And The Books Are Taking Over

via Pinterest

There they lie. On the sofa, next to the love seat; piled up, a stack by my chair at the kitchen table. On the stairs leading up, next to my bedside in three stacks, under a pillow, on the bathroom vanity.  Leading up to the point of Mr. B stating emphatically today, “You have books everywhere.”

Currently, I do. I literally have books on almost every surface of my house. I have found myself wandering around with books and setting them down, only to come back later and pick up where I left off. Most are poetry books. I ordered a slew of them (meaning 5, from Better World Books) last week, and I currently have several different books floating around at various stages of being read. Course, then I went to the library today and came home with three more. Not poetry this time, but nonetheless, there are books everywhere.

I have not had much time to read read, as in, delve into a novel or whole book. I have been able to focus on a poem here or a spat of poetry there, but actual focus for a book has been nil since I finished Bittersweet a month or two ago. I’m a little lost as to when. Pardon, I am rereading Sous Chef for the third time (this time I’m underlining crucial parts I feel I need to remember)

via Pinterest but links to etsy

But poetry, oh poetry is lovely in that you don’t have to finish it from start to end. Pick one book up, flip through, read a poem, and put it down. Bam! Done.  My writing has taken on new flavor lately, dabbling in slightly lighter prose and poetry. Heck, even prose poetry, or is it prosey?  Either way, I have had some better days.

There has been a few things I felt I should write about, but they hit me like a sucker punch, or that feeling when I was hit in the sternum by a hardball when my dad was teaching me to play catch and I lost my breath. But sometimes it’s just too hard to write about. You get hit so hard you are still kind of having an out of body experience a week later. (side note, my playing catch and throwing a ball days were bad. Seriously bad. My dad says I can’t hit the broad side of a barn and that I throw like a girl. It took a 9 year old boy two years ago saying “but you are a girl…” to really not care if I can throw right)

So, instead I’m reading poetry. And submitting. I sent off six poems today to a place that was having open submissions. And I’m working on a document to send off to the New Yorker. Whew! I feel very brave taking that step. I’ve been saying I’m going to do it for months, but then I just put it off. I felt this driving desire to submit in the last few days and so here I am. I think part of it comes off of a poem I wrote about the steam explosion that was in the Flatiron District a week and a half ago. Or a week ago.

There was something so fanciful about that, for some reason, that I had to write something about it. I may not know much about New York, but it was fun to play around with things after going above in a bird’s eye view of the district, then going down to street level and looking at the aftermath.

It has been fun to write about lighter things. Work and some of the dramas at work have been dragging me down a lot, even though I’m happier. Much happier. But for months I have written a lot about relationships and the dramas of life and it’s exhausting. I need happier things in life. Having a good boss has helped. A different work load and a new menu and excitement has helped. I may be tired, but it’s a good tired.

So, now that I’ve rambled on, here is a list of the new books on my ‘Reading’ shelf.

• The Complete Poems of Anne Sexton
• Lucifer at the Starlight by Kim Addonizio
• The Apple Trees at Olema by Robert Hass
• Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins (finally I own it!!!)
• Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg
• A New Geography of Poets compiled by Edward Field
• On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee
• When We Were Young by A.A. Milne
• Now We Are Six by A.A. Milne
• 99 Poems: New & Selected by Dana Gioia
• Poetry: The Golden Anniversary Issue edited by Henry Rago
• Unaccompanied by Javier Zamora
• New Poets of Native Nations edited by Heid E. Erdrich
• Sous Chef by Michael Gibney

And a slew of New Yorker magazines for the poetry aspects. I might be a little insane. I might be trying to overwhelm myself. All while adding in plenty of Poetry Off the Shelf podcasts and a new food/chef podcast called The Emulsion Podcast  by Justin Khanna.

Cooking, submitting, writing, staying super busy. I didn’t think my year was gonna be like this.

What are you all reading and into this summer?  I’d love to hear.

Kate

Comfort Zones

Photo by Owen CL on Unsplash

Just the other day I was off to see one of my doctors, a three hour drive away. Now I love this doctor. he is a dream, he is so sweet, nice, good at what he does, good looking…. married. <– Total bummer.

Anyways, one think that I have found over the years is I need comfort zones and surprisingly, I don’t need much to put me in it. For the doctor’s visit, all I needed was one of my favorite shirts, a necklace and a pair of earrings. That was it! Granted, my metal crow feather necklace is pretty unique and I use it lots of Saturdays when I write. It’s kind of my statement piece of jewelry. My earrings were my ‘silver’ square columns that are about  two inches long and a quarter of an inch wide. They have heft. They are cool. They are not silver despite ebay saying they were, but I love them anyhow. They give me comfort.

I have comfort books too. Those books you know you need to take with you even if you don’t ever plan to read it, but you know you could pick it up in a flash and you are okay. For me it’s my paperback copy of Here Comes the Sun by Emilie Loring (there Patty, I’ve mentioned EL after a dry spell of not bringing her up at all!) That book will always make my life more relaxed. Sometimes I put it in my purse (it’s more of a bag) even if I have another book or two in there just because I want that comfort zone. I know, weird, but I always take too many books with me, especially to doctor’s visits. This last week I took three books and my kindle… which has a ton of books on it.

Another comfort author is Janet Dailey’s Americana series. The books are short ish and I have almost the entire paperback collection.

I have comfort zones in my house. Sitting on the couch on the front porch, being in the blueberry plants, my chair at the kitchen table that can be pushed back to sit over the wall heater in the winter.  I have comfort clothes; that perfect pair of jeans, certain shirts, a purse I love, even socks! Gotta have a comfy pair of socks.

I gravitate towards turquoises and coral pinks for my comfort colors. Colors are a huge comfort zone thing that most people don’t even realize they have. First off, did you know that your eye color is going to determine your comfort color? Most people with aqua colored eyes, will pick that tone, or variations of that tone and wear it, or want to decorate with it. Same for blue eyes, hazel, brown. Take a look at what you would pick in an instant as your comfort color. I bet it’s close to your eye color.

Music is a huge part of comfort zones for me. There are songs that I can always turn on and just sink right into it. I keep a lot of those on my mp3 player for when I go somewhere and need a pick me up. Currently Miles Davis’ ‘Nature Boy’ has become a huge favorite. But I have had all kinds of comfort zones.

I think even in our writing we step into a comfort zone at times when we just need to write. I ramble and make short fragment statements, puttering with word sounds and rhymes or assonance. Or is it alliteration? One or the other. It just happens. I the we default back to comfort zones and what makes us feel ‘grounded’ more often than not.

I’m curious what other people find to be comfort zones. Do you have clothes you just have to wear every time you go somewhere? My friend Dona in the writing group always wears her Jane Austen ring (reproduction) and her owl earrings. I try to always have a certain pen. Some people need a specific water bottle when they go out.

What is your comfort zone? And do you need it to write?

Even the picture I used for this post is a comfort zone. Leaves in the early fall when they days are still warm but are changing…. oh yeah, the entire fall is a comfort zone.

Kate

Getting Smacked in the Face by Censorship in Today’s Society

Over the years I’ve read about censorship with books, from the Nazis burning books, to various other books being banned throughout our country for various reasons. Books, like Harry Potter and Maya Angelou’s ‘Why the Caged Bird Sings’.  Books that were banned for their content, for no other reason than the content made someone uncomfortable.

But I thought in our ‘enlightened’ time of free speech (though I have seen plenty of instances where even that right is protested by the youth of today…) that censoring books was gone. Don’t get me wrong, I have had people gasp that I read and like Harry Potter, yet they are perfectly okay with The Lord of the Rings……. crickets chirping…….. really people, there is no difference other than J.R.R. Tolkien was a catholic…   I never thought I would run into ‘hiding books’ because they were a certain kind of book.

Last week I wrote about my book display the librarian allowed me to set up, see the post Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys, and how the prudish women volunteers (yes, I am going to call them that even if the title hurts) were uncomfortable with romance books being set up on a table that had, in the past, been used in the children’s section. See the display made them uncomfortable…….

Censorship at its best all starts with someone being uncomfortable.

‘I don’t like what that book is about’,  ‘I don’t want to read about racism in our country’,  ‘I don’t like hearing about childhood rape’, ‘Sorcery is a bad thing, children can’t read about that’, I don’t have a romantic life, I don’t want to read about romance and possibly hot sex’……..  The last line is my own addition to what I feel might be the root of the problem in my case. Am I trying to be mean? No, just making an assumption. Because not wanting romance sitting out where everyone can see it, (Come on people, children are oblivious to A LOT!) says to me that you have a more psychological problem with sex and romance.  Which is rather ironic in my mind because I can bet you, had I put a display of Shakespeare’s plays out, no one would have said a thing.  Or maybe a display of Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and John Steinbeck, who are considered some of our greatest writers who wrote about love and sex! I’m sure a display of those would have been fine.

Again, it goes back to one’s perceived discomfort with something. As a whole, people don’t want to be around something that makes them uncomfortable. We avoid it and try to stay as far away from it as possible. As a voracious reader, one whom the volunteers at the library have dubbed ” one of our best customers”, I have read my fair share of things that have made me uncomfortable.  Eli Wiesel’s ‘Night’ comes to mind as a book I highly recommend and everyone should read it, but it gave me nightmares and a case of depression for weeks.  See, the things that tend to make me uncomfortable tend to deal with the sufferings of mankind. Not a sexy bed scene. Sure, I have read graphic murders in a mystery book— won’t read about that again— and some sadistic sorcerer murders in another young adult book — definitely won’t read that again— but that’s all you do. You put the book down.

You say, “Oh, I can’t read this anymore.” You don’t go out and try to ‘burn’ all those books you don’t want to read. You don’t tell someone they can’t read such and such because it makes YOU uncomfortable. You just deal. Life is about dealing with uncomfortable things, not letting them define you, but realizing that they are out there.

There will always be books that are going to make you uncomfortable, and books you don’t want to read.  That is your choice. Your freedom. But it is also the freedom for others to read those same books and for you to not tell them they can’t.

Now my display was ‘ruined’ and the attitude of those involved with removing the display and the librarian compromising to the point of a form of censorship, is not okay. Granted the books are still out, albeit, high on the top shelf where no child could, gasp, reach them, but still….. Children are going to be confronted with romance books. Go to any grocery store and, gasp, the romance books are where children’s books are. The grocery store isn’t going to hid the adult books from kids. And we are not talking porn magazines and such.

This image was borrowed from Melville House, where it illustrates an article  if you click on the image. garydrobson.com

Romance, love, sex, are all part of life…… uh and the reason we have kids…..   Hiding it in itself is childish.

Again, I will clarify the fact that I kept the more questionable romances in the back of the library, I.E. Fifty Shades, etc. But to remove the other normal ones from any child’s eyes is so ridiculous. Again, it is showing your issues.

People tell me to keep fighting, Mims and Shala, thank you, and others, Dona, who understand my not wanting to offend people. My first post/rant was not posted on Facebook because I’m connected to the librarian and others that are part of the library. But as someone reminded me today, none of these volunteers cared about offending me. SO this is one post that is going up on Facebook because this is a bigger issue than just my feelings getting hurt or my display and ideas being moved.

Censorship is clearly alive and well, unfortunately so. And there is a good chance you will find that in rural areas people’s ideas and beliefs trump the right o read what we please without interference.

Not that anyone has ever stopped me from reading whatever the heck I want, but I don’t need to be judged by it either.

Oh, and the whole point of the library is to encourage people, not just children, to read, including books that have been banned……….

Kate

“Release the Dragons” – Flash Fiction

Jack’s study is wallpapered in a  1940s paper that features a lot of Van Dyke brown and golden apples. It’s a bit fuzzy and feminine, but because of the browns, it retains enough masculinity that Jack can deal. Had the papering been in roses and pinks, he would have torn it off long ago.

There are bottles of scotch lined up on a shelf, specialty types and expensive, and they add to the ‘his study’ vibe, at it really is all Jack. The rest of his house might be feminine, considering it’s his wife’s domain, but thankfully the study is all his. Down to the strange decorations on his wall; African masks and Native American spears, cigar boxes tucked into the book shelves, stacked books, a messy desk, dim interior. The study is Jack. Jack and the study are one.

The scent of the room is warm. Not so much as musty, but dust has a warm smell, and the crammed interior leads to there being more dust than might be in the rest of the house. Jack’s wife gave up on trying to keep his study neat and tidy. A little dirt never hurt anyone.  The books are new smelling, with glue and fresh paper and ink, but there are also older books. Books with yellowed pages and spicy with age. Leather covers with the warm and sharply metallic scent from the leather. There is a leather chair, worn from years of Jack sitting in it to their dogs  claiming as their own. An open cigar box smells of the sharp resinous smell of Spanish cedar and the unburned smell of tobacco. There is a warmth and coziness to the room and it is homey feeling without the pretentious feeling that it needs to be homey.

It’s a balmy Saturday afternoon and Jack is enjoying a small glass of scotch while he reads the latest historical book  on the Second World War. He has a great love of that particular war and has too many books on the subject. His wife, Sadie, is baking cookies in the kitchen and there is the warm smell of vanilla and burned sugar when the back door buzzer goes off, startling Jack.  The damn thing sounds like a fire alarm buzzer, it’s about as dramatic as one, and his three grandsons get a huge delight ringing the thing.

Jack sighs as he hears the trampling feet and voices garbled into a cacophony of sound. There seems to be a barking dog in the midst as well.

“Release the dragons,” Jack mutters as the heard of grandsons, a new dog, and a friend from school all pile into the hallway outside his door. He hails them, downs the rest of his scotch and slowly gets up.

Saturdays are for his grandsons even if they are about as disciplined as a herd of dragons.

 

I was complimented on how I describe a room and write it out recently. I think I have to give that credit to Zane Grey and Emilie Loring, whose work has inspired interiors and exteriors enough that I like writing about spaces. I want to have you, the reader, picture it in your head like I describe, but I realize each of us is different. Ah, one can dream.

So, for now, enjoy this snippet of flash fiction.

Kate

PAD Day 29 – Haphazard – My Books are in Upside Down Pyramids

Today’s prompt, from everything I have gathered, since Writer’s Digest seemed to be down all day, was ‘haphazard’. I had read it wrong earlier in the day as hazardous and started writing about things that are hazardous to our health.  I may have to finish that just for the heck of it.

I seem to have a random way of piling things, in piles that are not physically possible. Physics was never a strong suit of mine. And will never be despite my love of Legos and blocks. But that’s another story.  I have this thing where the smaller items get piled under the larger things so needless to say, my stacks of paperwork, books and whatnot tend to fall over. I’m not sure why this is the way it is, but my mother has always said I build upside down pyramids. I have gotten a bit better over the years, but honestly, I still do it. Really, even as I write this, I brought home four field guides and I just plopped some magazines and a picture book on top of them. It’s a really dangerous pile and kind of messy.  I’m really terrible about it. Sigh.

My Books are in Upside Down Pyramids

I pile books, not in neat piles, well maybe somewhat neat,
but mostly they end up in upside down pyramids
the pointy end down, the wide base up
a rather haphazard arrangement that ends up
tumbled in a pile or sliding to the floor.
As I type, the bird books and a novel are under a stack
of magazines and a picture book.
I’m never organized, tidy, or OCD when it comes
to piling books, except maybe sometimes
like cookbooks, they always come out neat
and tidy.
I’m not organized, or my organizing is haphazard
in its own way in where piles of paperwork
end up with other piles of paperwork and I can never
find anything till it all gets dumped together
for another day of sorting and tossing
which is never often enough

PAD Day 25 – Exercise – Exercise in Restraint and more poems

So my first thought this morning when I was thinking of exercise, the PAD prompt of the day, I was thinking running. Because running is an exercise in mental and physical ability. Running is how I lose weight. Nothing else burns the fat off quite as quickly. But the downside is I am not a very good runner. I have to use an inhaler for breathing, a form of exhalation asthma according to my doctor. I get worn out super fast, I can only run on a good day about two miles…. Three miles is the most I’ve ever pushed myself and it’s amazing, because I hit my wall at about a mile and a half to two miles.  So if I can get past that, well whoo hoo!  I need to get out running because this winter I put on at least 10 pounds. Even my comfy jeans are getting a bit snug…. Sigh.

But then I was walking to the library and I realized that I have to restrain myself when I go the the library. I would check out so many books, but my card has a limit. A twenty item limit. I can’t whip out my card like a credit card and just check out anything.  Lol. I would if I could and I would be carting home too many books!

And lastly, a bit of minor slam-ish poetry about how after the first four days in January, your New Year’s resolution is almost kaput.  So enjoy today’s three poems

Exercising Book Restraint

It’s an exercise in restraint to book shop
at my library when the new rotation
fills up the shelves in flashy covers
and my fingers itch to pull them down,
stuff them in my bag, greedy-like
then whipping out my library card
like it’s a platinum credit card
with no limit and endless funds.
Sadly my card is usually maxed out
at twenty items which is never enough.
New covers and new stories are my bling
my guilty pleasure, my food of living
Exercising restraint takes all the fun
out of library book shopping.

Running – Said on a Epithet

My feet hit the pavement with a slap
the rubber of my shoes absorbing impact
a hint of pain vibrating up to my knees
Running. Said on an epithet
It’s the agony that makes me cringe
the pain radiation from my shoulders out
and down to my calves that makes me
cringe and resist the exercise.
The endorphin’s buzz isn’t always enough.
Running, said on a sigh, now that’s
what makes me pull on my shoes
once or twice a week in the summer.
Knowing I’ll be in shape if I keep it up.
Running; is a casual thing for me.
Or jogging since I only run a ten minute mile
on a good week, or month, or never.
I love running the track field. Around
around, around till I hit three miles.
That magic three makes me dance and explode
in pure happiness as I pass my wall.
That stupid wall around one and a half to
two miles, and a flushed face, and a
wheezing set of lungs and the promise
of a damn good cup of coffee at home.
But three is my number, my goal, my
challenge and delight and reward.
Summer is coming and the running is
nagging me like a child tugging my skirts.
I’ve yet to acknowledge it other than
a passing glance, or a taste of guilt.

Exercise on a Slam

January — stack up the exercise books
pull out the free weights and yoga mats
Your New Year’s resolution is taunting you
You made the promise in a drunken flash
fool that you are, ignore the chip stash.
Don’t you know that booze lies?
But you are determined to win, goodbye fries.
The battle of weight and outta shape
You can ignore the cookies on the plate
Stretch and flex, you can win
It’s been four days, don’t give in.
Stick to your guns it’s only pain
and muscle you will eventually gain.
Others around will lose this battle
Heck, this lugging around isn’t just for cattle!
So step up the pace and push yourself on
Five days isn’t that far gone……..

PAD Day 12 – Serious/Silly – When We Were Young and Silly

Could there be anything more perfect than bookshelves full of books? Only being in a story that is crammed full, with all the nooks and crannies. One of the isles of the Ashland Book Exchange.

Good Wednesday morning allI! I was in Ashland, Oregon yesterday and while there I stopped in at The Book Exchange, a marvelous used bookstore, and one place I feel I must stop when I visit there. It doesn’t hurt that it’s kind of like a cave. I wish I would have taken pictures, but if anyone goes onto the website, you can see the interior. Or see the one picture above from their site.

While I didn’t find the second and third Outlander novels, nor Alice Through the Looking Glass, which was what I was hunting for, I did walk out with two other books I have been hunting for, for quite a while.  A.A. Milne‘s “When We Were Young” and “Now We Are Six“; two marvelous little books of nonsense and children’s poetry. Though honestly, some of it is so relevant to being an adult since I can now understand some things I didn’t as a child.

They were especially fun to find as they fit with the prompt for Day 12 of PAD – write a silly poem or write a serious poem. I think honestly they are not quite silly, nor not quite serious, but kind of in between.  So I hope you enjoy.

 

 

When We Were Young and Silly

I’m reading something silly in an A.A. Milne book
It’s rather sweet and charming with an old-fashioned look.
When we were young, but now we are six, is how it goes,
Those ages when life was simple and free as time flows.
Daisy teas and acorn cups, and rivers of milk and honey,
Of sandbox cakes so fancy, when time was warm and sunny.
The years were endless, time moving like a slippery snail,
Trudging through the months, waiting for Christmas without fail.
Now we are many more years than six could ever be,
I miss the simple and the silly in all the things I’d see.

And……

Bookstore Ghosts

The bookstore whispers in a somber note
of authors past and living ghosts.
Though the bustling of active sales
the quiet pervades each nook and fades.
A creaking floor alludes to others there
a turn shows there’s no one anywhere.
Each book calls you to touch and linger
to find those stories that are matches to tinder.
Burning you up with magic between pages;
how could black words on white make such changes?
Your life is not yours as you leave with ghosts,
Stacked up in tomes filled with dusty motes.

Ah, I think it turned out pretty good in the scope of things. I’m happy with it. And I was excited to be in Ashland, even if Mr. B was like one of the most impatient guys ever while I was in the bookstore. I could have easily spent an hour or three there.

Kate

I Read, I’m Not Alone – Writing 101 Day 15

“We read to know we’re not alone.”

— William Nicholson, Shadowlands

• Tell us about a book that opened your eyes when you were young.
• Describe a life-changing experience with a book.
• Where do you like to read?

When I was 13 I fell in love with The Three Musketeers  by Alexander Dumas. I was suddenly thrust into the 14th century of excitement, intrigue, and swashbuckling action. It was my first foray into adult fiction and I couldn’t get enough. I remember it took me three weeks to read the thing, and it just made me start craving more intense books. Sadly, I couldn’t keep with the Musketeer theme. I tried reading The Man in the Iron Mask and The Count of Monte Cristo, but I have yet to continue on with those books. I’ve always wanted to finish out the stories, because I love them.

I think The Three Musketeers was what got me started on the swashbuckling/romance/hero man. It made me also want to read more books about France.  A couple years later I was reading Scaramouche and The Scarlett Pimpernel. Both books I fell in love with and as luck would have it, my grandma had all three books in this pretty set. I now have them, though I have never read them again. I keep telling myself that I will get back to it. One day.

Very few books have made a life change for me, but a second one would have to be both Poemcrazy and Billy Collin’s Sailing Alone Around the Room. The former being what has made it possible for me to break out into poetry and not feel silly. The latter really got me thinking about poetry as a narrative without the rhyme. Being able to hit someone with a poem but not needing it to be epic.

Poetry is one of those things people either love or hate. Or for some, don’t get, so they really don’t like it. I love it, and I don’t understand people that don’t get it. My mom doesn’t really get it. She used to write it, and that was fun, but she didn’t like reading it. And her friend who is like an extended aunt to me, doesn’t get poetry. Sigh. Oh well. I had Mrs. B read a bunch  of my sonnets. She loves them, but doesn’t quite get them.

Oh well.

And getting back to reading epic type books. Where do I like to read those? Well, late at night with the covers high and rain on the roof. …….. Okay, that never happens, but I like it. I tend to fall asleep reading these days.

And I don’t have a lot of time to read epic books anymore. I have taken to reading quicker books. I need something I can get done quickly. Books that take me three weeks to read make me nervous.  I want to read them, but then I think about how much time they will take me. When I was young, big books with tiny print made me scared. Now they just make me nervous. I think to myself, “Oh, I don’t have the time!” Hence why I have yet to finish Jane Eyre. I want to. I really do, but it’s long! As is Emma by Jane Austen. Plus it’s Jane Austen. Nothing she writes is what you would say, easy.

But at some point I want to read the rest of the Musketeer books. I want to read Le Compte de la Monte Cristo (I always think of it in French. It sounds better)

Okay so readers, do you like thick, long books? Do any scare you? What is the one book that has changed your life? Is there one book you are afraid to tackle but have always wanted to read? Tell me about it. I’d love to hear.

Kate

 

Why I Write – Writing 101

My review is the third paragraph. I am so thrilled and wowed, and kind of jazzed my name is in a magazine

This past summer, I wrote a review for the Persephone books Classic, The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield-Fisher.  It took me entirely too long to read the book()because of just me, not the book) and write a review.  But I sent in my review, back in August and I just received my Persephone biannual. In the section  Our Bloggers Write, my review, or at least a part of it, was included with other reader’s words. This is why I write. Not for accolades, though those are always nice, but I want a voice. I want my voice to be heard. I have connected with other authors from reviews I have written, which is great. I love being able to talk to other published writers. Sometimes I feel like they are in this other realm of writing that I might never reach, but then I have to remember that they are just people as well.

Last night reading the same biannual as above, the list of events for Persephone Books was listed and one caught my attention so much so that I had to write about it in my journal. This is what I said: ” I was reading the back of the Persephone Biannual where the events were listed, and  there is this event on November 28th where they will be “selling our books beside the fire at the Christmas Fair.” And boom! I was transported to the smell of snow, the sounds of children singing Carol of the Bells, and the Harry Potter/Columbia[California]/British Christmas feel. Like it was time to start decoration and reading books with a Christmas theme in them. Suddenly You comes to mind first…”  The book mentioned is by Lisa Kleypas, a favorite romance writer of mine. Please do not judge that I like cheesy romance books. Oh the horror that I don’t read just literature.  But it’s getting on the Holiday season and I want to read about it, and write about it. I have a piece of flash fiction I did a couple years ago that has a Christmas theme, and I’ve wanted to expound on it for years. There is something so delightful about having a Christmas vibe to a piece of fiction. You can read two of my holiday pieces below.

A Christmas Dance    (I was channeling Emilie Loring when I wrote this) and Eve and Noel – Flash Fiction

This is why I write, above that is. I write because I will read something and I see a scene. I see a picture and there is a story behind it. I watch a bird take flight and I’m remembering my childhood and mentally writing a children’s story to something as simple and small as an acorn  in a bird’s beak.  I am forever having ideas pound, pound, pound in my head. For years I daydreamed, not knowing what to do with all the thoughts crashing around in my head. I didn’t have an outlet because I hated writing in school. I didn’t understand how to get a story out. I remember one instance where I was supposed to write a story about a monkey and instead I wrote a mini paper. It was a frustrating time. Writing was always frustrating until I Mrs. B found a new method of teaching me to write.  It was a ‘boom’ moment where suddenly it made sense. But even then, in my teenage years, while I would write hoping to write like Emilie Loring, I didn’t write constantly. I semi dabbled in it, spending more time reading.  It wasn’t until I hit 18 that I really started to write. Nothing really good, though Rena, my heroine still has her book, but it has changed drastically from the beginning.

I never knew what to do with all those thoughts floating around in my head. What does a child who hates to write, do with all those thoughts in her head.  If I could go back I would teach the inner me that it’s okay to write whatever you want in a journal and it does not have to be a day to day account of what you did. I would talk about what Susan Wooldridge said in her book about a journal.  Gah, if I had  Poemcrazy back when I started really writing, maybe life would have made a whole lot more sense.

I read constantly. Books, books, and more books are my world. I cannot get enough books. And I read good books and consume the words and the styles and the stories. I envy  writers who write something that I know I will never be able to write. I eat books that have a story that hits me in my chest and I walk around in a mental daze for days reliving the magic that has whirled me off into another world. I rarely think of books as another world or door I open and enter, but the minute I open the pages of a book I love, I have the image in my head. I can imagine the scene just so, and certain books I have read over and over, my initial image is still there. I read Emilie Loring’s and the image is always the same. So I read to meet those characters again.    I write to see if I can be as good as these writers. Writers I respect and admire. I want to be as good as them. I want some of the qualities of how they write. I read some books and think to myself “gah, I wish I could write that way.” Of course, I really don’t want to write just like them. I want my own voice. Which I do have. And because I read so much, I feel I have several voices, several writer’s voices in my head telling me how to write. The one I hate the most is Stephen King’s voice as he is forever telling me to cut the adverbs. Damn Stephen King.

And recently I have to keep remembering Anne Lamott telling me to shut those voices (mostly characters) up. Tell them to be quiet so I can write. So many voices in my head. No, I am not crazy. Maybe some schizophrenic people just need to write to quiet the voices….. Writing this I worry that someone might think I’m crazy, but other writers know.

People that do not write don’t get all of this. I don’t expect them to. I watch my father when I go off on a tangent or daydream and sometimes he just stares at me like I’m out in left field. I might be. I might actually be on the cliffs of England wondering what the sea spray is like.  You might never know, because five minutes ago I could have been in the Sierra Nevadas with Tyler and Phaedra as they are driving up the Sonora Pass…. (they are both characters as well……) Or I might have just killed off my character with Chocolate Pudding.

This is why I write.

Kate

Her Reading Room – Flash Fiction

She had a reading room all her own, filled with books she collected over the years. Dusty old tombs from the library book sales. Discarded books that she wanted to give a home to. Unloved books that needed the warmth of a loving soul that would give them new life.

She had new books. Crisp pages and unmarked paper. Stiff spines and smelling of glue and wood pulp.  The old books smelled of time and dust and people. The new held the smell of adventure.

She had picture books and encyclopedias. Fiction, non fiction, how to books. She had books on gardening and sewing. Books on Asian culture and mythology; Greek and Nordic mythology. Fairytales ruled a top shelf that was colorful and arranged like a child would.

Some of her shelves held neat rows of books from a series, while others were arranged by her favorites. One shelf was devoted to books she had plans to read. That shelf was getting more and more full as time went on and she visited more book sales. This book thing was an affliction in some ways.

She had her big open windows to let the gorgeous sun in with a comfortable chairs set so that whatever her mood, the light was just right for reading. The shelves themselves were big and filled one whole wall. In the back corner she had her writing desk and a big bulletin board she frequently had filled with thumbtacked pages of some idea she was writing. The cork board was always cluttered with notes and ideas.  However having the books around her and the dark corner, made writing so much more simple since she couldn’t get distracted.

An up to date sound system, with speakers that were tucked away, filled the room with music from Debussy to One Republic. It all depended on the mood. Sometimes you need a bit of pop music to read by.

And since there was nothing like having tea or coffee while reading, she always kept an electric kettle filled on a small table with cups and tea and instant coffee. Granted, most of the time her drink of choice was cold by the time she actually finished it. When one met the man of their dreams on page 150, tea became unimportant.

Yes, this room was magical, opening worlds she could only dream, or read, about visiting. Her room became the Tardis.

 

Okay, I was inspired by the image of the personal library, to write a bit of flash fiction about it. And as for the last line, I saw this marvelous picture and it has stuck with me. I get shivers looking at this picture.

Enjoy my rambles, dearies.

Kate