Quotation for the Week

I've now been sick for over a week. I started feeling ill last Saturday night, then stayed home Sunday from church. I tried to have a normal school day on Monday, but went to bed very early--totally unlike myself. Then I just couldn't function for the rest of the week and spent most of Tuesday through Sunday in bed. I managed to finish grading essays for my Brave Writer course, but that was about it all week.

Last night I did the boys' school planning, and I was lightheaded the entire time.

This morning I woke, planning to return to my normal schedule, and I just can't. I'll try to stay on the sofa so that I can help the boys with their schoolwork, but I'm definitely going to have to take it easy.

So as I peruse the quotations in my journal this week, I came across an odd truth from an unusual source. See what you think about it....

"Man can't do without God. Just like you're thirsty, you have to drink water. You just can't go without God."
--Bob Marley

We "can't go without God." Isn't that the Truth? Marley seems to be paraphrasing John 15:5: "...for apart from me you can do nothing."

So as we walk with God this week, depending on Him for everything, may we ponder the simple yet profound words from an unusual source...dreads and all.

Wishing you all a blessed week,

Thankful for Autumn

This week autumn made itself felt. Our first winter storm came through, bringing rain and high winds, and the boys carried in wood and built the first fire of the season. Each morning I have to scrape frost from my windshield. I've put away the capris of summer, pulling out jeans and sweats and wool socks.

Autumn is my favorite season. The heat of summer wanes into crisp, clean days, a few cirrus clouds spreading across the skies, filmy mare's tails. The days grow shorter, and the apples ripen, blushing on the branches of our Pippin tree. The days are warm and pleasant; the night cool, often downright cold. We add another quilt to the bed at night. The boys stop watering the garden and start hauling firewood, our main source of heat in the house. I open the windows in the mornings to warm the house with temperate breezes, closing them when the sun dips, bringing coolness of evening, the opposite of summertime in which we open windows at night to cool the house and seal it up tight in the mornings to keep the rooms as comfortable as possible.

So with the arrival of autumn, I continue on the journey to One Thousand Gifts with the Gratitude Community at A Holy Experience as I thank God this day...

671. for the nearly full moon shimmering through evergreen branches in deep dusk

672. for midnight-blue skies illuminating silhouettes of pines in dusky twilight

673. for the neighbor strumming guitar, practicing Christmas music in early October evenings

674. for the first frost of the season icing morning windshields

675. for harvest of pumpkins from community garden

676. for persistent toad who keeps returning to visit my spa

677. for new milestones for my stories

678. for first winter storm, bringing oh-so-welcome rain

679. for warmth of wool socks and UGG-style boots

680. for late lazy sunrises and early sunsets as autumn days wane

So as pumpkins are harvested and harvest moons wink in chill evenings, I count the days of autumn, treasuring each one. We make popcorn, apple cider, and hot chocolate in afternoons, and soup reappears on our dinner menus. And we look forward to Thanksgiving, the day set aside here in the States for gratitude for the good gifts of God.

Journeying in gratitude, now and always,

Quotation(s) of the Week: On Literature

This past week has been all about writing.

I've been grading the first drafts of my Brave Writer MLA Research Essay class. I've been writing and publishing parts/chapters of my two stories, and I've been helping my boys write their essay assignments, one writing a "keen observation" essay and the other rewriting a scene from The Hobbit from another character's point-of-view.

And as I write what I consider to be "fluff" writing, I keep thinking about the difference between fiction and literature.

Fiction (what I'm writing right now and the focus of my writing for the past eleven months) is writing stories not based in actual events (like biography and history); they may be loosely based in real life happenings, but they're disguised by the writer so as to be fairly unrecognizable.

Literature is fiction with longevity. It's not just "fluff"; it contains universal themes, quality writing styles, deep character development, and wide appeal. Literature often morphs into a "classic" with the passage of time.

I very much doubt that my current writing projects will become literature, but I hope that some of my future work will aspire to the literary category.

I have jotted down a few quotations about literature that seem memorable to me; I hope you'll find them worthy as well:

"Good literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree."
--Ezra Pound

"It is in literature that the concrete outlook of humanity receives its expression."
--Alfred North Whitehead

"Oh, literature, oh the glorious Art, how it preys upon the marrow of our bones. It scoops the stuffing out of us, and chucks us aside. Alas!"
--D.H. Lawrence

So as we devour fiction and literature and books of all sorts, and as we write what we hope will become literature (or at least hope to be published!), may we express our very hearts in the guise of deeply-resonant characters, exciting plots, lovely writing styles, and memorable prose.

Writing furiously, as always,

Buried....and Quotation for the Week

On Friday the students in my online MLA Research Essay class at Brave Writer submitted their rough drafts. And I've been buried ever since.

Using Open Office's editing function and margin text notes, I marked everything in all the essays regarding content, MLA formatting, and language usage. Each essay took between four and six hours to comment upon.

Yep. Four to six hours. Each.

So, I spent all day Saturday, all day Sunday (missing church), all day Monday when I wasn't homeschooling, and until five in the morning this morning, commenting on rough drafts.

So no blogging, Tweeting, or Facebooking this week, along with no writing of my stories. I didn't even have time to do more than text "Happy Birthday" wishes to two dear friends.  It's been a stressful few days to be sure.

At least when the final essays are submitted on Friday, grading them will not be nearly as much work since I've already commented on the major issues in the essays. (Thank goodness!) Plus, I have ten days to turn around the essays, rather than three days. (Thank goodness, again!)

So as my students write and I dream of writing, I thought that a writing quotation might be appropriate for this week:

"Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish."
--John Jakes

Even though I'm not much of a John Jakes fan, this wise advice is a guiding force behind our teaching at Brave Writer:

--write what you know
--write from the heart
--write with passion

And as I continue to experiment with fiction writing, I'm learning the same lessons. I'm not much of a creative writer--never have been, except for poetry. So I'm pushing myself in new directions as I work on a couple of stories that are becoming quite popular on a publication website. The comments are very encouraging, but I know that I have a long way to go before I am writing truly good fiction. But this site is a good place to experiment, to "cut my teeth" before attempting greater things.

As my students will continue writing, I'll continue grading, and when I finish the grading, I will continue writing my own little stories, learning as I go....

Always, always with pen in hand,

Hope's Feathers

Emily Dickinson

When I hear the word "hope," my mind flits immediately to the wee poem by Emily Dickinson. When I first became ill with my now chronic conditions, my daughter copied the poem and illustrated it as a birthday gift, and it hangs on the wall in my prayer corner where I reread it often while I meditate and pray.

The poem is the frame in the upper right....

The poem defines the concept of hope with simple but profound imagery--the hallmark of Dickinson's genius:

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

This image of hope, a shy bird perching in my soul, is encouraging. As the last stanza remarks, hope asks nothing of us, but, as the center stanza illustrates, it sings its sweetest in the midst of powerful storms that can rock us to our very hearts' cores, soul-deep, but still is heard despite circumstance, distance, loneliness, and unfamiliar surroundings.

And, as the first stanza asserts, hope "never stops at all." Hope "never stops at all." How emphatic Dickinson phrases this last line of the first stanza! Hope stops never, at all? One of these emphatic words would have been sufficient to express hope's persistence, but both? How reassuring!

As Saint Paul wrote in his epistle to the Church in Rome:

"For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience" (Romans 8:24-25, ESV).

So we wait, being watchful and thankful, for our hope to be realized. And where is our hope placed? In Him who walked this earth incarnate, wafting hope in His midst wherever He spoke, taught, healed, advised, prayed, praised, transfigured...suffered, died, and rose again.

Our hope can only be in the One who lived hope for us, and in whose hope we walk, each and every day, whether we recognize him as Christ our Lord or not.

So let us hope together, for faith, hope, and love are braided together, intertwined with knots of grace. And, of course, "the greatest of these is Love."

With love for the One who first loved us, who brings us His hope,

With Gratitude

Autumn in the meadow, just outside our back gate



Autumn has arrived, according to the calendar, at least.

Summer is my least favorite season. But the other three seasons are simply magical. And autumn, I think, is my favorite.

I love the days becoming shorter, daylight dusking a few minutes earlier each evening. The nights cool, demanding the cozy warmth of flannel. Even the mornings are crisp, and I pile my wool cardigan atop my cotton cardigan while still wearing summer khaki capris and leather flip-flops.

The sun warms without burning, and Santa Ana winds pick up, whipping branches bare. Autumn winds can fuel fires, and living in the mountains, as we do, we're on the front lines of the battle as dry lightning ignites, or a car accident sparks, or an insane person alights dry tinder. Santa Ana winds can reach 100 miles per hour, barreling through the twisting canyons between hills and mountains on its path to the coast.

But autumn also brings spicy scents of cinnamon and nutmeg as we bake acorn squash from the community garden, sweetened with dollops of honey. Zucchini is transformed into fragrant muffins, and the first potatoes sit on the sideboard, ready to wash. T brings us the garden's bounty as his reward for working in the community garden three mornings per week.

So autumn comes, bringing cozy days and chill nights, and I find myself humming as summer heat fades, stars brighten in evening skies, and soups return to our weekly menu options.

So with autumn on its way, I join the Gratitude Community at A Holy Experience as I trudge my way toward One Thousand Gifts, thanking God this day for...

661. ...fresh organic produce from our community garden

662. ...skies whitewashed with cirrus clouds, their "mare's tails" swooping across the miles overhead

663. ...flannel pajamas on crisp nights

664. ...peach-flavored herbal teas, orchard-scented

665. ...pedaling stationary bike while reading from Kindle in the dim light of dusk

666. ...milestones reached by my little stories this week

667. ...Pippins bowing the branches, nearly ready for the picking

668. ...the gray tree squirrel cavorting on the bench beneath vanilla-fragranced Jeffrey pine

669. ...joys of teaching writing, both online and face-to-face

670. ...solace of late night peace, reading and writing when pain disallows sleep

I hope that autumn is wending its way toward winter wherever you may be, with the promises of cooler days and crisper nights. Unfortunately for us Southern Californians, September and October can contain the hottest days of the year as Santa Ana winds waft heated desert air toward the cooling waters of the Pacific....

Looking forward to cooler days,

Quotation of the Week

I am truly excited tonight. Last November I started writing a story and posting it on a publication website, all under a nom de plume. I've since started a second story, and both stories have gained followers on two separate websites.

But tonight my first story, currently at 47 chapters (very short 2500-3000 word chapters), has passed the 100,000 reads mark on the first website. In addition, the story has amassed 1,000 votes, and my pen name has acquired over 200 fans. These are some impressive milestones, especially considering that I don't really regard myself as much of a fiction writer.

The first story has been a definite success. However, my second story, started last month and only encompassing a short 500-word prologue and three short (2000 word) chapters, has already accumulated over 3,300 reads, 100 votes, and almost 150 comments from readers. Considering that I've only posted nine pages, those numbers are impressive.

I've always considered myself a writer of nonfiction. More of an expository writer and blogger than a creative one. Before I started these two stories, I had only attempted one other work of fiction since graduating from college (where I wrote only one or two fiction stories for a creative writing class). I have worked on the previous book during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) 2008 and 2009, but it still remains unfinished and extremely autobiographical. Probably too much so.

So to receive such amazing support from a particular audience (mostly teen girls, actually--a few are in their twenties) is extremely encouraging. I'm planning to take my second story--the one that's only nine pages long right now--and explore it during NaNoWriMo 2011 this November, using the month to draft the majority of the story. I'll then revise each chapter before publishing online.

In honor of the surprise success of fiction writing, I chose this quotation as the theme for this new week, written by an author who balanced the writing of fiction and nonfiction flawlessly:

"Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity."
--G.K. Chesterton

On that note, I bid Sunday adieu and prepare to write Chapter 48 of my first story as the fans are becoming restless, one claiming that she "has nothing to read."

I'll get on that.

Still in shock,

"Acquainted with the Night"

Robert Frost

Each day I receive a "Poem of the Day" e-mail from the Academy of American Poets at poets.org. Weekday poems are usually contemporary verse, quite often poems published this very year. But weekends are for classic poems, as today's most certainly was.

I enjoy Frost. He's not an absolute favorite, although "Birches" will always have a special place in my heart as it's among my sophomore English teacher's favorite poems. It's strange how the poems we studied in that class twenty-eight years ago remain among my favorites: "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by Eliot, "Birches" by Frost, "anyone lived in a pretty how town" and "in Just--" by cummings, and "Annabel Lee" by Poe.

But with long, dark nights colored purple-red by insomnia, I found myself entranced this morning by Frost's "Acquainted with the Night," which arrived in my inbox early this morning:

"Acquainted with the Night"
by Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right
I have been one acquainted with the night.

I haven't written much terza rima myself, but I felt especially drawn to this one. Frost varies in his poetic forms--writing free verse in "Birches," sonnets in some places, playing with rhymes in others. The imagery in this poem drew me in--the "One luminary clock against the sky" is especially nice.

So enjoy this snippet of poetry this day--and always keep ears and eyes alert for the tip-toe tread of poetry in our daily lives.

Also "acquainted with the night,"

Living with the Pain...

It has been one of those weeks. The ones when pain treads with heavy steps, the uninvited guest, trespassing upon my hospitality. So, in an effort to recover sleep and banish the pain (hey, why not?), I thought I would do a freewrite on pain and how it affects me:

UNSEEMLY LANGUAGE WORKED ITS WAY INTO THIS FREEWRITE. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

This freewrite has not been edited/revised/proofread. Please excuse any errors.

It comes, entering the door softly. No invitation, formally or informally. It burns, lava flowing silently and red, tumbling over itself as it rolls, unimpeded, seeking the relief of the sea. Nothing remains in its wake but raw destruction, all annihilated. It has a pulse, this pain. It has my rhythm as it hides under the skin, in deepest marrow, in synovial fluid between joints, in layers of muscle cell-deep. It's deep--in nucleus of cell, DNA sent spinningm double helixes melting one into the other, twisting and tangling until all is knotted, all is fucked up. It creeps, quiet and strong, pulsating and annihilating all in its path. Neural pathways collapse, bending in on themselves, clasping pale hands over bursting vessels. It carries that scent, undetectable by the healthy but so familiar a bedfellow to the victims.

But are we victims of this vague ghost, ephemeral yet piercing to the very marrow, the heart stuttering, the lungs gasping? Being a victim sucks. It's not Who I want to be. It's not ME.

Is it who I have become?

I want to fight it. To fold my fist into power and strike with every iota of strength I possess, aiming for sweet spot and knocking it unconscious, even as blood drip-drops from knuckles bursting through fragile skin. But I got my hit in, with bottle rattling with oblong white pills, powdery and bitter. Eight of them, four in morning, four at night, taken with food. My first line of defense, my only offsense. It weakens me, drowning me, holding me beneath surface until lungs burn and burst, ears filling with fluid, muffling silent screams. Eyes fill, overflow, wetness trickling, trickling, trickling, one after the other, taking same path burrowed into drawn skin.

The moments tick by, kept by clocks, phones, silent passing of seconds and minutes, hours and days. It is always there, ever present, never taking a break, a long weekend, a short vacation. It is relentless, a hunter stalking its prey, bow drawn taut, arrow sighted perfectly. The hunter releases, arrow streaming through thin air, separating molecules with pointed insistence until it meets its mark. The heart is pierced, blood flowing black and thick as eyes glaze over. One last shudder of life before eternity descends, no escape possible.

That is what living with pain is like.

Thanks for experiencing this journey with me.

Living, surviving, (flourishing?) with the pain,

Still Journeying to 1000....

I finished Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts last month. I want to devote an entire post to the book because it's one of those books that can truly affect the way we live our daily lives, not just our attitudes but our actual pace in which we go from one thing to the next in the course of our day.

Ann's book focuses on slowing down to truly SEE our surroundings. She does so with the aid of her camera lens as well as her pen, and her blog is stuffed full of incredible photographs detailing how she stops to truly SEE her world, her life. And her pen also helps her to see as she stops to jot down what she SEES with gratitude during her daily life.

I do keep a 365 photo blog, very spottily, I may add. But it's the keeping of a gratitude journal that has affected me more as I read Ann's blog and perused her book. I keep my notes on my Kindle's "Sticky Notes" program, well worth the 99 cents it cost. I always have my Kindle with me, and I need not waste paper or real Post-It notes as I jot what I thank God for throughout my week.

So, without further ado, I continue my journey to One Thousand Gifts with the Gratitude Community at A Holy Experience, even though I'm posting a day late as I thank God....

651. ...for family togetherness in dark of power outage

652. ...for eating dinner by candlelight after cooking over open flames of grill

653. ...for music of crickets in otherwise silent, cool evening

654. ...for the three-quarter moon brightening our way across the front yard in dark of late evening

655. ...for leisurely talks of life and future by candlelight, whole family grouped into daughter's bedroom, lit by white tapers during outage

656. ...for the terrific noise made by 4 AM hail the size of jumbo marbles, highly unusual in Southern California

657. ...for grey mists creeping across the meadow during a clouded daybreak

658. ...for being safe inside during the violence of thunder and hail storms

659. ...for the oldest son who helps homeschool the youngest when chronic illness and pain rear ugly heads

660. ...for support of prayerful friends when life becomes difficult and pain-filled, hands swollen and sleep rare

So thanks be to God for His good gifts, the ones given in darkness of the county-wide power outage, with power out to 1.7 million homes/business for 8-12 hours due to an employee glitch in Arizona; the ones given in surprise storm of thunder, hail, wind, and rain; the ones given when over-exhaustion becomes chronic, flaring rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue. Sometimes it's against the dark, the storm, the pain that God's gifts shine brightest, words graft most poetic, and gratitude comes easiest.

Thanking God this day for gifts in the darkness,