Originally posted on The Brevity Blog:
2.5 million. I thought I’d misheard the number when the Consul General of the United States mentioned the attendance of the eleven-day Sharjah International Book Fair in his welcome speech at the American Authors Reception. The same number showed up on Wikipedia—I figured maybe it was inflated for PR…
I’m getting almost to the end of a first draft of the largest manuscript I’ve ever pulled together. I found the following post helpful. Maybe you will too! Some basics on manuscripts.
But loves speaks to me on #internationalkissingday One moment in Eternity The young man depicted in this rare fragment of a red-figure kylix is about to kiss a woman. Luck did not permit her face to be preserved. However, her hands are visible, caressing gracefully his hair. From Athens. Late 6th c. BC. From “nammiseumathens…
Poetry Friday is a concept I stumbled upon along with bears and baked goods when my friend’s poetry was highlighted as part of Irish celebrations. I’ve an Irish mother and a husband and a half directly from the Irish and mostly enjoy the blueness of our eyes which do seem to be smiling most days.…
“What does it matter if I’ve been discouraged or encouraged over the years?” she said, brusquely. “This thing’s got to be done. It’s not a question of how I feel from moment to moment.” — Read on http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/schmich/ct-met-marjory-stoneman-douglas-mary-schmich-20180215-story.html
As a collector of art for years, it is an assemblage of like-minded things. One thing added to another begins as a journey and ends as a trip of unending discovery. There are worse ways to spend a life. Enjoy the quest!
“I worry about forgetting memories and want something to look back on when I’m old and remember some of the ‘glory days’ of my late teens and early 20s.” –Alan Cooper Writing in journals and diaries has been a lifelong passion for many. I have been obsessed for years with catching fragments of thoughts as…
The breaking wave and the muscle as it contracts obey the same law. Delicate line gathers the body’s total strength in a bold balance. Shall my soul meet so severe a curve, journeying on its way to form? Dag Hammarskjold Movement and the ocean’s fluidity is a constant that we coast dwellers fully know and…
If you want to write, you have to be willing to be disturbed. Kate Green This quote catches my eye as I begin to write today. Collecting quotes, words, snippets provides a hook as thoughts begin to surface. I fish anywhere for clues to the creative process as a part of my daily explorative routine. I wonder – How disturbed is disturbed? The…
Civics in action is not high on my feminist list these days. I’m old and tired. So is our president. Our big difference is I care about us, we, the people. He cares nothing about you people But I bet you’re wondering if those women can really do anything? If, like me, you couldn’t…
Originally posted on The Brevity Blog:
By Courtney Ruttenbur Bulsiewicz I came across some of my deceased father’s clothing while getting ready to move last month: a Hawaiian shirt I bought him when I visited Oahu and some old military fatigues. When I was going through his house after he died, about a decade ago,…
You are reading that right – this post is about a Chatbook not exactly a chapbook. A fun project in August which coincided with my birth month was to write a lot of short form fragments and create a Chatbook of them. Chatbook is a company I saw advertised frequently on Instagram. The concept seemed…
Originally posted on Visit Virginia's Eastern Shore:
There’s a lot more to oysters than just eating them Oysters from Virginia’s Eastern Shore, plucked from the Atlantic Ocean on one side, and the Chesapeake Bay on the other, ship to restaurants around the world. Buy them at Whole Foods and order them at Grand Central Oyster…
Poets who should be on your list but probably aren’t could be a most extensive list. Once you discover Szymborska you will find yourself returning to her again and again. Here, in prose, savor her perspective. Cosmic Solitude I admit that I find the question of life beyond Earth quite interesting, but still I’d prefer not…
the substance of a shadow in tall grass I wrote this fragment a couple of years ago in a journal on one of those days when nature and I found harmony. This past Sunday such harmony found me again at one of my favorite Delaware beaches, Bethany Beach. I spent the day painting while my…
In the emergency room a few years ago, they said, “You probably have an aneurysm.” I remember a sigh…
For special writing projects, I keep a separate journal. This year for National Poetry Month I chose an old lined journal of 256 pages. It’s canvas with faux leather corners and spine with a red ribbon book mark. Handwritten thoughts are still my choice of entry into the writing process. It’s totally a part…
As I enter Day 8 of National Poetry Month, I’m up to page 36 in my journal. I start a new one each time I have a specific project I want to keep intact. Today’s selection is based on a philosopher of interest. I hope you check out his work. Poetry, fire and closed spaces…
Writable about #National Poetry Month
Writing is your personal answer on your journey to discover what the questions are. I hand-write random thoughts, jagged fragments in jumbled cryptic description in my journals. My advice: Write down the rattle–there’s time for fixing later. n taylor collins, writer
So here’s what I really know about cooking. Let’s start with appetizers or in my case, a whole meal on certain days.
I have two best recipes for just about anything. If you know how to cook or not, you will find these of interest. If you master these top-secret carefully selected recipes you will never be at a loss when someone stops by or you are expected to “bring a little something” to a party or event.
It’s so difficult keeping up with myself. I’m either off posting, or painting, or pinning, or writing, or reading, or liking, or linking, or sharing, or twittering. The cyber side always winning as I try to hone each aspect of my life into my creative and diverse interests.
In this part of the cemetery, jonquils sprouted randomly, disconnected from any particular grave. Their flecks of white punctuated the stones they stood in front of. The headstones colored in earthy tones of bronze, and brown and gray, could have been lifted from an Andrew Wyeth palette.
Enjoy this month of renewal where poetry like pollen clings to everything.
I am suddenly aware, acutely aware, that I’m in my sixties. This child of the sixties is fully aware of these sixties., and these sixties are not those sixties!
He taught me everything I know about the artist spirit. I never learned to paint in watercolors even though I tried for many years under his tutelage. He instilled in me a love of plein air painting (that’s painting outside for those who might not be familiar with the term.) He taught me how to “see” as an artist which is a lot different than just plain old looking.
Art consumes about a third of my day, gobbles up most of my life in a rather chaotic way. Paint It – Live It To help readers and followers avoid being swept into the overall idiosyncratic vortex of my creative and all-encompassing life, I’m simplifying where you can find things pertaining to my art and art-related…
And I will add further for my older friends a cautionary note. Just as your mother used to tell you to always wear clean underwear in case you were in an accident, I’m advising you in a much graver matter. I’m asking all of you (and especially those over 60) – Do you…
Will metaphors unfold into a cohesive poem, an intimate painting, a portrait of my life — stilled in this reflective moment?
Of course, like most writing at this stage, I don’t even know what I’m writing about. I really have sparse clues as to what anything means or what it may become. My job as writer in this particular moment is to write down what thoughts arrive – the thoughts that seem to want to be a poem.
I started this about four, maybe five years ago. I cannot be rushed. I’m still not sure this is finished, but for now it is
I like shadows. Perhaps the substance in their nothingness attracts me.
Perhaps this is why I shadow-danced the other day in a local state park,
At first, I thought it was probably a generic letter of some sort that they send to everyone. The rather un-imposing looking email had a personal salutation, and here’s what it said:
I received the notification just today that Your Name Here, my ArtHouse Co-Op book project, is now part of their digital library. My original book, as well as hundreds of others, have been traveling around the country this year.
How will those of us who don’t know exactly what we want to read discover what we want to read and what we want to know about that we didn’t know we needed to know about? Will we rely on libraries to fill this void?
Maybe one of these days, I’ll paint his portrait. It probably won’t look like him, but it’s about the process. Picking up those sticks of pastel and smearing them around on the paper. And I can fill volumes about how light falls across his body. But that has little to do with painting dogs.
I think writers have a tendency to make this a lot harder than it needs to be. Reading is often the spark of creativity that our imagination needs. The universe, as I keep learning, works with us when we aren’t so insistent on trying to always do things our way.
I’d never seen the trees actually being set afloat so decided to follow the truck over to check out what the process was. I doubted if there would be any “Mermaids in the Basement” of this unmythical lake, but maybe I would do as an observer.
I’m really trying to write to several dear friends on a regular basis. I’ve set a goal that each month I will directly communicate to those I know who are in their ninety’s by sending handwritten words. If I keep at that, I will then start writing to those in their eighties.
But this day, I met Prospect and his companion. They’re on a K9 Road Trip and let me take their photograph in front of the Old State House. If you need tips on dog friendly places when you travel, be sure to bookmark this site. You can Like Prospect on Facebook and follow him on Twitter as well. I’ll post my painting of him one of these days.
With Mercury still in retrograde, it seems like a perfect time to list everything I’ve learned about men, having garnered much wisdom and insight during the past few decades.
” My life as I had lived it had often seemed to me like a story that has no beginning and no end. I had the feeling that I was a historical fragment, an excerpt for which the preceding and succeeding text was missing. My life seemed to have been snipped out of a long chain of…
e e cummings —”perdreamhapsing” I’m so excited once again this month–I just discovered that people have subscribed to my blog! Thank you so much, subscribers. I just found out about you. One, a friend, Sandra, who’s listed in my blogroll, shares the most insightful thoughts, and her photographs are terrific. Sandra, you were my first subscriber (from like months ago). I ♥…
But it’s still about the words being put down in some sort of form one after the other. None of my words would have happened upon a page if a child long ago had not learned to read, had not learned to write, had not memorized poetry–the demands of insightful teachers in a world where critical thinking relied, in part, upon the knowledge held in those poems.
One of my followers (I’ll call him Henry) wrote me the following:
“Had to go to a search engine to understand the meaning. “evanescent bound ephemera” At 76 such magic with words still brings a tear.”
This is what writing should be about. Henry had to look up the meaning of some words. I love Henry who’s 76 and still interested and vital and on Twitter. He knows how to party in this new social world! He knows what magic is. He believes in it, and I believe in Henry. He’s one of those people who offer me just enough encouragement to go public with my writing. He brought me a tear and I reciprocated.
I am drawn to the words “swell,” “heaves,” “mélange,” “vibration,” and of course the old favorite, “revenant.” And blue appears once again. If I were Picasso, I would definitely be in my blue period right now. So many shades of blue and such a soulful word as it applies to music. I love that sadness has this beautiful edge to it.
The whole Gestalt-psychophysical-isomorphic thing, if you know what I mean, isn’t the least bit poetical. Goggle leads one down some very strange paths indeed.
And please try not to spend another day, another year writing that book in your head. It took me a long time to figure out that’s actually called “thinking.” Writing is only writing if one actually “writes.” I hope you’ll grab a pen and start today.
On this trek through, unscripted without knowing what the questions are, let alone the answers, I’m reminded of many favorite Gertrude Stein quotes, especially –“When you get there, there isn’t any there there.” At the end of April, I hope the there there will be a penned drafted draft. One can only dream — come…pen along with me.
The sun always has a way of washing out the colors. I was taken by surprise by the vitality of the “color-grays” in the stumps of these two dead trees shrouded in fog. The rings of a shortened life held so much interest…
If you’re a writer, you need this book if for no other reason than to re-assure yourself you could write a book similar to this as it’s not really that long, it’s full of easy-to-refer-to lists, and it’s a delightful, albeit bitter-sweet, reassurance that aging is something do-able. For everyone else, you’ll fall in love with Nora Ephron all over again if you’ve forgotten how much you love her writing. And it even has a recipe. And if I ever learn to cook, I will try to make it.
I just had to take a break and write something other than my novel. What a strange sentence that is! I never thought I’d say something like that. Write something other than my novel? Ralph Waldo Emerson’s words seem to haunt me though: “The way to write is to throw your body at the mark when your arrows are spent.” Hmmmm… all I can say right now is , ” Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!”
Everyone who creates – regardless of the chosen field – finds inspiration from almost everything. When inspiration comes…what truly makes the artist…is delving in..picking up a pen or brush..taking what is already there to the next level, birthing the next new thing, “such is the small talk before life begins.”
Thursday, November 5, I went on an actual date – my first actual date since 1969. Forty years. That’s a long time
Kerouac’s Spontaneous Prose Rule 1 Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy What is it about the word “secret” that immediately peaks one’s interest? Kerouac’s first rule beckons all writers to write then to transcribe just for the sheer pleasure of the writer. Kerouac masterfully links secrecy and pleasure…
What the heck am I doing here?
Taylorspeak 