Reflections and ruminations from a modern day Alice - Life is Wonderland |
Reflections and ruminations from a modern day Alice - Life is Wonderland ![]() Welcome to the place were I chronicle my own falls down dark holes and adventures chasing white rabbits! Come on In, Take a Bite, You Never Know What You May Find... "Curiouser and curiouser." Alice in Wonderland ** Image ID #1701066 Unavailable ** |
30 Day Blogging Challenge PROMPT January 14th “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” -Ernest Hemingway What are your thoughts on this quote by a writer many consider a master? Who are some other writers you admire or consider masters? I love prompts like this because I get to talk about those authors I consider masters of their crafts and it feels a lot like paying them homage in exchange for having given me such inspiration. So the opinions expressed here are solely mine... I love the classical writers first and foremost. They crafted stories that lived beyond their time and place. C.S. Lewis is unmatched in his imaginative storytelling. Anis Nin and DH Lawrence are the keystones of their genres, both of them are pioneers for all those romance and erotica writers who have found success since their works were published, banned and republished. My favorite among these classical master is Gabriel Garcia Marquez. His words are beautiful and full of such color and life. The first time I read his "Love in a Time of Cholera", I was completely awed at his amazing prose: “To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else's heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.” ― Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera Aside from those classical writers, I have long list of active and prolific writers I consider to be masters at their crafts. For the sake of not writing a novel here, I'll just gush about a few.... James Lee Burke had the ability to transport his readers to locations and places where your senses seem to delight with the sounds and smells all around you. His characters are quirky and memorable, easy to invest in and care about from the very beginning. They are compelling enough to keep you coming back, novel after novel. This is a writer at the very top of his game. The very first line of the very first novel I read, Tin Roof Blowdown, took my breath away with the visceral melody of his prose: "My worst dreams have always contained images of brown water and fields of elephant grass and the downdraft of helicopter blades. The dreams are in color but they contain no sound, not of drowned voices in the river or the explosions under the hooches in the village we burned or the thropping of the Jolly Green and the gunships coming low and flat across the canopy, like insects pasted against a molten sun." Tin Roof Blow Down Mo Hader is another of my favorites. She has a very sharp and unforgiving style. Her stories stay with you, beyond the last strains of the final chapter. She has a great hook...and then delivers a full fleshed out, uniquely original story. "The Devil of Nanking" was one of the first novels I've read from this British crime author and it has never left me completely. It is not for the faint of heart but there is simply amazing writing throughout, stunning in all its horror and its grief. Lastly, I love Gillian Flynn's twisted talent. She is a master of creating those characters we hate to love. Her beautiful prose always belays the darkness of our natures. She lurks you in and keeps you hooked until that final gut punch at the end. She's just amazing and dark and gorgeously demented. I love all her books but Dark Places and Sharp Objects are my favorites. |
30 Day Blogging Challenge PROMPT January 13th Open your local paper or browse online for a news story headline that grabs your attention and share it with us. Try to venture outside your comfort zone and read a story you wouldn’t normally read or even one from another country! I'm playing catch up from the weekend here, it is hard for me to blog on the weekends so I try to catch up on Monday morning on the two prompts I miss. I don't typically get the newspaper but I do read the news online. I actually get the bulk of my new from listening to NPR. I listen to it a little obsessively at times. I love NPR because they cover the world, not just the same stories as the other national news channels. They have journalists going all over the globe to pursue stories I really don't hear covered anywhere else. This past weekend I hear stories from the front lines of the immigration debate...a family of immigrants waiting on asylum on the other side of the wall. It is these kind of stories that catch my attention, the personal stories behind the political grandstanding. It is particularly moving to hear the interviews, to know that there is a journalist standing with them in the shadow of the border, capturing their story first hand. I'm always impressed by the compassion and honestly the NPR journalists convey during their story making. There are many times I'm listening in my car and even if I've reached my ultimate destination, I sit there and continue to listen. It is news but it is also compelling story telling at the same time. |
30-Day Blogging Challenge PROMPT January 12th Besides the craft of writing, are you an artist in any other medium? Sculptor, singer, dancer, painter? Share a story about your talent! Aaaannnnd... I’ll be awarding another MB this Creation Saturday! When I was in college, I used to spend some time drawing. I like pen and ink and using colored pencils. My subjects were usually fish and mermaids...highly fanciful depictions of sea life. My grandmother and mother were artists, they both worked with acrylic and oil paints. I found it relaxing but it didn't fulfill me in the same way writing did. These days I am lucky to find the time to express myself in one craft so I stick to writing. It is the best medium to express my creativity. |