Junk

Keeping Junk

Today I am going to a storage locker and move some junk and probably toss some. To some people I keep too much junk, too many broken useless things, and things that I will never use. It is true, I do. They also claim that I have no idea what is kept. Also true.

Today is a treasure hunt. Not a treasure of gold or silver or incredible antique value, but of smiles and memories. Photo albums and scrapbooks are fun but somehow they do not evoke the same powerful memories for me as holding a broken vase, a tin box of old feathers, or a gum ball machine prize. Each box is a surprise journey of memories.

Of course, the junk isn't needed for the memories. So available space determines just how much useless, never to be used junk can be kept for my journeys back in time. Today I start to clean out the storage garage. It won't be done quickly as I am going to savor every minute.

There are just as many excuses to write as not to. The trick is using the excuses to write. My journal is going along with me to the garage. Maybe a chair, a thermos of coffee, and some food too.

Saturday

Today is one of those lazy enjoyable Saturdays with little on my to-do list and little ambition to do it. The weather is sunny with a breeze and cool-- just wonderful. Finding words isn't coming easy. Working on a short story but would rather find a hammock under a tree. Busy or lazy, excuses for not writing are always at hand. My goal today is to write something for the short story. It doesn't have to be a lot. Even a paragraph is ok. Usually after a paragraph or even after a sentence, even a bad sentence, the inertia is overcome. Once started it is difficult for me to stop writing until I have completed my thought. Try it. Aim to write one sentence each day for a week.

Author's Advice

Braude's Treasury of Wit and Humor
by Jacob M. Beaude @1964 Prentice-Hall, Inc.
is the source of this story:

Novelist Sinclair Lewis was to lecture a group of college students who planned literary careers. Lewis opened his talk by saying:
"How many of you really intend to be writers?"
All hands went up.
"In that case," said Lewis, returning his notes to his pocket, "my
advice to you is to go home and write."
With that he left the room.

Get down to work

Get down to work

From Adams' FPA's Book of Quotations:

"I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work." -- Pearl Buck Reader's Digest April 1950

"There ain't nothing more to write about, and I am rotten glad of it, because if I'd a knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn't a tackled it, and I ain't a-going to no more." --Mark Twain (1835-1910) Huckleberry Finn Ch. xliii

Rainbow round my shoulder

"Rainbow round my shoulder, wings on my on my feet."

I love quotes and have found a great book of quotes, FPA's Book of Quotations by Franklin Pierce Adams @ 1952 by the Funk & Wagnalls Company, New York.

Writing makes me feel like there is a 'rainbow round my shoulder, wings on my feet' because with my imagination and a pen I can go anywhere, see anything, and do anything.

Adams cites the author "unknown" and the source as "American Negro Song" for :
"Oh, Lord, I want to be free, want to be free;
Rainbow round my shoulder, wings on my feet."

Summer

This summer has been one of heat and humidity. Here in Wisconsin where weather is usually a major topic of conversation, politics and nine recall elections have provided some variety. I haven't posted here much as I am posting on two highly political blogs.

August 9 and August 16 are elections dates for the recalls. At least for a couple of months the politics will cool off a bit.

Whether you are right or not, write about it. Think twice though before publishing inflammatory rhetoric.