 For Authors: November 05, 2008 Issue [#2699] |
  For Authors
This week: Edited by: Fyn  
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“Someone asked someone who was about my age: "How are you?" The answer was, "Fine. If you don't ask for details."”~~Katharine Hepburn
“It's the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.”~~John Wooden
“Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.”~~Ernest Hemingway
“The great successful men of the world have used their imaginations... they think ahead and create their mental picture, and the go to work materializing that picture in all its details, filling in here, adding a little there, altering this a bit and that a bit, but steadily building / steadily building.”~~Robert Collier
“The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.”~~William Morris
“A mountain is composed of tiny grains of earth. The ocean is made up of tiny drops of water. Even so, life is but an endless series of little details, actions, speeches, and thoughts. And the consequences whether good or bad of even the least of them are far-reaching.”~~Swami Sivananda
“The remarkable thing is that it is the crowded life that is most easily remembered. A life full of turns, achievements, disappointments, surprises, and crises is a life full of landmarks. The empty life has even its few details blurred, and cannot be remembered with certainty.”~~Eric Hoffer |
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More observations from the convenience store.....
When one lives their working life clad in a yellow shirt and black pants day in and day out, one tends to notice what the customers who come into my store are wearing. They actually get to choose what they will wear on any given day.
If someone comes in wearing their 'power suit,' I will usually comment on how fabulous they look. The smiles and the slightly taller stance send them out the door with a smile and a great attitude. Amazing what a few little words can do.
I always smile when I see the jammy clad, bunny slipper-wearing crowd. They usually are only half awake, crowned with bed-head hair and looking all cozy and comfy. I'll tell them it isn't fair to look THAT comfy. Always good for a smile. It is usually followed by a comment that it is their day off. More smiles.
Hunters in full camouflage come in striding (I got an 11 point buck!) or plodding (I didn't see a flipping thing.) or full of purpose and anticipation as they are heading out.
Precise elderly ladies with their hats and gloves, a lacy scarf around their necks, pearl earrings and comfortable shoes on a day out in town. They always wish to use the bathroom, always come out commenting on how clean it is (the word clean said in italics) and often are not quite sure exactly how to gauge how much gas or where to slide their credit card. They leave with wafts of Este Lauder or Timeless lingering behind them.
It is always fun to see what the painting contingent is wearing. I've never been quite sure why painters wear white overalls unless it is to let the world know that today they are using green or yellow or cranberry paint. The crew in one day this week looked as if they'd been in a paint fight with pink and purple paint. Turns out a seven year old managed to tip over a ladder, knocking an in-room scaffold flying, and sending three painters to the drop cloth below. *Can only imagine THAT mess!*
The kids come in on their way to school. 'Clash' must be in this year. It is so easy to tell when the parental unit has stopped buying the kid's clothing, or, perhaps, isn't home when the children leave for school!
Tired, bleary-eyed people on a mission to the coffee counter. Hyper teens on a bee-line for more energy drinks. Kids picking one of this and three of that at the candy counter, coins clutched in their hand. Adults picking two of this and five of that and three, no, four of the other one as they choose their lottery scratch offs. We sometimes don't change all that much as we age. *smiles*
Details. Lots of details. I like to think of a book being along the lines of the nursery room where the toys all come to life when no one is near. The characters continue on with their lives; sleeping, eating, shopping, loving, fighting, dressing, going to and from work. The characters have a life that freezes into position when we flip the book open. Their lives have details beyond the storyline. As do the ones we've yet to set on paper. They have a multitude of backstories that make them every bit as much who they are as our own lives, events, and stories make us who we are.
This is something writers often miss when creating their characters. A well rounded character has a life. They've experienced a plethora of events which have molded them into who they are at every given point. Just because we, as writers, start to tell a specific story in their lives, doesn't mean that their isn't much, much more that we need to keep in the back of our minds as we tell 'this' specific story.
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bobneH .. aka.. just bob  wrote:(A couple of weeks ago, I was requested to take part in an evening of poetry reading in a small tea house in Lansing, Michigan.)...
Oh-my. Reminds me of my old 'Beatnic' days in a coffee house near the U of Utah... ooops. did I reveal my age?
Um...could be...*grin* Hopefully you will consider doing it now!
Zeke  wrote:While I never have pictured myself as a poet, your description of this evening in Lansing was inspiring. I have written a small group of poems that seemed to have just popped up in my imagination while I was writing something else.
Poetry truly is the painting of a writer.
Thank you.
You are most welcome. Always happy to help give a muse a kickstart!
As a side note, I was invited back to another one and again, it was a lot of fun, inspiring and eye-opening. If you live near lansing, Michigan, there's going to be another one on November 22nd at 8pm. Sure woud love to see some more WDC fok there! |
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