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A post with tables

This is a post with an image on the left, and text on the right, using a table to align things. There is not telling how this will work out in the end. But it is something that is worth trying, perhaps. And when it is all done, perhaps a checklist would be useful. · Something here, and something there · With other things to remember · And a reminder to do the post-mortem

Emily's Private Language

Emily Dickinson's gem-like poems are filled with the private language of a reclusive heart, and the imagination at work in that heart is all the more striking because it is so private.  But even her letters show the kind of sparks and imaginative leaps that hint at a private vision of the world we live in -- or perhaps, a vision of the world we share, but can not see without imagination.

Here's something from a letter she wrote on the occassion of her mother's death:

There was no earthly parting. She slipped from our fingers like a flake gathered by the wind, and is now part of the drift called "the infinite."

We don't know where she is, though so many tell us.

I believe we shall in some manner be cherished by our Maker—that the One who gave us this remarkable earth has the power to surprise that which He has caused. Beyond that all is silence...

Mother was very beautiful when she had died. Seraphs are solemn artists. The illumination that comes but once paused upon her features, and it seemed like hiding a picture to lay her in the grave; but the grass that received my father will suffice his guest, the one he asked at the altar to visit him all his life.

I cannot tell how Eternity seems. It sweeps around me like a sea...Thank you for remembering me. Remembrance—mighty word ...

Lovingly, Emily

(By the way, April is "Poetry Month", and Knopf is sending out a poem each day to celebrate that.  Emily's letter was part of today's edition.)

An Impetuous Retroactive New Years Resolution

I'm not really a goal-oriented person, preferring to base decisions on the fleeting moment's search for peace and inner harmony.  And I don't go in much for New Year's resolutions.  But I have decided that this year  I am going to be writing fiction.  And there is a saying, what gets measured gets done. 

So, I read with interest the writing challenge going on at Write One, Sub One.  Inspired by Ray Bradbury, the challenge is to write and submit a story every week for 2011.  I've signed up.

The thing is, I've never submitted anything for publication before.  Being a contract ghost writer, I  don't "submit", I don't even put pen to paper until the contract and stated price is in my cold, greedy hands.  And of course, there is the fact that my experience is not in writing stories per se.

So, it will probably take a while to ramp up and figure this thing out, particularly the submitting part.  So for now, my commitment is to write a story per week, and put it somewhere out there in public, which may just mean posting it on this blog.  It may be flash, or just a short short story.  We shall see.

If and when I figure out the markets for stories and the whole submitting process, I may venture forth more boldly.  Stay tuned!

Story-Shaped Holes in the Heart

Image by JeremyHall via Flickr

They are hard to see, and if you do catch a glimpse of them they disappear quick as a wink.  Most often, you do not see them at all, but just feel this tiny little ache of something, something missing or something that is not what it wants to be, and what it wants to be is a thing made out of words in your heart.

It is the story we want to write, but can't write, because we don't know what it is.  The only way to find out is try to fill it with some clumsy first words, pat them in gently, and see if they fit.  Usually the words don't fit at all, but we may end up with something pretty and amusing and worth having been done anyway.  If we are lucky.

If we are not writing, we might find something another writer has made out of words that fits.

A while back, Maja Djikic at OnFiction.ca asked:

"Do you ever stand before your bookcase, wanting something, but not quite knowing what? Like having an unnamed food craving and ferreting through the fridge, through the cabinets, hoping that even though you don’t know what you are searching for, you might find it anyway. That is how it feels to me, scanning through the spines, pulling out a book here, only to put it back there, dissatisfied. What is this nameless hunger only a right book will sate?"

When you crave a certain food, it might be your body telling you it needs something, some kind of vitamin or nutrient you have been neglecting.

Perhaps it works the same way when you crave some book unknown, some story untold.

Perhaps it is your life telling you -- this, this thing that is nothing but absence, this is the one true thing you can say.  And if we ever manage to say it, to fill it with just the right words in the right shape, we will be finally done with writing.


Related articles

• Can You Differentiate a Craving from a Calling? (psychologytoday.com)

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