My new poem: ‘Am I even affected by this?’

Am I even affected by this?

A castle burns on a hill:
people and animals flee,
a sense of community is lost,
treasures are grabbed or forgotten.

There is a time of confusion:
easy pickings for roaming predators,
the end of a dynasty,
the end of so many stories.

With or without dragons, trolls, mages,
princesses, monks, lost prodigal sons
or armies of mercenaries transported by magic
from other realms,
this scene is played out
in so many ways: in old chronicles and newer content
for programs in the Television and Internet Age
…and in fantasy novels.

Am I even affected by this?

On page 57:  yes;
on page 163:  no;
on page 292:  possibly;
Final page:  yes.
Definitely:  Yes.

************

Note on the poem: several weeks ago I’d written about half of it and sketched out the main ideas, relating to both a classic kind of scene in fantasy fiction and my own questioning of reading habits, the nature of an individuals reading experience and how much or how little impact a scene can have ‘outside the book’, then tried to combine those two issues and play them against each other.

New reading/what I’m reading now

Another weekend trip to a branch of city library, more time in a shopping mall newsagency, so have some new reading:

• Latest issue of FilmInk magazine -has a feature on star actors who ’sank’ a whole film by bad performance and an interview-based piece on Viggo Mortensen, surely one of the more interesting and versatile A-list actors who really do deserve A-list cred;
• Collection of poems by New York-based poet John Ashbery: A Worldly Country -new poems (Ecco, 2007);
• The Writer’s Idea Workshop (2003, Writer’s Digest) by Jack Heffron -full of writing prompts and very readable style;
• Folk Tales of Pakistan – ed. L Komal

The writting book has already had some positive effect – this afternoon I kept the PC logged off for a bit longer and settled at table with notepad & pencil, did a bit of “getting it down on paper” re: making an actual record of new ideas when they’re fresh.

Books I’m reading/re-reading at the moment

Reading/re-reading

I’m on a non-fiction bender right now, plus some poetry :

* Stasiland, by Anna Funder -fascinating, bleak, vivid picture of various aspects of life in East Germany during the reign of the security regime created, managed and enforced by the Ministry of State Security, nicknamed Stasi.

* Sailing Alone Around the Room – collection of poems by former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins -excellent range of themes and forms, humour, deep and perceptive thoughts – all written in a very accessible style.

* Living Words: Journal Writing for self-discovery, insight and creativity by Stephanie Dowrick -interesting to read for its own sake, also has masses of exercises that can be a great help for writing personal non-fiction.

* Bird by Bird: some instructions on the writing life by Anne Lamott -first published in early 1990s, it’s now a classic writers’ guide, and like the best of them it stands up to a lot of re-reading as a personal story about how writing can be part of a life.

Poem: ‘Making time for writing on an overcast day’

Making time for writing on an overcast day

1.
A week ago, on a Sunday,
it was too hot to write;
today has been overcast and the demands
of indoor chores have threatened
to soak up the writing time.
What a bleak pattern!

2.
I re-read the first poem,
noticing the lines about moving to a new chair – check,
using a hard-topped table – check,
getting pen and paper – check,
committing to the essential action:
writing for the sake of writing.

3.
It worked.

4.
Again.

******************
NB: This poem relates to the one about writing on a really hot day, but is also about dealing with reasons for not writing, and trying to apply a few tips found in various writers’ guides. On this Sunday, the main tips I had in mind were about what writing material to use, staying away from computer for a while and the possible benefits resulting from shifting self to a different part of the house. Once again, Zen-style poems were a helpful guide for their in-the-moment emphasis and doing, not ‘trying’.

Poem: ‘Beginning new writing on a hot afternoon’

Beginning new writing on a hot afternoon

1.
The heat of the early afternoon
is too strong: it saps any urge to write.
Even the dog lies on its side – too hot to curl up.

2.
The heat of the late afternoon
is still strong, but I overcome my lethargy
by moving from a reading chair to a hard table,
by choosing some paper and a pencil
and by finally making new notes:
the beginning of new writing.

**************************

*****
NB: This poem was partly inspired by re-reading some Zen-style poems earlier today, and in this one, about writing during a very hot afternoon, I simply wanted to get at the ‘being in the moment’ aspect of Zen poems without being overly concerned about finer points of line length according to old stylistic rules or whether I heard one hand clapping or not.

New year, new chances for blogging

Happy New Year for 2009! Hope you had an enjoyable holiday if you took one.

I really didn’t think this blog would hibernate itself in Spring and a fair bit of the first half of Summer ‘08, or that so many daily activities, new movies and exciting, unusual experiences -including the birth of my first nephew – would be enjoyed but go un-blogged. Not totally unrecorded though, as I did end up writing a bit on my facebook profile, especially from early October onwards, following the big speculative fiction convention ‘Conflux5′  in my home city of Canberra.

Well, that was ‘08 and I’ll settle for writing a short retrospective post soon.

2009 offers a whole new range of bloggable life, and Molongloblogger itself is full of white space to fill. It’s also time to genuinely do something creative with my digital camera and re-read the blogging book I bought to help me master a bit more of this online medium, then start experimenting on a regular basis.

Cheers!

Things to look forward to for rest of 2008/next 6 months

Time to think of a few things in my life I’m looking forward to, for rest of 2008/next 6 months:

• Upcoming fantasy/science fiction/horror writers’ convention all through the October long weekend;
• Reading the new books, magazines I’m sure to buy during the convention;
• Warmer days in Spring, and more of them;
• Starting a new hobby/trying out a new interest group – e.g photography, after the recent photo exhibition I saw (see the post on ‘Picture Paradise’);
• Actually finishing the job of cleaning out top part of my wardrobe;
• Discussing my current book group novel, The Trout Opera with group members, later this month;
• Working on developing this blog a bit more, especially re: photo content.

I think that’s a good start.

Winter starts today

Winter starts today.

A new season to adjust to in Canberra: Winter. The last of the Autumn leaves are falling; many food and drink choices are changing in supermarkets and restaurants; indoor activities are becoming even more popular than in the last weeks of Autumn; heavier and warmer coats are needed for even short trips outdoors.

This evening felt like the right time to make baked pumpkin, and I decided to try one of the classic methods on cooking shows: cut up the pumpkin into chunks and put in open baking dish, drizzle a generous amount of olive oil over chunks and toss to coat evenly, add several sprigs of rosemary and cook uncovered in a hot (and pre-heated) oven -say 220 degrees celsius, for about 30 minutes. Very more-ish, and went well with spinach and pinenut sausages. I found the pumpkin at a growers’ market this morning and the sausages at a deli counter in a shopping mall earlier in the same weekend.

Simple pleasures in life

Some of my simple pleasures in life:a list in progress

Here’s a list from my original personal blog, with a few recent additions (in bold):

• Wading through rock-pools at a beach
• In a plane: the lifting feeling of the moment when the plane is half on the ground and half in the air
• Fish and chips in a park overlooking a beach
• Reading a new issue of a football/soccer magazine on a weekend morning
• Reading a new issue of a writers’ magazine on a weekend morning
• Finding a book that makes me think :”I wish I had found this before!”
• Going for walks in the Blue Mountains [in Australia]
• Cafe life on a weekend morning
• Reading a new issue of a travel magazine on a weekend morning
• The scent of real coffee when I open a new pack
• Discovering a cartoon that gives me a laugh and stays in my mind
• Daydreaming during my walks to and from work
• The smell of woodsmoke on a clear early-Autumn evening
• Visiting a beach after a year of living in an inland city
• The rose-yellow light of a very late Autumn afternoon in the Canberra area, especially when it shines through trees on a hillside
• Kicking through piles of Autumn leaves
• Eating fresh lemon gelati on a hot day
• A bowl of warmed fruit cake and custard on a cold night
• Discovering a fascinating blog, full of rich content, that matches one or more of my major interests and also inspires me to become an even better blogger
• A walking holiday in Blue Mountains in early Spring
• A string of postcard-perfect days for that same holiday
• Discovering a track I hadn’t walked before
  
• Looking through holiday photos I took myself and seeing the ones that really rewarded my efforts at composing a scene and learning about using the camera’s range of features