A Dear John Letter, Angsty Freshman Edition

Dear Brandon,

I could say that I am afraid to write this letter.  Somehow the act of writing awakens passions for you more urgent than before.  What can I say besides that I miss you, and at the sending of this address I will do so even more fervently.

Darrowwood Part Three

3.

            Behind the door she could scarcely hear another soul in the house. She sort of preferred it that way. It made it a lot easier to read her subscriptions to the various publications she had received as gifts over the years. Her favorite writer was one Patricia Longbone, a steely-eyed investigative reporter whose pen was as sharp as her glance.  If a poster had existed with her face on it, Monica would have tacked it to the ceiling.  As things were, she had to be content with sticking some of Patricia’s award-winning articles up there, and a few interview quotes.
           "Beware of stories too full of coincidences. No thing is a coincidence."
            "Follow, catch, question."
            "Go where the story begins."

            Monica happened to look at the alarm clock. The red display read 8:05. She cursed under her breath, grabbed her jacket, and high-tailed it over to Jenny’s house.

So Serious Saturday #9

Fiction needs a basis in reality. Exercising non-fiction muscles once in a while benefits an active imagination, channeling creative energies as it focuses on a subject. So Serious Saturdays will be an active place for critical essays or writing about reality in the context of real events - even when it is not written on Saturdays.

Type: Persuasive Commentary

Threat Posed to The Largest Form of Flattery

Writing what you know: good thing or bad thing or neutral thing?

We all get influenced by what is around us; what we read, see, and hear becomes a part of us. Going to the park inspires a poem, an old song becomes a new song in our hearts -- sappy, but true. Van Gogh was inspired by some of his contemporaries. Novelist J.D. Salinger was inspired in part by Scottish poet Robert Burns. There are literally millions of other examples and cross-references in literature, poetry, art, and music.

The question is "How much credit does the inspiration for a new work receive for the new work?" Specifically, is the Blurred Lines copyright decision a dangerous precedent for all creative work after it?

Craft Wednesday #5 A Word About Sequels

This blog needed a place for talking about writing. "Craft Wednesday" will be me talking about all things writing: how to write, why to write, and my own craft journey. I hope to learn and share experiences with you.

A Word About Sequels

Whenever there's a nice, somewhat original story I applaud its unique efforts to stand alone. Then a sequel comes out. Then another story. Soon there are so many books that it seems like I will never read (or buy) all of the stories.

Thank you, Alex Rider, for pushing my straining bookshelves to overflow capacity.

Whatever happened to a story staying finished? There is no Gone With the Wind canonized sequel - plenty of fanfics, though. Oliver Twist stays in one volume. In her narrative, Madam Bovary carries on her caprices to the end of the book, and that's it.

None Alone Four

4.

            It runs up my back. Eventually I stop fighting them and turn to see what it is. Whatever it is has barbs and is dark and small. I lose sight of it as it rolls up my shoulder to the base of my neck. A question forms on my lips, but once again they charge and I am called to the flashing blades and spear points. The shield on my arm begins to splinter, crack. My sword flies faster than I can keep up.

It is a pinch on the back of my neck like cactus spines. My hand reaches there before it is brought back with the sword to bat away the metal scratching figures on the surface, hot and white figures in the noonday. I taste their sweat, and my own running down my face, as I brace against the ground before pushing off, shoving them away.

Darrowwood Part Two

 2.

 It showed up in her message box before finals.  The subject line read: “Re: Darrowwood Prep Camp.”  Monica did not remember ever having corresponded with a Darrowwood Preparatory, wherever that was, but the email informed her that a letter would arrive at her home shortly.  Google searches displayed a picturesque cabin fronting the vast woods of West Virginia, and several pages of prestigious awards and laudatory comments from past members.  Her right index finger tingled on the keyboard.

So Serious Saturday #8 Water Wisdom Part I

Fiction needs a basis in reality. Exercising non-fiction muscles once in a while benefits an active imagination, channeling creative energies as it focuses on a subject. So Serious Saturdays will be an active place for critical essays or writing about reality in the context of real events - even when it is not written on Saturdays.

Type: Humorous/Informational/Persuasive

Water Wisdom

Yesterday was World Water Day. Maybe you've wondered how to reduce your water usage. Or maybe you have considered being more water wise, but think that it takes a huge commitment.  Here are some factoids about water and water use.

Darrowwood Part One

 1.

 A small tear appeared in her nail.  Monica had no idea how it had happened.  Over the course of a week it split the index nail right down the center, all the way down to the nail bed.

            Her mother told her not to worry because there was nothing to be done about it. She wrapped a band-aid around the finger, and that was all. Her father, a successful practitioner in his own medical office, said that no doctor would tell Monica to do anything different than what her mother had done.

 Even her best friend Jenny said to stop picking at it in the English class note passed from hand to hand. When Monica looked back at her friend she saw the shapely profile of Jenny’s nose leaning over the aisle to catch the page number in a neighbor’s book as her trembling hands flipped it to the same.

            So Monica kept it to herself when the two nail halves began to curl under themselves.  Monica soon discovered that, besides the tenderness of her exposed nailbed, she could feel a sort of vibration in the objects she touched.  The more Monica tried to concentrate on the vibrations, the deeper red the curled nail sections steadily became, making it appear as though a flower wanted to sprout from her pointer finger.  She sometimes wondered if that was not the case.

Read Part 2

A Leprechaun Visitor

Mrs. Combine wowed the entire kindergarten class with a show of tiny green footprints across the craft table and up the wall. Open on the table was a canister of paint.

"Look, leprechauns were here," Mrs. Combine told us.

I lived in a house where the toothfairy never visited and where my parents had stopped pretending about the time Jonah turned eight. Naturally, I didn't believe her.

I raised my hand and waved it to tell her so.  Just as I did, someone made a pesky noise. I looked around, but none of my classmates seated on the carpet pretended to see me.  They were stock still. I looked up at Mrs. Combine, too, but she was glued to her chair.

"Psst!" I finally looked down. At my knee stood a tiny green man. "Do not be alarmed, missy," he said.

I Was Changing Again

 

     It started at my left elbow right above the mole that looked like Bert from Sesame Street. The scabs fell off in green flakes, and the area they had left behind became green skin. But not just any green skin; this green skin began to harden in the first few days. It had a reptilian texture.

      I had to admit, I was worried. This was worse than last week. Oh boy, last week – last Monday I went shopping with my aunt for a pair of glittering gold heels to match the dress I was going to wear for the shower for her son and his fiancée, when the first change happened. The shoes went on perfectly. I do not often say this about heels, but they were nice, comfortable, and almost as supportive as flip-flops. For them I could be persuaded to bend my feminist-leanings for a day. There was this delicate band that went around my ankle that was powdered with glittery stuff. The problem was that the glitter was falling off all over the store. If there is one thing my Aunt Janine hates, it is a messy house.

Craft Wednesday #4 The Perils of Writing In One Direction

This blog needed a place for talking about writing. "Craft Wednesday" will be me talking about all things writing: how to write, why to write, and my own craft journey. I hope to learn and share experiences with you.

The Perils of Writing in One Direction

When deciding which story in my head should be written down, I often think in scenes. Sometimes these scenes include flashbacks to television episodes, or a phrase from a book, or a frame from a movie frozen in my memory.

But at what point does this collection of others' work become a distraction from the artistic vision my own story desires? Is that what my writing should do, gesture to what influences lie behind? I like heroics and happenings. I adore quotes from famous thinkers, especially fun proverbs and phrases that seem like they mean something.

 But is that all my writing is going to be -- if I feature quotes in my story -- a laundry list of what other people have thought, felt, and said before?

Pack Appetites

I am the wolf who threatened the pigs
living in houses of straw, sticks and bricks.
I huffed and I puffed and I blew down
the shacks, but not the house properly founded.
That masoned creation held steady despite my hot air
and a mad desire for fresh bacon.
My cardiologist said to lay off the fat
so I guess the bricks really did me a favor.

I am the wolf who ate one recluse grandmother
and one stupid girl in a red hooded cloak
as red as my thin, shriveling insides
which became my outsides when the hunter arrived.
Mother always said I'd have to work for my meals -
she never told me I'd have to wear a nightgown.
All I wanted, really, was the goodies in Red's basket
which went instead to the fat old lady with the itchy lace bonnet.

I am the wolf that Peter saw
after he told his mother, his brother, his father,
his neighbors, his girlfriend and his entire hometown
that there was a large, hairy wolf snacking on mutton.
I was flattered, really, that he exaggerated my appearance,
which may not have been exactly truthful to begin with.
Hey, but who am I to judge? These days it's hard
to get attention without making a scene.

So Serious Saturday #7

Fiction needs a basis in reality. Exercising non-fiction muscles once in a while benefits an active imagination, channeling creative energies as it focuses on a subject. So Serious Saturdays will be an active place for critical essays or writing about reality in the context of real events - even when it is not written on Saturdays.

Type: Discussion

Fact Versus Opinion?

So what is the difference between fact and opinion?

An blog article from March 2nd of this year brings attention to this often misdirected distinction. Aptly titled "Why Our Children Don't Think There Are Moral Facts", the article discusses the pitfalls of moral relativism.

The first point author Justin P. McBryaer makes involves truth and proof. The terms are not synonymous, because something can be true even if someone cannot prove it. In explaining this type of situation McBryaer says,"if proof is required for facts, then facts become person-relative. Something may be a fact for me if I can prove it but not a fact for you if you can't."

A calculus professor could prove something that I cannot; does that make that something true for them and not for me?  If someone in the Middle Ages had said, "Hey, guys, I think the earth travels around the sun," but they did not have the technology or mathematical skills to prove it, would that have made that idea any less true or false?

So what if someone does not have proof to prove the truth of what they believe?

Red Jill

Let me tell you a story,

a tale heard before,

a long while ago,

about the time horses had horns

and some men grew taller than houses.

The girl with the red cloak,

prepubescent white and red,

went into the woods, alone.

Bade by her mother

to go into the woods

where grandmother lived

in a grove of trees the shape of the moon.

Into the woods she went.

She went alone,

for this was Jill

before she met Jack.

She was the same Jill.

They never told you that in their stories.

I, Marionette

Please tell me the lines carved on my face

say what was, not what will be.

But let it be experience and not expression

cutting the final line,

a thin upturned mouth.

                           

Whittle me legs so I may totter home.

Break the knobby knees early and often,

so I don't have to, preventing later creaks.

Oil thick these joints for all terrains; 

cover with pitch and

forbid water entry.

Dry my green wood by the fire,

though keep me from catching -

perhaps secure a seat upon a linen needle cushion.

If you hang me over flame,

tie a string around my chest and pull.

I won't mind.

Craft Wednesday #3 Ambient Thoughts

This blog needed a place for talking about writing. "Craft Wednesday" will be me talking about all things writing: how to write, why to write, and my own craft journey. I hope to learn and share experiences with you.

Ambient Thoughts

      I wondered about the coincidence; just a week after I began to write a genre-changing story (which I hope to share on this blog, just for kicks) I picked up a book entitled Cloud Atlas.

Taking Tolls at One (Riddle)

A type of riddle I created one day during class.  Can you guess the answer?

I.              

A flame upon a wayward crest

of healing waters made alive

brings afar a lantern blessed

by time eternal, purified.

II.            

 Hope’s beacon, in airy channels,

has taken many paths before.

legends weigh no more than feathers,

heavier burdens have they borne.

III.       
The voice of one in the desert

cries melancholy pells anew –

chasing days’ resting place, inert,

recalls its fuel: powdered dew.

IV. 

 Dust to dust delivers morning

Seeds, bursts lively inspirations

in revisited ends, warming

these buried, prodigal passions.

Prayer of a Restless Soul

Set flame to this cold world
taking care to warm and not burn
without scorching the people of rock
or rotting their dreams with fire

Give light to those wrapped in darkness
to the blind, to those without sight
Lend them hands against chains
that coil and pull them into cellars

Call the witnesses to the nations
as understanding becomes scarce
Bid men and women, age and youth
to listen once for hope

Fictional Character Resume

The Midnight Hours series

lawghinfan@mail.com

Jennifer Powers

Objective		Seeking a position in the twentieth chapter of a Fletcher novel, just after the main character almost dies but does not
Skills & Abilities		-Teaparties -Manners -Listening -Helping
Experience		Neighbor, Book One of The Midnight Hours Chapters 1-5, 11-13 -Assisted the MacAllister’s move-in next-door -Planned and hosted a tea party where important plot devices were introduced -Listened to neighbor explain events for hours, with a breakthrough accomplished ________________________________ Best Friend, Book Two of the Midnight Hours Chapters 2, 7-9, and 19 -Planned a birthday extravaganza -Talked a character off a gable roof -Called the policed and acted as a star witness -Explained a key plot point to neighbor ________________________________ Neighbor/Friend, Book Four of The Midnight Hours Chapters 1, 10, 21

Fictional Character Seeking Work

Dear Ms. Fletcher:

I am a seeking a position in the twentieth chapter, just after the main character almost dies but does not. I am interested in joining your newest cast of characters in even the briefest mention because I know you listen to what your characters have to say, and I feel that I can provide great insight and emotion to your newest venture into the mystery genre.

Craft Wednesday #2 What the Fantasy Genres Tell Us

 This blog needed a place for talking about writing. "Craft Wednesday" will be me talking about all things writing: how to write, why to write, and my own craft journey. I hope to learn and share experiences with you.

What the Fantasy Genres Tell Us

This past week I've been thinking a lot about genres. Now I know that's a broad topic, so I'll narrow it down a bit to the two particular genres that have puzzled me lately.

Fairy tales and science fiction are genre-benders. That's right. On their grounds romance, action, mystery and philosophical tracts play out. When we read these types of stories, we see humans (and often non-humans) falling in love, battling, solving puzzles, and generally ducking behind reality's limitations to test the important immaterial stuff.

Of the Minotaur Myth

"He dines alone surrounded by reflections"*

of the moon tracing lines

from dot to red dot

scattered on labyrinth walls

Body of man-

who dares chase the unfortunate

where corners halt

into another passage

– call to mind your ancestry

and forbear the covenant

you made with your father’s son

Tell Theseus his thread is cut



*Line from "Witch Doctor", by Robert Hayden

Snapshot, 43

"One more thing." The soldier looked out at the upturned faces. He inhaled, not to steady himself, but because he needed the breath. "The enemy wants to turn you away from doing good, or even to neutralize your action before you take it."