Taking a Break

 THIS BLOG IS ON A BREAK UNTIL MAY 19th 

MIRKA MUSE is recharging

👉See you then👈

THE POWER OF THE RIGHT WORDS

Or-

“COLORS IN THE MOUNTAINS”

 

I first learned the power of words when I was four years old. It was a lesson in marketing for wee-me.

 

When the preschool teacher sent the weekly crafts output home, my mother rested her eyes on one colorful painting by her daughter, (me) and gasped.

“What is that?” she said, looking at the unruly jumble of stripes and spots.

I had no idea what I had intended to paint. After all, a few days had passed since. But for some reason I felt compelled to say something.

“Colors in the Mountains,” I said. (צְבַעִים בְּהָרִים/ tsvaim beharim in Hebrew.)

 

My mother gasped again. The evocative words enveloped her with light.

 

She had this painting framed and hung it next to the dining table. To anyone who asked she told, “Mirka made it when she was four and it’s Colors in the Mountains.”

I heard her repeat these words many times before I left home at eighteen. I felt a tinge of regret every time because I knew the truth.

 

The truth was that I had tried repeatedly to paint people, objects, or places, and my hand didn’t yet have the proper control to execute my intent. All my paintings at that age were nonsensical blotches of colors because I couldn’t paint what I wanted to.

 

But, boy, I sure could label.

 

I don’t know what I intended for that particular lauded painting but “colors in the mountains” wasn’t it. Not even close. 

And I knew it.

 

The painting and the apartment I grew up in are long gone. What I was left with was the sense that if you use the right words, you can “sell” anything. Just make sure the naked truth doesn’t seep into your descriptions and you, too, might have your work framed and gawked over.

 

This isn’t my “Colors in the Mountains,” but as close as I can find to make my point: 

PAY THE PIED PIPER

                                                      Or—

"NOTHING IS CERTAIN EXCEPT DEATH AND TAXES"

Benjamin Franklin

{In a letter to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy in 1789}

 

On Tax Day, April 15^th in the USA, I hear the Franklin quotation often. This year, I actually stopped to think about it.  

 

While no one to my certain knowledge has yet cheated death, I know many cheat on their tax obligations. I also know some, either deemed too poor or otherwise deserving, who pay no taxes. These “deserving” include some uber rich citizens who have the means to employ specialists that expertly deploy loopholes in our tax system.

 

Death is still, and for the foreseeable future, certain. Taxes? Not really.

 

I take Ben Franklin’s statement to be morally aspirational. No matter your ability, some contribution, even miniscule, should be incurred. Even one dollar would put you into the basket of the common burden and give you a stake as to where it goes.

 

Take it not as an outrage, but as a point of honor to be part of the communal pie.

 

Death, however, remains an outrage. Take that up with the creator of life, raise a fist, and then allow that G-d’s ways are mysterious and G-d’s wisdom infinitely greater than ours.

 

’Tis Tax Day!

The Day I became a Cinematographer…

 

A few weeks ago, while minding my own business, a knock on my kitchen door snapped me out of my trance of contemplating what I should make for dinner. It was the neighbors’ young son, age still in the single digits, asking if I had a few minutes to spare and help him with “something.”

 

That something turned out to be a movie he was making with his friend, with whom he was having a weekend playdate. I should have known, as the boy was dressed in a black cape and his playmate wore something resembling a superman costume.

 

I like to help in general, and especially this friendly kid who still calls me Auntie Mirka. (His parents are Indian.) But how could I possibly be useful?

 

Turned out they needed someone to hold the iPad and videotape, then yell “cut.” As I was not familiar with the story they were concocting, I suggested I couldn’t direct it, but I could take the videos as long as they told me when to start and stop.

 

“You’ll be the cinematographer,” they agreed.

 

We proceeded to the neighbors’ back yard, where the boys yelled “start” and “cut” many times, and their cinematographer watched with both amusement and concern many choreographed fight scenes. There were swords that flew in the air, plastic weapons pointed and bodies falling on the grass only to rise again and fight another round.

 

The few moments I was asked to give turned out to be more than a few. By the time I headed back to my kitchen to renew making dinner decisions, I thought about the boys and wondered if perhaps I may have witnessed filmmakers of the future. Even Steven Spielberg and George Lucas started somewhere.

 

But being the age when things get wrapped up rather than born, my cinematographer’s career was over. There are many ways to tell a story. I’ll stick to writing.

Image^ by DD, who thought it was funny

FOOLS SHMOOLS

         GOT ME EVERY TIME

Or—

Get ready, for tomorrow they come😈

With the mélange of news that verge on the absurd, the factoids generated by AI and unwell-meaning pranksters (or worse) in daily news and life, the line between what really happened and what qualifies as April Fools’ Folly is blurred.

 

Which of the below-mentioned events are faux-fool, and which are real?

 

*A long-lost ancient Roman artifact reappears in a New Orleans backyard

*A five-year-old named Tod wins a beauty pageant for buffaloes in Thailand

*Hair museum showcasing locks from Marilyn Monroe and other century-old celebs closes its doors

*Noah’s Ark, thought to be a mythological artifact, is discovered whole at the bottom of a Turkish lake

 

Reality is absurd enough at times, as to make April Fools nearly obsolete. Get ready anyway 😳

From FRANTIC to STEADY

 

As I’m rounding my fourth draft of my WIP, a novel for middle grades, I reflect on the process and how it has changed over my writing years. It’s not my “first round at the rodeo,” as the saying goes.

 

The creative process of earliest attempts, going back some years, were more intense. I would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with a realization that there was a plot hole which needed fixing. I kept a pad and pen on the headboard and would jot it down to be addressed in the morning. In order not to wake my husband up I sometimes wrote in the dark, and blimey if I could make sense of my scribbles the next drafting day.

 

Many times, during first-drafting periods, I would realize that I had used the wrong word in a pivotal sentence and would turn the computer back on to revise. This could happen in the middle of dinner preparation or just before going to bed. Something inside me knew that if I didn’t take care of it, the insight would disappear into the void never to resurface again, and an important matter would be deserted for eternity.

 

I notice that the more times I had gone through this, the more relaxed the process had become. Drafting now is a steady and slow process. Each day’s session, once ended, stays quiet in slumber as my mind unwinds until the next day— when I go on to the next.

 

What hasn’t changed was my commitment to productivity, guarding the time I set from other incursions. A friend wants to get together or talk on the phone? Not during writing time, please. (Weekday mornings, with Wednesday being my vacay day.) Doctors’ appointments? Reserved for Wednesdays. Same for all other chores that can’t be done in the afternoon or evening.

 

In other words, I treat writing as a job. I know that for me this is the only way I can accomplish these marathons.

 

Writing no longer takes over my whole day. It has its allotted time, and the blessed focus and concentration this time brings. But today each novel drafting is a “one foot in front of the other,” “one day at a time,” to the finish line.

 

There is no universal wisdom here. Every creative must find how they work, and thus, how to work.

LUCK OF THE IRISH

When I first heard the expression “luck of the Irish,” it was from a person of Irish ancestry. Not wanting to question his Irishness or expose my non-native English, I tried making sense of it through context. That is how I managed many idioms and higher vocabulary in those years, my first living in the United States.

 

In that context, I took the expression to mean “bad luck.” Something akin to a curse following those who carried Irish genes.

 

Sometime later, another person with no Irish ancestry used the expression to point to another friend (who had an Irish father) as always lucky against all odds and in contradiction to that person’s abilities. In that context, luck of the Irish meant that Irish genes made for good luck.

 

Years after that and a much better command of the English language, I married a person whose family was Irish on his father’s side and found myself sporting an Irish surname. It was time to find out what sort of luck I had landed into.

 

This is what I found online:

"Luck of the Irish" refers to an abundance of good fortune, but its origin is often an ironic and derogatory term from the 19th-century American gold rush, used to dismiss the success of Irish miners as simply luck rather than skill or hard work. While the phrase was initially used with derision, it has since evolved into a broader, more positive expression for good fortune and the resilience of the Irish spirit.”

 

And so, Irish Luck is both bad and good. Leave it to the Irish to embrace contradictions.

      Happy St. Patrick’s Day 

“MR. WATSON COME HERE, I WANT YOU”

 ON THIS DATE, MARCH 10^TH, IN 1876…

From that first ever telephone call by Alexander Graham Bell and to this day, the world would never be the same.

 

“History was made” and “never be the same” are expressions used with abandon and lack of a sense of precision for trivial things. But when it comes to the invention of the telephone, this is, if anything, an understatement.

 

It started as an almost peripheral function, even as a few understood way back in 1876 that March 10^th was a paradigm shift, a game changer, a turning point from which nothing in the many ways we interact would be spared.

 

It started then and never stopped.

 

Look at us now, a humanity where many cannot function without phone in hand.

DON’T BE THE ONE TO TELL YOURSELF “NO”

 The above goes under the caption “BEST ADVICE I EVER GOT.”

 

Life is full of Nos.

 

First, there are your parents, who are doing their job setting parameters.

But, at some point, you become a self-directed adult, and your internalized self-setting limits work as guides.

 

Now comes the world at large, and its plenty of Nos.

No, you can’t wish for the stars before paying your dues.

No, you can’t approach others for this, that, and the other.

No, don’t you dare think you have earned a raise, a promotion, or even a foot in the door.

 

For artists, the world’s Nos are the many rejections. 😣

I’ve known many who wanted to soften the blow by rejecting themselves in advance.

“I don’t have a shot.”

“I’m not even in the running.”

“I don’t do well under such and such conditions.”

“You wouldn’t want--- me/my work. Right?”

 

I speak not only for others I’ve known, but for self. Guilty.

 

Here’s the deal: the world will give you plenty of NO to this and NO to that. You don’t need to add to that chorus. Let them sing to themselves and go on humming a better tune.

FOOD IN STORIES and IN LIFE

 

“Bread is the staff of life.” This English idiom, coined in the 17^th century, continues to haunt writers of fiction.

 

No one would argue that food is unimportant, but how much to insert or include in fictional stories is another matter. Another post on this can be read here.

 

Way back, when a friend read my novel THE VOICE OF THUNDER, she commented that she wished there were more references to food, “because I like that.” This same friend had an expensive subscription to a newspaper “just for the recipes,” so I counted this as her peculiarity.

 

But something of her comment stayed with me, and when I write anything longer than a picture book text (and occasionally even then) I include vivid descriptions of meals and characters’ experience of food.

 

Somewhere, this comment from long ago just landed right. I honestly think it improves characterization, or at the very least belongs as part of such.

 

Are we what we eat? I don’t go there. I eat what there is when offered, and sometimes it is decidedly not “me.” Even when I choose, there are plenty of questionable choices I refuse to think of as fundamentally “me.”

 

But the food experience for humans is more than just sustenance. It belongs to the auxiliary aspects of our being in the choices (when we have them, which for most Americans is often) ways of presentation (aesthetic sensibilities) and religious or philosophical orientations.

 

Food offerings, whether fancy or few, belong in stories, period.

SPOOKED

 

Some things, which the rationalists call “coincidences,” will spook those of us who think lives are a mixture of the coincidental and the coherent deliberate invisible pattern woven by the supra-human.

 

I am positively spooked right now, and it isn’t Halloween.

 

When working to polish and revise my longer stories, I go through two full drafts of the middle-grade novels before I share them with anyone. In the past, I had three or sometimes four beta readers lined up, and I turn my completed second draft to the first, revise per feedback, and on to the second, etc.

 

For my current work-in-progress (=WIP) I had three Betas ready to look it over.

 

The first Beta is managing serious health challenges. When she returned the WIP to me, I noticed that many of the chapters had not a single comment or typo correction, which (if you knew me) is not possible.  I mentioned this to her, and she said it was likely a matter of her comments not having been transmitted to my system. Shortly after attempting to go over them again, she had to abruptly sign off saying she was too ill to continue.

 

I felt very bad at causing her to struggle thus and told her my next Beta reader will deal with whatever it was I still could not see.

 

Two days after mailing my third draft to Beta number two, two decades younger than myself, I was informed she had passed away. I felt terrible about that, never mind my manuscript.

 

Beta number three was set to receive my next draft two months from then, but I asked if I may send it early. “Sure,” she wrote back. “Send it as soon as you are ready.” This I did after again looking it over and catching a few more issues myself.

 

Beta number three, a superb professional with a work ethic to rival no one and energy befitting her young age, usually took two weeks to return drafts back to me with her feedback. A few days ago, I received a note that she has been seriously ill, sicker than she had ever been in her life, and was not able to work on my WIP.  She vowed to return to it when she was better.

 

But, by now, I am wondering if this manuscript is carrying some sort of curse. I certainly would not dream of inflicting it on anyone else. This thing, my latest novel, appears to be a killer and not in the good way some use the word.

🫣 SPOOKY😨

WHERE’S YOUR FOCUS TODAY?

 

Ever notice that when you have focused on a particular task you begin to notice all things related to the task elsewhere?

 

Years ago, in the throes of choosing fabric for curtains which I proceeded to sew, I wasn’t able to walk past any window without intently examining the curtains gracing it. I began to worry I was going mad, for there are MUCH more interesting things to observe on an urban walk.

 

An old friend with whom I used to take regular walks, became decidedly less interesting when, in the process of choosing a new color for the exterior of her home, could comment on nothing else but the colors of all the homes we passed.

 

A few months ago, a gold chain I had worn for years suddenly broke. While looking for a sturdier replacement, I was unable to look at other people (whether on screen or real life) without noting if they were wearing a chain (or chains) and what these ornamental ropes were. I used to look at faces, for goodness’ sake. What was happening?!?

 

The examples above^ from my life also echo times I am focused on first drafting, where I notice the writing of others in a different way, or dealing with a new medical diagnosis (whether pertaining to me or mine) and focusing on information and anecdotes related to it. But the latter two seem worthy of temporary focus.

Are curtains or house colors or gold chains also desirable? Hardly.

 

Musing on the nature of focus. I’m focusing on it now.

MAKE ROOM for the NEW

 An undeniable fact of life is that everything passes.

 When friends leave, whether to another location or to another world, I understand that this is the way life clears some to make room for others. Been there. Bet you have, also.

 

When your books go out of print and are only available used, the publisher is making room for a whole new flock. Been there. Maybe you have, also.

 

When the used booksellers also empty the rest and your book (or a book you have been hoping to get) is no longer available anywhere, others will fill the sellers’ stores. Been there, and you might have, too.

 

Speaking of stores, the most beloved neighborhood stores have a habit of closing or moving to unknown destinations. You can’t count on any business to be there your whole life long. Been there, and I have no doubt you have as well.

 

Blisters, even countries that seemed so solid can evaporate or splinter into smaller distinct entities. If you’ve lived through the fall of the Soviet Block, or read about it, you know what I’m talking about.  

 

The earth itself has a pattern of erupting new mountains and swallowing whole cities. I haven’t been there, and I hope you won’t, but we know it’s true.

 

My daily morning meditation includes wishes that what I know and love will remain. But it occurs to me that maybe, just maybe, I should also allow a wish to let go more easily.

 

Nothing of this world is forever. Let’s cherish the day and hope that what is gone is making room for wondrous things to come.

©Yoga cat by Shelagh Duffett

(Ms. Duffett sadly passed away in 2020)

StoryWorth HAS BEEN WORTH IT

 

A little over a year ago, DD informed me that a gift from her was coming my way via the interwebs.

And, as it turned out, the gift was a program that prompted me to write a post every week and upload it to a website that would, at the end of a full year, make a hardcover book with all I have contributed.

The prompts were chosen by DD. Examples of such would be, “Who were your friends in high school?” and “Favorite memory from early childhood.”

 

I received this gift with joy and dread. Here’s an abbreviated list of why:

1.      My daughter is interested in my life 🤗

2.      My daughter will be reading what I have to say now and in years to come 😊

3.      Does she think I need to be prompted to keep the writing gears going? 😕

4.      In addition to stories, I already write a weekly blog. Now I have an additional weekly assignment 😓

 

A year later, I can report that these prompts have been a delight, not a burden at all. Now that the book is done, I will miss it. StoryWorth is the name of this program, but there are others like it, and from my personal point of view it has been worth my while.

 

I will add a caveat to be aware of. I have no confidence that this operation (or others like it) is free of data mining. Even as they promise to guard your text from such (it isn’t publicly visible or published) the vehicle is the company’s files. Even if they do not share, there is no guarantee they won’t sell their application to another company in the future, and that company would pay them a good sum not for the paltry fee the users pay, but for the wealth of private data they would have access to. Some sites still use details in their security questions that one should never put out on the ether, ever. These “security” access questions are thankfully giving way to better ways, such as pins or keys in one’s possession only. But still, think of this when you use any of these services.

Mindful of that, I typed not a single detail/name/date that isn’t already easily available to the data miners. I was still able to put out my thoughts and real-life stories for fifty-two weeks.

CUT THE HARSH TALK TO SELF

 

The other day, I stopped, listened, and for the first time really heard— the harsh way I was talking to myself.

 

Me: “What a dumb thing to do, you!”

Self: “Really stupid. Don’t do that again.”

Me: “Only an idiot like you could do this.”

Self: “A moron. That’s what you are.”

 

What occurred to me right then was that what I should not do again was talk to self this way.

 

Old habits die hard. New habits, such as paying attention to self-flagellation, take time and resolve to stick and stay. So, the first order of business was to pay attention and Not. Do. This.

 

There’s an extra bonus to my new resolve. I find the harsh observations of others have softened and rounded also.

 

Kindness is contagious. Start with you.

DO SOMETHING TODAY YOUR TOMORROW WILL THANK YOU FOR

 

^GOOD ADVICE TO LIVE BY^

During my less self-scheduled days, I find myself tempted by a sense of laziness to put off what I could do but don’t have to.

 

“I can always do it tomorrow or the next day.”

“Who says I should? No one will notice either way.”

“It makes no difference to anyone.”

“I don’t feel like it.”

“I really don’t feel like it.”

 

All the above are dialogues with self.

 

This is what I have discovered over the last years: I am happier having done rather than not done. At the end of the day, and also the next day, this reward is worth more than I previously realized. At the end of the week, or the month, or the year, there’s a more contented me for having done what needed to be done as soon as I could instead of as late as I could.

 

Just a pep-talk to self here, which you are welcome to borrow. 😉

MANAGING DIFFERENCES as a GOAL, FOR LIFE and in STORIES

 

One of my foundational values is getting along with people.

It’s not much of an obstacle when others think like me. It’s only a challenge when we have differences. The deeper these are, the steeper the mountain to climb.

But that’s when it matters most.

 

Living as individuals in society presents this challenge every moment, unless you have made a point to wall off all but the most simpatico folks. I wasn’t raised to do that because, to both my parents, interacting only with the like-minded makes for a dull life.

 

I find that it takes three main values to live fully and remain close to people who think differently. First, one needs to be flexible. Second, one needs to be curious about possibilities that hadn’t already occurred, and third (perhaps the most important) one needs to practice genuine humility.

All will amount to a commitment to be happy, not “right.”

 

There is a tendency in literature, most obvious in literature for young readers, to not only present conflict between differing points of view but also to end by settling them with one side showing what is ultimately “right.” 

Today, we are told not to be preachy. But we must choose sides in more subtle ways.

The problem is that it doesn’t illuminate how to navigate differences, unless the stories are about acceptance. Acceptance of one’s personal situation, of one’s environment, and of what may come. This begins with self-acceptance, and these are the stories I strive to write.

It’s not “a win,” but it’s about the triumph of seeing conflict as something not to win, but to diffuse.

NO to “CHOSEN ONE” Stories

 

There’s a popular trope in children’s literature which swept the world with the arrival of Harry Potter et al. This trope centers on a child destined to save the world from evil.

 

One way or another, this superhero discovers their superpowers and, first resisting, disbelieving, trying to fit in, eventually the child accepts their destiny as the chosen one.

Then, we’re off to the races. The kid succeeds only to lose momentum, be plagued with doubts, find courage, and move forward to a triumphant victory.

 

If this sounds messianic, it’s because this trope follows that trajectory to a tee. For secular folks, this is either absurd or amusing enough. For believers in sacred scriptures, it’s both familiar and obscene in its conversion to Kidlit tales. I’m of the latter group, and reserve savior stories to the land of spiritual metaphor and the realm of the mysteries.

 

Even as a child I disliked these stories because once I laid the book down, I knew full well the world hadn’t been saved from evil. It never gave me messianic notions that I, too, could be a savior. I also had an instinctive recoiling from people I met who seemed to think they were such chosen ones.

 

In the stories I write and the stories I love reading, children (or adults) find a way to accept the ways of the world while vowing to do their best to make a small contribution to bettering it. These sorts of triumphs not only feel real, but they are inspiring because they are doable.

 

To quote, again, my late father: “Things being what they are, we should try to make them what they should be.” My father thought this was an example of a platitude, but the older I get the more it seems spot-on.