Tag: postaday2013

Nets of Silver and Gold

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized
Fern Bisel Peat illustration for Wynken, Blynk...
Fern Bisel Peat illustration for Wynken, Blynken, and Nod (Photo credit: Crossett Library Bennington College)

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe —
Sailed on a river of crystal light,
Into a sea of dew.
“Where are you going, and what do you wish?”
The old moon asked the three.
“We have come to fish for the herring fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we!”
Said Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.

The old moon laughed and sang a song,
As they rocked in the wooden shoe,
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew.
The little stars were the herring fish
That lived in that beautiful sea —
“Now cast your nets wherever you wish —
Never afeard are we”;
So cried the stars to the fishermen three:
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.

All night long their nets they threw
To the stars in the twinkling foam —
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,
Bringing the fishermen home;
‘Twas all so pretty a sail it seemed
As if it could not be,
And some folks thought ’twas a dream they’d dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea —
But I shall name you the fishermen three:
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.

Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one’s trundle-bed.
So shut your eyes while mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock in the misty sea,
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.

~ Eugene Field

“Wynken, Blynken, and Nod” is one of the poems my mother read to me from the Bumper Book every night at bedtime when I was very young. I didn’t want to sleep then any more than I do now, so she read a lot of poems. I heard this one so many times that I was reciting it from memory when I was two years old. I’ve always had a tape recorder in my head.

Since the first of the year, I’ve written for an hour a day, one of the suggestions I made for myself for the first week of ROW80. But I continue a slave to my habit of night-owling.

I’m not the only one.
“I write this from a swivel chair at 4.17 a.m.,” says Matt Shoard. “Twitter has gone quiet. There is darkness for miles. I can hear a watch tick. It’s the longest night of the year, and if I time things carefully, I could avoid daylight for 48 hours. What’s more, research suggests it won’t just be me. There’s a mislaid family of readers and writers at night, and at this hour there’s nothing else to do but search for them.” He goes on to  list writers who worked at night: Robert Frost, Charles Dickens, JD Salinger, Stephanie Meyer, Danielle Steel, Barak Obama, Kafka, Proust.
But there our similarities end. The people Shoard names are personages. They’ve demonstrated their ability to lose sleep and yet do fine work. I’ve demonstrated my ability to go lose sleep and then run aground. I’m not a personage. I’m still the ornery child whose mother made me take naps and go to bed early at night because she said without enough sleep, I was grouchy.
I’m way past grouchy now. Restraining myself, but teetering on the verge of crotchety, cross, and choleric.
Furthermore, the flu has hit town with a vengeance. One more late night and my ravelled sleave of care won’t be worth knitting up. Neither will my flu shot.
So good night.  I’m off to sail on that river of crystal light and rock in the misty sea.
*****
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Bani-shed!

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized
Romeo Juliet
Romeo Juliet (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished;
Romeo that kill’d him, he is banished. ~ Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, III.ii

They are free men, but I am banished.
And say’st thou yet that exile is not death?
Hadst thou no poison mix’d, no sharp-ground knife,
No sudden mean of death, though ne’er so mean,
But “banished” to kill me? “Banished”? ~ Romeo and Juliet, III.iii

Lake Superior State University has published its 2013 List of Banished Words, and, judging from what I found on Google, so has everyone else.

I intended to write about the LSSU list, which introduced me to the word YOLO. (That shows how far behind I am with regard to popular culture.) But while researching, I came across LSSU’s archive of banished words and decided to share them–as many as I can before I have to post this–starting at the beginning.

(Since 9:00 a.m., I’ve changed topics about fifteen times.)

1976 At this point in time – A holdover from the Watergate hearings

1977 To Share – Do we still do this?

1978 Nuk-U-Lar – Still here, but not widely used since President Obama took office

1979 Energy Crisis – Still here, and for good reason

1980 Interface – From a full professor in a faculty meeting I attended, regarding an outside candidate for a tenured position: “I’m not voting for anyone who says he wants to interface with students.”

1981 De-plane – Gone. No one de-planes any more. Airlines make travelers stay on planes for hours before taking off and after landing.

1982 Sit on It – To discourage graffiti in the boys’ restroom, one of my principals hung a small chalkboard and some chalk there. During a subsequent potty patrol, he discovered the message, “Sit on it.”

TBC

Chili Rellenos

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

When Millie invited is over for dinner, she said she would cook a chili rellenos casserole.

Oh, said I, don’t go to any trouble for us, all the while praying she would.

She did.

I helped. She asked what the difference is between Poblano and Anaheim peppers, so I set up my laptop on her kitchen table and googled.

For the record, Poblanos are hotter than Anaheims, which were bred to be mild to suit the taste of Californians around 1900.

She also made guacamole and sauteed onions and yellow squash. I make squash the same way, but hers tastes good.

Everything tasted good. (I know commenting on the quality of the food one is served violates the rules of etiquette, but bloggers are exempt from that rule as well as from several others.)

Millie shared the chili rellenos recipe, but I doubt I’ll ever recreate tonight’s experience. There’s something–a je ne sais quoi, if Millie had served crepes–about a home cooked meal–cooked in someone else’s home–that restaurant fare can’t duplicate.

I could go on and on, but the movie is about to begin. They’re hollering for me to bring the bowl of fresh cherries I’m hogging to the living room. They said I have to share.

True Poet

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

Despite all the time I’ve wasted scrolling through Facebook, I’ve received more from the site than I’ve lost. It’s allowed me to reconnect with students I taught thirty years ago.

Last night I was chatting with a member of the class of 1982. She gave me permission to link to her website. She didn’t give me permission to comment, but I will anyway. What can she do–flunk me?

I want to make it clear that I never taught Judy anything. I couldn’t have taught her anything. She already knew what she needed to know. She was a writer. A poet.

She entertained us periodically with essays describing her part-time job at a nearby country club. I have vivid memories of long, furry tendrils reaching out and wrapping themselves around her legs while she was cleaning out the walk-in refrigerator. Those memories, and others, told in nauseating detail, made me laugh even as I vowed to avoid that particular dining room.

In her junior year, Judy placed in a poetry contest at a nearby college. One of the judges said she’d wanted to place the poem higher, but it was too short. The next year, she won the competition with another poem–the same length as last year’s. I memorized it and later, when I was teaching at a local university, posted a copy of it on the door of my office.

After Judy graduated, I found her mentioned in an article in the Austin newspaper: UT student Judith Edwards had appeared at Eeyore’s Birthday Party in Pease Park wearing a python draped across her shoulders. The accessory seemed to me entirely appropriate. Her goals had never included conformity.

Here’s a link to Judy’s website: http://www.judywords.info/

Browse through her poems and stories. You’ll get an idea of the pleasure I had being her student.

***

P.S. I hesitate to add this–I mean, I hate to give readers who live outside the United States such a…truthful…view of Texas, but if you have a mind to, read Judy’s story “The Big Texan.”  She didn’t make it up. I wasn’t there, but I know it really happened.

Safe, Guilt-Free Online Resources for the Addictive Writer

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

Last night I did the unthinkable. Or the un-thought-out.

I stumbled upon StumbleUpon, joined, and stumbled upon websites I would be better off not knowing about. I could click click click for hours, and did. Quotations. The Pre-Raphaelites. Cats…

One site, however, has oodles of redeeming creative value–so many oodles, in fact, that I wanted to pass the word. Once I began, I thought of other worthwhile online resources that have been shared with me.

So here, beginning with the stumbledupon, are four places any writer battling a surfing habit can visit safely and without guilt.

Oneword offers a one-word prompt–and then sixty seconds in which to write–on the site itself. You can use the site free or join–free. If you join, you can submit what you’ve written to a members-only page. You also get access to the archive of words.

Oneword is social media site, if you want to use it as such. I’m interested in seeing what I can write in only 60 seconds. And in finding out whether I improve with practice. And in stumbling upon a few lines that spark an idea for a story. Here’s what I wrote tonight using the word placed.

Tacos
Tacos (Photo credit: YardSale)

placed

He placed the plate on the table in front of her.

Tacos? she said. They’ll crumble and spill all over my dress.

Why’d you wear white? he said.

Men, she thought. They don’t understand anything.

Write or Die allows you to set goals–# of words and # of minutes–plus consequences and a grace period if you fail to hit your targets. Choice of consequence and grace period comprise such words as gentle/normal/kamikaze/electric shock and forgiving/strict/evil.

I’ve used this site several times when I needed external stimulation; at one particular setting, if you pause too long to think, the backspace function starts eating the words you’ve already written. It’s fun if you’re not the anxious type. If you are, set it at the lowest levels. (Scroll down till you see the free Web App Online, unless you want to pay for a download to your desktop.)

Written? Kitten! (writtenkitten.net) gives you a picture of a kitten every time you complete your target word count: 100, 200, 500, or 1000. No restriction on time. Strictly reward, no punishment. No words are gobbled up. Great for cat lovers, but if cats give you the fantods, skip it.

Note that Written? Kitten! is a dot net, not a dot com like the other sites described here. If you look for dot com, you’ll find something you don’t want.

Rescuetime tracks the sites and programs you use and analyzes your productivity. To use the site, you must join, but it’s free. RescueTime gives you points (+, 0, -) for the sites you use during each accounting period. You can reset values–for instance, you may designate your blog site as productive for +2 points rather than as entertainment (social media, -2 points). You can also target when you want RescureTime to track–if you write in the afternoon, set it to track just the afternoon. Check how productive you are by by day, week, month.

There’s a great deal of information here, lots of graphs and charts, more than you need if all you want tracked is time you’re writing/not writing. Still, it can be an eye-opener.  So far, it’s told me I’m a first-class slacker, but that was less of an eye-opener than a confirmation. Which is why I’m using RescueTime.

Have you found any online resources that aid your writing or creativity? Would you share?

The Eight Suggestions for 2013

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized
"New Year suggestion" - NARA - 515064
“New Year suggestion” – NARA – 515064 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yesterday I said I would post my Seven Suggestions for 2013. Copying them, I found there were eight.

Here it is, the unalliterative but expanded version of The Eight Suggestions.
1) Finish the @%%&$@!% novel (aka either fall in love with it again or chuck it);
2) follow through on the Sacred Writing Time Pledge  ) to write one hour a day;
3) write a daily blog post, and if that becomes too difficult, reduce to three posts per week;
4) participate in at least one A Round of Words in 80 Days challenge, which is no problem for anyone who sets out suggestions and then blogs at least once a week;

5) fix up an office in the spare room;

6) go to bed before midnight so the rest of this list has a chance of being done;
7) keep a timesheet;
8) trim this list to #s 1, 2, and 5 if necessary; do some calculations and acknowledge that #s 1-6 won’t be a burden if the person doing them just gets up and DOES them.
Amen.
***
For the first week of A Round of Words for 80 Days, I’ll focus on Suggestion #2.

01.01.2013: As Yet, Unfinished, but Finished Now

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized
Fox
Fox (Photo credit: jans canon)

I’ve done it again. Gotten my days mixed up.

Earlier today, I decided to enter the WordPress Post Every Day 2013 challenge. I added the badge, which had just become available, to the blog’s sidebar and congratulated myself on having already posted on January 1.

At 11:58 p.m., something moved me to look at the date of the previous post, which I’d published on January 1. It read, December 31, 2012.

I won’t explain the mental gyrations I went through to turn today into yesterday and tomorrow into today, but for a person of my genius, it was nothing, really nothing.

Something, really something would have been composing and publishing the January 1 post in less than two minutes.

Here’s where genius stepped back in and righted things. I entered an appropriate title, saved the empty draft, and clicked Publish.

To some, this might seem dishonest, underhanded, unscrupulous, unethical–cast your own aspersion–but I see it as artful and astute. Foxy, but in the nicest way.

If the calendar hadn’t betrayed me, I would have laid out my New Year’s Suggestions. But I’ve already messed up on Suggestion #5 (Go to bed before midnight), which is the foundation for #2 (Honor the Sacred Writing Time Pledge, 2013 that I signed this morning), which, in turn supports Suggestion # 1 (Write for at least one hour a day.)

And because I don’t want to spend a second midnight scrambling for a calendar, I’ll retire at the first opportunity. Like now.

***

Coming tomorrow (aka later today): The Seven Suggestions