‘Hair Cut…Two Bits’…. Nostalgia – (part 6)

Just because……….the few people that have purchased or read my first book of poetry seemed to love this story the most, I thought I would share it with my readers.

cathedral, New Orleans, history, music This story originated from old papers, receipts and journals owned by Marcel Guerman that I found in a trunk in the attic of a building on Camp Street in New Orleans.  The building was being renovated into apartments and I was to be the first tenant.  My third floor walk-up looked out on St. Patrick’s cathedral. (seen here)  One day we crept up to the attic to take a look. Among the many things in the attic was a single, cherrywood door of an armoire that I have to this day. Off in a corner was a leather and metal ribbed trunk forgotten for decades. As I read pawn tickets, journals, papers of this stranger’s life, from decades earlier,  I could envision this European man as clearly as if he stood next me.    I wrote the first draft in 1979. Continue reading “‘Hair Cut…Two Bits’…. Nostalgia – (part 6)”

‘A is for..Alibi’ ‘B is for…’C is for’… An Interview with Sue Grafton (part 2)

      Part II ** Interview with Sue Grafton     In Loving Memory

          Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing and for how long?

SG. On occasion, but not nearly often enough.  I love that feeling but most of the time it’s just struggle, hair-tearing, whining, and complaints.  I’m easily distracted.  If the work is going well…call it twice a week…then I’m happy.  Most of the time I’m sitting here because that’s what it takes.  Comfortable or uncomfortable doesn’t make any difference.  I suffer because I feel stupid and clumsy and blocked most of the time, but so what?  That is all part of the process.  If you’re not willing to sweat it out, you’re in the wrong business.  No short cuts.

Q. When did you begin to write seriously?

SG.  When I was eighteen.  I wrote seven full-length novels from the ages of twenty-two to thirty-eight.  Novels four and five were published.  The others have never seen the light of day.  The eighth novel I wrote was ‘A’ IS FOR ALIBI and that was after a long stint in Hollywood where I wrote pilots, movies for television, and the occasional film script.

Q. How long after that were you published?

SG. My first novel was published five years after I began teaching myself how to write long form.  ‘A’ IS FOR ALIBI took me five years to write.  I’d say ‘five’ is the magic number.  It takes fifteen years of being published before you can support yourself with the writing.  This is not a career for sissies or cowards.  You better get used to hard work.  And rejection and frustration.  That’s what teaches you.  You can’t side-step the anguish.

Q. and the all important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like?

SG. As I’ve often described, I keep a series of journals or notebooks on my computer for every novel I write.  The journal is where I keep plot possibilities, ideas, research notes, character sketches, dialogue when it occurs to me.  The collective journals for ‘V’ IS FOR VENGEANCE came to 967 single-spaced pages.  The journals for ‘W’ came to 1298 single-spaced pages on the day I finished the book, which was February 21, 2013.  It took me a year to settle on the storyline .  I work by trial and error which is why it takes me so long.  After a mere thirty years at this, I know what doesn’t work but I don’t always know it in advance.  I write and then I think, no.  I write some more and think, don’t think so. I write some more and think, are you kidding me?  I write some more and I think, well that stinks.  And on it goes.

Q. Where/when do you first discover Kinsey and your other characters ?

SG. I am Kinsey Millhone so that was easy enough.  Other characters I discover as I go along.  Character and plot can never be separated.  Both have to be developed at the same time, in tandem, or a story won’t come to life.

Q. What inspired your story/stories ?

SG. Sometimes a germ of an idea will come to me.  In fact many times I have the germ of an idea.  That’s the easy part.  What’s difficult is figuring out what you can do with an idea, figuring out how you can develop it to the point where it will carry 660 manuscript pages.  You need heft and complexity and major muscle.  Not every idea will yield a novel.  One of my big lessons, always, is learning when to let it go.  I’m ruthless when it comes to that.  I might work on an idea for six months.  Once I realize it isn’t working and that I don’t know how to make it work, I dump it. 

Q. Have you or do you want to write in another genre?

2017

SG.  I’ve written in other forms and formats; movie scripts, television scripts, short stories and novels.  I’ve never written science fiction or erotica or romance or horror or westerns.  I don’t know those forms and I wouldn’t do a good job of it.  I love the hard-boiled private eye novel and I love crime fiction, which is…as it turns out…where I belong.

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Biography:  I was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky where I graduated from the University of Louisville in 1961 with a degree in English.  I worked in a variety of jobs in the medical field, writing after the family was down for the night. Sold a ‘mainstream’ novel, KEZIAH DANE, that was published when I was 27 and then a second novel, THE LOLLY-MADONNA WAR, that was published when I was 29.  Altogether, before the alphabet novels, I wrote 7 books .  The eighth novel I wrote was ‘A’ IS FOR ALIBI. Guess what I’ve been doing every since?’   

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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with  best-selling AUTHORS!   Did you miss the past few months?    December: British writer, J.G. Dow.  January: In Memory, Sue Grafton.
                                                                                   
                                         Check out more Motivational Moments…for Writers!

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World Renowned Mystery Writer, Sue Grafton visits my Blog!

sue-grafton-3.2012a           DON’T MISS IT!  Starting tomorrow, my interview with Sue Grafton, most famous for her best selling alphabet series!

August 1st and 6th, Sue shares with me and her readers her process as she writes her best sellers.  Beginning back in the eighties she wrote “A IS FOR ALIBI”  and the rest is history. What happens when we get to “Z”??  Will that be the end to Kinsey Milhone, PI?  Oh, no!!!

best selling author, Sue Grafton, fiction for womenwriting, best sellers, fiction for women, Sue Grafton

Got Secrets in your Family? Write about Them!

family stories, family secrets, story telling, writers
(left to right) Brother, Jack, Mom, me, Sister, Doris

Secret:  I was the baby in the family, born 11 and 8 years, respectively, after my siblings. Not until just a few years ago did I hear that my mother “farmed out” my sister and brother to strangers. The term usually referred to children who were sent to a relative back in the day, but in my siblings’ case it was an indenture. My brother and sister had to work for their keep, ages six and 11.

They told me these stories as part of my research while writing, ‘Wild Violets’,  a romanticized version of my Mother as a flapper and entrepreneur in the 1920’s in San Francisco. As I was writing and the family secrets unfolded, the romanticism flew right out the window. And that’s okay; remember what I told you before  about your story taking hold and telling itself?

history, family stories, Wild Violets, writing
Violet’s Fulton Bar & Grill in San Francisco, 1929

But the enormity of my mother’s actions still didn’t really sink in….grab my heart. ‘It happened so long ago, it happened in a different time, it didn’t happen to me’, I told myself.
Until.…I began to actually write that part of the story. Here were these two little kids dumped at the front door of a farm house by their mother and her current boyfriend. The kids had no warning, no time frame, didn’t even know if they would ever see their mother again. And for no good reason. The family wasn’t destitute….she owned a bar and grill in San Francisco. There were no addiction problems unless you counted our mother’s addition to men.

As I wrote those pages, I finally became invested in what had happened to my brother and sister over seventy years ago. And my heart broke. To finally see why, in part, they became the people they are today. Why, at times, my sister bitterly resented me. Why my brother was an overachiever and obsessed with family.

In my own way, I too was abandoned by our mother. No, she never farmed me out. Nothing so overt as that. But she chose her men over me, time and time again. Her desires always trumped my childhood needs.

family histories, family secrets, story telling, writers
My Mother, Violet and me (age 5)

I was a left-over.  A possession that she could put down or pick up again on a whim. Show off to her current beau or friends and then set in a corner, like an old broom.

And if you, my readers, hear bitterness leaking through my words….it’s not for me and how I was raised. Because I have overpowered my past and empowered myself to be the fierce, tough and resilient woman that I am today. Seeking and honing my talent and achieving my goals. (Yes, I still have abandonment issues).

The bitterness and heartache you hear,  in my voice, are for those two little kids dumped at a stranger’s door!

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“A Masked man and an Indian Rode the plains, Searching for Truth and Justice”. Nostalgia (part 5)

nostalgia, history, the lone ranger, radio             ‘Hi, Ho! Silver’         Nostalgia   

When I was a very little girl my mother and I would pull our chairs up close to our Zenith radio and wait for the iconic shout, “Hi-Ho Silver! Away!”  and the weekly  radio show of ‘The Lone Ranger’. The first of 2,956 radio episodes of The Lone Ranger premiered on  WXYZ. He first appeared in 1933 in a radio show conceived either (it remains unclear)  by WXYZ radio station owner, George W. Trendle, or by Fran Striker, the show’s writer. It’s been suggested that Bass Reeves, a legendary Federal peace officer in the Indian Territory (1875 – 1907), was the inspiration for this character.

Each episode was introduced by the announcer as follows:  ‘In the early days of the western United States, a masked man and an Indian rode the plains, searching for truth and justice. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when from out of the past come the thundering hoof beats of the great horse Silver! The Lone Ranger rides again!’

Then not too many years later I went to the Saturday matinees at the movie house and to watch the serialized adventures of the Lone Ranger. radio, movies, the lone ranger, tonto,  I believe that was my first crush on a guy. And Tonto was so exotic….what a duo!  Actors (above) Clayton Moore played the Ranger and Jay Silverheels was Tonto.

Tonto usually referred to the Lone Ranger as “Ke-mo sah-bee”, meaning “trusty scout” or “trusted friend.” These catchphrases, his the lone ranger, tonto, nostalgia, silver, scouttrademark silver bullets, and the theme music from the William Tell overture have become tropes of popular culture.

The show and the characters were so influential that both actors took their positions as role models to children very seriously, in their daily lives,  and tried their best to live their lives by the creed that was created for them. It read:

I believe…

that to have a friend, a man must be one.
that all men are created equal and that everyone has within himself the power to make this a better world.
that God put the firewood there, but that every man must gather and light it himself.
in being prepared physically, mentally, and morally to fight when necessary for that which is right.
that a man should make the most of what equipment he has.
that ‘this government of the people, by the people, and for the people’ shall live always.
that men should live by the rule of what is best for the greatest number.
that sooner or later…somewhere…somehow…we must settle with the world and make payment for what we have taken.
that all things change but truth, and that truth alone, lives on forever.
in my Creator, my country, my fellow man.

Just the other night I saw the first trailer, on TV, about the new movie, “The Lone Ranger”.  What a kick!  And under all that paint tonto, the lone ranger, radio, nostalgiaon Tonto’s face is Johnny Depp.  No surprise there; Depp has always gone his own way and chosen roles that intrigued him.  He has historically thumbed his nose at agents, managers, studio CEO’s, and accepted diverse and (others may believe) crazy roles.  Good on you! Johnny!loneranger.new

 

 

 

 

the lone ranger, silver, scout, Tonto, radio, nostalgia           The Horses:  I was horse-crazy as a girl and loved Silver and Scout as much as the heroes. According to the episode “The Legend of Silver”: before acquiring Silver, the Lone Ranger rode a chestnut mare called Dusty. The Lone Ranger saves Silver’s life from an enraged buffalo and, in gratitude, Silver chooses to give up his wild life to carry him. The origin of Tonto’s horse, Scout, is less clear. For a long time, Tonto rode a white horse called White Feller. Then Tonto is given a paint horse by his friend Chief Thundercloud, who then takes White Feller. Tonto rides this horse and refers to him simply as “Paint Horse” for several episodes. The horse is finally named Scout.  In another episode,  the Lone Ranger, in a surge of conscience, releases Silver back to the wild.

I remember that episode like it was yesterday.  I couldn’t believe that the Lone Ranger, MY lone ranger and MY Silver were to be parted. Not until the next Saturday, at the local movie theatre, did Silver return to his beloved master.

Yes, I am a writer of fiction, plays and poetry but the thing I really like about this ‘blog’ business is I get to write about writing and storytelling.  I can write about stories that intrigue and endure.  The story behind The Lone Ranger intrigues and certainly is enduring!
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with other best-selling AUTHORS!  A SERIES, “The Writer’s Corner”

I have had a wonderful response from other authors and will feature an interview once a month . These authors have already responded and you can read their interviews by clicking on their name:: Ann Purser, Susan Elia MacNealMark Childress, Rhys Bowen, Dean Koontz, Sheryl Woods, Jo-Ann Mapson, Jeffrey Deaver, Elizabeth Gilbert, Amber Winckler, Karen Robards, Robert McCammon, Sue Grafton, Caroline Leavitt, Heidi Jon Schmidt, Walter Mosley, Loretta Chase, Nora Roberts, Raymond Benson, and many others.

So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!  July features Rhys Bowen.  Sue Grafton is August’s author and September will feature Tasha Alexander. Jeffrey Deaver is November’s author and  slick mystery writer, Andrew Grant will join us this winter. Loretta Chase will be featured later this year. Raymond Benson is January’s author.

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To receive my posts sign up for my blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction  Go to the home page; On the right side you’ll see a box where you can enter your email address. Click on “join my blog”. You need to confirm in an email from ‘Writer at Play’ . Thanks!

What makes a Good Writer? Pages of description or….?

writing, process, writers, style             Most of the authors that I have interviewed are avid readers like myself.  We seem to all agree that is what makes us better writers.   I was reading Caroline Leavitt’s‘Is This Tomorrow‘  and it struck me how very different our writing styles are.  Caroline writes pages of beautiful, meaningful description with a few lines of dialogue.  Much like Edna Ferber did.

My fiction has tons of dialogue (probably as a result of my being a playwright) and just enough description to set the time, location and who my characters are.  I have to repeatedly check myself to make certain that I am giving my readers enough description.writing, process, writers, style

Why am I telling you about this?  I need to be sure that you realize that there is no WRONG way.  If you tend to write in story telling form, a narrative, that’s great!  If, like me, you write a lot of dialogue and let that method tell the reader what your characters are doing, what the weather is like, who just showed up at the house, who she/he is in love with, who died, (well, you get the idea).  That’s okay too.

Aspire to write better every day….but don’t worry about your ‘style’, if it turns out that an author you really respect writes differently than you do.  It’s a DIFFERENT style but that doesn’t mean that your writing style is wrong.  Or that their writing is right.  It’s just about style, and what we feel comfortable writing.

writing, process, writers, styleIf you are more a descriptive writer be certain that you keep your paragraphs short.  Don’t ramble on and on in one paragraph.  The eye of the reader needs a rest.   And double, triple check your grammar!   Check out Thursday’s blog this week where there are some tips about that very subject.

 

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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS.  This SERIES, “The Writer’s Corner” presents INTERVIEWS with  best-selling AUTHORS!

I have had a wonderful response from other authors and plan on featuring an interview once a month .  These authors have already responded and you can read their interviews by clicking on their name::  Ann Purser, Susan Elia MacNeal, Heidi Jon Schmidt, Mark Childress, Robert McCammon, Rhys Bowen, Karen Robards, Dean Koontz, Sheryl Woods, Jo-Ann Mapson, Elizabeth Gilbert, Amber Winckler, Sue Grafton,Walter Mosley, Loretta Chase, Nora Roberts, Jeffrey Deaver and many others.

So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!  July features Rhys Bowen.  Sue Grafton is August’s author and September will feature Tasha Alexander. Jeffrey Deaver is November’s author and  slick mystery writer, Andrew Grant will join us this winter. Loretta Chase will be featured later this year.
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To receive my posts sign up for my blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction Go to the home page; On the right side you’ll see a box where you can enter your email address. Click on “join my blog”.  You need to confirm in an email from ‘Writer at Play’ .  Thanks!

The birth of CSI …an Interview with Rhys Bowen (part 2)

    I SAT DOWN WITH Rhys Bowen (wish that were true) and HERE IS PART II of my INTERVIEW WITH HER.

Catch up with Part I of this great interview!

 

          photo  Q. and the all important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like?

A. I write historical mystery series so I come to a new book knowing a lot about my main character, a lot about her background. So I am not starting from a blank canvas each time. I usually start from a setting, an environment. I know I’d like to send Molly to an enclosed convent in search of a missing baby. I have no idea what will happen there or who I will meet until I start to write it. My books always go in directions I hadn’t suspected.  (sound familiar?)


Q. Where/when do you first discover your characters ?

A.With Molly Murphy I knew I wanted to write a feisty first person female who didn’t know when to shut up. With Lady Georgie I wanted to write the most unlikely sleuth I could think of—royal but penniless.

Q. What inspired your story/stories ?

A. The Molly books were conceived because I visited Ellis Island and was so emotionally overcome by what I saw and felt there, I just knew I had to set a story there. The Royal Spyness books started from wanting to write something fun and funny and about British aristocrats in the 30s.

Q. When is your next book coming out? (or) What are you working on?Rhys Bowen, best selling authors, best sellers, writing

A.March 5.  It’s a Molly book, The Family Way. My next Royal Spyness book will be out on August 6, called Heirs and Graces. (reviewed here in August).  I’m currently writing the 13th Molly book, called City of Darkness and Light. It takes place among painters in Paris.

Q. As a fan of your work I am currently reading “Royal Blood” (from the Royal Spyness series).  What inspired the story line? Had you visited ‘Bran Castle’? Met royals? Attended a royal wedding, perhaps?

A. I wrote Royal Blood because vampire novels were suddenly so popular that I wanted to write a spoof on all things vampire.  I haven’t visited Bran castle but I have been to plenty of similar castles in Germany, Austria, Czech Republic so I had a good feel for it.

I have met plenty of real royals… all English. I had tea with the current queen. I was presented to the queen mother. I met Princess Margaret and saw Queen Mary when she was very old but still so regal and stately.  But alas, no royal weddings. I’d have liked to be at William and Kate’s.

Q. Have you? Or do you want to write in another genre`?

A. I suppose like all writers I’d like to write that one definitive literary novel.

Rhys.photoClick here to read Part I of this interview
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A review of Bowen’s “Oh Danny Boy”, another Molly Murphy mystery.
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with other best-selling AUTHORS!  A SERIES, “The Writer’s Corner”

I have had a wonderful response from other authors and will feature an interview once a month . These authors have already responded and you can read their interviews by clicking on their name:: Ann Purser, Susan Elia MacNealMark Childress, Rhys Bowen, Dean Koontz, Sheryl Woods, Jo-Ann Mapson, Jeffrey Deaver, Elizabeth Gilbert, Amber Winckler, Karen Robards, Robert McCammon, Sue Grafton, Caroline Leavitt, Heidi Jon Schmidt, Walter Mosley, Nora Roberts, and many others.

So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!  July features Rhys BowenSue Grafton is August’s author and September will feature Tasha AlexanderJeffrey Deaver is November’s author and  slick mystery writer, Andrew Grant will join us this winter. Loretta Chase will be featured later this year.
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To receive my posts sign up for my blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction  Go to the home page; On the right side you’ll see a box where you can enter your email address. Click on “join my blog”. You need to confirm in an email from ‘Writer at Play’ . Thanks!

The ‘Mouse’ Will Never Catch On!

I still remember the exact time and place that I saw my first ‘mouse’.mouse

We had been using computers in the office for several years, mostly for word processing.  It was the year 1985 and one of my employers (the younger, hip one)  invited everyone into his private office to see ‘the latest computer’ he had just purchased.  We gathered around and he went on to explain how ‘THE MOUSE’ worked. The older, more wise partner/employer shook his head as if to say, ‘what’s he gonna waste money on next?

(Definition:  In computing, a mouse is a pointing device that functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface. Physically, a mouse consists of an object held under one of the user’s hands, with one or more buttons.
mouse2History: The second marketed version of an integrated mouse shipped as a part of a computer and intended for personal computer navigation came with the Xerox 8010 Star Information System in 1981. However, the mouse remained relatively obscure until the 1984 appearance of the Macintosh 128K, which included an updated version of the original Lisa Mouse. In 1982, Microsoft made the decision to make the MS-DOS program Microsoft Word mouse-compatible and developed the first PC-compatible mouse. Microsoft’s mouse shipped in 1983, thus beginning Microsoft Hardware in 1984)

Until that moment we used the keyboard to navigate everywhere and I wondered why anyone would want to use the ‘mouse’.  Your hand would have to leave the keyboard, back and forth, back and forth; what a waste of time.  And it would shoot my typist skills of 80-90 wpm all to hell!  THIS WILL NEVER CATCH ON!

Now today, in the year 2013, I looked down and saw my mouse in a brand new light.  My mouse still has its tail and still looks like its namesake.  But a cooler, racier version, black with two racing strips down its back.  And I smile because although we are in a highly evolved technological era (the Internet, surfing the Web, Cyberspace, call it what you will. I call it Fabulous!)  we still call this tool, a ‘mouse‘.

Why isn’t it called a handheld techno-directional finder (HTDF) or some such acronym?  But no.  It is still the humble ‘mouse‘; most times these days, without its tail.  Which then reminded me of the three blind mice and the butcher’s knife!

mouse         Funny thing this:  when I looked for images (for this post) of ‘the mouse’ there were an equal number in images of the rodent and the HTDF!
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS. INTERVIEWS with other best-selling AUTHORS!    Join us at the Writer’s Corner!
I have had a wonderful response from other authors and will feature an interview once a month . These authors have already responded and you can read their interviews by clicking on their name: Ann Purser, Susan Elia MacNealMark Childress, Rhys Bowen, Dean Koontz, Sheryl Woods, Jo-Ann Mapson, Jeffrey Deaver, Heidi Jon Schmidt, Elizabeth Gilbert, Amber Winckler, Robert McCammon, Caroline Leavitt, Sue Grafton, Karen Robards, Walter Mosley, Nora Roberts, and many others.

So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!   Caroline Leavitt is June‘s author.  July features Rhys Bowen.  Sue Grafton is August’s author and September will feature Tasha Alexander. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To receive my posts sign up for my blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction  Go to the home page; On the right side you’ll see a box where you can enter your email address. Click on “join my blog”. You need to confirm in an email from ‘Writer at Play’ . Thanks!

Inspiration?….anywhere I can get it! (part 6)

inspiration, Robert Service, writing                  I was re-reading some of Robert Service’s poetry the other day preparing a new posting for my blog.  And I happened across one I had not read before…..entitled ‘Inspiration’  I  find it  fascinating that writers are saying the same thing whether it is  1900 or 2013 .

It inspired me to share it with you because the poem talks about the same things that I’ve said.  About being open to what’s around you; how it can inspire you.  Who’s around you;  it can inspire you.  What you hear and see;  it can inspire you.

INSPIRATION  by Robert Service

How often have I started out
with no thought in my noddle,
and wandered here and there about,
where fancy bade me toddle;;
 till feeling faunlike in my glee
 I’ve voiced some gay dsitiches,
returning joyfully to tea,
a poem in my britches.

A-squatting on a thymy slope
with vast of sky about me,
I’ve scribbled on an envelope
the rhymes the hills would shout me;
the couplets that the trees would call,
the lays the breezes proffered…
 oh no, I didn’t think at all-
I took what Nature offered.

For that’s the way you ought to write-
without a trace of trouble;
be super-charged with high delight
and let the words out-bubble;
be voice of vale and wood and streamservice
without design or proem:

then rouse from out a golden dream
to find you’ve made a poem.

So I’ll go forth with mind a blank,
and sea and sky will spell me;
and lolling on a thymy bank
I’ll take down what they tell me;
as Mother Nature speaks to me
her words I’ll gaily docket,
so I’ll come singing home to tea
a poem in my pocket.
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inspiration, cabin, writing, writersI’ve mentioned before how nurturing my cabin is, tucked in a hollow in the Blue Ridge mountains of north Georgia. And like Robert Service I have responded to stream, vale, wood, sky and trees (particularly when I write Haiku).  I have had some of my best writing hours there.  A ripple on the pond, a single leaf floating down amidst the branches, the sun winking between trees, the song of a bird; all have given me inspiration and quieted this crazed thing between my ears.  Open your heart, your mind, your eyes and ears and inspiration will find you!

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Start your month off right!! DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS. INTERVIEWS with other best-selling AUTHORS!   
I have had a wonderful response from other authors and will feature an interview once a month . I have invited such luminaries as: Ann Purser, Susan Elia MacNeal, Maya Angelou, Mark Childress, Rhys Bowen, Dean Koontz, Sheryl Woods, Jo-Ann Mapson, Jeffrey Deaver, Elizabeth Gilbert, Amber Winckler, Robert McCammon, Sue Grafton, Caroline Leavitt, Walter Mosley, Nora Roberts, and many others.

So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!  Mark Childress is our April author.  Robert McCammon is scheduled for May. Caroline Leavitt is June‘s author.  July features Rhys Bowen.  Sue Grafton is August’s author and September will feature Tasha Alexander. Slick mystery writer, Andrew Grant will join us this winter.
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To receive my posts sign up for my blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction  Go to the home page; On the right side you’ll see a box where you can enter your email address. Click on “join my blog”. You need to confirm in an email from ‘Writer at Play’ . Thanks!

You Don’t Have to be a Tortured, Guilt-ridden, Flagellating Soul!

writing, Dorothy Parker, famous quotes, famous authors      Dorothy Parker famously said:  “I hate writing. I enjoy having written.”

‘Don’t we all? We love the end result, the feeling of accomplishment and creative  fulfillment. But the hardest thing for most writers is the simple act of getting started. ‘ (copyblogger.com)

     ‘NO!  Not true!  Or at least that’s not how I feel about the art of writing.  I can’t wait to see where my characters will lead me.  I don’t force it.  I don’t tell myself ‘I must write today’ or ‘I must write for two hours every day’.  Sometimes I don’t write at all and sometimes (thankfully most times) I will write up to 3,000 words at one sitting.

You don’t have to be a tortured, guilt-ridden, flagellating soul.  Go to your writing as if you are meeting up with a great friend.  Go to your writing as if you are thirsty and have found a crystal clear pool of mountain water.  Go to your writing as if you are being re-united with a lost love.  Go to your writing as if it is the next breath you need.

I believe that if you dread it, procrastinate, hate it, you are writing the wrong thing.  Put it away for now.  Start something you are excited about.  Write something you love writing about.

Find that something to write that makes you ‘hate’ the time it takes to shower, eat, sleep, do errands.  You can shower, eat, sleep do errands, later.  WRITE!’  ~~ Trisha Sugarek

Joseph Johns, famous quotes, famous authors                 “It’s simple.  You just take something and do something to it, and then do something else to it.  Keep doing this, and pretty soon you’ve got something.”  ~~ Jasper Johns

 

“Nothing is exciting if you know what the outcome is going to be.”   ~~Joseph Campbellfamous quotes, famous authors,

 

“The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.”
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Chinese Proverb famous quotes, chinese proverb, writing

famous quotes, famous authors, Isaac Asimov  “If my doctor told me I had six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood.  I’d type a little faster.” ~~Isaac Asimov

 

 

 

 

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Tomorrow join me for Part 2 of my interview with best selling author, Caroline Leavitt
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS. INTERVIEWS with other best-selling AUTHORS!      A SERIES, “The Writer’s Corner”

I have had a wonderful response from other authors and will feature an interview once a month . I have invited such luminaries as: Ann Purser, Susan Elia MacNealMark Childress, Rhys Bowen, Dean Koontz, Sheryl Woods, Jo-Ann Mapson, Jeffrey Deaver, Elizabeth Gilbert, Amber Winckler, Robert McCammon, Sue Grafton, Walter Mosley, Nora Roberts, and many others.

So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!  Mark Childress was our April author.  Robert McCammon was our May writer. Caroline Leavitt is June‘s author.  July features Rhys Bowen.  Sue Grafton is August’s author and September will feature Tasha Alexander.  Slick mystery writer, Andrew Grant will join us this winter. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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