Good advice for *most* of us

Happy 200th Birthday, Charlie!

source

Today marks Charles Dickens' 200th birthday, and the world is celebrating! Really. Check out Dickens 2012 to see the extent of it all. The man gave the world unforgettable literary characters that speak to the human condition-- greedy characters, vulnerable characters, resilient characters --that us real people see in own world... in ourselves.

I've written about Mr. Dickens on this blog before, mostly to gush about how much I love his works and to admit how many I have yet to read. So, for 2012, I am committed to putting a dent in his man's prolific collection. Anyone have suggestions where to start? Which is your Dickensian favorite?

The Elephant House in Edinburgh

Today is a writing day. I have writing to do for work, and writing to do for my own project... and writing for this blog. So, I figure by this evening I will have logged quite a few hours at my desk, staring at my laptop and tapping away at the keys. I do most of this work in my own home. I like being able to wander around in between thoughts- get snacks, kiss on one of my kitties- but there is something really beneficial to writing in public spaces-- sometimes. 

The thing is, you have to find the right place. And I just ... haven't. Not a place that I like enough to return to day after day (or at least a couple of times weekly).  Each time I attempt to work in public, I usually find something to gripe about. Maybe I'm not looking for the right things. My criteria are as follows:

-plenty of natural light

-decent table top/ work space 

-good coffee/ tea/ food stuff

-busy enough to feel lively, but not so busy where I feel I shouldn't take up a table too long

-no more than the average amount of babies/toddlers (I think I sat in the middle of a mom's club once!)

-easy to get to from home

** extra bonus if I feel safe enough to go to the restroom without packing everything up and taking it with me**

Sounds good, right? And not too difficult to find, but alas, my search continues. I would love to join the ranks of writers that have penned their opus in some charming cafe, while sipping on tea or lattes and letting the hum of the world around them penetrate their words. I want to find a cafe like the ones listed here.   

Of course, this discussion leads me to remember a wonderful experience I had a a lovely cafe in Edinburgh. Being the huge Harry Potter fanatic that I am, there were two coffee shops I had to visit during my visit to Scotland's capital- both claiming to be spots where Ms. Rowling wrote the first book of her fantastical series. One was The Elephant House (The other might get a post of its own on Dreams & Happy Things as well, but The Elephant House definitely gets to be posted first:)

It is a cafe that serves all the normal array of hot drinks and baked goodies, but also offers hearty soups and savory pies (with lots of vegetarian options!). I remember walking through the cheery red entryway and being greeted with smells of deliciousness! I placed my order at the counter and then wandered around to get a sense of the place.

The Elephant House is decked out with, appropriately enough, elephants. Trinkets, paintings and sculptures of the mighty beast adorn the walls. My favorite was the cork board of patron sketches, though. There were elephants of all shapes and sizes drawn by folks with all levels of artistic talent and style. And some came accompanied by notes- both funny and heartwarming. On the wall beside these sketches, The Elephant House proudly displays a framed newspaper interview with JK Rowling in which she mentions the cafe.

I passed through to the delightful back room, which is both bright and cozy. I gazed around the room and picked a perfect spot by the window. I couldn't help but wonder if Ms. Rowling sat at this very table as she invented the fantastical world I love to visit. I am sure it is a thought that runs across every Harry Potter fan as they take a seat...

My view is breathtaking. Blue skies and the Edinburgh Castle! I gaze out the windows for quite some time, and even jot down a few thoughts in my own notebook... until... I have to do it- I take out my copy of The Philosopher's Stone and I lose myself in a world of magic and wonder. Once, I feel a little self conscious- I know that reading this text at this place screams tourist!!! (like my photographing everything didn't already do the same) but I figure, for me, this little cafe... it's like a pilgrimage of sorts! I want to pay homage. And I happily did.  

I sipped chamomile tea.

Read my favorite book.

And soaked in the Edinburgh life that buzzed around me.

All beneath the castle walls.   ahhhhhh.

Elephant House Website

Best Harry Potter Resources on the Web

There are more websites dedicated to Harry Potter than there is gold in Gringotts. Any simple search with bring up literally thousands. That said, I will share with you some of my favorites-

JK Rowling's official site is probably the best place to start. It takes some patience, as she is clever and a little withholding. It takes time to discover all of the fun of this site, but click around and you are rewarded with all kinds of magical secrets!

Pottermore seems like it will be the online home to all things Potter in a couple of months. If you haven't already, check out what is on the site and get prepared for all that's on its way!

Mugglenet and the similarly laid-out Leaky Cauldron are awesome sites for fans. They both post any Harry-related news and have loads of links that share essays, art, music, quizzes, games, recipes, crafts, interviews, photos, products and just about everything else.

The Harry Potter Lexicon is the best place to go if you have a simple questions about a specific character, place or creature. ie: How are dementors 'born'? (*extra points if you know, or go to the site and find out, and then post in the comments section!  :)

Harry Potter for Writers, is a great blog by a professional writer and huge Harry Potter fan. I love this site because it does not just catalogue what is already done like other fan sites, but looks critically at the telling of this story as a craft, complete with real analysis of Rowling's work. She just shared a great post about the the last chapter of Deathly Hallows called "The Flaw in the Plan" with all kinds of great insight.

There are also wonderful sites by the book's publishers- full of fun facts and activities for kids (or those of us who are kids at heart). Visit Scholastic, where you can brew potions and try transfiguration, and take the "how-well-do-you-know-Harry-Potter" quiz!   The Bloomsbury site has places to vote for your favorite characters and an exclusive interview with Jo.

And there are tons more out there. LOADS! Blimey, the list goes on and on! Here are a few more worth checking out, and this is just the tip of the elder wand!

Warner Brother's Harry Potter site
Harry Potter at EA
Harry Potter's Page
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando
Wizard Rock
Harry Potter Alliance
A Very Potter Musical
Potter Art
Potter Crafts
Wizard Recipes
Harry Potter the Exhibition
HP Fan Trips

Did I miss any of your favorites? Share!

Happy Birthday Bill!

There was a star danced, and under that was I born. - William Shakespeare

Hazzah to the Bard! Today, is William Shakespeare's 447th birthday. We think. 'Tis also the 395th anniversary of his death. So, for anyone not paying close attention, that means, our most revered playwright and poet, perfector of the Sonnet, inventor of over 1700 English words,  walked this earth for 52 years... to the day. He is believed to have been born on April 23rd, 1564, and to have died April 23rd, 1616. In true poetic style, Shakespeare left his admirers with an option on this day; to celebrate his entrance into this world, or mourn his exit.  

(For anyone interested in the specifics, here is an excerpt from an article on the topic. The title links back to the original site.)

Shakespeare's Birth

The baptismal register of the Holy Trinity parish church, in Stratford, shows the following entry for April 26, 1564: Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakespeare. The actual date of Shakespeare's birth is not known, but, traditionally, April 23, St George's Day, has been Shakespeare's accepted birthday, and a house on Henley Street in Stratford, owned by William's father, John, is accepted as Shakespeare's birth place. However, the reality is that no one really knows when the great dramatist was born. According to The Book of Common Prayer, it was required that a child be baptized on the nearest Sunday or holy day following the birth, unless the parents had a legitimate excuse. As Dennis Kay proposes in his book Shakespeare:

If Shakespeare was indeed born on Sunday, April 23, the next feast day would have been St. Mark's Day on Tuesday the twenty-fifth. There might well have been some cause, both reasonable and great -- or perhaps, as has been suggested, St. Mark's Day was still held to be unlucky, as it had been before the Reformation, when altars and crucifixes used to be draped in black cloth, and when some claimed to see in the churchyard the spirits of those doomed to die in that year. . . .but that does not help to explain the christening on the twenty-sixth (54).

No doubt Shakespeare's true birthday will remain a mystery forever. But the assumption that the Bard was born on the same day of the month that he died lends an exciting esoteric highlight to the otherwise mundane details of Shakespeare's life.

But what's the point in splitting hairs? Shakespeare did not live in a time when accuracy was all that important. The man used several different spellings of his own last name! He was born, he wrote and then he died. And the world was better for having him! He has gifted his works to countless generations... and we didn't get him anything. How awkward, it is his birthday, after all. This got me to think though, what do you give to the Bard who has it all? If Shakespeare was alive today, and I was invited to his birthday party- you know, just a small gathering of a few close friends (like me) to enjoy a little food and drink general merriment-- what would I gift to the b-day boy? (Oh, I'll come up with any excuse to do unnecessary online shopping!) 

Maybe he'd fancy the First Folios iPhone app, or some snazzy hightops bespangled with his portrait?

Or maybe we could just continue to value his work-- to perform his plays on stages around the world and remake them into movies of varying quality. We can ensure that high school Freshmen read not the Sparknotes for Romeo and Juliet, but the actual text, and we can prove our cleverness at cocktail parties by discussing Sonnet 130.

Of course, we can take it farther into a realm of Bardolatry, like Thomas de Quincey whose worship of Shakespeare rings through his classic 1823 essay "On the Knocking at the Gates in Macbeth":

 "O, mighty poet! Thy works are not as those of other men, simply and merely great works of art; but are also like the phenomena of nature, like the sun and the sea, the stars and the flowers,—like frost and snow, rain and dew, hail-storm and thunder, which are to be studied with entire submission of our own faculties…".

Well Tom, I don't think I'll deify the Bard as you have, but I will carve a moment today to read his words and tonight, in his honor, raise my glass, To Bill!

ROW 80 Check-in 4-20

Change of plans...

Even though my goals were modest, they were too much for me to stick to. I am undergoing my last round of finals in law school, and my classes are like 4 screaming babies demand all my attention. Luckily, it will be over soon, and I can adjust my RoW 80 goals again- and hopefully meet them! For now, I hope to write a page a week of my plotting. One page per week until mid-May. Simple.

I did accomplish something though. This last weekend I completed a 30 page excerpt. A descriptive scene that introduces three new characters. It needs to be edited, as I tend to over explain, but overall I feel good about it.

Thats all for now...

Gothic Flowers

I'm making the hero of my story venture through a spooky and beautiful garden. I had the whole thing imagined in my head, but when it came to writing it down, it all seemed to generic. In order to describe the scene properly, I needed to look at some of the strange flowers I saw in my mind's eye. This meant a trip to the Botanical Gardens or searching online. I choose the lazy route, with promises to myself that I will go to the garden once my semester is complete.

Below are my favorites-- the fruits of my laborious online search. They are all real plants with real names (which I realize now that I should have noted as I gathered the images- would have been good to share). I remember a few of them, the calla lilies, the dahlia, the fiddlehead fern, and one looks like an iris. I know for sure that the last image is the corpse flower (and since I don't have a great fondness for the aroma of rotting meat, it's the only one that I would leave out of my real gothic flower garden, once I plant one, that is). If you know the names of any others, I'd love it if you educated me! (Especially the 7th picture, I love those!) 

But even without knowing their names, I fell in love with their look. They are dark and twisty, spiky and swirly, droopy and fuzzy, fierce but also quite delicate. They helped clarify what I wanted to write and inspired me anew, for now, instead of passing through, I have created a reason for my hero to spend a bit more time amidst the gothic flowers-- and these blooms perfectly set the eerie tone with their spindly shapes, strange textures and lovely shades of purple, blue and burgundy. 

Joining the RoW 80 Writing Challenge

I'm doing my first writing challenge, directed by A Round of Writing in 80 Days. The basic idea is that all participants set themselves measurable writing-related goals and then check in twice a week to share how they are coming along. Since I get to make my own goals, for this first round I am setting the bar pretty low. I want to meet or exceed my own expectations (and I need to finish law school in the next 80 days... which is kind of time consuming). So here are my writing goals for the next 80 days:

1. Plot out the whole saga
    Sit down for an hour each weekend morning until I have finished. 

2. Finish my origin story
    After plotting is complete, use the weekend morning time to continue origin story. 
  
3. Write out a scene for review
     Already started this, I have 11 pages (woo-hoo!) New goal is to add 250 words a day      (about a page). Modest compared to what I've seen of others!

4. Spend the last month of the challenge editing what I have
    Two passes. 


This seems doable. If I stay on track, by the time this challenge is over, I will have edited versions of a completely plotted out adventure, a finished origin story and a 'chapter' to hand off to my professor (who has a successful series of adventure fiction under her belt) who has agreed to help tune my writing style. For me, that's a great start!

My Favorite Blogs

Some knit. Some write. Some travel. Some take lovely pictures. And most of them are obsessed with their pets. These blogs are a few of the online places where I find more happy. (and whimsy, insight, art and nature!) If you have an hour (or several hours) to explore, I recommend visiting each and every one... in no particular order.

http://needled.wordpress.com/

http://scotland4thesenses.blogspot.com/

http://www.nearsightedowl.com/

http://craftygreenpoet.blogspot.com

http://walkandalie.com/

http://unusuallife.com/

http://owlinthedark.blogspot.com/

http://builderofworlds.wordpress.com/

http://harrypotterforwriters.blogspot.com/

http://herminesplace.wordpress.com/

Art from the last blog listed!

The strangest day!

Today has been the strangest day! The kitty boys woke me and Matt up extra early, they were going frantic and we didn't know why. We tried to ignore them and get a few more minutes of sleep, but when Linus, Sherpa and OB yowled their fiercest hunter's cry and pounced on the same spot, at the same time, we knew there was something out of the ordinary about their wild behavior.

I got up to investigate, shooed all three boys out of the way, and couldn't believe my eyes! They had trapped a tiny yellow finch behind my dresser!!! Never in all my time living in the city, have I had a bird fly into my house (back at my parent's place it happens about once a year, so I kind of knew what to do).  Matt grabbed the boys and put them in another room. I know, they get so little excitement it was almost cruel to keep them from witnessing our rescue of the bird, but the poor feathered thing looked frightened enough- he certainly didn't need three more predators breathing down his neck.

With a small towel, I reached my hand behind the dresser and picked up the finch. He was frozen in fright. Matt and I took a closer look while he was in my hand, he didn't move a muscle or blink an eye. His feathers were mostly the color of a soft lemon cream, with markings on the back of his head in variations of gray and black. (We took a picture, but are no longer in possession of our camera, but he looked a lot like this bird I found in a Google image search). 

As I looked at him, I noticed he had something in his mouth, something he clutched tightly in his beak. It looked like metal. I thought for a moment that I should remove it, it was probably garbage,  but decided I ought not, for fear he might swallow it. 

It was time to set him free. Matt and I stepped out on to our balcony and I opened up the hand towel so that the little bird could fly away. We could hear all three boys scratching on the other side of the bedroom door, demanding to be let in. The little bird lay still in my hand for a few moments, then he flicked about his head and popped up onto his feet, and flapped off of my hands.

He didn't fly away, not quite yet. He hovered around our balcony for a minute. Matt thought he was "testing his wings" to make sure nothing was injured in his misadventure with the cats, but I thought there was something strange about this. I set down the towel and reached out my bare hand toward the little bird, and he flew back to me. He didn't land on me though. He flew over my hand and dropped something onto my palm, and then he flew away so quickly that we couldn't see for sure in which direction he left.

In my hand was the thing the little bird held in his mouth. I thought it was a metal bead, but Matt said it looked more like a gold seed. Either way, it was very pretty. It must of been his way to thank us, we figured, and we returned the sentiment by calling out "thank you too" into the morning air and went on our usual business. Besides, someone was going to call the police if we didn't tend to our cats, with all the noise they were making. As it is, we'll have to replace the bedroom door- unless the next tenants like the look of claw marks. We tried to make up with the boys but they were furious at us both. They all sat together and pouted, and none of them would look us in the eye...

This is a similar to the treatment we were given this morning. This picture was taken a few weeks ago though, after we would not allow the boys to sit on top of the flat screen TV.  The photo from this morning was, unfortunately, lost.

Over coffee, Matt and I joked that the gold seed would sprout gold coins and that the little bird's gift was our ticket to getting rich. So, for fun, I placed the little gold seed in with the potted houseplant on my desk and got ready for work.  Matt had today off but he had a busy day planned, so we left together. After such an unusual morning, you'd think the rest of today would be your run-of-the-mill day, but it wasn't.

I was supposed to work until 4:30, but around noon my boss said I could go home. Apparently, the event I was going to cover was cancelled due to severe weather conditions. Strange, since it was 90 degrees and blue skies outside. But not wanting to question a Friday afternoon out of the office, I packed up my computer and left. I called Matt to tell him I was heading home and he offered to pick me up, as he finished his errands early as well. What a treat! I hoped that I would be able to steal an afternoon nap (since we were up so early!) but I knew Matt was going to guilt me into heading to the gym! Regardless, we were both happy to get home at such an early hour. 

When we walked through the door, none of the boys greeted us, not even Sherpa who acts like front door greeting is his most important job. We agreed that the boys must still be mad about being locked out during this mornings bird rescue. But once we put our bags down and called for them and still didn't see them, we decided to go hunt them down and smother them with kisses. Not under the dining table... not behind the couch... we headed for the bedroom. On the way down the hall, I passed by the office door first and glanced in. I screamed.

Matt rushed to my side. His eyes fell upon the same thing mine were fixated upon and he muttered barely audible curse words under his breath. Impossible. We looked at each other. What on earth had happened in here?

Growing from the pot that use to house only my wilting house plant, was a giant stalk. Like, a Jack and the Beanstalk sort of stalk. This thing was at least two feet wide. But it wasn't the width that freaked us out, it was the height. 

The stalk shot up straight through the ceiling. As we got closer and looked up through the hole it had made, we could see the stalk climbing through  toward the blue sky. Since we live on the third floor of a four story building, we were at first horrified about the damage this had caused the apartment above us, but once we noticed that the stalk had no visible end in sight- that it just kept climbing high into the sky as far as our eyes could see, we realized we had bigger things to worry about. 

We kept asking each other what this thing could be, and how it got here, when we both remembered the golden seed from this morning. I admitted that I had placed it in the very pot this enormous stalk grew from, and Matt gave me a stern look. As if I should have predicted this would happen! 

We bickered a bit, and then tried to think of what to do next. We decided that we couldn't cut it down, as it was too tall and would cause too much damage if it fell. We couldn't call the police, as they would certainly not believe us and find us crazy or believe us and somehow find us criminal--as I am sure a plant of this nature is not exactly legal. In the middle of our deliberations, Matt examined the base of the stalk, and said gravely... "We have to climb it."

He pointed out to me the one thing that would make me haul my butt up a magical plant that reached beyond the clouds... kitty claw marks.  Our boys had made the climb. We had to go get them.

I immediately grabbed on and tried to get my footing, but Matt stopped me and said we needed to gather a few supplies first.  He fetched a pair of binoculars, some water and a rope and stuffed them all into a pack. I added the camera (just in case) and our phones (you never know where you might get reception!) and a bag of Linus' favorite treats. We changed into shoes that were more suited for climbing, and he told me to wear a warm jacket, as it was sure to get cold the higher we climbed.

We had everything we could carry, and hurried to start our climb. I made Matt go first, as I trusted him to find the best sprigs and leaves to use for footing, and up we went.  It was like climbing up an uneven ladder.  We walked on through our ceiling and continued on through the apartment above ours (I always wondering what it looked like! Pretty much identical to ours only instead of having a giant stalk grown through their office, it was grown through their nursery! Fortunately, by the looks of things, everyone was out for the day). Once we got to the outdoors though, my stomach started to quiver.  There was nothing around us but open air and gravity! The further we climbed the farther the drop got, and the more my stomach flipped and fluttered.  

When we were at least three or four stories above the roof of our building, I stopped and thought about how absurdly dangerous this was.  I tried to yell to Matt that I wanted to return, but my voice got lost in the wind and he didn't hear me.  I took one step back down, and looked around me.  Cars driving below looked like toys and people like moving spots of color. I clutched the stalk dearly, and right in front of my nose was another set of cat scratch marks.  In fact, as I looked up and down the stalk, I saw more and more. 3 distinct sets; Sloppy, clumsy marks left by Sherpa, even, springy marks left by OB, and the deep-set and gimpish marks of Linus. With a deep breath, I continued my climb. Faster this time, and soon Matt and I were seriously high above the earth.  The stalk pierced through wispy, transparent clouds, and still we climbed.

This is the only photo from today that made it- Matt took it on his iPhone, looking up to what we had left to climb!

After hours of climbing, it started to get dark, and it looked like we were reaching the top. The girth of the stalk diminished slightly with each elevated foot and the plant swayed under our weight.  We had to be miles above ground! Finally, we saw the end of the stalk, and what appeared before our eyes was so fantastic, we nearly lost our grip on the vine and went tumbling down to earth. 

There, above the clouds, was a wonderous scene of blue and white with thousands of happy creatures frolicking and playing amidst cloud and sky. There were Koalas playing tag with chihuahuas, toucans flying figure eights with eagles, pot-bellied pigs dancing with swans, and closest to us we saw our boys wrestling playfully with a most adorable baby yak. And Linus, who was playing most spritefully, wore upon his blue-grey head, a golden crown. "Oh, it's beautiful," I said. Matt was speechless, a goofy smile appearing on his face. "Quick, give me my camera," I said to him, breaking his happy trance. I wanted to capture the scene, especially the group of toads that hopped in choreographed unison in the middle of a sparkling blue-green pond. Matt reached into his pack and pulled out our little camera and handed it to me. I began snapping photos of everything I could-- starting with the toads, and our boys with the yak. I then took pictures of the trio of marmosets sliding down a smiling giraffe's back and then a flock of fruit bats sharing the biggest pineapple I'd ever seen with an eldery panda couple. I took so many  wonderful pictures, but in my snapping frenzy I lost grip of our little camera and it plummeted down to the earth, taking the recorded images with it.

"Aw, shucks!" I exclaimed. "Now how is anyone going to believe this magical place?" We both looked at each other and then down the giant stalk from whence we came. "Well, " I said, "what do we do?  Should we grab our boys and head back down?" 

"Wait a minute," said Matt, gabbing my arm. "What if we don't go back? I mean, look at this place! We could just live here, couldn't we?!"

I hesitated, "What about law school? I love it so much, I don't know how I'd live without it!" At that we both exploded into laughter--the fullest most carefree laugh that anyone has ever laughed in the history of the world.  (So exhuberant, actually, we nearly lost our grip again.) 

And, so, still chuckling, we scrambled up the tip of the giant green stalk and tumbled onto the nearest soft, fluffy cloud. Sherpa, OB,  Linus (King of kitties) and our new yak-friend immediately joined the fray and we rolled around, pell mell, flipping and flopping  and frolicking about. When finally I stopped to catch my breath, I heard a faint chirping sound.  Looking up, I saw our little lemon-cream finch flitting around excitedly. He danced and dove in the sky above our heads, and I swear he had the biggest smile of welcome on his tiny beak.

And that's where we are to this very moment. This whole entry has been pecked out on Matt's iPhone (which has just about lost its charge...pity, no more posts or pictures from our magical utopia in the sky!)

I must go now, as Sherpa seems to be pinned down by a member of the flying fish quartet and I must go taunt him a bit.  And Matt is motioning me to join him in a swim in the Golden Grotto, where it looks like he wants to introduce me to a giant sea tortoise... Oh what a strange and marvelous day!

Happy April Fool's Day! 

hope yours was prank-tastic!

 

For more stories of real pranks and hoaxes pulled on this date through history, visit this blog. Enjoy! 

Literary Map of United Kingdom

I love it! This wonderful map is worth a close look. I think I might have to buy it so that I can gaze at it enough to familiarize myself with the authors I haven't heard of. Edwin Morgan? Fanny Burney? So many I don't know!

I think it is a great oversight, however, that JK Rowling and James Joyce have been left off the map. These were to two omissions I noticed right away.  Where would we be without Dubliners and Ulysses? And I don't want to think about a world without Harry Potter, I don't even think I could! Anyone notice any other authors (from the British Isles, duh) who have been forgotten? I will write them in myself when I get my print.

I wonder if there is a map like this for the United States, or any other country. I would love a collection that shows the world through literature!

I found this great map on this blog, full of all kinds of fun posts-

and she found it from this shop, full of fantastic things for readers and writers.

A Field Guide to the Little People

Last weekend, Matthew and I visited a great downtown book shop. It's sad to admit, but often, when I need a specific book, I hop online and order it from...yes...Amazon. And then I moan about how all the brick and mortar bookstores are closing! There is something so fantastic about browsing through books, that you cannot replicate with a click of the mouse. And the book store that we went to was not any old large-scale chain retailer (although they seem to be disappearing these days as well). This book shop was the last book shop. Or rather, The Last Bookstore.

This awesome little shop is exactly what a used bookstore should be. It was bright and crammed full of books, new and old. It organized the books clearly, but still left plenty of stacks to explore... and it played great music. (No elevator music!)

Best of all, was the man who worked there. I didn't grab his name, but he was amazing.  He knew what books I was talking about even when I didn't.... seriously. Without the title or author or any real concrete information, he was able to lead me to two books I had on my "list"-- without looking up anything online. That's a great bookshop!

But the funnest thing about old book shops is finding books you've never heard of-- and never knew to look for (and yes, I know funnest isn't a word, but it really ought to be).  I found a funky hardback with a yellowed and ruffled up jacket, called "A Field Guide to the Little People" by Nancy Arrowsmith, and I felt as though I hit the jackpot!  It is exactly what the title says it is. This book catalogues nymphs, elves, dwarves, imps, goblins, fairies, pixies...you name it. If its small and magical, I bet you it has an entry in this wonderfully imaginative and well-organized resource! Each featured little people has a description (some with illustrations, by George Moorse), and section on their origin, habitat, how to identify, and usually a story or two.

So because I became fascinated with it, and because he's so awesome, Matt bought me this charming little book, and I have been flipping through it all week. There are a few entries on magical creatures that I am familiar with, but most of them are new to me. Even the creatures I have heard of, like mermaids, have so much lore and history that I never knew. And so I am totally inspired to use something from this book, either directly or indirectly, in my own written stories.  Reading about the little people, and imagining them in my own adventures, makes me... happy!

I hope that anyone who reads this post will get themselves to a local book shop and finds their own magical, inspirational book! 

For the Love of Dogs...

"The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs."
-Gen. Charles De Gaulle


"The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too."
-Samuel Butler


"One reason a dog is such a lovable creature is his tail wags instead of his tongue."
-Unknown

"Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring - it was peace."
-Milan Kundera


 
"I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it."
-Abraham Lincoln


"He cannot be a gentleman that loveth not a dog."
-Proverb

Old Rum

"Dogs. They are better than human beings because they know but they do not tell."
-Emily Dickinson

"Your dog is your only philosopher."

-Plato

"There are three faithful friends --an old wife, an old dog and ready money."
-Benjamin Franklin

"Dogs lives are too short...their only fault, really."
-Agnes Sligh Turnbull

 

... don't worry, For the Love of Cats is next!

Writing... with creativity

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

~Ray Bradbury

painting by gerard ter borch

I have to admit something... 

A secret that I have carried around with me for years. 

Here goes:

I have always thought of myself as a writer.

There I said it. What's the big deal, you ask? Well, I don't really write.

So... thinking of myself as a writer is really -- what's the word? -- lame.

But, in an attempt to not be so lame, and to make myself actually be the person I think I am, I've decided to write a story.  It has been years since I have even tried to write creatively. It is a very different beast from that which I have written over the last 10 years: academic papers, legal research, a handful of news and magazine articles, and an overly sentimental essay remembering a deceased family member. 

Not. One. Story. 

Until now! 

(Do you like my dramatic use of spacing and punctuation?! I am getting so creative already!)

I spent some time last summer traveling alone through England and Scotland. And, like all good tourists, I brought along a journal. I was totally prepared to soil the first few pages of the book with some trivial observation or account of something I did that day and then leave the rest blank, and then finally neglect the whole thing on my shelf at home (where so many travel journals have gone to die). But I didn't. I actually wrote! And I came up with the beginnings of a story that I have since been sorting out in my head.

But now I have the chance to put pen to paper (or fingers to keys...not nearly as cool a phrase) and WRITE.  Not just think about writing. Not just talk about writing. But really write!

I've done 11 pages (11 whole pages!) and it makes me feel a little high. And when I'm not feeling horribly stuck, I'm having a ball. I think it makes me happy. Who'd a thought that something I was into in high school would still be cool?

So, I'll keep you posted. I'm hoping there will be 11 more pages to boast about soon. (and then 11 after that, and.... well, you get the idea.)

Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

and twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretched in never-ending line

along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

in such a jocund company:

I gazed - and gazed - but little thought

what wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood
They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

-William Wordsworth