Tag: links

Mood: Monday

Previously, I posted a photo here of Machine, a pencil on paper work by the artist Stefan Zsaitsits from 2013.

The first six-plus hours of my day have been spent dealing with tech issues…and certainly not writing or any other fulfilling activity.

Even if you don’t have a mood guess for the art, feel free to drop a comment so I know you can see this and your comments are being published. Been dealing with website issues. Thanks!

Mood: Monday

I previously posted a photo of a painting in oil and paper on canvas by John O’Donoghue, Piano Takes Centre Stage.

This is one of the paintings I found a week ago as I was writing a chapter featuring my Musician. The scene I created reminded me of a time long ago. I’d been living back in an area near my (two) hometowns after graduating from college. When I was driving through one of those towns, I saw a sign on a local bar announcing that my old friend Riley would be playing there.

We’d lost touch; I heard and knew things about his life, but I generally followed the adage let sleeping dogs lie. Some friendships are meant for a place and time, and then they fade away. I went home and wrote a poem of eight verses that summed up those earlier years of friendship.

A few lines, near the end:

I’d believed your music would always last
Then for a time thought you’d left it behind
But I knew I’d given up too fast
When I saw your name on the roadside sign
© Becky Cochrane, 1979

The full poem was sad, wistful, and now rereading it, I see it conveys truths I’d forgotten of how people other than us damaged the friendship. Maybe we’d let that happen because we thought it was time to put away childish things.

I couldn’t stop thinking of him. It wasn’t a romance thing. We were both married. I wondered to Lynne if I should go see him play. She and a friend of hers offered to go with me. So we did.

I don’t remember if he was playing piano when we got there, or guitar. But it was surely when he was playing guitar that he glanced out at the tables and… I would wish everyone in life could just once see someone look out with shock, with disbelief, that turns to wonder, and then to utter joy at the sight of you.

It was the resurrection of a friendship that wouldn’t stop until the day he did, on this date, January 16, 2008. There are a million stories; some I’ve told here, some I never will. But for a brief moment, in my novel, I got to bring my amazing friend to life again using a character who is unlike him in almost every way except talent.

Riley will always be alive in my heart and my art. These are the last four lines of that old poem.

Maybe nothing ever really ends —
Life is filled with twists, with bends —
Life is lovely when it sends —
Guitars, pianos, drums, and friends —
© Becky Cochrane, 1979

Mood: Monday

I previously posted a photo of the oil and paper on canvas work, Guitar Solo, by artist John O’Donoghue.

I’ve fallen in love with John O’Donoghue’s work. On part of the printed material on this painting are the words “I want to run…hide…” I had already been thinking of a post for 1/16, sharing photos from my past, that would begin, “Do you ever want to run away to, and hide in, a certain moment from among your memories…”

Later, unrelated, I began searching Google images for something for today’s post, using the search term “art with guitar in the title.” This painting caught my eye from among many, and only after I decided to use it did I realize it contains lines from U2’s “Where the Streets Have No Name,” tying it in theme, if not level of talent, to a painting I did last year in honor of a character–all of which I’ll talk about more on my post a week from now, which is also a Monday. Probably I should have saved this entire thing for then, but I was so excited to discover a new-to-me artist, marveling again at the way the Universe assists us when we ask for and are open to answers. I’ll use another of O’Donoghue’s paintings on that post that more closely matches the memories I plan to share.

Hope you tune in again on the 16th for my follow-up.

It’s in the writing


Today is National Screenwriters Day. In the world of entertainment (I include film, television, theater, and music here), there are a lot of jokes about writers, mostly at the writers’ expense. You can find laudatory comments about screenwriters at “30 Quotes about Screenwriting from A-List Directors & Actors.”

The first on that list is: “To make a great film you need three things – the script, the script and the script.” – Alfred Hitchcock

I create a screenwriter who also is sometimes a playwright in the Neverending Saga. He doesn’t get a lot of story, but he’s connected in some way to all of the main characters. To give myself a challenge, I wrote the opening scene to one of his films (it isn’t in the novel, though it will be referenced), and it was fun but a lot harder than I expected it to be.

Without my screenwriter, my characters would be missing a friend, an advisor, an inspiration, a person who breathes life into their work, and some apt descriptions of them filtered through his perceptions. He gives me a chance to use humor and kindness. As every writer in every format knows, a minor character can have a major impact.

Thank you, Phillip. You’ve been part of my brain since the 1980s. ♥ Let’s keep collaborating.

Mood: Monday

I previously posted a photo of by an untitled oil on canvas painting by Forrest Bess.

Posting this in the wee hours of the morning and then hoping I can sleep through the night and wake up feeling better. Our weather’s beginning to change, with a freeze expected later in the week, and I think my body’s struggling to adjust, so I’m feeling a little rundown.

Happy birthday to Mark in England! I know you enjoyed a celebration with friends earlier in the month and hope you have a good “second” birthday on your actual date.


This is also the birth date of our late nephew Aaron. I can’t believe it’s been ten years since he died. He’s so deeply missed and loved. This photo is from a spontaneous trip David, Geri, Aaron, Tom, Debby, and I made to Galveston during Mardi Gras in 2011. I don’t remember who shot the photo. It’s a day that I always think of with happiness.

A pause…


For sixty years…


…four generations of Cochranes…


…have sat around the table…


…on these six chairs.

They’ve traveled among homes in Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky, Texas, Utah, and Ohio. They’ve seated us at many Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, birthday, anniversary, retirement, graduation, and wedding meals. They were there for playing cards and other games, coloring, drawing, typing stories, sewing, assembling puzzles, soothing newborns, holding toddlers as they grew heavy with sleep, sneaking goodies from the table to dogs, and smoking and enjoying drinks while telling stories. So many stories. They’ve heard music, laughter, arguments, and borne witness to a million memories shared by the friends and family who sat in them.

It has taken me five years since the flood, when we stopped using them, to remove them from storage and let them go. The consignment shop that took them is part of an organization that in 2023 will mark 100 years of raising money for medical research and development. My mother placed items there when she lived in Houston, and I know she’d be fine with the chairs embarking on another adventure from there.

Debby said it best–she hoped the chairs find a good home with lots of love and laughter. I have dozens of photos showing that’s exactly the kind of family they’ve been with.

Today I’m not myself
And you, you’re someone else
And all these rules don’t fit
And all that starts can quit
What a peculiar state, we’re in
What a peculiar state, we’re in
Let’s play a game
Where all of the lives we lead
Could change
Let’s play a game
Where nothing that we can see
The same
But we’ll find other pieces to the puzzles
Slippin’ out under the locks
I could show you how many moves to checkmate right now
We could take apart this life we’re building
And pack it up inside a box
All that really matters is we’re doing it right now
Right now
But we’ll find other pieces to the puzzles
Slippin’ out under the locks
I could show you how many moves to checkmate right now
We could take apart this life we’re building
And pack it up inside a box
All that really matters is we’re doing it right now
Right now

Tiny Tuesday!


I have a character who wants to come back into what I’m writing, but it isn’t his time yet. I set up his little doll rep with some incense, crystals, and soothing music to help me create a vibe that will let me FINISH what I’ve been trying to write since September and couldn’t for so many reasons.

If you think my writing tricks are weird or quirky, maybe you haven’t known many writers. We can be rich in superstitions, writing totems, and ways to communicate with our muses. Maybe a song offered up for the two characters currently blocking his path to my subconscious will help…