Writing's The Easier Part--of Writing

You can have the best ideas pop into your head. You may have beautiful penmanship (in which case I haven't met you, but you may be out there).
Words may fall onto your page almost publishing ready. But if your off-the-top-of-your-head writing needs no editing, I don't know you. My educated guess is that your work needs an edit--or two--or three--or . . .     The best of writers instinctively recognize what can be left out to make their work even better. Easier for the reader to grasp--first time over, with pleasure.

So I'll make this blog uncharacteristically short for me. You don't need to know that even my detiorating handwriting is sometimes better than what lands onscreen. Poor eyesight, late-life computer learning--sort of--all the twists and turns and unwaranted screw-ups--give me fits.

My favorite part of writing is getting the thoughts on paper. And in long-hand on any paper--Post-its, tablets, journals. Tapping out one letter at a time on a keyboard is not me. But unpublished, we would not have met otherwise. THANKS for reading. Love to hear from you on COMMENTS.

Readers, only

Fall is a favorite season for me mainly because it isn't summer any more. While summer's heat fades away, fall is perfect for spring plantings. And fall's my favorite season. Already I am looking forward to new beauties selected from catalogues, for when they arrive I get to plant all the bulbs and rhizomes exactly where my mind's eye has pictured them in bloom: Iris, daylilies, lily trees, cyclamen, parrot tulips--some new to me.

My "readers" sit quietly under solar lights--various sizes alone, in pairs, or threes among the flowers. "No 'dirty' books allowed," I say just before they get their annual scrubbing and a maybe a change of location in the patio garden. Some of these statuary readers are angels or cherubs, but most are children--like in real life--holding book. Perfect for a children's book writer.

No question, my favorite flower of the year is the BIG, lavender fall crocus that surprises me annually right after I've given up looking for it. No green stems and leaves to hint of its pending arrival, just slender pure white stems with enormous blossoms popping up to last for weeks. To my surprise the resident squirrel compounded the beauty by relocating a bulb.                            

 

Kindred Spirits

But only in theory.  Lucy Maud Montgomery may have had a better handle on how to get her words in print.  I alas, too often hit a wrong key when I am on my last sentence and out the window goes my brain work. That's what happened last time I wrote a blog post.  It set me back to no writing at all -- the the possibility that I posted this very title and not content.  I wanted to say that I had the night before lucked into a TV showing of Anne of Green Gables, my all-time favorite. Worth losing sleep.  I'm sure I'm not alone in finding inspiration whenever it is my good fortune to walk on famous writer's ground.  Twice I have visited Ms Montgomery's Silver Bush "one of the happiest spots in the world" on Prince Edward Island.  Even took a carriage ride over the property and enjoyed fresh-baked molasses cookies and tea in the museum run by Campbell relatives.  The video scene where Anne and her best friend/neighbor stood on those unusually red cliffs prompted me to seek out my photos.  Could have been the exact location.

"I've found out at last what makes the roads red.  It's a great comfort," says Anne.  Lucy Maud had a gift for dialogue unique to her characters and I never tire of rereading her stories I've acquired for my library.  My Anne of Green Gables Journal is so beautiful with illustrations and quotes that I have never to this day written a word onon the lines.  Examples of kindred spirit thinking:"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn't it?"

And "Don't you feel as if you just loved the world on a morning like this?"