Author: Becky

Every morning…

…I play games. It began with one game, Spelling Bee, in my news feed. I didn’t play it the way other people played it. I had a single goal (there can be several with this game), and I waited until the next day to learn if I’d accomplished my goal (you can get immediate online solutions from many sources, but for me, waiting was a deliberate exercise in patience). I thought of the game as my mental acuity test: How well is my brain working this morning?

Through my same newsfeed, I started checking out Connections, and I was surprisingly good at it and got even better over time. Occasionally, I only correctly guess all four groups because the fourth is made up of my leftover choices, but once I see the answer, it makes sense, and I realized I sometimes have to put my logic aside and try to guess the game creators’ logic.

When the online game Wordle took off in 2022, I briefly glanced at it, but it didn’t grab me at the time. I knew several people who played, including Tom, Jim, and Timmy. Then, for whatever reason, Jim, Timothy, and I began talking about Wordle since Jim played it, and the next thing that happened was that both Tim and I began playing, and he, Jim, and I began sharing our game results in our ongoing text thread.

Online games are a slippery slope. Among the three of us, we are now playing and sharing our scores for:

And those include daily and weekly Quordle, and daily and deluxe Waffle. Other than Framed, all of them are word games (none of us, as far as I know, has interest in Sudoku, which is Tom’s numbers game, and so far, we haven’t ventured into any online crosswords games). We each have our games we’re strongest at, and let me assure you, Framed, in which you get six chances to identify a film based on six still photos from that film, is NOT my strong game. To entertain myself despite my abysmal ignorance of so many movies, I make up titles or choose actual movie titles that are so far from the actual movie that I have a secret hope the game creators have some kind of algorithm that provides them with the worst/silliest guesses.


However, it’s possible Framed has had a different impact on me. I’ve become aware of a lot of movies I might enjoy, and as a result. I’ve decided the summer months, when Houston’s heat is so daunting, will officially be  Ethan Hawke Summer. When I need a mid-afternoon writing break, and I want some passive entertainment, I’ve started a list of Ethan Hawke movies the dogs and I can watch together.

As long as Ethan doesn’t interfere with my morning games (they take about fifteen minutes total to play) and my daily writing/research or cause me to burn things in the kitchen, this should work out (and possibly save me from some of the trauma of election season).

Respect

Respect, 2007

One day, back at The Compound, I picked up a fresh 4×6-inch canvas and chose my paint colors, only realizing sometime into my painting that I was being influenced by the painting on the wall behind me.


It was a painting my father gave me, which I suppose one might call an unpaid commission, since I said, “Please paint me a city.” I gave him no other parameters, and this is the large canvas he painted and gifted to me. I’m SO, SO glad I gave no input, because nothing I could have said would have been as beautiful and perfect for me as this abstract is. It has traveled and lived with me since, and now it hangs over the fireplace in the library at Houndstooth Hall, where I get to enjoy it every single day.

 

Recently, when we celebrated my birthday, Rhonda and Lindsey gave me this great coloring book, The Reverse Coloring Book, from Kendra Norton. The colors are there, and the person coloring the page gets to decide how to use the shapes and colors to create their own work of art.

This page made me think of The City, so it’s the one I chose to work on in honor of today’s date. April 18 is when my father died in 1985. I know I’m one of the most fortunate people in the world not only to have endless memories of a good father (and trust me, having endured my teenage years, my father might be surprised at how I always praise him), but also so many tangible memories of his creativity. I never went inside a museum until I was in my thirties, but I’d long been prepared to fall in love with art.

I’ve seen some great versions of that coloring page online with people using pen and inks, adding architectural features to the buildings, and even including some foliage at the ground level. I chose to keep mine simple and make it another homage to my father’s.

Thank you, Daddy.

Writing Wednesday

Kinsmart die cast model of the classic 1953 Cadillac Series 62.

I actually am not writing today, or haven’t so far. I’m mostly outlining on paper, and mentally, a bunch of possible scenes and plot points that will eventually bring the Neverending Saga to a close. And when I write those words–“to a close”–my brain can’t quite conceive of it. It isn’t that I want to drag this out forever, like a nighttime TV drama where characters go through more jobs and marriages and crises in seven seasons than most people will ever experience in their entire lives. (Or, for that matter, a daytime TV drama, where characters die and return to life on a consistent basis, and sometimes they look very different, and sometimes they’ll die again and return looking like their original version. Soap operas are a delight in that way, and I say that sincerely.)

I’ll be happy when all my deserving characters are happy and doing what they should be, and then I’ll leave them alone for a while. If I rewrite the second and third 1990s novels, many of these characters appear again in supporting roles. Plus I have three strong ideas for completely unrelated novels. I have much I can write, but I’m not anywhere near saying goodbye to this group yet.

I do reflect a lot on what I changed from the 1990s versions, and I’m happy with those choices. I provided backstories where there were none. I changed or let go of certain storylines that I never thought I would, but doing so opened up so many better possibilities. There were people who read those 1990s books and said they loved them, and I have no way of knowing if they would love these.

If I were to tell you some of the ways these seven manuscripts I’ve poured my time and heart and effort into for the last seven years have been a means for a few people to criticize, belittle, or disrespect me, you might wonder why I keep going. It’s okay. The books and I are still standing. The people who respect what I do or who love me are still supportive in a range of ways. The others are either no longer a part of my life or if they are, I mostly stopped talking about writing with them (sort of the way most of us avoided talking about politics, religion, or our problematic relatives before it became a thing to share all that over social media–with words and videos–and now we can’t avoid it by moving to the other side of the globe because our phones will deliver it all to us 24/365. My detractors are safe from this rambling commentary since they also don’t read this blog.).

I had a lovely period of time once when things I wrote were published. Maybe I’ll get to experience that again. Maybe not. Publishing didn’t bring me riches or acclaim or the security that I’d always have a writing career. It brought me happiness, a sense of fulfillment, and the understanding that I’m able to follow through and finish things.


Some day, I hope you’ll come along for the ride with the Neverending Saga.

And remember…

Tiny Tuesday!

I guess Tiny Tuesday is a good occasion to offer a decent goodbye to this pencil that’s becoming too short for me to scribble notes to myself without discomfort (arthritis in my fingers). So long, Peewee, and thanks for your service. Notice I’m replacing you with another of your kind because you Ticonderoga Noir No. 2 Pencils are the BEST.

Mood: Monday

Photo previously posted here was of the painting Books, palette knife and oil on canvas, date unknown, by Leonid Afremov.

Today is World Art Day. As mentioned on the linked site, art may be visual, written, spoken or musical.

My love of visual arts skews toward paintings more than sculpture, but that could be more of a lack of education and exposure than anything else. This blog makes it clear I’m a music lover. I’m also a fan of performing arts (movies, theater, dance), but of course, my own favorite art is written, whether as fiction or poetry, thus my choice of a painting spotlighting books.

Some of my characters in the Neverending Saga are big readers; others aren’t. But they all love stories–telling, hearing, imagining them. It only came to me slowly why these novels would likely never be commercial–there is plot, with some storylines resolved quickly and others spanning decades, but really, the novels are stories about people who love to share stories with one another.

Button Sunday

I haven’t done one of these for almost two years, and have only ever done three of them. NO, that is not the beginning of the story! Anyway, I’m not writing this story, you are. You don’t have to put it in my comments (though you certainly can, even just a teaser of it, so I can believe you might be having some fun with it). Write it in your journal, on the back of a piece of paper, in a sketchpad, anywhere you can find.

Below is the writing prompt from this wonderful book. If I were ever to teach a class for people motivated to write, this book would be one of my tools. I can barely flip through the pages without my imagination taking wing.

Try it! Here’s your prompt:

I have been haunting this museum for 39 years. I like to think my presence has helped to keep the place interesting to its clientele. The newspapers call me…..

Photo Friday, No. 904

Current Photo Friday theme: Waiting


Houston, April 15, 2008

As long ago as the 1970s in Alabama, I’d drive to local post offices on the last night people could get their tax returns in the mail to get them postmarked by the filing date. Some would be filling out their tax forms; others waited in line to hand over their envelopes. A lobby full of people late at night in a small town has a surreal quality. After I moved to Texas, I discovered that at some Houston post offices, traffic cops and postal employees worked that night to make sure people got in and out efficiently and their envelopes were time-stamped.

Now in the days of e-filing tax returns, I don’t know if this still happens. I haven’t driven to a post office on tax night in years. I’ll be thinking of those last-minute filers next week, though, and wishing them luck.