Category: writing & reading

my relationship with writing & books

Cutting Room Floor

To edit or not to edit? That is the question.

Nothing to Read Here once wrote about how he loathes editing. Reminded me of how I used to hate it too.

Hate is such strong word. Let’s just say I was above it.

My college poetry professor stressed the importance of editing. Said we should rewrite several times before presenting a piece.

Not I, said the cat! But not aloud of course. Kept my sentiments to myself.

Edit? Rewrite? Destroy the raw emotion, the fire fueling the original choice of words, rhythm, and meaning? The less editing the better. Keeps it pure.

Oh, the drama of it all.

image with permission from http://mycameramyfriend.wordpress.com/

“How long does it take you to, you know, come up with one of those stories?” said my friend the would-be stand up comedian last time I saw her.

“Depends,” I said. Nice, safe answer. But it’s true. Some posts come quickly. Others not so much.

If WordPress took note of the number of edits I make to a post before it goes live, they’d think I’m daffy.

Scratch that. It’s arguable whether I’m daffy no matter how many revisions.

I’m not sure what WordPress would think. Or what my professor would think. Or what you would think if you saw the unending stream of corrections and rewrites.

I can guess what you’re thinking now: All that, and she still manages to miss at least one typo per post!

If this were an old-school movie edit, I could adorn myself with the ringlets of film on the cutting room floor. Fashion them into a translucent wig. A Gaga dress.

fallen leaf

I could sweep them up into a pile. Invite children to jump in them like autumn leaves, only better. No crumbling bits breaking off and sticking in socks. No hidden night crawlers or pungent cedar mulch in the mix of sterile, celluloid ribbons.

What’s left is a reduced, boiled down idea. The essence of the original, but stronger. That’s the hope anyway.

How I wish I could exercise the same discipline with the words I speak. They bolt out. They are gone and cannot be recaptured.

They wriggle and squirm. They resist careful pruning. Resist being held.

These spoken ones may combust or fizzle. They may scale heights or burrow deep in the hearts of their receivers. But they do not go willingly to the cutting room floor. If I could tame them, I could tame the world.

People can tame all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and fish, but no one can tame the tongue. It is restless and evil, full of deadly poison. James 3:7-8 NLT

Gwen’s back with No Doubt and Don’t Speak.

Posted on by Aimee 10

Confessions of a Bibliophile

Harold Washington Library owl, image from wikipedia.org

I have a problem with books. I cannot resist them.

The library is a refuge. Not a hangout like in college.

No, I am at peace walking through the aisles alone. Shopping titles. Dining on tables of contents. Being held rapt between stacks.

When we’ve moved to new cities, one of the first places I search out is a good public library. It’s easier to find than a good church. Quickly becomes like a second home.

(Once discovered, a good church does too.)

The huge owls perched on the acroteria of the 10-story Harold Washington Library in Printer’s Row were my guardians during our years in Chicago. Wise, familiar faces watching me arrive and depart on the train.

Now the headquarters branch of the St. Louis County Library shelters my son and I on our weekly pilgrimages.

And the books—they may be composed of dead trees, but they are alive to me.

The trend is electronic. But I like to physically hold the books in my hands. Turn the pages. Bookmark them with receipts, scraps of paper, bits of string.

The books feel earthy, grounded, solid. I breathe in deep and detect traces of turned dirt and soaked roots.

Blame my habit on my mother who introduced me to the High Point Public Library in North Carolina when I was in elementary school.

Empowered me with my own card. Let me check out books about whatever I wanted to read: dinosaurs, UFOs, Mary Quant.

image from amazon.com

I remember the illustration of the lime green extraterrestrial giving me nightmares. I recall the section dedicated to electric blue in “Color by Quant.”

Indirectly, my mom taught me if I have a question, somewhere in a book there is an answer. Or, somewhere in a book there is an admission that there is no answer. At least not one we know yet.

Few goals in parenting are measurable in the short-term if at all. Instilling a love of books, however, cannot help but become apparent.

Early on I toted my child to the library. Empowered him with his own card. Let him check out whatever he wanted to read: dinosaurs, rodents, tsunamis, airplanes, Star Wars.

my son’s library stash

It didn’t take long for him to catch on.

Soon I couldn’t carry all he wanted to take home. We employed his little metal grocery cart. I figure this way he is responsible to carry his own load.

That’s what you learn at the library. To carry your own load. To be responsible for your own learning.

I still check out materials as well. Still gravitate toward non-fiction. Carry my own load. How? I don’t know when I consider the piles amassed at home.

It’s tragic really. I’ll never get to them all before they’re due.

There’s never enough time to read all the books. Same as there’s never enough time to spend with all the friends, plant all the flowers, cook all the recipes, sing all the songs, travel to all the places.

my library stash

But I keep those piles of books on hand. They are close when in spare moments I can indulge in their words. Theirs is a load I carry with pleasure.

All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be. from Psalm 139:16 NIV

Today is where your book begins. The rest is still Unwritten…

Posted on by Aimee 25

Dream Sequence

Remember earlier this month we got a new Mac to replace our dying Dell?

Over the weekend, took the Mac back to the techies at the store for the data transfer. The wait was five days when we bought it. Now it’s only 48 hours. Gulp.

True, it’s been a bit of a circus hopping between two machines. Will be nice to have everything on one computer again. But I was becoming proficient.

Felt like I was commanding the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. “Uhara, pull up the photos on the Dell. Spock, hit Publish on the Mac. Beam me up, Scotty!”

Maybe it’s the anxiety of being laptop-less for a couple days that got to me. Whatever it was, last night I had the strangest dream.

I dreamed I traveled to a writing seminar where there were no computers. It was old school, the way we used to do things. Back in the 80s.

In the course of my stay, I ran out of paper. So I wrote poetry on the bed sheets in my room, folded them, and turned them in as my project. My thesis. My magnum opus. And I passed with highest honors.

Read into it what you will. It was sweet and it was mine.

Now give me back my laptop, Mac guys, before I start writing on your sheets too.

And they replied, “We both had dreams last night, but no one can tell us what they mean.”

“Interpreting dreams is God’s business,” Joseph replied. “Go ahead and tell me your dreams.” Genesis 40:8 NLT

Last night I had the strangest dream… Oh, I already said that. Enjoy Blue Lagoon’s fun 2004 cover of Matthew Wilder’s Break My Stride.

as seen at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

Dreams by Langston Hughes (1926)

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is
a barren field
Frozen with snow.

Posted on by Aimee 2

I Like My Bike

Cindy II (not to be confused with my homegirl, the unflappable Cyndi Tew)

This post was featured by WordPress Freshly Pressed on August 31, 2011.

My friend Corey turned 40 this year and announced he would now be living as if he were half his age. I promptly decided to adopt this philosophy.

Of course there are many things I can’t do now that I could do when I was 20.

Well, I may still be able to do them. But just because I can, doesn’t mean I should.

Staying up past a reasonable bedtime? No longer a good idea. Drinking more than an occasional glass of wine? Not good either. Eating half a five-dollar pizza all by myself? No.

There are other things though. Things I haven’t done for many years that are good for me. Enter Cindy.

Cindy was my first bike, complete with a banana seat and streamers on the handle bars. A horse was not in the cards, but I could name a bike just as well.

I received Cindy way before I was 20. Probably around age five or six. I’ll never forget learning to ride that bike. How wonderful it felt to be free and go fast.

Somewhere in the murky years of high school, I gave up bike riding. And skating. And swimming. Fun things I once enjoyed. Why do we do that?

fun on ice…

Then a couple years ago, I decided to take my little boy skating at Steinberg Ice Rink in Forest Park. It was a perfect December day. He was too young to be on the ice for very long. I, however, had a ball.

We went skating again this past winter. He got the hang of balancing and moving at the same time. But all he really wanted to do was spin around in circles and fall and laugh.

We go swimming too. Although momma doesn’t always let her hair get wet, the water is like a long-lost friend.

…and in water

When my husband received a reward certificate with an option to redeem for a bike, I lobbied. I had my eye on a sleek, expensive model at Big Shark Bicycle Company in the Loop. But a free bike? We had nothing to lose.

My son was as excited as I was when the bike arrived in a big box last week. We unpacked it, all shiny and purple.

He helped my husband put it together. Insists I wear my helmet as we ride around the neighborhood.

When I’m with him, we go slowly. He’s still learning. When I’m alone, I fly.

Someday I hope he’ll fly beside me and know what I remember. How wonderful it feels to be free and go fast.

good night, sweetheart!

So, I’m all for just going ahead and having a good time—the best possible. The only earthly good men and women can look forward to is to eat and drink well and have a good time—compensation for the struggle for survival these few years God gives us on earth. Ecclesiastes 8:15 The Message

Be free, go fast, and meet me back here next week!

How could I forget to mention the bicycle is a good invention?

Posted on by Aimee 163

So Right, It’s Jong

Erica Jong, image from ericajong.com

See the sidebar quote? Over there. To your right. From Erica Jong.

Jong is famous as the writer of “Fear of Flying,” a 480-page tome published in 1973. I read it in my undergrad Modern American Lit class.

It was vile. I hated it. Not sure I read the entire thing, yet still managed to ace the test. Even without reading it all, I could guess what was on the next page.

The same thing that was on every page before. A gross account of protagonist Isadora Wing’s promiscuous encounters as she traipsed around Europe. Vile, I tell you.

Quintessential women’s lib. Unrestrained, revolutionary, Boomerish. Must be why my overeducated class of Gen-Xers was assigned to read it. There could be no other reason, save more than 18 million copies in print.

Fast forward to 2011. I’m planning this blog, working on the inaugural post Maiden Flight. Fear of Flying flits across my mind, mostly because of the title.

Here I was, preparing to launch into the unknown in a way I hadn’t before. It could fly. It could bomb. It could lead to something. It could lead to nothing. I was afraid, excited, nervous.

On a whim I entered her name on Brainy Quote: Erica Jong. What appeared next was love in alphabetical order.

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t.

Like.

And the trouble is, if you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.

Like. Like.

Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.

Will someone please plaster this to my site—and my forehead?

Fame means millions of people have the wrong idea of who you are.

Maybe I’ve misread this woman.

I have accepted fear as part of life—specifically fear of change… I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back.

You didn’t turn back and neither will I.

I write lustily and humorously. It isn’t calculated; it’s the way I think. I’ve invented a writing style that expresses who I am.

And you opened the door for us to write as we are. So I may not care for Isadora’s sexual diary? She may not care for my Bible verses.

Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.

Love.

No one has ever found wisdom without also being a fool. Writers, alas, have to be fools in public, while the rest of the human race can cover its tracks.

Swoon. And she used the word alas.

Show me a woman who doesn’t feel guilty and I’ll show you a man.

Amen, sister.

Solitude is un-American.

Prescient creature spoke the basis for social media decades before we all posted our status updates.

Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Vega at Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC

I scurried to the basement, to my boxes of books. Searched for my copy. Alas, it must have fallen victim to an earlier purge.

Checked the library and reserved all her books. Surprisingly, Fear of Flying is no longer among them. Fell victim to a purge there as well.

Her poetry and other books remain. Her poetry is what I prefer, from “Fruits & Vegetables“ to “Love Comes First.” I skip the sexually loaded lines, as I imagine she might skip the Bible verses if she read me.

No matter. We’re family now, she and I. Grace abounds between relations.

The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 1 Timothy 1:14 NIV

Everyone I know’s been so good to me. Twenty-five years old. My mother, God rest her soul. I just wanna Fly…

You Are There by Erica Jong

(from “Love Comes First,” ©2009, pp. 13-14)
 
You are there.
You have always been
there.
Even when you thought
you were climbing
you had already arrived.
Even when you were
breathing hard,
you were at rest.
Even then it was clear
you were there.
 
Not in our nature
to know what
is journey and what
arrival.
Even if we knew
we would not admit.
Even if we lived
we would think
we were just
germinating.
 
To live is to be
uncertain.
Certainty comes
at the end.
Posted on by Aimee 2

Going to Ground

at attention

The park is quiet. Only me and the dog in the early morning dew.

My dog is a lowrider. Stands about a foot high. Doesn’t know it and wouldn’t believe it if I told her.

A squirrel climbs the overgrown honeysuckle hedge. My dog doesn’t notice much above eye level. She’s focused on the game about to begin.

I palm a tennis ball, neon green. She crouches, leans back and springs, breaking into full speed before I have thrown the ball.

Whizz! She runs past me, her eyes fixed straight ahead.

My arm swings back, then forward and release! Straight and low as if bowling. The ball flies silently, lands out in front of her, bounces and rolls.

She catches up. Overtakes it. Talks trash. Growling and complaining. Attacking. The bloodless prey is caught. It fills her mouth. She claspes it between her teeth, smiling.

No fetch with this dog. No jumping for the frisbee or turning flips in the air. No herding sheep or children. No crazed obsession with water.

Her line is European, bred to hunt vermin in the rock pile cairns of Scotland. Rabbits, weasels, moles and voles, rats and field mice. Go to ground. Corner them in their burrows. Fight to the death. It’s what she’s born to do.

We aren’t in Scotland. We’re in St. Louis. There are no cairns to climb here. No ancient Grendel-like rodents to pick off as bagpipes hum and drums beat sharp. Only a park with an open field of grass, clover and dandelions.

It’s illegal for her to be off lead. But we hunt this high country alone. Our crime goes unwitnessed by human eyes.

Victorious she drops the dead ball. Runs full bore past me again. I pull back and bowl another ball out in front of her, neon pink this pitch.

unlikely carrion

Again and again we repeat the jig until she collapses and sprawls in the wet grass. She pants and licks the blades, selectively chewing the sweetest ones.

I jog out to retrieve the unlikely carrion. I hold them as gingerly as a collection of arrowheads, a cache of unpublished posts.

Soon she pricks her ears. Makes eye contact. “Throw it, mama. Throw it!”

It’s exercise. Good to keep her spry. More than that though, the hunt is on.

Soon we’ll take the hill and head back up to the house, our short legs muddied with earth. We’ll trot across the yard, through the gate, unlock the back door. We’ll drink long laps of water from a stainless steel bowl. Lie on our sides on the cool floor. Now still and able to settle.

frog on guard

God arms me with strength, and He makes my way perfect. Psalm 18:32 NLT 

Bold hearts and nodding plumes
Wave o’er their bloody tombs.
Deep-eyed in gore is the green tartan’s wave.
Shivering are the ranks of steel,
Dire is the horseman’s wheel,
Victorious in battlefield, Scotland the Brave!

Special thanks for help finding the song goes to Laura H., a most remarkable woman who also happens to play the bagpipes.

Posted on by Aimee 4