this and that to begin a new year: experimenting

I'm sifting through an experiment. I got my first smart-phone in late November, and I put down my Nikon D-40 for four months. I've just learned (maybe this is a new blogger thing) that I can work on my laptop and access my phone photos here... very good! Google has done some silly stuff with animated gifs and an end-of-year doo-dad that's sweet, silly, and confusing, as I don't know a couple of the people in this little movie, but that's fine, I did take the photos. Take a look

I like the togetherness and community I see here, and I'm grateful for these folks in my life. I've started using Instagram as a photo journal, which has left me less present on the blog, but I'm going to catch up now, with the next several posts, and pick up my camera, and see what it brings me. I'm about to travel quite a bit for REVOLUTION, as we now have galleys and we are moving into the book's debut season. I want to capture that season here.

This blog is seven years old, and I'm not ready to quit telling stories. But I am thinking about the different ways I have of capturing the days and telling stories now. I'm experimenting. I'll be talking about that here, too. Meantime, you can find me on Twitter for mostly professional conversation about teaching, writing, and stories; at Facebook for book news; on Instagram for daily photos; and on Pinterest mostly as a way to catalogue book resources, including work in progress.

I'll update the website at some point as well. For now, there is a new REVOLUTION page that I want to add content to.

We're also planning a family wedding here, and a local book launch, and a whole host of other stuff that's keeping us hopping. It's a happy time. Life is good. I have just turned sixty. Who knew that was even possible? Time to breathe deep and exhale. Time to reflect, and time to catch up a bit.

to be of use

I've been sailing toward the end of the year, riding on the page proofs of the good ship Revolution. We went to Charleston the day after Christmas, as usual. I put most photos of the holidays and the trip to Charleston on Instagram, as I'm experimenting with that platform, so I'll direct you there for photos today. I want to leave you with a poem by Marge Piercy called "To be of use" --

To be of use

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
*     *     *
That's my hope for 2014. For work that is real -- the work of the world that is common as mud and that must be done. I want to do good work in the world. I want to be peaceful. I want to learn to love.

Happy new year. Love and light to all.

what makes writing good

I've got a Pinterest board called "Good Writing and Storytelling." 

 My description: "There's great storytelling and/or writing on this board, and there's some that borders on dreadful, but there's a reason to examine each of these. I found them interesting in the way they fulfilled their purpose... or didn't."

Here's my latest pin on that board: "'Atlanta's Turner Field is dying -- and American Sanity is Dying With It' by Will Bunch at philly.com. Good Storytelling. The writer's passion and indignation are front and center along with impressive statistics and a fresh way of showcasing them. The quality of the writing lags behind the impressive persuasion, but the persuasion trumps the writing here. Well done."

Here's a link to the story itself. 

I started this board on Pinterest as a way for me to examine what makes writing good -- it's what I teach, and it's what I'm always trying to learn. I'm very selective about the links I pin here, so the board has grown slowly. Looking at it now, though, I smile at my own remarks (click on the links below that will take you to each individual Pinterest pin, and then click on the image if you want to read the article that I -- ahem -- assess):

-- Overwriting at its finest. Superlative cliches. Still, I appreciate all the information about Osage Farms in Rabun County, Georgia, as I want to go there soon, and at least this writer's report is thorough.

--  I like this piece in The Atlantic by Michael Agresta, because it's enlightening and informative in its assessment of the failure of The Lone Ranger this summer as well as its tie-in to the Western genre, and the Western's place in American film, myth, dreams, nostalgia. Nicely done.

-- Washington Post to be sold to Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon - The Washington Post. Very well-written in that it gives the reader solid background about both Bezos and The Post, and puts the history of the Post and its sale into context. It also presents the facts of the sale in a cogent, readable fashion. Well done, even though I am bereft....

-- "You kids today have got it too easy. You’re spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn’t have lasted five minutes back in 1980!" hahahaha. 1980. sheesh. But I like the comparisons and the voice. It's not great writing, but the voice and energy carries this little piece about how good kids have it now, compared to the '80s, written by a thirty-something.

And on and on. I hadn't realized that I'd gathered such an eclectic mix on this board until I looked at it of-a-piece today. You can see them all, right here, along with each pin's description, from"Meeting Joan Didion" in The Paris Review to a review of the Opening Ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics in London, to a video clip of Petula Clark singing "Fill the World With Love" in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (and my assessment of how this is great storytelling).

I guess I'll keep it up. Every time I find one of these gems, I learn something. And that's the whole point. I am ever the student.