunday evening to visit my brother's family for a couple of hours before heading on to Longview. It was after eight by the time we got here and then my sister spent a couple hours unloading the car. By the time she was able to help me figure out how to get my laptop hooked up to their DSL box, it was nearly eleven. I had remained hyped that whole time and still expected that I would spend a couple of hours surfing and commenting on poems, Friday Snippets and TTs. But I didn't even manage to finish reading my email before I lost the hyped state and I crashed hard. I didn't fight it. I slept hard and woke about nine-thirty this morning with a head full of mud and muscles as sore as if I'd been wrestling an octopus all night.

My nephew was on their computer and online. My sister said all I had to do was ask him for a turn but I hated to do so until I was sure that I would be able to make good use of the time. He had been away from all his computer fun for ten days after all. Surely I could wait a few more hours.

I spent the day visiting with Mom and my sister, working on the laundry, having combined mine with theirs. They had been on a ten day road trip and I had let my laundry slide the last two weeks of NaNo so had packed mostly dirty clothes. I also read Bridge to Tarabithia, a novel belonging to my nephew which my sister said I simply had to read while I was here because she was sure I would like it and because my nephew had started to write a sequel to it which she wanted to show me but I had to read the book first. I had started it Sunday night while she was busy unpacking the car but had read no more than twenty pages. I finished it this evening just before my Mom served dinner. It is a good coming of age story. One of my favorite kind of stories since I was pre-teen myself.

I was in the middle of the hankie-honking final scenes when my nephew's cat, Bradley, jumped up in my lap under the book and turned around to push his butt in my face. What is it with cats and butt-presenting anyway. My cat Merlin does it too but not nearly as aggressively as Bradley did. My cat Gremlyn never did, nor her sister Shekhinah. Gremlyn though used to butt her nose against mine and nip it. She would also groom my face and drink my tears.

Anyway. While eating dinner, I got started in the movie that started before we finished eating and sat through it with the rest of the family. I made a token effort to work on this post in draft while watching the movie. I brought my laptop out to the living room on battery power and tried to start writing but I sat without striking a key or touching the mouse pad for so long it went to standby and I never bothered to wake it up again until I brought it back to Dad's office. By the time I was online I was once again too tired to care.

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Monday Poetry Train #28

print for sale at art.com

Coverstory

by Joy Renee

Sorry, this poem does not relate.
I’m running a little bit late.
It’s already half-past eight
And I’ve got still to do
Many stitches times two
And the wrapping of seven plus four.
It’s got to be ready to go out the door
Not a minute later than one.
And I’m afraid I won’t get it done.
If I continue to fiddle
With riddle and rhyme
I am sure to run out of time.
So I’ll have to forgo my remarks
On the silliness of making
A thing for protecting
Worth more than that which it guards!

############

This poem was written in 94 or 95 to slip into the gift bag with a needle-pointed book cover for a paperback which I had been frantically putting in the last stitches on the morning our gifts for Ed's family were being picked up by his brother as they left the Longview area on their way to Phoenix, Oregon. We didn't get to go that year as Ed couldn't get off work, nor did we have a reliable car.

This is the last of my poems. I'm going to have to start writing them again. Or else recycle. Or post fiction snippets. Maybe all the exposure to poetry since I hopped aboard the Poetry Train will help. Or maybe the immersion in the lives of three imaginary poets and/or Professors of poetry will have stimulated something. Or necessity. Or... Oh, I don't know why I kept putting it off. I knew this was coming. I calculated when I first hopped aboard that what I had would not take me much beyond Thanksgiving.

And now I'm going to be hard pressed to find the time to compose new stuff. I'm leaving Phoenix this afternoon and traveling up to Longview, WA to spend a couple weeks with my Mom and sister. I'm dragging a big bag of my sewing materials with me because I hope to make a few Christmas presents. Yeah. Another thing I let slide way too long. And there will be two year's worth of catch-up visiting.

I'm preparing this late Saturday night after spending seven hours packing and preparing for this trip. I'm going to save as draft and ask Ed to publish it for me in the late afternoon or evening as I don't know how late we will be getting back to my Mom's and I imagine we will all be too exhausted to figure out how to get me online with my laptop or alternately, teach me how to use their new Vista which wouldn't have my bookmarks. I will have Internet while there but time available for it will be limited. I mean, if I would rather spend ten to fifteen hours online every day I might as well stay right where I am.

One of the projects I'm going to be working on while there is to scan my family's photos into my laptop or onto CD-ROM. I will then be spending the next several months creating an electronic scrapbook that can be duplicated for every family member. These pictures will include those from my parents childhood as well as my own. So stay tuned. I will probably post a few.

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Sunday Serenity #34

Join us in a moment of serenity.

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NaNoWinMo 2007

I don't have a printer but my Mom does and I hope to be at her house by Monday. Can't wait to print this out and fill it out. Maybe multiple copies and fly some off the Longview-Rainier Bridge over the Columbia River. Or better yet rolled up in a bottle and dropped into the river. Or both.


Does that seem a bit too extravagant? Obnoxious? This was my fourth attempt and first win.

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Friday Snippets 21

Finally a snippet from my NaNo novel which I'm willing to share. It took two days of reworking it to get it to this point. I crossed the finish line shortly before noon yesterday but have not uploaded to NaNo's verifier yet as I was focused on getting this prepared. I'm going to get that done before I start my blog visiting for Snippets, TT and Poetry Train. Said visits will be the focus of all my Internet activity for the next week but may be hit and miss over the next few days as I'm supposedly traveling north to spend a couple weeks with my family in Longview, Washington.

I'm not sure exactly when as I've not heard from my sister yet as to when they will be driving through here on their way back from visiting with my Mother's family in Gerber and Sacramento where they spent Thanksgiving. I haven't even started to pack yet and that is going to be a huge endeavor as the chaos in my room reflects the chaos of my Spring Fever manuscript. I've not been keeping atop the clutter for several weeks and haven't done laundry since the weekend before Thanksgiving. I hope my sister took me seriously when my last IM message was that I would not start packing until she called to let me know when to expect them. When they stopped by to see me on their way back last year she called from her cell phone as as they approached the Phoenix exit on I5. Since our trailer park is right next to it they were here within five minutes.

OK. Enough blathering. Here is a snippet from the second chapter of Spring Fever, it has no title of its own yet but it may be helpful to know that this chapter is governed by the themes expressed in the Emperor's card of the tarot.

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Graham paced the perimeter of the room as he read aloud from the slim volume he held in one hand as his other hand kept brushing back the silver and charcoal marbled hair that kept falling over his brow. His words were as measured as his steps.

' La gloria di colui che tutto move
per l'universo penetra, e risplende
in una parte più e meno altrove.'

"Who would like to translate?" His eyes swept the faces of the dozen grad students gathered around the long table that nearly filled the small room. Some few were studiously ignoring him as they stared down at their own copy of Dante's Paradiso. Others were doodling and several were fanning their faces with their books. Only one zealous hand waved high.

Graham stopped behind the one empty chair, besides his own at the head of the table which he'd abandoned in the first moments of class, and leaned his forearms on its back, resigning himself to the inevitable. When Maia Robins missed a class the life went out of the party. She had a way of eliciting the participation of the others in an easy repartee. He was often irritated by the frivolity that would ensue, feeling the reins slipping from his hands with his carefully scripted lesson.

"Mr. Egan." Graham pronouced the name with care, restraining himself from saying aloud the mnemonic which helped him remember this student's name. Eager Beaver.

He closed his eyes in a mental wince as the rush of words, squeezed out of the soggy sponges that were Dave Egan's lips, poured in a tuneless torrant.

"The glory of Him who moveth everything
Doth penetrate the universe, and shine In one part more and in another less."

Having stood and spun towards the window with his back to the circle of faces Graham opened his eyes, finding his unfocused gaze wandering over the pink and green spackled blue through the blooming branches of the nearby Dogwood grove. "That was a fine display of an ability to memorize Longfellow's translation, but it demonstrates neither your translating competence nor your comprehension of the author's intent. Which of course was the aim of this exercise."

Graham was about to turn back to the class when he caught a glimpse of movement, a splash of color airbrushed against the green grass of the yard. A familiar figure glided in a flurry of fabric. A lithe-legged, bramble-headed wood-nymph clothed in scarves with a garland of flowers woven into her autumn leaf colored hair and a half-dozen bangles between wrist and elbow that he knew mimicked wind chimes with every movement of her arm. A sound that had annoyed him enough in class one time for him to offer her a roll of tape to silence them only to have her hold out both arms for him to apply the tape himself right there in front of the others. Another quirk of hers that annoyed him, this willingness to display in class the familiarity with him borne of her many visits to his home since last Fall to meet with Holly who was her advisor.

Holly, his beloved Holly who spent most of her hours these days strapped into her wheel-chair her own lithe-limbs imprissioned by MS, whose much sought after poetry writing classes had been cut back to one small by-invitation-only class which met at their home. Maia, of course, was one of the invited. If not for Maia, Holly would probably have taken this entire year off. She had stopped taking on new advisees a couple years ago and, about to see her last one graduate, was contemplating the possibility of taking this year off when she got the submission from Maia last year. Graham was equal parts grateful for the new light in his wife's eyes and envious that it was Maia and not he who put it there.

He could not understand what it was Holly was so enthused about nor why she was so indulgent with this girl, this child-woman. Several times over the last months Maia had called to cancel appointments with Holly and she had missed an occasional class with him, including the first one of the term last week. When he expressed his disapproval of this evidence of a lack of seriousness to Holly she just smiled. And last week she'd said Maia's excuse was probably the most legitimate one possible short of death or an incapacitating accident or illness.

What was she doing now? Stooping on the grass and fishing around under that voluminous tent of cloth, yet another poncho or cape covering her to mid thigh. She must have a wardrobe of the things as she had sported a series of them in every fabric from felt to cashmere since last Fall. This one a shimmering sky-blue in silk or light-weave linen. She stood now, fumbling at her collar-bone area--with a bra strap? with the the knots of one of those saris that looked always to need but a firm tug to end as a puddle around her feet?

With an exasperation reaching unfamiliar heights, he opened the window and called down to her. "So nice of you to join us Ms. Robins." The blossom-scented breeze assaulted his face and a cloud of butterflies swarmed up from the bushes below him

He was gratified to see her startle and to catch a glimpse of a fleeting expression of chagrin.

“Ah, I’m sure Miss Robins you have heard often of the proverbial early bird and the worm.”

“Often and often Professor Carmelo and I always thought the late worm had the best deal of all.”

A gurgle of laughter flowed though the room and Graham felt himself blushing like a callow kid. Raising his hand he brushed at a tickle on his brow only to find the tickle transferred to his hand. He stared in bemusement at the butterfly on the back of his hand.

In hopes of regaining control of his class and putting her back in her place he called out again. "Perhaps you would like to share with us your translation of the first tercet of Paradisio?"

From below came the musical tones of a voice trained for stage and choir, projected as though to reach the wispy clouds above as her hands made graceful gestures about her head that did not disturb the halo of butterflies that had lit on the wreathe of flowers in her hair:

"The gloriole of the Choreographer,
Riddles the Cosmos, illuminating
Here a little more and there a little less."

"It's original at least. Though you've taken some mighty liberties."

He could hear her sigh from where he stood and could not help but hear within his head an irony-infused declamation of the of Paradiso's thirty-fourth tercet.

Ond'ella, appresso d'un pio sospiro,
li occhi drizzò ver' me con quel sembiante
che madre fa sovra figlio deliro,

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If you simply must see the translation, highlight below to read Longfellow's rendition. And no, I do not read or speak Italian. Maia's translation took me hours of perusal of four different translations and my J. I. Rodale Synonym Finder to turn out three lines that reflected both Dante's words and Maia's unique take on things.

Whereupon she, after a pitying sigh,
Her eyes directed tow'rds me with that look
A mother casts on a delirious child;

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Yipee Ki Yi Yay

I made the NaNo 50,000 before noon today but I'm waiting until tomorrow to upload to the verifier as I've still got to transfer it into a text file and then scramble it. I wasn't in a hurry to get that done today because when I input my word count for yesterday at just after 11PM my time, the scripts at NaNo credited it to today which left me with another zero showing for yesterday. The same thing had happened to me the first week when I input my word count just after 9PM my time and that quite frustrated me since I was scrupulous to not start writing until after midnight on the first day and was assured that I had until midnight on the 30th to verify. A couple of weeks later though I input after ten and got credit for the still current day. So I relaxed. Then this happened last night.

I decided early today that I wouldn't worry about updating my word count today at all because, for one thing, whose gonna believe that total of near 7K for a single day? And for another I hoped to get one scene polished enough to input into the excerpt form at NaNo finally and then use it for my Friday Snippet this evening also. That project was going quite well all afternoon and evening but its still not quite ready to post.

I'm not getting nearly enough return on investment of minutes to warrant continuing to force it. This is due in part to having had only three hours of sleep this morning because I could not go back to sleep after Ed woke me up to tell me to relax about going after our glasses today because his Dad was going to drive him over to pick up both pair and then drive him to work before returning here with mine. I was just too excited to go back to sleep. I had them before eight-thirty. For the first several hours I was silently singing 'I can see! I can see! I can see!' I was able to change the font I was working with for my NaNo story from 20pt down to 12pt. I discovered I could read some of my most important reference materials without a magnifying glass again. I tested a page in The Historian, the novel I was reading for the Read-a-Thon in October and so demoralized me then when I found my reading speed had slipped below 20 pages per hour from the better than 50 of six years ago.

But by mid afternoon things were not so thrilling. I was suffering what amounted to motion sickness brought on by my efforts to focus and refocus between screen, keyboard and reference material through the unfamiliar bifocals. I also lost a lot of time to attempts to reorganize my workspace to find a better level for the screen so that I wouldn't have to point my nose at the ceiling in order to focus through the lower part of the lenses.

I lost even more time to an exploration of a baby name site to look for a new last name for my male POV. I've been unhappy with it almost from the get go but hadn't wanted to take the time to look for another one. It is one of those things I can easily spend all day contemplating and researching and I was deliberately denying myself the right to indulge that little fetish. But when I chose one of his POV scenes to showcase and began working on it this morning, I just couldn't keep typing 'Professor Simons' it wasn't clicking for me. I couldn't bond with him. I considered going with his middle name, Palmer, as his last. That almost worked but I had reasons for wanting his last name to reflect either his Italian or Jewish heritage. After more than an hour I found this: Carmelo is pronounced kar-MAY-loh. It is of Italian and Hebrew origin, and its meaning is "fruitful orchard; garden". Biblical place name: refers to Mount Carmel in Israel, which is referred to in ancient writings as a kind of paradise. What better name for a man who has made Dante's Divine Comedy the focus of his life? There are actually several reasons this name and it's meanings mesh right in with the fabric of this story, thematically and otherwise.

Since settling on that around two this afternoon, I was able to make quite good progress on a rewrite of one of Professor Graham Palmer Carmelo's scenes. I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent in his company too. This is the way I keep anticipating the whole month of NaNo will be like and then get horribly dispirited when there are only there or four days like this out of the entire thirty.

There is a very good chance I can have this scene ready to post by early afternoon tomorrow. That is if I can get some solid rejuvenating sleep first.

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Thursday Thirteen #62

Thirteen More Whacky Title/Author Combos

40 Yards to the Latrine by Willy Makeit and Betty Wont
50 years in the saddle by Major Asburn
Body Parts by Anne Atomy
Boring Midwestern Cities: Cole Lumbus
Boy Scout's Handbook: Casey Needzit
Brane Surjery Maid Simpel: Sarah Bellum
Breaking the Law by Kermit A. Krime
Bring to the Grocer's by R. List
Bubbles in the Bathtub by Ivor Windybottom
Candle-Vaulting by Jack B. Nimble
Car Capital Of The World: Mitch Egan
Car Repairs: Axel Grease
Care For A Chop?: Marsha Larts

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I've got ten more pages of these. As in 8X11, single-spaced, narrow margins. This is the forth batch I've posted in a TT and I just now dipped into page two. And from now on I'm going to have to actually read them before I post them because I haven't read past the first page before. And I just now had to delete one of them because it contained an offensive term--the one that got Imus in trouble last spring.

I'm putting this up now but I may not get to do any visiting until tomorrow afternoon--after I've gotten my NaNo quota for the day which stands now for me at 2K which is a lot better than the 3200 per day I was faced with a week ago. That 2K will only hold true if I get another 700 or so in the next three hours.

I think I'm going to make it. And without missing a day of posting.

The call from the optometrist came today. My new glasses came in but it was already too near their closing time. So I've got that to look forward to for tomorrow. It's going to eat a chunk out of my day but it might just pay it back over the following hours in lessening eyestrain and in allowing me to ratchet my font size down from 20pt so I can see more than a word or two at a time.

For those of you who have visited this month and not gotten return visits, I am paying attention and I will find my way to your TTs in the next two weeks.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It's easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

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Almost Dug Out

5996 words to go. Three days of NaNo left. Ain't got many words left in me tonight so let me say it with pics:

Be careful what you ask for.

the prints are all for sale at art.com and each is linked to its catalog page

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Monday Poetry Train #27

Flying Buttresses of Notre-Dame, Paris, France
print for sale at art.com

Flying From Grace
by Joy Renee

As flying buttresses skyward yearn,
So lovers for transcendence burn.
Yet many tend to fall for less,
Snared by a butter-colored tress
Wind-blown against the cyan sky.
They are in this like butterflies--
Those sky-flowers that flutter by
In search of earth-bound images
Of self, stem-tethered camouflages,
On which to alight to gain a respite
From all varieties of alien inspection--
Spurning all offers of reciprocal affection.

??????????

I kept this one back so long because I'm not satisfied it is finished. Although I like what is there well enough, I'm sure I meant there to be more to it. The point, the resolution or something has not been reached.

I wrote it over a decade ago and only have a copy because I liked it enough to 'waste' ink and paper to make a hard-copy for my portfolio even though it was unfinished. All the electronic and handwritten rough-drafts which might give me clues to what my intentions were at the time were lost with the rest of my manuscripts, journals and notes in our 2001 move.

As I read it now it strikes me there is something similar to a sonnet to it and I wonder if that was what I was attempting. That would fit with the time-frame as the early to mid nineties were when I was immersing myself in everything Shakespeare because of the character in my Fruit of the Spirit story world whose every utterance is a line from Shakespeare.

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I Just Might Make It: NaNo & Sven Progress Report

I'm sitting at 37511 words for my NaNo and 70 Day round two project. To earn my NaNo win I must maintain a pace of about 2500 words per day for five more days. By several times surpassing the 3200 word daily quota that earlier lack of progress had subjected me to by last Wednesday, I've managed to make the next five days a bit more manageable. But I must say, I'm feeling fragile and frangible right now. I'm exhausted and I've overused my hands and eyes since Wednesday after the breakthrough I made last Tuesday. I've clocked in over 15K since last Sunday just on my NaNo novel, Spring Fever. That doesn't count the blog posts, commenting on other blogs, emails, IM, and note-taking and journaling unrelated to the NaNo or Sven projects.

I'm posting this progress report tonight instead of my poem for Monday Poetry Train. I'm still hoping to post the poem sometime tomorrow, I'm just too tired and distracted tonight and my hands are about to go on strike. I'm producing a typo for for about every eight to ten keystrokes.

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Sunday Serenity #33

Laughing with babies is one sure route to serenity. You can't watch this and hang on to your anxiety or anger or fear or sadness or boredom. There is just something about a baby's laughter that energizes and uplifts and lightens the heart.

Join us for a moment of serenity.

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Friday Snippets 20

This is the continuation of last week's snippet. I repeated a few of the paragraphs near the end of last week's so the context wouldn't be too hard to slip into here. But if you missed last week's it might be worth it to catch up first as some of what follows makes makes little sense standing on its own.

Part One.

To remind you, the story is about Marion, a woman in her late forties who is loosing her eyesight and suffering symptoms of menopause and has been holing up in her room for most of the winter. Her suitor is EMT Clay, a man about eight years younger whom she has held at a distance for nearly two decades. He'd fallen for her the night he helped deliver her son shortly after the young widow with a small daughter had moved in with her blind mother next door. Marion's own daughter Ernestine, recently abandoned by her husband, has moved in with her daughter Verna. As this part opens Ernestine is calling her mother and daughter to breakfast and they were off to wash up.

How Does Your Garden Grow (part 2)

"Verna Ruth! Walk!" Ernestine commanded. "Better yet, come help Mare-Mare."

"No need. I may be washed-up but I’m not laid up." To prove it she stepped forwards without reaching for support. With the second confident step she grinned but the next instant her grin was plastered to the wall as one foot surged forward, surfing the waxed floor.

"Mother!" Ernestine lunged for her.

Marion watched the red slime slide past her eyes as her face floated down the sky-blue wall and the bright white floor drifted up, a fathomless cloud offering endless embrace….. Slugtrail slugabed snuginbed snugasa bugaboo bugout slugitout knockout knockabout knocked…

"….up to your room, and leave it. I warned you what could happen." The sound of ice-cubes breaking accompanied Ernestine’s words.

A sobbing Verna freed her blanket from Marion’s foot. "Is Mare-mare dead like Daddy?"

"Your Daddy isn’t dead, baby. He’s a deadbeat. Whole different thing." Ernestine’s voice harbored a smile. "Mare-Mare’s just knocked out. She’ll be sassy as ever in a few minutes I’m sure."

The tinkle and splash of ice-cubes in a bowl of water and the squish and splatter of a cloth immersed and wrung out, the shock of the cold compress applied to her nose, all served to focus Marion’s attention on the heart of the matter. She reached out Raggedy Ann hand’s. "Don’t" she whispered.

"Lie still, Mama." With tender strokes she wiped away gummy blood, looking for its sources.

"Not Verna’s fault. Own foolishness!" Words molded by rapidly swelling lips.

"She must learn to accommodate your eyes."

"That’s no chore for a child not yet five."

"Adjusting to the exigencies of her environment is every child’s chore. Three Psych degrees and you don’t know that?"

Marion squeezed her eyes shut against the pain--not of her wounds but her inexorable guilt. By giving her children life she gave them and theirs eyes likely to fail by middle-age, bequeathing on their youth dependent elders and foreknowledge of their relentless fate.

"Looks like just a split lip and bloody nose. But maybe you should see a doctor."

"No doctor. Clay."

Ernestine put Marion’s hand on the compress. "Hold this then."

When Ernestine returned Marion was sitting at the table. "He’s on his way." She paused. "He was expecting your call." Longer pause. "Pottery lesson was it?"

Marion stemmed the smile stinging her lip. "I still haven’t the knack of the wheel. I fear he’ll give up on me."

"If Clay were going to give up on you, he would have fifteen years ago."

Marion blushed. "I made it clear long ago there’s no hope there." Must be firm with him today.

"If he truly lost hope, it’d destroy him."

"How long have you known?"

"At thirteen I had a crush on him. He made it clear his heart was already vowed. He said it was his destiny to kiss awake a sleeping beauty but he had to wait for her to finish dreaming her dreams. And no, he didn’t tell me it was you but that wasn’t hard to figure out. Shh now, he’s here." Ernestine turned calling out, "Come on in Clay."

The patio door slid open and Clay set down a terra cotta planter. "Join us for breakfast." Ernestine said. "Can you manage scrambled eggs, Mother, or would you rather have a milkshake?"

"Eggs are fine."

"VERRRRRNA." Ernestine called.

"She’s out front." Clay said.

"I best get her." She stopped him closing the door.

Clay sat beside Marion. "Let’s see." His breath on her cheek made her shiver. "Going to be some nasty bruising."

"What’s that?" She pointed to the planter.

"I noticed the quince in your room is root-bound. Better repot soon or risk having to break the pot getting it out."

Marion was alarmed. "That’s one of your finest pieces." He’d given her the quince when they’d graduated from college. The night he’d first proposed. "But this won’t fit in there."

"Make room in here. Better yet, bring it to my house."

"Oh, Clay."

His hand behind her neck drew her face to his until their foreheads touched. "You’re breaking my heart, Marion." His earthen-brown eyes searched hers until she closed them to resist the urge to plant her soul there.

"I’m aging by the minute."

"I know what’s eating you. I had my own theory. Here." He slipped a slender object in her hand. Some kind of pen? "The other day, when I was over fixing your toilet…and you used a bucket?…I took the liberty…" His voice sank to a whisper. "You’re pregnant."

Laughter welled to overflowing within Marion, but just then Ernestine drug in a wailing Verna. "Go sit on the stairs."

"They’re for Mare-Mare!" The child’s feet plodded past Marion and the door to the stairway creaked open and the shut on her heartbroken wails.

Ernestine rolled a doll buggy chock-full of tulips to Marion’s knees. "She got them all, Mama, I’m so sorry."

Marion lifted a velvety bloom, cradling it in both hands as sobs echoed in the stairwell like memories.

"Remember the day you dusted Grandma’s desk?"

Ernestine inhaled sharply. "Yes! I moved everything and she panicked that she’d never find anything."

"She sent you.."

"To the stairs!"

"While we named and placed every last thing."

"I could’ve put everything back exactly but she wouldn’t listen."

"That’s when I swore to stop the cycle. If I ever led you to believe that my things or comfort were more important than a child’s heart, I’m sorry."

Ernestine ran for the stairs and returned carrying Verna. "Mama’s sorry. Mare-Mare’s not mad. We’ll put them in water."

Marion lifted the stem-less tulip to her nose, visualizing the acres of manicured lawn and loamy soil designed to frame a few prized blooms--now gone--and suddenly understood Clay’s preference for a yard growing with the abandon of a woodland meadow and bursting with varieties of blooms every season.

"I’ve been so contrary." She moaned against his neck.

"Quite."

"Take me home?"

He gathered her into his lap. "You are my home." He whispered against her earlobe as she let her body relax against his, surrendering finally to the firmness of his resolve.

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Thursday Thirteen #61

Thirteen Things I'm Thankful For

1. Stories
2. Storytellers: writers, novelists, poets, scriptwriters, movie directors, actors and anyone else involved in the creation of stories
3. Dreamers
4. Dreams
6. Books, Movies, Plays, DVD & Videos, and all the other delivery systems for stories.
7. Libraries!!!!
8. That Southern Oregon reopened their library system a month ago
9. Music (it is story telling in its own right and what would a film be without it?)
10. Imagination
11. Vision (both physical sight and the other, inner sight that illuminates meaning)
12. Artists (story tellers in visual and tactile media with special kudos for those who illustrated the picture books of my childhood and those for children today)
13. Mothers, Fathers, Grandmothers, Aunts, Uncles, Grandfathers, Teachers, friends, children and all the others who weave their stories into each other's lives to form the web of community and culture which is the ground in which story is rooted.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It's easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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Writing Rules

print for sale at allposters.com

Nuf said.

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Making a Mash Of It

Having seen several 70 Days and NaNo participants displaying celebrity pics on their blogs as representations and inspirations for their heroes and heroines, I decided to give it a try when I was having trouble visualizing my hero, Graham.

I really had no idea who in famedom might fit the vague image I did have. I saw him as tall, lanky, slightly stoop-shouldered, thick dark hair shading to gray at the temples, a bit bashful, stern professor but capable of humor and tenderness. I knew he was of Italian and Jewish heritage and fifty give or take four years.

Not many remembered icons floated through my mind before I hit on Alan Alda. By the time I'd read the first sentence of the Wikipedia article on Alda I was fairly sure I'd found my guy. He was of Italian heritage. From there I went to alanalda.com where I found his personal photo album and when I saw this picture I knew I would find nothing better if I spent a week looking. Sorry, but I can't post that pic here as I don't want to infringe on copyright or anything. So please follow the link, it's worth it. Remember, my Graham is a Literature Prof.

While I was on Alda's site, I went exploring and found a link to an article by Alda with a title that was hard to resist. I'm glad I didn't. In, Learning To Write With a Sledgehammer, Alda talks of how he learned the value of knocking the excrescences out of his manuscripts and of those moments when you make a breakthrough and have the urge to get up and dance.

On first reading, I passed over the sledgehammer reference, thinking it only a post NaNo, post 70 Days, editing consideration. But I glommed onto the reference to those moments which inspire a celebratory dance, for I've had a one of them and it was exquisitely sweet. I haven't had any yet with Spring Fever though I came close in the week before NaNo started when the plot concept first began to gell and I began to believe I had story worth telling.

But Alda's reference reminded me of the time that I did get up out of my chair and dance about the room over one of my stories. It was the moment I typed the last word of Making Rag Doll Babies and Million Dollar Maybes nearly ten years ago. It wasn't even the end of the novel. Just the end of a chapter in the intended novel. But it had been an intricately plotted 16,000+ word 'short' story that was intended to serve as a chapter and to be able to stand alone--as all the chapters in my novel, The Substance of Things Hoped For, are intended to do. I was ecstatic when I finished it and literally could not contain my self. I wasn't even alone in the room at the time.

Requiring each chapter to be able to both stand alone as a short story and serve to advance the plot of a novel does, of course, add an extra complexity to the construction of that novel which made it that much harder to keep a 1K a day pace with it during the first round of 70 Days this past summer. That and the fact it is tangled up with the similarly complex plots of six to eight other novels. This was why I had chosen to run with a fresh story for NaNo. One that was not entangled with the Fruits of the Spirit story world nor restricted by a complex structure. For the first two weeks I worked with Spring Fever, I was confident I was writing a fairly straightforward love story. But by the end of the first week of NaNo I knew different.

My decision to structure the novel around 22 chapters based on the Major Arcana of the Tarot was exciting when I hit on it. As was the decision to alternate POV among three equally weighted characters. But these restrictions were the source of the constriction of word flow in the second week. I was, and am, still thrilled with those choices but after about four days of zero word count following those first six or so of exceeding expectations, I began to panic and I really haven't stopped. Though I got the words to flow again, intermittently, the fun had gone out of it.

All of this was on my mind and apparently Alda's talk about taking a sledgehammer to his manuscripts began to work on me unawares as I put together my virtual scrapbook of Graham-conjuring images. I tried to remember when was the last time I had junked a huge chunk of one of my manuscripts. And I couldn't. I don't think it is faulty memory. I'm fairly sure I've never done it. I've thrown out words in the hundreds but never in the thousands. I've deleted sentences and paragraphs or severely reconstructed them but never whole scenes or chapters or sections of a novel. This is mostly because I am such a miser with the words until I am fairly certain of what I need a scene for. In other words, most of the story is contained in my head like a scene in a snow globe that shifts like scenes on the silver screen--like watching a movie in 3D while holding it cupped in your hand.

Ah, I thought, a bit pleased with myself to be sure, I've never had to take a sledgehammer to excrescences in my stories because I never put them in. But before the thought was complete, I recognized what a conceit it was. What was it Alda said he had danced for joy over?

I was dancing because, after hours of rewriting one of the scenes, I had finally solved it and had crashed through to something I knew would work.

Which meant that something he had tried had not been working. Something he had written had not been working!

So, I thought, what happens when something I'm working on stops working? I stop working on it. Indefinitely. As long as a decade in the case of several of the stories in my Fruits of the Spirit story world.

The thing that isn't working for Spring Fever right now is my insistence on trying to hold 22 themed chapters, 3 POV characters, a 30 odd year time line in my head while refusing to commit to writing scenes that aren't perfectly envisioned and locked into place on the three story arcs. No wonder I am feeling half crazed. I don't dare stop thinking about the story for one second. Not even in my sleep. Because if I do? I might drop the snow globe and shatter the story.

That is simply not working. And most especially for a NaNo project or a 70 Days of Sweat project. I have to start writing some of this down even if it is not in a form that will make the final cut. Even if I have to break all the rules of good form to do so. I need to infodump folks. I need to write long passages of description of people, places and things that aren't, for now, broken up by dialog and plot advancing narrative. I need to experiment with scene concepts, writing it one way and then a second and a third until I feel that certain click when something snaps into place. And I need for those words to count toward NaNo and 70 Days even if they sometimes feel more like note taking then story writing. Because that restriction, added to my natural perfectionism served to strangle my word flow as thoroughly as a garrote.

I'm so far behind now, at just past 20K, there is little hope that I will earn my NaNo win icon. But little is still not no. And besides, regardless if I can keep the new 3K per day pace for the next ten days, I still need to keep the 1K per day pace through mid January for Sven.

My goal now is to have 40-50K and several excrescences to take the sledgehammer to by midnight November 30th. And then for the final six weeks of 70 Days to add another 20-30K, possibly split between Spring Fever and The Substance of Things Hoped For. To do this, I need to remember Alda's words:

Hemingway said that writing is architecture, not interior decoration. I was learning that, even with all the rewriting, it wasn't renovations, either.

Now I was taking a sledgehammer to the foundation itself; redesigning it time after time from scratch, lopping off clever little inventions that caught your eye but gave you nothing of substance to build on.

After all that, when I would finally crash through to something that worked, I would feel -- and every writer must feel something like this -- a thrill, a rush of joy, a desire to dance around the room.

I still feel it. And, once in a while, I still dance.

I need to remember that the victory dance is the reaction to a breakthrough after struggling with something that isn't working, which means there has to be something there to struggle with; something more substantial than concepts and daydreams no matter how vividly envisioned; something written down even though it might be an excrescence fit only for smashing with the sledgehammer.

I need to remember and be sustained by the memory of my one victory dance resurrected by Alda's story, to hold it like a promise in a snow globe, a promissory note guaranteeing an abundance of victory dances, measured this time in months instead of decades.

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"Since I'm eating for three," he said.

"Say what?"

Sometimes I think it should be Ed instead of me with the aspirations to be a writer. He is a much better storyteller even in his sleep.

As I was sitting here staring at the blank white of blogger's platform, trying to decide on what to make my post about, he put his hand on my back and said, "Could I ask a really really big favor? Is there anyway I could get you to make me a peanut butter and butter sandwich? And since I'm eating for three, you might as well make two."

He had been asleep for two hours at this point and it isn't unusual for him to ask me to go fill his water bottle or make him a middle of the night sandwich. But when he added that last, I knew he was talking in his sleep. Even when I turned and he met my eyes with both of his. I have carried on the most comical and entertaining conversations with him when he is talking in his sleep.

I asked him, "Are you awake?" and he said, "Probably." So I asked, "What do you mean you're eating for three?" and he said, "I'm eating for the shipping dock supervisor and the truck driver who doesn't have to worry about his load ...." his explanation faded into a series of mumbles, umms and snores. But his eyes were still open and apparently focused on mine. I said, "Ed, your aren't at work." He said, "Oh." and then "Well, I never claimed to be logical." And I laughed because that is exactly what he's always claiming this Mr. Spock wannabe. And he added, "Well not all the time." I then said, "I think you are talking in your sleep." and he said, "Probably." I asked, "You sure you want that sandwich?" He nodded and said. "Two."

So I went and made the sandwiches.

At least it was something I could do for him. There are times he asks me to do things that aren't doable. Like running up to his office to get the product numbers for the manifest. Or entering the data on the day's events into the work sheet. Or sending a nastygram (a chiding email) to Fulfillment and Support asking where his product was. Or writing a req (a request) to HR for six more line workers.

It's not always about work. Over the summer it was often about the dirt track races, a computer tech issue, or the novel he was reading just before bed. But this is the season when he works overtime so this is pretty much what I can expect until after Christmas. After Thanksgiving these conversations will probably be the only ones consisting of multiple syllables that I will get with him until the Friday before Christmas.

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Monday Poetry Train #26

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Those Words "I Love You Honey"

Look, there he is over by the wall.
His hand upon her shoulder
As he guides her down the hall
He smiles as he talks to her
Laughs at what she says.
I cannot bear to watch them
As they wander on their way
I turn my head and walk away
Unable to understand
This new emotion gripping me
Could this be jealousy?
Oh, what's the matter with me!
I had the chance and turned it down
To be the one beside him now
Too late now I understand
The real meaning behind those words
When not too long ago
He slipped his arm around my waist
And said, "I love you honey."
Frightened I pushed him from me
And ran down the hall
Unheeding to his pleading call
"Hey don't run away."
He tried again not long after
But again I turned away
He tried twice, then once again
But still I pushed him from me
I needed time to think it out
Decide which way to turn
What could he mean by those strange words
"I love you honey."
Could he be telling the truth?
Now he has given up
Gone looking for another
To take my place I guess
'Cause I refused to answer.
Oh what I wouldn't give
To have another chance
To answer him the way he wants
And walk with him to class
Oh stop this wishful thinking
And get done with your work
You know that given half a chance
T'would be the same again
There they go around the corner
And with them go my hopes
Of hearing him once more say
Those words, "I love you honey."
-Joy Renee Coon 1972

###############

Bleh!

I think this is what is called juvenilia. I was in eighth grade when I wrote it. Unless it was the following summer. But the events took place in the eighth grade. And are as embarrassing to remember now as they were excruciatingly humiliating and heart-crushing to live through.

Note: my first instincts were right. This guy's 'love' had a shelf life of approximately three weeks. Somehow that didn't make it any easier to watch him move on. The thing that took me nearly twenty more years to figure out was why, during those several weeks he pursued me, it was my dearest wish that he move on. Until he did.

Ummm. Susan Helene. This was my Trevor. Or at least Trevor in training. A Trevor without music or any other non-destructive means to get the recognition he craved. I heard he ended up where Trevor's older brother did. But that was from the high-school grapevine. Not the most reliable of sources.

I warned ya'll I was scraping the bottom here. Two tickets to the Poetry Train left in my files.

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