Pull Out the Arrow!

I have been thinking of that struggle to pull back a arrow and keeping it steady on target, till time of release.  Anything I have done that was worth something in this world was hard.  Grades, college years, some jobs, my closest relationships, renovating my home and landscape, and all that led up to and is motherhood.  All I had to work for in order to succeed. 

But writing?  Not as you would think.  Once I get going I treat it like breathing and do it regularly and fluidly.  It's the 'getting going' part that's the struggle.  Hell, I still need to get the damned arrow out of the quiver...

Gripe at ya later.

My Mantra.

 

 

I deserve this.  I deserve this.  I deserve this.  I... 

 

This became my Mantra after finding the quote below. 

 

Not until becoming a mother and understanding my own a little better, did I realize I needed to not only hear this, but make this truism my own at this stage of my life.  So often, women are taught to expect less than what they desire.   And even more so, or at least in my case, when you were raised poor.

Indirectly, I was weaned, believing my wish for bigger, sparkly things for myself was a selfish pursuit.  That I was the odd one, the snob.  I clearly remember my grandmother, asking with all seriousness and some frustration, why I wanted to go to college.  Why not just get married and have my children.  Its what was done.  But its not what I wanted to do.  It wasn't right for me.  My mantra must have been in my head back then, just buried under learned bullshit of a back road bumpkin. 

Over the years, through college, meeting my wonderful best friend and husband, a degree, good jobs and bad, I did find bigger things for myself than what I could have settled for.  And I was (and still) very happy for my life as is.   But I was still settling in some regards...  And then I became a mom.

James is by all measure, the most amazing work I shall ever do.  And I will never expect less for him or let him expect less for himself.  But to teach him this, I must teach by example.

I deserve this.  I deserve this.  I deserve this.

 



I want to write.  I want to create.  I want to do these things to some satisfactory measure, while creating a happy and beautiful home for my family.  And any future job I choose I wish it to follow these goals without compromise. 

I know I have ability.  Now I just need to keep telling myself I deserve what I can gain from those abilities.  The rest is about hard work.  My dreams deserve that.

What's your mantra, fellow IWSG members?  And remember to grab a cookie on the way out of group.
 

Z is for Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Z is for Zilpha Keatley Snyder.

 

   Somewhere after Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume, but before Richard Peck (Blossum Culp Series) and S.E.Hinton, I found a favorite in Zilpha Keatley Snyder.  Maybe some of you will remember the covers below...

 

 

 

 

 

Although, I found a great deal of entertainment in Cleary as a child and a pre-teen connection to many of the relevant coming of age tales of Blume, Snyder was the one to set my imagination on the trail it follows even to this day.  Yes, it was great to read about the trials and tribulations of kids my age, but what really got me, was the world set outside of age and the day to day.  Zilpha gave me that.

 

Mrs. Snyder's works were some of the first stories I tried to emulate as a middle-schooler.  I guess you could call them my first fan fictions.  *smile*  I wanted my stories to send those chills up my spine.  I wanted to be the creator of the big mystery that kept all guessing.  I was (and still am) enthralled by the possibility of the extraordinary, just being one step over a neglected back ally wall or through a thorny suburban hedge.  I believe there is more to our world than what we see in our daily passing.  Finding Mrs. Snyders and later Mr. Pecks works was like finding something familiar.  Far more familiar to me than the sweet tales of Cleary or the coming of age tales of Blume.  

 

Now don't get me started on movies and directors who I identified with back then.  Spielberg anyone?

 

It's been a blast A to Zers.  I hope to see some of you again at next Wednesdays post for The Insecure Writers Support Group but if not, it's been real.

 

 

 

 



Y is for...

Y is for...

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,   And sorry I could not travel both   And be one traveler, long I stood   And looked down one as far as I could   To where it bent in the undergrowth;            Then took the other, as just as fair,   And having perhaps the better claim,   Because it was grassy and wanted wear;   Though as for that the passing there   Had worn them really about the same,            And both that morning equally lay   In leaves no step had trodden black.   Oh, I kept the first for another day!   Yet knowing how way leads on to way,   I doubted if I should ever come back.            I shall be telling this with a sigh   Somewhere ages and ages hence:   Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—   I took the one less traveled by,   And that has made all the difference. The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost

X is for X Men

X is for X-Men.

 

    I was a teen, and one of the rare girls to be found in a comic book store, back home.  So I remember taking a sort of pride in stepping through that old and dingy, poster covered front door to collect up that next addition of the X-Men.   

 

Although I no longer collect, I am still a diehard fan of stories involving superhero's, heroic underdogs, morality tales and impossible odds.   To me, the X-Men were just the same as anyone else who felt singled out, ridiculed and beaten down because of their differnces.  Differences they could not help, because it was who they were born to be.  And I think its the same insight shared by many of this brands following and a undeniable connection most beginning fans make to these characters.    

 

To this day, I keep the X-Men in my inspirational toolbox.  Those stories sit beside my love of the supernatural and abnormal, big adventure and perilous danger.  The comics also taught me the importance of getting as much emotion into a very small scene, to make the reader hungry for more.  Good comics use an economy of well placed dialogue and just the right pose of a image to get the emotion of a scene.  I try the same with my writing.  Show and not tell.

 

And then there's what I take away from my mutant muses.  My respect for flawed people doing the right thing, when the world keeps giving them excuses not to.  My affection for human kindness and the way in which we all connect to one another, one unique character to another.  All aspects of the human condition can be found in the pages of these stories about more human than human superhero's.  These X-Men.

 

See ya in the funnies, A to Zers!

 

 

 

X-Men in the beginning.



And as I remember them in the 90's.

 

W is for Writers Write Worlds!

W is for Writers Write Worlds

We do and its amazing!!!!!

Type at ya later A to Zers.
 

V is for Variety

V is for Variety.

    And if some of the colors weren't for you?  Well, at least ya gave them a try and can at least appreciate that shade.  This goes for art, food, literature, faith, fashion, politic, social set...the list goes on. 

The point is, to do justice to society, you need variety.  Melting pot or mosaic, man needs to empty out the box and color away.