Some days, you start something and end up with something entirely different; you've tugged on a thread and it led to all manner of discoveries, both good and bad! Thus with today's posting: I started out to write about the meditation I just did on temptation, but that instantly brought to mind a book I just read.
Stuart Woods has a series of books about Stone Barrington: lawyer and Lothario. I am just amazed at the number of women bedded by this urbane character with nary a hint that multiple liaisons take something precious, high and holy, and turn it into a shallow toy (...to say nothing of being medically risky, says the doctor in me!)
Gack! How politically incorrect of me! How old-fashioned! How judgmental! How now, brown cow?
Interesting that our culture now defends behaviors that have always been wrong in the all-seeing eyes of the timeless LORD. Standing up for "traditional morality," that is, for God's teachings, is now at best fuddy-duddy folly, and usually "hating."
Our culture, as reflected in popular literature (and music), has turned its back on a moral code and on the Author thereof. Granted, we need literature that is deeper than Pollyanna, more intriguing that the heavy-handed allegory that is PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, and more readable than Charles Dickens. But, most pop literature, as with pop cinema and TV and music and art, panders to the baser desires of humankind. In short--we read and watch rather trashy entertainment that would likely have been deplored, scorned, and banned by our grandparents. Think about it--how many things a week do we do that we'd be ashamed if observed by our mother/grandmother/great-aunt? Hmmm?
Okay, enough sermonizing. I pledge to be uplifting, to leave off whining/moaning about pop culture, and to feast on the riches of truly great books and art and cinema--it's out there, and if we all stop buying/watching/listening to the trashy stuff...perhaps not only will we change ourselves but our culture as well. Whattaya think?
PS: don't care for my beliefs or value system? I'm receptive to friendly discussion. But if all you want to do is rant, write your own blog, pls.
PPS: Click on the little yellow diagonal "pencil" to leave a comment below.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Thursday, March 28, 2013
If it's good enuff for Peppermint Patty...
In "Peanuts," Peppermint Patty struggled greatly at school. In one cartoon, she cries, "I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind!"
(Next frame)
"The answer is 12? I think I'm in the wrong building!"
......
The successful writer often is found in the wrong building, due to thinking just like Peppy Patty's.
Really.
Perhaps there is not only more than one building--there's more than one right answer, perhaps there's a whole parallel universe where there are different questions...and it's my job as a writer to make this alternate universe pop off the page and swell up to life-sized video/audio/feel-a-vision and smell-a-vision...oh, heck, tasty-vision, too! YUM!
Remember the last book you just lost yourself to? For me, re-reading the HOBBIT was just that--3-D touchy-feely-dreamy-ahhhhhness! Or, the novel so full of suspense or action that you just couldn't set it aside? I just read a coupla James Patterson's where it was hard to put the book down in order to get to bed by midnight. Successful author, he creates an answer that may not be in the heart of all mankind, but it resonates for plenty of us!
Let's think outside the box, outside the building, outside of ourselves...I wonder what it may lead us to?
PS: other blog posts are archived...scroll down and click on one of the months to see my older posts.
(Next frame)
"The answer is 12? I think I'm in the wrong building!"
......
The successful writer often is found in the wrong building, due to thinking just like Peppy Patty's.
Really.
Perhaps there is not only more than one building--there's more than one right answer, perhaps there's a whole parallel universe where there are different questions...and it's my job as a writer to make this alternate universe pop off the page and swell up to life-sized video/audio/feel-a-vision and smell-a-vision...oh, heck, tasty-vision, too! YUM!
Remember the last book you just lost yourself to? For me, re-reading the HOBBIT was just that--3-D touchy-feely-dreamy-ahhhhhness! Or, the novel so full of suspense or action that you just couldn't set it aside? I just read a coupla James Patterson's where it was hard to put the book down in order to get to bed by midnight. Successful author, he creates an answer that may not be in the heart of all mankind, but it resonates for plenty of us!
Let's think outside the box, outside the building, outside of ourselves...I wonder what it may lead us to?
PS: other blog posts are archived...scroll down and click on one of the months to see my older posts.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Dreaming.
"Life is the soil
our choice and actions the sun and rain
but our dreams are the seeds."
--[Uttered by someone more dreamy than moi!]
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--==-=-=-=--=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-
Dream-seeds. I thought those were what I remember to scrape out of the corners of my eyes right after lunch!
Dream seeds. Actually, arising from several inches behind the eyes, in that wonderfully creative cerebrum! Some dreams arise from sleep, some from "daydreams," and some from consciously picking a goal that may feel dreamy in its lack of clarity or its unattainability--then choosing to make it clear and defining the steps that'll make the dream attainable.
Dream seeds. Too often, they remain unplanted, or unwatered/cultivated/weeded...pick your point along the continuum of
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
too-comfy unfocused willing-to-plan getting-started blood-sweat-tears
no-energy this-is-hard moments-of-satisfaction job-well-done!
As the motivational speaker, Napoleon Hill said, "Patience, Persistence, and Perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success."
Writing, based on dreams...that's been cutesy/trendy in the past...but it only works if you take your idea and WORK it. I was just reading another blog about writing--the author claimed to rework, revise, and re-edit not many times, not multiple times, not scores of times, but hunnerds! Call me a skeptic--did he really count? That said, most good stuff is good because it wasn't easy, and the hard work will shine through.
Dream-seeds. Sure, a dream, a conversation, a picture, a vista may be the inspiration that gets any author started. After that, it's called--sitting down to the task and doin' it, kid! Let's go!
Friday, March 22, 2013
Reading, writing, and "The Dark Side."
I'm reading a book I truly dislike. Better yet, I just stopped reading it. I usually can plow through most everything I commence reading--only 2 or 3 books per year achieve this level of demerit...out of 125-135 books read per year!
When an author is so taken by their cunning turn of phrase, by the inclusion of "telling details" that put you right into the "dusty street with only the sound of the dry tumbleweed clunking off the abandoned storefronts," when they fail to develop plot or character--sorry, when I gave you forty pages worth of attention and my only feeling was of the need to recruit all my speed-reading tools...we're done. Really, have you ever met a knight who was never angry but always in "high dudgeon"? Makes one to wonder, what's low dudgeon? And, of course, the knight's armor is always "glinting with brilliance under the low wintry sun just rising over the gloomy ramparts of the evil duke's turreted castle." Pah!
Now, lest you think that this is merely a rant, my intent was to explore the world of writing from the dark side. Or, as I often told my kids, "They are setting you a horrible example--just do exactly the opposite and you'll be in good shape!" I truly learn a lot about writing from works that I consider sub-par. Okay, deplorable! (And, I wonder, WHERE was their editor, and how did such a poorly-written, flowery and vague, typo-ridden book ever meet up with a printing press?)
Characters that you hate, you cannot wait for them to get their just reward--that's a well-limned character. Characters who charm you, whom you hope won't step over that creaking threshold and into the cobwebbed darkness--again, you've bought into the author's world; success! When you get sweaty pits and you cannot put the book down--YES! THAT is the response to good writing, whether it's Dean Koontz, Shakespeare, or whomever. Characters who bore you, playing against other characters who have nothing to love or hate or laugh at, characters who trundle on through a story line that doesn't make you marvel at that last strange twist or wonder what's next...bah!
As Truman Capote is alleged to say of Jack Kerouac, "That's not writing, that's typing."
May our life's work be "writing" rather than "typing"!
When an author is so taken by their cunning turn of phrase, by the inclusion of "telling details" that put you right into the "dusty street with only the sound of the dry tumbleweed clunking off the abandoned storefronts," when they fail to develop plot or character--sorry, when I gave you forty pages worth of attention and my only feeling was of the need to recruit all my speed-reading tools...we're done. Really, have you ever met a knight who was never angry but always in "high dudgeon"? Makes one to wonder, what's low dudgeon? And, of course, the knight's armor is always "glinting with brilliance under the low wintry sun just rising over the gloomy ramparts of the evil duke's turreted castle." Pah!
Now, lest you think that this is merely a rant, my intent was to explore the world of writing from the dark side. Or, as I often told my kids, "They are setting you a horrible example--just do exactly the opposite and you'll be in good shape!" I truly learn a lot about writing from works that I consider sub-par. Okay, deplorable! (And, I wonder, WHERE was their editor, and how did such a poorly-written, flowery and vague, typo-ridden book ever meet up with a printing press?)
Characters that you hate, you cannot wait for them to get their just reward--that's a well-limned character. Characters who charm you, whom you hope won't step over that creaking threshold and into the cobwebbed darkness--again, you've bought into the author's world; success! When you get sweaty pits and you cannot put the book down--YES! THAT is the response to good writing, whether it's Dean Koontz, Shakespeare, or whomever. Characters who bore you, playing against other characters who have nothing to love or hate or laugh at, characters who trundle on through a story line that doesn't make you marvel at that last strange twist or wonder what's next...bah!
As Truman Capote is alleged to say of Jack Kerouac, "That's not writing, that's typing."
May our life's work be "writing" rather than "typing"!
Monday, March 18, 2013
Can you bear it?
Once upon a time, there were three bears:
a poppa bear,
a momma bear,
and a Camembert.
(Geo. Kaufman)
=-=-=-=-=-=--==--==--==-
Some days, I feel so witty (and pretty, and bright) that I cannot bear it. When I finally focus enough to start writing, the silliness sometimes needs to simply work its way out of my system...so I write silly stuff. Sometimes it remains goofy garbage; sometimes it morphs into something with lasting humor; sometimes it leads to a mordant insight that would never have emerged if I hadn't started down silly lane...akin to this moment.
More simply stated--ignore your mood, and follow your calling. Is it to love your kids? They don't care if you started the board game or the book with an attitude in your heart that was less-than-perfect--just do it. Is your calling to please your boss with your attention to detail? Again, NIKE--just do it...oh, and quit yer whining, that's just grump-fertilizer, making things worse. Buckle down and do it. If your calling requires a different attitude than what you're sporting now--hey, you get to choose your attitude. You respond to life's vicissitudes (gosh, I love that word, but don't get to use it much!) with a choice: will you be reactive or pro-active? You don't need me to tell you that there's really only one mature response to this question. Duh. Do it.
I subscribe to or visit a number of writing-related web sites. Most advice rattles on for several ppghs, but could be boiled down to this: Nike...just do it. No excuses/rationalizing, just shuddup, siddown, and get to work.
a poppa bear,
a momma bear,
and a Camembert.
(Geo. Kaufman)
=-=-=-=-=-=--==--==--==-
Some days, I feel so witty (and pretty, and bright) that I cannot bear it. When I finally focus enough to start writing, the silliness sometimes needs to simply work its way out of my system...so I write silly stuff. Sometimes it remains goofy garbage; sometimes it morphs into something with lasting humor; sometimes it leads to a mordant insight that would never have emerged if I hadn't started down silly lane...akin to this moment.
More simply stated--ignore your mood, and follow your calling. Is it to love your kids? They don't care if you started the board game or the book with an attitude in your heart that was less-than-perfect--just do it. Is your calling to please your boss with your attention to detail? Again, NIKE--just do it...oh, and quit yer whining, that's just grump-fertilizer, making things worse. Buckle down and do it. If your calling requires a different attitude than what you're sporting now--hey, you get to choose your attitude. You respond to life's vicissitudes (gosh, I love that word, but don't get to use it much!) with a choice: will you be reactive or pro-active? You don't need me to tell you that there's really only one mature response to this question. Duh. Do it.
I subscribe to or visit a number of writing-related web sites. Most advice rattles on for several ppghs, but could be boiled down to this: Nike...just do it. No excuses/rationalizing, just shuddup, siddown, and get to work.
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