Would You Follow?

Bucking the tradition of the majority of American bloggers today, I am refraining from all talk of turkeys, cornucopias, Black Fridays and other Thanksgiving madness... But, as an aside, if you must be told to be thankful for something, how genuine can the sentiment truly be? Just saying.

Carrying on.

A writer’s trick I have availed myself of countless times is this… Read your story out loud. No matter if the manuscript is not done. Read whatever you have written. 

Listen to the way the words play together on the tongue. Pay attention to the flow your narrative voice commands. Does your dialogue sound really, truly, honest to goodness true-to-life? Would you roll your eyes if you overheard the conversation in an elevator? Or would you try to listen harder? Perhaps follow the couple off the lift just to hear what is spoken next?

A simple trick, yes, but one of my favorites.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Pandering, Scratching, Clawing

I’m an old hand at railing against mental illness. (Check the scar tissue around my eyes and heart.)

I’m also a reluctant but fair hand at pandering to the beast. (Scratching and clawing against a brick wall gets you nowhere, especially when given the option to simply walk around it and getting on with things.)

However, I am crap at doing either when faced with depression in a loved one.

I’m uber empathetic to it. Can even explain it rationally to myself and other bystanders. But to the one who suffers from it, I can communicate squat,

Impatience with the sufferer (however unfair)…

Fury at the beast (however deserving)…

Both are abundant in me, but neither helps.

Pandering and railing are so much easier.

Who knew?

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Presence

Late, but present…. This will be motto for the next few weeks, I’m afraid.

After two trips to the grocery store, hours elbows-deep in a sausage sourdough dressing (which is just now finally in the oven) and countless gymnastic maneuvers through touchy family dynamics, I am well and properly pooped.

Pooped without a single, solitary word written beyond this here blog.

So, thank you for your constant presence. At least I can take my writer out to play every day here.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Hammer Me Softly

As many of you are aware, when I travel I schmooze with classical music. Mozart and I have had a regular affair these last few months. Operas, chamber music and the like, we’ve had our share of brilliant times (in other words, he being brilliant and I being slack-jawed dumb. I stroked his ego. He stroked my fool. It worked for us, ok?)

Anyhow, as I tootled around the countryside yesterday I took up with a new beau… the classical piano solo.

Yes, he is rather broad, all-encompassing in scope it would seem. But to this former middle school drummer, his foreign nature intrigued me scandalously.

So, I danced with his man Bach and shared a brief kiss with Beethoven (who left me wanting more) before the trip sadly ended.

Why do I share this, you may ask? Because I learned something that translates quite beautifully to the craft of writing…

A harpsichord (the precursor to the piano) made its music by plucking strings. A piano, on the other hand, hammers the strings. Surprisingly, the act of plucking limits the sound the strings make. It can neither be made soft nor loud, for instance. Only hammering allows for this flexibility.

To a writer, words are very much the strings to our craft. Playing with them nicely, plucking them gently, is limiting. We must not be afraid to hammer them sharply, treat them boldly to get the most beauty, the most depth out of our “strings.”

Yeah, silly of me, I know. But what’s a little silliness amongst friends?

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Post-note: My travel blog “Tiptoeing Soul” on WordPress has been updated with a second post. My search for the best writing nooks in the world gains shape and form with “The Quirkiness of Place.”  Just in case, you can’t get enough of me. *winks*  https://tiptoeingsoul.wordpress.com/

Crisscrossed

The crisscrossing of the byways and highways of the American South has concluded for the day.

The body is bushed, the mind fried.

In an act of extreme kindness (or is it utter selfishness?) I am not going to force either of us through a real blog attempt.

You’re welcome.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Rusty Cracks

After a day of robust writing on Thursday, I floundered on Friday.

Totally.

I could blame many things for this flopping, including but not limited to:

a.) The smoking of my sewers… Yes, the city actually does that and did that here Friday. While I appreciate their efforts at potential leak management, panic-ridden smut writers just really can’t “get it on” during sewer games.

b.) A travel day lurking ahead… Sunday will once again find me “hop, skip and jump”ing across the region. Being a nervous little twit, anything “upcoming” upsets the psyche. Don’t ask. I have no idea.

c.) Thanksgiving looms… Any holiday revolving solely around eating and socializing is bad news, ok?

Yep, I could drag out any of those reasons and plop them ceremoniously on the altar of good excuses, but I won’t. I fear the truth is something much more embarrassing….

I am out of practice.  Fiction-writing has been put on the backburner so many times these last three months, I’ve simply forgotten how to do it regularly.

This is bad.

Fixable, but very, very bad.

I don’t like being rusty. I don’t like it at all.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Giving Head

I believe I’ve strained something.

Pulled a brain cell.

Sprained a lobe.

Whatever.

Stunning my four-legged, furry muse and myself yesterday, I actually got significant work done on 

The Hushing Days.

Really significant.

Really.

Unfortunately, this little trip into proper productivity has left the old grey matter hurting, aching, sputtering to a near stop. Stringing these few sentences together has taken an hour.

*sighs*

I’m off to ice my head.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe