Tag: blogger

She’s Back…and replies…

Live & Learn32 Comments

My Dear virtual Friend David,

Thank you for this warm welcome. You took me by surprise with your She’s Back post.

Live & Learn has been home since day 1, since November 16, 2014, since Gate A-4.

I never stopped following you, Dale, Louise, or Karen, to name a few. The notification you received was me following you by email from a different email address, just putting my affairs in order.

I stayed in touch one way or another with everyone. And I am sorry if I left anyone wondering.

I am well. And as Valerie said in her comment, the past two years were full of Life and Vitality. And if that is not a blessing, I don’t know what is.

I am unsure if I am up to sharing why I left and why I chose to stop being an active participant on social media, everywhere on social media.

Days felt longer again. And there was no more scrolling.

I missed Dale in the evening. And I would pour myself a cup of tea and sit with her. I’ll read her most recent blog posts, go to her Instagram to see what she made for dinner for inspiration, and check out her Wordless Wednesday Photo. Dale, the Roses in the rain are Blog-post worthy. Dale and I texted frequently. I have to call Dale now and then, but we laugh so much that we seldom hear what the other is saying. Love you, Dale.

You are The King of the early hours of every day. My morning is planned around your Blog post and then your Day Break photos a couple of hours later—you threw me off when you posted nothing for over a week. But I reached out to our friend Dale, and she ensured you were okay.

If I were to answer your question again since the Proust Questionnaire,

Why do you keep coming back to this Blog?

I keep coming back because it is fertile ground for inspiration and because in a mad world, it is a safe place, High ground in flood.

With endless gratitude,

Sawsan

Guest Post by Sawsan, in response yesterday’s post titled “She’s Back“. Welcome back Sawsan. You were missed.

They’re almost sacred. Words…Head. Heart. Pen and paper.

Live & Learn14 Comments

welder

Mining Poems or Odes won the BAFTA Scotland award for best short documentary in 2015. It’s 11 minutes long. You will say you don’t have time. Save the link and come back to it. It’s that good. His accent, his passion, his story, the cinematography – all hypnotic.

“The Scottish poet Robert Fullerton is a former shipyard welder who was an apprentice when he found his love of books thanks to his mentor. Like its subject, Mining Poems or Odes finds beauty in language and in the docks of Glasgow Fullerton’s thoughts on mining and lyrical readings of his poetry with scenes from the Govan shipyard’s distinctly working-class milieu.”

Here’s a large chunk of excerpts from the documentary:

Continue reading “They’re almost sacred. Words…Head. Heart. Pen and paper.” →

300 Arguments

Live & Learn18 Comments

300-arguments-sarah-manguso-book-cover

It takes x hours to write a book and some percentage of x hours to wish I were a different writer, writing a different book.
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A great photographer insists on writing poems. A brilliant essayist insists on writing novels. A singer with a voice like an angel insists on singing only her own, terrible songs. So when people tell me I should try to write this or that thing I don’t want to write, I know what they mean.
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I don’t write long forms because I’m not interested in artificial deceleration. As soon as I see the glimmer of a consequence, I pull the trigger.
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My least favorite received idea about writing is that one must find one’s voice, as if it’s there inside you, ready to be turned on like a player piano. Like character, its very existence depends on interaction with the world.
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Slowly, slowly, I accumulate sentences. I have no idea what I’m doing until suddenly it reveals itself, almost done.

~ Sarah Manguso, excerpts on writing from her new book titled “300 Arguments” (February 7, 2017)

Inspired by brainpickings:

I learned that, to be a writer, one has first got to be what he is, what he was born…. You had only to remember what you were.

~ William Faulkner, Essays, Speeches & Public Letters

Related Posts: Sarah Manguso

Blogger’s Creed

Live & Learn36 Comments

blog-post-funny

Source: Wasted Rita via this isn’t happiness

Bubbles came up on the water. Then blood came up, and the water stilled.

Live & Learn19 Comments

annie-dillard

A writer named Lorne Ladner described it. Bubbles came up on the water. Then blood came up, and the water stilled. As the minutes elapsed, the people in the crowd exchanged glances; silent, helpless, they quit the stands. It took the Seminoles a week to find the man’s remains. At its best, the sensation of writing is that of any unmerited grace. It is handed to you, but only if you look for it. You search, you break your heart, your back, your brain, and then—and only then—it is handed to you. From the corner of your eye you see motion. Something is moving through the air and headed your way, on two white wings. It flies directly at you; you can read your name on it. If it were a baseball, you’d hit it out of the park. It is that one pitch in a thousand you see in slow motion; its wings beat slowly as a hawk’s. One line of a sonnet, the poet said—only one line of fourteen, but thank God for that one line—drops from the ceiling.

~ Annie Dillard, from “The Writing Life”

Notes: