Writing Breath

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because 
change and patience
color-infused breath dreaming
heart
beat
honor water spirit
creativity in my skin



Redtree Times



Brainy Quote

Pretty Designs

Austin Kleon

#LiveMoreChallenge
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M-book Project Update

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On Tuesday I started a script - a short script, maybe a radio script. It has nothing to do with the M-book. But I had inspiration around another setting and wanted to capture it on the page. So I did. The only relationship it bears to the project is that it is writing and it is about writers.

On the project itself, I feel like I am making no progress. A more accurate description is that I'm making very slow progress, which sometimes feels like nothing. But this is a stage I know I must go through before I can move to the next draft.

I am reading the entire manuscript, as is, from beginning to end. I am trying to not edit as I go; reading for where it is now, making notes. I bought large supply of sticky notes because there are some things I want to be able find easily. Some places need only notes on the page, or perhaps in another document - a running list of sorts, perhaps, but not yet. But I'm a fan of sticky notes as a way to get back to a place more quickly. 

I bought colored sticky notes because color coding works well for me; at other times in my left I've been called the Color Coding Queen and I'm okay with that. I created color coded systems when I was stage manager and ran lights for theatrical productions. There are things in the M-book I need to monitor in terms of repetition, the appearance of people/stories/places, which time period sections (chapters?) belong to, eek the gaps or missing transitions. Having a quick glance color system will help me with the flow of the story and events in addition to clearly marking the places where I need something more or have a piece which needs to be moved.

I also bought a new pen. A colored pen and, no, it is not red. I opted for purple. Solid, regal, it will stand out on the page and I like purple. After I bought the pens, I thought, just for fun, I'd look up some meanings of purple and, yes, I have confirmed this is a good color for making notes in the memoir :

         According to Emily Gems:

Put some violet in your life when you want:

• to use your imagination to its fullest
• to re-balance your life
• to remove obstacles

Purple pens, multicolored sticky notes, a fresh printing of the book (don't worry, I promise to reuse every page; but I work best with the physical pages for notetaking at this stage), a pack of bubble gum, Lindor 90% dark chocolate, a new batch of cold brew decaf in the works and another quart already in the fridge. I'm diving into the next stage, the next draft - after I finish reading this one.

Explosion of Luminous Creation

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Tomorrow is NaNoWriMo Eve. I've been thinking that it was today because, as a late night person and a person who will be showing up at the midnight write-in tomorrow at 11pm, that is Tomorrow. But, technically, I will accept that tomorrow being October 31st makes it the "eve" to November 1st. 

Fine. 

Today I pulled up to the location of an appointment to be greeted by this beauty. Fall is my favorite season, I think. Partly because Fall is so variable, so unpredictable,‎ contains sun and rain and wind and clouds, warm days and cool nights. And sights like this. Trees and bushes exploding colors as they prepare for the (probably) colder days ahead. 

Even with the unseasonably warm and calm Fall we've had, we still get the illuminated leaves, golds, crimson, electric green and everything in between. Trees painting the neighborhood; leaves carpeting the streets. 

A tree of creative fire always catches my attention. 

I'd like to capture some of this energy in my NaNoNovel. 

Speaking of... a quick update. I now have photos to go with each of the main characters. I have ages, hair color, main role in the novel, a few attributes. I'm still working on hobbies, likes and dislikes. One of the characters picked up a pet when I found her photo; I didn't anticipate that - especially not a dog. I have nothing against dogs; this will just be the first time I have a dog in my novel, I realize. Usually there are some cats and two years ago the main cat had a central role in the story. A dog! That's good, too.

I think of the old TV commercial, with customer(s) at the door of a still closed store. It's dark outside. The customer(s) chant, "Open. Open. Open."

I'm chanting (silently), "NaNo. NaNo. NaNo."‎

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Challenge : M is for Magenta

M is for Magenta.

Magenta - or at least my conception of Magenta - is one of my favorite colors. It is the color of a robust red wine, of pomegranate seeds at the peak of ripeness, of the piece of satin ribbon left over from an unexpected gift.

Magenta can be other hues as well. It seems to range from a sashimi slab of tuna on the sushi-go-round, to a deep electric pink worthy of a black light, to purple as a plum. I'm sure if I asked an artist trained in traditional visual arts, they would point out to me exactly which hue is correct.

I remember from a screen printing class and my years of making silk paintings by hand and even the one intro to letterpress class I took that Magenta is actually one of the base colors from which many others are created. For example, making purple in a screen print happened by overlapping Magenta and cyan. I mean, I know you can buy many colors of inks and paints. But in the old school way you have three colors : Magenta and cyan and yellow. Oh, and black; four colors.

Color Meditations

I don't have a box of Crayola crayons handy to look at their version of Magenta. But I like my Magentas rich and deep and pretty close to that perfect balance point between pink and purple, with one drop more on the blue side of the line.

And Magenta is the color of my healthy blood when it first is coming out of my body for a blood test or a timed bleeding test. Especially the bleeding test which is an interesting experience I knew nothing about until about sixteen months ago when my doctors discovered that I have a genetic mutation which can increase the likelihood of blood clots. So I'm on a blood thinner medication. But my primary health care is "alternative" (naturopathic, acupuncture, chiropractic) and we have a local specialist naturopathic physician who is nationally recognized for his work in cardiovascular situations. One thing I have to do - in addition to the blood tests every four to six weeks to measure the medication level in my blood for my MD - is to do this timed bleeding test with my regular ND provider every few months. The basics are that she uses a special lancet to make a small puncture and we see how long it takes for it to stop bleeding. It's not quite like watching paint dry - but can be. The goal is for my blood to take longer than the average person to stop bleeding - ideally it's somewhere around seven minutes.

So when I say that Magenta is the color of my healthy blood, I do know what I mean. Sitting and watching it bleed (and how much, for how long), I do see the color as it comes out, which is a Magenta when it first surfaces, before more oxygen hits it and it starts to turn more red.

M is for Magenta.

Who Are You, more

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I've been thinking about the post earlier this week and I still stand by it. But I've also been thinking about it more.

One question raised is how to know when it's a being true to oneself change or if it's a not-in-the-writer's-best-interest change being considered? I didn't mean that change is bad. That we shouldn't work to improve and strengthen our skills and our persona and so on.

If that is our truth. Who we are and what we want to do.

And mimicking our writing heroes isn't bad or wrong, but we have to hold our own voice, too.

It's good to experiment.

It's good to try out, to learn, new skills. Because in that process we may find another part of ourselves we didn't know was there. We may discover that we're good at this other genre or style or maybe poetry when we thought we couldn't do it.

The key is to stay mindful of what we're doing and how it feels. To know first what we want and our intention and then check if the action fits with that vision.

This leaf, which I call my Autumn Ambassador, appeared on a walk recently; alone on the sidewalk, bright, calling. The rich colors surrounding the heart of green, wearing it's bloodlines - the veins - boldly and proudly. It is unique and yet it shares characteristics with other leaves from its home tree.

We are each unique and at the same time a part of the whole. Know your voice and be mindful of and true to your writer-self.
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Blonde or Blond?

I consider myself to be a fairly skilled user of the English language. After all, I am a writer and an interpreter. Right? I know my English. But once in a while I knowingly break a rule (or maybe bend it just a little) and sometimes I don't know any better. Or I make a typographical error or just do it wrong.

Generally, I know what I'm doing.

Once in a while a word comes up in my writing or out of my mouth and I think, "Huh! I wonder if I'm using that correctly." Being in writing groups has proved useful for this - when I get feedback on something which could be done in a better way or when I read something someone else discovered. One example of this was the usage of "that" or "which" in a sentence. I know, it seems straightforward enough; but sometimes it is not as obvious for some of us. Several sessions ago another writer posted a great way to know which one was more accurate when, and I believe my writing has improved in relation to those two words.

Today when I was working on my memoir, I decided to add a detail that the upright piano was blond. Or was it blonde? I thought. So I looked it up. I don't know if I ever had this explained to me or not - I don't remember it. I've generally used it with or without the "e" based on instinct and common usage rather than knowing.

So I thought I'd share my new insight.

And, in the way of many modern language considerations, it seems to be in flux and there is not a hard and fast rule. Unless you want to follow more conventional standards. The definitions and etymology are pretty much the same across the internet and books, so I chose the one from Dictionary.com to post, for its conciseness and completeness.

Is it Blonde or is it Blond?

World English Dictionary
blonde  (blɒnd)

— adj
1.     (of women's hair) of a light colour; fair
2.     (of a person, people or a race) having fair hair, a light complexion, and, typically, blue or grey eyes
3.     (of soft furnishings, wood, etc) light in colour

— n
4.     a person, esp a woman, having light-coloured hair and skin
5.     Also called: blonde lace  a French pillow lace, originally of unbleached cream-coloured Chinese silk, later of bleached or black-dyed silk

[C15: from Old French blond  (fem blonde ), probably of Germanic origin; related to Late Latin blundus  yellow, Italian biondo , Spanish blondo ] 

Origin:
see blond

—Related forms
blonde·ness, noun

—Can be confused:  blond, blonde (see usage note at the current entry ).

—Usage note
The spelling blonde is still widely used for the noun that specifies a woman or girl with fair hair: The blonde with the baby in her arms is my anthropology professor. Some people object to this as an unnecessary distinction, preferring blond for all persons: My sister is thinking of becoming a blond for a while. As an adjective, the word is more usually spelled blond in reference to either sex ( an energetic blond girl; two blond sons ), although the form blonde is occasionally still used of a female: the blonde model and her escort. The spelling blond is almost always used for the adjective describing hair, complexion, etc.: His daughter has blond hair and hazel eyes.

picture from The Immortal Piano Company

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dot's small stone: January 26

blue and red flashing lights inside

plastic pastel rubber noodle-ball
ignited when it rolled off the dash

 
small stone #26
by dot.
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prompt: photography as a window to writing

Here is an image to play with, by one of my favorite photographers, Serena Davidson.

If you like word prompts, try one of these:
- - "When our eyes met..."
- - "He looked up as I entered the room..."
- - "I overheard her say..."

Or, look at the photograph and write about:
What most catches your eye?
What makes you curious?
Are you struck by the whiteness of everything and what feeling does that evoke?
Are they indoors or outdoors?
What is the uniting factor for this gathering?
Is there a relationship between the two people in the foreground? If yes, what?

Thank you, Serena D, for another intriguing and alive photograph!

Light Bar 2007 Opening Night
by Serena Davidson

found: plaster excavation

Sometimes I run across a photograph or a piece of art or a performance piece which inspires me. I probably "run across" more of them than I notice, if I'm honest with myself. I do get lost in getting to my next assignment or trying to figure out when - or where - I will squeeze in lunch or dinner into my schedule as I'm navigating traffic and looking ahead on the road to see if I can continue as I am or need to find an alternate route.

That reads like an excuse for not being present in my life. For my moments - which may span days - of not practicing mindfulness. And it is what happens. I do get into a fog of what I have to do and ignore what is new and unexpected and even inspirational. The good thing is that those time periods are shorter and I notice that I've sunk into that pit of scarity thinking.

So, as I am crawling out of another of those holes, I found the above picture of the plaster excavation piece, Vessel, by Serena Barton. And, you see, I had already seen that piece before. I admired it, told her "good job" and then it went out of my mind. Completely. Until I saw it on her blog (you can read more about its creation and the process at Serena Barton's blog).

This is a very alive and rich piece of art. I see in it the inspiration for stories and poems, dense with landscape, character, and the mystery of storytelling which threads through language and holds it all together into a cohesive piece into which we can sink and drift and dream.

Where does this piece of art take you and your writing?
What kind of place is it?
Who (or what) exists there and what do they do?

Prompt: As I stood at the threshold ...

Vessel by Serena Barton
plaster excavation
c. 2008

notes on Lucille Clifton

Sunday was a wonderful night, listening to Lucille Clifton read her poetry and tell stories from her life. I was enchanted by her presence and enjoyed her being present in the space with us. Her energy was honest and, even though tired by her own admission, she filled the room with her words and we all listened.

There were many gems I heard that night. Some of them poetry. Some of them stories from her life. Some of them pieces of wisdom. I am still digesting everything I heard and I can still hear her voice. So, rather than give a review of her work, I've decided to (at least for now) share some of the things I noticed and wrote down. We'll see if they are as potent today as they were then - and if I wrote down enough to make sense of what I wrote *wink.

The first quote is from Ursula LeGuin's introduction of Lucille Clifton: "She brings it into focus for those of us who couldn't see it otherwise."

Lucille Clifton was poet laureate of Maryland for 10 years. When she was offered the title, she "asked the governor if he'd read anything I wrote and he said, 'no.' I thought, 'this could work!'."

She talked a lot about naming. How people think we have the duty, obligation - the right - to name the world around us. And even more, that we have the arrogance to think that our name is The Name it should be known as.

"Speculation is why I write."

This was once piece of a line from a poem which just struck me and so I wrote it down. I love it, still! "...consider my pockets..."

On "why I write": "My writing is to get people to notice. All people should be noticed."

Someone in the audience asked her for advice to women who are mothers and writers. Her answer: "aren't we all a lot of things?"

Another bit of advice in response to a different question: "Do the best you can with more than one thing."

She was asked about how she writes, advice to writers ... She said she does not write every day. She goes long periods sometimes without writing. Right now she is working on a book, the cover and book design are done, and she is not writing. But when she writes, she writes a lot.

She also said that "poems know that I will say yes to them, and so they come."

Writing is also her lifeline. She didn't say it in quite those words. But she did say it in many words. What she did say was, "If I'm writing, everything is okay."

Thank you, Lucille Clifton, for sharing a couple hours with us and sharing your words.

A brief note in case you're wondering:
the color values chart is a nod to Lucille's
writing about naming and about (skin) color.

Brevity

"Asian Pear" by Serena Barton

Recently the subject of brevity has come up several times, including at my current writing seminar. Our facilitator challenges us to take the 10-page short story and make it something like, oh, maybe 800 words! It reminds me of the television program, "Name that Tune." The goal was for the contestants to guess the song correctly with as few notes as possible. Similarly, we're being challenged to see how concisely we can make our point. At the recent writing seminar we wrote for 30 minutes with three random words picked from bowls: a noun, a verb, and a color or smell. I wrote a short story. When the three-minute warning bell rang, I decided to see if I could dash off a short poem with the same three words; below is the result.

STARS

by Dot.

stars like sponges
providing escape
from the jet black of night.

"the brevity of resonant drifting" by Steve Roden

I was curious what other artists have done with the concept of brevity or simplicity. All of these images are different conceptualizations of that idea.

IMAGE SOURCES:
rock sculpture: Absolve
bird of paradise: HouseOnAHill
Sam's Flower Drawing: HouseOnAHill
"Simplicity": Chris Larkin

Find what inspires you & a prompt

As writers, our inspiration can come from any or all of our senses. Sometimes it is a sound, a glimpse of color, a glance from a stranger, the smell drifting out the neighbor’s window, music carrying us to another time and place.

Part of this blog will be sharing sense experiences for you to try out, and discover where they lead.

This photo is by photographer Serena Davidson. Her photographs are full of life and movement. I first discovered her photography in relation to PICA’s TB:A festival. This is from her new “Performance” web album. These photos are from "Show Me The Body," a dance work by Tere Mathern Dance in 2007.

Writing prompt: As his face turned to the source of the sound….