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Just a Place to Throw Out A Thought or Two |
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Katz' Musings ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** This is just a place where I can throw out a few thoughts now and then. There won't be much in the way of daily stuff here. I still do all of my daily journaling by hand with pens in a rainbow of bright and beautiful colors in lovely, cloth bound journal books. There is something wonderfully cathartic about the act of picking up a pen that fits exactly so into the hand and putting it to paper. The scratch of the nib against the paper. The miracle of words flowing across the page. It gives me a feeling of comfort and peace that soothes and calms. By the time I fill three or four pages it seems all of my worries and problems have shrunk once again to a manageable size So while computers are a marvel of this age, and a vital tool for my writing, my daily journaling will always find itself tucked between the covers of my hard-bound journals. Katz >^. .^< ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| The setting sun lent fire to Lynnelle’s gossamer wings. The tiny fairey flitted through the lush, flower-filled meadow herding her charges toward home. Reluctant they hung back. Enchanted by the fluttering butterflies and the flowers dancing in the evening breeze the immature faireys dawdled and played. Their delighted laughter harmonized with the songs of the meadow birds returning to the trees to settle in for the night. The ladybug-sized fairey children twirled and gaped in awe and the lovely world around them, and ignored their caretaker’s urgent cries to return home to safety. Lynnelle, growing more and more panicked, scolded and cajoled all to no avail. The too-young fairey children didn't remember the slaughter of their parents, caught out after moon rise, and the gorging of night owls feasting on delicate fairey flesh. Lynelle remembered each horrifying second. The screams. The screeching owls. The paralyzing grief. The unbearable loss. “They’ll not feast on my children!” She shook her fists and swore a vow. “Pleeeeease, hurry!” Lynnelle begged as they all neared the hidden entry to their home. The Victorian button-shoe, forgotten ages ago, rested at the edge of the enchanted meadow. Protected by fairey magic it remained as pristine as the day a naughty young lady tossed it aside to run barefoot in the meadow grass. Over the eons fairey mothers had transformed it into a sung nursery for their young. A last ray of sunlight speared through the trees. The children stopped and stared. On the far horizon the edge of the moon pushed the day away. In the distance, Lynnelle heard the rustling of great white wings. Desperate she ripped a willow withy from a sapling and flew at the fairey children screaming at them to run. Fear surged through her veins and strengthened her arms. Using the withy as a whip she thrashed the children’s heels sending flicks of pain up their little legs. They cried and sobbed in shocked disbelief, but they ran. A dark shadow drifted overhead as they stumbled to the shoe and tumbled in. An angry screech split the air when Lynnell snatched up the smallest girl child and darted into safety. She sighed in relief as magic buttoned up the shoe and locked all danger out. “Come my darlings! I’m so sorry.” Lynelle gathered the trembling, sobbing little ones close. “You wouldn’t listen, and the owls were coming.” She cuddled each tiny fairey child and gave each one a cup of warm broth laced with wild honey. She smoothed each set of wing-buds down each child’s back and tucked them, child by child, into their cocoon-shaped beds with kisses, and hugs, and words of love. “I love you my dear one!” She whispered in each pair of ears. “Sleep long and dream sweet dreams.” Faint murmured replies and little giggles wafted on the air as the sleepy fairey children drifted into Dreamland. When all was quiet, the exhausted grandmother sank into a cushioned rocker, content with the knowledge, that when her charges next awoke their wings would be fully formed and strong enough to carry them safely away from harm.  Katz >^. .^< ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| Song birds sprinkle the air with cheerful wake-up calls. The rising sun gilds the sky in a lavish display of pink, lavender, and coral. Warm fingers of light skip through cracks in the blinds and dance on my eyelids. A moment later a raspy tongue sands my cheek and kitty whiskers tickle my nose. A cool breeze flutters the lace curtains, making them drift like ghosts on parade. I cuddle an energetic kitty or two and savor the luxury of slowly waking before stepping out of bed. My feet sink into a thick fur rug. Bouncing furballs, hoping for breakfast and a morning romp outdoors, slip and slide across the polished hardwood floor and trip over themselves and my feet as we descend the narrow stairway, the banister glowing, shined by decades of hands gliding up and down. The morning sun brightens the entry and the kitchen beyond. Tea started and toast warming, the cats are fed and petted. The windows are wide open and the day washes the kitchen with a warm glow. Tea and toast in vintage dishes of red and white are plopped on a wood tray with a bowl of fresh strawberries and peaches. The kitties follow me out to a mosaic table surrounded by a small bench and a pair of matching chairs under an arbor in the garden. They romp and play, and I sit and enjoy breakfast. Butterflies dance through the rainbow of flowers flowing down a small terrace, and bees hum in the nearby orchard. It’s way too nice to work indoors, so after breakfast and a quick clean up, I take my laptop out to the garden and set up at the little table in the shade. The kitties curl up on the bench cushion beside me for their morning nap. My fingers dance across the keyboard as I trade the garden for the worlds living in my imagination. They come to life on my screen. Mid-day brings neighbors wandering by for a bite and a chat, or maybe a trip into the village for dining in the local café. After lunch there is time for a long walk or a stroll to the village for a bit of shopping. Late afternoon is for gardening, or painting, or sewing, or baking, or just lazing around and soaking up the beauty of the day. Early evening means a light supper back out in the garden and watching the sun set. After supper on weekdays means reading, or watching a movie on DVD, or correspondence, or time with friends, or if a story is really flowing more writing. Weekend evenings mean music and laughter at the pub, or small gatherings with friends, or maybe a trip into the city for dinner and a show. This is how I would love to spend my days, in my own little English or Irish cottage in a small village where the sounds of the morning are not marred by traffic roaring by, or urgent business demands, or people too immersed in going wherever to take the time to enjoy the people and things right in front of their noses. It’s long been my dream to live in a small village in Great Britain or Ireland where just about everything is within walking distance, and my cottage is far enough from the village to feel rural, but not so far that it is a trial to get the things I need and to socialize a bit. I’d be making enough of a living off of my writing and my art, so I wasn’t spending my days selling my hours and my energy to make ends meet. While I doubt I’ll ever get to reside is a centuries old cottage on the other side of the Atlantic, I do now live in a delightful little duplex that is 102 years old, in a historical preservation area that feels much like a small town of the 1930’s. I only have one kitty, but my place is too small for two. I do have to work a full time job to make ends meet – but it suits me well – and my weekends and evenings are somewhat close to those I described above. Realistically, right now my life is as close to my ideal as I am able to make it, and I am delighted to have it so! Of course, if the opportunity ever comes to live my perfect life, I will not pass it up!  Katz >^. .^< ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| When I read Ms. Karen's prompt for this entry, I had no trouble picking my favorite story and my favorite quote from that story. I love one of my earliest, and long, unfinished novels, The Cat, The Dragon, and A Rose best of all of the stories I've ever written. The characters in this story are far and away my favorites. I love them all too much to ever say good bye to them, which is probably the number one reason I've never finished this novel. I have one earlier novel - also unfinished - handwritten and started in the days before there was such a thing as a personal computer. In spite of losing everything I owned, three different times in my life, I managed to hang on to the tattered, green cloth-bound ledger book that I scribbled the general outline, character and world building sketches, as well as the early chapters in. But that is another story, and I'm getting side-tracked wandering down memory lane. Back to Clarissa, Ebinezer, Cookie, Carley, and of course Starfire, the great sapphire dragon. When I got ready to write this entry, I actually panicked for a few moments thinking I'd lost the chapter where my favorite quote is. I couldn't find it on my computer or my thumb drive. My heart sunk. At one time I had copies of everything I'd written, and committed to a computer file, in an e-mail account on Yahoo.com. I'd put it all there in the days when Yahoo said they'd never delete any of one's e-mails, thinking it would always be safe. Unfortunately, I didn't visit that account for too long and Yahoo.com come deleted it. I even dug out my old writer's notebook for that novel hoping I'd actually printed out a hard copy. No go. I sat here for a few moments with sorrow weighing down my heart and soul. A piece rewritten because the original was lost is never quite as good as the original was. Fortunately it was once of the chapters I'd typed into my port here on WDC. What A Relief!!!! That chapter is the most pivotal point in the entire story, the point when Clarissa meets Starfire face to face and finally acknowledges that dragons are real. As they are talking Starfire seeks to encourage Clarissa and tells her this: Dragons answer the call of the imagination, not the demands of the will. Your imagination is the greatest gift you have. It reaches out in every direction. It calls beauty and wonder to itself. It opens your heart and soul to the greater possibilities of life, but you have to be willing to accept as real the wonders your imagination brings to you. I think it was as I wrote these words that I finally really accepted deep down within my soul, that I can write and write well, and that my stories have meaning and touch hearts and souls of those who read them. From that point on not only my writing, but everything in my entire life, started changing and changing for the better. The life I live now is very close to the dreams I had as a young girl and despaired of ever becoming a reality. I can't ever begin to communicate how content and at peace I am now in my life and my life style. It is exactly right for me. What a wonder it is to be able to pinpoint the exact moment when my dreams started becoming a reality. Another thing that is special about this quote for me, is that these words finally convinced someone who was very dear to me that my writing was more than a whimsical hobby I boasted about make myself seem more than I really was. The words he wrote to me after reading that chapter still glow in my heart and soul. He told me he now understood that I had a talent and a special gift in my writing and he was sorry he had not understood that much sooner. Another healing that began the moment I penned those words. When I go back and visit Clarissa and Ebinezer and Starfire I see a ton of editing and proofreading that needs to be done. The chapters are filled with passive verbs and verb-phrases that make me cringe when I read them and a multitude of adverb ending the the dreaded LY that would make even the most tolerant editor roll his eyes and sigh with exasperation. I can hear many of my past students laughing and saying, "You! You have that many passives in your work and you jumped all over us about using them!" Dear students, I can can only beg you all to remember that in the days when this story was first penned passive verbs and ly adverbs were considered not only proper but an "educated" way of writing. I can only say, the only reason I haven't gone in and weeded all those nasty passives and flagrant ly's out, is that I' will get lost in that story and probably not come up for months or even years once I plunge back into Clarissa's world. I think one of the reasons I hesitate to finish her story is that in so many ways Clarissa is who I was as a young girl. There is a distant part of me that fears that once Clarissa grows up that last vestige of my inner young girl will never be quite the same. Silly! I know! But there it is just the same. If you want to read a bit more about Clarissa, here is the link.
Please do us both a favor should you ever be moved to review that thing - don't bother commenting all all the passive verbs and redundant adverbs. I know they are there, and I know they need to be purged. I might even actually do it one day. Until then I'm content to visit my beloved characters and lose myself in their world and their story. And for those of you who have taken my Spotlight on Character course, yes, this is the dragon I learned to see standing in my front yard that helped me understand exactly how to write a real, believable character, even if he is an immense, sapphire blue, fire-breathing dragon. Katz >^. .^< ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| He sat quiet, in a corner watching the world go by, the city sounds subdued. In the distance the bass thunder of a dozen struggling rock bands in a dozen cheap night clubs bounced off the canyon-like walls of towering offices and worn-down tenements. She strode across his field of vision, exotic, elegant, and rare. She looked neither right nor left, just walked as if she owned the world. His eyes followed her sleek, sensuous form. She moved like fine silk in a breeze, effortless, seductive without meaning to be. Her blue eyes shone, sapphire beacons in a dark world. Her scent, a siren song of delight. Stealthful movement among the shadows told him others followed her progress. Spectral eyes, amber and green, leered in the ambient light filtering down from a full moon dimmed by city dust and car exhaust. Danger stalked her on lustful feet. Fear pulsed in his heart. She paused in a pool of light. Beautiful, her sleek body garbed in creamy white that highlighted a sable dark face and limbs. Where did she come from? he wondered. She doesn’t belong here! Danger crept closer. A slamming door! Pounding feet! She froze! Run! His mind screamed. She relaxed. No! Run! A joyous voice called. “Here she is!” A chorus of angry growls burst from the throats of thwarted suitors. A tall form blocked his view. A whispering murmur pierced his panic. “Jessica! You naughty girl! I’ve been looking all over for you. Why did you jump out of the car?” A well dressed, young man bent and scooped up the Siamese. Contented purring drifted on the air as she disappeared from his view. He sighed. The disgruntled toms slunk off into the night searching for willing partners. In the still night his battered lid reflected the sputtering light from a dying street lamp. Katz >^. .^< ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| “A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket.” ~Charles Peguy I can't say I've ever pulled any words out of a coat pocket, but I've sure pulled them from just about everywhere else in my life ~ especially out of my soul, maybe even particularly out of my soul. But then I think we writers leave a little bit of our souls in everything we write that really matters to us, from the very best story we ever wrote to a simple e-mail thanking a friend for their kindness and thoughtfulness. Just this morning, I wrote a note for my granddaughter to go with her graduation ~ from high school ~ gift. I struggled for a bit to find just the right words to let her know how proud of her I am and how much I love her, and to add just a hint of fun and laughter. You can bet I dumped a load of soul into that one. It was worth it too. The smile on her face and the way she carefully tucked the card and the check I gave her in her purse told me she got the pride and love part. The way she snatched her keys out of that same purse to add one of the silly, pink and purple, horse key toppers, I found at a store last night, to her house keys right then and there told me she got the fun part and appreciated that I remembered how much she loves horses. Then she took the time to show me all of her prom and her vacation pictures she has on her phone. Yeah, it was definitely worth losing a tiny bit of soul, to create that lasting snippet of memory for her, for me, and for my daughter. And that was just a little note with a few sentences. But what about the rest of my writing? I studied art as a young person, and I'm very visual in all I do. I see colors almost the way a person with perfect pitch hears music. It is a miraculous act of creativity for an artist to take a blank canvas or sheet of drawing paper and transform it with color, tone, shading, and depth to bring forth a beautiful work of art. I feel that way about writing too. I liken the words a writer uses to the paints and pigments an artist uses. The challenge is the same ~ take a blank page or an empty computer screen and fill it with a masterpiece of creativity. The words a writer uses paint the scenes, reveal the characters, evoke the emotions, and open new worlds for the readers are the colors, depth and tones that bring the imaginary to life and create a masterpiece. This is a magical miracle I can never get enough of from picking up a book to read and relax with to laying down the plots and writing out the stories that live inside of me. When I begin to choose my words they come from everywhere. The words that paint my scenes come form the everyday beauty I see around me. The words that reveal my characters come from the people in my life, starting from those I love the best all the way down to those I pass casually on the street and everyone in between. The words that evoke emotions come from my heart. And the words that throw open wonderful new words and create new experiences come form my soul. They all tumble onto the page in a bright frenzy that somehow assembles itself into something amazing. Every now and then I go back and read things I wrote a while ago. Sometimes, I think, Oh My Word! This one needs a good strong rewrite! More often though, I think, Wow! Where did that come from? And then I say thank you to God and the universe for allowing me to be the conduit that brings those tales to life. Is one source of my words more important than another? No, as odd as that may sound, I don't think so. I believe, like an artist, a writer must have a well stocked box of supplies in order to ply her trade and share her visions. An artist can draw an enchanting picture with a schoolchild's first box of eight crayons, but give him an overflowing tray of paints and a good-sized pallet to mix them on and a masterpiece will flow from his fingers. It's the same with writers. You can write a nice letter or tell a little tale with a few basic words that any child can understand. But throw open the dictionary and empty out your heart and soul and a masterpiece can flow from your fingers too. Not everything we write is or can be a masterpiece. But, fill what we write with the best of ourselves and what we write will be a miracle, just like a simple note to a young lady on a Saturday breakfast outing was this morning. Happy Writing! Katz >^. .^< ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** I've been asked several times over the years why I give so much time and energy to New Horizons Academy. Mostly, because I want to. But of course the next question is always, "Why do you want to?" To answer that one, we have to go back a few decades. Yup! I'm getting up there in years.I came from a family situation where we had enough to meet everyday needs, but nothing for the luxury of professionally taught art or writing classes. I begged. I pleaded. I prayed. I promised never to ask for anything else - ever. But . . . No classes. Money doesn't grow on trees. (I hated it when my mother said things like that!) We didn't have any trees worth mentioning even if it did. I would have done any thing to get good teaching - especially in my early writing days. But that was long before anyone even conceived of a personal computer or the internet. I never lost my desire to write or to draw and paint. I took classes in school and got plenty of art training early on, but not much in the way of creative writing. Not until the college courses I took over the years as an adult. But even those weren't quite what I was looking for. Then came the internet. A whole new world opened up for me. I learned more about writing, and writing well, from the people in the various writing groups I joined. Eventually, I stumbled onto Writing.Com. I first was a student at the, now defunct, A1 Writing Academy. I learned a great deal from the folks who donated their time and experience to aspiring writers there. Enough so, a year later the director drafted me to become an instructor. I can't even begin to say how much I learned as I taught, and still learn as I teach, and what a wonderful feeling it is to be able to give to others what I craved so much and for so long as a young person. In my life, I've been given so many things that I never dreamed I'd ever be able have. As my way of saying Thank You, I give to others whenever I can. It seems though - especially at New Horizons Academy - that I always end up receiving much more than I give. Each writer striving to grow and improve, that I work with, challenges me to find ways to help him or her understand what I have to share and how to apply it to their work. In meeting that challenge I learn and grow myself. Even more exciting is seeing students take each step forward, seeing their work glimmer and shine, and having them tell me how much our time together helped them. That makes every effort I put forth and all the time I spend more than worth it all. And, in a way, I am making the dreams of the young girl that I was come true.  If I can help even one young person achieve their dream of learning, I've done more that I ever dreamed I would.And that is why I teach at New Horizons Academy. Katz >^. .^< ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
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