Sunday, October 11, 2020

Drag Out the Kleenex

 "We live in a time when you can tour the Louvre museum online, or access the Library of Congress online, or read almost every joke ever written. and what to most people choose to put into their heads? My lady, who is very smart, chooses to feed on the garbage of the news."

 

--A text from my daughter who does home care, and her "Lady" must watch the news on the hour, every hour, every waking moment, no matter how many times it is repeated. 

 

Daughter dear, who is trying to hold onto her sanity, says, "It's all propaganda."

The good news is I get the news high-lights without having to watch it.

 

I'm telling you this because I believe that you do not fit into the category of needing to suck up negativity. "Just give me the facts, man," appears to be long gone.


 

I figure you are drawn to this site because you are a writer, probably a blogger, maybe you write books or are into copy writing. I'm sure you could teach me a thing or two, but here I am, not really knowing who you are, but letting my fingers run amuck over the keyboard. 

 

The keyboard? Oh, I probably need a new one, for this one doesn't like capital letters. Usually, I have to go back and retype them, and with about a five-pound pressure. I'm getting a strong index finger.

 

I call what I do art because it's my expression. That's not saying its good art or good expression; it's something I can claim as mine. We all need something to feel passionate about. Oh, Yes, promoters, advertisers, whoever, have even run the word "passion" into the ground. Now even passion is cliche'. 

 

I am surprised and delighted that many people check in here, so I figured if they come, I will build it. It's a baby of mine, aimed at writers. And If you are drawn here, writing is probably your baby too. 

 

Everybody writes, but some people like it; to others, it's like pulling eye teeth. Eyeteeth have long roots, I know, because I used to be a Dental Assistant, and I saw those long roots.

 

I write another blog https://travelswithjo.com. However, I didn't want to regale those readers with too much talk of writing. they are supposed to read the words, not the process behind them. 

 

What do you think of the current need to do Vlogging? That is video blogging. For we are becoming such a picture-based society than reading the written word is too much work.

 

Well, heck, I love to read. In reading, you put your own pictures into your head. You might have had the experience, of reading a book that you loved, and then being disappointed with the movie version of it. I remember, though, that while I loved the book, The Black Stallion (Walter Farley), years later, 1979, I also loved the movie. What they asked of that actor horse is unprecedented.

 

 

"The one uninterrupted shot, with the horse at one edge of the screen and the boy at the other, and the boy's slow approach, and the horse's skittish advances and retreats, shows us a rapport between the human and the animal that's strangely moving," 

--Roger Ebert 

  

"The first half of "The Black Stallion" is so gloriously breathtaking that the second half, the half is all the conventional excitement." Ebert goes on to say.

 

And here I am in an age when I can google The Black Stallion, and come up with a clip that is so beautiful it makes me cry. That little boy, about the age of my grandson, rides that incredible horse, bareback, no saddle, no bridle, raising his arms in victory is not to be missed.  

 


 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdYiJgwzumg

Saturday, October 3, 2020

Gotta' Have It


Can you see that spider web? It was so gossamer, I could barely see it, but look at the its intricacy, and imagine the patience of that little spider. I'm glad I don't have to work that hard for my dinner.

Dear fellow writers, or interested parties, I’m happy to see you here. Thank you for checking in. I’m thrilled that people are finding my site, although I don’t know how. Please join me again. I’d love to see your smiling face.

Ta Da!

The advantage of self-publishing is that you can un-publish yourself.

I self-published “Where the Birds of Eden Sing” because I wanted to complete the project I had worked on for so long. I needed the completion. And I felt my book needed a chance to fly. Alas, poor baby, it floundered; maybe it needed to be placed back in the nest. A cat didn’t get it or anything. True I didn’t promote it much. I was waiting…for what? Lazy, not ready?

I unpublished it yesterday, for I want to work on it some more. It will not endlessly rework it, as some writers do and never complete the thing, but I’m taking Book II and making it into a novel on its own right. People like romance novels, and it is primarily a romance.

Once I was told that this story didn’t have enough conflict between the characters. Damn conflict! Gotta’ have it. “Without it,” so they say, “you have no story.”

Rather flies in the face of how we want our lives to be, doesn’t it?

My new as of now unnamed book does have conflict near the end, but if nobody reads to that point (like editors), they will never know it.

Do you have any of these issues?

Because of the time involved in conventional publishing and my age, I felt that I didn’t want to wade through that process again. (It took two years from acceptance to publication for The Frog’s Song, and then I can’t sell it unless I am physically present—seems like they are shooting themselves in the foot.) But if I think of myself as eternal, it won’t matter—you know, it can happen in this life or the next.

Have a dream more significant than you, so I’ve heard.

 

Walt Whitman wrote:

“And whether I come into my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years. I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait…”

I’m not that patient!

 “You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So, you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.

"You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

--Steve Jobs