It’s a Major Award

On By C. L. BlackeIn Randomness2 Comments

Recently, my very good friend, K, known to the poetry and blogging community as C. L. Sostarich (found at http://clsostarich.wordpress.com/), awarded me with a Versatile Blogger Award. When I was first notified of it, I figured she’d stolen crack from our hunter and started smoking it.  I mean, I’m the least versatile blogger.

Once given this major award, I’m supposed to tell the world seven things about myself that I think people need or want to know about me. Following that, I’m supposed to pass on the Versatile Blogger Award to 15 (Yikes!) more bloggers. I see this is going to take an extended period of time.

Seven things about me people could care less about…

1. I am the worst blogger in the world. I write sporadically and pretty much about the same thing–the trials and tribulations of being a writer. I started my blog as more of a personal online diary–I didn’t care if anyone was going to read it so long as my words were floating around cyberspace. On top of that, I rarely have time to read other blogs; hence, my list of “followed” and “following” blogs is minute.

2. I wholeheartedly believe in reincarnation. Humans have inhabited the planet for roughly 200,000 years. What makes anyone think that living 80, 90, or even 100 years is enough time to learn and practice the universal lessons needed to reach “heaven?” What happens when people die from mistakes like texting while driving or overdosing on heroin? That’s it? You don’t get a second chance? Sorry, but Hell has no more vacancies then.

3. I am neither a scholar (despite the many lettered degrees after my name), nor a literary snob. I think I’ve only read about five of the Top 100 Books of all Time. And no, none of them were Harry Potter.

4. I am essentially lazy. That is not to say I am not a hard-worker, but usually when I try new things, they come fairly easy to me. And if they don’t, then I tend to re-prioritize my goals. I don’t quit things; I put them off until I can concentrate on them more.

5. I like adjectives and adverbs, and I don’t care if Stephen King hates me for it. In my real writing (as in not this blog), I make concerted effort not to use them. Most of the time.

6. My ratio of loved to lost is 1:1. Or is it 50:50? I’m a writer not a mathematician. (See #3.) Once you make it into my heart (and that is a feat in itself) and I consider you my friend, you are there forever. You can ditch me, ignore me, hurt me, whatever, but I will still care for you forever.

7. Oh, god, when is this going to end? (See #4.)

There will be a test on these seven items, so study up.

As for 15 bloggers I’m supposed to give this major award to: see #1. I’m pretty sure the whole premise of this stipulation is to increase traffic, but most of these have been Freshly Pressed, so I hardly doubt they need the few referrals I can provide.

Nonethless, here are some of the blogs I follow just because they had something interesting to say:

http://acgatesblog.wordpress.com/  NaNoWriMo fiend.

http://suehealy.org/ Everything a writer needs to know. (Don’t tell her about my affection for adjectives and adverbs.)

http://peasandcougars.com/ Remember the MTV show Daria? Humor just like that. Gotta love it.

http://girlonthecontrary.com/ She’s on the contrary, and I am so unladylike how can I not read it?

http://catlas.wordpress.com/ I don’t know how one can remain so positive and full of good energy, but she does.

Power

On By C. L. BlackeIn Craft Work1 Comment

Star Date: October 30, 2011

A freak snowstorm battered southern New England yesterday, resulting in a wet, white, foreign,semi-crystallized substance that accumulated on colorful leaf-laden trees. As heavy branches snapped under the weight and crashed to the ground taking power lines with them, all forms of communication with the inhabitants were cut off.

(Except for those of us who have Internet on our cell phones and happen to have a car charger or a power inverter. Well, I don’t have either of the apparatuses to transform my gas and battery-operated Jeep into a source of electrical stimulation, so when the cell phone juice ran dry, I was left alone and lonely.)

Fast forward to 10:00 PM two nights before Halloween, and I was in the dark, cold and alone, and lighting candles all over my house. What a wonderful time to write a ghost story, I thought.

And then I realized almost everything I wanted to write required research, and I had no means of accessing Google or heading out to my local library or Barnes & Noble.

It got me thinking what our forefathers had done. There were newspapers of course, and journals I supposed, that authors could have subscribe to, but how else had they gotten their information? How had they written all those wonderful classics such as The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins without the need for facts at the tips of their fingers and at lightning speed? Was traveling overseas so easy then or jobs for foreign correspondents were just plentiful?

I remember a time before computers and the Internet, and sadly it was probably one of the most creative and productive times in my writing career. I didn’t
look up anything; inspiration came from personal and physical experiences. Like a remote twisted country road, an eerie tree-lined path, the Tlaquepaque Mall in Sedona, AZ, and a torrid, sordid love affair. I used my mind and the power of my imagination to transform this stimuli into the characters and plots and settings of my stories. I used the “What If” method without even knowing it.

Why then should it be so hard now? Have I, and the rest of us, gotten so used to relying on other people for our knowledge of, well, anything that we can’t even pound out a semi-original ghost story?

I agree that the Internet is a fascinating invention that keeps us connected to a world we might never have known existed, but at what expense? With so much virtual information out there, I feel like we are becoming less and less creative. Look at this year’s major motion picture releases. How many of them were remakes of older movies? How many were based on books or comics or graphic novels?

Though Emily Dickinson might not have left her Amherst home for most of her adult life, she also did not resort to accessing the World Wide Web for inspiration and research.

It only took a few days without electricity and Internet service to realize the true power of creativity lies within our own imagination. But unlike modern
technology, if I can harness it, I will never have to worry about service interruptions again.

You Left

On By C. L. BlackeIn Bad Poetry3 Comments

Disclaimer: This is not a poem as I am in no way a poet. Instead, merely find a terse philosophical observation/correlation/comparison between the words a beloved has spoken, a hastily written note, and my heart at the moment.

You write care,

misspelled or illegible,

and strikethrough.

You write hope

only to scribble it out later

with thick, black lead.

You write love,

but the eraser-thinned paper gets

crumpled and thrown away.

My heart still reads

the impression

you left.

The Hanged Man

On By C. L. BlackeIn Bad PoetryLeave a comment

Four poster legs and sleep

in dark and loneliness.

Sacrifice for fire,

for you and for her.

A tear stained with life

hanging low from a beam,

drips suffering slow

to the iron-soaked earth.

It devours each day

the hunger never slaked.

Renewed with the stars,

there is no hope for me.

But peace replaces my guilt

for one day it ends.

You will be with her,

and I will be free.

Regrets, I Have a Few

On By C. L. BlackeIn RandomnessLeave a comment

Summer’s over and I have regrets. As I always do when I realize another season has passed that I didn’t take advantage of. And after each one is gone, I tell myself that I will write a list of everything I wished I’d done so that next year I won’t be such a slacker.

This is my list for Summer:

Pick strawberries, raspberries, blueberries

Buy fruits and vegetables from local farm stands and actually eat them

Rollerblade on the Norwuttuck Rail Trail every weekend

Visit the beach at least four times or, hell, even spend a week there to write my island murder mystery

Read more Ameila Peabody mysteries

Run in Stanley Park

Bake breads, cakes, cookies, and pies with the flavors of the season

Vacation in New Orleans to drink washing machine strawberry daiquiris, visit cities of the dead, bayous, and plantation homes while working on my psuedo-vampire novel (no, they’re not all the fluffy bunny sparkly sensitive types), and with any luck take in a Roller Derby game.

Sit on my flower-laden balcony on weekend mornings sipping hot chocolate eating freshly baked strawberry almond bread and enjoying the quiet of the morning while pretending I’m eating beignets

Sit on my balcony in the evenings sipping iced tea and eating cool lemon cookies with powdered sugar

Walk to the park to watch the city’s 4th of July fireworks

Get drunk off Watermelon-Lime Coolers and Raspberry Spritzers

Clean my house more

I think this is a good start for now. Luckily, New England has four somewhat distinct seasons, so there’s always something different to do every three months.

Maybe I should start working on my Autumn list now.