A place where you can be human.
Here’s my daily post. No deep and profound insights today. Just a little note to say hi👋🏽 I’m still here. Doing this writing thing isn’t always easy and fun, but I do my best to find the easy and fun ways to get it done.
Here’s a cool article if you’re looking for something interesting to read.
You still there?
“Make up a story… For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don’t tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief’s wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear’s caul.” – Toni Morrison
Make up a story! Anything or anyone who starts with that has got my ear. I often get asked questions about my novel that I just haven’t thought about. And I also often want to say, I don’t know. The funny thing is I don’t have to know all the answers by fact or experience. If I don’t know, I make it up. And that’s what makes fiction a real humdinger. We’re allowed to lie in order to fill in the blanks.
How’s your writing coming along?
“My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.” – Ernest Hemingway
I’m at the point in my editing process where I’m deleting and getting right to the point. I know the story. Now, to get rid of all the parts that motivated me to write but won’t motivate you to read. ::insert fake laugh that leads to sobbing here::
How’s your writing going?
“Every act of communication is an act of tremendous courage in which we give ourselves over to two parallel possibilities: the possibility of planting into another mind a seed sprouted in ours and watching it blossom into a breathtaking flower of mutual understanding; and the possibility of being wholly misunderstood, reduced to a withering weed.” -Ursula K. Le Guin
I only got a short time to dream of having a living, breathing dinner with Ms. Le Guin before she passed. I remember when I found her short story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas and believed just a tad bit more that maybe there is a place for me as a writer. I felt like I was so close to finding someone as strange cool as me that I could connect with as a writer.
If you could choose what writer would you have dinner with?
“The poet or the revolutionary is there to articulate the necessity, but until the people themselves apprehend it, nothing can happen … Perhaps it can’t be done without the poet, but it certainly can’t be done without the people. The poet and the people get on generally very badly, and yet they need each other. The poet knows it sooner than the people do. The people usually know it after the poet is dead; but that’s all right. The point is to get your work done, and your work is to change the world.” – James Baldwin
James Baldwin inspires me so much. I do believe we’d make great friends.
Here’s an article from the rabbit hole I just went down on The Marginalian. I felt every emotion on my way down. Enjoy!
The magic of writing comes exactly when you learn to expect it. Has this happened to you while you were writing? Have you written and then bam, it all makes complete sense in a different way than you intended? And not only that, the new way is even better? Or have you written about something and then it happens or happened already almost word for word?
Reminds me of that movie Butterfly Effect. Not as dramatic, or maybe it is.
What do you think?
“The sun watches what I do, but the moon knows all my secrets.” – J.M. WonderlandÂ
Some people put out shiny rocks and bottles of water.
Some people take hot baths.
Some people attempt the day as if it has no meaning whatsoever.
Some people take the evening to appreciate the moon illuminating the night sky.
Whatever it is you do during the full moon, I hope goodness finds you.
“Perhaps I write for no one. Perhaps for the same person children are writing for when they scrawl their names in the snow.” ― Margaret Atwood
I started out writing for excellent grades. The whole grading system really gives me anxiety, probably to prove something to my past self. Honestly, I just want to learn and be challenged in a safe place. But let me get back on topic. So yeah, I wrote for good grades, then I wrote for you, then I wrote for me. Now I don’t have it in me to put a label on who I write for. I don’t think there’s a pattern or a path that’s right or wrong when it comes to who you write for; that’s why I appreciated this quote by Atwood.
Who do you write for?
“Fiction was invented the day Jonah arrived home and told his wife that he was three days late because he had been swallowed by a whale.” – Gabriel GarcĂa Márquez
I’m gonna tell you what, I’m waiting for a good fish story. I haven’t heard a fish story since high school. Where are all the fishermen that come back with those robust stories? We may ask, but at the end of the day, none of us really care if they’re true. We (as in me) want to just sit around and listen, maybe over some beers and a fresh batch of fries. Let me know if you know anyone willing to share!!
Do you have any fish stories? You don’t have to be a fisherman to comment.
“A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it” – Roald Dahl
I’m not sure I believe in absolute freedom. What I can say is that for me, writing is the closest to freedom I’ve ever tasted. The first time I let myself free write as a youth, like really free write, I was whisked away far from my classroom. I was whisked away so far, it took me a couple of days to appreciate my current reality again. From what I remember, even reading didn’t feel that exhilarating.
So, I’d say, if you’re feeling stuck or limited in your life, write a little piece of fiction. Let yourself bend the rules a little bit or a lotta bit. That’s what’s so great about writing; you can do whatever you want. Don’t even share it with a soul. Keep your freedom your own little secret.
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