To blog or not to blog...

Decisions, decisions....as hard as I try I can not do two things at once....so my blogging may have to suffer that is unless I can get ahead...yeah right...

I'm trying to re-write a story when I suddenly remember I need to post a quote, be grateful-which is actually very easy, and then come here and blog.

Of course what doesn't help are all the books; fiction and non fiction, that I am currently reading...I want to do so much and there are not enough hours in the day...

Stay tuned to see if I can pull this off...

oh dear

I think I've done something I may regret, I started a story 3 1/2 years ago. It came quickly to me, it was actually several stories melded together, the past of a young couple, the past of a young mother and her daughter, the past of a young man and a sick child and current time bringing the young couple together again. Yes, it's extremely complicated but I loved the stories intertwining and the resolution of a wrong being righted even if not fully. I'll admit there were holes to fill in but it was coming together slowly. The I got the dreaded writers block and my wonderful characters hated their lives. I sent them away for a bit and now they are demanding a close to total rewrite. I may have to give it to them, their story is the first of what could be 2 more stories and I adore them!

Happy New Year....lol

a novel idea

My brain is still on overload but I'm going to try and get in touch with some of my characters, I miss Emmy and Riley...

Maybe the plot bunny will jump out of the rabbit hole with the white rabbit...

10/2/2011

I know, a book a weekend was my goal, but that went the way of the Dodo earlier this year...I tried but there have been some weekend where my heart just wasn't into writing anything even a book review. I'm hoping that next year and my goal of movies/actors & actresses goes better!!

dang...

I can’t believe it, it actually happened, my muse had abandoned me. For some unknown reason Calliope has just taken off. Calliope is of course the muse of epic poetry, she was Homer’s muse, the inspiration for the Odyssey and the Iliad. I know that my writing is not exactly epic or poetry but with her knowledge and assertive nature prod me to write, my characters seem to flow from my fingertips and onto my computer screen whenever she is about. When Reilly and Kellan decided to go off on their own, Madison and Jens took up residence and then Lark and Stone stopped in for a brief moment, even though their time with me was quick I found Keely and Jake waiting, but now there is no one, my dear couples have not come back and I know there are stories to be completed.



I’m not sure if I can actually find fault with Calliope, spring is here and she may be off with her sisters; Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpischore, Thalia and Urania; but I do wish she’d hurry back.

blogging away

Time to pat myself on the back, I've kept my resolution so far to blog every week. I'll admit most of my blogs have been about my favorite books but I'm blogging! And yes, I'm also writing my fiction...the dang plot bunnies have gone wild!

I think I've completed a short story, yeah, I know, I should know but I'm really not sure if it's a short story or the beginning of another great American novel to be...I like it as it is and am waiting for my favorite proof reader to let me know what she thinks.

One day I hope you'll get to meet these couples I've created. They continue to drive me crazy, they are alive in my head and are just as stubborn as I am, when they don't like the direction I'm taking their lives they let me know. Please think happy thoughts for Reilly and Kellan, Madison and Jens, Lark and Stone and the newest addition, Keely and Jake...and me the truly humble writer wannabe...

back to blogging

Every time I realize I need to get back to “blogging” I go out and buy “writing” stuff! Yesterday was no exception. I had no intention of buying anything; I was merely accompanying my mother on her mission to decorate her front door for Halloween, which led to her picking out Halloween cards, Halloween candy and eventually a tombstone and two Jack O Lanterns. As I pushed the cart down the aisle she stopped at the row with office supplies, pens, markers and paper. My eyes casually wandered to daily reminder books, date books, blank books; then I saw it, and Eco-Friendly, Tree-Free, Certified Organic notebook with pocket; actually with 2 pockets! The treeless paper is made in Costa Rica from post-consumer waste and banana fibers! Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle, aunt. I opened the spiral bound wonder and it set up like a calendar/journal with the months on the top and numbers 1 to 31 below then the rest of the sheet is lines, each page is slightly different I am assuming due to the “consumer waste” used to create it. Needless to say I’m a happy girl armed with my newly acquired note book and purple pens, yeah I like purple pens, ready to blog…wait, there I go again, rambling when I should stop and think, blogging is writing but on the internet, should I be crestfallen? I really don’t need a notebook or purple pens if I have my faithful laptop. Heavy sigh, then again contrary to popular belief I am not attached to my laptop 24/7. Oh joy and rapture, my purchase was not a complete waste of $3.49.




Watch this space, (actually the space above this one) more to come, I promise!

Quotes on Writing

For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck & write better than I can.- E. Hemingway



"Writing is easy. You only need to stare at a blank piece of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead." — Gene Fowler


"We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect." — Anaïs Nin



"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it." — Winston S. Churchill


"No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader."
— Robert Frost


"And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt." — Sylvia Plath


"You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you." — Ray Bradbury (Zen in the Art of Writing)


"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live." — Henry David Thoreau


"The road to hell is paved with adverbs." — Stephen King



"Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher."

— Flannery O'Connor


"Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters." — Neil Gaiman



"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for." — John Keating



"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing." — Benjamin Franklin


“Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish.” - John Jakes



“Write to be understood, speak to be heard, read to grow...” - Lawrence Clark Powell  (American Librarian, Writer and Critic, 1906-2001)


“I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.” - Oscar Wilde  (Irish Poet, Novelist, Dramatist and Critic, 1854-1900)



“The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean”

Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Essayist, Poet and Author of fiction and travel books, 1850-1894)



“I love talking about nothing. It is the only thing I know anything about.” - Oscar Wilde  (Irish Poet, Novelist, Dramatist and Critic, 1854-1900)



“Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.” - E. L. Doctorow  (American Author and Editor, b.1931)



“Writing is making sense of life. You work your whole life and perhaps you've made sense of one small area.” - Nadine Gordimer  (South African novelist and short-story writer, 1991 Nobel Prize for Literature, b.1923)


“Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us. In the end, writers will write not to be outlaw heroes of some underculture but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals.” - Don Delillo  (American Novelist born in New York City, b.1926)

“Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.”

Winston Churchill  (British Orator, Author and Prime Minister during World War II. 1874-1965)


“Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.” - E. L. Doctorow  (American Author and Editor, b.1931)


“I write down everything I want to remember. That way, instead of spending a lot of time trying to remember what it is I wrote down, I spend the time looking for the paper I wrote it down on.” -Beryl Pfizer


“The important thing in writing is the capacity to astonish. Not shock - shock is a worn-out word - but astonish.” - Terry Southern


“Writing is one of the few professions in which you can psychoanalyse yourself, get rid of hostilities and frustrations in public, and get paid for it” - Octavia Butler

Family History and the love of writing

I love the fact that I have famous writers in my family tree! And strangely enough all from the same side of the family, my grandmother, Vivia Maria Dearborn Barron. She is descended from of one the founding fathers of New England, Godfrey Dearborn and from his line came a great uncle, no pun intended, Judge Samuel Sewell of Salem Witch Trial fame, he wrote an essay, The Selling of Joseph, which criticized slavery, he kept a journal from 1673 to 1729, describing his life as a Puritan against the changing tide of colonial life. In 1725 his essay, Talitha Cumi refers to the rights of women. From all appearance Samuel was a fairly liberal thinker for a puritan. He was also the only judge from the witch trials to apologize for his part in trials. Also from this Sewell branch of the family came Louisa May Alcott, her grandmother, Dorothy Sewell was the great-granddaughter of Samuel. What a glorious writer this lady was, Little Women, Little Men, The Inheritance-written in 1849 and unpublished until 1997 and A Long Fatal Love Chase written in 1866, first published in 1995, the list is long and her life was noteworthy, she even served as a nurse during the Civil War. Another famous writer “cousin” is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow of Paul Revere’s Ride, The Song of Hiawatha and Evangeline fame.


Another note of interest, our family has also been written about, yes, there are the historical references, “The Lawry’s of Friendship Island and even articles published in the New England Historical Register (a fifth cousin works there). The most famous thing written about a family member is “(The Ballad of) Annie Laurie”

Maxwelton's braes are bonnie,

Where early fa's the dew,

'Twas there that Annie Laurie

Gi'ed me her promise true.

Gi'ed me her promise true -

Which ne'er forgot will be,

And for bonnie Annie Laurie

I'd lay me down and dee.

Her brow is like the snaw-drift,

Her neck is like the swan,

Her face it is the fairest,

That 'er the sun shone on.

That 'er the sun shone on -

And dark blue is her e'e,

And for bonnie Annie Laurie

I'd lay me down and dee.

Like dew on gowans lying,

Is the fa' o' her fairy feet,

And like winds, in simmer sighing,

Her voice is low and sweet.

Her voice is low and sweet -

And she's a' the world to me;

And for bonnie Annie Laurie

I'd lay me down and dee.

I have come to discover that the writers in my family tree are not limited to the past, my cousin Judy also writes; recently I had the pleasure of reading a short story she penned about her mother, my aunt Judith; I loved learning their favorite book when Judy was growing up was “Little Women” and Jo (aka Louisa) was her favorite character!

I also learned today that my cousin Neal has written a book as well!

A side branch of my family tree has also been published, my wonderful un-natural father aka Pops aka Gordon. His book, A Cracker Legacy…Subdivide This...it was published 4 years ago. From the publisher, David Clarke….Hurricanes and economic conditions have forced many Florida ranchers to sell out to unscrupulous developers. But not fourth generation Cracker Rancher, Claude Barnhill. With the help of a gorgeous blonde, a Wild Turkey poacher, three outlaw Miccosukees and a dead Cuban feral cat hunter. Barnhill fights the good fight…


I'll keeping writing, blogging and sharing....it's in my blood!