Future Spawn

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A year ago today, I was lucky enough to be chosen to participate in the first annual Story Summit upon a Royal Caribbean cruise ship. We sailed to the Caribbean for an immersive 5 day mentoring experience with some of the worlds most talented authors, screenwriters, and industry professionals. One week later the world would stop due to COVID-19, but the relationships begun on that trip would not stop. Books would be published, screenplays optioned, and the support and encouragement for all of the participants would continue. I count it as the absolute best thing that happened in 2020.

Since that time, another (COVID safe) summit was held at Cape Cod and a Writer’s School was developed with a wide array of classes and phenomenal teachers. Tonight we’re celebrating our 1st birthday by getting together via Zoom to reminisce, catch up and celebrate the Story Summit and all the learning, joy, success and camaraderie it has brought us.

Today’s Carol and Emily poem speaks of sailed toward dreams and that’s exactly what we were all doing on that cruise, working on our projects and trying to create our own individual future spawns.

Of course no one is cruising now, but whatever your dreams are, I hope you’re sailing (figuratively) towards them.

Artwork -R. L. Lewis

Not Anyone’s Spiritless Girl

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Emily Dickinson, known by most as only a reclusive eccentric, lived life her own way, just as everyone should. By all accounts, and as her poetry reveals, she was the farthest possible thing from spiritless. Not only did she defy the traditional role of women during her time, but she wrote poetry in her own unique style and by her own rules. Today’s offering speaks for both of us.

Perseverance

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No, I’m not referring to the famed Mars rover that just touched down yesterday after a more than 6 month journey. But how amazing is that? I’m talking about the fact that Emily Dickinson continued to prolifically write, even in the face of no real encouragement from her parents or those in the publishing world at the time. Only 7 of her poems were published during her lifetime, but writing was a passion she could not let die, a flower she continued to nurture, a hunger unabated.

I can be really hard on myself at times for not meeting goals I’ve set. Like on this project, where my goal is 5 poems a day and I’m dreadfully behind. But I am pretty proud of the fact that I’ve continued to write publicly for the past 11 years. I have persevered, even when my stats or followers didn’t sky rocket. I’ve been honest about times when the words wouldn’t come, but I’ve never given in to thinking it wasn’t worth it. Even if no one ever read my words, like Emily, I still need to write them.

When I taught 6th grade, I constantly encouraged kids to persevere in the face of difficulty, telling them that quitting was the only way to fail. Like the NASA engineers who had to wait 6 months to see if they would be successful in landing the rover on Mars, we may not immediately know the full impact our words, our art or our work, but we only fail if we stop doing it. So hang in there. I’m rooting for you, and I hope you are for me too.

Here’s today’s offering, which includes a reference to Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle.

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It’s Either The Guinea or Me

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Today has just been one of those days. Because I’m trying to “branch out ” and be more creative, I dug out some watercolor colored pencils that I’m not even sure why I have. I’ve never used them before, but they’ve clearly been used at least once so that’s a mystery. I figured if W (former President George W. Bush) could take up painting portraits in his 60s, then I could attempt to paint some simple blue flowers in a grassy green field to accompany mine and Emily’s poem about gentian flowers. I was right! I could attempt it, but my effort would ultimately end up in the trash can. No biggie, none of us can be immediately proficient at everything they try. I’m probably just in need of some quality instruction. I’ll search on You Tube later.

I fumbled around with my scrapbook supplies and finished 3 more project pages before I hit the proverbial wall. Of nothingness. Took a walk, got the blood moving, and still nothing. Got distracted by social media, pulled myself back to business and reworked some poems for another project. I got 3 of 4 poems scheduled for posting on that blog, but for some reason, everytime I tried to preview this one certain poem titled “Words”, the preview would only show the title. It happened again and again despite page refreshes and computer reboots. Any other poem of mine would work, just not that one. So weird. I finally just gave up, turned on a Netflix show, got sleepy and took a nap.

Now, naps aren’t usually my thing because I never seem to wake up refreshed. My husband is the King of Power Naps and wakes up like he’s been juiced and ready to run a marathon. I, on the other hand have had few restorative/delicious naps in my lifetime. Today’s was not one of those and upon awakening, the afternoon had turned dreary-chilly and didn’t contribute anything positive to my mood. Whenever I get like “that” my husband does his SNL Debbie Downer impression, which is really quite good. It always makes me laugh. He always makes me laugh. That’s one of the many reasons I keep him.

Today’s offering to the project contains a little bit of dark humor about a chicken who’d had it with a guinea fowl’s noisiness and begged me to end his suffering…

Making The Best of A Pandemic Fat Tuesday

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I love the fact that folks in NOLA are decorating their porches and yards. Seeing them, even from far away through the magic of satellites and video imagery puts a little joy in my heart. No parades this year, but we can still mask up and go get the King Cake, dig out our beads and the red Solo cups and pretend we are just as happy being wherever we are. Personally I’d be happier if this pandemic was over and I could safely travel to hug my kids and grandkids. That in itself would be worthy of a parade!

As it is, I’m extremely happy and grateful that it’s 68 degrees here and that I have power, unlike so many millions across the country today. I’m currently in my home office, listening to my ocean sound machine and just completed 5 more poems for the project.

Speaking of my home office, I had to devise a new system for letting my husband know I’m in the creative zone and shouldn’t be disturbed. Yesterday I got a little finger-tapping- impatient with him when he burst in and started “sharing” something with me while I was trying to write. I did have the door closed, but that was also because we had a service person here about our AC and I wanted to isolate myself.

The good news is that this pandemic has given us lots and lots of together time. The bad news is that this pandemic has given us lots and lots of together time… So, there I sat at my computer desk, listening to him share the details of a frustrating phone call and a few minutes in I started tapping my fingers as if impatient. I swore I didn’t mean to. It just happened, and well, you can imagine the rest. So now I have a new system. If my office door is closed AND has a scrunchie on it, (hearkening back to college days) that means Please Do Not Disturb.

I hope you can think of something to celebrate today. Maybe just that it’s Tuesday and one day closer to the weekend, maybe your kid completed their virtual school session without tears, or maybe you got a vaccine appointment for you or someone you love. Maybe you just kept it together on this 340th day since the US Covid crisis began. Tell Alexa to turn up the tunes and have a little conga line parade in your house.

Here’s today’s Carol and Emily offering.

My Eyes Have Always Been Bigger Than My Stomach

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Today is Day 28 of The Carol and Emily Project and I should have 140 poems completed. I have 40, five of which I wrote this morning between the hours of 2 and 4 AM. It’s a good thing I don’t have an agent pushing me to produce and stay on schedule (yet). Actually, I do work best under pressure. (Email me if you’re into being a pushy agent.) I also tend to think I can do it all because I have done it all for most of my life. Putting your butt in the chair is the place to start, but that doesn’t guarantee creativity will be responsive when you call.

A little voice inside says I’ve bitten off more than I can chew and another little voice says shut the hell up and just write. So that’s what I’m doing. I did go back to sleep for a couple of hours, conquered some housework/laundry, had a virtual home-school session with a grandson via Zoom and then hit the notebook/computer again.

I’ll be sharing at least one new poem every day. I hope you’re interested enough to follow along and see what becomes of it all.

The Start

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On January 17th I raided my husband’s office supply drawer and found a blank engineer’s computation book that I deemed perfect for starting this poetry/art project. It has numbered pages and graph lines and I got super excited. Emily wrote her poems on the back of used envelopes and random small pieces of paper, so that’s what I’ll be doing as well. This project is uber challenging, not only because of the sheer number of poems I’ve committed to writing, but also because hardly anyone writes letters anymore so my envelope choices are limited. Oh, and then there’s the fact that I’m not all that artistically inclined. But that’s the thing, I’m trying to stretch myself and my creativity, so you’re going to undoubtedly see some truly elementary attempts. Here’s the first poem I wrote using Emily’s first line “Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine” inspired by events on January 7th…