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About This Author
My name is Joy, and I love to write.
Why poetry, here? Because poetry uplifts its writer, and if she is lucky enough, her readers, too. Around us, so many objects abound to write about. Once a poet starts with a smallest, most trivial object, he shall discover that his pen will spill out what is most delicate or most majestic hidden inside him. Since the classics sometimes dealt with lofty subjects with a lofty language, a person with poetry in his soul may incline to emulate that. That is understandable. Poetry does that to a person: it enlarges the soul and gives it wings. Yet, to really soar, a poet needs to take off from the ground.
 
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Everyday Canvas
"Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself."
CHARLIE CHAPLIN
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.
David Whyte
This is my supplementary blog in which I will post entries written for prompts.
Previous ... - 1- 2 ... Next
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Prompt: Doorknobs. Write anything you want about these.
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Doorknobs are useful in facilitating or blocking passage. Then, there are doorknobs that are invisible, which can only be seen by their owners who put doors between themselves and the outside world. Such a doorknob inspired this poem, today.
how do I let myself out or let someone in
with a grip limp, ambivalent
maybe I need a strong nudge, a catalyst
but I never budge
on tottering promises
so I glower, in vain,
at the brass doorknob
--polished with germ-free wishes--
holding
this exiled poet's forgotten door
motionless
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Prompt: “Why are we conditioned into the strawberry and cream, Mother Goose world, Alice in Wonderland fable, only to be broken on the wheel as we grow older and become aware of ourselves as individuals with a dull responsibility in life?” Sylvia Plath
What is your take on this?
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I like reading Sylvia Plath for the deep sensitivity in her poems, but lacking such a morose outlook on life, especially one like Plath’s, I don’t find the above quote applying to me.
To begin with I was not "conditioned into a strawberry-and-cream" childhood. As good and at times as tragic my growing-up years were, I was also exposed to and cautioned about the difficulties and not-always-such-fun responsibilities of living a life, possibly by astute adults. Imagine my surprise when my life--so far--turned out better than I expected, given the warnings I was subjected to. It was also that most women then had had the worst that the society handed out to them, and they warned me while expecting me to conform at the same time. In spite of all that, when the same understanding tried to pull me down with it, I rebelled against the "women's place" ideas.
I have to add that Sylvia Plath also lived around the time, my time, when younger women her age came to the realization that they were given the lesser second-class roles in life. Surprisingly, these fake roles were pushed on to the next generation by mostly the older females in those days. My guess is, while Plath's childhood might have been a happy and joyous one, she got stuck between the two warring generations and expected her freedom and her happiness to be handed to her from the outside, possibly by her husband Ted, who couldn't or didn't know how to pull her out of her misery or what she calls "my madness." Furthermore, there is that fact of Plath's suffering from a possible bipolar disorder.
It may just be that a too-much-fun childhood has its faults in preparing people to real life, and alternately, expecting the worst can give people relief when faced with a less harsh reality and can cause them to be thankful for everything even if that same negative expectation robs them of ambition. I only hope that the new generation of mothers can find a happy medium between the two poles to raise their sons and daughters in.
Here’s Plath’s advice to novice poets, but it is also about life, too. Would it hold any truth or not, like the above quote, each poet has to decide for herself and himself. 
Notes To A Neophyte
Take the general mumble,
blunt as the faceless gut
of an anonymous clam,
vernacular as the strut
of a slug or a small preamble
by snail under hump of home:
metamorphose the mollusk
of vague vocabulary
with the structural discipline:
stiffen the ordinary
malleable mask
to the granite grin of bone.
For such a tempering task,
heat furnace of paradox
in an artifice of ice;
make love and logic mix,
and remember, if tedious risk
seems to jeopardize this:
it was a solar turbine
gace molten earth a frame
and it took the diamond stone
a weight of world and time
being crystallized from carbon
to the hardest substance known.
Sylvia Plath |
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Prompt: What if the moon suddenly ceased to exist? What do you think would happen and how would you react to it?
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This is how I would react to it. I would beg and plead for it to come back. This could actually be a sci-fi story, btw.
Come Back, Moon!
Come back, Moon!
How can you disappear after taming me
with your patterned tranquility?
How can you bear to burn the bridges behind
so masterfully built to the same delicacy
of angel wings?
Now, Moonlight Sonata has lost its sweet chords,
no paths exist for hatchlings to reach to sea,
the earth leans to its side, weeping,
my camera faces a dark sky,
and failing to capture you, I howl.
Come back, Moon,
don’t leave heavens this bare
for without you, we are naked stumps
with no faith or hope, doomed.
Come back to smile on us once more
and do away with this bad dream
this hopeless longing, our gloom.
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Prompt: When you analyze a poem, what are the main areas you focus on or the questions you ask?
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It is a difficult job to analyze someone else’s poem. Poets are more protective of their poetry than fiction writers with their fiction. I believe this is because emotions are involved more strongly in writing poetry. So I really take my time doing poetry reviews, and hesitant though I am, in a nutshell, the following is what I usually try to keep in mind:
At first reading, I try to figure out who the speaker is, his or her tone, and what he or she means or suggests as meaning in general, and what the subject and the central idea is.
Then, during the following readings, I look for the theme and see if there is a story inside the poem. I also look for form and meter and poetic devices, such as alliteration, similes and metaphors, the point of view, personification, etc. I check the imagery, if the images are in a pattern or if they are related to one another. Then I read the poem out loud to find out if I can hear a beat or a certain rhythm.
In addition, symbols are important; that is, if they are they universal symbols or symbols arising from inside the context of the poem.
Words are also important. Are they connotative; that is, do they signify or suggest associative or secondary meanings in addition to their dictionary meanings?
Then I ask myself if the sound effects are working well. Are any words or phrases repeated? Are repetitions used as poetic tools such as anaphora, epiphora, assonance, consonance, end or internal rhymes?
Another thing to notice is the line arrangement; if each line is a full line or a dropped line (line broken into two parts, the second part being sequential) or if the poet using enjambment or not. Then if there are stanzas, do they have the same line count in each one or are they separate to add to the meaning? Do the lines and stanzas allow for the reader some breathing or do they continue on without letting the reader breathe?
At the end, if there is a form, I try to figure out if the form has any influence on the meaning. Does it contribute or take away from the meaning?
W.H. Auden said, “Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings.” There is so much truth in this. Poetry says what we cannot openly verbalize. Rather than spelling out our truths, poetry hints at them, and through that hinting, it touches our very soul. Poetry is, in fact, the home of the soul to me. So try as I may, I can only analyze someone else’s poem in a very superficial way. Thus, a poetry review can surely be a case of Catch-22 because most of the time, too much analyzing defeats the purpose.
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During my much younger days, when I was rocking colicky babies while watching daytime soaps and trying not to gag over the sentimentality, dead characters suddenly used to show up alive on the TV screen. I had always wondered about the gall those writers had to shock the viewers like that, and I am not even talking about Dark Shadows, either. This used to happen in realistic love stories…a lot!
Come to think of it, a character’s death and rebirth is a powerful motif, especially if the character is the protagonist. The character may physically die, of course, like in the soaps that I mentioned in the above paragraph whose previous death is usually explained or altered through some ad-lib reasoning, but another kind of death and rebirth may take place in other ways as well and more effectively. This is because the character changes dramatically as to his own self-image and the way others see him. Usually, the more positive the change, the more pleased are the readers. Think of Star Wars. Luke Skywalker’s father turns out to be a fallen Jedi who later kills Obi Wan Kenobi who later turns up as a spirit. Not each character goes through such a drastic change. Some changes are subtler such as in Jennie, Jamie’s sister in the Outlander series's eighth book, Written in My Own Heart's Blood. She turns into a sweeter, more accepting kind of a person after her husband Ian’s death.
Sometimes a protagonist dies and is reborn in order to be able to confront a gigantic problem or a formidable villain. At other times, the confrontation with the villain is a duel for a second death. He can also die, so the others can take up the slack left by his absence. Although rare, it is possible for a character to experience more than one death and rebirth experience, be it physical, psychological, or spiritual. What’s more, after he dies and comes back, his return may be short-lived or not. Yet, however he dies, the character is a changed person when he comes back to live inside or away from his old community. In that case, the adjustments of the hero and the community or the second setting or society will be markedly different.
In this way, fiction imitates real life. Whether the character is tragic or comic, he can change and adjust better or worse after going through a life-altering experience. Like the rest of us.
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Prompt: Do you think published authors should participate in writing workshops to help other writers accomplish their writing goals? (Kind of like paying it forward) Have you ever attended a writing workshop with a published author? Would you go to one if it was available near you?
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They are already doing that, and they have been doing that. Nowadays there are even workshops whose focus are totally geared toward publishing.
I attended a workshop on novel writing with a YA novels author. This was in 1985. She did teach the basics of writing a novel, though, and not all that much on publishing. She mentioned publishing, but publishing was a whole different ballgame then. I recall that she said, “If you don’t have any credits to your name, write a cookbook. They are almost always accepted for publication.” She stressed on amassing publishing credits first, no matter how small. At the time, self-publishing was practically impossible and unheard of, although I knew in other countries people did that to a very large extent.
The basics she taught, as she guided us along, were nothing new to me, but I enjoyed the class for the camaraderie and the other people in it, and the teacher herself was a very nice person, too. I don’t think I would attend any workshop now on anything because my real life wouldn’t allow it. At the time, though, I enjoyed all the workshops I attended for different things.
In addition, in Writing.com, there are already groups that focus on publishing. Even I focus my reviews of other writers here on what could be acceptable to the today's editors and publishers in general.
In WdC, several groups on publishing came and went. Those that are still in working, to the best of my knowledge are:
Vivian  has her own publishing establishment. Check out her newsletters and her port. She has written a great deal of information on the subject.
The same goes for Fyn  ’s Wynwidyn Press. The submissions for 2016 WdC anthology is still open, with all the proceeds going to RAOK and the Angel Army.
Matt Bird MSci (Hons) AMRSC  has an FSFS group that also has its eye on publishing, also.
And Voxxylady  's "On Our Own: Indie-publishing Group"  is another group that is still open, if I am not mistaken.
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Prompt: Write a poem or a story, based on one of the following themes: Fearful love ---- Whispers
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A Coward...Still
Your downcast eyes with lashes like butterfly wings
my head full of vaporous ghosts, whispering
mockeries, heavy sighs, wet cheeks
still, fair words and reverent tone...
we’re like children who never smile
life, a tortuous wry joke
about the miles we’ve traveled apart
and their mirrorlike glint of convoluted recall.
Seized by a foretaste of a miracle
our gazes meet but I look quickly away
after surveying your scorched interiors
for alarms are chilling my neurons and I know
the best way is to let go
as if letting go is so easy
as if I could erase what’s been etched
deep into my bones.
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This is what came to me, sappy as it may be, although the advice for writing love poetry from powerpoetry.org is: “Don’t worry about making your poem sound too sappy or romantic. Just be yourself, use your personality, and write about the things that might be a little harder to say out loud. Yeah, it sounds corny, but the best poems are the ones that come from your heart.”
Except I can’t tell from which corner of my heart the above thing arose. Maybe the one containing the trash bins. 
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March 24, 2016 at 12:23am March 24, 2016 at 12:23am
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Prompt: What did you love about Easter as a child? How do you feel about Easter now that you're older?
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I always loved the bunny stories. The rest of the stuff tired me out. I especially liked Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit stories. I think that is still a good book for children with all kinds of animal tales in it. I was already reading at a very young age, so I read them to my imaginary friend, whose existence scared my mother. I recall a fierce, bad, naughty rabbit and a good one, and Peter Rabbit who defied his mother and went into someone’s garden where he had to hide to save his life.
I also liked Brer Rabbit for being a trickster and a rascal. Uncle Remus’s stories, I think, was that book.
Aside from those and other similar books, I didn’t care much about the holidays, on account of the clothing which was usually a problem. I always picked a nice summery dress to wear, but then at the last moment if the weather was cold, and it was usually cold, they would make me wear long stockings and a coat over it. I would get furious because of it.
As to my adult feelings on any holiday, they are more or less the same. I’d rather be walking on the sand at the beach than follow any rituals. Plus, I found out that the Energizer bunny is more helpful than the Easter bunny especially if the batteries last longer in my reading lamps. 
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March 23, 2016 at 11:14am March 23, 2016 at 11:14am
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Prompt: "Why can't I try on different lives, like dresses, to see which one fits me and is most becoming?" Sylvia Plath.
Do you ever feel like this? Write about it.
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Not anymore. Indecisiveness is not one of my many vices; however, I used to feel like that when I was nineteen or twenty or so, at the time my life’s path was iffy and unknown to me. After some bumps and stumbles, I accepted going where my best decisions and choices took me. Sylvia Plath, as a poet, can say things like trying on different lives, but we live life, not try it on.
Trying on lives, as if dresses, even wishing to do that seems like a waste of time to me. A different attitude should correct this kind of an uncertainty. We don’t have too much time on this earth and, if we spend it with empty wishes and indecisiveness, we don’t leave ourselves enough time to enjoy life. I think making sensible, doable, and timely decisions in life is not only practical but also is brave.
When it comes to living, this world offers us so many ways to be brave. One way can be going after something bigger than oneself or doing something extraordinary for someone else. It could also be living through joys and pains while hoping for a better life. Yet another one of them is making choices and following through without looking back. I guess I was brave with my choices. I didn’t hesitate and just followed through. I also never dallied with or believed in regrets or remorse, either.
I know someone who is extremely picky with her choices. She can’t even pick a pair of shoes without having a nervous breakdown. Yet, in her life, her choices ended in misery no matter how much and how carefully she picked jobs, men, or anything else. Still, if she were happy with her choices, I wouldn’t feel bad for her for it would mean that she was accepting her choices regardless of their results, but she isn’t happy either. Come to think of it, neither was Sylvia Plath.
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Prompt: Rabindranath Tagore said in Sadhana, “When we come to literature, we find that, though it conforms to the rules of grammar, it is yet a thing of joy; it is freedom itself.” How much do you think literature, in fiction or poetry, should stick to the rules of grammar? Or should it, at all?
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I do appreciate the grammar rules. They help us to use the language properly and efficiently. If one is putting together a serious thesis for academia or if he is writing for a serious publication, all grammar rules need to be obeyed.
On the other hand, for me, perfect grammar has nothing to do with great writing because, in the case of writing poetry and fiction, meaning comes first. If a slight wavering from a grammar rule will light up a character, a feeling, or a story event, I see no reason for strictly sticking to the rules. Then, with poetry most rules can be broken and they are by the best poets, especially while writing free verse.
The older English teachers usually find fault with the now-obsolete rules, outdated for fiction and poetry, such as using sentence fragments, using slang, starting a sentence with a conjunction or ending it with a preposition. To me, such corrections are useless if the wavering from strict grammar helps the flow and the telling of the story. In addition, a writer’s voice, writing style, tone, and genre can and should influence choices in how to craft the narrative, internal thinking, speech, and description. Above all, a character’s voice is the most important, and especially for that, most of the rules can often be set aside to convey a realistic personality.
Still some basic rules should be observed in order to keep prose from becoming muddled, clunky, or redundant and thus lose meaning. It is every writer’s job to learn the simplest unbreakable rules of grammar. Even so, I cringe when I see a novice story writer or a poet worry about grammar and even state in advance when asking for a review that their writing isn’t perfect. Grammar rules are for serving the language of the writer, not for making him feel bad about his writing, especially if his writing shines in other ways.
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Prompt: Imagine yourself loving one person very much, any person, like a parent, a sibling, a child, a mentor, a lover, or a friend. Think of that love as a feeling. Can you apply that same feeling to your community, to everyone you know, to your nation, to the billions of people of the world, no matter what? Can this be possible, ever?
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I asked this question to our group because it was asked of me, once, and I was stumped. It would be heaven if we could love everyone with the same intensity and with the same thoughtfulness; however, given our human nature and the trying circumstances that keep coming up, this is not possible. It could also be that some of us cannot handle intense and concentrated love. We only manage what we can.
No offense to the believers of a different view, but I don’t think even God loves all of us with the same intensity and in the same manner. Even if He did, we are humans, and we are not perfect. We can’t expect ourselves to compete with or match the divine.
Having said that, the best thing about being human is other humans. As humans, we do fight for one another and stand up for those of us who are downtrodden whether we know them or not or we are related to them in some way or not or they belong to the same group, nation, or race with us or not. Those who don’t are the ones who carry a fear in them, a fear that can consume them alive if they don’t overcome it.
I believe if we could get rid of our hates, dislikes, and prejudgments of people, we would be on our way to implementing a universal love. Coming back to me, it is true that in the past, I have been hurt by people or seen them hurt others, and for that, I liked them a bit less. Be that as it may, I only really hated one person in my life: Osama Bin Laden. Then, even him, I didn’t know personally. I hated him for what he did, not only to the USA but more so to his followers. Following a mistaken and misguided being, surely, hurts the follower psychologically, spiritually, and in very many other ways than his victims.
I am quite sure some part of love for other humans, what the ancient Greeks called the agápē, is mostly innate and it is usually effortless in little children...until they are taught the distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them.’ On the other hand, I don’t know how we can teach love as love is a feeling, but it can be encouraged from birth on. After all, for what we know, we pass through this world only once, and it would be to the greater good of everyone if we encouraged our hearts to stay on the path of love.
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Prompt: Rahm Emanuel said, "You never let a serious crisis go to waste." Have you ever spun a crisis into an opportunity? Were the end results good or bad?
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This quote sounds to be in the same vein as making lemonade out of lemons. I’ve had a few lemons in my life, but I usually squeezed them and used the juice for flavoring, but anything too serious I just lived through it and coped the best I could. Truth is, even if a situation of not letting-a-serious-crisis-go-to-waste might have occurred, I have no memory of it.
As for not letting a “serious crisis” go to waste, I usually do not realize I am in a serious crisis. Only in hindsight, do I see that such and such an event was a serious crisis. Hello, me? Duh! So in the past, how could I have taken care of a situation if I hadn’t caught on to the importance of it!
Yet, it doesn’t matter that I do not recall such a situation, but I think the idea is good. It encourages optimism, vigilance, and a positive attitude in the face of adversity. Maybe there’s even a hidden conjoining thought here that’s more significant than that can-do attitude. It is hidden in the word adversity.
Although adversity is painful and we all try to evade it, it can have a positive impact on who we are, for when we face adversity and take it head on, we learn self-control and persistence and build self-confidence. We also foster an attitude of conscientiousness toward others who face similar difficulties. On the negative side, when the adversity is out of control and the person facing it is totally helpless, then the lesson learned becomes hopelessness. In some cases of abused children, for example, the released stress hormones may physically damage a child’s developing brain.
Coming back to me, maybe I never turned a lemon into lemonade, but I am sure I used it to flavor fish. One thing I do that helps me in the face of a serious misfortune is to count my blessings and be thankful for what I have, and there is always something to be thankful for as long as I live and breathe.
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Prompt: Alice in Wonderland
“Fun Fact twist for Friday...” http://www.thefactsite.com/2012/04/fun-facts-about-alices-in-wonderland.html
“Pick something that appeals to your creative muse and write a story, a poem or discuss some of the points that you did not know. Maybe Dinah will inspire you as she did Carroll or aka Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.”
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I was worried she wouldn’t show up. You never knew with Alice, I was told; however, my manager said she was already in the limo heading our way. They had had a slight delay due to traffic.
While waiting for her, I reviewed inside my head the interview techniques I had studied, which were rooted in the infamous lie-detector tests. I recalled our first class in the police academy and the first thing we had learned. Our teacher, a tall, burly man with red nose and cheeks--possibly due to being soaked up with Guinness—had asked: “What do you think is more important, verbal or nonverbal behavior?” Someone took a guess. “Nonverbal?” The teacher nodded. “Yeah! That’s the whole ballgame right there.” Then he had told us to never mind what the subjects say but to record how they say it. “As to the questions,” he had let out a hearty laugh here, “If you have an oddball person in front of you, feel free to ask oddball questions.”
Before I could ponder over the remaining points for a good interview, Alice walked into the studio jiggling her hips and twisting right and left her head of curly brown hair. I noticed she wasn’t the young girl I was expecting but a rather mature woman in her late forties in a pink dress with white-cuffed short sleeves, and she wore a name-tag on her chest. Where had I seen someone looking like this before? I decided to sweep this internal question aside for the moment.
With a quick complimentary smile and a nod, Alice took the seat in front of me, and after the initial small talk, I signaled to the cameras to start rolling.
“Hello Alice, and welcome to Writing.com’s not-so-official interview room,” I said, trying to look professional.
“Oh, yes, of course,” she said, “Hello, Writing.com!” Her voice was very friendly but she talked as if she wasn’t all there, stroking the back of her hand, then turning it around and tracing her palm with her finger.
“Is something wrong with your hand, Alice?”
“When I fell down the Rabbit hole, I hit it, although no one noticed it.” She looked right into my eyes, twisting her face. “Beware of the hurrying, selfish White Rabbit wearing a waistcoat, muttering ‘oh dear, oh dear I shall be too late,’ and yanking on the chain of their pocket watch to check the time.”
“I’ve met men like that,” I answered. “The wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am kind.”
“Exactly!” She bobbed her head up and down. “I was a child, then. What did I know! I think I got something from him that led to my neurological condition.” She sighed. “It affects my perception, you see. Although many people grow out of it, I wasn’t one of the lucky ones.”
Obviously, she was talking about the Alice-in-Wonderland Syndrome, a.k.a Todd's syndrome. “You must be referring to your shrinking and/or growing to gigantic proportions disorder. Did you know that the individuals in the staff here in Writing.com are annoyed with the interactives about shrinking and growing bigger?”
“Who can blame them?” she said meekly, pulling on her skirt and wiggling in the chair. “Such an interactive must be as annoying as a squeakily piercing call of a whistle. Although, I must say, by following the white rabbit, I met quite a few interesting characters.”
“Who was the one character that left the most lasting impression on you?”
Alice frowned, tightening her lips; then she put her forefinger on them and squinted. Her thinking pose. “I have to say the Cheshire Puss, but not because of his mischievous grin or the duchess who owned the cat. I rather disliked the Duchess, anyway.”
“What was so special about the Cheshire Cat that left such an impression on you?”
“That cat told me the truth.” Alice leaned forward as if divulging a secret. “He said ‘we’re all mad here.’ Now, ain’t that the truth! Don’t things get curiouser and curiouser, for you, too?”
I nodded in agreement but didn’t directly answer her. The focus of the conversation had to stay on Alice. “Your adventures in Wonderland must have helped you mature faster for your later life, wouldn’t you say?”
“Hmmff!” She twisted her lips. “I’m leading a rather duller life, now. But the one thing Wonderland gave me is a very long life. Much longer than yours will ever be, but as the Rabbit said even forever is just one second.”
“The outfit you are wearing,” I said, ignoring the mortality hint. “I think I have seen it before, but I can’t exactly pinpoint it where.” I leaned back in my seat and stared at her.
Alice giggled. “I knew, you’d catch it. Guess!”
I shook my head. “I’m stumped…really. Why don’t you tell me?”
“Mel’s Diner, Silly!”
I was caught off guard by her answer. “The Alice in Mel’s diner is the same Alice in Wonderland? How can you explain that?”
“I'm afraid I can't explain myself, Dear. Because I am not myself, you see… Just use the imagination trick, the only war against reality.”
I understood what she meant and I genuinely wanted to search for more details, but at that specific instant, I didn’t know how to go about asking her more probing questions.
Noticing my momentary silence, Alice continued. “I can easily say this: People love me so much that they’ll put me anywhere and make me shine.”
How nice that she felt so loved...
“Anywhere?” I asked, taking the hint from her words.
“Yes, so long as I get somewhere, and as the Cheshire cat said, if I walk long enough.”
I had so much more to ask Alice, but our time was up and she had an appointment with another movie studio…again.
Who had Alice grown up into? An artistic woman who sewed frilly curtains and painted earthenware plates spun on her kiln while she worked as a waitress or an attention-seeker who kept jumping up from one life into another just to appear on our screens? Then I thought this latter social endeavor was probably forced on her. She was, from what I had observed, classless and never boasted, while always focusing her attention to things outside of herself.
Looking back, I now realize she has to be this way because she perceives things to be either too big or too small. She is suffering from that specific condition after all. Like the rest of us.
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Prompt: "There is no enjoyment like reading." Jane Austen With this in mind, what books will you be reading this spring and summer?
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It is impossible for me to say which specific books I’ll read because I always read several books concurrently, such as those in the computer, the ones in print,and two or three in my four different e-book readers. I also listen to audio books quite often. I have more than 3000 unread books in my Kindle library; some of those are classics that I didn’t read earlier. One of them is Mark Twain’s Journal Writings, which is the next book I’ll start reading, as I made up my mind to read one classic per three contemporary books.
Reading the classics isn’t always easy because their dull and dated beginnings annoy me. I wanted to read again Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, since I had read it while in my teens and I have only a shadow of its plot in my mind, but the first page was so tedious. Books that give the family history for pages at a time before introducing the characters have become mind-numbing for me. It wasn’t always so. I used to enjoy them. I guess people and their tastes change with time. What hasn’t changed, however, is my love of reading.
In each book batch, I try to add at least a couple of genre books, one literary fiction or a classic or both, and one or two non-fiction books. At the moment, I am reading US History’s Greatest Hits by Hans Thayer, Diana Gabaldon’s latest in the Outlander Series, Written in my Own Heart’s Blood, Kaleidoscope Hearts by Claire Contreras, AP’s 2015 Stylebook, Sydney Sheldon’s Tell Me Your Dreams, and Memory Theater by Simon Critchley. The Stylebook is really a reference book, but I like to read reference books from beginning to end before I use them as references; this way, I know what’s inside them if I need to search for something..
In a little while, because waiting rooms are also my reading rooms, I’ll be reading again as my husband has an appointment at the doctor’s office. I might be able to finish the Sydney Sheldon novel, since I am at the end of it, and I’ll probably make headway with Kaleidoscope Hearts.
As a note to those who like audio books, YouTube has many good audio books. If you have an app that changes a YouTube video or audio into MP3, you can convert those and listen to them in any I-POD or MP3 player. I listen to a lot of free books in a tiny MP3 player, which fits into a shirt pocket, while I work around the house or go walking.
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Prompt: Have you ever read a book and the setting was a town you lived by or a town or city you have been to? Was the author from the town near you?
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Yes, several, in fact. The oldest written one that I can recall was Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. You must know the story, so I am not getting into it here. Check this: Gatsby-mansion
This mansion was on sale last year for 3.9 million. I am not sure of what happened to it or if it is sold at all.
Derailed by James Siegel happens on and around Long Island Railroad. This thriller is about a marriage that went bad and sinister because of the husband’s betrayal. I used to ride the trains on the very same railroad to NY City. James Siegel is from NY, but I am not sure if he is from Long Island.
That Night by Alice McDermott, which used to be one of my favorites, takes place in Levittown, LI, NY, featuring teenage love and resulting vandalism and chaos. It is a psychological-analysis type of a story written from an adult’s viewpoint looking back at those teen years. Alice McDermott is from LI.
Beach Road by James Patterson takes place in East Hampton and is told from seven different characters' perspectives in short chapters. A struggling lawyer working in the super-rich town of E. Hampton represents the young man on trial in a murder case, in which three people the lawyer knew is shot. James Patterson is from Northern NY, not from LI.
Cold Spring Harbor by Richard Yates takes place quite close to where I used to live and its railroad station was on my line about three stops toward Manhattan. It is about unhappy characters and romantic (infatuation, to be exact) kinds of connections after a chance happening. The story is written with a realistic tone, and it focuses on Cold Spring Harbor as if the town was one of the characters.
There are many other books that I read also had Long Island, NY as their settings. Of the places I visited outside of LI, I can think of John Updike’s Rabbit series, which is situated in Brewster, PA. Also, Couples by the same author that took place in Ipswich, Massachusetts, which the promiscuity and decadence in it had shocked me at the time that I read it. Those things do not shock me anymore.
There are also other books whose stories took place in London and a few other cities I visited in Europe and overseas, which I am not going to go into now because this entry is getting too long, and I am not even finished with the settings of the books in the USA.
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Prompt: Johnny Depp said, "My sickness is that I'm fascinated by human behavior, by what's underneath the surface, by the worlds inside people." In what ways, do you think, can you see through what’s underneath the surface of a person?
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If we look into a drop of anything on the glass of a microscope, aren’t we feel astonished by what is there underneath? Then, each slide we put under the scope is different, its own, and can never be recreated. I believe, so are the people. We may look alike, dress alike, talk alike, use the same gestures, and even we may guess that we are thinking alike. Despite our likenesses, each one of us is a universe in his or her own right, both in the way we are physically, but also mentally and psychologically.
Not only are we different in the ways we are, but also, in the ways we change as we progress throughout our lives. Even our views of our own behaviors are unique. Some of us rationalize their decisions along the way, while others beat themselves up.
I love watching people and analyzing them, as if from an observatory at a distance, because I am fascinated by the human condition. Even inside the first layer under the surface of a person, a gigantic expanse of reactions, messages, and other content exist. Knowing this makes humans the most captivating subjects for musicians, authors, and other people in the various areas of the arts.
For all my observing, can I see through what’s underneath a person? Not really, but sometimes I get a hint of him or her, but only a hint. Even that hint comes about not through some tried-and-true scientific knowledge but my not-too-strong intuition. Even myself, some parts of me I know through intuition. This is because, in the past, there have been instances when I surprised myself, and I predict, there will be more in the future if I live long enough.
That is why we have to allow ourselves to see and respect people as they are and not the way we want them to be. I think when we stop believing in the worlds inside a person, any person, and we push them to be this way or that way, we may end up breaking or harming something valuable, like some precious world, inside them.
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Prompt: Lisa Cron, author of Wired for Story claims our brains are hard-wired “to think in story.” She adds, “Without stories, we are toast.” Do you believe she is correct and do you find yourself thinking in stories?
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I read Lisa Cron’s book. She seems to know what she is writing about as far as the craft goes. As to our brains being hard-wired to think in stories, I have my doubts. A brain is a complex organ and even the most meticulous researchers and experts of it admit to not knowing everything about it. Plus, I think people are diverse in very many ways, and this diversity must echo in the way their brains operate, and to claim to know that the human brain works this way or that way would be taking it too far.
On the other hand, when using the tricks of the mnemonics, coming up with funny or outrageous stories help me to recall stuff like the car’s license plate or any sequence of things. For example, when I am people watching, I do invent stories; case in point, this morning in the lab’s waiting room, I told my husband a man had just come from a Safari because of the hat he was wearing. Now that we are home, I’ve probably forgotten the many other people filling up the waiting room, except that man’s visual picture is vivid in my mind alongside the three other people to whom I attached some kind of a fictional background in my thinking.
This is probably because emotions resulting from the analogies of our earlier experiences determine the meaning of what or who there is. If I didn’t know about safaris and the safari outfits, I would probably think that the man wore a hat a bit different than anyone else’s. Then, another person might liken the same hat to a cowboy's hat. This may be proof that most any story is emotion based, which shows we see the world not as it is but as we believe it to be with our brains converting raw data into meaningful patterns whose meanings are determined by our personal experiences and information.
Still, this isn’t to say we reject that any new or alien information. We do accept new data, be it on a need-to-know basis. For example, with me and the man wearing the safari hat, I didn’t focus on his shoes or shirt all that much. I recall those in a blur. Yet, I know his facial gestures and the way he walked. This may be because the brain filters out the unnecessary information. After all, as a writer, if I put that man in a story, I can always make up the parts about what I fail to recall or what I remember in a blur.
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Half an hour ago I put in a phrase from Shakespeare in my "Tap the Muse" . Then, I thought a few phrases coined by the bard would make an interesting Sunday entry. So here they are:
A dish fit for the gods: An offering of high quality
This is from Julius Caesar, with Brutus talking. What he says is rather horrific. He says they should kill Caesar and make him bleed, but they should not dismember him, but leave him as a dish fit for the gods.
And in the spirit of men there is no blood.
Oh, that we then could come by Caesar’s spirit
And not dismember Caesar! But, alas,
Caesar must bleed for it. And, gentle friends,
Let’s kill him boldly but not wrathfully.
Let’s carve him as a dish fit for the gods,
Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds.
A foregone conclusion: A conclusion arrived at and a decision made before any real proof is presented
From Othello.
Othello:
But this denoted a foregone conclusion:
'Tis a shrewd doubt, though it be but a dream.
Here, Iago makes Othello believe that Cassio's alleged dreams (of Desdemona, which Iago knows) be the "foregone conclusion" of adultery. In Othello's mind, Cassio’s hypothetical dreaming becomes proof that Desdemona has betrayed him.
A sea change: a striking transformation or alteration, as in appearance, often for the better
From The Tempest, Ariel sang the following in a song to Ferdinand, describing the physical transformation what the sea had done to his father who had drowned.
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange
Even at the turning of the tide: a change from the earlier, steady flow of events
From Henry IV, describing Falstaff’s death in a metaphoric fashion.
Hostess:
Nay, sure, he's not in hell: he's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. A' made a finer end and went away an it had been any christom child; a' parted even just between twelve and one, even at the turning o' the tide…
christom  chrisom = the face-cloth, or piece of linen laid over a child's head when he or she was baptised or christened
Pound of Flesh: something that one is strictly or legally entitled to, but that it is ruthless or inhuman to demand.This phrase figuratively refers to any lawful but unreasonable payback.
From The Merchant of Venice.
Shylock:
The pound of flesh which I demand of him Is deerely bought, 'tis mine, and I will haue it.
haue = have
Here, Shylock insists on the payment of Antonio's flesh, although he'd rather have money as he is a money-lender. This becomes the central problem of the play, involving the conflict between justice and forgiveness.
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March 12, 2016 at 12:13pm March 12, 2016 at 12:13pm
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Prompt: Does a particular song or piece of music get you energized? Write about a time when the right song at the right moment helped you power through.
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I guess the right song at the right moment can help a person through; yet, I can’t remember any song in an adverse situation helping me, although I always find tranquility in listening to a few selected classical music pieces and encouragement in some songs. Then, vice versa, some songs pull me down, too.
I can understand how people, who go through hardships and relationship problems, can prefer sad music that reflects their negative mood. It is as if their grief becomes validated. On the other hand, joyful or relaxing music can provide some kind of a therapy.
If I am not mistaken, even a music therapy association is in existence. In medicine, music is used as well. I recall being asked what kind of music I preferred during a cat-scan, possibly because music has a way to calm the brain with soothing sounds to make the patients breathe easier and to slow down their heart rates while they are pushed inside a machine that may give them claustrophobia.
Although in general, I prefer Beethoven’s music, my favorite being the Moonlight Sonata, there are two songs I like that make me feel more cheerful. They are:
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Prompt: Some personalities are high energy all the time, others so low energy you wonder if they're awake. Where do you think you fall on that spectrum and why?
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Where do I fall? Since I am old, I may fall anywhere and everywhere, depending on many things. In general, as far as energy goes, I am somewhere in between.
I can’t be high energy as I have arthritis in one knee and in my toes. If some job requires standing up or pulling and pushing, then I do it, taking short breaks in between, usually doing work on the computer, checking my e-mail or something else like sewing. I am not low energy either. If I ever sat around doing nothing, I would die of boredom.
I am, therefore, always doing something. On the other hand, my least inactive time is at the end of the day when the sun is setting. Since some gorgeous FL sunsets are visible from the back of the house, in the early evenings, I sit there inside the covered porch with a book or Kindle or sometimes my camera, watching the sunset or reading. Sometimes, my husband comes out, too, and we sit there together. This is the quietest and the least active time for me unless something extraordinary comes up.
Yet, there is more to energy than how much we can move around, since all energy doesn’t always come from our nutrition or the way our bodies feel. Our emotions also contribute to our energy levels. Negative emotions can either push some people toward lethargy or encourage them to do devilish deeds. Positive emotions, on the other hand, help the body’s systems and support our general health in all areas. If I feel a negative emotion arising, I replace it with a positive thought. This replacement tool works for me all the time.
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