Getting Rid of the Clutter

Hi-ya. Welcome to this month's edition of the Insecure Writer's Support Group meeting... er, virtual meeting, that is. This, the first Wednesday of the month, is the time when writers all over the world post about the ups and downs, the highs and lows, the ins and outs... of writing. We celebrate... we complain... we commiserate. Whatever we need, this is the place to find it. Humble thanks and a jolly tip of the hat go to Alex Cavanaugh, our fearless ninja leader and the originator of this fine group. If you'd like to join (It's FREE!) or would like to read some of the other posts, please go HERE

First off... YES!!! I finally finished writing the first draft of Blast Rites. (Thank yew, thank yew, thank yew very much...) Now comes the fun stuff. I'm currently deep in the throes of rewriting and editing, so before answering the question of the month, I'm gonna share a gently-used and slightly updated post from May, 2011, originally titled Some Pets Have Gotta Go! Yep... it's about the joys of editing. Kind of appropriate, don't ya think?

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Thought for the day:  If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one, what do you call it?



It's hard to say goodbye.

Do you have a bunch of stuff around your house that you can't let go? I'm not talking about necessities; I'm talking about those unique treasures from your past that still manage to pluck your heartstrings like a two-bit harp.

Like my cheap-o fifth grade orchestra pin. It still occupies a place of honor in my jewelry box, along with a "lucky stone" I found when I was in second grade, and a neat-o metal typeset of my name that came from a field trip to the Baltimore Sun (newspaper) building, which I, in fact, missed, because I had the measles. None of those items will mean anything to our children when I'm gone, but somehow, I can't bring myself to part with them.

                                    And records. Have I ever got records! My favorites are the 45s.


It's probably time to tell those records sayonara, but like Celine Dion sang, "It's hard to say goodbye." Not that any of these records are anywhere near as recent as Ms. Dion's birth. No, these treasures are Elvis records, Little Richard, (when he was still a young rough and tumble rock 'n' roller) the Coasters, Nat King Cole, Chuck Berry, and Rosemary Clooney singing about "This Ol' House."  They're the Drifters, Dion & the Belmonts, (before he went solo) and Eddie Fisher singing "Dungaree Doll." The McGuire Sisters, Artie Shaw and his orchestra playing "Star Dust"  (one of my favorite songs of all time) and Jerry Lee Lewis on the old Memphis, TN Sun label. Treasures, I tell you, treasures!

                                    Not that I've played any of them in the past forty-five years.

The fact that I don't have a good-working turntable is beside the point. If I wanted one badly enough, I'd buy one. But why should I? I don't NEED one.

No, all I have to do is look at these old records and admire their brightly-colored labels and sleeves to remember my first record player with its wobbly turntable, which could only play one record at a time. To play a 45, you had to put a plastic piece into the larger record hole to make it fit. Had to tape a penny to the arm to make it heavy enough to play the records right, too. Then, my brother got the portable RCA player. All it played was 45s, and you could put on a whole stack at one time. (Like Sarah Vaughan crooned, The record player's automatic ... ba-by.) One look at these records, and I'm bopping in the club basement with my girl friends, or dancing cheek-to-cheek at the teen center. So I don't have to actually HEAR them ... to hear them in my heart.

What got me to thinking about those old records is the editing I'm doing on my novel right now.  Know what? It's every bit as hard to cut words as it is to get rid of records. What's funny is that some of the parts getting the axe are the ones that I sweated the most blood over while laboring to give them birth. Witty stuff. Clever stuff. Stuff that makes me smile and laugh out loud.

But it's gotta go! Because it injects ME into the book and serves to draw the reader away from the story. No matter how much I love those words, it doesn't serve the book if the reader stops to admire my writing. Damn it.

So, the words are going. I delivered 'em, and now I'm killing 'em. And the book will be better for it. And some day, those records will go, too, I promise. But not yet.

How about you? What treasures are you holding onto from your past? No matter how illogical it is to hang onto them, they sure do bring us comfort, don't they?

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And now, it's time for the (ta-DA!)...
Question of the month:  What is one valuable lesson you've learned since you started writing?

Hmmmm, let me think about that a sec...

Okay, I've got it!

I've learned that writers are the most creative, supportive, insecure people in the world. That means they've got my back, and I've got theirs, so none of us is ever...

alone.


Our craziness, imaginations, and love of the written word unite us, and that is abso-freaking-lutely awesome.









Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.

Summer's Bounty

Hi-ya. How goes it? This week's post originally ran in August, 2012, with the title Trowel and Error. In case you can't tell by that cutesy title, it's about the joys of gardening in steamy buggy Hot-lanta.

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Thought for the day:  When weeding, the best way to make sure you're removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it's a valuable plant.

Are you a gardener... or are you a garden-dreamer, like me?

I mean, I harbor amazing delusions of grandeur while browsing through garden catalogs and piling a cart high with purchases from the local nursery every year.

And then something happens.

I like to call it reality.

Gardens are not made by singing, 'Oh, how beautiful' and sitting in the shade.  [Rudyard Kipling]

Darn it. (I'm really good at sitting in the shade.)

Kipling was a real kill-joy, huh? I do fine getting all the stuff into the ground, and for a little while... just over twenty-three minutes, I think... the garden looks marvelous. Then come these things:

                                                                      Yep, weeds.

The philosopher who said that work well done never needs doing over never weeded a garden.   [Ray D. Everson]

It's a little-known fact, but I'm pretty sure weeds are organized. Not unionized yet, but they're definitely working together. Just think about it. They grow at precisely the rate you pull them out. Yank a weed from one part of your garden, and boing! another one pops up in another part. Really. I've seen it happen.

Even with the whack-a-mole racket weeds have going for them, I don't mind weeding all that much.

At first.

And then something else happens.

I like to call it debilitating heat. In Georgia, that could happen just about any time of the year, but as a rule, by the end of springtime, (which could occur as early as February...) perspiration is pretty much flowing like Niagara Falls around here.

                                                                     I'm talking ...  

Oh, and did I happen to mention our annual summer droughts? And the outdoor watering bans? And whattayaknow? While flowers and vegetables gasp for water, weeds seem to thrive under these conditions.

Crabgrass can grow on bowling balls in airless rooms, and there is no known way to kill it that does not involve nuclear weapons.  [Dave Barry] 

They say hard work doesn't hurt anyone, but at my age, why take chances? I tend to agree with good ol' Tex here:

The best way to garden is to put on a wide-brimmed hat and some old clothes. And with a hoe in one hand and a cold drink in the other, tell somebody else where to dig.  [Texas Bix Bender]

Alas, nobody was around who was willing to let me stand around giving orders, so I tempted fate last week and went outside in the early morning (before the heat index hit triple digits) to weed and prune. I know. What a trooper, right?

So I grabbed a rug to protect my dainty little knees, my handy-dandy gloves, hand hoe, clippers, pruners, and trowel, and I was ready to go. Approximately two minutes later, the attack began.

First, the reconnaissance mosquito swooped down to sample the cuisine. Then came the rest of his brigade.

You think weeds are organized? They've got nothing on mosquitoes.

So, I tore into the house to swap shorts for sweat pants and to douse myself in bug spray. Which, I'm pretty sure, the mosquitoes around here actually like. Kinda like a finishing sauce.

But, I eventually managed to finish the job. (Which, of course, could stand to be done all over again now.) For some reason, our front garden is a flipping magnet for wild onions. Pain in the derriere to keep digging them out and digging them out, too. But didja know if you don't dig 'em out, they grow pretty little purple flowers? (ahem)  I may have read that somewhere ... yeah, that's the ticket...

Anyhow, the task gave me plenty of time to hum and think. Like, about editing. Wouldn't it be nice if it were as easy to axe the deadwood from a written work as it is to prune it from a bush? And, watching all those tiny bugs scurrying around, I thought about how tiny we are in comparison to the universe. Suppose we're part of some kind of a cosmic garden, waiting for the Master Gardener to come pull weeds? Then the question becomes: are we the weeds... or the flowers? (Yeah, I was getting a little heat-addled by that time.)

Even so, it kinda made me wonder. Who am I to decide which plants should grow and which should go?

Some...  no... most... wildflowers are beautiful.







And Ralph Waldo Emerson, a very wise man, I might add, said, What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.

I think he's absolutely right! So, I may just have to reconsider this whole notion of pulling weeds. Because, if you think about it,

                                                              Dandelions are quite dandy.

(sigh) If I could only grow green stuff in my garden like I can in my refrigerator... [unknown]

                                          Okay, hands up. I give. Time to throw in the trowel.

For now. I have been looking at topiary pictures lately. That just might be the way to go, ya know? Think our neighbors will be impressed?

                              Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.

** All images, except the last one, come from morguefile The topiary shot is courtesy of seniorark

Juggling as Fast as I Can

Hi, y'all. I'm not going to take the summer off from blogging, as quite a few others are doing this year, but in order to devote the amount of time I need to edit and polish my WIP, I'm gonna make like a TV network and share (slightly edited) re-runs with you for a while. I know. I HATE reruns on television, and rarely watch them, but I promise to choose posts few, if any, of you will remember, and hopefully, all of you will enjoy. Except for THIS post. This post got a lot of comments, so some of your may remember it, but I think it bears a repeat, anyway. In light of my feeble attempts to juggle writing and blogging, this first post, which originally appeared in August, 2013, as A Fine Balancing Act, strikes me as the perfect place to begin...

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Thought for the day:  The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are a wise man. [Euripides]

Balance. It's a noble goal, isn't it? Even for clumsy people like me, who would never aspire to, say, walk across the street on a high wire or juggle chain saws, true balance is achievable. Not juggling for klutzes kinda balance, but balance in the deeper sense of the word. Juggling responsibilities and priorities, and meeting the needs of others, as well as yourself. A judicious use of time and resources.

Then, there's the amazing balancing acts we sometimes see in nature. You may have seen some of them. Like this giant rock that seems to defy the laws of gravity.








And then there's a fella named Michael Grab. Since 2008, he's been doing some amazing rock balancing of his own, much of it in the Boulder, Colorado area. Part spiritual, part therapeutic, part art, he's managed to create some rock structures you've gotta see to believe.

Grab says the most fundamental secret to balancing rocks is to start by finding some kind of a tripod for the rock to stand on. 

He says every rock has some sort of indentations, varying in size from very small to very large.

These indentations serve as the tripods, which either allow a rock to stand upright...

... or to fit in perfect  balance with other rocks.

By paying close attention to them, he gets a feel for the rocks.

He feels the tiniest clicks as he brings the rocks into contact with each other...

... and their notches mesh.

It's as though he performs a sacred dance with nature...

... putting these rocks in their rightful places, into balanced relationships with other rocks. Creating asymmetrical symmetry. Forging connections between the animate and the inanimate.

Creating one-of-a-kind works of art.

Finding within himself a sense of peace, and experiencing a natural balance within the universe.

He says, Parallel to the physical element of finding tripods, the most fundamental non-physical element is harder to explain through words. In a nutshell, I am referring to meditation, or finding a zero point or silence within yourself. Some balances can apply significant pressure on your mind and your patience. The challenge is overcoming any doubt that may arise.


                                                            Would you like to see him at work? There are many many videos of him posted on Youtube, showing him working his balancing magic all over the world, but most of them are copyrighted, and claim exclusive rights, so if you'd like to see one of them... or a bunch of them... check it out. I'll not infringe on his copyright by sharing it here. However, here is a short clip by another gentleman, just to give you a peek of the master at work. (He really rocks! Oh, shut up. Somebody had to say it, so it might as well be me...)

                                   Amazing stuff, huh? How do your balancing skills... stack up?
                                    Tell ya what. Ain't no way I'm playing Jenga with this dude.

                                                     For more info, see his website.

                                 Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.