U is for Unique

I came across this again in my notes. It’s something I wrote a few years ago, but still applies today.

I was going through the same phase of: any other writer could tell this story better. Then I remembered my conclusion when I put myself down as a bad parent.

Even though I'm not the best mom, I don't want anyone else raising my kid, because I know him best.

As a writer, my characters deserve the same. I may not be the best writer, but I know my story and characters and no one can tell their story the way I can.

One of my favorite fantasy authors, Patrick Rothfuss, responded to a commenter who wished they could write like him. I wrote this verbatim into my bliss book so I’d always have a reminder when I start comparing myself to other authors.

“I’ll never be able to write a book like The Last Unicorn. I wish I could, but I know I can’t.

You can’t write the sort of story I write. Only I can.

We all have our own style. Our own way. Our own something we need to say.

If you want to write like me, you’re bound to fail. What you want to do is write your story, but do it brilliantly. Do it so well that it shines.

But it takes time. And revision. And depression. And work. And then more work…

I’ve been there. I know what you’re talking about.”

We are all unique. We each have a story to tell. Whether we tell that through our blogs, or poetry, or fiction, or in a different medium such as film or art. We can all contribute to the world. When we stop contributing, we do the world a disservice.

Keep on Going on

You are you.
No one can replace you;
No one can love
the way you do.

You're not just one star
in the universe;
You are someone's sun--
They would be adrift
if your light went out.

Don't give up your dreams—
your success, your creations, your journey,
may change someone else's life.

Keep on going on.

There is darkness in my background, but I have embraced this. I didn’t give up on myself, or my dream. I am happy to announce that the book shaped from that darkness, Chiaroscuro, is now published. It is available for purchase as a digital book from SynergEbooks, my wonderful publisher. And will soon be available for Kindle and Nook.

This is my first published collection of my own poetry. So I am very excited to release it to the world.

Q is for Quotes

I’d like to share with you some quotes that really echo how I feel about poetry.

What is poetry?

“Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.”
--Edgar Allan Poe

"Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance."
--Carl Sandburg

Who is the poet?

“A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.”
--W. H. Auden

Poets don’t publish for the recognition or the money. We do it because we want to connect with the world, with other people. To share human experience and emotion.

"Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose-petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo."
--Don Marquis
“Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.”
--T.S. Eliot

"Poetry is a language in which man explores his own amazement."
--Christopher Fry

And, above all else:

"Musicians must make music, artists must paint, poets must write if they are to be ultimately at peace with themselves.
What humans can be, they must be. They must be true to their own nature." --Abraham Maslow

I am a Poet
A genius in disguise
Forms flow from my fingertips
Words and phrases grow within me
Waiting for ripeness
That moment when I write them
And another poem is born

I is for Imagination

Finite Cyclic Groups (Photo credit: derekbruff)

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." 

~Albert Einstein

Daydream

Voices drone around me

Equations drip from the blackboard

Numbers sizzle into puddles of data

Letters, once unknown values,

Dance away to reform

Into glorious words

Words stretch and morph

Into dragons

Which fly me away 

from this dull room

Quote on Creativity

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” ~Scott Adams

Movie Quote

I rediscovered this quote recently. Must watch the movie again. Very uplifting. This is from Patch Adams.

 

All of life is a coming home. Salesmen, secretaries, coal miners, beekeepers, sword swallowers--all of us.
All the restless hearts of the world...all trying to find a way home. It's hard to describe what I felt like then. Picture yourself walking for days in a driving snow. You don't even know you're walking in circles--the heaviness of your legs in the drifts;
your shouts disappearing into the wind. How small you can feel. How far away home can be. Home.
The dictionary defines it as both a place of origin...
and a goal or destination. And the storm? The storm was all in my mind. Or, as the poet Dante put it...
"ln the middle of the journey of my life I found myself in a dark wood...for I had lost the right path."
Eventually I would find the right path...but in the most unlikely place.

Quote by Van Gogh

This is one of my favorite quotes. Always inspires me.

 

If one keeps on loving faithfully what is really worth loving, and does not waste ones love on insignificant and unworthy and meaningless things, one will get more light by and by and grow stronger. Sometimes it is well to go into the world and converse with people, and at times one is obliged to do so, but he who would prefer to be quietly alone with his work, and who wants but very few friends, will go safest through the world and among people. And even in the most refined circles and with the best surroundings and circumstances, one must keep something of the original character of an anchorite, for otherwise one has no root in oneself; one must never let the fire go out in one’s soul, but keep it burning. And whoever chooses poverty for himself and loves it possesses a great treasure, and will always clearly hear the voice of his conscience; he who hears and obeys that voice, which is the best gift of God, finds at last a friend in it, and is never alone.

~Vincent Van Gogh, from Dear Theo

Pooh Bear's philosophy

Quote from Winnie the Pooh, created by A. A. Milne:

 

If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.

 

What a wonderful way to tell a loved one how much you care.

Cold + Sick + Uneventful = Time for another quote

I've been reading Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (Christmas present from a friend). After sharing his personal experiences, King shares this advice:

 

It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn't in the middle of the room. Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around.

So true. It's when you try to do that backwards that life gets messed up.

Philosophy According to Whitman

"Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and mothers of families. ... reexamine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem."

 

~ Walt Whitman

Striving for Dreams

"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours."

-- Henry David Thoreau

 

Keep dreaming, keep striving.