Every morning, after coffee that did not warm her, toast she did not taste, Lucille pulled on her coat and walked to the cemetery. Today she bought pink tea roses and let the vendor keep the change. Snow dusted the grave. She fingered the pills, placed the last flowers before the tiny headstone.
A very micro flash for the weekly Press53 Pokrompt.
Inspired by LAST FLOWERS, sung by the incomparable Thom Yorke of Radiohead.
Peace...
Showing posts with label Radiohead. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Radiohead. Show all posts
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Monday, March 02, 2009
10,000 Hours
This is how long it takes to become "good" at something.
10,000 hours. This is one of the statistics buried in OUTLIERS, Malcolm Gladwell's treatise on success.
That's 600,000 minutes. Since there are 525,600 minutes a year, I figure if I write non-stop for a year with no sleeping, eating, or potty breaks, I'll be a "good' though exhausted writer.
Just thought you'd like to know... maybe by then the market will have improved as much as I.
I spent about 3 of those precious hours enjoying the snow, the kids, the hot cocoa and popcorn. It was about time we got a real snow day.
THE READING... Finishing up Jane Hamilton's A MAP OF THE WORLD. It's scary how I can relate to her protagonist's fumblings as a mother. This story tugs. Also reading BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN by Charles Bock. Got one book downstairs, another upstairs. I won't tell you about the third book carried around in my purse - yet. It's my debut pick for March.
THE WRITING... Lots of short stuff spewed since the beginning of the year. Not sure if it's the muse or procrastination, but it's been fun. Every single prose piece found a home. PURE percolating, slow but steady. Writing letters and prepping samples for summer workshops - cross fingers. One of my trusty BRIGHTER THAN BRIGHT beta readers delivered, and in a wonderfully daunting way. Some great suggestions and ideas, and I'm already on it. Thank you.
LISTENING TO... JIGSAW FALLING INTO PLACE. About time RADIOHEAD got the grammy nod. This album is brilliant... "What's the point of instruments, words are a sawed-off shotgun..."
10,000 hours. This is one of the statistics buried in OUTLIERS, Malcolm Gladwell's treatise on success.
That's 600,000 minutes. Since there are 525,600 minutes a year, I figure if I write non-stop for a year with no sleeping, eating, or potty breaks, I'll be a "good' though exhausted writer.
Just thought you'd like to know... maybe by then the market will have improved as much as I.
I spent about 3 of those precious hours enjoying the snow, the kids, the hot cocoa and popcorn. It was about time we got a real snow day.
THE READING... Finishing up Jane Hamilton's A MAP OF THE WORLD. It's scary how I can relate to her protagonist's fumblings as a mother. This story tugs. Also reading BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN by Charles Bock. Got one book downstairs, another upstairs. I won't tell you about the third book carried around in my purse - yet. It's my debut pick for March.
THE WRITING... Lots of short stuff spewed since the beginning of the year. Not sure if it's the muse or procrastination, but it's been fun. Every single prose piece found a home. PURE percolating, slow but steady. Writing letters and prepping samples for summer workshops - cross fingers. One of my trusty BRIGHTER THAN BRIGHT beta readers delivered, and in a wonderfully daunting way. Some great suggestions and ideas, and I'm already on it. Thank you.
LISTENING TO... JIGSAW FALLING INTO PLACE. About time RADIOHEAD got the grammy nod. This album is brilliant... "What's the point of instruments, words are a sawed-off shotgun..."
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Sex, Drugs, and Rock-n-Roll
The SEX: As noted earlier, I've been struggling a bit with writing a good nookie scene. And since the best way to improve your writing is through reading, I've been, uh, studying sex scenes. A tough assignment indeed. I read through some erotica anthologies, reviewed some old Sandra Brown's, returned to one of my favorite scenes in Niffenberger's THE TIME TRAVELLER'S WIFE ("...[she] thrusts her hips back and forth a couple of times. I now have an erection that is probably tall enough to ride some of the scarier rides at Great America without a parent."), and flipped through a dozen other books.
Nothing satisfied. So it came as a surprise when, on a whim I purchased Anne Proulx's BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (no, I haven't seen the movie) for five bucks at an Indy bookstore in Bethany Beach and was blown away by the sheer beauty and raw sensuality between cowboys Jack and Ennis:
"They seized each other by the shoulders, hugged mightily, squeezed the breath out of each other, saying son of a bitch, son of a bitch, then, and easily as the right key turns the lock tumblers, their mouths came together,..."
The DRUGS: I'm looking at voices, too. BRIGHTER THAN BRIGHT is fiction, but written in two first-person voices, so where better to learn than from powerful memoirs? This last week I've reread James Frey and Augusten Burroughs, two of my faves, scrutinized their narratives (ever realize how A MILLION LITTLE PIECES reads so fast, in part because everything is left justified? Brilliant.) I just finished Anne Kaysen's GIRL, INTERRUPTED, a kind of comp to mine because she and Ben share a touch of insanity and a stint at the same loony bin (Mclean Psychiatric Hospital). The entire book, really a series of essays, questions that blurred border of crazy and normal. My kind of read, especially her wry observation on psychiatric medications:
"Thorazine, Stelazine, Mellaril, Librium, Valium: the therapists' friends. The resident could put us on that stuff too, in an 'acute' situation. Once we were on it, it was hard to get off. A bit like heroin, except it was the staff who got addicted to our taking it.
"You're doing so well," the resident would say.
That's because those things knocked the heart out of us."
The ROCK-n-ROLL: Still reveling in Radiohead's latest, IN RAINBOWS. Every few days, a new musical infatuation; this week, it's Jigsaw Falling into Place. With lyrics like "words are a sawed-off shotgun" and "before you're lost between the notes" coupled with fabulous percussion, how can you go wrong? The song reminds me of a scene in my friend Jimmy's novel DARK SIDE OF THE SOUL, where two souls dance on an angel's keyboard. Really.
The WRITING: It's going, it's going. Finally have a first chapter I like. A lot. At last. So much for our mutual sabbatical... though between poems and query letters, I'm writing PURE and LOVE SONG. Maybe just mixing it up is what I needed. Peace, Linda
Nothing satisfied. So it came as a surprise when, on a whim I purchased Anne Proulx's BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (no, I haven't seen the movie) for five bucks at an Indy bookstore in Bethany Beach and was blown away by the sheer beauty and raw sensuality between cowboys Jack and Ennis: "They seized each other by the shoulders, hugged mightily, squeezed the breath out of each other, saying son of a bitch, son of a bitch, then, and easily as the right key turns the lock tumblers, their mouths came together,..."
The DRUGS: I'm looking at voices, too. BRIGHTER THAN BRIGHT is fiction, but written in two first-person voices, so where better to learn than from powerful memoirs? This last week I've reread James Frey and Augusten Burroughs, two of my faves, scrutinized their narratives (ever realize how A MILLION LITTLE PIECES reads so fast, in part because everything is left justified? Brilliant.) I just finished Anne Kaysen's GIRL, INTERRUPTED, a kind of comp to mine because she and Ben share a touch of insanity and a stint at the same loony bin (Mclean Psychiatric Hospital). The entire book, really a series of essays, questions that blurred border of crazy and normal. My kind of read, especially her wry observation on psychiatric medications:
"Thorazine, Stelazine, Mellaril, Librium, Valium: the therapists' friends. The resident could put us on that stuff too, in an 'acute' situation. Once we were on it, it was hard to get off. A bit like heroin, except it was the staff who got addicted to our taking it.
"You're doing so well," the resident would say.
That's because those things knocked the heart out of us."
The ROCK-n-ROLL: Still reveling in Radiohead's latest, IN RAINBOWS. Every few days, a new musical infatuation; this week, it's Jigsaw Falling into Place. With lyrics like "words are a sawed-off shotgun" and "before you're lost between the notes" coupled with fabulous percussion, how can you go wrong? The song reminds me of a scene in my friend Jimmy's novel DARK SIDE OF THE SOUL, where two souls dance on an angel's keyboard. Really.
The WRITING: It's going, it's going. Finally have a first chapter I like. A lot. At last. So much for our mutual sabbatical... though between poems and query letters, I'm writing PURE and LOVE SONG. Maybe just mixing it up is what I needed. Peace, Linda
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Tuesday Tidbits
Between a dead laptop that's put me into extreme writing withdrawal and a hacking cough that makes me sound - and feel - like a three-pack-a-dayer, I've been downright miserable. Here's what's been getting me through the past week...
1/ "God, who is the author of this world, put foreshadowing in the clouds." From Will, my 8.5 year old son who's learning how to read and write stories in his language arts class. Brilliant, huh?
2/ Drambuie. A hefty jiggerful (or three) at night to 'help the cough'.
3/ Mucinex. My favorite Over-the-Counter drug these days. Of course, the damn stuff doesn't really work; it's all in my head. But the twelve dollar price tag makes me think the cough syrup's better than placebo. (I'd prefer terpin hydrate with codeine but, hey, then I'd have to see the doc).
4/ American Idol. It's baaaack!!!!!
5/ Radiohead. Their new album IN RAINBOWS is effing fabulous. Check out the live version of 15 STEPS, a percussive, driving tune in 5/4 that I can't keep out of my head (Radiohead - 15 Steps (Live at 93 Feet East))
1/ "God, who is the author of this world, put foreshadowing in the clouds." From Will, my 8.5 year old son who's learning how to read and write stories in his language arts class. Brilliant, huh?
2/ Drambuie. A hefty jiggerful (or three) at night to 'help the cough'.
3/ Mucinex. My favorite Over-the-Counter drug these days. Of course, the damn stuff doesn't really work; it's all in my head. But the twelve dollar price tag makes me think the cough syrup's better than placebo. (I'd prefer terpin hydrate with codeine but, hey, then I'd have to see the doc).
4/ American Idol. It's baaaack!!!!!
5/ Radiohead. Their new album IN RAINBOWS is effing fabulous. Check out the live version of 15 STEPS, a percussive, driving tune in 5/4 that I can't keep out of my head (Radiohead - 15 Steps (Live at 93 Feet East))
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