Southern Funerals and Other Social Events: Put Your Good Clothes On 'Cause We're Going To A Funeral

A member of my extended family is one of the funniest people I've ever met. If you want a little window into the world of "Southern," then this is surely the place.


Southern Funerals and Other Social Events: Put Your Good Clothes On 'Cause We're Going To A Funeral

Looking Down

Feathered lines across the back,
A delicate puckering here and there.
Not young.
Thin, ropey veins and scrappy tendons.
Stubby fingers, short nails,
A small palm.
Life, head and love cross-hatched with
The real lines of true experience.

My grandmother’s hands--
Steady, sturdy, stubborn,
Soft, loving, forgiving--
Now, amazingly,
Attached to the ends of my wrists.

Art Fun

I spent last Sunday afternoon with my fabulously talented friends, Judy and Geri. We baked Christmas cookies with our kids. While the kids were busy decorating the cookies, Judy decided to hold a spontaneous art class. The kids didn't want us to help decorate the cookies anyway.
Judy gave us canvas sheets, crayons and fabric dye. The idea was to do simplified batik art. We each drew free-form figures with the crayons, then sprinkled each canvas with fabric dye. A few squirts of water and wow! Okay, actually I threw away my first try and I wasn't crazy about my second creation either. Ah, but by the third one, I kind of had the hang of it.
I had to leave my creation at Judy's house to dry, but she's promised to bring it by soon. Maybe I'll scan it and post it here.
It was so much fun to just play with the colors and not really worry about what it was going to look like or who might see the failures. I tried to approach the project like I imagine a child would, uninhibited and only concerned with pleasing myself.
I'm hoping to try to translate that enthusiasm and feeling of freedom into my writing. It's sometimes much too easy to get bogged down and not write if I worry too much about what someone (anyone) might think of what I'm writing. It is my hope that infusing my writing with childlike enthusiasm and fun can only improve what I'm doing. We'll see.

Gothic Inspiration

The finest inspiration for any writer is other writers. I keep these two passages stuck to a message board near my desk.

“Those who are neither the living or the dead; -- those dark and shadowless things that sport themselves with the reliques of the dead, and feast and love amid corruption, -- ghastly, mocking and terrific.” --Charles Robert Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer

“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.” --Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

Sometimes just reading those short passages of moody prose is enough to set my imagination pattering down tunnels, blood-dark and dangerous, where fantastic beings interact (for good or ill) with mortals.
Just reading over those paragraphs changes the tone and feel of my writing. Of course, often the rewriting and editing process requires that I splash a little beige over the purple patches of the writing these passages inspire. That's fine. I'll still take the inspiration whenever I can.

Reading Online and Off

I'm not in a writing mood today. I'm in a reading mood. I've started reading two novels in the last few days: Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather and Lost by Gregory Maguire. I love Cather's work and can't believe I haven't read this one already. Gregory Maguire is quickly becoming one of my favorite contemporary authors. I've already raced through his Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Son of a Witch, Confessions of an Ugly Step-sister, Mirror, Mirror and another short novel (though I can't recall the name and am too lazy right now to Google it). I'm sure I'll enjoy this one as much as others.
I've also been doing some reading online. I really love speculative fiction and I thought I'd share a few recent and not-so-recent discoveries. These stories are just a small sample of the wonderfully strange and imaginative stories you can find out on the web.

Fluff and Buttons on the Teddy Bear Range

Wikihistory

Mayfly

Inflatable Man

I charged him.
With a point and a click,
He was mine
And soon delivered
In a plain brown wrapper.

I let him out
And helped him stretch his legs.
His arms reached out and his
Head slowly lifted from his shoulder
He became fully formed—a man.

We danced that night,
My inflatable man and I.
His was the scent was of suppleness and
I knew he would never complain about
The funky jazz I like.

As I scooted across the floor
In worn, faded slippers,
His cold skin
Rubbed against mine
With pleasant, plastic farts.

Propped in the corner
Of the sofa
He waited for me,
So patiently,
In the evenings.

His frozen smile
Warmed me.
I shared Krispy Cremes
With him and used my pinkie
To wipe the frosting
From his mouth.
.
We were so happy.
I basked and flourished
Within the warmth of
His silent approval.

But then, oh, but then…

When he began to go flat,
I knew it was because
He was unreliable, selfish
And inconsiderate.

Certainly it was not because
I had been pricking
Him with pinholes
Every day.

Lazy Recipes

A few years ago a friend and I started a recipe website called Lazy Gourmets. For a couple of years all we did was search out, test and post new recipes to the site. Then life intervened and we stopped. However, the site is still up and you can still search the data base of hundreds of recipes at LazyGourmets.com
Here's one recipe that I use over and over. It's extremely versitile. I'll never buy the boxed stuff again!

Armenian Pilaf

There's no reason to go to the market to pick up a box of the "San Francisco Treat", as long as you have 4 simple ingredients in your cupboard.

1/2 cup raw spaghetti broken into 1 inch pieces
3/4 cup raw white rice
14 1/2 oz. (1 3/4 cups) any flavor broth or bouillon
2 Tbsp. butter or margarine

In medium skillet saute' broken spaghetti pieces in butter, stirring constantly, until the spaghetti begins to brown. Add rice, stirring until the rice is well coated with the butter and the spaghetti browns a little more (sound familiar so far?) Carefully pour in broth. Simmer until liquid is absorbed.

Note: You can really play with this dish to liven it up. Make Spanish rice by reducing the amount of chicken broth by a half cup and adding a can of stewed tomatoes.You can also add garlic and onions to the recipe during satueeing. Experiment!

Finding My Key

Ah, my story. There it was in all its imperfect glory. The plot was there, the characters acted and reacted in credible ways, but there was something missing.
I had given my female protagonist, Jenna, an interesting background which I’d incorporated it into the story. I really thought I had the character nailed.
The male love interest was handsome, quirky and utterly appealing, but why was he interested in Jenna? She was not coming across as all that interesting. On paper, she was even a little pathetic. That wasn't how I envisioned her. Where had I gone wrong in trying to capture her character?
In desperation, I turned to my shelf of writing books. I picked up James N. Frey's The Key: How to Write Damn Good Fiction Using the Power of Myth. I had devoured the entire book in less than three days. In one portion he suggests, beyond doing the standard character profile, having a character write a journal in his or her own voice.
Thinking it could only help a story (and character) that seemed hopelessly flat, I decided to try it. I started the "journal" with the character introducing herself. What I discovered about Jenna was truly amazing. Good grief! I had her all wrong. She wasn't single, never married. She was a widow. She didn't work at a law firm. No, she worked in a library. She wasn't a stranger or new to the people in town. She had lived there all her life and knew practically everyone. The revelations continued over three pages
I completely rewrote the story and was amazed. Getting to know Jenna better and letting her lend her own voice to my writing improved the story ten-fold.
Once I stopped trying to manipulate the character to fit my carefully constructed plot, the story flowed better and Jenna ended up being a perfect match for the dreamy love interest I had invented.
Best of all, I found a technique that really worked for me. For other writers, conducting an “interview” with his or her characters is another way to dig deeper into the minds and motives of these unreal people—people who come to be very real to a writer—if the writer tries hard enough.

Shakespeare Quote Generator

It is the panty hose on a mermaid,
The pantyhose on a mermaid above us, govern our conditions.

Which work of Shakespeare was the original quote from?

Get your own quotes:

A Nuisance

On a fine sunny day
In a field lush and wild,
She heard in soft whisper,
The fond wish of a child.

The sweet breath of innocence
Propelled her to flight
And she took to the sky
Amid squeals of delight.

Of brown pointed toe
And tufted white hair,
She danced and she twirled
In the warm, scented air.

But her journey was short
For quickly she found
She wanted only to rest
In soft, fertile ground.

Was our lady a faerie?
No, only a seed.
Now, can you see beauty
In a dandelion weed?

Time Wasters

I love time-wasting video games. You should see my Sims neighborhood.
I'd probably get more writing done if I left these sites alone.
Enjoy!

Desktop Tower Defense

Pogo

Fragments

When it comes to writing, there are times when I have a hard time getting started.(not news) That's when I start writing down random words. It's a useful, free-association exercise, that primes the pump and gets me in the mood to write. There are times, though, when something strange happens.
Here's an example from one of my notebooks:

flawless, futile, depend, clunk, clink, shrink..... This goes on for several lines and then something like this comes out:
Billie had the quilt pulled up over her nose. Only her brown eyes peeped out over the squares of red-gingham granny-squares. One finger picked at a moth hole in the trim.
"You just gone make that hole bigger, you keep picking at it, Billie." Jublilee said from her seat in the corner. A few of the other women murmured their agreement, others silently nodding.
"We done a lot of dreamin' in this room."
"Don't I know it, Bil. Lots of dreamin'. We was too scared to do anything else. Dreamin's safe."

What was that? I wasn't working on a story about anyone named Billie or Jubilee. It was like a tiny fragment of a story just spilled out of my pen.
When this happens, I call it pulling from the ether. This is going to sound a little schizoid, but often I think of story characters as real people, who want their story to be told. Sometimes, the character jumps up and screams and leads the writer around by the short-hairs until the thing gets written.(I've only had this happen once). Other times the characters step forward and politely invite the writer to come in and ask some questions. I call this doing the "what ifs."
So, that little scene and snippet of conversation sits in my notebook. Billie and Jubilee were not forceful at all, but they did get my attention. Maybe I'll try to expand it one day and see where Billie and Jubilee take me.
It all starts with asking...."why is Billie in bed and why are there other women in the room? Why? What if......"

Strange Horizons

I'm still amazed that someone would actually pay me for writing a story. It doesn't happen often, mind you.
Strange Horizons is my favorite online speculative fiction site and not just because they paid up and posted my story "Before Paphos," but because they offer a weekly 'zine (updated every Monday) of new speculative fiction and poetry, plus reviews, essays and more. Check it out.


Strange Horizons
(Sorry, my html-fu is weak. I couldn't figure out how to link the banner without hot-linking it. Meh, this will have to do.)

Oh, and here's a link to my story there:
Before Paphos

Stick Man

Below is my one attempt at writing a poem for children. It was quickly rejected by two children's magazines. I think it's cute, but probably encourages "naughtiness." That's a bad thing?

Looking For My Stick Man


I'm Looking for my stick man.
I drew him on the wall.
I went to play, then came back
And he wasn't here at all.

I'm looking for my stick man.
He's red and blue and gray.
He was right there and now he's not.
Do you think he ran away?

I'm looking for my stick man.
Do you think that he fell in
This bucket of soapy water
Right under where he'd been?

I'm looking for my stick man.
I just cannot believe
As fine a drawing such as he had been
Would simply up and leave!

Darwin's Game

This poem is about a little guy who hung around our house in Califormia. I saw him regularly for three years (assuming that it was the same one.)until we moved. Yes, I know some geckos can change color, but I don't think that was the case with this fellow. I wonder how he's doing....


Observe the audacity of an albino gecko,
who dares survive among the green.
He clings to pale stucco
as if he realizes the odds.
He rests there, a shadow outline,
before scampering into the oleander,
to feast on black bugs
foolishly homesteading in white flowers
.

Old Home Place

Noxious jasmine and vile honeysuckle,
in languid collusion,
slither between brick and board.

Intolerant trees claw off shingles
exposing skeleton beams,
the roof an open wound.

Built by weathered hands,
a family’s touchstone fractures
under time, elements, indifference.

Better to have burned
than this secret death
smothered by roots and brambles.

Why Pantyhose on a Mermaid? Well....

"Draw a crazy picture,
Write a nutty poem,
Sing a mumble-gumble song,
Whistle through your comb.
Do a loony-goony dance
'Cross the kitchen floor,
Put something silly in the world
That ain't been there before.
-Shel Silverstein