Riding out of site

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
"HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT!"

It's been a great ride, but it's time for me to bid goodbye to Riddles on the Harp. I now blog at sydneyavey.com/blog. I am grateful to those who have followed and those who have visited Riddles on the Harp.

The great folks at Writers Relief  have built a website for me and are hosting my new blog. I would be ever more grateful if you would do one of three things:

• Visit sydneyavey.com/blog and subscribe to my email list
• Follow @SydneyAvey on Twitter
• Like Sydney Avey on Facebook 

It has been a joy to explore the riddles in life in these blog posts. Thanks for going with me on the journey. 

I will turn my ear to a proverb: with the harp I will expound my riddle:" Psalm 49:4

The Night Before NaNoWriMo

‘Twas the night before NaNo, and all ‘round  the Earth

The plot lines were forming, awaiting their birth

The writers were ready, all poised with their pens

While visions of victory erased four week-ends.

The MCs were sketched and ready to speak

As villains burst forth with havoc to wreak;

And friends in support roles and we with our plan

Had finished our outlines, took a moment to scan...

And there on the ‘net there rose such distraction

We logged on, checked email and sprung into action

Away to our Facebook we flew like a fiend

Checked Twitter and newsfeeds—we thought we were weaned!

Now Pinterest, Instagram, Ask and Yahoo

Google, and eBay, Groupon and Squidoo

To the top of the rankings! to the top of the stats!

Now sign out, sign out, before we go bats!

As inspiration before the dawn comes

When it meets pure resolve, that about sums

up the challenge to us as we bravely commit

to one thousand six hundred plus words to spit

daily, and just when the clocks sound cukoos

Then lights! Camera! Action! yon comes the muse

who turns our story fair on its ear,

destroys the outline we held close and dear.

And then, in a twinkling, we know it’s no spoof

Each day we must churn out the words as the proof

That we know in our gut we’ve got something to say,

Something profound that must see light of day.

Our eyes, oh how bleary, our hair is a wreck

Our cheeks are inflamed; dirt rings our neck

A bundle of laundry lies on the floor

We feel like fungus! Our muscles are sore.

But wait—this is brilliant! Our MC takes wings!

Look here, she is saying the cleverest things!

Her speech is engaging, her actions enthrall,

Did we really write this? We cannot recall!

The end is in sight now, our joy feels no bounds

Despite the sad truth that we’ve gained twenty pounds

Rewarding ourselves when we’ve felt just plain dandy

With coffee and doughnuts and Halloween candy

Tomorrow it is we’ll go straight to our work

Filled with a fire that drives others beserk

 But now, lay your heads down, close your eyes and sleep tight,

SWEET DREAMS TO YOU WRITERS, AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT!

Neglect



Dialing up the muse

Holy muse, mother of imagination, I have neglected my blog (apologies to my Catholic friends for the inference). It’s not that my creativity has dried up, it’s been redirected. The Sheep Walker is in the capable hands of Writer’s Relief and an agent in New York is taking a look; time to start the sequel. That’s right, it’s NaNoWriMo time again!

I was surfing my blog for pithy quotes when I came across this entry Imade two years ago:

The point of this exercise is to beat my internal editor into submission; banish her to some netherworld in my brain; tame her insatiability for my words which she likes to chew on like a cow on cud.

Well that was then, this is now. I’m no longer too concerned with my internal editor. Today the point is to produce a second novel. What concerned me then was how my life would change when I bumped writing up on the priority list. What concerns me now is that The Sheep Walker spawned new generations and I have more characters to develop in the sequel, The Lyre and the Lambs.

This go ‘round I am in my new office in our desert retreat in Arizona and my guy is well trained from the last go ‘round. He knows when to disappear and when to reappear with tempting offers to dissuade me from spending too much time writing when the muse is tired.

I smell Polish sausage on the barbie and red cabbage and apples on the stove. The Giants are heading into the seventh for a shot at the series.

I’m ready.

Do not despise these small beginnings for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin.” Zech 4:10

Book Lust

When I started writing seriously my literature libido declined. Too busy engaging with my own little set of characters, I didn’t have the energy to mingle at someone else’s party. But now that Faerewryn has gone off to be compiled into a progressive novel that may or may not go to print and Dolores requires an additional 30,000 words of tale spin, I’ve started reading again.

Author Ann Voskamp says in this week’s World Magazine that when you hit a dry spell in your writing, you aren’t reading enough. She suggests reading several books at once. They talk to each other and you can join the conversation.  She also maintains that list writing generates spiritual attentiveness. To that end, I’m recommitting to my practice of keeping an annotated list of what I’m reading. I use the Book Lust Journal by Nancy Pearl.

I’m drawn these days to read imagined characters set in real world context; most recently Caleb’s Crossing and Remarkable Creatures. In both cases the protagonists keep their minds and hearts open while working alongside people with limited perception. It’s always a push to see the bigger picture. 

As engaging as writing and reading are, it’s still a party with fictional people so I took myself off in search of the bigger picture—to Central Europe to meet real people in historical settings.  It’s inspiring to see young people emerging from centuries of oppression with hope for better times, even though hope is tempered with uncertainty.

My travel companion Sharon and her Polish cousins

I love the café societies where people meet face to face and electronic devices are consulted, not worn as armor against intruders.

I’m back in the New World now, missing the city squares where people gather in front of makeshift big screens to cheer their favorite football team—for free! I love crossing bridges that span the old and the new, walking cobblestone streets, popping into an art gallery or a palace (there’s not palace on your block?) to enjoy a concert before dinner, gazing out my window over red-topped roofs that undulate across the horizon of time, punctuated by golden church spires that wear globes, crosses and stars like a Hapsburg monarch wore her jewels. 

As lovely as the Old World is though, I would not trade freedom for antiquity.  

The 30%

I've been ruminating on life's statistics: the 99% vs the 1%, the  80-20 rule...then I remembered a blog my daughter wrote a couple of months ago about a lesser known statistic: schizophrenia is 70% hereditary and 30% evironmental.She is writing a novel that explores the legacy of mental illness. I asked her to be a guest blogger on Riddles on the Harp.  Reprinted with permission from My Wilderness Years.

April Trabucco

The Writer Magazine’s email newsletter this week was titled “Why we need pain to write.” I’m all over that, but not by choice. If that’s the key, I should be churning out chapters by the hour. There is the requisite time necessary for licking one’s wounds though and that turns out to be an involved process. There’s also work and children and house and said source of pain that require ample tending. So chapters are not churning as fast as I would like. Is it to my creative detriment that I'm an optimist and cherish the happy times that come when hope prevails?