Yes, I’m still fooling around with design. I doubt I’ll ever get really good at it, but I do enjoy the process and find it very relaxing.
So…what do you think? Good? Bad? Sucky? Too weird? Not weird enough? Creepy? I’d seriously love to know what you think and if it does anything for you. Thanks!
Okay, moving right along is the 3rd in our series….. Too much? Not enough?
Next pic in this little series…thoughts?
Not long ago I read an article that discussed writers’ incessant need for perfection. And the subsequent disappointment we feel when we finally see what ends up on the page. Somehow that pure concept doesn’t translate. Doesn’t get from the special lofty real estate in your head where all things perfect live to this clunky, messy, noisy dusty rock we all live on.
True enough.
The trip from concept to language is definitely imperfect and probably includes lots of fender benders, side trips and a flat tire or two.
But so is the human experience. Imperfection is the essence of human nature, isn’t it?
And I’m thinking that even if we managed to get that perfection on paper, or in a book or a story or some nifty commentary it might not land anyway.
It might be that perfection is something that can’t be appreciated or even understood in this human universe.
So writers curse and bang on the keyboard and spit out some herky-jerky version of that perfection in hopes that there will be some kind of connection. Because that’s the thing isn’t it? The connection from writer to reader. That says, ‘hey I’ve been in your shoes,’ or ‘I’ve seen that, I’ve felt that, I’ve tasted that – sucks don’t it?’ or “Damn, is this awesome or what?’
I don’t know this for a fact but I think we humans are pretty perceptive and those who love to read are well-versed in reading between the lines. And believe me, there is plenty there.
And when it comes down to it, maybe that’s all writers are meant to do – to keep trying – to keep spitting out that perfection inside us in whatever way we can.
I read somewhere that Michelangelo thought the Sistine Chapel was crap. So do I have a chance of perfection? Doubtful.
So how about it folks, do you try to be perfect? Are you forever seeking the perfect sentence, paragraph, phrase or description? Did you get there? How’d you do it? Is perfection over-rated?
Writer Chick
This is a great little Halloween dealie. Check it out. Adorable.
Have a great Halloween – don’t take any wooden nickels or crappy candy. Boo!
WC
Like most writers (probably) I have often read there is benefit in keeping a dream diary. I suppose the point is inspiration or just to get in touch with your inner images, thoughts, intuitions? And I have done dream diaries from time to time but mostly when I was much younger and much more impressionable.
In search of inspiration (as writers are wont to do) I stumbled upon this free writing course on the internet. In fact, I stumbled upon several but for some reason this one spoke to me. If you are looking for some good information on story structure as well as inspiration, I recommend you check it out.
One of the first things Steve recommends is starting a dream diary. So, I figured what the heck, let me try it. And I have been jotting in it every morning since I started it – although, I’m not sure what ideas or inspirations I might derive from it because seriously my dreams are not that interesting…
Saturday – I dreamed of a sorority where people had special powers and rooms were facades.
Sunday – I dreamed of battling confusion and fighting for a cause (unknown).
Monday – I dreamed about social security and how it was killing people.
Tuesday – I dreamed about NASA redistributing wealth and a teacher with magical powers that she was teaching writers.
Wednesday – I dreamed about marching men in black masks and a naked Bill Clinton adapting to something.
Thursday – I dreamed my room mate turned his house into a bar and grill and inn. It made me mad because it endangered my email address. And apparently the FBI was onto him.
Friday – (last night) I dreamed about dancing and a cat with magical powers and there was a room I wanted to get into but couldn’t.
In looking these over, it seems there is a central theme of magical powers, disappearing rooms and things not being what they seem. Hmmm….what kind of writing might that inspire?
How about you, what do you dream about?
WC
They were silken, silvered wings that hung from iridescent ribbon and called Moiré’s name whenever she passed by. She would stop and watch them, helpless against their power to enchant her. Pressing her hands and face against the glass she would wish them into her life, but all the wishing in the world didn’t make them hers. They simply hovered just out of reach and teased her with each sparkle.
“You love those shoes, don’t you, dear?” Mrs. Gamble, the shop owner, asked.
Moiré nodded and mouthed the word, yes, unable to speak in their presence.
Mrs. Gamble smiled and sighed. “I remember my first pair…they were so beautiful I was afraid to put them on. I only wanted to look at them and then put them away so they wouldn’t scuff. But they do you know. They scuff and they split and eventually you have to get new ones. The first pair, though, they are special.”
Moiré looked up at Mrs. Gamble, a plump and cheerful woman, and couldn’t imagine her leaping and pirouetting across a dance floor. Even though she’d seen the pictures on the walls of the shop, seen the awards Mrs. Gamble had earned in silver frames and spied through the window sometimes when she held dance class. Moiré wished to be in Mrs. Gamble’s class too but she knew it was only a wish that would never come – just like the shoes, she could see but not touch.
“I have to go to school,” Moiré mumbled.
“All right dear, see you later,” Mrs. Gamble waved. And she would see Moiré later because after school she would come back and commune with the shop window to covet the shoes for a while before going home.
School was filled with geography, history, English and math but Moiré’s mind held only images of pink tulle and satin, bright lights and varnished planks that gave with each landing of perfectly pointed toes. Of music so grand that you could not help but dance, that you could not help but fly through rarefied air like petals catching the breeze on a summer’s day.
Teachers frowned and admonished Moiré’s endless daydreaming and advised she learn her lessons well. The day would come when the real world would expect her to earn her keep and be a good, productive citizen. Moiré agreed and tried to memorize the fifty states, the names of dead presidents and long division but the shoes were her destiny, somehow they would save her from the dreary future the grown-ups forecasted.
***
It was dark when Moiré returned home and long past the time she was expected. Mother was red and angry as she so often was. Moiré braced for the slap sure to come. “Where have you been you little mongrel?”
Moiré shrugged and went to the kitchen. “Just around. Are you hungry? I’ll make you some soup.”
“I don’t want any soup,” the mother monster growled. “Where were you? Mooning after those damn shoes? Again?”
Moiré opened the can of soup – plop into the saucepan, whoosh, the gas flame ignited. Carefully she filled the can with water and added it to the soup then stirred. “It’s cold, the soup will taste good,” she murmured. “I think we have crackers too.”
The beast calmed and Moiré served her soup and crackers and rubbed her tired feet. “I used to dance when I was your age.”
Moiré nodded, dark blue eyes fixed on the pattern in the worn rug. “Uh huh.”
“I was damned good too,” mother lamented. “But it broke my heart. It broke my heart I tell you.” A small whimper escaped the stern mouth that once was sweet and gave kisses freely. “I just don’t want you to get your heart broken, you see?”
Again, Moiré nodded but she didn’t see. Mother fell quiet and snored softly. In silent stealth, Moiré covered mother with a blanket and took the dinner dishes to the sink.
Too tired to do any more, Moiré went to her tiny room and locked the door behind her but did not bother to turn on the light. She undressed, carefully folded her clothes and placed them on the little chair by her bed, pulled on her soft blue nightgown, then crawled into bed. When she lay down her head something felt wrong. She reached under the pillow and pulled out a pair of old, worn ballet shoes – mother’s shoes. Her heart exploded into tears and smiles and little girl giggles. And she dreamed of the dance.
Christine’s shoes are walking here and Jess’s shoes are shuffling here.
The pen presses to paper
which gobbles the ink
the travel is endless
the sights, divine
Reality doesn’t matter
borders have no meaning
Time plays no part
Identities slip on and off
like a bevy of party dresses
that flutter in a flurry of indecision
The pen is freedom
a voice of descent
That can pass through walls
small minds
the hulls of ships
the bars of prisons
the airwaves
virtual universes
prejudice and bias
skin color and class
wealth and poverty
Through gaping maws
and the eye of a needle.
Its cargo, ideas
opinions
imaginings
dreams
new points
from which to view
A flame
eternal and
hope everlasting
It was the oldest tree in town, reaching seventy five feet into the sky and it enchanted Sally. Her first sight of it was when she was eleven, not quite as tall or grand but even then it had an endless reach toward the heavens – this glorious Sycamore. Trees always spoke to Sally and this one spoke in wonder. She longed to climb it and know its secrets and started to but skinned her knee in the attempt. Not because she wasn’t an agile climber of trees for Sally had conquered many but because of the tow-haired boy who surprised her by yelling, “Hey!”
The peeling bark of the old syc was merciless as she slid down its trunk. “Hey what? Look, you made me skin my knee!” She grimaced at the fresh blood and broken skin.
“That’s my tree and you can’t climb it!” The boy’s blue eyes matched the morning sky but there was a little danger there too.
Sally huffed off, feeling those eyes watch her until she disappeared from their view. His tree? He must have been one of those Halligan’s. They owned most of the town and truth be told she was trespassing whenever she visited her tree, the Syc. His tree?
But she could never stay away from it, though always on the look out for the blue-eyed boy, she visited her tree, her tree, every chance she got. That had a heart in its trunk left by a broken and removed bough, that had a dancing man and woman made of twisted branches at the top. And they weathered the seasons together – in Spring Sally sat beneath it and wrote poetry, in Winter she left bread crusts in the heart for the birds and squirrels who refused to go south, in Summer she clung to its shade and in Fall she collected its blazing leaves and pressed them in books. Yes, her tree. Her Syc.
And when Sally left home to discover her own life, she brought the Syc with her and kept it close in mind and heart, longing to feel the rough bark, smell its musky scent, feel its sway with the wind and time. It was a special place Sally could go to when life was cruel and uncaring. Her life had fallen away from the simplicity of home, love refused to oblige her, work refused to fulfill her and the sky was never blue enough, never the color of that boy’s eyes. “Come home,” Mom had written so many times in so many letters. Sally resisted that request for years until the story about her tree.
Mom sent a copy of it in a letter. “Look what they’ve done with your tree, Sally,” was all the letter said. The Halligans had parceled land to the town and a park was now the permanent home of her tree. Her Syc. And she had to go see it again. Go home. Leave the empty place of small city apartments, commuter trains and singles bars.
Sally sat in her car in wonder, parked on Main. The town had changed so much – but the tree never changed. It had only grown higher and stronger and she didn’t have to worry about the blue-eyed boy, the Halligan who once claimed ownership. She could climb it now and she would.
“What are you doing with that ladder?” Dad asked seeming to know what she had in mind.
“Never mind, Dad,” Sally said and pecked his cheek as she grabbed the keys to his truck.
“The town won’t let you climb it either,” he said as she started for the door, “They’re more strict than Will Halligan ever was.”
Sally stopped and turned. “Will Halligan?”
“The boy who made you skin your knee,” Dad said. “He’s still around, loves that damn tree as much as you do.” Dad giggled a little and shook his head. “Have fun, honey.”
The sun had left only traces by the time Sally got into the park and she drove the old pick-up right up to its trunk, next to the heart. She wrangled the ladder from the truck bed and rested it firmly against the Syc. “I will climb you now, my friend,” she said rubbing its bark and feeling giggles rising up from her eleven year old soul. And when she reached the top rung, Sally clung to the Syc’s trunk, still unable to find a foothold into its arms.
“Hey!” the man’s voice startled her and the ladder rattled.
Sally looked down and there he was, that boy, now a man – Will Halligan. And though there was only moonlight to illuminate his face, the eyes were still morning sky. “What?” Sally asked annoyed and embarassed that she couldn’t move without falling.
“You’re going to break your ass trying to do that, darlin’.” Sally heard the smile in Will Halligan’s voice.
“Go away, I’m busy,” she said. “And this isn’t your tree anymore, so just go mind your business.”
Will was already in the truck bed putting his hands on the ladder to steady it. “Okay, I’ve got you, you can come down now.”
Sally looked over her shoulder and down at Will Halligan who seemed to be enjoying the view a little too much. “Who said I want to come down? I’m going to climb this tree,” she insisted.
Will laughed and it was sweet and boyish, his laughter. “Well you’ll be there quite a while. You’re going to need a cherry picker to get up there. You want me to call Bert, I think he has one. Though I don’t know if he’ll come down here at this hour…”
Sally’s arms were aching from trying to keep her embrace on the massive trunk and her pride was slipping too. “You’re an ass,” she said. “Get out of my way, I’m coming down,” and she started her descent, secretly hoping he wouldn’t let go of the ladder.
“Okay darlin’,” Will said, “you’re fine, just keep coming,” and Sally felt his hand on the small of her back to steady her. Sally was thankful for the moonlight because it wouldn’t reveal the blush that rose from her toes and reached to her face.
“I’m fine now,” Sally huffed, “you can let go.” And they stood face to face in the truck bed, in the moonlight and the blue eyes no longer held danger but something else that frightened her more. “What are you looking at?”
Will jumped down from the truck bed and grinned. “Why do you love my old tree so much?” he asked.
“Why do you still call it your tree?” Sally retorted. “It’s not your tree anymore,” she pointed out.
“Darlin’, it will always be my tree,” his grin grew wider and Sally thought she saw a wink. “So, why do you love it? Tell me.
Sally stood in the truck bed looking down at Will and resisted the smile that forced itself on her face. “Because it is perfect, because it is glorious, because I could see everything from the top, if I could get there. Because it enchanted me from the very first time I saw it,” she whispered.
Will reached out his hand to Sally and she took it and came down to solid ground but never let go, and they stood in the moonlight, beneath the Syc, looking at each other for the longest moment. “What?” Sally finally asked.
“You enchanted me from the very first time I saw you.” His eyes were liquid sky and mirrored the stars.
PANTHER IS ENCHANTED HERE AND CHRISTINE’S ENCHANTEDNESS WAITS HERE
One of my chums sent me these amazing pics – little models made out of old watch parts:
Sorry for the shitty, cop-out posts guys, but I’m still wiped from my weekend project. Hopefully it gets better later in the week.
Nail Your Novel - Writing, publishing and self-publishing advice from a bestselling ghostwriter and book doctor
So Many Books, So Little Time
Everything Novel.
The Graveyard Shift
Writer, Editor, Fan Girl
Fantasy writer - Bibliophile - Daydreamer
Life Coaching, Observations, Reflections, Things that make you go hmmmmm
Watch the ongoing adventures of everyone's favorite struggling author!
Anita Rodgers Mystery Writer 