Tuesday, June 26, 2007
The Illustrious Maddy Gaiman
Ms. Maddy Gaiman, daughter of author Neil Gaiman, is guest hosting her father's journal/blog. She's simply delightful, articulate and all-out charming. There's no telling how long she'll be filling in, so I'm recommending that you bop on over and check out her world view before she turns the whole thing back over to her dad.
Labels: blog, journal, maddy gaiman, neil gaiman, writing
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Ooh, Goody! I've Been Tagged!
Kim, over at the Knit Whimsies blog, has tagged me. It's my first meme ever. The theme of the meme (how's that for a rhyme?) is to list 8 random things about me. Then I'm supposed to tag 8 more people. That last bit may be hard, but here goes with the
8 Random Things About Me . . .
1. I love birds, but free birds, not captive ones, so I won't ever own a bird as a pet.
2. I once gave myself an acupunture treatment - at the direction of a naturopath - to liven up the dead area around my C-section scar. It worked.
3. It is my greatest desire to be musical in some way and my goal is to eventually write a song.
4. When I was in middle school, I had a friend who was the oldest girl among three siblings. Her middle sibling was a boy and her youngest sibling was a girl. I thought that was the best arrangement for children because each was in a special place - oldest girl - middle only boy - youngest girl. I wished for that arrangement of children and I got it - only in the boy, girl, boy version.
5. I was taught not to talk back to anyone and, consequently, openly and verbally disagreeing with someone is something I have great trouble doing.
6. That whole free bird thing? That's the reason I like cats instead of dogs. I don't want to control animals and dogs won't listen to me anyway.
7. Almost every work day for lunch I eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Mostly because they travel well.
8. I've kept a daily calendar journal since 1996 and hope they will be useful when I go down in history. (Is "going down in history" a euphemism for dying? If so, eek! Not to worry. I'm not dying until I'm at least 97.)
As for that tagging part, I don't know too many people who read this blog who also have their own blogs, so I'm going to tag
Rianna - who can answer in the comments section.
I'm also tagging
Kevin at Copyrightings
and
Erich at Dangerous Intersection
although I can't be sure that they check in here. The two people I would tag, Kim and Joanne, have already been tagged, so it'd be kind of silly for me to tag them again.
I'm dreadful at tagging because I read a bunch of giganto blogs that don't take comments. Sheesh! I do enjoy the memes, though.
8 Random Things About Me . . .
1. I love birds, but free birds, not captive ones, so I won't ever own a bird as a pet.
2. I once gave myself an acupunture treatment - at the direction of a naturopath - to liven up the dead area around my C-section scar. It worked.
3. It is my greatest desire to be musical in some way and my goal is to eventually write a song.
4. When I was in middle school, I had a friend who was the oldest girl among three siblings. Her middle sibling was a boy and her youngest sibling was a girl. I thought that was the best arrangement for children because each was in a special place - oldest girl - middle only boy - youngest girl. I wished for that arrangement of children and I got it - only in the boy, girl, boy version.
5. I was taught not to talk back to anyone and, consequently, openly and verbally disagreeing with someone is something I have great trouble doing.
6. That whole free bird thing? That's the reason I like cats instead of dogs. I don't want to control animals and dogs won't listen to me anyway.
7. Almost every work day for lunch I eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Mostly because they travel well.
8. I've kept a daily calendar journal since 1996 and hope they will be useful when I go down in history. (Is "going down in history" a euphemism for dying? If so, eek! Not to worry. I'm not dying until I'm at least 97.)
As for that tagging part, I don't know too many people who read this blog who also have their own blogs, so I'm going to tag
Rianna - who can answer in the comments section.
I'm also tagging
Kevin at Copyrightings
and
Erich at Dangerous Intersection
although I can't be sure that they check in here. The two people I would tag, Kim and Joanne, have already been tagged, so it'd be kind of silly for me to tag them again.
I'm dreadful at tagging because I read a bunch of giganto blogs that don't take comments. Sheesh! I do enjoy the memes, though.
Labels: acupuncture, birds, blog, cats, copyrightings, dangerous intersection, family, journal, knit whimsies, meme, music, poppy seed heart, tagging
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Cycle
There is an archaeologist in Minnesota who has thoroughly studied the journals of explorer Zebulon Pike. Lt. Pike was sent to explore the headwaters of the Mississippi River in 1805-1806. While doing so, he kept a journal of his trip, making almost daily entries about the weather, the terrain, the people, and the animals of the territory, along with his travails. In analyzing Pike's journals, this archaeologist (his name is Douglas Birk) discovered something quite astonishing. Birk realized that the lengths of Pike's entries varied on a regular basis. After a bit of study, he found that Pike wrote more when the moon was full. Of course! Brilliant observation.
Here's what I've noticed about my own writing and the map of my mind. They, too, alter along a cycle, and while I couldn't call it a literal moon cycle, it is no stretch to say that they run on a figurative moon cycle. When some historian comes along and reads my daily journals and the print-outs of my blog, will he/she see this cycle?
Here's what I've noticed about my own writing and the map of my mind. They, too, alter along a cycle, and while I couldn't call it a literal moon cycle, it is no stretch to say that they run on a figurative moon cycle. When some historian comes along and reads my daily journals and the print-outs of my blog, will he/she see this cycle?
Labels: archaeologist, blog, doug birk, journal, minnesota, moon cycle, writing, zebulon pike
Monday, October 02, 2006
Writing Day
It's Monday and, as such, this is my typical set-aside writing day. This is when I have a large(r) block of time in which to work on short stories and essays. If you talk to most writers, they will say that they are always writing. 'Tis true for me. My writing brain never shuts off. There are story ideas everywhere, plus I'm constantly working out the plots and characters for stuff I've started. I take notes continually. I use cheapy ten-cent school notebooks to record my ideas. Right now, I'm working out of three of them. One is for Filter & Splice ideas, one is a catch-all notebook, and one is for a series of linked short stories I'm writing.
Because I typically have to wait until Mondays to flesh things out, sometimes it's hard to get in the groove of writing. To warm up, I have a journal I keep on my computer. Normally, I vomit out all the whiny stuff, or talk about what I'm currently writing. After a page or so, I'm ready to write. Today, I'm using my blog as my warm-up. When I write in my computer journal, I take a print-out of the current day's entry. Then, if my computer crashes (God forbid!), I have a hard copy. I'm tempted to print out my blog for the same reason.
One of the nice things about my computer journal is that I can see how long it's taken me to write a story because I tend to record when I start a story and when I finish it. The story I'm currently working on was started back in April. It's been a tough one to finish because over the summer my writing got interrupted by warm-weather activities. I'm trying to work my way back into the head of my main character. While I am the character's creator, the character is also distinct from me, so it's not that easy to tap into her psychology once I've let it go. That's the goal for today.
Because I typically have to wait until Mondays to flesh things out, sometimes it's hard to get in the groove of writing. To warm up, I have a journal I keep on my computer. Normally, I vomit out all the whiny stuff, or talk about what I'm currently writing. After a page or so, I'm ready to write. Today, I'm using my blog as my warm-up. When I write in my computer journal, I take a print-out of the current day's entry. Then, if my computer crashes (God forbid!), I have a hard copy. I'm tempted to print out my blog for the same reason.
One of the nice things about my computer journal is that I can see how long it's taken me to write a story because I tend to record when I start a story and when I finish it. The story I'm currently working on was started back in April. It's been a tough one to finish because over the summer my writing got interrupted by warm-weather activities. I'm trying to work my way back into the head of my main character. While I am the character's creator, the character is also distinct from me, so it's not that easy to tap into her psychology once I've let it go. That's the goal for today.
Labels: blog, journal, story, summer, writing
