Let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow

I really do live in the most beautiful place on earth. I know that many people think this very same thing and since beauty is in the eye of the beholder, we are all right. But today I can’t imagine a more beautiful place. I know, I know I threatened anyone who wished for snow earlier this year. But now that it is here and in force today. I am grateful that we will definitely have a white Christmas.

There is nothing like the world covered in snow. It’s like you’ve left the reality of a day job and paying bills and entered into a world of magic and sparkling fairy dust.

So for those of you who weren’t lucky enough to be born in place as magical as Alaska. Here is a small taste.

Perspective

A funny thing happened to me this week. I was listening to a song while walking to meet the bus that I commute into and out of town on. It was a song I’ve listened to probably hundreds of times. This time though as I stood bobbing back and forth waiting for the light to change I noticed something surprising, something I’d missed all the other times I’d listened to it. It was a fairly important piece of the music and I wondered how I’d never noticed it before.

As I replayed the song now taking in this beautiful addition I was struck by how happy it made me to find this little pearl. I wondered how often that very same thing happens in life. How often do we travel along a road and miss the beauty that is around us, or the ugliness?

How often do we miss out on those around us because we have a certain idea of who they are or who we are. I feel really grateful that I was given this lesson maybe as a wake-up call. Hopefully I can apply it in my life and find more of these little pearls in the experiences and people around me.

It's bacon:30

So I'm hanging out at my little brothers pad and our typical discussion came up. Food. More specifically, which food we are going to consume. It usually goes something like this.

Me: I'm hungry.
Marlo or Ben: We should eat.
Me: Yes. I agree.
Them: What are we going to eat?
Me: Chinese?
Them: Um. I'm not feeling chinese tonight.
Me: Ok. What do you want to eat?
Ben: Food.
Me: Well duh. But what kind of food?
Ben: The kind you eat.
Me: Grrrrr. I can't live like this. (I give him a look that says: You know better than to push me while I'm hungry I might snap!)

Last night however it went more like this.

Ben: Are you hungry?
Me: I could eat, but I'm not starving I had appetizers at the restaurant before I came over.
Ben: I'm not starving... yet.

A few minutes later...

Ben: Bacon.
Me: I approve.
Ben: Carrs then? (local grocery store)
Me: Yes.

At the store:
Ben: Microwavable bacon!
Me: Ew instant gratification bacon style. Oh yeah!
Me: Ew gross.
Ben: What?
Me: That fish, it looks like Brainz
Ben: Then it should be yummy.
Me: No it was like rotting stinking brainz, not fresh pink yummy brainz!
Ben: Oh.
(Little girl stares wide eyed then pulls cart in next aisle. I smile and her eyes relax and she smiles back.)
Me: I think I scared that little girl. Oops hehe.
Ben: I want salad but it doesn't really go with bacon.
Me: yes it does. everything goes with bacon.
Ben: You've convinced me.
Me: Wait I have to get sweets!
Ben: You are not aloud! And no more soda for you.
Me: Try and stop me! (Dancing around the store.)
Ben: You're a psycho.
Me: You really should be used to this by now!
Ben: (Ignoring my insanity and returning to thoughts of food.) What else?
Me: Cheese bread.
Ben: Check! (holding up sack of yummy cheese rolls)

At home.

Ben: Yummy bacon. (holding plate out to me but just out of reach to taunt me.)
Me: Gimme
Ben: Not till you put the sweet down and stop eating them.
Me: You can't make me!
Ben: (Eventually gives in and gives up the sweet manna that is bacon.)

This is likely the most pointless post ever. So I'll inform you of something at least. If you include the word Bacon in you twitter post a bot will reply to you with some bacon comment. Try it. It's worked every time I've done it. (it can take some time for it to show up but it will.)

That is my story. Anytime is a good time for bacon.

Is it Passion or is it Magic?

I am reading a really great book called The Fire in Fiction by Donald Maass. In it he says, the thing that makes a book great, the thing that is often called magic is really passion. Passion is the defining quality that makes a great book great.

I whole heartedly agree. But I do have to wonder if there isn’t some magic involved too. He says that many of the authors of these great books look back and say that the manuscript wrote itself. Obviously that is literally impossible, but I’m sure you’ve had this same experience a time or two when the words just flowed as if from somewhere else. You sat down and felt the inspiration of an image or scene so beautiful and unexpected and were somehow able to translate it perfectly from the vision in your head to words painting it on paper.

Maybe this is talent or imagination at work, but sometimes it feels like magic. Where do these amazing images and scenes come from? How did you miraculously translate them onto page, perfectly, without stumbling over your own head or tongue like you normally do?

I recently had such an experience. I wrote a short story from a scene that came to me while doing something mundane. I pulled into the driveway came inside and sat down and wrote a story I didn’t know from one scene in my head of a psychic watching a man in an interrogation room. The scene she saw was dramatically different than the one the detective or anyone else would see.

I posted this short on my writing samples blog and submitted it on twitter for #Fridayflash. The feedback I got was amazing. Maybe these people were just being kind because that is what you do when you read #fridayflash writing? I’m not sure. Even without the feedback I felt really good about this story when it was complete.

I have never been a psychic. I do not have a southern accent, though my main character came to me with one. I’ve never even been further south than Nevada. I have stood face to face with monsters but not the kind she did. So where then did this story, her voice come from?

I don’t have an answer to this question. But I would like believe there is a little magic in this world even if it doesn’t come in the form of pixie dust like we believed as children. Maybe though, this is the form it comes in for those of us who love to write.

(For those who are wondering about the above mentioned short here is the link: http://kickingyourselfintheface.blogspot.com/2009/10/sample-3.html Judge for yourself. Feel free to leave feedback if you’d like. I’m happy with it though and felt like it was a kind of magic and I’m sticking with that because I think we all need a little magic in our lives.)