Tag: novels

Bonus Friday post


Listening to Carly Simon’s two-CD Anthology. These songs evoke certain times and relationships in my life when I first heard them, beginning when I was a young teen and into young adulthood.

It’s a little hard to focus on the character I’m writing when this music makes me think so much about Carly Simon’s memoir and Pattie Boyd’s memoir, both of which shared stories that made me hurt for them and the price love exacts from women who love men whose creativity and talent have brought them fame. Their stories aren’t my stories, but they do evoke my characters’ stories. In the end, after all, even if my life and circumstances and stories are different from those characters’, or Carly Simon’s or Pattie Boyd’s, a heart that loves is a heart that loves, and loss is loss.

Fortunately, the next to last song, “Actress,” made me laugh and drew me back into the world of the Neverending Saga, and it was time to write again, to the next music. Stay tuned.

And enjoy this song from a movie (Heartburn) that, while brutally eye-opening for me, was a film that promised something I needed to believe in: starting over.

Is Wednesday really a day…

…when one can get over a hump? Time will tell.

The “Be Positive” coloring and writing journal that Lynne gave me–May of 22?–that I use for coloring and speculating about what I’m writing or should be writing and the inspirations and challenges involved. Today, after I wrote next to the page I’d colored, I closed the book and laughed at that name…be positive. Gotta say what I wrote today in the journal is maybe one of the least positive things I think/feel. The words I almost never say out loud because they would likely be misunderstood or else prompt advice or guidance that I’m not looking for. That’s not my Aries resistance to being directed or told what to do. It’s only that this Aries knows herself–myself–too well to pretend I’m looking for answers from outside when the answers within have been hard won.

On the other hand, the drawing I colored is pretty and untroubled.

Plus I have written today, and every bit of writing nourishes the Muse who in turn nourishes my creative drive.

While writing, I listened to really good music all the way around, meaning of course, music I like/enjoy/admire/feel.

Kicked off with Brighter: A Duncan Sheik Collection from Duncan Sheik, and great liner notes from James Hunter (from Rolling Stone magazine). Certain parts of Hunter’s notes resonate with me, and the music is good to listen to, write to, think to.

Tom and I were on a road trip many years ago when we stopped somewhere and bought a bunch of CDs so we could hear music we didn’t know, and that’s when we got Shinedown’s The Sound of Madness. I used to hear it a lot because I uploaded it to my iTunes library, but after my main iTunes computer stopped working early in the pandemic, the only songs that will play on my iTunes are ones I’ve actually purchased from Apple. We still need to either get that Mac fixed or figure out what we can grab from its backup drive. That task has been “on the list” since the world reopened in 2021.

Finally, The Best of Simon & Garfunkel. No explanation needed, right? WAY BACK when I was given my first record player, a Simon & Garfunkel album was one of the first three I received, probably for a birthday. They never get old, and their song “The Boxer” still does battle with Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” as my favorite song of all time. There’s a nod to the duo in the first novel in the Neverending Saga.


Shared before but always happy to show Becky’s First Record Player. There were times it felt like the only thing teenage Becky could count on. In the current novel in progress, a character has just received her first record player and a collection of 45s. Lucky little nine-year-old. I was a few years older when I got mine.

Mood: Monday

This painting is in the public domain.

Couple Riding
oil on canvas, 1906
Wassily Kandinsky, Russia

Colored a coloring page yesterday, but I’m only putting a tiny snap of it here because it’s copyrighted and I’m already being too bold. The coloring page and today’s Kandinsky art are both connected to the character I’m working on in one way or another.

Here’s the music I enjoyed while I worked. Doesn’t go with the novel, maybe doesn’t go with the time period or setting, but it does go with my mood.


[Carlos] Santana: Supernatural, 1999, and Shaman, 2002.

What’s your mood this Monday?

Button Sunday

Today is Old Rock Day, which as you can read at that link, isn’t about old rock stars (though I’m equally willing to celebrate those, too). It is, as they point out, “the day that geologists and amateur rock enthusiasts take it upon themselves to show their appreciation of all things fossilized and stony.”


Here are some stones, rocks, and crystals that stay close to me every day. The pendulum at the bottom is Smoky (once nicknamed “Stony” by Jim). Smoky helps me with all my smudging and space clearing work.


Above, on the right, is a beautiful incense burner Tim gave me at Christmas. Right now, I’m burning Nag Champa (the original), and he also gave me a variety of new-to-me scents to try. So far, they’re all wonderful.

Sometimes, I also like to use Heritage Store’s Aura Smudge™ spray. I think I haven’t been doing enough of these energy rituals. Though I don’t make resolutions every year, I do try to list things I hope to work on, and as I always say, to do better, be better.

Speaking of those other rock stars, though, so that I don’t neglect them: These are the CDs that played during my recent writing efforts and reflections. Even some Stones in the mix. =)


Zero Church by Suzzy and Maggie Roche, of the Roches, which consists of songs they created from prayers; 11:11, a collection of acoustic guitar duets by Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero; The Rolling Stones, Voodoo Lounge and Stripped, the latter including some of my favorite Rolling Stones recordings; and The Very Best of the Ronettes, full of great songs.


Living In the USA; Prisoner in Disguise; Feels Like Home; ‘Round Midnight; Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind; and Greatest Hits I and II, all from the incomparable Linda Ronstadt, who I first got to see live when I was in high school and my brother took me to a Neil Young concert in Birmingham. Linda opened for Neil. I saw her again in Tuscaloosa on one of her solo tours. It’s heartbreaking that her health issues have robbed her of her beautiful voice. I haven’t replaced all of her albums that I lost in the Harvey flood, though I started by buying a couple of these used, but they aren’t in pristine shape. Sooner or later, I’ll have all that music again. She is a MUST SING ALONG for me.

Intentions

The second week of August, I recorded some intentions in my “Inspire” Journal and posted them here.

A couple of weeks ago, I remembered and decided to revisit those. First off, I stared at the list and wondered, What is TC craft? What is TC song? What was I talking about? I don’t write songs. I have characters who write songs, but… Then I realized. Something happens with one of those songwriter characters in Topanga Canyon in the third or fourth book of the Neverending Saga. “TC” unlocked!

To update:

1. I did finish this craft piece based on the novel and gave it to Lynne when she was here in September. I think it’s hanging in her house.
2. I haven’t written the song, because I haven’t written in that character’s voice in a while. I’ll get to it maybe in the seventh book, or when the time is right.
3. The MagPo box is restored. More about that in a minute.
4. I’m not using the inspiration journal (different from the “Inspire” journal) to plot the seventh book because I’m using a big yellow sketch book Lynne gave me that I’ve been using since… 2019? to tape photos and jot thoughts and ideas for the series. Currently, it’s staying next to me when I write.
5. Schedule physical (routine annual exam). Completed in December.
6. Schedule fall vaccines. Done and received in September.

It feels good to know I completed almost all these goals I set for fall.

About the Magnetic Poetry box. It took water during the Harvey flood and subsequently began to rust.

I knew Tom was taking vacation time the week between Christmas and New Year’s and asked if he thought some Rust-Oleum® would help if he had time to work on the box. I explained that I wasn’t looking for perfection. I didn’t care if it was obvious the box had been restored. In fact, imperfections are part of its history. I just wanted the rust to become a thing of the past.

And so it has.

It made me happy enough that I pulled out my Healing Words MagPo kit to create a poem, a reminder to myself that it’s great to set goals; the challenge is in the work. (Sometimes, even if it’s asking the person who’s right for the job.)

Fast like a snail


R.E.M: Accelerate; New Adventures In Hi-Fi; UP; Reveal; Around The Sun

You’d think with all this music played today I’d have gotten a lot of writing done. You’d think wrong. The first few chapters of a novel, at least a novel in a series, are apparently the most challenging for me.

That last CD, the Best Of, won’t play. The back is in really bad shape. Not sure what the story on that is, but it’s outta here.

Incremental progress…

…is still progress. When it comes to writing, I’ll take it. I have a first chapter draft finally, after several false starts. This has been my accompaniment.


Lou Reed, New York and Walk On The Wild Side, The Best of Lou Reed.


And this two-song “CD Single” of The Rembrandts. The back side might remind you who they are if you were alive in the Nineties and have forgotten.


Yup, the theme song from the TV show “Friends,” or “I’ll Be There For You.” I think I got this to use on a video we made for the place I worked from ’92 to ’96. Memories…

Then I moved on to these.

R.E.M.: Murmur; Out Of Time; Automatic For The People; and Monster.

There’ll be more R.E.M. to come before I continue in the “R” section of my CD binders. None of this music has been really connected to what I’m writing (except that this novel does begin with a sort of who’s who among a group of friends, I guess).

Different time, completely different kind of music. That’s fine. I’m a little partial to “Nightswimming” from Automatic For The People because if I recall correctly, Timothy referenced it in Three Fortunes in One Cookie. THERE’S a blast from the past.

Button Sunday

This is why it takes me so long. Some writers power through to get it all down and then go back and do their edits. Occasionally I want to try it that way, but it never works for me.

Maybe I’m too trained as an editor and proofreader. I edit, read, re-edit, and re-read constantly as I go. Maybe it’s also my experience as a teacher trained to correct errors and suggest how to polish writing.

I learned the hard way this is why beta readers don’t work for me. By the time I send pages, I’ve already started altering them.

ETA: Most recent writing playlist.


Bonnie Raitt, Bonnie Raitt


Red Hot Chili Peppers: Blood Sugar Sex Magik; One Hot Minute

Los Angeles is the major city featured in the Neverending Saga. It’s the home of my soul even if it’s never been a physical home to me. Tom and I have explored there. Jim has been my tour guide there. From Blood Sugar Sex Magik, “City of Angels.” I’ve been able to use so much of L.A. in the Neverending Saga.