homework by Harry Herman Roseland

I wonder if anyone has invented, yet, a screen lock for writers and others who may need it. I know there is various software that mimics a typewriter (some with no backspace) and others like jdarkroom and such that claim to eliminate distractions (I tried that for a bit, hated it) but what I need – and I’m sure I’m not the only one – is something where I can voluntarily lock myself in, so to speak. Open the writing thing (Word, blog, whatever) and click something to lock the screen there. Maybe for a set period before one can opt out. No wandering off to check email, or to google this or that or to read blogs or news pages or anything, just for that period of time, until the lock releases (or, if you’ve gone past times up, you release it yourself).

I think it could work, but those little netbooks are so small and light, I think more people would be tempted to throw them across the room in frustration, after being locked in, so maybe not.

Besides, there is still nothing (beyond willpower! yes) to stop one from wandering into the kitchen for a snack or checking the tv and watching some insipid show for “just a few minutes” or deciding the cat looks lonely all curled up there napping by herself or a gazillion other things. Sigh.

It’s the vein thing I have the most problems with, I think. You know -

“ There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.”
- Walter Wellesley “Red” Smith

(Whozzat?)

I am notoriously closed mouthed, keeping my own counsel and not really letting go. There’s nothing wrong with that (says I) but well, veins carry life’s blood and to get to where I need to be to do what I need to do, I need to let loose of a little of that. Maybe I can start with pricking a finger, then work up to the whole wrist slitting thing.

Okay, here’s a drop – though I am fascinated with this era and can’t wait to read more and more, I started on this journey down histories pathways very reluctantly. Very reluctantly. I wanted to start reading/writing about what I knew about my family anywhere but here. It’s just that my Uncle Louis kept bugging me; for months, he just would not leave me alone, telling me over and over that if I wanted to understand this particular person or thing and their actions, I first needed to understand him. And more.

Now, we all have importunate relatives who want to direct our lives and our work but, see, Uncle Louis is just a tad different, seeing how he has been dead for over 200 years and really, how may have relatives like that? I sure didn’t, before this.

There’s a story there, this should be written but have I done it? Well, sort of – one of my many, many “drafts” which never get finished. I’m tempted to delete them all and start fresh. Might keep the titles and make notes to remember what it was I wanted to write about in the first place, like index cards, but there are always new ideas and things that want writing about.

Like stories of growing up, something Amy Tan (and others) recommended to do. I wonder if it’s an easier subject when one is younger and thus closer to the time period? There are some memories that have stuck with me over time – others are completely lost, though some may return if I do start writing the stories down.

We’ll see.

*And, of course, the “blank page” part is no longer true either, because, well… I have written.

Of the so many things I have to do, I actually did very few of them. Or, rather, halves of everything. Half the laundry done (washed and folded, but not put away), half the kitchen cleaned (floors, counters, dishes but not pots), half a post written and so on.

Mostly, though, I just did nothing. Except watch a couple of shows on TV. One, called um… I think  Gravity, I can’t figure out at all. It’s about space, I think, but the same people are on earth too. Is it present, past, future or all three? Add to that that everyone seems to hallucinate at the drop of a hat and what do you get? Who knows? Entertaining, regardless – confusion is just part of its charm, I guess.

I’m thinking of a few pieces related to all the reading I’ve been doing, but I think I need time to process everything, and perhaps read a bit more. And, as opposed to just dashing something out to post, I’d like to write with intent and purpose and take my time – not only to get my thoughts in order but to give full measure to the subject matter. It’s important and precious stuff, so I need to make sure I’m treating it with full respect.

I picked up Amy Tan’s autobiography a week or two ago.  I don’t know why as I don’t usually like biographies, but there it was just sitting there on the library shelf each time I visited, so… Anyway, I’m glad I did. I haven’t read anything of hers before, although of course I’ve heard of the Joy Luck Club. I think I’ll pick that up next time I’m at the library because reading her biography produced a desire in me to now read the book, to see what else I’ve been missing out on.

I didn’t actually pick it up for writing advice, but she has some in there anyway about her process. Of course, all these books do no good, I’ll not actually figure out my own process until I sit down, seriously, and just do it. I’ve not done that yet, though I am planning to with the series of articles I have planned on what I am learning from my reading. And, of course, the book.

Anyway, the strategy didn’t work.  Either I lost access to it (likely, as it took me weeks after digital switch to bother getting a box/antenna – for mom’s TV, still haven’t bothered for mine) or I lost interest in it (also likely, considering) but whichever… I have no hope of catching up and don’t seem to have much of a desire to do so.

Ah, well.

bloodhound

I guess I’d never seen one in person before, though I could have sworn I had. Droopy eyed,  loose-limbed pleasant and fairly harmless looking creatures, in my imagination (or possibly from cartoons or book descriptions). And some may indeed fit that description.

Not this one. The eyes may have been droopy, but the face meant business. Hugely muscled body, looked more like a pit bull than anything else as it pulled its handler up the stairs of the mall, where they were apparently looking for someone.

Anyway, I have issues with dogs so I was pretty rattled – but considering all the reading I’ve been doing about the antebellum South, my first was to wonder if this was the sort of dog that they brought out to track runaway slaves.  Pretty scary to think of something like that being after you. It sort of brought all that home to me, sort of freaky even though I was standing in the middle of a modern mall, not the object of the dog’s interest and not running through the woods.

I’ll have to add that to my research list, though.

night sky and rock bridge

I’ve been looking at quotations. Phrases and thoughts disconnected from their original settings and placed in isolation – or rather, a sea of isolation as they space with thousands and thousands of other fragments of related, but not connecting, phrases. How do they decide what goes in, I wonder.

Most sources quoted are, of course, from people in the West – from the ancient Greeks to modern US business owners or athletes. Primarily men. A few from Asia, with far less variety of sources – from casual perusal you’d think that only five or six Asians – Sun Tzu, Confucius and a few others – have said anything worth saving and savoring over the years.But those few said a lot, so you have your pick there.  Even fewer Blacks or Latin@s are quotable, it would appear, especially about anything not dealing with slavery or civil rights issues.

I’m familiar with a lot of them. I used to have a Bartlett’s  when I was younger, and I’d sit and read page by page, absorbing some, instantly forgetting others. In this way I learned the names of many thinkers (or people with a knack for words) but little, if anything, about the original text, or about the writers/speakers themselves. Of course, the quotations often stand on their own, the little snippets enough to encourage or motivate or inspire, but I sometimes think about how easy it is to change the meaning of a sentence just by removing portions of it and I wonder if what I think I know or learned bears any resemblance to what the author meant. And then I wonder if that even matters.

Probably not. I guess I decided that early as I rarely look past the few words given and seek out the sources. I am, I find, most often content to let the fragment before my eyes contain its wisdom or knowledge or pleasure, each a minuscule world in itself.

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

–Yeats

photo from here – via Our Luminous World

A boy and his ... deer? Nara city

I was looking through random photos to try and get some sort of inspiration for writing, when I came across this one from maiscio’s flikr photostream and was, of course, charmed.

A doe eyed, seemingly tame deer and a tostle headed young man sitting companionably on the sidewalk – who could resist? Also, what the heck? Where in the world do you see scenes such as this?

Apparently Nara City, which is, the Google tells me, an ancient city in Japan. Full of ancient temples and other structures, tourists and deer.

I don’t really have much to say about it besides that – maybe if I had time to read up on it and all that, but as it stands now… I just like the picture.

Turns out, I like most all of maiscio’s pictures, that I’ve seen so far. I’ve spent way too much of my writing time just clicking through the pages.  They are pretty cool, works of art some of them, but then she is a pro. Amazing how much difference training and practice make.

Only, still no inspriration, even with a world of images open before me.

Luckily I don’t (really) have a word limit attached to my daily writing something/anything promise.