Pressing On

Monday's Fair Light-- The Art of Daydreaming

In the coming weeks, I'm going to be making changes to the blog. I will be moving it and streamlining. In preparation, I was reading back through the archives and found a few that spoke to me.

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Originally published March 23, 2009

Shush, woman daydreaming.

Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits. ~Satchel Paige.

I still, after all these years, tend to feel guilty for my strong requirement for time alone to do nothing other than daydream. The world worships goals and productivity. One does not see books with titles such as "7 Habits of Highly Inefficient Daydreamers."

"I was so busy today," seems to be the modern, and expected refrain. This is perfectly acceptable, however, to say, "You know I chose not to do anything or to see anyone today, I did not even answer my phone," is taken as highly unusual, if not suspect.

One day last week, I realized I was angry. In the way I have learned to deal with this, I asked myself, "Honey, what's going on with you?"

The whisper came: "Doing too much. Time to relax and rest."

Ah. I had been trying to keep up with the 'Jones' in many areas, losing myself in the process. Time to get back to me. Time to refill the well, as it is known in writer talk.

He that can take rest is greater than he that can take cities. ~Benjamin Franklin.

It is an art to be cultivated, this resting. Not sleeping, which I very often have done because it seems productive, and an unobtrusive way to hide. But to simply allow the soul to rest, to daydream and simply be is what is needed. It is amazing how simply sitting still for five minutes can sometimes be the most difficult thing, yet the most refreshing. Just sit with no agenda. No well-meaning prayer, no purposeful meditation, no paper and pen to write or plan.

For thus says the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel: “ In returning and rest you shall be saved; In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.” ~Isaiah 30:15

Cat on the lap and cup of tea do seem to to encourage daydreaming.

Enjoy some daydreaming today.

Blessings,
CurtissAnn

In the Meantime...the story of my life

In the Meantime. What an apt phrase. A Mean Time.

My life at the moment is definitely more disjointed than normal. Moving is not easy, folks, especially when the previous house still is not sold. I feel as if I have one foot in Alabama and one foot still Oklahoma. I'm so busy dealing with moving and renovating and settling that I can think a lot about a book I've started writing, but can't seem to write much on it. The story of my life.

In the meantime, guess what! The Michigan City Public Library has me listed as someone you might want to read if you like Jan Karon books. I'm thrilled! Their site is marvelously helpful. Oh, and Michigan City is in Indiana. Isn't it a curious world?

Another thing that has happened in the mean time is that Susan from A Southern Daydreamer Reads passed to me the One Lovely Blog Award. I'm tickled as a dog with two tails to get it, and to also point out her great site for readers. Right now she has just issued a Summer Reading Challenge to encourage us all to read more. I do wish I could take part, but I did not get half my books read for the Spring Challenge. I did get reading done, but not much from my list. What I thought I would do for the Summer Challenge is wait and see what I end up reading, and then make a valiant effort to post those. Right now I'm reading Catherine Cookson's The Silent Lady. It is excellent.

I pass along the One Lovely Blog Award to two blogs that inspire me greatly in writing, gardening, and plain good living in the meantime: to Nola from Alamo North, and Brenda at View From the Pines.

Another blogger who has given me inspiration in this meantime is fellow author Sierra Donovan, who tagged me with a four questions game. I was amazed to find out how much Sierra and I have in common with our answers.

Four Movies that I can see over and over.
1. Harvey
2. Heaven Can Wait, Mr. Jordan (the one with Robert Montgomery)
3. You Can't Take It With You
4. And the same as Sierra-- Galaxy Quest ("Never Give Up! Never Surrender!!!")

Four Places I have lived. (4 out of some 15; I get around.)
1. Elizabeth City, North Carolina
2. Tampa, Florida
3. Ketchikan, Alaska
4. Virginia Beach, VA

Four TV shows that I love to watch. (Or did. I've given up television for the present.)
1. The Andy Griffith Show
2. I Love Lucy
3. NCIS
4. Monk

Four places where I have gone on vacation.
1. South Mobile
2. West Texas
3. Majorica, Spain
4. Philadelphia

Four favorite foods:
1. Roast Turkey
2. Jessica's Oven Barbeque Chicken
3. watermelon
4. gluten-free chocolate brownies!

Four websites I visit daily:
1. Yahoo Mail
2. Twitter
3. Goodreads
4. Google

Four places I would rather be.
   Hmmm...really nowhere else. I love being home. At this moment, I am using as my office:

Four things I would like to do before I die:
1. Have my home here in Alabama renovated and orderly and filled with family
2. Have all the gardens around the house in bloom with crinum lilies, daylilies, gardenias, roses, etc.
3. Write more easily.
4. Find clothes I like that fit well.

Four novels I wish that I was reading for the first time:
   Oh, honey, there are too many to choose just four!

This bit of play has nurtured my strength of spirit and perseverance, two qualities that writers must cultivate at all times. I read this morning of a budding writer who was getting discouraged and thinking of calling it quits. I wrote her, saying basically: "No! You must not quit." I think that injunction applies to all writers, whether seasoned or just beginning. And also to everyone moving to a new home and a new life! 

Blessings,
CurtissAnn

In the Meantime. What an apt phrase. A Mean Time.

My life at the moment is definitely more disjointed than normal. Moving is not easy, folks, especially when the previous house still is not sold. I feel as if I have one foot in Alabama and one foot still Oklahoma. I'm so busy dealing with moving and renovating and settling that I can think a lot about a book I've started writing, but can't seem to write much on it. The story of my life.

In the meantime, guess what! The Michigan City Public Library has me listed as someone you might want to read if you like Jan Karon books. I'm thrilled! Their site is marvelously helpful. Oh, and Michigan City is in Indiana. Isn't it a curious world?

Another thing that has happened in the mean time is that Susan from A Southern Daydreamer Reads passed to me the One Lovely Blog Award. I'm tickled as a dog with two tails to get it, and to also point out her great site for readers. Right now she has just issued a Summer Reading Challenge to encourage us all to read more. I do wish I could take part, but I did not get half my books read for the Spring Challenge. I did get reading done, but not much from my list. What I thought I would do for the Summer Challenge is wait and see what I end up reading, and then make a valiant effort to post those. Right now I'm reading Catherine Cookson's The Silent Lady. It is excellent.

I pass along the One Lovely Blog Award to two blogs that inspire me greatly in writing, gardening, and plain good living in the meantime: to Nola from Alamo North, and Brenda at View From the Pines.

Another blogger who has given me inspiration in this meantime is fellow author Sierra Donovan, who tagged me with a four questions game. I was amazed to find out how much Sierra and I have in common with our answers.

Four Movies that I can see over and over.
1. Harvey
2. Heaven Can Wait, Mr. Jordan (the one with Robert Montgomery)
3. You Can't Take It With You
4. And the same as Sierra-- Galaxy Quest ("Never Give Up! Never Surrender!!!")

Four Places I have lived. (4 out of some 15; I get around.)
1. Elizabeth City, North Carolina
2. Tampa, Florida
3. Ketchikan, Alaska
4. Virginia Beach, VA

Four TV shows that I love to watch. (Or did. I've given up television for the present.)
1. The Andy Griffith Show
2. I Love Lucy
3. NCIS
4. Monk

Four places where I have gone on vacation.
1. South Mobile
2. West Texas
3. Majorica, Spain
4. Philadelphia

Four favorite foods:
1. Roast Turkey
2. Jessica's Oven Barbeque Chicken
3. watermelon
4. gluten-free chocolate brownies!

Four websites I visit daily:
1. Yahoo Mail
2. Twitter
3. Goodreads
4. Google

Four places I would rather be.
   Hmmm...really nowhere else. I love being home. At this moment, I am using as my office:

Four things I would like to do before I die:
1. Have my home here in Alabama renovated and orderly and filled with family
2. Have all the gardens around the house in bloom with crinum lilies, daylilies, gardenias, roses, etc.
3. Write more easily.
4. Find clothes I like that fit well.

Four novels I wish that I was reading for the first time:
   Oh, honey, there are too many to choose just four!

This bit of play has nurtured my strength of spirit and perseverance, two qualities that writers must cultivate at all times. I read this morning of a budding writer who was getting discouraged and thinking of calling it quits. I wrote her, saying basically: "No! You must not quit." I think that injunction applies to all writers, whether seasoned or just beginning. And also to everyone moving to a new home and a new life! 

Blessings,
CurtissAnn

Monday's Fair Light-- the Bright Side

It is a good thing that I love mornings, especially Monday mornings. Already this morning I forgot eggs boiling on the stove, when I came up to my office to get started on writing. I even brought up the timer to remind me, because when I get on my computer, I habitually forget things cooking on the stove. I cannot tell you the number of things I have burned.

The timer is setting right here in front of me, silent. I forgot to set it. The water in the pan of eggs boiled almost dry before I remembered. Looking on the bright side, they could have boiled dry and burnt the pan to the burner.

Speaking of bright sides, Frances over at Fairegarden posted the most beautiful photos of flowers on her hillside taken in what she called superior light. (Do pop over and see them.) I, too, enjoy watching light fall on my hillside, although it certainly does not bloom with such beauty.

Still, I find I see that hill through the eyes of delight. There is beauty in the rawness and wide open space.

Here are some quotes I offer to help brighten your day. They did mine.

I forget who it was that recommended men for their soul’s good to do each day two things they disliked...It is a precept I have followed scrupulously: for every day I have got up and I have gone to bed. — William Somerset Maugham

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The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense. ~ Tom Clancy

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Otherwise, my whole career has just been flinging myself at whatever is most overdue first and letting everything else stack up. ~Cathy Guisewite

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Looking on the bright side never made anything worse. ~ Karen Casey

Happy Monday!

Blessings,
CurtissAnn

Sites About Writers

A featured Typepad blog from today is Daily Routines, 'How writers, artists and other interesting people organize their days'. I have always been fascinated in reading about the habits of writers. Maybe hoping to assure myself that I'm not so strange, as well as pick up some good work habits, because mine are poor. On second thought, I think it is simply the writer in me that is always rabidly curious about people's lives. I'm one of those people who just love driving after dark on a summer night and peering into the homes of people who have left their curtains open. If we bloggers were not so curious, blogs would not even exist.

Interesting observation about Daily Routines. Of the fifteen writers/artists/interesting people profiled on the blog since December 22, 2008, only one is a woman.

Another great blog for writers is that of Isabel Swift. I met Isabel when I first started writing, I, a beginner and she, a head editor at Harlequin Books. Isabel knows more writers and more about writers than anyone I can image. She's funny and delightful and smart. Do be sure to read the January 1 post about what's under kilts!

The ice melted enough yesterday late afternoon for me to get to town and bring home my beloved Fancy. On my lap in the writer-thinking chair. One of my habits is to ponder a story with Fancy on my lap.

Blessings,
CurtissAnn

A featured Typepad blog from today is Daily Routines, 'How writers, artists and other interesting people organize their days'. I have always been fascinated in reading about the habits of writers. Maybe hoping to assure myself that I'm not so strange, as well as pick up some good work habits, because mine are poor. On second thought, I think it is simply the writer in me that is always rabidly curious about people's lives. I'm one of those people who just love driving after dark on a summer night and peering into the homes of people who have left their curtains open. If we bloggers were not so curious, blogs would not even exist.

Interesting observation about Daily Routines. Of the fifteen writers/artists/interesting people profiled on the blog since December 22, 2008, only one is a woman.

Another great blog for writers is that of Isabel Swift. I met Isabel when I first started writing, I, a beginner and she, a head editor at Harlequin Books. Isabel knows more writers and more about writers than anyone I can image. She's funny and delightful and smart. Do be sure to read the January 1 post about what's under kilts!

The ice melted enough yesterday late afternoon for me to get to town and bring home my beloved Fancy. On my lap in the writer-thinking chair. One of my habits is to ponder a story with Fancy on my lap.

Blessings,
CurtissAnn

Monday's Fair Light-- Glimpses of Thought in the Morning

Shoot for the moon, and if you miss it, you will still be among the stars. ~ Les Brown (and a number of other people.)

The above photo is the moon over our barn, with the sun shining from the west. Here we are, sandwiched in between the moon and the sun. I can never look at the barn but that I don't recall our son at the age of nine, climbing on the second-story rafters as he built with his father. It is a good memory, one to hold.

I also adore morning-- and yes, Monday mornings. I padded out to our deck in robe and barefeet for my camera and I to do our best to capture the hour before dawn.

Next to temperance, a quiet conscience, a cheerful mind, and active habits, I place early rising as a means of health and happiness.- Flint

Smart fella, that Flint. I shall have to look him up to find out who he is. No matter what time I go to bed at night, I like to get up early, most especially before the sun. When deeply writing on a project, I especially like to rise and start writing immediately, because at that time it is as if everyone else is still sleeping, or at least groggy, and their thinking is not interfering with mine.

Miss Fancy, our very old cat. I think this picture should be entitled: 'Thinking'.

The only thing we are ever dealing with is a thought, and a thought can be changed. ~Louise Hay

I had thought that I might never write another novel. But one is whispering to me. Two women. They are funny and delightful. They are living in 1948, I think. What is lovely is that today I have reached a point where I can write to amuse myself first.

Think good thoughts today.

Blessings,

CurtissAnn

Monday's Fair Light-- the wisdom of Oren Arnold

Oren Arnold also said:
"Humor is the calisthenics of the mind. A wholesome sense of humor is every bit as important as a sense of morals."

This Oren Arnold sounds like a pretty smart fella. So who was/is he? I asked myself.

An exhaustive search of one click on Google turned up a page that told me Oren Arnold was a freelance writer of the mid-1900s. He was a journalist, humorist, and novelist, who said he wrote for, "Money!" Plus "the lure of creativity...the satisfaction from it."

I think that about covers it for any writer. I know it does for me.

I played with my creativity today and made the above graphic. Please feel free to download it (just right click and save) and print it for a bookmark.

Blessings,
CurtissAnn

Monday's Fair Light-- Surprise Blooming

Look what I discovered, right here on the edge of winter!

The yellow from Graham Thomas bushes, and the magenta blossom from my grandmother's old garden rose bush.

 

Even the Chrysler Imperial tea rose has blossoms. What a treat-- the fragrance fills my bathroom.

These blossoms are the best surprise, coming long after I had expected to find them, and just when I'm ready for them, needing them. The bushes are straggly looking, the leaves dotted with black spot, turning fall colors and dropping, yet the blossoms stand up strong, abundant, and free from bugs.

I received a lovely note today from a woman who has enjoyed my books. In her note, this kind reader mentioned that she wished she had come earlier to the decision to depend on God. How often I have felt the same! I have so often felt that I have let opportunities pass by, that I waited to long to try something, that I was too tired, too weak, too old, too uneducated for whatever.

These roses remind me of the powerful truth that the earth puts forth blossoms at just the right time.

To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under the sun.   ~Ecclesiastes 3

God's timing is different than ours. He is never late. And often it is in the winter of our lives-- whether that winter is age or a myriad of mistakes--that we find all the conditions just right for us to produce the largest, strongest, most beautiful fruits.

Sending hugs,

CurtissAnn