Still Got It

Purging bookshelves

I came across a keeper:

Honey, I Love and other love poems

by Eloise Greenfield

(HarperCollins, 1978)

In it is one of my favorite poems:

Things

Went to the corner

Walked in the store

Bought me some candy

Ain't got it no more

Ain't got it no more

Went to the beach

Played on the shore

Built me a sandhouse

Ain't got it no more

Ain't got it no more

Went to the kitchen

Lay down on the floor

Made me a poem

Still got it

Still got it

xx

Endings

(see last post for the 'before' pic)

After all the mess

after all the ripping

and shredding

and wondering

and worry

and planning

and 

more ripping and shredding

ta da!

The ending:

so smooth

so seamless

so satisfying

and pleasing

you have to sit back

and marvel.

Well:

ideally.

xx

Middles

Sometimes 

you have to rip out

big chunks

of the story

in order to

fix

lumpy, bumpy bits.

(Meanwhile, this is what our driveway looks like today.)

Beginnings

Until you turn on the faucet

the bowl is empty

Until you read the first line

the story is empty

Here is a first line I like:

On a continent of many songs, in a country shaped like the arm of a tall guitarrista, the rain drummed down on the town of Temuco.

--from The Dreamer by Pam Munoz Ryan

Do you have a favorite first line?

The Great Unexpected

Some people fear the unexpected

but

sometimes

the unexpected

can be

great.

For some time, I've been wondering if we adults are passing along too many of our own post-911 fears to children, making them too wary of the unexpected, diminishing much of the joy in childhood.

That was one of the seeds for this book . . . 

Trees

Trees appear in most of my books

from the 'singing tree' 

in Walk Two Moons

to the blackbird trees

in The Great Unexpected

My characters, like me,

climb them

hide in them

hug them

kiss them

swing from them

leap from them

and

on one occasion

(do you know which book?)

chop one down

(sorry)

I

love

trees

Tall ones

short ones

skinny ones

fat ones

young and old

green and yellow

flowery and plain

Love those trees!

From every writing corner or room

I've ever worked in

at least one tree

has stood outside 

my window.

Last week in Maine

I entered the most beautiful gallery showing:

Joyce Tenneson's

Trees and the Alchemy of Light

Mixed media pieces:

photographs transformed 

with gold leaf

About thirty in all

at the Dowling-Walsh Gallery*

in Rockland, Maine

*Although the show has ended, some pieces remain in the gallery;

you can also learn more about Joyce Tenneson here 

Camden Harbor

Camden Harbor, Maine

Who owns these boats?

Who travels on them?

Families, friends?

Where do they go?

How did they learn to sail?

Each boat has so many stories

and if you are curious about them

you might be a writer.

Mm?