The Stars Are Not Made of Fire

Thursday Writing Prompts: Speculative fiction Sports

2012-01-26T21:05:00.003-05:00

I was thinking about sports on other planets this evening and wondering if I could come up with some writing prompts. In honour of the X-Games happening in Aspen, here are some sports related writing prompts:

1. Imagine a world where genetic manipulation is the norm. What would extreme sports look like? What kinds of tests would be conducted on the athletes?

2. What would basketball look like in zero gravity? Describe a game. What would kickboxing look like?

3. What would spaceship racing include? What would be the challenges?

4. Imagine the Olympics on Mars. What accommodations would have to be made? What new events could be added?

5. Imagine a fast action sport that included devices that could manipulate the quantum field and alter game play. Describe such a game and how it would be won or lost.

Have fun with these prompts!

Poetry: Van Morrison's Astral Weeks

2012-01-25T21:43:00.003-05:00

Van Morrison is a legend in rock and roll. He has received six Grammy Awards, been inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, and was inducted into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame. He was born George Ivan Morrison in Northern Ireland and much of his music is both inspired by rhythm and blues and celtic influences. Astral Weeks is a mystical song cycle that is considered to be one of his best works and one of the best albums of all time. It is poetry.

Here is the link to the YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ech6pZoBJ4

Astral Weeks

If I ventured in the slipstream
Between the viaducts of your dream
Where immobile steel rims crack
And the ditch in the back roads stop
Could you find me?
Would you kiss-a my eyes?
To lay me down
In silence easy
To be born again
To be born again
From the far side of the ocean
If I put the wheels in motion
And I stand with my arms behind me
And I'm pushin' on the door
Could you find me?
Would you kiss-a my eyes?
To lay me down
In silence easy
To be born again
To be born again
There you go
Standin' with the look of avarice
Talkin' to Huddie Ledbetter
Showin' pictures on the wall
Whisperin' in the hall
And pointin' a finger at me
There you go, there you go
Standin' in the sun darlin'
With your arms behind you
And your eyes before
There you go
Takin' good care of your boy
Seein' that he's got clean clothes
Puttin' on his little red shoes
I see you know he's got clean clothes
A-puttin' on his little red shoes
A-pointin' a finger at me
And here I am
Standing in your sad arrest
Trying to do my very best
Lookin' straight at you
Comin' through, darlin'
Yeah, yeah, yeah
If I ventured in the slipstream
Between the viaducts of your dreams
Where immobile steel rims crack
And the ditch in the back roads stop
Could you find me
Would you kiss-a my eyes
Lay me down
In silence easy
To be born again
To be born again
To be born again
In another world
In another world
In another time
Got a home on high
Ain't nothing but a stranger in this world
I'm nothing but a stranger in this world
I got a home on high
In another land
So far away
So far away
Way up in the heaven
Way up in the heaven
Way up in the heaven
Way up in the heaven
In another time
In another place
In another time
In another place
Way up in the heaven
Way up in the heaven
We are goin' up to heaven
We are goin' to heaven
In another time
In another place
In another time
In another place
In another face

Artist: John William Waterhouse

2012-01-24T20:13:00.005-05:00

I love art and on Tuesdays I take a moment and review an artist's work who I have not looked at in a while. This evening I was thinking about the romantic images of John WIlliam Waterhouse. He was an English painter who worked in the Pre-Raphaelite style even though when he was painting the style had gone out of vogue. He borrowed smidgeons of the ideas from the Impressionists who were his contemporaries and blended this with the techniques of earlier Pre-Raphaelites. He painted primarily women. Ophelia and The Lady of Shallot were favorite subjects. He often depicted women from mythology or the Arthurian romance tales. Many of his paintings are on display in major British art galleries. In my opinion his painting show a love and respect for women. He painted wicked women and women with power in addition to those who died for love. His painting of Cleopatra shows her leaning back with her arms above her head. It is a stance of casual power. Another painting is of Circe who turned Odysseus' men into pigs. One of his depictions is of a witch casting a magic circle. His painting are beautiful and mesmerizing.

A Divergence: Miracle

2012-01-23T20:27:00.015-05:00

This evening I am not feeling very well. I came home from work and went to bed and have only gotten up to get soup. So instead of a book review I am going to post an interpretation of the miracle of how the Universe came to be that I wrote this last summer. I tried to be as accurate to scientific theory as I could and still evoke the mystery of how things begin and continue. When I think of this it fills me with awe and makes me grateful to be alive.

Miracle

Within the Prose Edda, the frost giant, Ymir, was created when Muspell the place of heat and light met the cold of Niflheim. From Ymir all things arose. When he was killed by Odin, Vili, and Ve, his blood became the lakes and seas, his hair grew to be the trees, his bones solidified into mountains, and pebbles and rocks were made from his teeth. This belief expresses a miracle.
But miracles are the stuff not of myth and story. They are reality. The natural world is wondrous without embellishment. Miracles are changes, either small and accumulating like lichens upon rocks, or sudden and devastating like lightning. Miracles are chains of events that transform reality and make it anew.

In the beginning the Universe was collapsed into one churning, heavy mass in heated turmoil. All potential writhed within. It heaved a great inward sigh and expelled itself outward. The Universe raced in all directions through the Void that was truly nothing until it blessed the Void with its presence. Over millions of years particles coalesced. Galaxies and quasars began to form after a billion years had passed. As the galaxies stumbled and began to pirouette on their axes, clouds of gas formed. Particles, like miniature worlds collided, fusion began. The suns began to shine. As the stars spun and pulled rings of dust to them, the pieces joined, formed into their own masses. The planets of a billion stars began to be born over billions of years.

So small, so insignificant the earth.

The Universe sped ever afterward, the galaxies spun, the stars fed off the energy of their particles, light danced over clouds of gas, and Earth began somewhere around 9.2 billion years after the initiation of the Universe's great change. Once upon a time our solar system was a hapless nebula rotating in space. For some reason, perhaps the super nova of an older star, the nebula began to contract and formed a proto-planetary disc. But the infant was not to slumber in peace, shock waves and the woggling angular momentum of larger pieces of cosmic flotsam continued to disturb it. The nebula cloud spun faster and faster, cosmic dust fell into its center, gravity pushed upon it. The Sun was born of speed, collision, gravity, and pressure. And there was light.
As the proto-planetary disc differentiated, it created rings. Fragments within the rings collided, joined, and formed bigger objects until over time the proto-planets were formed. They danced in orbit around the Sun and spun on their own axes. Again speed, collision, gravity, and pressure worked together to create the planets.

But the solar system was lifeless. As the Earth rotated faster and faster, the siderophile metals melted into the core. The stratification of the earth's layers began. The Catastrophe of Iron created the magic of the magnetic fields. Gravity allowed the Earth to retain an atmosphere that held water and the magnetic fields offered protection from the radiation of the solar wind.
As all was proceeding, another proto-planet hit the Earth. The mantle was broken and a piece shot off into space. The moon was born. The Earth's initial atmosphere was blown away and it cooled rapidly forming a basaltic crust whose ancient presence is still found at the oceans' floor. Marked forever by this catastrophic birthing of the moon, the Earth sits at a 23.5 degree tilt on its axes. The seasons were created by this accident.

Baby Earth was not at rest. The surface was molten. Meteorites pelted the planet. Volcanoes belched molten lava and steam from its interior. The second atmosphere began to form. Comets and other proto-planets bombarded the Earth and deposited water. As the planet continued to cool, clouds formed. From the clouds came rain. From the rain came the great oceans. The new atmosphere contained water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and smaller amounts of other gases. The first continents arose, disintegrated, reformed, were demolished, and formed the cratons. The cratons became the bones that the continents of today grew upon.

No one knows when life began on Earth. Somewhere in this Hadean nightmare, perhaps in hydrothermal vents beneath the Earth's surface, life began. It may have begun and been snuffed out several times. Perhaps life came to Earth from the stars. Perhaps life started as a brew of molecules ignited by a flash of lightning. But life began. It metabolized what it needed to sustain itself, it grew, it reproduced, and it began to adapt.

Life is very resourceful and has a great capacity for persistence and creativity. At first life learned to replicate, then it enclosed itself within a membrane and each reiteration was enclosed within its own membrane. Single cell life was born. The first cells were likely heterotrophs. Cannibals and opportunists, they used all organic material around them as food. As their food supply diminished, some cells evolved a new way to survive in this war of life. These cells used the light from the sun.

The oceans turned green with the by-product oxygen these tiny cells exhaled. Earth's third atmosphere came into existence and the ozone was created. No longer could ultra-violet rays irradiate the earth. Life moved to the surface of the ocean and to the land. But this new atmosphere was toxic to the flourishing life. Some forms burrowed into the mud for protection from the burning oxygen. Some grew together and diversified. Some learned to change a step in the process of photosynthesis and use the oxygen to burn food and make energy. The Great Catastrophe of Oxygen made it possible for more complex life to later evolve and the ozone protected the newly evolving life forms.

At times the Earth was frozen from pole to pole and all the way around its circumference. But between these times of ice, life evolved. Plants, animals, and fungi all split from a common ancestor even when they were still collections of cells. Once the Earth began to experience fewer times of being frozen, life began to diversify and multi-cellular creatures came about. During the Cambrian Age life upon Earth exploded into a variety of creatures. Creatures with shells, skeletons or exoskeletons, and hard body parts left a fossil record of this time of biological diversification. Fish began to swim in the oceans. Another ice age cleared the way for more, new, and better-adapted species. At some point tetrapods evolved from the fish, lifted their heads to breathe air, and became amphibians.

Between the Permian and Triassic periods another Great Extinction took place, but life persevered. It is not known if this die off was because of climate change, a super volcano erupting, or a massive collision. From the straggling remnants of life came the dinosaurs, birds, and later the mammals. The dinosaurs shook the ground of the supercontinent, Pangea, until they became extinct. The Age of Mammals was begun. The earliest mammal was a small rat-like creature that grew and changed and evolved over time into the myriad of mammals upon the planet.

So small, so insignificant are humans.

The Universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old. The Earth is somewhere around 4.5 billion years old. Australopithecus afarensis evolved 4 million years ago in East Africa. They became extinct after 2 million years of wandering the African continent, but not before leaving descendants that became the hominid ancestral line. Homo erectus left signs of being able to control fire 790,000 years ago. Beads were left at the Blombos Caves of South Africa approximately 75,000 years ago. Cave paintings at Chauvet Pont d’Arc appeared 32,000 years ago. Civilization did not begin until 10,000 years ago.

In the life span of the Earth, humans have occupied the planet for an eye blink, but consider the grand series of events that has led up to our time upon the planet. If some happy accident had gone differently, what other species might occupy this world? We are born of a fragile chain of cause and effect. Just as the existence of the dinosaurs was a miracle, our existence is a miracle. Earth keeps on changing and when we have become extinct some other species will inhabit our world. How wondrous is it that we, and all the life on Earth, came from the initial Big Bang of the universe? The Universe holds all potential and is constantly changing. Looking at a chain of daisies delicately wrought by small human hands it is hard to imagine the Universe's explosive beginning when hot and super dense matter was flung in all directions with immense energy. In that origin all miracles were begun.

Remember to look around and see how wondrous everything is.

Sunday Writing Discussion #4: Which Comes First Character or Plot?

2012-01-22T13:06:00.006-05:00

Lately I have been watching on YouTube some of the video segments that were recorded by Martha Alderson, who has been called "the Plot Whisperer." Her blog where you can find links to this series of YouTube videos is: http://plotwhisperer.blogspot.com/

In the first of her videos titled "Dramatic Action Plot," she focuses her discussion on determining a character that the writer wants to write about. The second video in the series furthers this discussion and talks about character flaws. I found this interesting because she is known for discussing plot rather than character development and yet she was advocating starting with a character and developing the plot from there. She talks about that the writer needs to know this character and their goals. In addition the goals cannot simply be goals, but need to be driving passions. So if the character is a mystery detective, it must be that character's driving ambition to solve the case.

In Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake Method for creating fiction his first step is to write out a one sentence description of the story or novel. This sentence is then expanded into a summary paragraph for the second step. Creating characters is a third step. In many ways he starts with plot and then populates the story.

So which approach is better?

I think both methods have merit. Without good characters a story will fall flat. Plots that are unsatisfying or do not contain all the Aristotlian elements of a story are unsatisfying. In my opinion it depends on the story that an author wants to tell. If the story is to be primarily character driven and have as one of its features a primarily internal plot, then I think that starting with developing a character or characters makes the most sense. If the story is to be primarily plot driven, determining what the plot will be and then creating characters that will best carry out that plot is the way to go.

I have two characters who I began thinking about and working on quite awhile ago. I can close my eyes and envision each of them. I can imagine how they speak and how they would respond to certain events. I am very intrigued by these characters. I think they are compelling and I want to do them justice and put them in captivating novels. The plots for both of these characters out of necessity for who they are as characters-- their conflicts, fears, goals, backgrounds, and concerns-- need to be action driven, external plots. I am finding it incredibly difficult to write their stories in part because I started with the characters and the stories for them will be not internal plot driven stories. Perhaps as I gain more skill I will be able to create the stories for these characters. The more that I write and think about things, the more I learn.

Another danger in creating the characters first is that the author could create what are called Mary Sues. Mary Sues are so idealized that they never approach feeling authentic and it feels a little like the author is fantasizing through them. Writing stories is not about making idealized versions of oneself who can never be defeated and always come out smiling. On the contrary on some levels it a little sadistic in that the writer has to really put the characters through a certain amount of hell. A story needs conflict and if the writer likes their characters too much, they will shy off of putting the screws to the characters. If the characters are idealized versions of the author, why would any author inflict torment on themselves even in their fantasies?

Starting with the plot also has pitfalls as well. A writer can write out a pretty logical plot with external action scenes that seem to flow consistently. And then they create the characters for the plot and even if they create those characters specifically for that plot, the internal logic of the characters interacting with the pre-planned external plot may require more thinking and changes. Also if the story is too externally driven it may feel like it does not have either an empathetic main character or an emotional center to the story. I think a great deal of science fiction and action thrillers start with plot and are subsequently populated with characters and sometimes the characters are less than authentic.

Again, I think both methods of developing stories have merits and choosing which will fit the writer's current project makes the most sense. Ultimately in the writing of the story or the novel there will be an interplay between character and plot development and the writer will have to move back and forth and revise things as they go. Both characters and plots are important to make stories work.

A Writer Has to Eat: The World's Best Macaroni and Cheese

2012-01-22T12:26:00.011-05:00

Sometimes comfort food is just what is needed. Macaroni and cheese is a simple dish that can be prepared in under an hour. Making macaroni and cheese is really easy and so much better than any of the prepackaged box fare! This recipe has been declared by those who have consumed it to be the World's Best Macaroni and Cheese recipe.

The World's Best Macaroni and Cheese

Ingredients

4 tablespoon of butter
1/4 cup flour
3 cups shredded cheddar cheese (Dubliner is fantastic in this recipe and gouda works as well!)
3 cups milk
2 cups sour cream
1 15 ounce can stewed tomatoes
1 16 ounce package of elbow noodles
non-stick cooking spray

2 cups extra shredded cheese for topping OR bread crumbs

1. Boil 2 quarts of water in a pot. When the water is boiling add the elbow macaroni noodles and cook as directed on the package. When they are tender, drain them and return them to the pot.

2. Melt the butter in the bottom of a sauce pan. When the butter is melted, whisk in the flour. Over medium-high heat continue to whisk the butter and flour mixture. The mixture will go from a golden color to a rich caramel color. It will probably take about 5 to 7 minutes constantly whisking.

3. With the butter-flour mixture still over the heat, add 1/4 cup of milk and stir it in. Next add 1/4 cup of cheese and stir it in. Alternate between the milk and cheese until all three cups of each are mixed in with the butter-flour mixture and you have a smooth cheese sauce.

4. Turn off the heat. Stir in the 2 cups of sour cream and the contents of the can of stewed tomatoes.

5. Pour the sauce over the cooked elbow macaroni. Stir it the mixture until the sauce is evenly distributed.

6. Put the macaroni and cheese in a casserole dish sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. Sprinkle the 2 cups of extra shredded cheese or the bread crumbs on top of the macaroni and cheese.

7. Bake in the oven at 375 degrees Fahrenheit until the topping cheese is melted or the bread crumbs are crunchy-- about 20 minutes.

8. Enjoy!

Writing Goals

2012-01-21T17:42:00.003-05:00

Now that we are past the New Year, I am thinking about what I would like to accomplish over the next year. I feel happiest when I get things done and feel that I have achieved something. Goals are not just amorphous ambitions, they can be the yardstick to measure success as defined by oneself. The more concrete and attainable while still being achievable they are, the better. Further, as I recently read on D. Thomas Minton's blog goals can be set at any time. Often New Year's Resolutions feel like they are made more out of sense of tradition than from honest conviction. If one wants to change, any time is a good time to make that decision and do it. I have also been thinking about how if I just keep making small and steady progress that this can accumulate and add up. So here are my goals from now until January 21, 2013:

1. Keep writing on this blog. Write one post for every day of the year.
2. Write an additional 500 words per day or edit and revise 1000 words. (By the way, that's a cumulative total of 182500 words if I write 500 words per day.)
3. Write at least two stories that exceed 6000 words.
4. Send out 10 stories and try to get them published.
5. Post one recipe per week on this blog because this forces me to take my recipes beyond experimentation and get them in a readable format for my cookbook.
6. Read 12 fiction books.

So what are your writing goals?

Writing Prompts: Such Sweet Music

2012-01-19T22:10:00.004-05:00

Do you write to a particular soundtrack? Is there a type of music that helps you think? All of these writing prompts have to do with music.

1. Your point of view character cannot talk because of a rare medical condition. They can however sing to communicate. Describe a moment where this is a challenge and how they reverse their limitations and turn this medical condition into a triumph.

2. Your point of view character discovers how to create the perfect combination of notes to add in an element to persuade listeners to do their bidding. What does the point of view character do with this skill?

3. All music is banned as being subversive. Your point of view character discovers a music file and plays it. Which music file do they find? What does it inspire? What does the point of view character do?

4. A large ancient horn is found. It is in pristine condition. The archeologists who find it have to blow it. What happens?

5. Your point of view character finds a pin and there are angels dancing and singing on it. What happens next? Can anyone else hear the heavenly music?

Poetry: Gwendolyn Brooks

2012-01-18T22:08:00.008-05:00

Gwendolyn Brooks was born in 1917 in Topeka, Kansas but she was raised in Chicago. According to the book jacket of "The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks" that was edited by Elizabeth Alexander, Brooks once wrote, "If you wanted a poem, you only had to look out of a window. There was material always, walking or running, fighting or screaming or singing." Brooks' poems capture the life on the streets and the upheavals of her lifetime. She was fearless in her experimentation with various poetic forms and wrote everything from free verse to sonnets. She won the Pulitzer Prize for "Annie Allen" which was published in 1949.

I think most people have read Brooks' poem "We Real Cool." It is often included in high school literature textbooks and poetry anthologies. So I am not going to post it because I listened to a recording on poets.org where she recited "We Real Cool" and said that she wished people would read her other poems. Instead in keeping with that stated wish, I am going to post one of her sonnets, "The Egg Boiler," and another longer poem, "The Sundays of Satin-Legs Smith." Please read these and go forth and find or buy one of the more than twenty books of poetry that she wrote. When she died in December 2000, the world lost a brilliant wordsmith.

THE EGG BOILER
by Gwendolyn Brooks

Being you, you cut your poetry from wood.
The boiling of an egg is heavy art.
You come upon it as an artist should,
With rich-eyed passion, and with straining heart.
We fools, we cut our poems out of air.
Night color, wind soprano, and such stuff.
And sometimes weightlessness is much to bear.
You mock it, though, you name it Not Enough.
The egg, spooned gently to the avid pan,
And left the strick three minute, or the four,
Is your Enough and art for any man.
We fools give courteous ear----then cut some more,
Shaping a gorgeous Nothingness from cloud.
You watch us, eat your egg, and laugh aloud.

The Sundays of Satin-Legs Smith
BY GWENDOLYN BROOKS

Inamoratas, with an approbation,
Bestowed his title. Blessed his inclination.

He wakes, unwinds, elaborately: a cat
Tawny, reluctant, royal. He is fat
And fine this morning. Definite. Reimbursed.

He waits a moment, he designs his reign,
That no performance may be plain or vain.
Then rises in a clear delirium.

He sheds, with his pajamas, shabby days.
And his desertedness, his intricate fear, the
Postponed resentments and the prim precautions.

Now, at his bath, would you deny him lavender
Or take away the power of his pine?
What smelly substitute, heady as wine,
Would you provide? life must be aromatic.
There must be scent, somehow there must be some.
Would you have flowers in his life? suggest
Asters? a Really Good geranium?
A white carnation? would you prescribe a Show
With the cold lilies, formal chrysanthemum
Magnificence, poinsettias, and emphatic
Red of prize roses? might his happiest
Alternative (you muse) be, after all,
A bit of gentle garden in the best
Of taste and straight tradition? Maybe so.
But you forget, or did you ever know,
His heritage of cabbage and pigtails,
Old intimacy with alleys, garbage pails,
Down in the deep (but always beautiful) South
Where roses blush their blithest (it is said)
And sweet magnolias put Chanel to shame.

No! He has not a flower to his name.
Except a feather one, for his lapel.
Apart from that, if he should think of flowers
It is in terms of dandelions or death.
Ah, there is little hope. You might as well—
Unless you care to set the world a-boil
And do a lot of equalizing things,
Remove a little ermine, say, from kings,
Shake hands with paupers and appoint them men,
For instance—certainly you might as well
Leave him his lotion, lavender and oil.

Let us proceed. Let us inspect, together
With his meticulous and serious love,
The innards of this closet. Which is a vault
Whose glory is not diamonds, not pearls,
Not silver plate with just enough dull shine.
But wonder-suits in yellow and in wine,
Sarcastic green and zebra-striped cobalt.
With shoulder padding that is wide
And cocky and determined as his pride;
Ballooning pants that taper off to ends
Scheduled to choke precisely.
Here are hats
Like bright umbrellas; and hysterical ties
Like narrow banners for some gathering war.

People are so in need, in need of help.
People want so much that they do not know.

Below the tinkling trade of little coins
The gold impulse not possible to show
Or spend. Promise piled over and betrayed.

These kneaded limbs receive the kiss of silk.
Then they receive the brave and beautiful
Embrace of some of that equivocal wool.
He looks into his mirror, loves himself—
The neat curve here; the angularity
That is appropriate at just its place;
The technique of a variegated grace.

Here is all his sculpture and his art
And all his architectural design.
Perhaps you would prefer to this a fine
Value of marble, complicated stone.
Would have him think with horror of baroque,
Rococo. You forget and you forget.

He dances down the hotel steps that keep
Remnants of last night’s high life and distress.
As spat-out purchased kisses and spilled beer.
He swallows sunshine with a secret yelp.
Passes to coffee and a roll or two.
Has breakfasted.
Out. Sounds about him smear,
Become a unit. He hears and does not hear
The alarm clock meddling in somebody’s sleep;
Children’s governed Sunday happiness;
The dry tone of a plane; a woman’s oath;
Consumption’s spiritless expectoration;
An indignant robin’s resolute donation
Pinching a track through apathy and din;
Restaurant vendors weeping; and the L
That comes on like a slightly horrible thought.

Pictures, too, as usual, are blurred.
He sees and does not see the broken windows
Hiding their shame with newsprint; little girl
With ribbons decking wornness, little boy
Wearing the trousers with the decentest patch,
To honor Sunday; women on their way
From “service,” temperate holiness arranged
Ably on asking faces; men estranged
From music and from wonder and from joy
But far familiar with the guiding awe
Of foodlessness.
He loiters.
Restaurant vendors
Weep, or out of them rolls a restless glee.
The Lonesome Blues, the Long-lost Blues, I Want A
Big Fat Mama. Down these sore avenues
Comes no Saint-Saëns, no piquant elusive Grieg,
And not Tschaikovsky’s wayward eloquence
And not the shapely tender drift of Brahms.
But could he love them? Since a man must bring
To music what his mother spanked him for
When he was two: bits of forgotten hate,
Devotion: whether or not his mattress hurts:
The little dream his father humored: the thing
His sister did for money: what he ate
For breakfast—and for dinner twenty years
Ago last autumn: all his skipped desserts.

The pasts of his ancestors lean against
Him. Crowd him. Fog out his identity.
Hundreds of hungers mingle with his own,
Hundreds of voices advise so dexterously
He quite considers his reactions his,
Judges he walks most powerfully alone,
That everything is—simply what it is.

But movie-time approaches, time to boo
The hero’s kiss, and boo the heroine
Whose ivory and yellow it is sin
For his eye to eat of. The Mickey Mouse,
However, is for everyone in the house.

Squires his lady to dinner at Joe’s Eats.
His lady alters as to leg and eye,
Thickness and height, such minor points as these,
From Sunday to Sunday. But no matter what
Her name or body positively she’s
In Queen Lace stockings with ambitious heels

That strain to kiss the calves, and vivid shoes
Frontless and backless, Chinese fingernails,
Earrings, three layers of lipstick, intense hat
Dripping with the most voluble of veils.
Her affable extremes are like sweet bombs
About him, whom no middle grace or good
Could gratify. He had no education
In quiet arts of compromise. He would
Not understand your counsels on control, nor
Thank you for your late trouble.
At Joe’s Eats
You get your fish or chicken on meat platters.
With coleslaw, macaroni, candied sweets,
Coffee and apple pie. You go out full.
(The end is—isn’t it?—all that really matters.)

And even and intrepid come
The tender boots of night to home.

Her body is like new brown bread
Under the Woolworth mignonette.
Her body is a honey bowl
Whose waiting honey is deep and hot,
Her body is like summer earth,
Receptive, soft, and absolute ...

Artist: Aubrey Vincent Beardsley

2012-01-17T21:17:00.006-05:00

Aubrey Vincent Beardsley lived from 1872 until 1898. Because of his untimely demise due to tuberculosis, he has been referred to as the tragic genius of Art Nouveau. His pen and ink drawings that pulled their inspiration from Japanese shunga wood block prints were dynamic in their sense of design. Often his work emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. Some of his work featured enormous genitalia. His most famous erotic artwork was done for a privately printed edition of Aristophanes' "Lysistrata" and for Oscar Wilde's play "Salome". After his conversion to Catholicism he begged his publishers to destroy the "Lysistrata" illustrations and his other erotic works. His publisher ignored his requests.

Beardsley also illustrated many books and magazines. He illustrated a deluxe edition of Sir Thomas Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur" and worked for such magazines as The Studio and The Savoy. His work influenced the French Symbolists, the Poster art Movement of the 1890s, and many other Art Nouveau artists.

Six Sentence Story Monday

2012-01-16T19:21:00.004-05:00

Six sentence stories are a type of writing exercise or micro flash fiction to stretch one's capability to succinctly write a story. The idea is to write a full story in six grammatically correct sentences. I will post another one of mine today. If you would like to try your hand at writing this type of story, you could either leave your story in the comments or you can send it to me for possible publication on The Stars Are Not Made of Fire by emailing me at annette(at)thestarsarenotmadeoffire(dot)com, including the words six sentence story in the subject, and placing your story in the body of the text along with a brief biography or website address for yourself.

Here are a couple six sentence stories from me:

Georgie watched as the gypsy's bejeweled hand turned over the next card laid on the velvet covered table. The Lovers was followed by the Tower and Georgie needed no explanation beyond the picture. She thought of Reginald, his gambling, and the platinum blonde he had said was his personal assistant. She loved the way he glided across the dance floor and how his mustache tickled when they kissed. It had appeared a wonderful match to her despite her hardworking father's misgivings about an aristocrat who never paid the bill at a restaurant. Georgie eyed the diamond on her finger, pulled it off, tucked it into her purse, and left to board one of her father's ocean liners that was to set sail for New York.

Luke stared at the rough beamed ceiling. There had been deep veins of gold in the mountains. He thought about how the blast from a Colt Paterson repeating pistol made you ears ring. When Billy Bob and Wild Oakey had come into town, it had made Luke nervous and he had set up extra watches around the counting house. They must have planned things for just before the train arrived knowing that the counting house would be filled with a treasure. Sheriff Luke Dodson pulled his sticky hand away from his chest with a sickly sucking noise and thought about how cold the grave would be.

Sunday Writing Discussion #3: All in the Details

2012-01-15T19:10:00.004-05:00

Nothing slows a piece of fiction down more than having a lengthy character or scene description plunked into a piece. Also having paragraphs of exposition regarding the fictional world can seem necessary to the author, but pull readers out of the story.

Setting the scene and introducing characters is necessary. Further, if the piece is a fantasy or science fiction story the world may be very exotic and the characters unusual and need to be described. So how does one go about doing this?

First, there are ways to set up the story so that character and world descriptions fit in naturally into the story. One of these might be to have a naive character or a character who is exploring and cataloging the new sights that they are witnessing. In J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" Harry serves as the naive character who has come to Hogwarts and knows very little about the wizarding world. As he learns so too does the reader. Another example would be J.R.R. Tolkein's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy in which Frodo is the naive character who is leaving the Shire.

The words in fiction should never get in the way of the story. An economy of words and careful placement of those words that are the best ones to do the job should be strived for. If one can make the words in a story do double or triple duty, all the better. Rather than having lengthy descriptions, thinking about those small details that could be slipped in in my opinion can create this kind of smooth writing.

Let me give a couple of examples.

Story start number one:
Her horse snorted and stamped, Morgana pulled the cloak close about her. The wind ruffled the fur lining of her hood tickling her cheek. Duridan rubbed the pommel of his sword and pulled his horse to a stop. Through the blowing snow, he could see the golden light of a fire through the slits of the shuttered windows. Where there should have been laughter coming from the inn, he heard only a sign swinging and rattling in the night. "Your Majesty, I fear we may need to press on."

Story start number two:
Holding her cloche hat on her head, Ilsa pressed through the crowd. Her heels sank in the soft soil as she rushed past a clown juggling colored balls, a man in a gorilla suit, and six midgets drinking coca-cola. Rupert called after her, "Dearest, it is only for one night. And the lion has no teeth!"

I came up with these two examples off the top of my head. The first could be from a generic fantasy milieu-- the cloak, sword, and use of horses sets this up. It is set in a winter setting. One of the characters is royalty and the two characters could be running from something and trying to find shelter. In the second story, the cloche hat was a type of hat worn in the 1920's. A clown, the gorilla suit, and the midgets all give the idea that perhaps this is set at a circus. The details can set the story without explicitly stating the situation. If I were to write about different establishments and call one a pub and another a saloon, it would get across with those two words that one might be in England and the other in the American west.

I like to write poetry to practice this type of careful word choice. In poetry the words have to convey multiple meanings, have muscle enough to evoke the essence of what the poem is about, and there is no room for extraneous words. As an exercise try to write three versions of a kitchen without explicitly describing the kitchen. For the first one write a poem that evokes the feeling of a kitchen at night. For the second one write the start of a story about two male college flat-mates who are having girls over for dinner. For the third one write the start of a story about a woman who is in culinary school and wishes to be a chef. See how tightly you can write these three versions of a kitchen. All three should be very different. Before you write think about what details would distinguish these three kitchens.

Well-chosen details and the right words can carry description without giving too many words for the reader to trip over.

A Writer Has to Eat: Tomatillos, Mushroom, and Black Bean Chili

2012-01-15T17:56:00.007-05:00

This recipe is another one that I make in the crock pot. I like cooking with the crock pot because once I get the ingredients in it I can turn it on and walk away. Also I tend to cook quantities of food that I can re-heat through the week. This chili has a unique flavor that is different from the standard vegetarian chili that I make. The tomatillos (or green tomatoes if you cannot get tomatillos) give it a tangy flavor while the cardamom adds a spicy punch.

Ingredients
1 pound dried black beans
2 tablespoons olive oil or vegetable oil
1/4 cup mustard seeds
1 tablespoon chili powder
2 teaspoons cumin powder or 2 tablespoons freshly chopped cilantro or coriander
1/2 teaspoon cardamom powder
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 medium onions, diced
2 bell peppers, diced
1 pound mushrooms, sliced
6-8 tomatillos or 2-3 green tomatoes, diced
48 ounces vegetable broth
1 can tomato paste (6 ounce)
other types of peppers or chipotles in adobo
salt to taste

1. Soak the beans overnight in 2 quarts of water and discard the excess water OR boil the beans in the 2 quarts of water for a few minutes, and let them stand in the hot water while you prepare everything else to go into the crock pot, drain them.

2. In a frying pan or dutch oven with a lid pour the olive or vegetable oil. Put the mustard seeds, chili powder, cumin, and cadamom in the oil. Over medium heat and with the lid on the pan cook the spices for a few minutes. Put in the onions and saute them until they become translucent. Put the bell peppers, mushrooms, and tomatillos in the pan. Saute everything for 5 minutes or so until the vegetables' juices sit in the bottom of the pan. Add in the can of tomato paste and stir.

3. Put the beans in the crock pot. Pour the vegetable broth over them. Put the vegetable and spice mixture in the crock pot. Add the minced garlic. Stir everything together.

4. Turn the crock pot on high and let the chili cook all day. Add salt to taste.

You can experiment with which peppers you put into this chili. Chipotles in adobo sauce add a smokey flavour but be careful because they can make the whole chili very spicy. If I put chipotles in I only use 2 peppers out of small cans. Jalapenos and other types of peppers can also be used as can other types of beans. If using different types of peppers, just saute them with the vegetable and spice mix. Be careful when cutting spicy peppers and either wear plastic gloves or wash your hands frequently because the chemical in the peppers that makes them spicy will burn your skin.

This is good with cheese melted on top and a dollop of sour cream.

Enjoy!

Just Do It

2012-01-15T16:51:00.004-05:00

I recently read a blog post by Peter Bregman writing for the Harvard Business Review titled "Your Problem Isn't Motivation". In the post he talks about a friend who is trying to get into a routine and work out. The friend is a very self-motivated person who is having a hard time making himself go to the gym and he cannot understand why he cannot muster enough motivation. Bregman points out that his friend's problem is not one of motivation, it is a problem of follow through.

The Nike ads used to address this with "Just Do It."

As Bregman points out motivation is created via thought processes. Motivation comes from thinking about the benefits of doing the activity. It could be working out, writing, or folding laundry and cleaning the house. It could be anything that someone wants to accomplish. Motivation is evident simply in the desire to do the activity. More desire is not going to increase the likelihood of doing the activity. Guilt isn't going to increase motivation either. The case where the person lays in bed and reads or watches television does not mean that the individual has more desire to do those activities than working out, writing, or cleaning the house. Thought processes that make it clear that there is motivation can also sabotage. Thinking can be bad. So, when it is 5 am, I have planned to get up and run, and my brain starts processing and thinking thoughts like "It's cold. I want to stay warm.", I am thinking when I should just be doing. So when it is a beautiful Sunday afternoon and I have planned to write and my brain starts telling me that it would be nice to lay in the sunshine like a cat and read, I am thinking when I should be doing. It does not take much thinking to interrupt plans to do an activity that one is motivated to do.

When starting a new routine for an activity, it takes a while for the habit to get established. I have read in different places that it takes 30 days or 6 weeks for a habit to become routine. Also, habits can be disrupted by changes in overall routine. If one moves or changes jobs, then routine habits have to become re-established. When I lived in Michigan I would get up early in the morning and walk. I did this despite rain, snow, bitter cold (and I really don't like getting cold), or any type of weather. My day felt off if I didn't walk. I moved to Colorado and I live out in the middle of nowhere. I don't feel safe walking in the early morning here and so my routine has been disrupted. I very much miss walking. I dislike running on the treadmill, but it is the only way I can get exercise. I have to stop thinking and just run on the treadmill. Usually if I can just get myself out of bed and started, I will complete my workout.

This also goes for writing. I love writing, but it does take effort. Sometimes my writing will get interrupted by thoughts of "I just want to be lazy," "I owe myself some time off," etc. If I just ignore these thoughts, remind myself that I plan for my breaks, and get my butt in my desk chair, then the writing will happen.

Other things that I do to help make the follow through easier so that I will work out or will get writing accomplished are things like making up a checklist of what writing I want to accomplish or creating a concrete workout plan, making sure that I have everything handy and ready to go for both activities, and rewarding myself when I do get done what I have set out to do.

Now, as for folding the laundry and doing housework....

White Writing Prompts

2012-01-12T21:17:00.004-05:00

In honour of the cold and the white snow, all of these writing prompts this week have to do with the colour white.

1. Your point of view character finds a blank piece of paper. They start to put it in the trash and the word "Help!" mysteriously appears. What do they do? How is the paper capable of having a message on it?

2. A whipped cream pie comes flying at your point of view character and hits them in the side of the face. Who threw the pie? Why? Where did it come from?

3. Your point of view character is trying to walk home in a blinding snow storm. They keep walking and walking. They walk up to a house they think is theirs. Their key won't fit the lock. What happens next?

4. Your point of view character is a space explorer on a far off planet. The mission has scanned some caves and it appears as though the caves may hold life forms. Your point of view character is wearing an orange jumpsuit and enters the caves with a flashlight. Refracted and reflected light bounces off of crystals and everything is calcified. An alien creatures moans in the darkness upon the introduction of light and color. What happens next?

5. A friend of your point of view character accidentally cuts their finger and bleeds white blood. What happens next?

During the holidays a fellow writer that I know named Jo-anne Odell was also posting writing prompts if you want more writing prompts check out her blog at: http://www.jmodell.blogspot.com/2012/01/twelve-drummers-drumming.html

Three Poems: Winter

2012-01-12T07:02:00.009-05:00

The wind is howling and very cold this early morning. I cannot warm up. I went looking for poems about winter. I found three from poets who I have never highlighted before. The first poem is "Winter Twilight" by Anne Porter. The second is "Snow Bound (The sun that brief December day) by John Greenleaf Whittier. The third is "Now Winter Nights Enlarge" by Thomas Campion. If you were writing a poem about winter, what would capture the essence of the season for you? Are there additional poems that evoke winter for you?

Winter Twilight
by Anne Porter

On a clear winter's evening
The crescent moon

And the round squirrels' nest
In the bare oak

Are equal planets.

Snow-Bound [The sun that brief December day]
by John Greenleaf Whittier

The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east: we heard the roar
Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat with low rhythm our inland air.
Meanwhile we did your nightly chores,--
Brought in the wood from out of doors,
Littered the stalls, and from the mows
Raked down the herd's-grass for the cows;
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn;
And, sharply clashing horn on horn,
Impatient down the stanchion rows
The cattle shake their walnut bows;
While, peering from his early perch
Upon the scaffold's pole of birch,
The cock his crested helmet bent
And down his querulous challenge sent.

Unwarmed by any sunset light
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag, wavering to and fro
Crossed and recrossed the wingèd snow:
And ere the early bed-time came
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

*

As night drew on, and, from the crest
Of wooded knolls that ridged the west,
The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank
From sight beneath the smothering bank,
We piled, with care, our nightly stack
Of wood against the chimney-back,--
The oaken log, green, huge, and thick,
And on its top the stout back-stick;
The knotty forestick laid apart,
And filled between with curious art
The ragged brush; then, hovering near,
We watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,
Until the old, rude-furnished room
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom;
While radiant with a mimic flame
Outside the sparkling drift became,
And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree
Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free.
The crane and pendent trammels showed,
The Turks' heads on the andirons glowed;
While childish fancy, prompt to tell
The meaning of the miracle,
Whispered the old rhyme: "Under the tree,
When fire outdoors burns merrily,
There the witches are making tea."
The moon above the eastern wood
Shone at its full; the hill-range stood
Transfigured in the silver flood,
Its blown snows flashing cold and keen,
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine
Took shadow, or the somber green
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black
Against the whiteness at their back.
For such a world and such a night
Most fitting that unwarming light,
Which only seemed where'er it fell
To make the coldness visible.

Now Winter Nights Enlarge
by Thomas Campion

Now winter nights enlarge
This number of their hours;
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Let now the chimneys blaze
And cups o'erflow with wine,
Let well-tuned words amaze
With harmony divine.
Now yellow waxen lights
Shall wait on honey love
While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights
Sleep's leaden spells remove.

This time doth well dispense
With lovers' long discourse;
Much speech hath some defense,
Though beauty no remorse.
All do not all things well:
Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted riddles tell,
Some poems smoothly read.
The summer hath his joys,
And winter his delights;
Though love and all his pleasures are but toys
They shorten tedious nights.

Artist: Matthew Ritchie

2012-01-10T19:28:00.006-05:00

Matthew Ritchie is an ambitious artist. His goal is nothing more than to represent the entire universe and the structures and beliefs that we use to understand and visualize it.

He was born in London and currently lives and works in New York. He received his BFA from Camberwell School of Art in London. He also attended Boston University. He established himself in the contemporary art scene in the early 1990's. His first solo show in New York's Basilico Fine Arts ran from February 18 to March 18, 1995. The series of paintings in that first solo show identified him as an artist who "brought together historically and ideologically different belief systems in an attempt to show their common thread.”

While Ritchie is often identified as a painter, his work extends far beyond painting. He uses metal, paper, computers, mylar, light boxes, short stories, and a variety of different materials. A Ritchie installation might include sculptures, floor-to-wall installations, kiosks set up with his interactive websites, as well as traditional canvas paintings. Even though his work is so expansive, it is centered in drawing. Ritchie scans his drawings into the computer so he can manipulate them by blowing them up, deconstructing them, and/or transforming them into three-dimensional pieces. He digitally makes his images smaller and larger in order to experiment and play with his ideas beyond paper. In an interview with Art: 21, Ritchie explains his drawing process here: “I start with a collection of ideas...and I draw out all these different motifs, and then I lay them on top of each other. So I have piles of semi-transparent drawings all layered on top of each other in my studio and they form a kind of tunnel of information. Out of that, you can pull this form that turns into the sculpture or the painting. It’s literally like pulling the narrative out of overlaying all of the structures. That’s how I end up with this structure. It’s derived from a series of drawings that I scan into the computer and refine through various processes...and send to the sheet-metal shop down the road where it’s cut out of metal and assembled into larger structures which are too big for my studio.”

Ritchie has created an almost indescribable and expansive mythic narrative comprised from scientific information, his own imagination combined with elements from comic books and classic myth, and Judeo-Christian religion, occult practices, and Gnostic traditions. Beyond the first layer of this narrative is a meta-narrative that examines the belief that information is only at the surface level and looks at the limits of human consciousness in comprehending the vastness of the universe.

Ritchie's work has been shown in solo exhibits at the Dallas Museum of Art, the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, the Massachusettes Museum of Contemporary Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami. He was also an invited contributor at the Whitney Biennial in 1997, the Sydney Biennale in 2002, and Bienal de Sao Paulo in 2004.

Art 21 on PBS.org has a wonderful video segment that can be found at: http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/matthew-ritchie

Book and Movie Review Monday: The Last Werewolf and Sherlock Holmes--A Game of Shadows

2012-01-09T19:49:00.004-05:00

Next Monday I will post more six sentence stories. For today I am going to offer my opinions about "The Last Werewolf" by Glen Duncan and the new Sherlock Holmes movie.

The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan

I recently read somewhere that writing a story or a novel means you have to continuously keep your reader engaged, but in a novel things are a little different. In novels the first page will get the reader to read the second if it is well written. If the reader reads the second page, then they will probably read the first five pages. If the reader reads those five pages, then they will read the next ten. With each successive number of pages the amount of "good-will-and-interest-in-the-book credit" grows and the reader will finish the book if it reasonably well written throughout.

The first four chapters of The Last Werewolf absolutely snap with crisp prose, are packed with ideas, and the plot shows promise of being innovative. The book's premise is that the main point of view character is the last werewolf in existence. It begins to explore what it would mean to the world to have such a creature extinguished, but then shies off in my opinion. The book tentatively edges towards talking about real existential issues, and then devolves as I saw it.

Jake is a werewolf. He smokes, drinks, and has a great deal of sex. Part of this comes with the condition of being a werewolf. A secret agency that hunts supernatural monsters is tracking him after having killed the supposed only other werewolf in existence. No new werewolves seem to have been created in about 200 years so they have been picked off. The book could have done more to address Jake's unique status and situation. As a hunted being he does run and at one point is about to give himself over, but rather than exploring what extinction might mean for a creature of fantasy and what that would mean to the world the book cops out. An honest examination of that theme would have been fearless and far more dangerous than the story that ensued. I don't want to give any plot spoilers, but I will say that to my mind this had the potential to be a brilliant novel and then it went the way of playing safe and turned into an action thriller. Further the last few chapters had a point of view shift so they were told through the voice of a different character and I did not feel they were even well-written. This second point of view character sounded too much like Jake, she was supposed to be a modern day American but her part was told with British idioms, and the last few chapters felt like an add-on because the book needed to come to an end.

Would I recommend to someone else that they read The Last Werewolf? Yes, overall it is an engaging read. I think Glen Duncan has some significant storytelling ability and is an able wordsmith based on the first one third or so of the book. I don't finish books that bore me or are too horribly written to bother with. For me this book just was somewhat of a let-down in the end because the beginning held so much promise. I think I had my hopes higher than I should have had them.

Sherlock Holmes-- A Game of Shadows

I went to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie last Saturday evening. I very much liked the first Sherlock Holmes movie with Robert Downey Jr. playing the enigmatic detective. The first movie had some incredible sequences where the director showed how Sherlock analyzed fight sequences and then followed them through to win fights. It was innovative and a beautiful "show" of how quickly the great detective could problem solve. The second movie also uses some of these sequences and it takes the ability further. I don't want to give any spoilers, but I thought the movie was brilliant in the way that it further showed Sherlock Holmes mental capabilities.

Where the first movie was complete with the end of the movie, this second movie featured Doctor Moriarty. Doctor Moriarty was Sherlock Holmes nemesis. Where Blackwood was certainly corrupt and plotting to take over the world, his ego overrode his plans. Blackwood as a villain was not subtle and in part this made him evident as the villain and his end was inevitable. Moriarty is cunning. He does not put himself to the forefront to dominate the world, he plots and takes over behind the scenes. He manipulates to achieve what he desires. The second movie is expansive and it feels like there are more adventures to come.

In my opinion, Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law both did a fantastic job portraying the characters of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. Noomi Rapace, who was last seen in the Steig Larsson movies, demonstrated again that she has a mysterious depth that she brings to her roles. Would I recommend to someone to spend the money for the price of admission to Sherlock Holmes-- A Game of Shadows? Yes. Matter of fact I would like to see it again.

Sunday Writing Discussions #2: Process

2012-01-08T17:59:00.003-05:00

When I first returned to writing fiction after a several year long hiatus, it came easy. I sat down and wrote a 120,000 word drawer novel in 6 weeks. I would get an idea for a story and just sit down and write it without any real preparation, research, notes, or anything beyond enthusiasm and my laptop. As I kept writing and my sense of what constituted a good story grew, it became not easier to write, but much harder. I could see the discrepancy in what I was writing and what I wanted to be able to write. This was very frustrating and several times I came very close to giving up on writing entirely. But the only ways to get better at writing are to read, write, critique, think, and write some more. I am still working to improve my writing and probably will never feel that my writing is "good enough," but the days of feeling totally blocked are hopefully behind me.

I think writing is more thinking than it is writing at this point. Currently, when I edit and critique novels or short stories often the really glaring errors are because the author has relied on cliches, genre tropes, over-used turns of phrase, not thought through their ideas, etc. Often where the stories fall down is that they are not fully thought out and considered in all aspects. This shows in the writing. There will be inconsistencies and logic issues and the writing might not flow or be succinct. When I read stories of this nature, it feels to me like the writer is still in the process of thinking through their story.

While often writing books are of limited value, I do think that creating a type of list of things to include in one's fiction or a written out, and always in progress, definition of one's poetics is a good idea. It can guide the writing. Examples of things that are in my list of "writing rules for short stories" for myself include the following:

1. if I am writing a short story, begin the action as close to the onset of the plot of the story as possible
2. introduce the main character, the conflict, and the setting in the first hundred words
3. a story has to have certain elements which are a beginning, a middle, an end, a conflict, at least one character, a setting, and a plot
4. pick one point of view for a short story and stick to it, make sure that the character whose point of view that the story is being told through is the most ideal character for that particular story and the theme I want to convey
5. if I am writing a story with a speculative element, the speculative element needs to be integral to the story and add extra meaning
6. make sure the opening paragraph intrigues
7. all plot points must follow logically from one another
8. all elements must be intentional and considered within the total setting of the story
9. no extra words-- descriptions and details must convey extra meaning about the characters, add to the tone, and be well chosen

Further, following this list means that I have to prepare to write a story. I cannot just sit down and spit out a rough draft fully formed in one go. I have over the last couple of years developed my own process which has multiple steps. Often I am working on many stories, poems, and essays at one time. Currently, I also have a cookbook, two non-fiction books, and a novel in various stages that I am working on as well. Here are the steps that I use in my process to get writing done:

1. I collect ideas, information, interesting settings, possible plots or conflicts, and imaginings of characters.
I keep multiple files on my hard drive with each of these headings. If an idea or whatever occurs to me or I stumble across something interesting, I file it away.

2. I routinely review all the ideas and whatnot in the files on the hard drive.
Quite often when I have an interesting idea, it isn't enough for a story. It might be the impetus for a story, but none of the elements of fiction that those hard drive files represent can alone be a short story. It takes an assemblage of ideas and elements to make a story come together. Also, sometimes a really good idea just needs to sit and stew in my subconscious for awhile. Lately, I have been working on a set of stories whose original ideas first came to me a couple years ago and I stashed the ideas away.

3. When working on ideas, I find others to help.
Sometimes I just get stuck and I can feel that all the elements for a story are close to being enough to make the story happen but not quite, at this point I ask for help. I have a group of people that I feel comfortable with and I put my ideas out to them so that I can get assistance with brainstorming.

4. Once I think I have a complete idea for a story, I write out a one sentence synopsis of the story and a theme phrase for the story.
This is actually quite important. If I cannot write out in one sentence what the story is about, I will flail around trying to figure that out in the rough draft and it will be a frustrating experience. Secondly, the theme phrase I use while writing the short story is kind of like a mantra in the back of my head so that I stay centered on what I want to say. Themes are tricky because if you write the theme out in the story with too heavy of a hand, it can become preachy and a real turn off. I also want to "show" my theme rather than preach. Keeping the central idea at the back of my head keeps things focused without becoming too much on a soapbox.

5. After writing the one sentence synopsis, I write out a point by point plot synopsis and feel out the possible plot for its logic.
All the turning points in a story must feel like they logically flow from one to another. Before I start writing I work this through to avoid plot bunnies.

6. Once I know what my plot is going to look like, I design my characters for the story.
I like to write out histories, research whatever is necessary about the characters' backgrounds so I have it to supply details, etc. before I start writing my stories. For me, having this background information to hand is helpful because it can inform the story even if I don't explicitly use all of it in my story.

7. I research anything that I don't already know and whose details are necessary for the story.
I don't prescribe to the notion that one must only write what one knows (at some point in the future I am going to write a blog post on this). I think all of us have experiences and emotions that we have felt that we can use to put ourselves in the shoes of our characters and make them seem authentic. Further, I think that writing is a grand opportunity to learn new things. Research can be talking to people who do know about what we need for our characters or it can be reading wiki articles. However, this research happens it needs to occur to make the story believable. If I am writing about sailboats or Shanghai and I know nothing of either of these, I need to learn so that my story works.

8. I write the first draft.

9. Let the first draft sit for 2 to 3 weeks if possible.
I do this while I am working on other projects. A little time helps me be more objective about the writing so that I can see where changes need to be made.

10. I rewrite the first draft.

11. I have other people critique the writing.
It is very important to have a group of folks that you can trust who will look at your writing and give an honest and constructive critique. The only way to get better at writing is to get good feedback. I don't feel that anything that I write is good enough yet. I am still working on my writing. I will also say that my writing is my writing and I am the one who makes the choices about what to rewrite. If I offer a story for feedback, it is up to me to analyze whatever feedback I get and figure out what to do with my short story.

12. I send the story out for possible publication.
I will be honest. This is the hardest step for me. I am still struggling with this. But really how else to know if one's writing has reached a professional level?

Almost every piece of fiction that I write goes through all of these steps. This is my process. I don't know if it would work for anyone else. I would also add that I read all over the place and study many subjects so that I have a constant input of information to generate ideas. I also study great works by known authors. Lately, I am reading Bernard Cornwell, but I have been studying Hemingway's works to understand more completely what he is doing and how he constructs his characters and his novels. Writing fiction is much more than declaring oneself a writer. At the end of the day writing does mean plunking one's butt in a chair in front of a desk and hammering out words on the keyboard-- and doing the necessary prep work to make that happen.

What do you do to make it so your writing can happen? What is your process?

A Writer Has to Eat: Vegetarian Vegetable Soup

2012-01-08T17:00:00.009-05:00

I am in the midst of writing a vegetarian cookbook. Further, as I wrote in my previous post, I have been making big crock pots of soup that I eat throughout the week. I am a vegetarian and I don't think eating a great deal of processed food is very healthy. This recipe is a hearty soup filled with nutritious vegetables that reheats nicely throughout the week and is very filling.

Vegetarian Vegetable Soup

Ingredients
1/4 pound dry chick peas or 1 can of chick peas
1/2 pound dry red kidney beans or 2 cans of red kidney beans
1/2 cup (120 ml) pearled barley
2 tablespoon olive or vegetable oil
3 medium carrots, peeled and diced
3 stalks of celery, diced
1 medium onion, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
2 zucchini (courgette), ends cut off and diced
2 cups (480 ml) fresh greens, washed
1/2 pound green beans, washed, snipped, and cut
2 medium potatoes, diced
32 ounces vegetable broth or water
1 large (32 ounce) can of stewed tomatoes
3-4 cloves of garlic or 2-3 tablespoons of minced pre-prepared garlic
2 teaspoons dried basil or 4 teaspoons chopped fresh basil
1 teaspoon marjoram
2 tablespoons dried parsley or 4 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
2 bay leaves
white pepper and salt to taste

Directions:

Step One
If you are not using canned chick peas and canned kidney beans, soak your chick peas and beans overnight. Rinse them in the morning. Put them in the crock pot and pour in the vegetable broth or water and the stewed tomatoes. Add the diced potatoes, garlic, basil, marjoram, parsley, bay leaves, and salt and pepper. Cover and turn the crock pot on high.

Step Two
In a large frying pan or skillet, pour the olive or vegetable oil. Put the diced onions into the pan. Over medium high heat saute the onions until they just begin to become translucent. Add in the diced carrots, celery, bell pepper, and zucchini. Once these are beginning to soften add the fresh greens and wilt them.

Step Three
Add the mixture in the frying pan or skillet into the crock pot. Put the pearled barley and the cut green beans in the crock pot. Stir everything and let it simmer 6 or more hours until the beans and chick peas are completely soft. You may want to add some additional water if you feel it is necessary to make the soup more soup-like.

Step Four
When the beans and chick peas are soft. eat with bread and cheese or a salad!

Enjoy!

Time is the Currency of Life

2012-01-08T15:25:00.004-05:00

I can remember whole Saturday afternoons from when I was younger that were lost to bad movies. I wish now that I could have those hours back.

Every single person on the planet is mortal. Our days, hours, and minutes are numbered. When you are a child it feels like summers last forever and when you get older you start feeling the pressure of not enough time to get life's ambitions done. I know for myself finding the time to write and do art is not always easy. These activities that are very important to me easily get pushed down the "to-do" list by a whole assortment of meaningless, mind-numbing, but necessary tasks. Things like doing laundry, cleaning the house, grocery shopping, cooking, etc. On top of that while my writing earns me a helpful side income, I still have my regular job. The number of hours that I can devote to writing or doing art gets swallowed by all of this even though the writing and art are central to my life's ambitions.

Over the course of the last couple of months I have been taking a hard look at where I spend my time. I have been thinking more and more about how precious my time is and where I want to spend it. I have come to a few conclusions about how to save time to have time available for doing writing and art. I have created these guidelines for myself.

1. Really think about how you are spending time and if it is how you want to be spending time.
If you are doing something you really enjoy and you want to spend time on it, great. I think spending time talking to friends, exercising, etc. are all worthwhile investments of time. I think the greatest way to let someone know you appreciate and care about them is to be willing to give them time. Just make sure what you are doing is a conscious choice. The flip-side is that if you are bored, frankly that is a sign that you are squandering the precious time you have on earth. This has lead me to re-evaluate a few activities. For instance if a book doesn't grab me, unless I am editing it or critiquing it for someone else, I don't keep reading it. There is no law that says I have to finish every book that I start. If a movie isn't any good, leave or stop watching it. I have never been one to watch television but I have made a rule for myself that I only get to watch dvds or stream movies and television shows when I am doing something else. If I am working out or folding laundry, then I can watch television-- otherwise no. I have also cut back on the amount of time that I spend on social media like facebook, I have reduced the number of blogs that I read, and I have cut back on time spent aimlessly cruising the Internet. All of these things can eat time. The point is to be conscious of where I am spending time. If you don't know where your minutes, hours, and days go try logging your activities for a few days. Write down everything you do and specifically how much time you spend doing each thing. You might be surprised.

2. Plan out how you are going to get those mundane activities done in the least amount of time.
For instance, I live out in the middle of nowhere. To go grocery shopping is a 20 minute drive one way. To go to the next bigger town where there are department, clothing, electronics, office supply, etc. stores, it takes 45 minutes to get there. I plan my grocery shopping so I don't have to keep making additional runs for one or two items because it wastes time. I also go to the library on the way. I only go shopping to the bigger town once a month. Another thing I do is that I make soup in my crock pot on Sundays and I eat it through out the week so that I don't have to cook every night. I like to cook and I like the creativity of cooking, but it isn't where I want to spend my time right now. Try to think about how you could organize your errands to do them without doing multiple trips or inefficiently covering a lot of geography. Try to think about how you could get a task, like cooking, done for the whole week. Further it might sound crazy but de-cluttering your life ends up being a huge time saver. It makes cleaning the house easier. If you only have enough dishes for everyone for a meal, then dishes can never stack up into an Herculean task. If you only have enough clothing to get through a week or so, then laundry is not such a huge thing to do either.

3. Quit procrastinating.
I don't care if the procrastinating is rooted in nervousness about taking on a project or if it is simply avoiding work or whatever, procrastinating wastes time. If I really do have an ambition to get something done, then the proof is just in the doing. Procrastinating is just silliness and a squandering of my time.

4. Quit moaning and causing unnecessary drama.
I remember when I was an undergraduate in college, I would moan about how hard an assignment was and putter around and then finally finish it in a rush at the last moment. Usually what I would turn in for that assignment would be far inferior to what I was capable of. That drama is an incredible waste of emotional energy, talent, and time.

5. Breaks are a good and necessary thing.
Sometimes I get myself into a groove and I am writing and writing and writing and then I am not as efficient and my writing is not as good. This actually ends up wasting time when I try to continue and push forward when I am tired. If I take a break, specify in my own head how long the break will be, and then start up again promptly, I actually end up improving my writing and not wearing myself out. When I am home and have the luxury of writing all day, I plan out my day knowing that I will need breaks. During the work week, I plan out my writing projects for the evening and try to make the plan as realistic as possible. I write, read, research, or do art for 2-3 hours per night after dinner and I allow some down time before bed.

6. Let others help out and do things.
If you have a spouse, children, or a housemate, they can help do things around the house. Just give up on the cats though. You cannot get them to do anything useful. However, a spouse can cook and do chores. Children can make their own lunches, put away toys, etc. Housemates you can work out a system of cooperative cooking and housework with.

If you were handed $2000 and told you had a week to spend it all before any that remained was taken back, you would make specific choices about how to spend that money. We each get only a certain amount of time. Dreams and ambitions are only fantasies unless we invest the time to make them happen. Are you spending your time in a way that reflects your priorities?

Cartoon Writing Prompts!

2012-01-05T18:41:00.006-05:00

Cartoon writing prompts! More writing prompts to hopefully get your creative ideas flowing like a river through a manhole cover down the gorge to Frankenstein Monster's castle or to pedal in mid-air or to survive blowing up with TNT!

1. Your point of view character is Wily E. Coyote, Super Genius. Write a day in his pursuit of the Roadrunner. Does he catch the Roadrunner? What happens if he does catch the Roadrunner? Maybe the story could be the day after he catches the Roadrunner?

2. Your point of view character is the neighbor of Fred and Wilma Flintstone, on the other side away from the Rubles. Write a story in this scenario that involves the Flintstones.

3. Cartoons have their own physics and reality. Write a story that utilizes cartoon physics. How would a battle between a cartoon hero and a cartoon villain go? What interesting implements and weapons could materialize out of nowhere? How could gravity be defied in some new and interesting ways?

4. Write a story with He-man as the main character. Who would he rescue? What would be the story? What if he had to compete for She-Ra's love with an English professor? Write a story where She-Ra takes He-man to the barber for a haircut.

5. Cinderella and her mice marry the prince and move into the castle. Tell what happens to this Disney princess and her Prince Charming after the wedding. Or pick another Disney Princess. What does happily-ever-after mean?

Have fun with these! More writing prompts can be found on Jo-anne Odell's blog at http://www.jmodell.blogspot.com/2012/01/twelve-drummers-drumming.html

What Might Happen Between Now and 2111?

2012-01-04T20:40:00.006-05:00

This evening I have been reading New Scientist and came across an article about major science news from 2011. Here is the link to the New Scientist article: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228444.900-review-of-2011-the-years-biggest-news-at-a-glance.html. It was a quite remarkable year in science. Just to give you a taste:

In physics, scientists at CERN managed to bottle atoms of anti-hydrogen for 1000 seconds. This doesn't sound like a long time but it is about 10,000 times longer than has been managed before and it is ANTI-hydrogen, as in anti-matter that doesn't get on well with regular matter. It is claimed, and this is still being debated, that neutrinos travel faster than light. Lastly, the universal theory of physics received a boost when two teams of scientists at the Large Hadron Collider both announced evidence for the elusive Higgs boson particle that would be the key particle to the universe. Of course the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron collider was predicted by Eloi Cole who was found rummaging in bins outside the facility back in April 2010. He told authorities that "Countries do not exist where I am from. The discovery of the Higgs boson led to limitless power, the elimination of poverty and Kit-Kats for everyone."

In aeronautics and space sciences, the space shuttle Atlantis landed at NASA's Kennedy Space Center for the last time in July. This was the last space shuttle flight after 135 missions. The space shuttle was a dream of moving people and materials into space with a re-usable craft, unlike the previous rockets that had gone into orbit and to the moon. I can remember watching the landing of Columbia in April 1981 after its successful orbital test flight. When Atlantis landed in July it was the end of an era. The world's first 3-D printed aircraft made its maiden flight in the UK in August. The parts took 2 days to design and 5 days to print which is quite remarkable. In the 1940's, the United States in conjunction with Henry Ford invested in the Willow Run manufacturing plant to create B-24 bombers. At first the plant was called the Willit Run Plant and it took months for it to actually produce a single airplane. In November, NASA launched a Martian rover named Curiosity as part of the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft. It will land on the red planet sometime in August 2012.

In medical science, in July it was announced that not only did antiretroviral drugs help those with HIV to stay alive, the drugs also helped to reduce the transmission of the virus. In November, the cognitive decline of two people with Alzheimer's disease was reduced by using electrical impulses on brain tissue. Both of these announcements are good news and possible breakthroughs for diseases that are being elusive to find cures for.

In the world of computer science, while people used social media to organize street protests last January in Syria, Tunisia, and elsewhere, the Egyptian government cut its citizenry off from the Internet. This is a far cry from the pamphlets of the Enlightenment Era. In April, a software bot called LIDA showed the first hints of consciousness. Recent research into artificial intelligence has also lead to new understandings in regards to how humans formulate thoughts and express these thoughts through language. The Language of Thought theory that holds that humans have an underlying logical thought process similar to natural languages was bolstered. Sony Playstation's network was hacked into and the personal details of 77 million users were compromised and this forced Sony to take their Network offline. The total population of the UK is just over 62 million to give this some perspective. Ongoing and recent research also shows that the skills that people learn by gaming transfer to real life.

These stories are just a small smattering of the science that was announced this last year. We live in such a magnificent and wondrous universe with so many things to investigate and learn about. Just looking at the marvelous things in these stories-- bottling anti-matter, "printing" aircraft parts in 7 days, slowing the progress and transmission of a cunning virus, having 77 million people's personal information illegally accessed. All of this a hundred years ago would have seemed like science fiction. What might happen between now and 2111?

Poetry: Allen Ginsberg's Sunflower Sutra

2012-01-04T08:39:00.003-05:00

In the 1920's T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" captured the anxiety of the 1920's. "Howl and Other Poems" was published in 1956 by Allen Ginsberg. It captured the zeitgeist of his generation, sparked the San Francisco Renaissance, and defined Beatnik poetry. Howl is incredible. Once upon a time ago I had the good fortune to hear Allen Ginsberg read his poetry. He was dynamic. I would highly recommend finding and reading more of Allen Ginsberg's work. Here is just one of his poems.

Allen Ginsberg's "Sunflower Sutra"

I walked on the banks of the tincan banana dock and sat down under the huge shade of a Southern Pacific locomotive to look for the sunset over the box house hills and cry.

Jack Kerouac sat beside me on a busted rusty iron pole, companion, we thought the same thoughts of the soul, bleak and blue and sad-eyed, surrounded by the gnarled steel roots of trees of machinery.

The only water on the river mirrored the red sky, sun sank on top of final Frisco peaks, no fish in that stream, no hermit in those mounts, just ourselves rheumy-eyed and hung-over like old bums on the riverbank, tired and wily.

Look at the Sunflower, he said, there was a dead gray shadow against the sky, big as a man, sitting dry on top of a pile of ancient sawdust--

--I rushed up enchanted--it was my first sunflower, memories of Blake--my visions--Harlem

and Hells of the Eastern rivers, bridges clanking Joes greasy Sandwiches, dead baby carriages, black treadless tires forgotten and unretreaded, the poem of the riverbank, condoms & pots, steel knives, nothing stainless, only the dank muck and the razor-sharp artifacts passing into the past--

and the gray Sunflower poised against the sunset, crackly bleak and dusty with the smut and smog and smoke of olden locomotives in its eye--

corolla of bleary spikes pushed down and broken like a battered crown, seeds fallen out of its face, soon-to-be-toothless mouth of sunny air, sunrays obliterated on its hairy head like a dried wire spiderweb,

leaves stuck out like arms out of the stem, gestures from the sawdust root, broke pieces of plaster fallen out of the black twigs, a dead fly in its ear,

Unholy battered old thing you were, my sunflower O my soul, I loved you then!

The grime was no man's grime but death and human locomotives,

all that dress of dust, that veil of darkened railroad skin, that smog of cheek, that eyelid of black mis'ry, that sooty hand or phallus or protuberance of artificial worse-than-dirt--industrial--modern--all that civilization spotting your crazy golden crown--

and those blear thoughts of death and dusty loveless eyes and ends and withered roots below, in the home-pile of sand and sawdust, rubber dollar bills, skin of machinery, the guts and innards of the weeping coughing car, the empty lonely tincans with their rusty tongues alack, what more could I name, the smoked ashes of some cock cigar, the cunts of wheelbarrows and the milky breasts of cars, wornout asses out of chairs & sphincters of dynamos--all these

entangled in your mummied roots--and you standing before me in the sunset, all your glory in your form!

A perfect beauty of a sunflower! a perfect excellent lovely sunflower existence! a sweet natural eye to the new hip moon, woke up alive and excited grasping in the sunset shadow sunrise golden monthly breeze!

How many flies buzzed round you innocent of your grime, while you cursed the heavens of your railroad and your flower soul?

Poor dead flower? when did you forget you were a flower? when did you look at your skin and decide you were an impotent dirty old locomotive? the ghost of a locomotive? the specter and shade of a once powerful mad American locomotive?

You were never no locomotive, Sunflower, you were a sunflower!

And you Locomotive, you are a locomotive, forget me not!

So I grabbed up the skeleton thick sunflower and stuck it at my side like a scepter,

and deliver my sermon to my soul, and Jack's soul too, and anyone who'll listen,

--We're not our skin of grime, we're not our dread bleak dusty imageless locomotive, we're all golden sunflowers inside, blessed by our own seed & hairy naked accomplishment-bodies growing into mad black formal sunflowers in the sunset, spied on by our eyes under the shadow of the mad locomotive riverbank sunset Frisco hilly tincan evening sitdown vision.

6 Sentence Stories!

2012-01-01T16:09:00.007-05:00

Every other Monday (at least to start), I will post 6 Sentence Stories that are either my own or those sent to me by others. Six sentence stories require an economy of words and are a challenging exercise to improve one's writing. It is really surprising how much can be packed into six sentences.

To start this off, I am going to post a story of my own. If you would like to send me a story for consideration of publication on The Stars Are Not Made of Fire, please follow these directions. It must be in paragraph format and no more than 6 sentences long with good grammar. Please send it to me at: annette(at)thestarsarenotmadeoffire(dot)com. Make sure that you include the story in the body of your email and put 6 Sentence Story in the subject heading. Anything with an attachment will be deleted. Please include your name, a little about yourself, and the link to your blog or website if you have one because I will link to you. You maintain any rights over your story, I am just willing to post them here on my blog. I do reserve editorial rights over my blog. I will keep the directions to send me stories in the right hand sidebar. Hopefully this as a feature on this blog will take off.

I am still getting the hang of writing these stories. Here is an offering from me:

Her eyesight was failing, but the old witch felt along the shelf until she found the stoppered jar with the wolfsbane in it. The sun was setting, the beast would soon be at the door, and she and the golden-haired girl would be in grave danger unless her spell were complete before moonrise. For three moons the wolf's tracks had been found at the ingenue's door, she was the key because the wolf desired her above all the other villagers. By removing the werewolf's curse from the afflicted man, the witch, smiling, thought about how she would be a heroine and capture the transformative magic to make herself young again. The foul smelling brew within the cauldron begin to bubble and pop with potency as the room grew dark and the shadows cast by the flickering candles grew grotesque. The last thing the witch saw was the sharp teeth of the blonde werewolf who tore out her throat.

Sunday Writing Discussions #1: Plotting

2012-01-01T14:28:00.005-05:00

As most of you know that have read this blog in the past, I write. I do part time freelance non-fiction writing in addition to my day job and I write fiction and poetry. I have been writing for several years now and I am still working on getting my fiction published. I am by no means an "expert." This is meant to be the first of a series of Sunday discussions on writing fiction and poetry. Please feel free to leave your ideas in the comments and I will respond.

I can come up with ideas that might start stories quite easily. I am one of those people who can come up with hundreds of uses for a paper clip on the creativity test. Some of the uses will be practical, some obscene, some silly, but coming up with uses is not a problem. But just envisioning a good idea for a story is not enough. The idea may be the impetus for the story, but there has to be at least a main character, a setting, a conflict, and a reasonable plot.

I enjoy writing characters. I like people and most of my fiction is very character driven. Plotting is difficult for me. I recently read on a forum a comment from a woman who said she didn't like short stories because she found them unsatisfying. The story would be going along and engaging and then in her opinion all too frequently the short story would simply end. I critique other people's fiction in a few different writing groups and often I read stories where the world the story is set in is quite fascinating and the characters are interesting but nothing really happens. In my opinion both what the woman on the forum was describing and my experience in the stories that I have critted represent plot failures.

A long time ago Aristotle described stories as having a beginning, a middle, and an end. Stories are episodic. Novels are too for that matter, they just happen to have more room to expand, have a greater cast of characters, and more subplots. One of the problems that I run into in writing my fiction is that I don't always have a clear end in sight when I start a story, even though as Aristotle pointed out stories require a beginning, a middle, and an end. Also, often I will have an idea for a story that is character driven and only after the first draft is written can I see that it is an internal, character driven story, with a beginning, a climax, and an end. On the second revision of a story of this type, I have to rewrite the story to make those plot points stronger or the story doesn't feel like a story, it feels more like a character sketch. Fiction is meant to be entertaining and working on making the experience satisfying for the reader is tantamount. Stories that feel like character sketches or feel incomplete in my opinion are just not satisfying reads.

At present I am writing a story that is an action driven story with political intrigue. My initial idea for the story was nothing more than a scene. At first, I saw this scene as the beginning of the story. I began brainstorming around this scene and what its significance could be. This lead me to two weeks of lots of free floating thoughts and little real plot. I shifted my focus and made the scene be the climax and near the end of the story. I began engineering backwards, suddenly a plot emerged. I still had to think of the whole of the story in Aristotleian terms and consider what the first act, second act, climax, and resolution would be. I had to think of turning points for the story, both internal to the main character turning points and external to the action turning points, that the story would logically progress through, but I was no longer in the fog of amorphous brainstorming. I am beginning to think that knowing and starting from the endpoint of a story or novel is more important that simply having a good central idea or stunning character.

What do you think?

Happy New Year's Eve!

2011-12-31T17:37:00.002-05:00

Today is the last day of 2011. Looking forward to 2012, I have a great deal to accomplish and I am hoping that my efforts will bring opportunities and changes in my personal circumstance. What will I do in 2012?

I will continue to write and do artwork.
I will continue to read.
I will continue to exercise and eat healthy foods.
I will continue to be as kind as I can.

I am hoping to remember that music lifts my soul, dancing lightens my spirit, a little chocolate now and again is good for the child in me, friends need to know how much I appreciate them, feather boas can be a wonderful accessory, and smiling does make one feel better.

My wish for anyone reading this is that you have the opportunity to eat mangoes naked, play in water fountains, and dream dangerous dreams. Hold tight to wild desires to travel in a gypsy wagon, fly over prairies in a dirigible, or sail in a tall ship with pirates. May you swim with dolphins, watch elephants amble, and soar with the peregrines. I hope you make things that didn't exist before you thought of them-- love, poems, paintings, or whatever. It is my wish that you feel loved when you need it and particularly when you don't and that you are liked. I hope that you have someone to love and like in return. May your days be filled with kindness, wisdom, abundance, risks, mistakes, and successes.

Happy New Year!

The "Dubious Magical Powers" Writing Prompts

2011-12-30T18:52:00.003-05:00

I remember reading the Trojan War and feeling bad for Cassandra. She had this totally awesome ability of being capable of predicting the future, but no one would believe her.

These writing prompts are about dubious magical powers. Have fun.

1. Your point of view character can make other people fall asleep just by willing it. What does he/she do with this ability?

2. Your point of view character has the ability to make a person have to urinate just by staring at them. What does he/she do with this debilitating power?

3. Your point of view character can make cats do his/her bidding. What does he/she do with this awesome power? Do the cats resent him/her? Where does this ability come from?

4. Your point of view character can see other people's past lives. What does he/she do with this? How do they explain that it isn't just made up? How do you explain how the character acquired this ability?

5. Your point of view character is literally a magic chef and can make anything taste sublime. How does he/she showcase their ability? Where do they get their ability? Is there a cost to having this ability? What challenges could this character encounter?

The "Things Lost and Things Found" Writing Prompts

2011-12-29T20:52:00.005-05:00

Have you wondered about things lost and things found? I am always curious when I see a lone shoe on the side of the road. I wonder who the owner was and where the other shoe went. Lone mysterious keys give me pause to imagine what they unlock. Sometimes if I am lucky I will find someone else's discarded "to-do" or grocery list. I always find these fascinating. What about when you are certain that an object was in a secure place and then it turns up missing? Do you ever make up a story about where it went? Not just the socks that disappear in the laundry, but other stuff like photos, books, treasured toys, and the last of the ice cream. The theme for these writing prompts is that they are about things lost and found.

1. Your point of view character is at the grocery store. As they pull out a cart, they see a piece of paper in the cart. It is a list. On the list it says the following: "cow liver, a red candle, a red rose, olive oil, 2 packs of playing cards, salt, garbage bags, rubber gloves and coke. Don't forget to get the robes from the dry cleaners." Make up a story to go with this list.

2. Your point of view character is a bus driver. He/she finds a clasped leather case at the end of their shift that has been left on the bus. What might be in the case? What do they do?

3. Every morning your point of view character makes tea and sets the cup on the counter. For a week they do this and the tea cup disappears to be found later in other parts of the house. Why are the tea cups moving? Who or what is moving them?

4. Your point of view character loses their birth certificate. passport, and driver's license. When they get them back, all the information is slightly altered. Why? What do they do?

5. Your point of view character finds a strange key at the back of a drawer as they are moving out of their apartment. When they move into their new place, a strange trunk is unloaded and left by the movers. The key fits the trunk. How did the key and trunk get in the point of view character's possession? Do the key and trunk do something? What is in the trunk?

Happy writing! For more writing prompts please check out Jo-anne Odell's blog at www.jmodell.blogspot.com

The "Pushing the Limits" Writing Exercises

2011-12-28T19:28:00.005-05:00

Sometimes pushing the limits can be useful and you can learn a great deal. All of these writing exercises are designed to push the limits in some ways to experiment and help clarify aspects of writing.

1. Write a complete story in six sentences. What could you say in 6 carefully crafted sentences? Examples can be found at Six Sentences

I am hoping to make this a regular feature on this blog in the New Year and will publish six sentence stories that are submitted to me. Guidelines for submission will be coming in the next week.

Here is an example of mine:

Smiling, she drank her tea and ate her biscuits. Noticing a spot on her blouse, she tried to wipe the stain away. Persistent as her forty-year marriage, the brownish splotch would not wash out even under the tap. The cat played with a string under the tablecloth. A cold, stiff hand flopped out onto the persian rug from beneath the lace. She really needed to do something about Herman.

2. Ernest Hemingway was once bet that he couldn't write a short story in six words. He wrote the following: For sale: baby shoes, never worn. Write a story in six words. What could you say in only six words? Examples can be found at Six Word Stories

3. Describe the worst piece of writing that you can. What would be features of this piece? Would the characters be flat? The story plotless? etc.

4. Write a paragraph describing some scene that you have observed. After writing the scene, edit out at least one third of the words and see if you can convey the meaning of the first draft.

5. Pick a form of poetry and write a poem in that form. Sestinas like Elizabeth Bishop's Sestina (which I featured a month or so ago can be found at: http://thestarsarenotmadeoffire.blogspot.com/2011/11/poetry-elizabeth-bishops-sestina.html) are difficult to write and force the author to think of ways to make the six words that the poem hangs on be used in different ways to convey different meanings.

Try these writing exercises! Have fun with them! If you need more inspiration, more writing prompts can be found at Jo-anne Odell's blog at: www.jmodell.blogspot.com

"Once Upon a Time" Writing Prompts

2011-12-27T10:57:00.005-05:00

I have been reading some of the short stories of Angela Carter. She is best known for her collection of short stories which was titled "The Bloody Chamber." I may feature this collection at later date in a book review, but each of the stories is a retelling of a fairy tale.

Fairy tales are potent with meaning. Today's collection of writing prompts are all taken from fairy tales.

1. In the story of Beauty and the Beast the traditional theme is that by being debased the prince learns to be generous of spirit and Beauty recognizes this spirit beyond his ugly visage. But the story is also one of transformation. The prince loses everything to become the beast, is transformed, and finds happiness in the end. Beauty loses her family, makes the best of her situation, and is transformed in the end as well. How could you retell the story of Beauty and the Beast and put the emphasis more on ideas of death and rebirth?

2. Sleeping Beauty is a story about a young woman who is cursed to sleep until she is awakened by the man who will be her love. It is often interpreted as a story about sexual awakening. What if the story took a different turn entirely? What if Sleeping Beauty is an artist or a dreamer and her "awakening" is really pulling her away from her subconscious and her source of inspiration? What might the story look like then?

3. Puss-in-Boots is about a wily, talking cat whose fanciful tales cause his master to become very wealthy. What if Puss-in-Boots were real in the modern day? How could a talking, wily cat be a boon to a modern day young person?

4. In the Emperor's New Clothes no one is willing to admit to the emperor that they cannot see the clothing. No one is willing to risk their reputation and speak with honesty. How could this idea be transported into a fairy tale telling of the presidential primaries?

5. Snow White is taken into the forest because of her jealous step-mother who wants her killed, lives with the seven dwarves, is poisoned, and eventually is saved by a prince. What if the story of Snow White is about an impetuous teenage girl who simply runs off and sees herself within the story of Snow White? How could that story be told?

These are just a few ways to reinvent fairy tales. A rereading of a collection of the tales could provide inspiration for many stories.

More writing prompts tomorrow! Please check out Jo-anne Odell's blog at www.jmodell@blogspot.com for even more writing prompts.

"Spiff New Gadgets" Writing Prompts

2011-12-26T11:11:00.005-05:00

Today is the day after Christmas. Did you get some spiff new gadgets? Something to play with? Something to make life better?

Do you remember the 1950's "house of tomorrow"? Do you remember the vision of the future from the Golden Age of Science Fiction when we were all supposed to work less? have push button convenience in all areas of our lives? drive flying cars?

Several mechanical innovations have changed the way humans live. Where would we be without the wheel? the weaving loom? the cotton gin? This set of writing prompts/ideas revolve around innovations that might come about.

1. Imagine if we had teletransporters and cars were only a luxury item for entertainment. A person could live in Fiji and work in Los Angeles. Education, entertainment, friends, and shopping could be anywhere in the world. Parking lots could become groves of trees and urban gardens.

2. Imagine if we all never left our homes and lived virtually with all of our supplies delivered to the house, employment happening online, and we could create avatars to represent ourselves anyway we chose. How do you think people would choose to represent themselves? How would people socialize? What would happen to ideas of family? Marriage?

3. Imagine if we could directly link to a computer through our cerebral cortex and did not need a tablet or laptop. What would happen to dreams?

4. What if cybernetic parts could just continually replace worn out organs? At what point would a person remain a person or be designated an artificial intelligence? Where does a person's identity and sense of humanity reside?

5. Androids that are impossible to distinguish from real humans are developed. Would they be released and sold? Would there be a protest? Would people accept the androids? Would there be a demand that they be made to look less human?

Have fun writing! More writing prompts can be found at Jo-anne Odell's Blog at http://www.jmodell.blogspot.com/

Merry Christmas to Everyone!

2011-12-26T00:51:00.002-05:00

Merry Christmas to Everyone!

More writing prompts to come tomorrow. I hope today brought everyone joyous memories.

Magic of Christmas Eve Writing Prompts

2011-12-24T10:53:00.004-05:00

Christmas Eve is a time of possibilities. It is a time of imagining. Who knows what might be wrapped up in brightly colored paper with a bow on top? What fantastical creation have the elves created? What will Santa Claus bring?

1. It is a cold Christmas Eve. The stars glimmer distantly in an indigo sky. The snow glistens with moonlight. A wind whips up a swirling devil of snow and someone materializes. Who is this person?

2. A young woman is walking home late in the evening on Christmas eve. She hears the cacophonous honking of geese and the ground vibrates. The Horned God appears before her. The Wild Hunt is on. What happens next?

3. A mysterious red bag is found by your point of view character. When he/she opens the bag it seems cavernous-- rooms larger than the satchel size it appears to be. What might be at the bottom of the bag? What happens next?

4. Your point of view character is given what appears to be a fantasy book, but as they read glimpses of a reality beyond the norm can be seen in their peripheral vision. The visions become maddeningly enticing, what does your point of view character do? What happens?

5. Your point of view character wakes to a tapping on her window and sees a sprightly ancient figure touching her window pane. Frost spreads from his fingertips. He startles when he sees he has been observed. Your point of view character pursues him. What happens next?

Merry Christmas and Happy Writing!

The "Good Things Come in Small Packages" Writing Prompts

2011-12-23T11:39:00.005-05:00

Ever since Pandora opened the box it has been known that pretty potent stuff can come in small packages. These writing prompts are about those small packages that pack a wallup.

1. Your point of view character is sitting on a bus. After a clutch of people get off at a stop, he looks across the aisle and realizes that someone left a tiny, but beautifully wrapped package on the seat. What does your character do?

2. Your point of view character is the head of security on an interplanetary cruise ship on its way to the pleasure domes of Io. He/she finds a queer object wrapped in a thin fragile substance with some sort of adhesive. There is a type of cord tied around the object. What does your head of security do?

3. Your point of view character wakes up to find a small package beside his/her head on the pillow. Thinking it is from their partner, they open it up. It is a ring. Later after speaking with the partner, the point of view character finds out that the partner did not leave the ring for them. What does the point of view character do? Who left the ring? What might be up with the ring?

4. A small creature is discovered who can create minute temporal distortions. What does this discovery do?

5. An intergalactic trader comes back from an expedition into a far off quadrant of the galaxy. He brings back with him a type of empathic stone that can absorb the strong emotions associated with memories. What might the stones be used for? How might things go awry?

More writing prompts to come tomorrow. Further, there are more writing prompts that can be found on Jo-anne Odell's blog at: http://www.jmodell.blogspot.com/

Merry Christmas! Happy Writing!

The "And You Thought Candy Canes Were Only For Sucking" Writing Prompts

2011-12-22T11:53:00.003-05:00

Continuing to spread the Christmas joy and offering my gift of writing prompts, I present five more writing prompts! This time all five have to do with those slender, cylindrical peppermint twists of holiday sweetness-- candy canes!

1. Your point of view character is a small child at a holiday party. He or she is frightened of Santa, because who wouldn't be frightened of Santa. Funny red suit, big dude. But this character timidly is the last to go up to Santa, he/she tells him want they want and he gives them one of those itty bitty candy canes in plastic wrap. And its broken. Your point of view character says thank you but is disappointed. He/she goes to get a cookie from the buffet table and while there a spindly hand grabs their ankle from beneath the table cloth... What happens next?

2. Your point of view character is at a wild Christmas Eve party and a voluptuous woman in a green elf suit tells him to drink down a brilliant green drink. He wakes the next day in a cage made of candy canes. What happens next?

3. Your point of view character is a vampire hunter. He/she is stalking a vampire in a suburb that has been fully decked out with Christmas lights and decorations. A woman rushes at him, he grabs a wooden candy cane decoration stuck in the ground and stakes her. What happens next?

4. After all the wrapping paper shreds have landed and the presents are all opened, your point of view character finds beneath the tree a candy cane with a note in a fine script that says: "Eat me!" The point of view character sucks on the candy cane... What happens next?

5. Your point of view character is a detective who has been called in on a murder on Christmas Day. The weapon... a candy cane. How did the murder occur? Who did it? What happens next?

Make a Picture Worth At Least a Thousand Words Writing Prompts

2011-12-21T06:38:00.008-05:00

While I continue thinking of creative uses for candy canes for tomorrow's writing prompts (you thought candy canes were only good for sucking on?), I pulled a few photos off of a post by Matt Stopera on Buzzfeed. Any of these 50 inexplicable photos could prompt a story. Here are five that I pulled.

1. I wonder if John Irving had seen this photo prior to writing "The Hotel New Hampshire." Why does the bear have his hand on the woman's shoulder? Why is she sitting on the bed in her shift? What has transpired between them?

2. Why are these two posed as they are? Is this a wedding photo? What has gone between the two of them? Why is one of the figures wearing a deep sea diving suit? Is this Captain Nemo's wedding photograph?

3. What is up with the woman with the dark glasses? Why does the man have his back to the camera? Is this some kind of steampunk polyamory? What is the story between these three individuals?

4. Armadillo or space alien? How did a daguerrotype come about of this creature? What is this creature?

5. This naked lady looks pretty pleased with herself. Who is she? Are men just interchangeable heads? What is the story with her mannequin/android/love doll?

Because even more writing prompts are even more fun, you can find writing prompts at Jo-anne Odell's blog at: http://jmodell.blogspot.com/

The "I Had Sex With a Werewolf and Bat Boy is Our Illegitimate Love Child" Writing Prompts!

2011-12-20T07:57:00.009-05:00

More writing prompts for you for today inspired by none other than... da dada dum...THE WEEKLY WORLD NEWS! In its day, "The News" had some truly inspired creative writing. So spinning off of some their old headlines, writing prompts!

1. Our current political situation is a result of a subtle alien takeover. President Bush was endorsed by aliens. Who are these aliens? Do they just want our fish sticks and custard? What is their plot?

2. Cthulu has arisen! And he is hungry for Jersey! Bon Jovi thought he was safe and Jersey looks like heaven until the Elder God rose up out of the sea. How can the many tentacled one devour Jersey?

3. A merman is caught in the South Pacific. What does he look like? Did he accidentally get caught or did he intentionally show himself? How long have the merman been in the South Pacific? And why have we not had proof of their existence before?

4. Alien skulls are found on Mars. Is anything else found? What do they look like? What story can be pieced together from what the exo-archeologists find? Are any of the skulls made of crystal?

5. A vampire cat is caught with a bowl of human blood set out as bait. How does the world react to proof that vampires exist? What do the vampires do?

Go forth and write!

Happy Dancing Like Drunken PenMonkeys at an Ecstatic Orgy Where the Goddess Brigid is giving Free Samples from Her Cauldron Writing Prompts!

2011-12-19T06:44:00.004-05:00

Yup. You heard right. Happy dancing like drunken penmonkeys at an ecstatic orgy where the goddess Brigit is giving out free samples from her cauldron. The Cauldron. So slurp it up and write with fervor here are a handful more of writing prompts:

1. Your point of view character wakes up in the middle of the night to a sound like a canon ball being shot in the bedroom and discovers a gun toting, pen wielding Hunter S. Thompson in the bedroom who demands that your point of view character get the hell out of bed and start writing. Life is short, the world is large, and there are things to discover. He asks, "Do you think all those chicks in Hollywood really have blonde hair and tits like zeppelins? Do you really think that all those CEOs aren't working a conspiracy? And what the f**k do you think they put in the water?" What does your point of view character do?

2. Your point of view character is in a car accident in which she gets knocked unconscious when her head hits the steering wheel. When she becomes conscious, she intuitively knows the psychology, history, and thoughts of everyone she meets. She knows that Diane secretly eats chocolate chip cookie dough at midnight after lighting cinnamon scented candles and putting her Celine Dion cd on. She knows Mike grew up in Milwaukee, had a three-legged golden retriever named Wonderdawg, and wanted to draw comic books about the adventures of Mighty Millicent the Millipede before becoming an admin assistant. She knows Juan wears red lace panties under his Carhardts and loves Rita Hayworth movies. She sees a man and he is thinking of... What does she do with this knowledge?

3. "Time is a thief who slips in without notice and before you know it, life is gone," says the old man with the rheumy eyes. He grabs your point of view character's hand in one of his ancient, talon-like hands and adds, "I was young once. Don't work too hard. Tell people you love them. Stay in contact with your friends. Have fun. The darkness comes." And then he dies while your point of view character watches. Your point of view character has the distinct feeling that dead is dead, no afterlife. What does he do?

4. Your point of view character finds a strange coin on the sidewalk. After bending to pick it up, he straightens and finds a handsome man in a three piece pin stripe suit directly in front of him who demands the coin. The point of view character says that he found it first. The Devil looks at your point of view character and says that the point of view character really doesn't want that coin, but he will let him keep it. What happens? What does the coin do?

5. The gypsy turns over The Lovers card followed by The Death card and looks at your point of view character and says, "You have the opportunity to know great love, to be in love, deep love, but it will break your heart and leave you at Death's door. But no fate is sealed. You can decide not to fall in love. Run away from love. It is your choice." What does your point of view character do? What happens next?

Stay-tuned more writing prompts here tomorrow. Joining me in this writing frenzy is Jo-anne Odell whose blog with more writing prompts can be found at http://jmodell.blogspot.com/

We are like this crazy Ginzu knife package of writing and writing prompts! Let the creativity flow!

Juicy Writing Prompts

2011-12-18T11:50:00.004-05:00

More writing prompts to get the creative juices flowing!

1. A representative from an alien race appears and offers a revolutionary form of energy that will move civilization past the need for oil, but they want ten percent of the earth's population as slaves. Your point of view character is part of the committee to decide if the bargain should be taken or turned down.

2. Your point of view character meets an actual witch who looks like a human being but is an entirely different species. What would the differences in the two species be? What would be your character's reaction? What would your point of view character do?

3. Your point of view character finds/invents a real love potion or love spell that can make anyone they want love them. What happens? What does the point of view character do?

4. Your point of view character discovers something in the attic while cleaning out their recently deceased grandmother's house that changes the way they conceive of their own identity. What does the point of view character discover? In what ways does it change how they view who they are?

5. Your point of view character discovers a book that seemingly tells their biography from the moment they were born. As the point of view character turns the pages more text appears and their future seems to be written. How does the point of view character interpret this book? What do they do with it? How does it or does it not change them?

Writing Prompts!

2011-12-17T21:12:00.002-05:00

Continuing with the gift of writing prompts:

1. Write a story in which you evoke the feeling of "home." This could be your home or it could be the home of a created character.

2. Set your story in a fantasy world and create a holiday with a mythos. What would be the name of the holiday? How would it be celebrated? What would be the myth and who would be the characters in the myth?

3. The world that your point of view character lives on only has winter every twenty years. What would winter mean to them? How would they prepare for it? What would be the characters' reactions to snow?

4. Your point of view character lives in a totalitarian state in which writing anything too provocative could get them killed. They write a beautiful treatise that shakes the core of the country. Describe what happens.

5. Your point of view character is the personal historian to the King and Queen. What do they write? How do they view their job? What is the day to day life like in the castle?

Day One: Writing Prompts

2011-12-16T07:13:00.003-05:00

As my Christmas gift to whoever stops by I am going to post a set of story prompts every day from now through New Year's Day. I will probably post other things as well, but enjoy the writing prompts. Merry Christmas!

Story Prompt Number One: It is the day or two after New Year's Eve, your point of view character has just woken up and either the memories of the previous night's celebration are flooding into his/her head or another character is relaying the events. Give the story either a science fiction or fantasy twist.

Story Prompt Number Two: Your point of view character is a servant in a wealthy household. It is the day after a drunken feast and party that included gambling. Guests are sleeping wherever they fell. At the gambling table there is money laying about. No one is around, does the point of view character steal an unrecognizable amount of the money?

Story Prompt Number Three: Your point of view character is the last of a fantasy species. Pick the species and tell their thoughts as they realize they are the last of their kind.

Story Prompt Number Four: A stranger promises your point of view character that he can reunite them with a lost love but there will be a price. The point of view character must designate someone else whose life will become forfeit. To demonstrate the stranger's power he gives the point of view character a day with the lost love. What does the point of view character do?

Story Prompt Number Five:Your point of view character awakens from slumber to find a ghost standing at the end of the bed. The ghost claims to be a relative of theirs. What happens next?

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-23T21:06:00.004-05:00

I have much to be thankful for. Currently I am in a whirlwind of applying for grad schools and trying to sort out what the next chapters in my life will look like, but I have to say that I am very grateful for the richness in my life. My existence to date has been filled with adventures and there will be more to come. I live with emotion and verve. I am glad to draw breath every morning and to continue my path of creative and passionate living. A fierce heart beats in my chest and I am glad for the rhumba. My it keep on pounding out the beat.

So to celebrate the day, I give you the Pumpkin Pie Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwK9JZcob5c

Crank it up and dance the Charleston with a wet dish rag in your hand to share the spirit of the day with as many as possible!

Oh and if there is whipped cream for that pumpkin pie, pile it on. Life is far too short Babalooshkas!

What might be made of a recipe for "Brazilian" Black Bean Soup? Or, What stories might a mango tell?

2011-11-13T17:52:00.008-05:00

This morning I made Vegetarian Brazilian Black Bean soup. I am not certain why I call it Brazilian. I created the recipe from a couple other recipes that I looked at that contained meat and one of them might have been Brazilian. That might be the derivation for the name of the soup and it certainly distinguishes it from the other types of black bean soup that I like to make.

The recipe for my soup contains the following:

1 or 2 onions, diced
4 Italian style vegetarian sausages, cut into small pieces
2 sweet peppers, diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 mangos, diced
2 sweet potatoes, diced
i eggplant, diced
2 14.5-ounce cans of stewed tomatoes
1 lbs. dried black beans
32 ounces of vegetable broth
2 cups or so of water
3 bay leaves
2 tablespoons minced garlic
salt to taste

I saute the onions in the olive oil so they are translucent and then I put the sausage bits, eggplant, and sweet pepper in the fry pan and saute them until the eggplant and peppers are beginning to get soft. I take out my crock pot and I place the beans, the diced sweet potatoes, the mangos, the sauteed vegetables and sausage mix, vegetable broth, water, stewed tomatoes, bay leaves, garlic, and salt into the crock pot. I put the lid in and turn it on high and left it cook until the beans are soft. It usually takes all day.

Easy-peasy recipe. But look at those ingredients and think about the climates necessary to grow those vegetables. Mangos grow in the tropics. Sweet potatoes were domesticated in Central and South America over 5000 years ago. Sweet potatoes were grown in Polynesia before Western exploration. Peppers are native to Mexico, Central America, and northern South America. The best guess for the origin of the eggplant is India from what I have been able to turn up. Black beans have been a staple in Central and South America for centuries. Garlic is thought to be from central Asia. Bay leaves will not grown in colder climates and hail from such exotic places as Turkey and Asia. This "Brazilian" black bean soup is a very cosmopolitan mix!

I was thinking as I was making this soup today that if there were some way for a future archeologist to find a cookbook, they could deduce quite a bit about this time period in this region. I live far up in the mountains. The growing season is incredibly short. There is only a guarantee of no frost for a continuous 60 days out of the entire year. To find a cookbook that included ingredients such as mangos, eggplant, and peppers would have to imply a quite rich society with a vast and quick transportation network. Further, if the archeologist could look at the books on my cookbook shelf, they would see recipes from every continent on the planet. This would indicate global communication.

What other deductions could be made from simple items within any household?

Poetry: Elizabeth Bishop's Sestina

2011-11-06T20:38:00.006-05:00

Even though we are vastly different in many, many ways (she was independently wealthy, graduated from Vassar, traveled widely and lived in many countries, and was a lesbian), I have always felt an odd kinship to Elizabeth Bishop. Like her I was raised by extended family and passed around. I always felt like a guest. She was quoted as saying once that she always felt like a guest growing up as well. When I learned of this, I had the odd sensation of familiarity with her and her poetry. Our differences and similarities unite us.

Whether she was comfortable in this world or felt the perpetual guest, Elizabeth Bishop's poetry was described by Robert Lowell, who was a very good friend of hers, as follows: "Elizabeth Bishop is the contemporary poet that I admire most .... There's a beautiful completeness to all of Bishop's poetry. I don't think anyone alive has a better eye than she had: The eye that sees things and the mind behind the eye that remembers."

Tonight I have been reading some of her poetry. I think she is one of the most accomplished modern poets. She is also one of the modern poets who receives far too little attention even though she was a Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize Winner. She is not one of the names that springs to people's lips when they are asked to name a favorite modern poet and this is a shame.

In the past I have posted "I am in Need of Music" which is a spectacular poem. There are so many that are wonderful-- "Exchanging Hats," "Loves Lies Sleeping," and "At the Fishhouses" to name a few. For this post I chose "Sestina." A sestina is a form poem that is very challenging to write because the words at the ends of the lines must be used in a specified way. The best sestinas use and re-use the words in combination to create a variety of meanings. Bishop's "Sestina" is magnificent.

Sestina

September rain falls on the house.
In the failing light, the old grandmother
sits in the kitchen with the child
beside the Little Marvel Stove,
reading the jokes from the almanac,
laughing and talking to hide her tears.

She thinks that her equinoctial tears
and the rain that beats on the roof of the house
were both foretold by the almanac,
but only known to a grandmother.
The iron kettle sings on the stove.
She cuts some bread and says to the child,

It's time for tea now; but the child
is watching the teakettle's small hard tears
dance like mad on the hot black stove,
the way the rain must dance on the house.
Tidying up, the old grandmother
hangs up the clever almanac

on its string. Birdlike, the almanac
hovers half open above the child,
hovers above the old grandmother
and her teacup full of dark brown tears.
She shivers and says she thinks the house
feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove.

It was to be, says the Marvel Stove.
I know what I know, says the almanac.
With crayons the child draws a rigid house
and a winding pathway. Then the child
puts in a man with buttons like tears
and shows it proudly to the grandmother.

But secretly, while the grandmother
busies herself about the stove,
the little moons fall down like tears
from between the pages of the almanac
into the flower bed the child
has carefully placed in the front of the house.

Time to plant tears, says the almanac.
The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove
and the child draws another inscrutable house.

Music: Madeleine Peyroux's "I'm All Right"

2011-11-05T21:15:00.003-04:00

Madeleine Peyroux sings as though she is several decades misplaced. I love her sultry 1940's style crooning. I can close my eyes and picture her singing into an old style microphone, the back-up band playing behind her, and the smoke from the patrons' cigarettes creating a haze in a WWII nightclub.

Here is the YouTube link to "I'm All Right": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfJrwLJJp3A

Oh, such gorgeous music. Here's another titled "Dance Me to the End of Love": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q7izA_cmDI&feature=related

Music: "The Sound of Sunshine" by Michael Franti and Spearhead

2011-11-03T22:03:00.003-04:00

I heard "The Sound of Sunshine" by Michael Franti and Spearhead earlier today and it has been stuck in my head all afternoon and evening. Here is the YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqgHosrqJ8o

Happy Music!

By the way, Michael Franti is a man after my heart because he is a vegetarian, goes barefoot everywhere unless he has to wear flipflops, and works towards peace and social justice.

Remember the Dead

2011-10-31T21:37:00.004-04:00

Today is Halloween and tomorrow is the Day of the Dead. It was believed that at this time of the year the veil between worlds was thin and that the dead could walk amongst the living. In Hoodoo there is the belief that the dead are always amongst us, influence the living, and that to understand life one must commune with the dead. Many cultures have elements of ancestor worship or ways in which the dead play an important part in the lives of the living.

I think in a way the dead are always with us. We are where we are in so many aspects because of our ancestors. One day, if we are lucky, we will be the ancestors. Humanity stretches backward in a long chain of generations and connects to the very elements of the cosmos. I think it is wise to remember the dead, acknowledge the impact of their lives on our own, and listen for the whisper of their spirits.

This evening I raise a glass of cider to Great Grandpa Miller who taught me to be fearless, curious, outrageous, and carry on.

This evening I raise a glass of cider to Great Grandma Miller who taught me to love and even though my greatest pain has come from loving at least I have known I could love and what love was.

This evening I raise a glass of cider to Grandma Hansen whose brilliant common sense and keen intellect forced me to think and examine.

This evening I raise a glass of cider to all my ancestors who came before and whose achievements have made life better for those who live now.

I am going to set cookies and cider out for any roaming spirits so that they can partake of the sweetness of life.

A New Movement for This Age: The Age of Empowerment

2011-10-30T21:11:00.005-04:00

Movements in literature and the arts come about when the cultural, political, and philosophical thoughts of a time period are given expression through arts and writing by experimenting and thoughtful creators. I have been watching a series about the Impressionists. Before they looked at the light and took the art of painting out of doors, a standard beauty was expressed in all paintings.

The Salon which was the official art exhibition first of the Academie des Beaux Arts and later the Societe des Artistes Francais was the most influential art exhibition in the world of that time period. Manet whose philosophies of representing the common people and painting them with honesty was rejected from being able to exhibit paintings time after time. In 1863 so many paintings were rejected that the Emperor demanded a new show to exhibit those that had been rejected. Manet displayed his The Luncheon on the Grass sparked a huge controversy because it depicted a female nude and a scantily clad female figure bathing with two fully dressed dandies. And then came Olympia. In 1865 Olympia was displayed at the Salon. It was condemned as immoral and vulgar. It had to be guarded because members of the viewing public attempted to slash it with umbrellas. Olympia showed a courtesan staring out from the canvas. Her maid brings her a bouquet of flowers from a patron and a black cat sits at the foot of her chaise lounge. She wears nothing more than a black choker ribbon.

Manet was the spark who inspired Monet, Renoir, and Cezanne. He suffered greatly for his genius and was publicly rejected for years. He survived on his inheritance.

The Impressionists suffered for their ideas and their genius was not immediately recognized. For years Monet and Renoir could only sell paintings to a few loyal patrons. Cezanne lived in poverty and was eviscerated in print by his old friend the novelist Emile Zola.

I was thinking this afternoon about literary movements. The novel did not always exist. Romanticism came about as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution and was a revolt against the tenets of the Age of Enlightenment. We could be said to be in a post modernist period, but I think it is time to move beyond this. Post modernism says that all realities are just social constructs. It maintains that realities are plural and relative, and dependent on who the interested parties are and what their interests or motivations consist of. It proposes the belief that there is no absolute truth and the way in which different people perceive the world is subjective.

Post modernism has both elevated and negated individual experience.

I propose starting a new philosophical movement for our time. An Age of Empowerment. Heroes, rather than being special chosen ones like Harry Potter, would be those people who are ordinary and choose to act. It could be a heroic deed and a fight against injustice or it could be that they decide to simply not remain quiet any longer. They give expression to their concerns and conditions. Maybe as a result, rather than being told that that is just their viewpoint, they find commonality within their viewpoint with the viewpoints of others. We are united in our differences. Perhaps the beautiful and the courageous are not those folks who have authority or are exceptional but rather are the 99 percent who are beautiful in the everyday expression of their commonness. Rather than glorifying those with power, let's validate the concerns of the everyman. Let's give voice to the idea that the individuals who are thinking and passionate beings make up the 99 percent, that they can have influence over their future because the microcosm makes up the macrocosm, and that hope lies in the path of empowerment for the everyman. The 1 percent will not solve the problems of global warming and climate change. The 1 percent will not ensure the safety and plenitude of food or clean water for the burgeoning population of the planet. The 1 percent will not consider or make a plan for the age beyond peak oil. The 1 percent will not pursue world peace. Hope lies in the 99 percent and solutions will come from the plenitude of voices but those voices must be seen as having strength and the right to be heard. Let's have ordinary heroines displayed with honesty who choose to act and stare in the face of our seemingly insurmountable problems.

Why Do You Read Fantasy Fiction?

2011-10-29T10:42:00.005-04:00

I was up this morning at 4 am reading research about public internet access in developing countries. I am very interested in how more public access to the internet could be provided to the rural areas and particularly to those who are the poorest individuals in developing countries. When I dream, I dream big. This stuff seems to my mind problems to be solved. Not insurmountable. A thorough examination of such issues as a lack of infrastructure, political instability, illiteracy, etc. seems to me to be a way to devise a plan and boldly act. Nothing of great measure is done without risk and those things that are most meaningful are done for others.

Currently, I am going through my bookshelves and pruning books off my shelf to offer on paperbackswap.com. I seem to have an insatiable need to read and have new materials in front of me. I have promised myself that in ten minutes I will stop procrastinating and begin studying for the mathematics section of the GRE.

Maybe because the morning was filled with big thoughts and the next few hours will be filled with rigorous thought, I need to think fun thoughts because I have been thinking about fantasy novels. I really like reading fantasy at times. Not because it is lofty and intellectual-- although it can be, but more because it is just fun. In one of the Dresden novels by Jim Butcher a group of purple monkeys who throw flaming poo form together and become a Monkeytron. In Kim Harrison's novels the pizza parlors are owned by vampires because humanity was almost wiped out by a virus generated from genetically modified tomatoes. I love these off the wall bits that make me smile. Sometimes fantasy novels can consider and make real that wonderful place between reality and the non-real without becoming sentimental or too filled with wishful thinking. Charles deLint sometimes does a beautiful job of going into that in-between place and making it real. Robert Holdstock is another author who springs to mind who has this same ability. Mythago Wood and The Bone Forest are beautifully written books that hit the psyche very deeply and remain in memory long after they have been put down.

I will be asking people over the next few days why they read fantasy and what their favorite fantasy novels are and why these are favorites.

Why do you read fantasy novels?

Poetry: Dylan Thomas' "Especially When the October Wind"

2011-10-17T07:50:00.002-04:00

Dylan Thomas' poetry is often evocative and contains elements of personal fantasy and surrealism. His use of language is innovative and daring and draws the reader in. A bit of poetry to evoke the feel of an October morning when the wind is rushing, dampness fills the air, and the melancholy end of the brightness of summer and all that is light can be felt.

Especially When the October Wind

Especially when the October wind
With frosty fingers punishes my hair,
Caught by the crabbing sun I walk on fire
And cast a shadow crab upon the land,
By the sea's side, hearing the noise of birds,
Hearing the raven cough in winter sticks,
My busy heart who shudders as she talks
Sheds the syllabic blood and drains her words.

Shut, too, in a tower of words, I mark
On the horizon walking like the trees
The wordy shapes of women, and the rows
Of the star-gestured children in the park.
Some let me make you of the vowelled beeches,
Some of the oaken voices, from the roots
Of many a thorny shire tell you notes,
Some let me make you of the water's speeches.

Behind a pot of ferns the wagging clock
Tells me the hour's word, the neural meaning
Flies on the shafted disk, declaims the morning
And tells the windy weather in the cock.
Some let me make you of the meadow's signs;
The signal grass that tells me all I know
Breaks with the wormy winter through the eye.
Some let me tell you of the raven's sins.

Especially when the October wind
(Some let me make you of autumnal spells,
The spider-tongued, and the loud hill of Wales)
With fists of turnips punishes the land,
Some let me make you of the heartless words.
The heart is drained that, spelling in the scurry
Of chemic blood, warned of the coming fury.
By the sea's side hear the dark-vowelled birds.

Occupy Wall Street: American Revolution

2011-10-01T11:10:00.005-04:00

I cannot be in New York today to take part in the solidarity march. The best I can do is post about the march and the movement that is spreading to more American cities. I cannot be in New York to march because I am one of the lucky ones-- I have a job. I also am lucky because I have a job in the field that I trained for. I am not an architect with a masters degree working at Lowe's or an IT specialist hoping to land a mail order job with a delicatessen. We live in such times that the talents and skills of people are so undervalued. I also am lucky because I am able now and again to get extra jobs so that I can make ends meet. I still cannot pay for my medically necessary and routine blood work that is not covered by my health insurance provider who last May had their profits go up by 52% because fewer people were using health care services (if you want to read a news article about Cigna's soaring profits: http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2011/05/05/cigna-1q-profit-soars-52-lower-medical-costs-2011-eps-view-raised/), but at least I have a job. The school system that I work in was able to prevent any teacher layoffs from happening this year because of community support and we are very lucky in this community. Unlike thousands of school systems across the country. I am not one of the 9.1% in this country who are unemployed. Also keep in mind that folks who no longer qualify for benefits or are not looking for work any longer are not included in this figure so the real number of unemployed may be higher. The unemployment rate for September 2011 remained unchanged from the rate calculated in August.

Occupy Wall Street is a movement to protest corporate greed. The movement is about occupying Wall Street as a symbolic gesture of the majority's discontent with the current economic and political climate in the United States. It is hope of a better world to come. A hope that in the United States we can turn things around to make things more equitable. It is a desire to prevent the fraction of a percent of the population who are the ultra-wealthy who keep on getting wealthy and who have corporate power and money to set the political agenda and silence the majority, from creating a United States where healthcare is too expensive for a large percentage of the population, where obtaining a college education means taking out student loans that create a kind of indentured servitude, where people are so in debt and afraid of losing their jobs that they will give up all hope for a decent standard of living just to maintain, and where are tax structure and tax dollars subsidize the wealthy.

Please spread the word about Occupy Wall Street. Here is the link to their website: https://occupywallst.org/ Protests are happening in other cities such as San Francisco, Boston, and Chicago. Please support this movement by taking to the streets, donating food to the protesters, etc. We are supposedly a democracy, let's make our voices heard and send the message to the politicians that we are not so demoralized that we cannot take part in politics. Our politicians should feel beholden to the majority not to those who gave them campaign contributions.

Spent

2011-09-25T18:29:00.005-04:00

I have heard the wealthy talk about how hard they worked for their wealth and how much of an individual accomplishment it is for them. I even read an opinion article last winter in the Aspen Times about how the minimum wage should not be raised because the only people who earned minimum wage were high school students who were supported by their parents and the money was simply spending money. The opinion piece went on to talk about how if a person was earning minimum wage who wasn't a high school student, it was their own fault because anyone with ambition who worked hard and had some education could earn more than minimum wage.

That opinion piece infuriated me.

As Elizabeth Warren so eloquently stated this week: "There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there-- good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory... Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea-- God bless! Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."

When I was growing up, my mother was waitress. I started working by picking blueberries in the summer for 75 cents a bucket. I could pick 6 buckets in a day. The money I earned during blueberry season was how I bought school clothes. My blue jeans came from a warehouse outlet and anything else came from K-mart or was a gift from grandma. When I was in seventh grade I began working at my uncle's restaurant washing dishes. I made $2 an hour. My mother's house was bought by paying my uncle who took out the loan because as a divorcee she couldn't get a mortgage. My mother always drove used cars. We had a Valiant at one point that had been a delivery car and had a hole in the roof where a sign had been bolted on. You could stick a finger through it to the outside air. Typically in our house we had canned soup, some eggs, mayonnaise, peanut butter, and white bread. Occasionally my mother would make soup or applesauce. The cupboards were often bare. My mother went to college for music and math. When I was in high school she went to a skilled training center and learned to become a payroll clerk. That skilled training center was subsidized by the government. She couldn't have gone on to become a payroll clerk without that training.

When I went to the University of Michigan for my bachelors degree in English language and literature, the entire cost of my undergraduate education was paid for by grants, scholarships, and a small number of national direct student loans that were government subsidized and at the rate of 2%. I had one year where my paperwork was lost for several months and I worked a patchwork of hours in 3 jobs to get by. But I doubt I could have gotten my undergraduate degree without financial aid and I am grateful I was able to get that degree. I now have a masters degree in education that I worked hard to get with a combination of multiple jobs and financial aid. Today most people that I know working towards a bachelors degree who don't have their tuition paid for by their parents are working a job and going part time. Little aid outside of loans is available and the cost of a college education is astronomical.

There is a myth that poor people are poor simply because they made bad choices. But right now the number of people in poverty is increasing and the number of unemployed is staggeringly high and has been. Did all these people make bad choices? I don't think so.

At the same time, the ultra-wealthy of this country are getting wealthier with a little help from a tax structure that benefits them the most. It isn't class warfare to ask them to help pay a larger percentage of taxes-- taxes that go for things like roads, fire departments, police, teachers to educate future employees, etc. Why should they be the only ones getting subsidized? Perhaps we should have a jobs plan that includes hiring unemployed architects, teachers, engineers, IT specialists and others to refurbish the United States infrastructure? New public works, a better grid system with more alternative energy, new water treatment centers, retraining centers, the clean-up of toxic sites-- all of this could be worked on. Imagine if we had used the $860 billion dollars per year going to the war in Iraq for this. Imagine if we had used the money from the bailout of the financial industry for this.

I would suggest to anyone who says that a person should pull themselves up by their "bootstraps" that they actually walk a mile in the boots of that person-- a poor person before they judge. What would you do to get by paycheck to paycheck or aid check to aid check? Would you turn the heat down to 50 degrees fahrenheit and hope the pipes didn't freeze? Would you turn down medical insurance because the premium through your employer would cost a third of your take home pay? Would you go and stand in line for food at the community food pantry? Could you come up with enough creative recipes to use 20 lbs. of sweet potatoes before they went bad? Do you know what to do with dried beans and several cans of cream style corn? What job would you be willing to take to make ends meet? Could you buy enough food to feed yourself and a family on $50 per week? What would you buy? Where would you live?

Jenny Nicholson who works with Urban Ministries created a game called "Spent" to raise money for the group. She grew up poor. Al Lewis writing for "Market Watch" in article titled "Poverty Isn't Just a Game" quoted her as saying about her upbringing “My mom always went through the grocery store with a calculator, We didn’t have a checking account. She had $50 in her pocket, and if the food was $51 we were screwed. Sometimes my mom wouldn’t calculate the tax right and … we’d have to decide what we were going to put back.” Her mother couldn't afford a monthly gas bill so they went without heat and hot water. Her mother died at 46 from a heart attack because she couldn't afford health care and had been denied medicaid coverage.

I would encourage anyone to play the game "Spent" and donate to Urban Ministries here is the link: http://playspent.org/

I did pretty well. I got through the month even though I lost my job in the game and the rent was due the next day, but I grew up poor and have worked in retail or been an early childhood teacher most of my adult life. I have had some practice making decisions that will allow me to go from paycheck to paycheck. See how you do.

The Passages are There

2011-09-19T21:31:00.003-04:00

Thoughts are tumbling through my mind tonight. I have decided I hate the sound in my mind of doors slamming shut. Always have. I like possibilities open and can feel possibilities as one feels water, wood, warmth, or wind. I am struggling with the feeling of lost momentum and opportunities slipping away. Fighting inertia, I keep telling myself it is all just belief. Supposedly whenever a door slams shut a window opens. But sometimes, doors slam shut and you are locked out or locked in. By thoughts as solid as doors. And effort and cleverness are needed.

We all have a type of magic within us. Very powerful magic. But very few of us ever realize it and fewer still use this magic. There is such power in thought.

Mostly, we look around at our situation and nestle into it. We can not envision beyond the obvious. We dare not take any risks. We are burdened by what is and give up on what is possible.

Imagine if each of us believed for one moment at the same hour and day that we could build towards a world where economic inequities were a bad thing. Or simply that the stranger was a potential friend.

Would you give up comfort for your heart's desire? Would you give up surety to achieve a lifetime dream?

The doors are always slamming shut. I am trying to find ways to slip through keyholes, walk through walls, and rise up through the roof. I know the passages are there.

The Matter of Food

2011-09-18T20:33:00.010-04:00

Today I went to the grocery store for the second time this weekend because I forgot paper towels and muffin papers.

Really.

Big deep breath. After my post from yesterday, I began thinking about ways to help the whole of humanity by being one person leaning towards the solution side of things. It is one thing to get pumped up on sentiment and another to make everyday changes that will be a small contribution towards a solution. Paper towels are such a trivial luxury. They use resources. They aren't recycled. I have had times in my life where I was so poor that I stole toilet paper from the library. Paper towels are an oddly big deal to me. But are they really? It is easy to switch to dish clothes and not use paper towels. Muffin papers are also an unnecessary luxury. And I used gasoline to go get these items. Ugh.

Today, I made food for the week for my household because I like to turn the oven on as little as possible and conserve energy. I made a pot of macaroni and cheese, peanut butter cookies, pumpkin bread, a couple of strombolis to cut into portions for lunches, and corn chowder. I try very hard to use fresh vegetables that are in season. I am always more than a little horrified at the number of perfectly good jack-o-lanterns that are left to rot and not cooked down to be made into pies and bread. There is an apple tree on one of the paths and I will collect the apples and cook what I can down to can applesauce. Sundays are a day of abundance, good smells in the house, and work to prepare for the week because I do not like to use prepackaged foods and I try to incorporate as many plant-based foods as I can into my diet for the week. I am increasing my efforts more and more to consciously choose what foods I eat, buy locally, eat seasonally, eat a plant based diet, and conserve energy in as many ways as possible.

There is a wonderful book titled "What the World Eats" by Faith D'Aluisio and includes photographs by Peter Menzel. I highly recommend buying this book or at least checking it out from the library. It is fascinating and eye opening. For instance at the time that the book was written a family in eastern Chad at the Breidjing Refugee Camp spent approximately $24.37 on food for a week for six people. A typical day might include 3 meals of porridge made from millet and water with a little oil to coat the pot. Here is one of Peter Menzel's photographs from the book that shows what the family has to eat for the week:

A week's worth of food for a family in California cost approximately $159.18. The menu for the week was varied and included such processed foods as frozen pizza, corn dogs, boxed cookies and cereal, canned spaghetti sauce, pre-made tortillas, and canned soup. Their groceries for the week also included packages of red meat, eggs, milk, and fresh fruits and vegetables such as bananas, grapes, tangerines, and apples. According to the book the family from United States ingests 1047 calories from animal products daily. Contrast this photograph of the family from California with the photograph of the family from Chad:

In the United States the free market system and the free market economy is almost a religion, but the free market economy has strength to shape what ends up on the market if enough people consciously at the grass roots level work together to influence what is to be sold. Production practices and labor issues have been influenced by consumers consciously choosing what they will or won't buy. The Grape Boycott of the 1980's was lead by Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers to protest the use of toxic pesticides on grapes. The organizers predicted at the time that a 15% drop in market sales would reduce the profit margin enough to influence the use of pesticides and sway practice. It did.

Currently not only is the over use of animal products, meat, eggs, and dairy products, contributing to the rise of diseases like cancer and heart disease in western countries such as the United States, but because of the demand for meat, milk, and eggs swaths of the Amazon rainforest have been leveled to make grazing land, chickens are packed into factory farms where the farmers are forced into buying specific antibiotics to keep production up and maintain contracts with well known distributors, and grain that could feed the third of the planet that subsists on $2 per day goes to feed cattle that never evolved to eat grain in the first place. It is estimated that raising cattle has a greater impact on global warming than any other human activity-- more than home heating or the use of automobiles.

Imagine the impact on the world if every family in the United States halved their consumption of meat, eggs, and dairy products.

Prior to World War II the supermarket really did not exist and pre-packaged foods were almost non-existent. People ate more seasonally and their food sources were more local. They shopped at a local butcher, bought milk from a local dairy, and went to a local grocer who probably bought from local farmers. It was a very different world. In this time before, pre-packaged convenience foods were rare. I once met the chemical engineer who invented Captain Crunch. Not only do pre-packaged convenience foods make food preparation faster they bring a higher calorie meal with less phytonutrients to the table. We as an animal that has evolved to survive are wired for two things: food and sex. We have built in physical sensors that tell us when we are full and to stop eating. However, if what we are eating is calorie dense, we keep eating to get the appropriate full sensation. So if a person is eating the high sugar processed breakfast cereals, they keep eating until they feel full eating way more than they need. They also get a high dose of sugar that makes their blood sugar levels go roller-coastering. The scenario is no better for greasy chips or frozen pizza. Obesity is the world's greatest health epidemic at the moment. It contributes to many other diseases and is causing a health crisis in many parts of the world. On top of the obesity problem, many people are lacking in the nutrients that they need to be healthy. They are literally eating and eating but malnourished and their bodies cannot repair themselves

Imagine the impact on the world if every family in the United States chose to forego pre-packaged convenience foods or gave up anything made with corn syrup and corn oil.

In many parts of the world farmers grow their product for a pittance and the product is bought by a distributor/factory who then sells it to a company that packages it and sells it in the super market. The other scenario is that the farmers are driven out of business entirely and end up working as low paid employees on land that was once their own but has become part of a large agribusiness farm. Indigenous crops and the ability for people to feed themselves is lost. In addition, the use of petrochemical fertilizers is introduced and the soil eventually needs more and more fertilizers. The soil experiences a type of collapse as the pesticides and petrochemical fertilizers make it neutral to grow hybrids selected for traits desired in western markets but not necessarily hardy on their own. Indigenous crops are simply lost because the seeds are lost or become cross pollinated with the hybrids.

There are efforts to make sure that farmers get their fare share for what they grow and bring to the market place. This has multiple effects such as allowing farmers to maintain the ownership of their farms, make enough to feed their families and prosper, improve soil if organic products are requested, and maintain the diversity of seeds and plants.

Imagine the impact on the world if every family in the United States chose to buy such fair trade items as coffee, chocolate, and tea.

This is only a little bit of my thoughts on individual ways to lean towards being part of a global solution and nothing that I am writing here is particularly new. If anyone reading this blog wants to view some good documentaries for further information/inspiration try the following: Foodmatters, Forks Over Knives, and All In This Tea. These are just a few of the many documentaries available!

One in Either Direction Makes a Difference

2011-09-17T12:59:00.003-04:00

Sometimes the shear power of numbers overwhelms me. For instance this blog has had over 11,000 hits. The human population upon the earth according to World Bank will exceed 7 billion before the end of 2011. According to the United Nations more than 2.5 billion people live in poverty and subsist on less than $2 per day. Preventable diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV which afflict a larger portion of the peoples of the developing world than the industrialized nations receive a fraction of the research funding of such maladies as heart disease and cancer. Heart disease and cancer have been linked to lifestyles of consumption which require vast energy resources that contribute to global warming.

I was ashamed to learn this week that countrymen of mine, members of the Tea Party, enthusiastically answered yes to the question of whether or not a man who was dying should be left to die if he did not have the required health insurance to gain hospital admittance. Considering according to the US Census Bureau the number of people in poverty and without health insurance in the United States has continued to rise and is somewhere around 50 million this is a possible human tragedy hinging on the fanatical politics of an ultra-conservative few who have gained a toe hold of popularity by preying on the fears generated during a time of national crisis.

Not to diminish the appalling lack of compassion and blatant inhumane ethic of the Tea Party proponents who would let a man die for lack of insurance, but is this any different than turning a blind eye away from the global tragedies occurring across the planet?

In Somalia foreign aid workers have been banned to go into parts of the country to provide famine relief because of threat of kidnapping.

In Dadaab, Kenya a half million people are starving in a refugee camp where rape and other forms of violence are rampant. The rains did not come last October and November to Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia. The rains did not come in April or May. The soil blows in the winds.

In July in Malawi the government killed 20 protesters in a crackdown on protests in part due to energy shortages and poverty. Britain and the US have both frozen aid to the country. Forty percent of the total economy of Malawi is made up of foreign aid. The country is an agricultural country. New protests are scheduled for this week as President Bingu wa Mutharika appeals to the IMF and World Bank to unfreeze the aid. His government has been criticized for appointing family members to his cabinet and activists have been asking for an accounting of his wealth.

Much like Hosni Mubarek in Egypt? How many people suffered in the revolutions of last winter?

Three hundred and fifty four Libyan people were reported killed in Sirte yesterday. The Libyan interim government was unable to gain control of Bani Walid. The fighting goes on.

In Syria a purported 2600 people have been killed in pro-democracy protests. The UN five days ago named a three member panel of international experts to investigate Syrian crimes against humanity. Rights groups this week called for the Arab League to suspend Syria's membership.

This is only a sampling of the suffering and violence occurring throughout the world. In 2000 at a United Nations Summit 189 countries adopted the Millennium Development Goals which include: halving the number of people who live without clean water and adequate sanitation, increasing the number of boys and girls who complete their education, decrease the rate of green house emissions, reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, and halve the number of people who suffer from hunger.

These may seem like lofty goals, but as compassionate human beings can we allow ourselves to aim for anything less?

From my own reading one of the things that indicates a better outcome and higher standard of living for a population is the mean level of education in the area. Life expectancies, the rate of violence, the rate of disease-- all the numbers go in directions indicating a better life for the people involved if a higher level of education can be achieved.

One person amongst our soon to be 7 billion who offers some hope is Sugata Mitra. He talks about the hope of education, how children will educate themselves, and how people together in simple acts can improve situations. His 200 British grandmothers, the Granny Cloud, are volunteering an hour a week across the world via broadband to make a difference by spreading love. He talks about bringing hope to areas where people do not want to go. Here is a TED talk in which he talks about his ideas: http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html

In this time of global crisis will the cruel and callous few be allowed to bring poverty, violence, and spreading darkness? What number of people can we call upon to pitch in and create solutions and hope? One in either direction makes a difference.

Music: Todd Rundgren's Just One Victory

2011-09-12T17:49:00.003-04:00

A friend posted this song by Todd Rundgren on Facebook. It is titled "Just One Victory." It is from his 1973 album titled "A Wizard, A True Star."

Here is a YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N3b4f_I6oM

Just One Victory

We've been waiting so long,
we've been waiting for the sun to rise and shine
Shining still to give us the will
Can you hear me, the sound of my voice?
I am here to tell you I have made my choice
I've been listening to what's been going down
There's just too much talk and gossip going 'round
You may think that I'm a fool, but I know the answer
Words become a tool, anyone can use them
Take the golden rule, as the best example
Eyes that have seen will know what I mean

The time has come to take the bull by the horns
We've been so downhearted, we've been so forlorn
We get weak and we want to give in
But we still need each other if we want to win

Hold that line, baby hold that line
Get up boys and hit 'em one more time
We may be losing now but we can't stop trying
So hold that line, baby hold that line

If you don't know what to do about a world of trouble
You can pull it through if you need to and if
You believe it's true, it will surely happen
Shining still, to give us the will
Bright as the day, to show us the way
Somehow, someday,
we need just one victory and we're on our way
Prayin' for it all day and fightin' for it all night
Give us just one victory, it will be all right
We may feel about to fall but we go down fighting
You will hear the call if you only listen
Underneath it all we are here together shining still

New Issue of Schlock Magazine is out!

2011-09-11T06:27:00.003-04:00

The latest issue of Schlock Magazine is available and can be found at: http://schlockmagazine.net/2011/09/11/the-gothic-issue-september-2011/

This issue is a Gothic themed issue and includes one of my poems titled "Rosemary for Remembrance." Please check it out.

Artist: Tiffany Lamb

2011-09-04T20:47:00.006-04:00

There is an artist named Tiffany Lamb who is one of the most creative and joyful spirits that I know. She brings joy to those around her and joy comes through in her art. I asked her if I could interview her for my blog and she graciously agreed.

1. When you are creating a new painting, what is your process? Do you visualize it? Do you make planning sketches? What do you do to get the emotion into the painting that you wish to have be present?

Each piece of work starts differently; I might dream an idea, doodle or get an idea from my old drawings. Often I get ideas from stories-an image will begin to form in my mind as I'm reading. But often something I see will strike a cord with me. For instance I was driving along a pretty busy road and just found myself contemplating trees and the wind going through the leaves. Suddenly POP the image for my painting "the conductor" was there, all formed and just waiting for me to put it down on paper.

My process for the work is to just start sketching it out, looking for references as I go. Once I've got it mostly done, I transfer it to watercolor paper and start working away. Since I've been mostly working in watercolor recently so this process works pretty well. I have found that if a piece is going REALLY well I almost have to keep working on it, like if I take a break the rhythm will not be there when I come back to it.

If I feel its missing emotion, I will break from that piece to rework some sketches or work on another piece then after giving it some time, I will go back and tweak or rework the piece.

2. Do you like to show your work to others immediately? Or do you like to wait to reveal your work?

I always think I will wait to revel my work, but really I always get so excited about a piece that I love sharing. Mostly if someone asks I will happily show the work. Now there are some pieces that I don't show to people without permission: the pinups, if I'm doing a surprise piece, and often wedding images. I have lots of clients who believe that if the wedding dress is on the invitation the groom to be shouldn't see it.

3. When working with someone to create something for them what questions or considerations do you ask?

Questions vary a bunch based on what type of project I'm doing for them.
Tell me about your project.

People will often have an idea of what they like, though they might not realize that.

4. What inspired you to become an artist?

I have always wanted to be an artist, I used to copy images in medieval story books, and I remember going through my mom's magazines and drawing the fairy tale princess dolls that were in them. I became very good at drapery for a while after that.

5. Some artists pursue a particularly topic or explore a particular question or theme in their work. Have you found that there is such a question or theme that you keep returning to? What is your philosophy about your art?

I never really thought about having a particular topic or theme. As I create more and more I find that a lot of my work focuses on the beauty of feminine, a little magic, and some mystery.

6. No one pursues art without it being their passion. What drives you to be an artist?

I love i! I love the way that an image will sometimes just appear on the paper. The way different materials create different emotions in people. I love the ability that art has to bring to life the magic of the imagination, to be something that can get people talking or feeling different things.

7. One of the forms of paintings you create frequently would be called "pin-ups", what draws you to make pin-ups?

I LOVE pinups! To me these are wonderful sexy images, the women are gorgeous and have both an innocence and confidence about them. When creating a pinup, it is wonderful to see woman come alive. Its easy to let yourself relax but still feel sexy when you put on a pair of high heels.

8. You are a woman creating pin-ups. What are your thoughts in relation to this in regards to views of women and their bodies?

I have always loved pinups. These are images of women who are gorgeous everyday women. There is confidence, joy, and a great appreciation of beauty in these pictures. Every woman has a bit of their body they don't like and these are great a marvelous way to ignore those parts and focus on the wonderful gorgeous playful woman who is the subject.

The statement I most hear from women is: "I would love to have a pinup done, but I want to lose a few pounds first." My reply to that is; "In my mind's eye you look marvelous!"
The first statement I get from men is: "Can you make her hair longer?"

9. What would you like your body of work to be remembered for?

I would love my artwork to be remembered for being joyful and magical.

10. What would you like to achieve as an artist?

I would love to have a research paper on my artwork. Or be in a museum... both would be better of course.

Tiffany Lamb's work can be found at:
Epiphanies
custom invitations, pinups, illustration, graphic design
www.epiphaniesdesign.com

Artist: Seth Orion Schwaiger

2011-08-21T09:29:00.009-04:00

Every once in awhile I stumble across a new artist whose work totally grabs my attention. I subscribe to the artist a day website and I usually look at the art every morning over coffee as I look through the collection of blogs, news sites, and journals and mags that I read. One morning a few weeks ago, Seth Orion Schwaiger's "Watchers" was up on the artist a day site. I was immediately drawn to the sculpture which is a finalist in the Broomhill National Sculpture Contest.

I emailed to Seth to see if he would be willing to let me interview him and he graciously agreed. He has some fascinating answers to the questions I posed to him. Here is the interview with Seth:

1.With the grand public structures, such as the cathedrals that were built in the past, no longer being financed and public art becoming less common, where do you see sculpture having a place? What do you think is the purpose of art in this time period? Do you see your work as populist?

I understand the sentiment. True, public sculpture may be becoming less grand, less heroic perhaps, but I disagree that public art is becoming less common. Though funding may no longer rest in the centralized power of the high religious and royal echelons, there is perhaps more arts funding now, from public and private sources, than there has ever been.

To call one's own work populist is a dangerous move. Within contemporary art, that label comes with a host of negative connotations. Many an art critic would see it as synonymous with “shallow” and label a work as “populist” if they can't see much to it, yet the work remains well liked. Having said this, perhaps one trend in contemporary art I can't quite saddle up with is a false elitism, a certain anti-populism – the practice of making work so obtuse, so off-putting to the common man, that you would have to be someone special, someone with refined tastes and a superb level of education to (pretend to) understand it. Few even in this false elite would lower themselves to saying they “like” the work. As a rebuttal, one might point out that the greater public has never quite been up to speed with the present movements in art. The rebuttal would highlight that many of the great works of the last 200 years only became popular well after their own time. This has been true in the past but in age of instant, free, and unlimited information, it is hard to stay ahead of the masses. Anyone, now, who has a desire to keep up with contemporary art can do so. There is this anti-populist trend however. Clutching onto the belief that the un-elite are outside the loop, and in an effort to prove one's "contemporariness" some artists have made the poor choice to create inaccessible work.

So the goal in my mind is to create works that have entry points for a variety of people, yet maintain a depth of meaning for those who choose to linger, to invest extra time, or thought with the works. Let me be clear. To make elitist work is a mistake, you alienate a large group of viewers, but to make work that is only populist also alienates a group. To me a work is successful when you can bring someone who sheepishly says “I know nothing of art” and give them a profound experience and at the same time bring someone over-steeped in contemporary art, an elite who might otherwise not look twice at a work that seems so accepted and well liked by the general population, and make them stop and say “oh wait, there's something really there. Something for me.”

Fortunately this anti-populism is by no means universal in the higher realms of the contemporary art world. Call me an optimist, but there may even be signs of it falling out of fashion. The Turner Prize winners for the last two years are exemplary of creating work that touches people of many backgrounds and levels of art understanding – Richard Wright and Susan Phillips.

2. Which artists have influenced your thinking about art? How have they influenced your thinking? What did you pull away from them?

Though I have been inspired by well known artists, I would have to say that my thinking about art has been much more influenced by the fellow artists in my studio and other artists I have worked with during the past few years here in Glasgow. Namely, Lola Dupré, Simon Harlow, Anne Patsch, Jason Mathis, Carla Novi, and Shelton Walker. They are all worth looking up. I have been most influenced, however, by the beautiful and wildly talented Elizabeth McDonald. All of these artists have influenced how I believe an artist should work, have expanded my tastes, and have fundamentally changed the way I view and create art.

 3. What are your favorite pieces of art? And why are they your favorites?

Rodin's Gates of Hell. Hands down. There's no good way to take a photograph of this work, and until you see it in person you will not understand the power it has. It is a giant. Maybe it was a bit of exhaustion in my case, but when you see it you almost instinctively fall to your knees. The Gates are the kind of work that can swallow up the periphery until you feel you are seeing it the way Rodin had seen it in his own mind – a paradox of hard, unforgiving architecture and passionately depicted figures forming out of a stormy whirlpool fluid. Its as though the bronze is actually moving as you approach. At times it feels solid and at times you feel as though you could dip your hand right through its surface.

Oh, and I've got this little yellow toy TV from a german artist named Gaby Peters. It must be only an inch and a half tall. When you push a little button on the front the “screen” spins around and around until you un-push the button. Whenever you stop the screen reads “G e n u G” which translates to “enough.” I really like this one too.

4.Where did you train to be an artist?

I've tried to pick up a little something everywhere I go and this has really helped give me a variety of material and technique to choose from. Though they are unlikely to admit it, the University of Wyoming sculpture program is heavily weighted toward cast metals. I learned the basics of sculpture there, and also learned to cast bronze and aluminum as well as learning the more challenging process of iron casting. In Cortona, Italy I picked up stone carving in alabaster and marble. In Kerela, India I had the chance to learn some traditional woodcraft. I cast my first large scale metals at Keen foundry in Houston Texas, and felt like I was learning metal casting all over again. I have tremendous respect for the man who runs the place, Don Keen, and will always be grateful for what skills I've gleaned from him.

And here in Glasgow, Scotland I've learned to drink....

No. Really I have learned as much in Glasgow as anywhere else, maybe more. I've worked more with synthetics and mold making here, but also took up a healthy dose of curating on the side and that's a whole new set of tricks. In Glasgow I've learned more about how artists function as a community and the benefits of mutual support, pooling resources, and knowledge sharing.

5.Your sculptures almost look like carved wood. I have always loved the patina on copper and the ivy that survives and climbs stone. How did you hit on using Jesmonite for your sculptures? Did you know that it would be able to sustain moss and lichen? How did you experiment with this?

When I was working on “Watchers” The original positive was done up in clay. I used a subtractive method, carving away at a larger mass until the final form emerged. This in combination with influence from my previous work in wood gives the effect you are recognizing.

So here in the UK the conditions are right for moss to be a bit more tenacious then one might expect. If you leave something outside for long enough, the right kind of moss will show up sooner or later. Concrete has the right surface chemistry and porosity to act as a good substrate for moss and lichen, and it was this sort of surface that I was after. The logistics of shipping and installing “Watchers” made it difficult to deal with the weight of cast concrete, so I had to find an alternative. Cast resin was out of the question because of it's plastic-like surface. After doing a bit of research I found Jesmonite, and the company was such a pleasure to work with that it became an easy decision. The surface was just what I was after. It has a real solid feel and has the strength and longevity to survive the elements. After this it was just a matter of experimenting with the different types of moss in the area, and different techniques for application. I used a few moss graffiti recipes as starting places as these were made for concrete and had already proven successful.

 6. Why do you sculpt the human form?

In my sculptures, I try to create an immediate connection between the viewer and the work. The human form does this well, it is compositionally engaging, and is simply fun to work with. By using the human form I borrow the ability of humans to sympathize, and empathize with one another. Each of us comes with this built in understanding. It's beyond body language, and is surprisingly subtle and nuanced. The slightest change in the angle of a cheek or the curve of a brow can change not just the mood of the person, but who the person is. It's an unconscious understanding, and perhaps that's why it is so powerful.

 7. What was your inspiration for "Watchers"?

So you're from Aspen and I imagine you will understand this better than someone who has spent less time outdoors. Growing up in Wyoming, I spent a healthy dose of time out in the mountains and in the woods. There are places up in the Rockies you go one day, and you feel welcomed, protected even, and the next you feel unwelcome or that your trespassing. It's a subtle thing, but it's as though the forest has moods and more than that, it feels like it's keeping an eye on you. It sounds strange to those who haven't experienced it – it's not something you will feel on a ski resort, you have to go out there alone. And this is why I think so many folks from that part of the country and similar places here in the UK instantly connect with these sculptures. They've felt it before, less tangibly, but they recognize what the sculptures convey. This was my starting point. I wanted to take this subtle feeling and distill it in these sculptures. I knew the sculpture's needed to feel like they were part of the environment, the needed to feel ancient. The surface treatment worked well for that. The posture needed to be powerful and rooted, and the positioning needed to make the viewer feel surrounded. In Rome you'll find a number of colonnades where no matter which way you turn there's a sculpture staring at the back of your head. The positioning gives the sculptures an added power and it feels as though the viewer is on display rather than the sculptures. The arrangement fit my purposes and between this, the body language, surface treatment and character of the figures, I had the feel I was after.

 8. The figures that compose "Watchers" are very realistic and you say on your blog that they are lined up and facing one another across a path so that the observer might feel either like an intruder or protected by them. When you were creating or placing them, did you get any specific feeling from the sculpture? How did it impact you, its creator?

There's always a point when I'm working figuratively when the figure suddenly seems human. After that point you always feel like there is another person in the room. When others have come into the studio before me and click on the lights they always have a bit of a fright seeing someone (the sculpture) who was standing there in the dark. Call it eccentric, but at this point in the sculpture's development you can't help but say hello and goodbye at the beginning and end of each workday.

Please check out more about his work at:
sethorionschwaiger.blogspot.com

and at:
aesthetiac.com

Please vote for Seth in the Broomhill National Sculpture Contest at:
www.broomhillart.co.uk/national-sculpture-prize/2011-finalists.html

While writing about Muse, I listened to Depeche Mode, Radiohead, and Queen!

2011-08-14T21:28:00.005-04:00

Today I researched and worked all day on an essay about the band Muse. Now you would think that I would listen to Muse while doing this, but I didn't. I listened to Depeche Mode, some Radiohead, and Queen. Some of the most innovative and outsider music for each of their time periods in many ways. Each pushed the envelope.

Here is a smattering of what my day sounded like:

Depeche Mode's Enjoy the Silence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMfV0sVQ_VU&feature=related

Depeche Mode, Nothing's Impossible
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2Ap9XZwZQ8&feature=related

Depeche Mode, Useless
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f0zHgs0GpI&feature=related

Radiohead, Karma Police
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBH97ma9YiI&ob=av2e

Radiohead, Fake Plastic Trees
http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=pKd06s1LNik&feature=relmfu

Radiohead, No Surprises
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5CVsCnxyXg&feature=related

Queen, Somebody to Love (with some fine scenes of Freddie Mercury)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxbFLYa0_bw&feature=related

Queen, Killer Queen (one of my fav's for forever!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMz-wi50ACU&feature=related

Queen, Crazy Little Thing Called Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO6D_BAuYCI&feature=related

And if I am posting Queen vid's, I have to include Bohemian Rhapsody
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ9rUzIMcZQ&feature=relmfu

And some Muse for your enjoyment!
Muse, Uprising (complete with teddy bears!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8KQmps-Sog&ob=av2n

Yellowstone National Park: A Variety of Photos

2011-08-07T23:48:00.003-04:00

Yellowstone National Park is huge! I drove in through the north entrance which is in Montana and when I left I drove out into Wyoming and the Grand Teton National Park. Here a smattering of photos from my trip.

More photos tomorrow!

Author Interview with Fantasy Author Noor A. Jahangir

2011-08-04T23:41:00.007-04:00

I had the chance to interview Noor A. Jahangir who is an up and coming fantasy author. He has just released in ebook format the first book in a young adult series. The book is titled The Changeling King.

1. Please describe a little bit about your new book, The Changeling King.

The Changeling King is a fantasy adventure story that combines elements of urban fantasy with traditional epic fantasy tropes. It starts with the arrival of Vasch and his warband of trolls through a mystical gateway, somewhere in the Pennine Moors in North West England. Vasch has been sent on a mission to kill or capture a boy called Adam, because of who he will become. The opening of the gateway sends a rush of energy down a layline and activates a second gate that has been buried beneath a lake for hundreds of years. Nathan Celic, his brother and their girlfriends have come to the lake to cool off and make out. The gateway sucks them through and they wake to find themselves in another world, held prisoner by a race of people called the Alvorn. Meanwhile, a traumatised Adam Phelps, having witnessed his sister's and friends disappearance is taken into protective custody by Detective Karen Rainbow as a series of brutal murders begin to occur around him.

2. Your new book, The Changeling King, is a fantasy novel about a set of teenagers who find themselves transported from one dimension to another. Where did you find the elements to base your fantasy setting on? How do you go about creating fantasy worlds that will seem realistic to readers?

It is said that J R R Tolkien set out to make Middle-Earth as real as the real world. In fact, I strongly believe that in fantasy and sf, the world/environment needs to feel more real than it would need to in any other genre. So obviously you start with familiar elements like trees, rivers and mountains, but you mess with them a little to make them slightly unfamiliar, e.g. the sky over Kryllon is lilac, instead of that lovely blue we all love, based on how the sun interacts with the slightly different makeup of gases in my world's stratosphere. Another example is that in the forest of Alvorn Reach, oaks and conifers stand alongside giants that make Dawn Redwoods look small. Also there is the architecture of the world, e.g. the Alvorn use magic to encourage and shape wood, stone and marble into organic shapes and use amber for windows and doors. Kryllon also has a compliment of regular flora and fauna, but also is home to Nicors, land-bound dragons with snaking necks, powerful legs adapted for moving through wetlands, swimming and clambering over rocks.
The Socio-Cultural environment, I think, also plays a big part in creating a setting. The peoples of my fantasy world celebrate various festivals, have religious affiliations, have social norms and feature a number of political undercurrents. The Alvor have a superiority complex, they have a caste system and varied complexions. The Dvargar originated on our planet, a fact hinted at it in their names and the name of their council, the Reichstag. Names play a major clue to the different origins of the different peoples in my fantasy world. The goblins have a shamanic tradition and the trolls are in an Ice-Age equivalent level of development. All of these factors add up to create a fantastic and yet believable world . . . I hope.

3. When you are writing, do you base your characters on real life people? How do you create your characters? Which character that you have created is your favorite and why? Do you have a hard time creating conflicts for your favorite characters?

I think sometimes I may subconsciously borrow a personality trait from a person I know, but for most part, I'd like to think that I invent people completely from my imagination. Many of my characters start off as a place-fixer for the plot, then are graced with a name reflecting their ethnicity and race and a very sketchy bio. Major characters seem to develop a life of their own, but often characters feel like they are clones of each other or just cardboard cut outs. Giving them a back-story, personal objectives, aspirations and emotional context, as well as character strengths and flaws helps me understand them better, and hopefully, makes them read like individuals with a life beyond the pages of my book. My current favorite is the troll Vasch. He is what orientalists would call a noble-savage. Looking beyond the fact that he is a troll (and comes with all the nasty habits of one, e.g. cannibalism and a penchant for sorting things out through violence) he is loyal to his liege and troops, takes responsibility for his decisions and wouldn't ask his troops to do anything he isn't willing to do himself. But most of all its the fact that he is homesick most of time but also wonder-struck by the strangeness of Earth.

4. What types of fiction do you like to read? If there is a book that has influenced you more than any other, what was it and how did it influence you? Do you have to consciously try not to imitate it?

I mostly read fantasy, but occasionally branch out into other genres, sf, horror and the odd thriller. I'll even read the odd literary novel when one takes my fancy enough. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a literary influence that is hard to get away from, but it isn't the only crossover novel/story out there any more. The 80s Dungeons and Dragons cartoons are another example of this and had a biggish impact in my formative years. I hate it when I come across something similar to my book. I almost had a nervous breakdown when I read the blurb to a book titled The Hickory Staff, because it sounded so similar to mine. Of course, it was quite different once I read it. Originally, my book was titled Trollking, but then I discovered that in the time its taken me to complete the first book, someone else has published a book titled The Troll King. So to disambiguate mine from his, I changed the title to The Changeling King. But in the end, there is only so much you can do.

5. Is there an author whose work and career you admire? If so, who? And why do you admire their work and career?

There are authors whose work I love Raymond Feist, Janny Wurts, George R R Martin, Lian Hearn, Brent Weeks, etc, etc. There are authors who I really look up to for various reasons, including Neil Gaiman, Stephen King and David Farland. But I particularly admire and look up two authors. The late David Gemmell, because I love every single book he's written (even the one's that compared to his other works aren't as good) and because his characters are so brilliantly human and yet the stuff of legends. The other author is J K Rowling, though I hate the fact that I'm never going to achieve her level of success, because she has, like no other writer, made reading a popular past time, making so many people who don't normally read pick up a book. The last time that happened was when The Lord of the Rings exploded on to the world.

6. A great deal of fantasy seems Eurocentric and lacks diversity beyond having elves, dwarves, and faeries. Do you think that there is any ethnic background/cultural group whose folklore is ripe for being made into a fantasy novel?

I hope I'm leading a vanguard of writers who are going to bring ethnically diverse characters and Muslim fantasy tropes to the mainstream. Muslims have a long tradition of fantasy and folklore, though very little of it is known or popular now, except A Thousand and One Nights and other Arabian Nights styled stories. That said, I love 'Eurocentric' fantasy and wouldn't want to see it disappear or sidelined. I think a blend of the two is much more digestable and desirable and is the approach that I'm going to employ.

7. Every writer has to overcome obstacles to continue to write. Sometimes the obstacles are responsibilities. Sometimes the obstacles are things like writer's block. How do you keep writing? What is your habit and process?

I'd like to write every day, but as you say, it is not that simple. I try to write at least once a week, and put in a good few hours on the weekend. The problem is I find it hard to give my full attention to anything else whilst I've got the writer's itch. At times I feel the need to write so badly that I can feel the tension building in my arms and shoulders. But then I do have responsibilities to my employer and to my family, to ensure that they are given their due time. Hopefully, my new tablet computer will help me sneak in some writing whenever I have time to spare.

8. Give me a teaser about The Changeling King. What is a problem that has to be solved within the book?

That's a tough one. There is so much going on in the book that its hard to tease out any particular arc. One of the mysteries of the book is why is the Mughal Prince, Sultan ibn Sulaiman important to the rest of the plot? His story starts of during the reign of the Mughal Emperor, Akbar the Great, with his own bunch of antagonists and political challenges. Yet somehow, his destiny is linked to Nathan's and Kryllon. Why is he important?

9. What are you working on next?

I'm currently working on the sequel, The Renegade Prince, which I'm hoping to release around Christmas. I've also got a non-fantasy adventure series on the slow-cook at the moment, The Adventures of Some Kid. I'm also working on a couple of short stories, an sf inspired by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and a story inspired by Kill Bill.

Noor has a website located at:
www.trollking.co.uk
He also has an author page at Smashwords.

The Changeling King can be purchased through Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/Changeling-King-Trollking-Saga-ebook/dp/B0056AX4D4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1312516584&sr=8-1

Schlock Magazine Podcast Number 4 is Out!

2011-08-02T21:51:00.001-04:00

Friends of mine have been putting out an online magazine titled Schlock Magazine for awhile. They are now doing podcasts! Please check out number 4 at: http://schlockmagazine.net/2011/08/02/schlock-podcast-episode-4/

Yellowstone National Park: Midway Geyser Basin

2011-07-28T20:57:00.003-04:00

Within Yellowstone National Park, there are many different geyser basins that steam across the park. The soil crust in many areas is very thin and conceals exceptionally hot water that has been heated by magma just below the surface. The geysers occur because steam builds up and then releases. There are also hot springs that bubble in mineral stained water, rock formations that glisten with water that seems to flow by magic, and trees that are white as bone from being calcified or petrified. The overall effect in some of the geyser basins is very alien-- eerie. And very beautiful.

End of the Road Trip

2011-07-28T20:22:00.003-04:00

I left Aspen, Colorado on July 6. I just returned to Aspen this afternoon, July 28. Over the course of the last more than 3 weeks, I traveled through 7 states and drove more than 3000 miles. The first night I stayed in Salt Lake City, Utah. The second night I stayed in Pendleton, Oregon. Then I arrived in Kalaloch, Washington where I camped for six nights before going on to Seattle, Washington. While I was in Seattle, I stayed in the international district in a vacation rental provided by Robin Glover called Casa Homer. It was a lovely apartment that was very close to downtown and a wide assortment of dim sum. Every night a lighted "Wonder Bread" sign was the beacon that helped me to navigate back to the apartment.

After Seattle, I went on to Spokane, Washington and then Belgrade, Montana for one night a piece. I camped at the Bridge Bay Campground in Yellowstone National Park for a week. While I was in Yellowstone I saw alien landscapes of geysers, placid lakes, tall sentinel pines, buffalo, water falls, and an immense supervolcanoe. Last night was the last night away from Aspen and it was spent at a Super 8 in Rock Springs, Wyoming.

The entirety of the circuit that I drove encompassed a variety of bioregions-- desert, temperate rain forest, alpine forest, prairie, etc. It was fascinating to watch the way that the landscape changed. I have taken many pictures and I am still going through them all. I will post them over the next week or so.

Road Trip Day ?

2011-07-20T23:04:00.003-04:00

Today I drove approximately 385 miles. I am very tired. I started in Spokane, Washington and ended in Belgrade, Montana. I drove through lush forests, up and down staggering mountains, and over wind scoured rolling lowlands. I did not stop to take pictures. I did notice that the changing landscapes had a different personality about them. The dense pine forests felt closed and mysterious. The rock mountains felt ancient beyond any history that my mind could conceive of and very sentient. I could imagine staring across the undulating vista and seeing acres of bison. Today I witnessed in rapid succession what peoples of the past could only have beheld on a much more intimate level acquired by walking across the continent. It has occurred to me that what I am doing currently could only happen in this era and may not be able to happen in future eras and was not possible in by gone days.

Yesterday, I watched clouds spill off the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. I watched an instant of lightening split the horizon.

All of this was only in its moment.

The Troll Under the Bridge

2011-07-18T20:21:00.008-04:00

I am still visiting Seattle and spent the majority of the day at the Woodland Park Zoo which impressed me as a well designed zoo. When I first arrived I went straight to see the snow leopard and it graced me with a glimpse of its beauty. Later in the afternoon I watched a pack of white wolves play with a ball and frolic on a small embankment.

Late in the afternoon I went to visit the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle because I had heard a rumor that a troll resided under the bridge in Fremont. There is a troll under the bridge! He is an enormous sculpture made of concrete. He stares down the hill with one metallic eye while pinning a Volkswagon Beetle under one of his massive hands.

The Fremont area is quite delightful and I spoke with several people who were happy to share their knowledge of the area. One woman and her child were on their way to the library and helped direct me to the troll. The sales people/owners of Ophelia's Books talked to me about the neuroses of cats and sold me a book by the Dalai Lama. Fremont has a creative, happy vibe. In addition to the troll, I couldn't resist talking a couple photos of a sculpture of six concrete people who had been adorned.

Pike Place Market Seattle, Washington

2011-07-15T20:55:00.008-04:00

I arrived in Seattle yesterday. Today I went to the famous Pike Place Market. It is close to the waterfront and was about a two mile walk from where I am staying. I was glad that I walked because while parking was available, albeit pricey, the area was congested with pedestrians. There was so much going on the market. There were stalls selling produce, fish, spices, cheese, and lots of flowers. I bought 3 heirloom tomatoes, an eggplant, an onion, some cheese, and a loaf of bread for dinner. I also bought some lapsang souchong because it has been awhile since I have had decent lapsang souchong. Everywhere one turns there are streets musicians. There are also shops all along the market that sell Asian goods, t-shirts, and an odd assortment of things.

Rialto Beach, La Push-Mora area

2011-07-13T19:10:00.003-04:00

Today I drove to La Push and saw the small marina town. On the way back I went to Mora campground and walked along Rialto beach. I found a beautiful rock with a smooth natural bowl that had been created by the motion of sand and water.

The Hoh Rainforest

2011-07-13T18:47:00.008-04:00

Yesterday in the rain I went to the Hoh Rainforest. It is unbelievable lush. Fantastical mosses drape off tree branches, six inch long slugs in a myriad of colors ranging from tan to orange to bright yellow crawl across vivid green leaves, and the rain patters in its journey to the forest floor. I crossed a bridge and looked into water so clear that I could not estimate the depth of the stream. Every year this part of the country gets 120 to 130 inches of rain. The coincidence of the placement of the Cascade mountains, the westerly winds coming off the Pacific, and the Pacific ocean itself create the conditions that make the rainforest possible.

Ruby Beach

2011-07-12T20:03:00.004-04:00

Yesterday I walked on the beach at a place called Ruby Beach. The air was chill and damp and the afternoon was melancholy. The mists along the coast lent an air of mystery.

Road Trip Day 6: Kalaloch

2011-07-11T16:08:00.004-04:00

Yesterday I started the day with a campfire. I sat and read portions of two books before having lunch and going down a short trail from the campsite to the beach. I sat and watched the waves of the Pacific Ocean wash the sandy beach for several hours. Children played on the beach, an elderly couple collected wood for a bonfire, and people walked in the mists along the coast. Seabirds sat like intermediaries between this world and the next. All was very peaceful.

Kalaloch has been home to humans for 12,000 years. In 1977 a farmer digging a pond just outside of the Olympic National Forest unearthed a mastodon skeleton. Within the rib bones of the mastodon was a broken piece of bone resembling a spear.

The region is lush. Everything is green and growing. It is an area of beauty and abundance. Red cedars grow tall and have provided the raw materials for shelters, wood working, and baskets for time immemorial. Broken clam and crab shells litter the beaches and these creatures have provided sustenance to peoples since prehistoric times. Whales and other sea mammals come close to the coast and fishing is bountiful. There are also big game such as deer and elk. Indigenous cultures in this area became rich and complex with time to develop their arts.

When Europeans were drawn to settle in this area because of the abundance of salmon and the great forests, things changed. Entire villages of indigenous people were wiped out by diseases that they had no resistance to. Great swaths of the forests were cut down. The elk population was hunted to a fraction of its original size.

Driving to Kalaloch I saw areas of the forest that had been "harvested." Logging is a big business in this area. The Olympic National Park and areas such as the Hoh Rainforest were set aside to preserve "the finest example of primeval forest... and provide permanent protection for the herds of native Roosevelt elk." The Olympic National Park was established in 1938. Native peoples have been granted the right to fish in their traditional ways and to resume whaling. Otters were reintroduced to the area and are thriving.

Kalaloch which means in the Quinault language "a good place to land" has been a scene of interaction between the landscape and people for a very long time. I cannot imagine coming to Kalaloch and not being taken with the beauty of the place and transformed in some small way.

Road Trip Day 4

2011-07-09T22:48:00.005-04:00

I spent the day on the beach after sleeping quite peacefully for 12 hours last night. Kalaloch is beautiful. The beach is a bit chill as the wind blows off the Pacific Ocean, but the sands absorb the sun's warmth. There are mists that enshroud the coastline in the morning and burn off as the day progresses. The waves make a constant peaceful murmur.

Road Trip Day 3: Arrived at Kalaloch, Washington

2011-07-08T22:26:00.006-04:00

I arrived this afternoon after three days of driving at the Kalaloch Campground within the Olympic National Park. Kalaloch is on the Pacific Ocean and hopefully over the next couple of days I can post pictures of the ocean. I love to watch the waves.

The campground itself is just inside the forest. I set up my tent on a mossy flat area within my designated spot. All around my tent is lush greenery and even though while I pitched my tent it was a bright sunshine afternoon, the trees only allowed a rather mystical green light to filter through their leaves. As the wind coming off the ocean gently moved the upper branches dancing diamonds of light flitted over the ferns. The area is very beautiful and peaceful.

The pictures above show my home for the next six days. My tent is an REI Base Camp 6 tent that I bought several years ago. It is a fabulous tent that has withstood thunderstorms coming off Lake Michigan and barely let any rain through. Currently there is still fine red sand from Dead Horse Point State Campground in Moab, Utah dusting the floor. I was able to set the tent up by myself in under a half an hour.

Tonight I am going to start the first bonfire that I have created in several years. I like the way that fires cast shadows and light. I am planning over the course of this week to burn some papers-- two old novels. To let them go.

Road Trip Day 2

2011-07-08T00:41:00.006-04:00

Tonight I am staying in Pendleton, Oregon. Last night I stayed just outside of Salt Lake City. This morning after arising I went to have the standard American complimentary hotel breakfast and I was greeted by the scowl of an elderly Asian woman who was on a tour with a couple dozen families from India and Asia. I ate my breakfast under her baleful watch and downed three cups of coffee while ignoring her rather steady stare. I am not certain why she was scowling at me. After this I climbed in the car and began the slow drive to Pendleton.

Summer time in the United States means road construction. Just getting past Salt Lake City took a couple hours to travel about fifty miles. For one stretch of road traffic moved at a 5 mile per hour pace. Several other times i ran into road construction and was struck by how the road was narrowed to one lane with giant orange barrels and there were trucks everywhere but no one was around and working on the roadway. I began fantasizing about mysterious nighttime road worker apparitions that swoop in in a ghostly mist and operate the machinery under their non-corporeal influence.

Today I drove 575 miles through 3 states. In Idaho I saw signs warning of dust storms and animal crossings. I saw an advertisement for a bull auction. The terrain sprawled in arid undulations and the whitecap mountains loomed in the distance. Scrubby trees struggled for an existence. In Boise I was caught in a thunderstorm with torrential rain and high winds. Raindrops like mini water bombs fell across the hood of my car.

When I passed into Oregon the desert terrain continued and I followed along the Snake river for awhile. I-84 follows parts of the old Oregon Trail and it occurred to me that in one day I traveled what took early pioneers several weeks to travel if they completed the journey and were still alive. Oregon is beautiful. The landscape at first is dramatic arid prairie and then it begins to rise in gentle curves. As the mountains sweep upward conifers become more plentiful. I could smell the pine scent as I drove.

Tomorrow I will drive to Kalaloch, Washington to camp at Kalaloch Campground within the Olympic National Park.

London

2011-07-07T23:14:00.010-04:00

From June 24 through July 1, I was in London to visit a very dear friend. Every morning we rode on the Underground to go into the city. This gave me an all new appreciation of "Neverwhere" by Neil Gaiman and I am going to have to go back and reread the novel. We rode past stops such as Knightsbridge and Black Friars Stations. It made me very happy to be able to be with my friend for a week and have an almost regular routine that involved seeing him everyday and spending time with him.

London was wonderful also.

We walked along the Thames and photographed the bridges. We went to the British Museum where I saw a beautiful Egyptian sarcophagus that was made for an incense bearer. The colors on the sarcophagus were so beautiful, the composition was exquisite. Thinking of it takes my breath away once more. I saw sections of the frieze from the Parthenon and several sculptures. I saw sculptures of Demeter, Persephone, and Dionysus. I saw Lindow man who is a bog person. I saw the Sutton Hoo helmet that was the helm for an ancient warrior king. I saw a Michelangelo that stilled my soul and left my sitting in awe before it. We also went to the National Gallery and we saw more Michelangelo, a Da Vinci, and several paintings by Impressionists including a sunflower painting by Van Gogh that mysteriously a group of children were sitting in front of while a teacher made train noises as she instructed them.

We went on a few historical walks with guides that told us about the history of London and I took a picture of the sidewalk where one of Jack the Ripper's victims was found. We also meet another friend and went to the Royal Air Force museum where we saw planes from World War II like the Spitfire and Messerschmitt.

Preparing for a Road Trip

2011-07-04T23:52:00.002-04:00

On Wednesday I am going on a road trip. The first stop is Salt Lake City, Utah. Then Pendleton, Oregon. Then on to Kalaloch Campground in the Olympic National Park. I love watching waves and I am looking forward to walking the beach on the Pacific. It has been a very long time since I have seen the Pacific ocean. After Kalaloch I am going to Seattle for several days. After Seattle I am going to Spokane and then Bozeman, Montana before traveling on to Yellowstone National Park.

I am hoping to hike and take great quantities of pictures!

Preparing to leave is a great deal of work-- laundry, housework, organizing gear, packing the car.

May the Force Be With You

2011-06-20T20:16:00.004-04:00

In May of 1977 a rather low budget science fiction film was released. It was originally contracted as a two movie deal with the film American Graffiti. It went through multiple drafts of its screenplay and was originally titled "Adventures of Luke Starkiller, as taken from the Journal of the Whills, Saga I: The Star Wars"-- a rather long winded title that George Lucas later shortened down to Star Wars.

I didn't see the film early in May, but word of it spread quite quickly. I can remember being a kid and playing in my best friend's yard with Barbie dolls and she told me about this movie that she had gotten to go see at the movie theater. She told me about Luke Skywalker, Obi Wan Kenobi, R2D2, C3PO, and Princess Leia. That afternoon we didn't play the usual game of house with our Barbie dolls. This time our Barbies and Ken were part of a more elaborate fantasy story involving space ships and sword play and more. I followed Cheryl's lead on the story and was mesmerized. I went home and asked my mother to take me to the movies.

For the next several weeks I heard more and more stories about this movie from the other kids. Pretend play in Cheryl's neighborhood became focused on Star Wars. I remember the giant swinging rope of the hill by the mulberry tree became a great chasm that we had to swing across to evade the storm troopers. Sticks became light sabers. I went home and asked my mother to take me to the movies.

It was mid-July and hot. Very hot. My mother worked as a cook and waitress for my grandmother's restaurant. She didn't like to go to the movies. Sometimes my aunt would take my cousins and I to the movies. She had a preference for nature programs (and I owe my fondness for ocelots to her) and the last one I could remember Aunt Janet taking us to was a double feature with the Disney version of Robin Hood and a nature film about the animals of North America. I still hadn't seen Star Wars and now the kids were not simply talking about seeing the film, they were comparing how many times they had seen it. It was a bit comparable to the part in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory where all of the kids have bought hundreds of Wonka bars except for Charlie. I felt like Charlie. I wanted to see the film so bad. Finally there was an afternoon that was as hot as a humid afternoon in Michigan can get. The kind of afternoon preceding a thunderstorm where the humidity is so high that sweat has little effect and the air is so stifling that you cannot breathe. My mother was complaining about the heat when she got off work. I suggested that we go to the movie theater to see the movie. The movie theater where they had not only popcorn and Star Warsbut also air conditioning. She agreed to go and we went.

The afternoon was magic. The theater was packed and we sat near the back. In retrospect this was pretty remarkable for an afternoon matinee for a film that had been out for a couple months, but that was the type of blockbuster that Star Wars was. I sat with my popcorn in absolute awe for two hours and when the Millenium Falcon came over the curve of the Death Star and Han Solo told Luke to go ahead with his mission, a huge cheer went up in the theater. People hooted, hoorayed, and clapped when the Death Star blew up. People were applauding and crying at the final scene where Princess Leia awards metals to Luke and Han.

The movie simply made people feel good. It gave them something to cheer about. It was not an overly complicated plot. Farm boy discovers long lost heritage and defeats the enemy. It did not have dark complexities. It was about good versus evil. It might have been just the right movie for the time period. A time period before the hostage crisis in Iran, Reagan, and the Bush Dynasty. A time when it felt like there was hope and a farm boy could on a wing and a prayer defeat the oppressors.

That fall most kids I knew dressed up for Halloween as some character from Star Wars. There were some very inventive R2D2 costumes. Flashlights were sold that looked like light sabers. I was envious of Cheryl's Princess Leia costume that her mother had made from a pattern. I bought a May the Force Be With You button. This button lived for many years in one of my drawers. It was like a talisman that brought back good memories-- memories of seeing Star Wars in the summer of 1977. I think I have moved too many times and I don't know it's location anymore. I may still have it. It doesn't really matter because thinking about the button and remembering the first time I saw the movie brings back the happy nostalgic feeling.

It makes me smile to wish anyone reading this reminiscent post-- "May the Force Be With You!"

That Which Remains...

2011-06-17T18:39:00.012-04:00

Recently it was announced that there is evidence of a prehistoric settlement in St. Kilda on the remote island of Boreray. A stone building and evidence of terraced agriculture has been found. The island has sheer cliffs that seabirds nest upon and feral sheep wander. Back in the 1930's the islanders asked the Scottish government to relocate them because their way of life had become untenable. Previously archeologists had presumed that the island was only visited by peoples hunting the seabirds and gathering stray bits of wool, but this recent find changes everything. It is now thought that Iron Age artifacts are likely to be found. Typical Iron Age artifacts are things like needles, spearheads, swords, and sickles.

For any artifact to be found, it has to be tough in order to withstand erosion and decay. Organic matter breaks down over time and the Iron Age was approximately 3000 years ago. The bones of ancient people are sometimes found, but rarely skin, hair, or muscle unless there is some special condition present such as mummification due to extreme freezing, acidic, or dry conditions. Further, the most typical bones to be found are the strongest-- teeth, jaw bones, and the femur. Otzi was found frozen in the Alps and his body was so much in tact that MRI's have determined that he had tooth decay and was murdered by being shot by an arrow. Many mummies have been pulled out of bogs where the acidic water, low temperatures, and a lack of oxygen have preserved the bodies. Here is an image of Tollunde Man who was found in Denmark:

In the 1980's several caucasian mummies dating from between 3000 to 4000 years ago were found in the Takla Makan desert near Loulan. The Beauty of Loulan had straight long hair and the fabric of her garment was still in tact which is extremely rare. The extreme dry conditions of the desert made this possible:

The fabric has been analyzed and the wool was found to be from a type of Western sheep, the pattern of the weaving was a twill pattern not typically found in Asia, and the colors of the cloth indicate a possible tartan plaid. No one is certain what happened to this settlement of individuals. The mummies appear to have died primarily from smoke inhalation from camp fires rather than violence.

More often what archeologists find are things made of more durable stuff than fabric-- stone, metal, bone, and pottery sherds are what are typically found. Stone or dirt mounds that are arranged in too symmetrical of a fashion or are recognizably a dwelling are an obvious first clue that prior inhabitants were in the area. In Newfoundland a temporary Viking settlement was found at L'anse aux Meadows in the 1960's because regular mounds revealed a Viking style settlement of 8 dwellings. An organized and surveyed dig was set up and such items as a stone oil lamp, a bronze fastening pin, and a bone needle were found.

When a dig is set up, the area is cordoned off and broken down into smaller catalogued subsections. Forget Indiana Jones style "archeology", most archeology takes months or years of back-breaking work. Volunteers and workers at a dig spend hours, days, and weeks gently sifting through the soil to find bone fragments, bits of metal, and pottery sherds. These tiny puzzle pieces are the things that history is reconstructed from. More often whole sections such as the pot fragment pictured above are not what is found, something looking like this is more of the norm:

Pottery is made from clay that has been hardened by being subjected to heat. Fired pottery is very durable. It will continue to break down into smaller bits of pottery sherds, but it doesn't disintegrate into compost. Much of the world's history comes from the sleuthing of archeologists problem solving and putting things together. Imagine having to daily reconstruct your mother's favorite vase from the pieces you swept up from the floor after it fell off the shelf. Now go one farther and imagine putting that vase together and all the pieces are scattered all over the house and the house has disintegrated to ruins and you aren't sure if you are looking at a piece of the vase or not. This is the painstaking task of archeology.

Further, you know that your mother put flowers in her vase, imagine if you didn't know the purpose of the vase. What else might it be used for? If you found a number of vases and they were highly ornate and seemed to take up a rather important position in the household you may think it had some religious significance. I might think it was a coffee cup. Maybe there are rows and rows of these vases to be assembled from one dig. Maybe they are wine or oil jars? Maybe this culture cremated their dead and put them in jars and you have stumbled upon a type of crypt? Maybe these were broken jars back in their own time period and you have stumbled upon a type of garbage heap?

We have no way to travel in time and know the past completely. We can only get small glimpses of how our ancestors lived from that which remains and through our contemplation and creativity.

Celebrate!

2011-06-12T19:45:00.004-04:00

Someone very important to me turned seven yesterday. Today he was quoted as saying "Today is the second time I am seven." Another child looked at him and replied, "You are only seven once."

I began thinking about this because I have been thinking about quite a few things lately. For any given year we get to declare that we are a certain age. Different ages come with certain expectations that can either be helpful or limiting such as the expectation that one will earn a salary in keeping with their age or one should "act one's age" meaning act in a way so as not to draw attention to oneself. It also means that young people and children aren't supposed to do things like sail around the world even though they may have the talent and the drive to do so. It can also mean that an older person may be reluctant to start in a new direction such as start a new career or go back to school because they are supposed to have all that already figured out.

On any given day, I don't really know if I feel my actually chronological age. Sometimes I feel very ancient. Other times I feel very young. Sometimes I just feel comfortable in my skin and I am not sure it is really linked to any particular age. Birthdays for me do tend to cause an automatic review of the previous year. Sometimes that review is rough if I have been through a rough year. Sometimes it is satisfying to know that I accomplished whatever I accomplished that year.

We all only get one life to live. Everyday has to count. I think rather than celebrating an annual birthday, I will celebrate each day as a chance to be whatever I am once again. Maybe with coffee and chocolate and music!

Here is some happy music:

Beatles! The Birthday Song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztoSUhbNntQ&feature=related
Beatles! Twist and Shout
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVlr4g5-r18
Beatles! Obla Di Obla Da
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPoNH4gidLg

A Different View

2011-06-09T23:10:00.006-04:00

Over the last few years, my life has been re-directed in ways that I could never have predicted five years ago. It has been overwhelming, frightening, often uncomfortable, sometimes sad, sometimes exciting, world view expanding, and I have had moments of great joy. I have been very fortunate that I have several friends who have been with me through all of this. Some I only know online but this does not diminish their significance to me. Despite being exceptionally nervous, I traveled for the first time across the Atlantic ocean to a different continent to meet some of these friends. I saw real live elephants, penguins, and baboons! I am hoping that the adventures don't ever stop, I can keep posting about such magnificent things, the friends are always in my life, and I keep experiencing new things and having my views challenged, expanded, and informed!

One friend came to see me. I have wanted to go for a balloon ride to see over the mountains ever since I moved to Colorado. We went on a balloon ride! It was exhilarating. And world view expanding. And brought me great joy. We met the people from Above It All Ballooning very early in the morning so that the balloon could be inflated. Once the balloon was inflated we rode the morning air currents over one of the ridges and through the Roaring Fork Valley by Owl Creek Road in Snowmass Village, Colorado. If you look close in the first picture you can see the shadow that the balloon cast on the ground. This was a truly incredible adventure. And gave me a different view that I did not have before for which I am very grateful.

Thoughts on writing science fiction with a positive view of the future

2011-06-09T22:56:00.004-04:00

Where have all the utopias gone from science fiction? I have written on this in the past because dystopic views seem to be in vogue. I think we could all use a little optimism in our fantasies about the future and this started me thinking about what to write if trying to tackle writing a utopia.

It occurs to me that utopian visions come out of the perceived ills and thoughts of forward momentum/accomplishment of a time period. It seems to me that what offers a glimmer of hope in the midst of the darkest corner of the dread is that which is seized upon and a utopian dream comes forth.

So in the midst of rapidly expanding industrialization that was happening on the backs of "found" energy in the form of the workers was the realization that the workers had power, then there was the idea of unions, and socialism and an equal distribution of wealth came up as idea. This was the spin on the idea of "To each according to his need and from each according to his ability." There was no assumed station or assumption of inherited or predetermined power or wealth in that idea.

In the midst of mechanized progress that created labor saving devices and generated a consumer economy to fuel the need to sell such no longer seen as luxury devices more income and a more regularized workweek became the norm and the utopian fantasy of the time became one of modern mechanized conveniences, a shortened work week and less labor. Everyone living in a dream of luxury needed items to enjoy their expanded leisure time. It was kind of like an advertisement to sell the American dream.

Out of the repression of the post war era where everyone had to be somnambulated back into their pre-war position because it was not acceptable at that time to have women and blacks holding good jobs that "men" needed to support their families came dreams of civil rights, equal opportunity, and women's rights.

Currently, I would say that our utopian visions are rooted in a desire to find an energy source that will avert environmental disaster. Another possibility is the inklings of power that are just beginning to tickle the general public's consciousness in regards to the potentialities of being globally networked, having information instantly constantly available, and having the entire planet in possession of social media applications. This could be another form of "democracy" the world has never seen. The problems to overcome are the short attention span and shelf life of anything that appears over the internet. Another possibility is the dream of what might arise out of medical/genetic advances. Genetics and bioengineering are moving forward and will quickly present a slippery slope of ethical decisions that will influence the human race on a species level in dramatic ways.

I think there is a human inclination to hoard, to have, to compete, to have more. The free market could be said to be rooted in this inclination. I would caution against saying anything akin to that this is "human nature". I have a higher opinion of the species than this and validating something that causes callus decisions that harm, because free markets are predicated on exploitation, and making it an inescapable "truth" I cannot hold to. As human beings we do not need this to be considered self evident and we are capable of regulatory systems to hold the grossest applications of the "free market" inclination in check.

In all honesty, I do not see any utopia as free from conflict. A utopia is an ideal and ideals are always fraught with conflict. In a plurality, one can always say "wouldn't it be wonderful if...", but one person's ideal will not be everyone's ideal.

I concur with an idea that a friend expressed that our current time period would be considered a utopia by past generations. Often there is a backward glance through history that casts a golden light on a previous age and we see the past through a pastoral fantasy. The current time period may seem difficult but we have a greatly expanded lifespan because of much less infant mortality, better medical practice, better water and sewage treatment, better distribution of food, etc. We live in a world that our ancestors from as little ago as 200 years may never have been able to even imagine.

I think in looking to the future to try to write a "utopia" rather than striving for the "utopia," maybe it is better to consider what the world might look like with current advances advanced farther. How might these things bring rise to new political systems? If we are globally networked, how will this affect notions of nationality? What does this do to borders? Immigration? Already we are seeing countries forming unions to have more economic and political clout on a planet where the system of interaction is a "global economy" and to wield power a "union" or "coalition" must have resources, respect, etc. How might alliances shift? What if policies and governments can never hide their secrets and public opinion holds power? What will happen if people can be genetically modified for their jobs? What if the human life span can be expanded fivefold? What if the roots/mechanism of human memory are found? What are the implications? What if a cheap clean virtually limitless power source is found or created? What will this do? What will happen to the population on the planet? Instead of seeing all these advances or progression in a dystopic way, what would they look like as part of ordinary life?

This is the stuff that a hopeful view of the future might be grown from.

Box Canyon Falls, Ouray, Colorado

2011-06-07T18:54:00.003-04:00

Several weeks ago I visited Ouray, Colorado which is home to not only some amazing hot springs, but also several very beautiful areas that are easily accessible by hiking. One of these was the Box Canyon Falls. The Falls are about a 1/4 mile hike up into the canyon and are nestled deep inside the rocks. The roar of water is truly deafening, but the area is picturesque.