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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.
August 31, 2015 at 2:05pm August 31, 2015 at 2:05pm
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Prompt: How much do you think the life-stories of parents affect their children? To what degree has the story of your parents affected you, if it has?
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To start with, the genetic blueprint is passed from parents to children; however, these genes can be turned on and off by the environment and experiences. There is even a newly coined science for this: Epigenetics.
Epigenetics is the study of how individual genes can be activated or deactivated by life experiences. Without going too deeply into scientific detail, epigenetics claims that people who are abused as young children are more likely to have genetic changes that make coping with stress more difficult. Epigenetics also claims that we’re not completely at the mercy of our genes, but are better affected by our health and lifestyle decisions and habits.
In the same vein, I am finding that I have all my grandmother’s familiar diseases, but their effect on me is much milder than it used to be on her. This might have something to do with what the epigenetics claims as well as the progress of medicine.
I think, scientific data or not, emotional factors play a much more important role where the parents’ effects on children are concerned. A child is like a sponge and his parents’ stresses can affect a child’s makeup, such as mood disorders, addiction, and even learning problems. Children of divorce and children whose parents experience serious relationship problems may suffer greatly with guilt and their own relationship problems later in life. On the other hand, children who are accepted for who they are and experience a blissful family life end up becoming happy individuals.
My parents were very much in love, but they couldn’t possibly get along, and their relationship ended in separation. Although I blamed all of us, even though I was six when they separated, I was very careful in my later life not to repeat my mother’s mistakes as she was the parent who raised me. In fact, most people who know my family comment on how different I am from her, personality-wise, yet does that mean that I am totally different from her? Not at all, but when I feel an acerbic reply or misunderstanding rising up from within me, I restrain myself and somehow manage to come up with a positive attitude. To say the least, this was very difficult to achieve during the earlier years, but it became a habit eventually. Also, my upbringing was overly strict. In contrast, I acted on the slightly lax side with my children. In my case, I acted or tried to act unlike my parents, mostly the one parent who raised me, but I hope I managed to keep her good sides, too, at least to some degree.
So yes, parents, their life stories and who they are, do have a say on their children’s ways, and whether we accept or reject our parents, we always carry them inside us in some way.
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August 29, 2015 at 6:31pm August 29, 2015 at 6:31pm
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Prompt: We often make the mistake that we have to be "in the right mood to write". Do you simply sit down and write? Or do you procrastinate until you are in the right mood? Do you need to have a topic when you start writing or do you let your mind take you wherever?
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Yes, I sit down and write, but not everything or anything, even if it is a must and it has a deadline. By that I mean, let’s say there’s an unfinished story that needs to be finished. If I force myself, I’ll write it, but that specific assignment will either end up going to dogs or I’ll just not write it. Case in point, I have a half-finished novel, whose storyline I sort of have designed many years ago, which means I know where the plot will go. Yet, when I sit down to it, I feel like gagging. After that novel, I finished a few other novels, but that one just festers. That is why my advice usually is to finish the novel without any regard to editing or fine points.
On the other hand, when I sit down to write, free-flowing or writing anything that comes to me--a poem, an article, or even a list or a story outline--is the way to go. I love to write and can write just about any time, as long as it is whatever strikes my fancy at the moment, and also, I can write for hours and enjoy myself immensely.
The topic? That, too, depends. Sometimes, I only write whatever. At other times, with eyes closed, picking three random words from different pages of a book--any book, but a dictionary is the best--is the right inspiration for my writing. I have a few notebooks filled with this type of exercises. I also write from photos, mostly from a folder in my computer that is titled Photos to Write From, into which I add photos that evoke some kind of a sentiment at first sight. In addition, I take a sentence from any place and continue writing from it. Afterwards, I erase the borrowed sentence, for interesting effects. The few prompts books in my possession are rarely referred to, although reading them is enjoyable.
I write in my laptop or with pen into a notebook; either will do. Typing at the computer is my preferred method, but the screen has a way of bothering my eyes if I stare at it too long. When nothing is available to write with, while in a car or wherever, I look for story ideas and watch people in action. Although those things are almost always forgotten, possibly some part of what I write later is influenced by such observations.
Although the writing process is my favorite thing ever, I am not that good or I'm rather easily bored with editing and revising, which up-and-coming writers do need to pay attention to. I am not a good one to follow with this.
All writers have their own styles of approaching writing, and every one of those styles are perfectly all right as long as they work for the writers. Each one of us is a different person and there is no correct way or set rule to writing.
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August 28, 2015 at 5:26pm August 28, 2015 at 5:26pm
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Prompt: Curious, situation... Do you become partially responsible once you definitively know of wrongdoing?
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This depends on whose wrongdoing and under which conditions. I know lots of wrongdoing is going on in North Korea. Am I responsible for all that? To say that I do would be having a big head, wouldn’t it?
Am I responsible for the wrongdoing in the whole world? Definitely not. Is it my responsibility to talk or write that such a wrongdoing exists? Yes, but only as long as my actions do not hurt my country, my family, and my friends.
On the other hand, if my neighbor is abusing his child or wife, I have a responsibility to alert the law. If I know a dear member of my family is involved in a crime, should I just shrug it off? Definitely not. Dear family member or not, responsibility is responsibility.
Also, I don’t believe in partial responsibility. Accidental responsibility is possible, however. If I slip and fall against another person and he gets hurt, that may be considered an accidental responsibility due to my carelessness.
In addition, there are other delicate points to consider. One of them is: my understanding of what wrongdoing is versus the other side’s understanding. As such, there are fine lines that are difficult to cross. Shall I tell my friend his spouse is fooling around? Just think of the possibilities here. I guess, I would face the spouse and tell her to shape up first. In the same vein, do I have the right to scold my neighbor’s child when his mischief doesn’t concern my welfare? I don’t think so, but I do have the option to alert the child’s parents.
I don't think "to each his own" or "mind your own business" is the right way always. On the other hand, feeling responsible for everything going on in the universe is like acting as the emperor of the universe. In short, it is up to each person to find the happy medium concerning the responsibility with each situation.
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August 25, 2015 at 10:39pm August 25, 2015 at 10:39pm
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Prompt: Better to be hurt with the truth then a lie. Do you agree?
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Absolutely. Truth, as we know it, is always the better road to take. What we believe as the truth may not always be 100% true, as any truth is never simple; still it is what we know to be true. Besides, lies usually beget other lies, and eventually it becomes difficult to remember them.
Truth may hurt, but who wants to look foolish by believing in the lies? Eventually, the lies we once believed in will end up hurting us anyway. Truth may hurt especially when we know the truth but hide it with a lie, as this lie festers like an internal tumor gone bad. Truth may also hurt when we fool ourselves by knowingly denying the truth and acting on lies only because those lies are easier on us. A lie may soothe temporarily, but in the long run, truth will win out, and the person who was lied to will feel as if he wasn’t worth the truth.
Yes, truth may hurt but it will also offer us freedom, because truth works better than anything. Even in writing, when we are telling the truth, even if our writing is not up to par, its context will be better accepted. By mentioning truth in writing, I am not putting down fiction at all; on the contrary, fiction can tell the truth with emphasis, while an article that sounds real may be a lie or a half-truth.
Some people “cannot handle the truth”--like the part of a famous movie quote--because truth is real, and it matters. It takes a strong person to face and acknowledge the truth.
Yet, if the truth is so bad that the power of it will hurt another person’s health, we have to be careful with the delivery of it, as that delivery has to be strategically planned and worded with utmost care. Even in such a situation, a lie is not an option, for when the lie is discovered, the intent behind it will be questioned and the person who told that soothing lie will not be believed again.
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August 25, 2015 at 6:30pm August 25, 2015 at 6:30pm
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August 25, 2015
My Reading
Prompt: “A person can write the most beautiful, lyrical sentences (as James Patterson will be the first to tell you, he does not), but if the story doesn’t grab a reader by the throat, and—having grabbed on—hold her there, none of the rest may matter all that much.” Joyce Maynard in her article on Patterson --- in Observer
What kind of stories capture your imagination so you may keep on reading?
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Just about everything captures my imagination. I used to think that I only preferred realistic stories and literary works. Lately, however, I have been surprising myself with my choices. I used to think that --although I had enjoyed the stories like The Handmaid’s Tale and A Wrinkle in Time— for me, Sci-Fi and Fantasy were secondary choices.
Now I find myself enjoying well-written stories of werewolves, witches, and other imaginary stuff, just as much as the literary. For example, because the entire Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon was $1.99 in Amazon, I purchased it out of curiosity. I am reading the third book now and appreciating the way this writer writes. Luckily, I didn’t watch the series on TV, so now I can enjoy and admire the beautiful words, the author’s imagination, and her dedication to keeping the historical facts as facts. Thus, in her stories I have found a great respect for magical realism.
Yet, it is not the genre that captures me and makes me keep on reading. It is the quality of the writing, story construction, and the usage of language, and by that I don’t mean “the most beautiful, lyrical sentences” that clog the storyline. The use of such language is fine when it doesn't cut into the storytelling and pull the reader's attention to a different direction. In this, I agree with Joyce Maynard and James Patterson.
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August 24, 2015
What Lies Within
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
What do you think Emerson means and what do you take from the above quote?
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First, let me point out to one fact, which Emerson didn’t say. In his words, “what lies within us” points to the essence inside us, who we really are; it doesn’t point, in a roundabout way, to the lies within us. Surely, most of us carry lies within us. Lies that others, at one time or another, made us believe are the essence of us. Lies like, “you are as bad as your other parent” or “you can’t hold office; you’re a woman.” To clarify what lies within us, those lies have to be deleted first.
What lies within us is much more important than our experiences in the past or those to come in the future. What lies within is self-generated and needs to be viewed clearly, while what lies behind or before us has to do with the outside of us.
Who we are decides what inspires us or what scares us or what makes us spring to action. Who we are recognizes what will turn our potential energy into a kinetic flow. Who we are gives us permission to act on specific cues or to bring the work we do to its completion or not.
In other words, the source we seek is in us, and once we hold on to that fact, we can move forward with confidence. If we are writing or creating anything, for example, if we can shut out the past and the future and concentrate in what’s in us, explore it, mold it, play with it, the result will be satisfactory if not spectacular.
In short, the gravitational pull of the past and the wishful thinking of the future is meaningless in comparison to the power hidden or acknowledged within us today and always.
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August 21, 2015 at 12:22pm August 21, 2015 at 12:22pm
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Write about anything or everything that crosses your mind. This is a free-form exercise, you cannot go wrong. Be petty, critical, whining, excited, worried, adventurous, or happy. Be whatever or however you are at this moment.
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Somehow, my nights have become more eventful. Despite the blood thinner I take religiously, I woke up again after midnight with a pain in my right leg and a sore spot on top of my right foot. This happens when I am horizontal rather than vertical, due to poor circulation. I hobbled around the bedroom a bit to ease it up, then rubbed the sore spot with arnica gel and put on thick socks and the bottom of my thickest sweat suit. By this time, the pain was only a discomfort. When I woke up, I was perfectly fine.
Then, early at pre-dawn, when I went to the bathroom, I let out a shriek as soon as I flipped up the light switch. The way a salamander, a rather hefty one, zipped in front of me had startled me, but my shriek was even more startling to the hubby. I immediately said, “Go back to sleep. It’s only a salamander.” He began complaining. “How did it get in? We have no holes in the house. Blah, blah, blah…” I didn’t answer, and soon enough he fell back to sleep. Now, I am worrying about the welfare of the salamander. It’ll die somewhere in the house. Salamanders are not for the inside of dwellings. I like salamanders just fine. Quite a few of them reside in our enclosed porch and do a great job of cleaning out the place from tiny insects that squeeze through the mesh.
When I went back to bed again, the excitement of the night brought to my mind this old handyman who once took out a tree stump from the backyard. He is a good worker, but he started paying unwanted attention to me, or rather to my writing, so we didn’t call him again. The thing was he had remarked that women took any excuse even writing to not face life. Grrr!
Yesterday, I saw him painting the neighbor’s house, the side of it that looks toward our house. The guy waved at me. I didn’t wave back, but out of courtesy, I flickered a smile. I don’t want that beetlehead in my hair, handing out his putrid advice.
No beetlehead can make me stop writing or do anything else that I like to do. I shall defend the honor of my likes, if not with a sword, but with my fists like a boxer who claims the rink for herself, as this is my rink and my life. Anyone who dares to step on it with a scorn will be knocked out in a bout with both my left and right fists on him and I will be glad to turn him into mush.
I am laughing right now at my own writing. Who’d think that inside me I had gotten so angry at this poor guy! What really happened was he was talking to us about this or that, and he told us it would be a good idea to have a few hobbies as in old age people get bored doing nothing and wither. He probably was directing his advice to my husband, come to think of it. Hubby said something like, “My wife has a lot of those. She writes mostly.” Then the guy gave me that stinking piece of advice. The way I looked at the guy then even made my hubby tremble with fear, which is what my husband said, and he said he’d never call him again.
Truth is, I’d call him again. He’s just a worker and a good one at that. I don’t mind what anyone says. All my life I heard such stuff, even from the grownups when I was a child. “Do something that’s important.” Writing isn’t important? My foot!
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About ten plus minutes of writing from my not too exciting life, this is. Hehehe!
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August 19, 2015 at 11:01pm August 19, 2015 at 11:01pm
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Prompt: "When love is given, love should be returned, anger gives no life." Hawaiian Proverbs Do you agree?
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I don’t agree with the “love should be returned” part. Love is not a duty. If love is given, it is a gift. That’s that. There are no shoulds to it. You don’t have to return anything back. It is ridiculous to expect someone you love to love you back. True love has no conditions put on it. Obviously, love is not well understood in Hawaii or not understood like the way I understand it, even if I am neither an expert nor a proclaimed success on the subject.
Besides, this type of an expectation is a dangerous concept, as it leads to becoming an obsession and ends up in stalking and bothering the loved one. Would a true lover want to bother or scare the one he or she loves? I think not.
As to “anger gives no life,”---if I understand it correctly from this quite bad translation which doesn’t pay attention to the implied meaning—the feeling of anger is an emotion and emotions cannot be helped to be felt, but how we act on our feelings, especially where anger is concerned, is the key here. Acting rashly and impulsively with anger ruins a person’s health and possibly his life, not to mention that the acts he may commit may put him behind bars or worse.
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August 19, 2015 at 12:37pm August 19, 2015 at 12:37pm
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Prompt: To a dog, you're family. To a cat, you're staff. {I have a kitty I love dearly!} Do you agree?
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I had both dogs and cats. To all of them I was family. If anything, cats considered me more of a family, but to the dogs, everyone was family, once they got warmed up to the people. This makes me think that dogs are promiscuous while cats are faithful. The only cat that doesn’t consider the people in the house as family is probably a Siamese, but not all the time either. A Siamese usually gets attached to one person the most; the others, he only tolerates. I know this from my son's Siamese who is now in cat heaven.
Dogs also need more attention time than cats. If they don’t get it, they’ll make sure, one way or another, that you play with them. A cat, on the other hand, if you don’t play with him, is happy to be snoozing near you or on your lap.
I guess this might relate to the way dogs and cats drink water. A dog uses his entire tongue to lap the drink while a cat uses only the tip of his tongue.
Some trainers claim that dogs are trained more quickly than cats. My experience negates that. If you have a cat who really loves you, he’ll do exactly what you want him to do, while a dog will act like he didn’t hear you. My favorite dog was a New Foundland mix, and as nice as he was, he had a mind of his own, whereas my cats were more adaptable to new conditions.
One thing I like about dogs is that they don’t climb on top of things in the house. They are floor bound, except maybe they’d sit on the sofa or the armchairs. The cats, on the contrary, they are all over the place, knocking things off high places; although, I once had a tabby who learned to stay on the ground level or, at most, on my lap.
Having said all this, do I prefer cats to dogs or vice versa? No way! Each species has its pluses and minuses, and when all is said and done, they both are the best companions one can ever get.
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August 18, 2015 at 1:32pm August 18, 2015 at 1:32pm
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Prompt: How do you begin each day? What is the best way for anyone to begin each day? View this from any angle that you wish.
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Although it is not always possible, I try to begin it by reading a joke or laughing at something with the hope that the mood will carry through the day. If I am in a hurry, I look at the mirror in the morning where, in one corner, I put a note that says: Mirrors don’t lie. I just hope they don’t laugh. This humor thing is aside from or some time during the washing up and all those physical things we do to our bodies.
Afterwards, I get breakfast ready while I listen from earphones to some music I like in one of my tiny music players that fit in a shirt pocket. After breakfast, I do what needs to be done around the house and then tackle my laptop.
I don’t know what is the best way to begin each day for everyone, since each person is different and responds to different stimuli. For me, it is humor and music to get me through the day the best way possible. For someone else, it could be gymnastics, talking on the phone, visiting his or her garden etc. We are all so different and that difference is the most wonderful thing as it makes us the human family that we are in total.
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August 17, 2015 at 12:36pm August 17, 2015 at 12:36pm
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Prompt: “Vulgarity is no substitute for wit.” Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey
How do you think vulgarity and wit affect speech?
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Some vulgar stuff delivered by a competent stand-up comic can be witty; however, the same idea can be presented without being vulgar, which means that the comedian has to work harder and think deeper. It is easier to make people laugh by shocking them.
I think what is considered vulgar and what is not changes from time to time and from culture to culture. For example, a deeply religious person may believe that uttering the Lord’s name in vain to be vulgar and is very much offended by it. For another person, asking him or her personal questions may sound vulgar. Then, yet another person concentrates on specific words as being vulgar. Like beauty, therefore, vulgarity can also be in the eyes of the beholder.
Wit, on the other hand, is universal as intelligent humor. No wonder that in its archaic form, wit means to know or come to know, in other words to learn; with that in mind, who among us doesn’t appreciate knowledge? To show wit, a person has to understand a subject or a situation in its totality.
We consider Mark Twain’s wit to be universal and timeless because he knows and understands human nature very well. He also pays attention to the usage as far as words go, and I certainly agree with him when he says: ““The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”
Then, in speech or writing, depending upon what is considered vulgar and what is not, why not use the right word, instead of using the shocking effect even if the shocking effect may have its significance in rare situations?
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August 15, 2015 at 4:52pm August 15, 2015 at 4:52pm
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August 15
New Skills
Prompt: What is the hardest part about learning a new skill? Do you enjoy a challenge or do you like things to come easily?
The hardest part about learning a new skill is the pre-learning part for me, the deciding of it. Once I set my mind to it, I usually find a way to do it soon enough. As Tolkien says, in the Lord of the Rings, “It's a dangerous business… going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
Exactly. Once I get over my initial fear and my mind sets its wheels working on it, I find ways to learn most anything. Fast or well, I cannot vouch for it, but I always find a way, and my favorite way of learning is on my own. Teachers and the regular way of teaching take too long, although I can appreciate their dedication and inclusion of material, of whose existence a solo learner may not be aware of. On the other hand, if I know what the material is and if I can watch its demonstration (say in handcrafts and such), I’m better off going at it on my own.
I guess this means I like a challenge and do not like things given to me in pill form to be swallowed without questions. This is probably why I value the Montessori method of teaching young people.
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August 14
Desks
Prompt: What gift in your life has brought you immense joy and made you feel like telling everyone how lucky you are to have it? Do you have desk of your own? Where do you write if you do not have a desk of your own?
When someone trusts me with something, be it a secret or a delicate job or the overseeing of a work I feel I’m capable of doing, I find that to be the best gift for me. In addition, the very best material gift I ever received was a signed book by my uncle, dedicating the book to me.
As to desks, I always had a desk. I received my first desk, in diminutive form when I was four years old, since I had learned how to read on my own by then. When I was a bit older, there was a large desk for everyone in the house. Since I am selfish when it comes to sharing desk-space and I valued my privacy, I asked someone who was throwing away an old table to give it to me. That table became my own desk for many years. I added a small night table with a couple of drawers to its one side and a table-top book shelf to its side top. When my uncle built a large stand-alone book-shelf, I placed it near my personally designed desk, and I was good to go. When my mother wanted to buy me a “better-looking” book-shelf and desk, I refused her gift. Instead, I asked for a charge card to buy books with. This book shelf and combination desk served me well until I married my husband.
Later on, after I was married, hubby caught on to my desk idea and ordered a fancy desk imported from Scandinavia. This was during the mid-sixties and we still have that desk with our first-son’s pencil tip etchings on it as it was made up of soft teak wood. We used to joke that he was establishing his territory like wild animals peeing around a perimeter of savage land.
Today, in addition to hubby’s pencil-etched fancy desk, I have three desks in the house. On the simplest one, stands my sewing machine. On a better one, in the third bedroom, which is “in name” my study, stands a couple of old laptops and a few books, but I never use that desk because hubby wants me nearby. So in our large living space off the kitchen, we both established, about fifteen years ago, our second work corners. This way we work, eat, watch TV, and live together in the same cluttered room.
In that room, my corner has a desk for my laptop and book shelves on the side with a cluttered-wall of family photos and whatever I wish to put up there. Several months ago, I came up with the wild idea of writing while standing up and bought a stand that fits neatly to one corner of the desk. Now the desk has a desk-top book-shelf in addition to the laptop stand and other book shelves on the wall, and it is also serving as another storage place for my wildly penned post-its and pieces of paper and note-books.
Do I have a desk? I guess I do, but same as from the time I was in grade school, I adapt everything to my way of doing things.
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August 13, 2015 at 5:09pm August 13, 2015 at 5:09pm
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Prompt: "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." Eleanor Roosevelt Do you agree?
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I have all the respect for Eleanor Roosevelt, but this is one of her spontaneous, offhand sayings. We cannot limit future only to people whose heads are in the clouds. Future belongs to everyone who is destined to live in it, in one way or another.
The activity of dreaming is just it. It is an activity, a wishing activity, and I am not going to mistake activity with achievement. From my point of view, the more desirable part of future, belongs to those in the present who work very hard in a smart way. I am especially partial to those who seek perfection in things they themselves do, even if perfection isn’t always possible and who they are and what they do are perfectly imperfect.
Dreams are fine. It is actually very pleasant to dream big beautiful dreams about the future, but if a person doesn’t have the means, luck, and fortitude to apply himself toward the outcome of that dream, he can dream all he wants. Not much will change in his future unless, like a lightning hit, an unexpected boon drops on him, as if the ‘deux ex machina’ of his life story. The odds of that windfall are iffy, and I can’t even say trillion to one, since I am not too familiar in counting in trillions.
Then, what’s wrong in enjoying life as it is today and taking things as they come and working hard in an intelligent, altruistic fashion in the present? Mother Teresa said, “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.” The way I see it, I'd rather go with Mother Teresa's words anytime.
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August 11, 2015 at 2:14pm August 11, 2015 at 2:14pm
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Prompt: Several creative people, such as artists and authors, claim that relaxing and ‘doing nothing’ can be extremely beneficial for the creative process to follow. Do you believe this could work, I mean doing absolutely nothing? Has this been true for you, if ever?
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A few decades ago, I tried to do the mind-emptying meditation. It is the most difficult thing I have ever attempted. No matter how I try, I can only accomplish it only for a few seconds. Granted, if done well, this might be a soothing practice; however, to me, it showed that “doing nothing” is a myth.
On the other hand, doing something else other than the work at hand may have its benefits as it pulls the mind in a different direction, relaxes the person, and thus, opens him up to new ideas. When we are relatively inactive, that is watching or reading something or taking a walk, gardening, talking to friends, or engaging in a different hobby, we usually pay attention to our surroundings and to our own experience at hand. Doing something else that is pleasant and thinking over different things enable us to solve problems and come up with new ideas.
Doing anything without the pressure of achievement can be highly beneficial, since our potential of creativity may be blocked by that pressure and the pressure of our busy minds and lives. When we are in the relaxing mode, surprising ideas --either in pieces or in a framework and possibly from the deepest parts of our being-- may come to us suddenly on the things we need to achieve. Artists from all areas of life can attest to that.
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August 10, 2015 at 7:39pm August 10, 2015 at 7:39pm
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Prompt: Debating
“In a battle of believability, the winner is the one with the best body language, not the clearest logic.” ― Jarod Kintz, This Book is Not FOR SALE
Do you think it is an acceptable practice to stretch truths or use effective body language in order to win debates?
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No, I don’t think so. although stretching truths and using excessive body language in order to win seems to be the political norm these days; this type of a practice, however, cannot be called a debate. It has to be called a low-grade reality show specially designed along cheap brain-washing goals that look down on the audience as an idiotic herd of sheep.
In a true debate, the topic is clearly defined and no personal attacks on any of the debaters by the organizers or by the other debaters are allowed, as the topic or the issue at hand carries the utmost importance. If a debater has a personal flaw, the audience will catch on to it from the words said. There is no need to highlight anyone’s flaws or make the debate an unsavory experience for the audience.
The debate organizers should not force a win or channel the flow of the debate toward the way they want it to go, as this is not a very respectable practice either. Reason dictates that the debaters are expected by the audience to support their contentions and opinions with well-known, well-studied facts. Personal or rhetorical questions have no place in a good debate. Even in informal debating, clarity and civility need to be observed by the debaters. Rebuttals and counterarguments can always be presented in a civilized fashion.
Passionate speech and using body language while presenting an argument is fine, but even passionate words have to be truthful and the body language respectful of everyone concerned. In addition, the debaters, in a timed debate, must be careful not to run overtime in order not to be cut off. In short, discipline and civility is the main requirement for the organizers and debaters alike.
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Constance Hale says "We are born with a natural delight in the music of language. Language is an adventure, a mysterious one. "
However, Ezra Pound says, "A writer must spend as much time developing our craft as a musician does practicing scales. It does not come naturally, it is a learned craft similar to musicians, sports players or dancers."
Do you agree or disagree with Constance Hale? Do you agree or disagree with Ezra Pound?
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I agree with both. Any accomplished poet feels the music in language and how it affects each poem. Although, we all can hear music and like it, for deeper appreciation of it, some musical training is needed.
Writing is a craft, and it can be learned by everyone, but I think talent and creativity is more or less inborn. Creativity, I guess, has more to do with different parts of the brain processes working together in special ways. Talent and creativity turn the writing craft into art.
With the learned craft, anyone’s writing can be pleasant enough, flowing, clear, and readable. When art is united with the writer’s craft, it is then that we are awed by his or her work. The art in writing is what gives the author’s work its literary edge.
There are many different styles of craft that writers employ, just as there are many different ways to build anything. Some things can even be built by machines and they are just as usable as the ones built by the artists of any craft, but finding delight and appreciating any one piece, for the art of it, requires the special personal touch of the craftsman-artist.
Artistic license lets writers to tell their stories or express themselves in the special ways they want to do it. Yet, with craft alone, their works feel like they came out of a factory line. Still, it is a very good idea for anyone to learn the craft first, so their work can at least be readable; after that, when they add their art and creativity to their craft, the result can be awe-inspiring.
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August 6, 2015 at 12:02am August 6, 2015 at 12:02am
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Prompt: An author is only as good as their last novel. Do you agree?
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Well, not exactly, but commercially speaking, yes. The last novel’s popularity usually affects the next novel’s sales.
Artistically speaking, however, I would go with an author being as good as their best work. Not every major author is a natural, but each begins with a storehouse of material and memories that often temper over time. Authors have their own different natures and peaking times depending on their talents, education, and aspirations. Some are ambitious, while others lack the energy and dynamism to go after what is good for their art, or they are too dependent on the critics’ opinions. Critics’ words so unnerve them that some authors never talk about their work in progress.
Although, statistically, a good number of the authors in USA come up with their best work in their younger years, some write it much later in life, due to several causes, one of them being that they started off in other vocations and later took up writing, and therefore, evolving as an author took its time.
Even if authors may continue writing on after producing their best work, I would think they should be judged on what came out as the most literary from their pens. Yet, who is to say which work is better than another or which one is literary and which one is not? Each critic or reader has his/her own views on the subject. Even the popularity of a novel at its own time doesn’t guarantee its survival through the centuries.
When all is said and done, I think each generation has its own superior, good, or good-enough authors, but the longevity and the quality of any work is usually decided by the following generations and centuries.
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August 5, 2015 at 12:07pm August 5, 2015 at 12:07pm
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Prompt: "There are three women-girls really gathered around a fountain that plays its happy tune. It's their laughter I hear. One has a harp in her lap and the other a quill. But they're laughing at the wiggling puppy the third holds in her arms."
Nora Roberts, The Key Of Light
--What image comes to mind? What is this about? Write a poem or anything you want about this.
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Today Google is celebrating the 101st anniversary of the first electric traffic signal system. Now, what does this have to do with this prompt, you might ask. The traffic signal shines in three different colors one after the others: yellow, red, green.
This prompt, too, has succumbed to the power of three. Syncronicity, I’d say.
The power of three in writing is made to advocate that things and ideas in threes are more effective than other numbers of stuff. This has to do with the Latin saying, omne trium perfectum meaning that everything that comes in threes is perfect. Just think of slogans in threes: Liberté, égalité, fraternité; stop, look, listen; eat, pray, love; love, honor, obey {Grrrr! at the last one here).
Since we didn’t progress beyond the number three, this means, to me, we made little headway since Roman times where our mental processes are concerned.
Considering our mental processes with the stress on mental, nothing’s wrong with the prompt as it has applied what is tried and true to bend our thinking the author’s way, but I had to note this, as this is the way my wayward mind works. (Note the three “way”s I used in the last sentence. I guess I, too, can play the same game.)
As to the quote, my deduction is: The quote is luring the reader to opt for "the wiggling puppy" rather than music and writing. My question is, what if I prefer kittens or birds or animals in the wild, or better yet, many other things first? Frankly, I’d prefer music and writing first, then the animals. Of course, animals do have a way of wriggling into our hearts once they tame us, and I am the first one to say that, at several times in my life, I was head over heels with a few tabbies, a gray beauty, an Irish Setter, and a New Foundland.
Still, if it isn’t any specific animal, I’d go for writing and music first. Sorry, Nora Roberts, I am not taking your bait on the hook of three. 
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Prompt: “A writer is someone who has taught his mind to misbehave.”
Oscar Wilde
How can a writer’s mind misbehave with positive results? What about yours?
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Fact is, I never taught my mind to misbehave. Since birth, it has been misbehaving on its own. Had my mother been alive, she’d tell you how she hated my questioning everything, especially when we had company. Oh, the joke of it! I think the entire hullabaloo started because, at times, my questions were taken as insults. Still, I never backed down. It wasn’t my fault if people were overly sensitive just about everything.
I so love my mind’s misbehaving. If writers never let their brains misbehave, would we have sci-fi, fantasy, and all those other genres? Would we ever have farce? Farce may not be a genre, but I love it. It is exaggeration to the nth degree. When a writer’s mind misbehaves and breaks all the rules and expectations, he feels a great compensating delight, for he rejoices in his ability to fly outside the bounds of the commonplace to explore and record what has never been thought of before.
Other than creativity, the misbehaving mind has another asset; it isn’t embarrassed by anything. Any weird stuff pops up inside it--through daydreaming or by conjecture--some that is considered by most as heresy. Luckily, misbehaving minds also let logic slip in, which stops any off joke or thought from sliding out; although, at one time or another, my mind might have bypassed its logic and made me blurt out its misbehavings, making rigid or solemn people question my rationality.
It is an interesting concept, this rationality. Should we let it command over our minds, and if so, how much of that command can we allow? Rationality rarely, if ever, can erase guilt, regret, bad memories, and apprehension of horrid experience in the future. Even a tune that finds its way and plays over and over inside our minds is difficult to get rid of. Such misbehavior of the mind is like a live worm in sushi. They are hard to kill. Heaven forbid if one got into our guts.
Yet, a good writer will make use of his naughty mind's obsessing over anything, even a song. In fact, he may end up relishing its incessant jumping all over the place through its obsessions. The seduction of a mind that hops from place to place while picking gems along the way can be irresistible. This, the saner people may consider craziness, but a good writer uses it to his advantage, as he takes comfort in his streaming thoughts, and when he can, he puts those on paper, calling them free-flow.
And you know what? I love free-flow. It is second nature to me, although I can’t let every free-flow piece I’ve committed on paper jump online. If I did, I’d get in big trouble.
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Prompt: “Hidden in his magic cloak, Siegfried left by the gate that opened on to the shore. There he found a bark, and boarding it unseen, sculled it swiftly away as though the wind were blowing it.” From Nibelungenlied, How Siegfried sailed to fetch his vassals
What would your magic cloak or anything magical as a helper be, and what could you accomplish with it? Take it anyway you wish.
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Magicians probably study human behavior, expressly how people act and respond, to come up with their magic tricks. Yet, can tricking people be considered as real magic? I guess not. Real magic lies in everyday things, such as the way nature shows us its magic when the sun rises, a bud opens on a stem, waves lick the sand leaving their foam behind, and the sunsets paint the skies with different color combinations each evening.
The true magic for me lies in the belief of the thing. I don’t know how this magic exactly works. Is it because we believe in the idea that our mind makes us perform the magic to make that thing appear or is it because some higher form or being takes pity on us, for reasons known only to it/her/him, and brings forth the occurrence we wish?
If I had some kind of a real force as if magic in this world--call it a magic cloak, magic clock, magic cap or anything you wish—the very first thing I would want to do would be to end all wars on our planet. When you look at history, really look at it, you find that any one war started with a cause, good or bad, multiplied and became complicated enough to cause a string of other wars with its repercussions continuing decade after decade and century after century. I believe nothing hurts mankind as much as this bottomless pit of the warring urge.
Unfortunately, I don’t have that magical prop to help us all.
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