Tag Archives: Blogging Community

One Liner Wednesday-Hope

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.”

–Mahatma Gandhi

|Lindaghill|

Writer’s Quote Wednesday-A Valentine of Beautiful Words and Music

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” I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”

–Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) was a beloved Chilean poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. He wrote in green ink which was his symbol for desire and hope.

The Beautiful and Romantic Music of Bernard Herrmann

Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975) was a composer who wrote the scores for many famous films. He wrote the scores for the Orson Welles films Citizen Kane,The Magnificent Ambersons and the score for Jane Eyre (1944) that starred Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles. I like this version of Jane Eyre the best.

Hermann wrote the scores for 7 Alfred Hitchcock films including Vertigo. The Love Scene music from Vertigo was used in the more recent film The Artist. I thought it was very wrong that Bernard Herrmann was not mentioned in the credits of this film. When I heard the music I recognized it right away as being originally part of the score for Vertigo.

Here via Roberto Mastrosimone on You Tube is Esa-Pekka Salonen and the LA Philharmonic performing Bernard Hermann’s Scene D’Amour from Vertigo:

|SilverThreading|

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Silver Threading Writer’s Quote Wednesday

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“Think before you speak is criticism’s motto; speak before you think, creation’s.”

–E. M. Forster

E. M. Forster (1879-1970) a well known and acclaimed English author who wrote A Room With a View, A Passage to India, and Howard’s End. All were made into films. I have seen all these films but not read the books. His books dealt with the class system in England, their values, and the shifting of power that was occurring in the early 20th century.

|SilverThreading|

Writer’s Quote Wednesday-Labels

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“A label is a mask life wears. We put labels on life all the time. “Right,” “wrong,” “success,” “failure,” “lucky,” “unlucky,” may be as limiting a way of seeing things as “diabetic,” “epileptic,” “manic-depressive,” or even “invalid.” Labeling sets up an expectation of life that is often so compelling we can no longer see things as they really are. This expectation often gives us a false sense of familiarity toward something that is really new and unprecedented. We are in relationship with our expectations and not with life itself.”

–Rachel Naomi Remen

Rachel Naomi Remen is a doctor and author. I have read both her books several times. Sometimes I like to read them before going to sleep at night because they give me inspiration and peace. The two books I am referring to are “Kitchen Table Wisdom” and My Grandfather’s Blessing.”

Rachel struggled with her own chronic illness and still managed to get through medical school. She became a doctor when women in medicine were not often welcomed and accepted. She started out as a Pediatrician and later counseled people battling cancer. She is a member of the faculty at the University of California San Francisco Medical School. She founded the Commonweal Cancer Help Program in Northern California with Dr. Michael Lerner.

|Writer’s QuoteWednesday|

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One Liner Wednesday-Criticism

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“I have already settled it for myself so that flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.”–Georgia O’Keeffe

|OneLinerWednesday| on Thursday.

Soapbox Sound Off-The Grammar Police

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“There are people who embrace the Oxford comma and those that don’t, and I’ll just say this: never get between these people when drink has been taken.”–Lynn Truss

Unsolicited corrections of others writing is not a helpful thing. I am happy that I have not experienced it very much. But this came home to me when I read another blogger apologizing for his grammar mistakes. He went on to say something like he was learning and to cut him some slack. I interpreted this as telling the grammar police, to back off ,in a nice way. Another blogger referred to these critics as “Grammar Nazis.” I believe it is a type of trolling.

Even though I have not been “corrected” often, I did find the experience caused me to hesitate when writing and wonder if I was making mistakes.

This is wrong. We are not writing essays for an English class. If we are going to be published in a magazine, newspaper or book the editors can advise us.

I have a blogging friend who is a grammar expert and writes a blog criticizing grammar mistakes in well-known publications. I did say to her once, that I felt I could be making grammar mistakes and, as she was one of my readers, was a bit self-conscious. She said I did not have a staff of editors like a big newspaper and therefore should not worry. I hope she meant that in a good way. Not that I was making tons of mistakes but, after all, I do not have an editor. 🙂 She has liked my writing.

Blogging lends itself to a stream of consciousness style of writing. If I am truly writing that way, I am probably making errors. Sometimes I catch them and sometimes I don’t. And sometimes I don’t realize I am making them. If my writing is truly unclear, the reader can ask for clarification.

I read that Jack Kerouac did not use periods, wrote on a long scroll, and did not edit himself. I have read a few quotes from his writing and feel, if I could write as good as he did, I would feel fine about leaving out a few periods

Blogging can be a format for experimentation and play. Bloggers are creating something out of their unique perspectives and engaged in exploration. I don’t think they should be held back and made self-conscious by having their grammar mistakes pointed out on their blogs.

I did a bit of experimentation myself with this verse:

To the Nitpickers

So parsimonious,

sanctimonious,

They claim your grammar is erroneous,

Though they claim to be platonic,

Their effect on you is so kryptonic,

When they say your writing is synonymous,

with everything that is cryptonymous,

In reality their critiques are very pompous,

And it sticks in my esophagus,

Piddly, diddly,

Picayune

And

Small potatoes

And one more thing by College Humor on You Tube:

|JusJoJan|

JJJ 2015

Stream Of Consciousness Saturday-Seabiscuit

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A most inspiring true story. The story of a courageous race horse named Seabiscuit.

Seabiscuit is one of the most famous race horses in America. He was ranked one of the top ten race horses in the 20th century. I first read the whole story about Seabiscuit in Laura Hillenbrand’s book of the same name. It is a wonderfully inspiring story about an unlikely race horse hero and his entrepreneurial owner, horse whisperer trainer, and slightly overweight and partially blind jockey. Seabiscuit captured my imagination when I read his story and that of the American public during the dark times of the Depression. Laura Hillenbrand’s story is pretty inspiring as well. She suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome and is often confined to her home. She wrote another book about an unstoppable WWII hero Louis Zamperini called, “Unbroken.” It is the amazing story of his survival as a POW of the Japanese after his plane crashed in the Pacific Ocean. Both books are highly recommended by me.

Here is an interesting documentary about Seabiscuit via Horse Racing on you tube:

|LindaGHill|

We Need To Be Dreamers

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We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.”

–Arthur O’Shaughnessy

We have to have dreams and believe in possibilities if there is ever to be human progress. It is so easy to get discouraged and bogged down with all the problems in the world. Thinking that things will never change or will always be bad.

There is always the possibility of new discoveries and that the world can improve.

“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

–Howard Zinn

I want to read over and over all the hopeful and encouraging words of all the dreamers and visionaries. It buoys me up and helps me to believe in life and the future of the world.

Let’s act in small positive ways and not give in to the darkness.

|Katgotyourtongue|

Writer’s Quote Wednesday-Faulkner

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“Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it.
Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.”
― William Faulkner

Well I should be able to write pretty good by now because I do read so much. I agree with this quote because I think you can pick up how to be more articulate in writing by reading others work. I read a bit of Faulkner’s biography and learned he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949. He never graduated from high school. He used some of his Nobel Prize money to help establish the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. I like the part in the quote where he says if the writing is not good you can throw it out the window. He developed his unique style. I think all writers need to develop their own style. Try not to compare yourself to others or copy others.

|SilverThreadingWriter’s QuoteWednesday|

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Writing Nerdy About Sporks

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“Let me tell you how I came by 1,000,000 sporks and what I plan to do with them…”

This is a prompt from Writing Nerdy this week. I have to confess that I had to google “spork” to see if it was a real word and found out it is a combination of a spoon and a fork. Another name given for this handy product is “foon.”

Hey diddle, diddle

The cat and the fiddle

The cow jumped over the moon

The little dog laughed to see such sport

And the dish ran away with the foon.

How I Came By 1,000,000 Sporks and What I Plan To Do With Them

I was standing in my backyard one afternoon when suddenly the sky clouded up getting darker and darker. A lightening bolt flashed in the distance and I heard the loud rumbling of thunder. Rain started falling and pelted the water in the pool. Were the drops getting bigger? What was making that loud splashing noise?

I walked over to the pool to investigate disregarding the fact I was getting soaked. I looked over the edge of the pool and saw there were all these white objects floating on the surface and, as they piled on top of each other, some of them were sinking.

I ran over to get the large net we used to scoop leaves out of the pool and scooped up about a dozen of these little white plastic things. I was astonished to see they were white plastic spoons. They did not look like regular spoons because they had little teeth on the edges like short prongs of a fork. I recalled getting these kind of spoons sealed in clear plastic from fast food restaurants.

I was not sure what to make of all this. I thought I better go back inside and get out of the rain. I could think about this odd occurrence over a nice cup of chai rooibos.

The splashing in the pool continued for about 30 minutes. I worked up my courage to go out and see the final outcome. I had to get close to the pool to believe what I was seeing. The backyard was flooded with about a half foot of water. I sloshed my way over to the pool.

There was a small mountain of the plastic utensils in the center of the pool. The water had been displaced by their volume. It is hard to find enough adjectives that would adequately describe my emotions. A few would be flabbergasted, dumbfounded, mystified, astounded, rattled, shocked and stunned.

I went back into the house to text my husband. How were we going to clean up this mess? I turned on my computer to distract myself for a bit while I tried to get control of my nerves.

That was when I saw the bulletin. “Plane carrying large shipment of plastic products from China struck by lightening over Los Angeles today…many Angelinos reporting strange plastic items falling from the sky during rain storm.” Another headline proclaimed, ” It’s Raining Sporks in LA! ”

We had to rent a large dumpster and hire a man to come and shovel all the sporks out of our pool. The story was written up in our local newspaper, The Acorn. The headline read, ” Chinese Sporks Overflow Local Pool.”

We decided to donate our sporks to all the schools and senior centers in the county for craft projects. Our local school made a spork sculpture in our honor. The kids made the sporks into a large hulking superhero character. They called the sculpture ” The Big Buff Foon. ”