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7) Most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you? I have excellent powers of denial that suppress those types of experiences, so I can’t think of any.
One Lovely Blog Award
13 AprThanks to 4amWriter, otherwise known as Limebird Kate, for sending the One Lovely Blog Award my way.
Clearly, she has never seen my office, brushed aside the cobwebs, or moved the piles of mail and newspapers off my dining room table so that food can be eaten.
When I think of “lovely,” I think of all things clean, orderly, and quietly beautiful. I think of a sense of calm and perhaps a bit of the sublime.
sublime [səˈblaɪm]
adj
1. of high moral, aesthetic, intellectual, or spiritual value; noble; exalted
2. inspiring deep veneration, awe, or uplifting emotion because of its beauty, nobility, grandeur, or immensity
3. unparalleled; supreme a sublime compliment
4. Poetic of proud bearing or aspect
5. Archaic raised up
n
the sublime
1. something that is sublime
2. the ultimate degree or perfect example, the sublime of folly
vb
1. (tr) to make higher or purer
2. (Chemistry) to change or cause to change directly from a solid to a vapour or gas without first melting to sublime iodine many mercury salts sublime when heated
3. (Chemistry) to undergo or cause to undergo this process followed by a reverse change directly from a vapour to a solid to sublime iodine onto glass
[from Latin sublīmis lofty, perhaps from sub- up to + līmen lintel]
So perhaps, my blog is this fantastic mask,
Who is the real me?
a face presented to the world that is not completely accurate or truthful. Or perhaps it’s a different kind of truth. I posed this question once long ago: Warp and Woof
Or maybe I’m reading too much into this word, lovely, which is something I often do because I’m avoiding other work that is more pressing and likely to give me heartburn.
But Kate’s award is a blessing that comes with no rules–and no GI distress. I’m freeeeee! And freedom tastes of reality!
—or does it?
This freedom feels like a freewriting exercise, morning pages. Who knows what will fall from the sky? Sometimes nothing, not even a cloud. But at least I’ll be here writing when something does happen. Like when that Lovely Blog award showed up in pink on my blogstep–and put a smile on my face.
Thanks, Kate!
I’d like to send my own little package of goodness to these folks who are busily blogging into the fresh hours, not knowing when the universe will send something their way, be it dark matter or a pink package filled with appreciation. Three are new to my list of favorites, but I have mentioned the other two before. No matter. It just means I’m still enjoying them. And like I said, no rules rules!!!
Fictionfan (book reviews)
CafeCasey (essays)
Alarmingman (haiku)
Shrinksarentcheap (poetry)
Mypenandme (poetry)
Carp Fishing and Poetry–Who Knew?
17 FebThank you, Samir of Cecile’s Writers, for presenting me with a Liebster Award! You’re one of my favorite bloggers who expands my thinking horizons, and I appreciate it immensely!
For readers who always eat their desserts first, page down for the carp fishing video.
As part of the award, Samir asked me to answer 11 questions. So here goes:
1) Literature or entertainment fiction? literature IS entertainment fiction for me
2) Introvert or extrovert? heart of an introvert, but I can put on the cloak of an extrovert, when needed. Just don’t expect me to wear it for very long.
3) If you could promote (and succeed) in one cause, what would it be? stripping all physical, psychological, and verbal human violence from this world.
4) Movies or books? BOOKSSSSSSS!!!!!!
5) Which writer’s books can’t you stand (please be honest)? Can’t name one, perhaps because I won’t read them if I don’t like them. I do recall reading At Swim-Two-Birds for a class in experimental literature and thinking that it was a boring “one trick pony.”
6) What’s your favorite cuisine? Chocolate……seriously, I love Southern Indian dosas. After that comes Thai and Vietnamese, North Indian and Persian, Sushi, Spanish/Moroccan, Mexican/Central American…
7) Most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you? I have excellent powers of denial that suppress those types of experiences, so I can’t think of any. 
) BUT, I have lots of embarrassing moments with animals. For example, my husband and I were gathering wood for a fire after dark at Nxai Pan in Botswana. Continue reading
Making Good on Promises
15 FebI have been lax, very lax indeed, in acting on the awards that have been so generously blown in my direction. There was the side trip to Costa Rica that consumed my life in July and August 2012, a trip to my familial heartland at the end of August 2012, the back-to-school rush of soccer, baseball, a library remodel, Halloween, son’s birthday, death of my father, the winter holidays, the final touches to the library remodel in January, and the mad revision process for my picture book trilogy that is ongoing until I head out to the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators conference at Asilomar on March 1.
I know, excuses, excuses…but now I’m making good on my promise to thank and then send out my sincerest admiration of other bloggers’ efforts, send it out into the ether, the abyss. Here goes in the order in which they were awarded: Continue reading
Goal-driven
9 JanHead down. Nose grinding.
Just registered for SCBWI‘s regional conference at Asilomar on Mar 1-3. Also registered for two mini-sessions: a roundtable critique and social marketing advice.
Must have the picture book trilogy polished to brilliant cut diamond standards by then. Gotta make something happen. Gotta do it. Gotta do it.
Visualizing a bullet train. No derailing. Kinda like the Polar Express, only without all those strange elves and the ho-ho guy. (The Hostess plant is closing, dontcha know, although there are rumors that someone is going to buy it because god knows we all need more sugar and would die if the Ho-Ho-Twinkie plant was overgrown by kudzu.)
Back to the train. I won’t be settling for a used sleigh bell. Got holes in my pockets those will fall through. Need something much bigger. Something that helps pay the rent–at least one month’s worth in San Francisco. No small potatoes.
Pura Vida!
6 Aug
The de facto greeting from any Tico in Costa Rica: Pura Vida! And like this greeting that springs from the supersaturated jungle foliage, howler-monkey raucous, poison-dart frog chirping, and coffee-cacao-banana-coconut-beans ‘n’ rice country, Continue reading
I’m Off!
27 JunDear Presserheads (what do you think of this newly-coined term?),
Thanks to friends who are taking care of our place and our living greenery, on Saturday morning our family is boldly going where thousands of tourists have gone before. Continue reading
A Banner Week for Women Writers – or Not?
12 JunI just posted this on the Dogpatch Writers Collective, but I thought I’d share this on my blog, too. The women at VIDA have their work cut out for them.
True Story
7 JunOne of my nieces dated many men on her way to the altar. She stayed close with some, and one in particular, Ted, became a long term friend. At least until he died from cancer.
Ted left a twenty-something wife and a young son, Tommy, to figure out their lives without him. They all live in a relatively small town, and my niece has her own children, one of them a boy (Jonathan) the same age as Tommy. The two boys play on the same baseball team.
A few weeks ago, Jonathan, had been down in the dumps because he hadn’t had a hit “in years.” He dreaded having to bat. An aside: we are all Cubs fans,
so we know about slumps.
But back to my niece’s story. She was sitting in the car with Jonathan, who refused to get out and go to baseball practice, so she gave him a pep talk: Continue reading
Open Mic Fright
4 MayAnd so my eight-year-old son, the voracious reader but painfully reluctant writer, has progressed from writing about building a treehouse in Maine with his dad, to a nonfiction report on the Iguanodon with its fearsome thumb spikes, to creating a fictional story about the adventures of Frog the Kitten and Sid the Skunk.
Now the focus is poetry. In class, they’ve read many examples of what poems can look and sound like. My son’s favorite collection is the latest Shel Silverstein, Everything On It. But enjoying poetry is not the problem—apparently. Continue reading
The Writer’s Shadow
Making Tracks…
Missed Any of These? Hmmm??
Thank you, 4am Writer!
Thank you CalloftheSiren!!
Thank you SAMIR!!
Thank you Scribblerbean!!
Thank you ReadnCook!!
Thank you NYParrot!!
Thank you WhatsItAllAbout!!
