Imagining Life's Coming Attractions

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on. (Robert Frost) 

I love spring. A time when the spring peepers make music so loud that even with the windows closed I can hear them trying to convince some other peepers to be their dates. I like how one week the trees are winter bare and then a couple of weeks later leaves are waving in the breeze. I like how flowers start popping up out of the ground like magic as soon as the sun begins to warm the ground and then seem to grow tall overnight. 

I especially like those flowers that no one planted. That are just there. The wildflowers Mother Nature herself sowed in the woods and fields. Every year they show up again. Sometimes they spread out into bigger patches. Sometimes they shrink back and cling tightly to their little bit of earth and wait for a better year. But they keep blooming without fail. Flowers like the Dutchman's Breeches up above. 

They seem to be proof that, as Robert Frost says, life goes on. And if you look at my picture really closely, you'll see that even as I was taking that photograph, life was going on. A spider, that I surely didn't even notice, was building a web and using one of the blooms as an anchor post. It was paying me no mind. I was paying it no mind. We were just each in our own spring mode.

Life is going on in my work in progress too, but sometimes it seems to be still frozen in the winter of my mind instead of springing forth in the right words. 


Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions. (Albert Einstein)


That's where my story is. In my imagination and I'm trying to tell it so that you might make it come to life in your imagination. While Albert Einstein isn't talking about fictional lives, the same can hold true for my characters. If I can imagine it, I can preview their lives' coming attractions. But I have to write it moment by moment or more aptly, scene by scene. Each scene has to flow into the next until the story is told. Because even in a fictional story, life goes on. My story might succeed if I can pull out the right succession of moments.

Life is a succession of moments, to live each one is to succeed. (Corita Kent)

In real life, we can't pick and choose among the moments that make up our stories. We have to live the ones that come to us. But we sometimes can preview our lives by imagining what is to come. 

When I was a kid, I imagined myself married and a mother. I remember the moment when I looked forward to that life with a certain surety. Then I also imagined myself a writer. With a dog by my side. Lots of things have happened that I didn't know to imagine, but those things I imagined true. 

What are some of the things you've imagined that have come to pass in your life?   

Thanks for reading. Check back Sunday for a real treat. I'm having a guest post from someone who writes about her grandmother's struggles with dementia. A beautiful story I know will touch your heart. 

Life is a succession of moments, to live each one is to succeed.

Corita Kent

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/coritakent162489.html#DvO4Gp26V52g3WGr.99

Life is a succession of moments, to live each one is to succeed.

Corita Kent

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/coritakent162489.html#DvO4Gp26V52g3WGr.99

The Sky is Always There

 Leaves or no leaves, the sky is always there. The firs up on top of the Smoky Mountains are being killed by a very small insect. They say it is so small that it's hard to see, and yet it has destroyed forests of fir trees and denuded the tops of the mountains in places. 


We sometimes think if we can't see something, it doesn't pose much of a threat. And yet... There are many things we can't see. Things not discovered by humankind for centuries. The tiny germs that attack our health. The tiny germs that keep us healthy. Atoms, neutrons, electrons, sound waves, and more. Did you ever think about how the t.v. signal gets to your t.v. set? I mean really. We might know the scientific reason, but when you think about all those pictures and sounds flying through the air to this antenna or that. And now up into space to bounce back again to this or that satellite dish. My mother sometimes says, if it had been up to her, we'd still be living in caves. That goes for me too.

But I do have an imagination for storytelling. Saturday at the Books by the Banks festival in Cincinnati, several people asked how I wrote stories. How do you do it? Where do the stories come from? And I never have a good answer for them. It can seem as mysterious to me as those many t.v. signals flying to televisions all over the world. Maybe even more mysterious because those in the know can explain how the t.v. signals work. 

 All I can say is that the sky is always there and against that sky can be many different pictures. A person's imagination is the same. A sky waiting for the pictures to come - waiting for the story. This one bare and dramatic. The next colorful and adorned with leaves. Perhaps a majestic eagle flying alone or a formation of geese or a cloud of black birds. But the sky is there. And so the imagination is there waiting for images to show up against it.



What do you think about where stories come from? Or do you just think that some people have to stretch things to figure out a way to use the pictures they take? Whichever, imagination surely comes into play. We need stories and we need faith and love. And we need trees against the sky.


Thanks for reading. Hope you have a blessed and happy week.

"  You see things and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, 'Why not?'"  (George Bernard Shaw)

Be Careful What You Imagine

Because my book, Angel Sister is fresh off the presses and onto bookstore shelves I've been doing some book launches, library speeches and internet interviews with bloggers. I've got one up right now with Favorite PASTimes, a blog that focuses on historical fiction and the writers behind the stories. They've got quite the line up of authors who make regular visits to the blog page to share their views and expertise. http://www.favoritepastimes.blogspot.com/

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It was a fun interview. I always enjoy talking about writing. Sometimes - maybe all the time - it's easier to talk about writing than to write. I'm struggling with my work in progress right now. But I think I'm gaining on it. I hope I'm gaining on it.

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I enjoy doing blog interviews because you never know exactly what the blogger is going to ask you. One of the questions asked by Favorite PASTimes was about where I do my writing. They even told me I could send them a picture of my office or work area. My desk was a disaster then and unfortunately still is. There was no way I was going to snap a picture of that messy desk for everybody to see. Instead of a real picture, I made up a word picture. One that wasn't completely realistic. You know I do write fiction. Parts of it were right. I do have double windows on two walls to look out over the farm. I do have an old oak desk in the center of the room. I do stare at my computer screen a lot of hours everyday and I do have a tendency to just dump everything on my desktop until I have time to sort and store or dispose. Some days simply aren't picture-my-desk days. So I added a few touches that were completely imaginary. The polished desk top with no dust. The bouquet of beautiful roses on the corner of my desk. I even described the exact type of rose. Those beautiful yellow roses with the pink highlights. I haven't had roses on my desk since I nearly fainted when I saw the flower shop bill the last time my husband had roses delivered to me for Valentine's Day a few years back. I know. I know. I don't deserve flowers if I'm going to complain about the price. But imaginary roses on my desk seemed perfect.

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Now comes the really odd part. The very night I finished answering the interview questions and after I hit the send button, my husband came home with two dozen roses that exactly matched the roses I'd imagined on my desk corner. The very exact ones. I took pictures of them for proof. One of the singers in his quartet drives a flower delivery truck and his boss told him to throw out all these roses that were past their prime and couldn't be sold. Instead he gave his wife some and brought the others to their singing practice session to let the other guys have roses for their wives. There were other colors, but my husband ended up with the creamy yellow and pink ones. It seemed almost magical or even better a smile from above. I imagined these beautiful roses and then two hours later there they were sitting right on my desk.

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So I'm thinking maybe I should imagine flowers more often. But I imagine a lot of things that I wouldn't want to ever come true. I certainly don't want to go through the trials and troubles some of my characters have to go through. I'll let those things stay in my imagination.

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Of course there is that quote of Norman Vincent Peale. At least I thought it was his. I went out to search for it but couldn't find the exact quote. It's says something about being careful to imagine right because we tend to become what we imagine. I did find the one that says we get what we expect. So imagine good things and expect blessings. And just maybe you'll get roses.

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You've still got time to enter my gift card giveaway. Just go to my website, read how to enter and send me a message telling me about your special sister. I've got two wonderful sisters. I'm for sure blogging about sisters Sunday. Couldn't pass up the neat flower story tonight. Thanks for reading. Oh, one last thing. I'll be at the Grant County Library this Saturday giving a book talk. If you're in the area, come on out and say hello. Or ask me what I'm imagining. What are you imagining that you'd like to see happen?