Day 9: A Poem that Made You Feel Closer to the Divine

Anis Mojgani - Closer

come closer.
come into this. come closer.
you are quite the beauty. if no one has ever told you that before know that now. you are quite the beauty. there is joy in how your mouth dances with your teeth. your mouth is a sign of how sacred your life truly is. come into this. true of heart come into this. you are true of heart. come closer. come closer. know that whatever God prays to He asked it to help Him make something of worth. He woke from His dreams scraped the soil form the spaces inside Himself made you and was happy. you make the Lord happy.
come into this.
come closer.

know that something softer than us but just as holy planted the pieces of Himself into our feet that we might one day find our way back to Him. you are almost home.
come closer come into this. there are birds beating their wings beneath your breastplate gentle sparrows aching to sing come aching hearts come soldiers of joy doormen of truth come true of heart come into this.
my heart was too big for my body so I let it go and most days this world has thinned me to where I am just another cloud forgetting another flock of swans but believe me when I tell you my soul has squeezed into narrow spaces. place your hand beneath your head when you sleep tonight and you may find it there making beauty as we sleep as we dream as we turn over when I turn over in the ground may the ghosts that I have asked answers of do the turning kneading me into crumbs of light and into this thing love thing called life. come into it!

come you wooden museums
you gentle tigers
negro farces in two broken scenes.
come rusting giants!
I see teacups in your smiles upside down glowing. your hands are like my heart. on some days how it trembles. let us hold them together. I am like you. I too at times am filled with fear. but like a hallway must find the strength to walk through it. walk through this with me. walk through this with me. through this church birthed of blood and muscle where every move our arms take every breath we swallow is worship.
bend with me. there are bones in our throats. if we choke it is only on songs.

I suppose its been a while since I've sung praises to Anis Mojgani.  In my head he's constantly there along with a phalanx of other literary influences.  This poem in particular comes into mind everytime I get together with friends, family, and feel that distinct sensation that I always thought I should get from church and sacraments.  I seriously, seriously wanna give this guy a hug if and when I ever meet him.

---

(Bio from his website: http://thepianofarm.com)

Anis Mojgani is a two time National Poetry Slam Champion and winner of the International World Cup Poetry Slam. A Pushcart Prize Nominee and former resident of the Oregon Literary Arts Writer's-In-The-Schools program, Anis has performed at numerous Universities, festivals, and venues around the globe.

His work has appeared on HBO, NPR, in the pages of RATTLE magazine, and alongside Laureates Ted Kooser and Billy Collins in the anthology Spoken Word Revolution Redux. Originally from New Orleans, Anis has two poetry collections, Over the Anvil We Stretch, and his latest The Feather Room, both from Write Bloody Publishing.

Day 8: A Poem about Fatherhood

Neil Gaiman -- Locks

We owe it to each other to tell stories,
as people simply, not as father and daughter.
I tell it to you for the hundredth time:

"There was a little girl, called Goldilocks,
for her hair was long and golden,
and she was walking in the Wood and she saw — "

"— cows." You say it with certainty,
remembering the strayed heifers we saw in the woods
behind the house, last month.

"Well, yes, perhaps she saw cows,
but also she saw a house."

"— a great big house," you tell me.

"No, a little house, all painted, neat and tidy."

"A great big house."
You have the conviction of all two-year-olds.
I wish I had such certitude.

"Ah. Yes. A great big house.
And she went in . . ."

I remember, as I tell it, that the locks
Of Southey's heroine had silvered with age.
The Old Woman and the Three Bears . . .
Perhaps they had been golden once, when she was a child.

And now, we are already up to the porridge,
"And it was too— "
"— hot!"
"And it was too— "
— cold!"
And then it was, we chorus, "just right."

The porridge is eaten, the baby's chair is shattered,
Goldilocks goes upstairs, examines beds, and sleeps,
unwisely.

But then the bears return.
Remembering Southey still, I do the voices:
Father Bear's gruff boom scares you, and you delight in it.

When I was a small child and heard the tale,
if I was anyone I was Baby Bear,
my porridge eaten, and my chair destroyed,
my bed inhabited by some strange girl.

You giggle when I do the baby's wail,
"Someone's been eating my prridge, and they've eaten it —"
"All up," you say. A response it is,
Or an amen.

The bears go upstairs hesitantly,
their house now feels desecrated. They realize
what locks are for. They reach the bedroom.

"Someone's been sleeping in my bed."
And here I hesitate, echoes of old jokes,
soft-core cartoons, crude headlines, in my head.

One day your mouth will curl at that line.
A loss of interest, later, innocence.
Innocence; as if it were a commodity.
"And if I could," my father wrote to me,
huge as a bear himself, when I was younger,
"I would dower you with experience, without experience."
and I, in my turn, would pass that on to you.
But we make our own mistakes. We sleep
unwisely.
It is our right. It is our madness and our glory.
The repetition echoes down the years.
When your children grow; when your dark locks begin to silver,
when you are an old woman, alone with your three bears,
what will you see? What stories will you tell?

"And then Goldilicks jumped out of the window and she ran —
Together, now: "All the way home."

And then you say, "Again. Again. Again."

We owe it to each other to tell stories.

These days my sympathy's with Father Bear.
Before I leave my house I lock the door,
and check each bed and chair on my return.

Again.

Again.

Again..


I've learned so much from Neil Gaiman over the years.  When I was younger, when I was literally just learning how to write and slowly letting it seep into my blood, it was either Gaiman, or Alan Dean Foster.  It still is both of them in a way.  I still want to write like Gaiman.  I still want to make impossible things seem completely plausible and thoroughly entertaining.  And I want to do it seriously.  Its not a hobby for Mr. G.  It's his life now.  I would say its his everything, but that's obviously not true.  Because when Short stories and movies and comic books and reviews were no longer enough, Neil Gaiman started writing Children's books and fun, sweet, wonderful poems like this one; for his children.  For his children.  Every parent, ever proper father wants to give their child the world.  Neil gives his children countless worlds.  I want to be a writer like Neil Gaiman.  I want to be a father like Neil Gaiman too.

---

(Bio from his website: http://www.neilgaiman.com)

Bestselling author Neil Gaiman has long been one of the top writers in modern comics, as well as writing books for readers of all ages. He is listed in the Dictionary of Literary Biography as one of the top ten living post-modern writers, and is a prolific creator of works of prose, poetry, film, journalism, comics, song lyrics, and drama.

His New York Times bestselling 2001 novel for adults, American Gods, was awarded the Hugo, Nebula, Bram Stoker, SFX, and Locus awards, was nominated for many other awards, including the World Fantasy Award and the Minnesota Book Award, and appeared on many best-of-year lists.

Gaiman's eagerly awaited next novel for adults, Anansi Boys debuted on the New York Times Bestseller list in September, 2005. About Anansi Boys Gaiman says: "It's a scary, funny sort of a story, which isn't exactly a thriller, and isn't really horror, and doesn't quite qualify as a ghost story (although it has at least one ghost in it), or a romantic comedy (although there are several romances in there, and it's certainly a comedy, except for the scary bits).” An audio version of the entire text of Anansi Boys, as read by UK comedian Lenny Henry, has also been published by HarperAudio as both regular CDs and as MP3-CDs.

(Cripes he's got a long bio.  I guess that's what happens when you become a literary rockstar.  I've only posted a bit of it here, you can read the rest here -->(http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/About_Neil/Biography)  However, I wanted to make sure I got in the bit about Anansi Boys because I just finished it a month ago and I highly recommend it!)

Eulogy Time - 2011

I just realized today, upon flipping through my journal and scrolling through my flash drive, that its Eulogy Time!  Yes, that special time of year when I put this year's journal to rest, but only after thoroughly rifling through the pages for any tiny little literary tidbits, even the embarrassing, the bad, and the unavoidable incomplete entries.  As per usual I'll be posting these up on Eulogy for a Journal, since that's what that blog is actually for, and they'll all serve as good creative fodder for...erm...at least half of the year.

Also, I find myself in a predicament.  There are a handful of blank pages in last year's journal, which is nice, but will soon be used up by some half-formed idea already lurking in the back of my mind.  And when it does, I don't know what I'll do since, for the first time in four years, I don't already have a journal all lined up!  Time was I'd go out and get a rinky-dink little something and stick it in my faux-leather book cover,  but I've gone and spoiled myself!  After countless (2) Moleskines and the absolutely gorgeous 'Lincoln: Fragment of a Speech' PaperBlanks journal of last year, not just any old thing will do.

Hmm, here's an idea.  Why don't you buy me a journal, dear reader?  Not something expensive, mind you.  Just something you'll look at and think 'Hmm...I'd like to write in that.'  Anything that jumps out at you.  If you're so inclined and you want to mail something like that to me, shoot me an email.  I'll let you know where to send the mail bomb package.

Geoffrey Philp's Blog Spot: Defining Moments...Joanne C. Hillhouse

I thought of how I’ve daydreamed my way through life, always with parallel scenarios running on delay in my head.

I know I am a writer, and, yet, insecurity dogs me; insecurity, and curiousity, and questions, and this tendency to pick at things, and pain so big it feels like it might swallow me sometimes.

I know I am a writer, because, through it all, I write.

Geoffrey Philp's Blog Spot: Defining Moments...Joanne C. Hillhouse

Richness. I'm surrounded by Kings and Queens who don't even know how much I want to dance in their courts. How happy I'd be just being a prince.

Belize Story Writing Competition

So...Don't know if this is exactly my cup o' tea.  I'm usually ALL OVER paying writing opportunities, contests or otherwise.  But as much as I appreciate Children's Literature, I don't know that the 5-10 age range is within my natural audience.  Nevertheless, I can at least pass it along.  Here's the info.

STORY  WRITING  COMPETITION
As a part of activities in commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the Belize
National Library Service and Information System (BNLSIS) a story writing
competition is being held during 2010.  The particulars are as follows:
·        The competition is open to all writers.
·        Stories should be written for children 5 to 8 years old.
·        Stories should be 1,500 words or less.  Type the word count on the
first page of your entry.
·        Must focus on Belizean lifestyle.
·        All entries must be in English, original, unpublished, and not
submitted or accepted elsewhere between start and end of the competition.
·        All entries must be typewritten 1.5 spacing, Times New Roman, and
pages must be numbered.
·        All entries must include your contact details and story title on a
separate sheet of paper.  Your name must not be on your story.
·        All winning entries will become the property of the BNLSIS.
·        There will be three prizes awarded for the best entries determined by
a panel of judges:
1st Prize: $1,000.00    2nd Prize: $750.00      3rd Prize: $500.00
·        The decision of the judges will be final.
·        The three winning entries will be read publicly in all district towns
and city libraries.
·        The BNLSIS reserves the right to not declare a winner.
·        The deadline for the submission of entries is October 31, 2010 at 4.00
p.m.
·        Deliver, email or mail your entries to: Story Writing Competition, Leo
Bradley Library,  P.O. Box 287, Belize City, Belize.  Email: nls@btl.net

Nuff Respect

Dear friend

 

Following a short meeting between representatives of BEMA and Members and officers of Hackney Council, an in principle agreement has been reached that the name of the new facility will carry the name of CLR James Library as per our campaign demand. A formal statement will follow shortly. Many thanks to the thousands who have supported our successful campaign online and in other ways.

 

Bema will be playing an ongoing role in the development of a permanent CLR James exhibition at the new library as well as the establishment of an annual event commemorating his life and work.

 

Ngoma Bishop & Andrea Enisuoh   

Campaign co-ordinators

 

 

http://www.bemanetwork.org.uk/

Easter Eggs

You cannot teach a man anything.  You can only help him discover it within himself. --Galileo

I only just started reading The Black Jacobins, devouring the foreword, introduction, prologue and first chapter over the weekend.  I'd had the book in my house for at least eight years now.  My mother's copy, a valued copy if the presence of her signature on several random pages is any indication.  She wanted to ensure that no one ever got away with stealing it, or at least pricked their conscience if they did.  I never saw the use of it.  The cover was impressive.  The dark skinned man in Victorian style refinements spoke to an underdeveloped black pride within me every time I saw it.  But my mind, up until now, was not prepared to take on the the tiresome (as I saw it) task of actually reading it.  Its a matter of maturity.  I had to wait until now.  Until I was ready.  And even so, I didn't know I was ready.  I simply couldn't find the book I'd started reading in time to pack it for the trip to Flores, and instead decided to grab it off the shelf, just to see what it was all about.  When I opened it and started reading about C.L.R. James, and about his ideas, and about Haiti, I realized that it was time.  Had I read it at any point before now, before those very same thoughts came to life in the cultivated garden of my own mind, I wouldn't have really cared about what it had to say.  I wouldn't be sitting in my office, as I am now, with the presence of the book in my messenger bag glowing like a bright beacon in the back of my mind.  I wouldn't have the appreciation and hunger for it that I have now had it been forced upon me in high school.  If I had read it at any point before now, I wouldn't give a rats ass who C.L.R. James was.

This is a universal thing.  Perhaps it might be a generational peculiarity, but I doubt it.  While my upbringing has instilled within me an unconditional respect for my elders, my own self-education efforts actually revolve around breaking down those things that were instilled in me, and not taken on by my own volition.  Also, I've come to learn that all things have conditions.  To this end I can say that previous generations were no more enlightened or prone to enlightenment than my own.  Those who came before me were no more or no less hungry for knowledge than I am.  However, perhaps they had more barriers to that knowledge and in their youth, they had just the same amount of rebellion as I do.  So while I have the information at my fingertips, acquiring it isn't as exciting as it was back then. 

It's just a theory. 

But things work a little differently now.  Now we have to present knowledge like we do Easter-eggs: Paint them conspicuously, and hide them in plain sight.  For instance, there is a street in Harlem, a boulevard actually, named Adam Clayton Powell Jr Boulevard.  Navigating Harlem, you're main allies are the broad bordering streets named after Black heroes and famous personalities.  Malcom X Boulevard.  Frederick Douglass Blvd.  Martin Luther King Boulevard.  Adam Clayton Powell Jr Boulevard?

"Hey man, Who's Clayton Powell?"  I asked one of the neighborhood guys that worked at the Hostel.  He was younger than I was, but just barely.  A handsome guy who was just growing his dreads and 'trying' to be vegetarian.  They were either the first, struggling signs of someone seeking some kind of enlightenment, or a complete poseur.  He admitted that he didn't know, and the pretty Puerto Rican girl who worked at the front desk made a disgusted sound and elbowed him, saying "Don't you live around here?"

"I live ten blocks that way!" he retorted, pointing in the direction of the rest of Manhattan.
"So?"  She replied.  "You're supposed to know this stuff."
"Why, cause I'm black?" He asked sardonically.
"Yeah!"  She said, sounding perplexed that he even had to ask.

The next day he brought me a pamphlet about the heroes the streets were named after, and had highlighted The Reverend Adam Clayton Powel Jr., first African American elected to congress.  It may be that he'd just missed learning about Adam Clayton Powel Jr. in class.  He might have matriculated just before it was decided to add that information to the public school curriculum.  Its also possible that former senator Powell was right there in his history books, but a congressman who, among other accomplishments, dined with a contingent of black constituents in the 'Whites Only' House restaurant and passed a record number of bills in a single session of congress, doesn't shine as brightly beside his Harlem Boulevard contemporaries.  "If the Law is wrong, change the Law" perhaps doesn't resonate in the heart as much as "By any means necessary." or the 'I have a dream.' speech.  But that Easter-egg was hidden on a street walked my thousands each day, and painted brighter than the grey of the city.  All it required, all it still requires, is for someone to point it out, and let young, hungry curiosity handle the rest.

And if there was no Adam Clayton Powell jr Boulevard?  If it were forever to be called ' 7th Avenue'?  Then obviously it would be just another gilded street in an increasingly gentrified Harlem.  And with no knowledge of the true history of the neighborhood, why would anyone want to stay somewhere they're not wanted?  The argument against gentrification and the tools for combating it is another conversation all its own.  But we are talking about knowledge, access to knowledge, and the drive to educate oneself.  Again, I've only made it through the preliminary text and the first chapter, but being a long time fan of all kinds of narratives, I can tell that its these very same factors on which the plot of this story; the liberation of Saint Domingue, and the creation of Haiti; hinges.  The same factors, perhaps, presented the Easter egg of Marxism to James, and inseminated within him the idea to share history to the Caribbean and Black Communities.  The same factors that now lead me to explore, stumble upon, and learn from James, his writing, and the history of the region.  And if there were, perhaps, a library in a predominantly black neighborhood somewhere that, all of a sudden, was no longer called the CLR James Library?  Then we will be left with those still waiting to stumble over brightly coloured enlightenment hidden in plain sight, and all we'll be able to tell them is: 'It used to be there.  But now its not.'

---

Inspired by: CRB • Antilles • Transformative reading
Please sign: Save CLR James Library

On Comparability

In my ceaseless search for new and better ways to waste time, I happened upon Geoffrey Philip's blog post about the I Write Like website.  This seems like something fun and pointless, but there's no way they can peg me by just one poem or Short Story, right?  So, keeping that in mind, I went for multiple results.

I write like
Vladimir Nabokov

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Got this one for the latest in my Rainy Season Series.   Nabokov's the guy who wrote Lolita.  I've never actually read Lolita, or any othe Nabokov work, so I'll withhold my judgement.

I write like
Ursula K. Le Guin

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

This one was from one of my recent favorites, also from Rainy Season.  Its becoming clear to me that this isn't going to work out quite as I expected.

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Another recent favorite. Again, no idea who this David Foster Wallace guy is but apparently he hung himself in 2008. Isn't that special!

I write like
Charles Dickens

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

FINALLY someone I actually recognize. This for The Fortunate End of Jonas Black. Awesome. Who do you write like?

On Kriol

I must be a traitor to the cause.  I recognize the need for a unified Kriol spelling and dictionary.  It is a beautiful and exciting language.  One that should be taken seriously.  One that has a place in our writing, our literature, our culture.  We should embrace it!  I still remember the ti me when my aunt told my little sister 'Don't talk like that.  It's ugly.'  My eyes almost fell out of my head.  Don't talk like that?  Here we are surrounded on all sides by such seductive forces that would devour our very Belizean-ness if you let it, and you're gonna tell a little girl who's only barely begun to develop attachments to a rewarding culture to abandon her language?

Or should I say langwij.  Which is one of the few Kriol words with which I have no problem with the spelling.  This is why I say I must be a traitor.  As much as I love the language, and the need to cement it as a part of our culture, I can't stand the chosen spelling.  For starters, I've always thought the letter 'k' to be vulgar.  I can't explain that one much further, honestly.  The letter 'k' is vulgar in the same way that the numeral '7' is intimidating and the taste of cilantro is a wide open room.  There might be some sort of repressed emotional influence from my childhood involved in it.  When I start seeing a therapist, I'll be sure to find out and let you all know, but until then anytime I see the letter 'k' in a word and its not silent, I'll krinj a little. 

I don't have the same issue with j replacing certain teeth sound combinations, obviously.  I can't, however, be asked to sit back and allow one combination to replace another.  That, to me, is asinine.  I speak creole I talk kriol, and I say 'truth' and 'tru-tru-story.'  I have never said 'chrute' or 'chru-ting'.  The sound is sharper.  Acute.  It doesn't slide like 'ch'.  Its an abrupt change of sound direction.  A nice, jarring 'tr'.

Okay, so maybe this is all just a bit ridiculous.  But keep in mind, if you're defining something you have to go by its original understanding.  Belizeans didn't invent the word Creole (We did invent Kriol, though.) it already existed in the world and had its own meaning.

Adjective

S: (adj) Creole (of or relating to a language that arises from contact between two other languages and has features of both)

I want to focus here on the phrase 'features of both'.  In this case that means that there are indeed a great plethora of African words in the Kriol language, words that don't have written spellings today and so we must give them one: Juk, nyam, ect.  But it also means that some of the words we're saying are English words.  Why should we change them?  Why should we go from saying 'Belizean Constitution' to 'Bileez Kanstitooshan'.  Why would we abandon  the etymology of a word older than us?  What part of the word 'Constitution' is too difficult for the Belizean tongue to pronounce?  To me there's something insulting about it. 

Now that I've ranted, this is the part where I admit that I have been writing quite a bit in Creole lately.  The stories that have been coming to me lately have been coming to me in Creole.  They start off in English, sure.  That's as far as setting goes.  But when it comes to relating certain aspects of the story, of the character, of the event, then there is no English substitution.  Its the beauty of the language that's required to paint a more vivid picture.  And the more that I use the language in my writing, the more I need it.  I don't write in the official Kriol spelling.  Sometimes its just a lot simpler to employ English words and Creole grammar.  Sometimes, I don't want to ruin something by throwing in a nasty 'K'.  But sometimes...sometimes I really wish I had that dictionary.  Sometimes yuh need wah lee pig tail inna yuh beans.

Anancy Song & Ask me how my weekend went

"Anancy Song" by Geoffrey Philp

Which reminds me that I have yet to read Neil Gaiman's 'Nancy Boys'. And which reminds me that I am a child of the Caribbean and that I have to hold on to that. A lot of people have this misconception that Anansi's adventures are all about deceipt and opportunism when really, Anansi teaches us what we've needed to know since civilization opened its eyes: How to Survive. And how to do so using nothing more than your intellect, and what you have at hand.

I don't know why I'm so maudlin. Technically, i had a pretty great weekend. I read at the closing of Book Week, an event entitled 'Literary Night'. Interestingly enough I was...possibly one of two sane, non-eccentric writers in the room. Though, I hold myself slightly to blame for that perception. I'm almost certain that 'River of Fire' was sitting in the crowd debating whether or not he should read his 'Three things thrive in the darkness: Snakes, Scorpions, and Battymen' poem when, out of the blue, he hears the fellow at the mic describing Sea Hag nipples and wet tongues circling red lips. I think that's the moment he decided 'This seems like a crowd I can whip out the battyman material in front of'!

But all in all it was well received, I think. The crowd had me nervous at first. I got through the first lines of 'The Fortunate End of Jonas Black' and kept thinking 'this is way too corny to be taken seriously.' There were murmurs at the mention of mermaids, tittering as I went through several paragraphs describing their breasts (What else would you describe on a mermaid?), but by the time I got to poor Jona's actual descent into death there was rapt silence.

'I Could Call you Brother' was a bit better received, though I'm not sure people got that first stanza (It was a dog in the first draft. Now its a horse. Point is, though, its an animal, then a man.) And 'Dreaming of Flying' got me a crowd of 'Aww's. So, good for me! I just had to sit through the crazy a bit longer. Not too bad with Jon and Sean there to make me want to guffaw every eight minutes.

Lets see...what else?

Women are generally confusing. That doesn't change. I consider making grand gestures. Then...I consider whether or not it would even be worth it. What if i did sweep her off her feet? She'd still be the girl who drunk dials exes on her birthday. But maybe that's a good thing. Is anybody going to Drunk dial me on their birthday this year?

Ah. That's why I'm maudlin.

July 17th, 2009

[Fighting writer's block]

To my distant lover.

When I said always
What I meant was...always.
And what I meant by that was--

I could take the disarray of stars and fit the universe in my throat.  I could spit out constellations an d have them  line up obediently on paper.  I could make metaphors out of lava fields and sulfur an d cradle the uinatainable in my arms as if it had just been born into something raw an d touchable.

And I could do this all with little more than an empt field, the crushed, bleached an d dried remains of a tree, th e feather of a bird an d something to dip in for ink.

Yes, my God loves me, and he lets m e borrow a little taste of his power during special moments I call 'inspiration'

An argument with myself

Upon writing a poem that I'm still not brave enough to let the world know about.

Do I have to insert morality?  Whats the purpose of this exactly?

Its just a fantasy.  Nothing wrong with that.

But what does that say about me?

It says you have a penis and it talks to you.

Is it my penis that's been writing poetry all this while?

Your penis is a dick.  You're just the kind of guy that'll lend a caring ear to just about anyone.  Even if that someone is a dick.

Ginsberg, Pound, and Baudilaire

I've been staring at An Eastern Ballad by Allen Ginsberg.  I received some really interesting reviews on my Writerscafe.org profile over the weekend.  I was compared to Ginsberg, and Pound, and Baudelaire.  I decided it might be a good idea to find out who those people were.

I'm...not like them.   These were real writers, people who weren't afraid to write.  To do little more than write.  To let the craft run their lives.  Or ruin their lives.  I can see how my style is similar though.  And I want to be like them. 

I'm just still too afraid.  Still too secure in my mundane life. 

"Don't let go of the branch you're holding to reach for one you're not sure of." --Dr. Kenrick Leslie  (Who has perhaps forgotten that only half his success has come from hard work.  The other half...from blind luck, and taking risks.)

Eulogy Time

Its the beginning of a new year. Or the first month, at least. In my prime (which I hope has only lagged behind, rather than past) It would be the time I close another writing journal, banding up another Moleskein or twisting the cheap notebook out of the make-believe leather covering. And before I'd start fresh, letting the ink sink into the first unsuspecting pages of my replacement, I'd look back one last time at what I'd written, attempted to write, or failed to complete throughout the year.

Because its always somewhat bittersweet, and because the memories soon fade and are replaced with new ones, much like new life replaces death, I called it 'Eulogy for a Journal.'

But, I haven't quite been performing like i was in that prime lately. Not only have I failed to exhaust my journal, but through some wonderful folly, I wound up with two journals. One, the same faux leather covering over a stiff, simple, easy to carry notebook. The other is something I picked up at a Borders in New York. Beautiful hardcover, magnetic flap, and covered with elegant, driven scrawl. A speech by Abraham Lincoln. In the one that's easy to have everywhere, I have the thoughts that I have everywhere. Including many of the banal things that I simply have to write down. In the other beautiful, writing inspired/inspiring book, I have my beautiful writing. Or, what I try to write, at the very least.

It works out well, I suppose. Two books. Two blogs. And going back and seeing the failed attempts, or the poor successes, has always lead to great things, in my mind. So I'll be having a eulogy for both. Check in here if you want to know some of the foolish, boring, insane, truthful things that went through my mind in 2009, and check Eulogy for a Journal, if you want fiction, poetry, and pretty words that don't quite belong anywhere. Lets remember that year together.

For Sale: Baby Shoes. Never Worn

It's April 16th, more than halfway through the month, and I suddenly realise I've failed myself as a writer. I say this not because I've lost faith in my ability to turn a clever phrase or paint a picture with prose; in fact I still count myself as one of my favorite writers (if only I could publish!); but because somewhere I began to overlook one serious aspect: Brevity.
Allow me to explain. May 1st is the deadline for submissions to the 2007 Commonwealth Short Story Competition. All Commonwealth citizens are eligible to win the sum of £2,000 or a little under US$4000. All you have to do is submit up to three short stories which, based on the trend of past winners, concerns some issue of cultural significance where you live. They also have to be 600 words or less.

And for me, therein lies the snag. When I first read about the competition, I was elated. "Cakewalk" I thought, as I'd had no shortage of stories filed away in a little corner of my computer. I'd simply choose three of my favourites; clean them up a bit, and send them on in. But when I started looking through them, hardly any seemed good enough, and the ones that I did like were all at least two pages long. 600 words, double spaced, is hardly even a one page. It meant, quite simply, that I'd have to write something new.

I decided I'd write a quick one about going through Phillip S.W. Goldson international, specifically the check-in procedures. I should have been able to save space by limiting it to just that space between the counter and the departure lounge. Heck, I wouldn't even have to spend that much time on developing characters. But then strangely enough, my image of that annoying space with the x-ray machine and metal detector became quite sharp. I found myself describing the wood panelling on the walls became so clear, so important, that I found myself travelling down the road where the mahogany tree once stood, and where foresters spent weeks cutting it down, quartering it, transporting it, selling it, shaping, sanding, and varnishing the panels so they'd shine bright for the tourists. Simply based on this one paragraph, you can see how that turned out.

Then I had a vision of feet under a table. Your average Belize restaurant where waiters are rude to the locals and sickeningly condescending to tourists or officials, and it would all have been based on the shoes and clothes they wore and how they positioned their feet, adding to the absurdity of the entire practice. But then my 600- word story became, in my minds eye, a play on a stage with the curtains half drawn, then a screenplay with the camera frame following the waiter's feet from table to table, sometimes with no dialog at all except for what those naughty little feet were doing. This too was getting out of hand.

So now, I'm slowing down. I've got two weeks and if I rush this I'll end up with a ton of half finished short stories, a play that I have no idea how to pull off, and a screenplay that I'd have no idea what to do with. Perhaps with the help of a thesaurus and an editor who aspires to be a butcher, I might have something before the deadline.