Food for thought…

Sometimes we deviate on our path. Today is such a day. With thoughts of our fellow blogger and friend, Mary Smith utmost in our minds. When I read the following quote, Mary comes to mind. She was a light that shone in the windows of so many hearts. Yet she has gifted us with her light and we can simply read her wonderful words and know her spirit is with us. Thank you, Mary.

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“It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.” – John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

Thank you, Léa

A little Lamb…

” We gain nothing by being with such as ourselves. We encourage one another in mediocrity. I am always longing to be with men more excellent than myself.”               –  Charles Lamb

“The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and have to have it found out by accident.” –  Charles Lamb 

“I love to lose myself in other men’s minds.”  – Charles Lamb

The Old Familiar Faces

I have had playmates, I have had companions,

In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days,

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have been laughing, I have been carousing,

Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies,

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I loved a love once, fairest among women;

Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her –

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man;

Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;

Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.

Ghost-like, I paced round the haunts of my childhood

Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse,

Seeking to find the old familiar faces.

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother,

Why wert not thou born in my father’s dwelling?

So might we talk of the old familiar faces –

How some have died, and some they have left me,

And some are taken from me; all are departed;

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

Charles Lamb 1775 – 1834

Bisous,

Léa

Free Author Resources

Additional resources are most welcome. The more we have the more we can sift through and evaluate which are best suited to us.

Nicholas C. Rossis

In my last post, I wrote about some of Dave Chessson’s, aka Kindlepreneur’s, free author resources, including his Free Amazon Book Description Generator.

Today, I have more free author resources that can prove invaluable to your author promos, courtesy of my author friend, Effrosyni Moschoudi. She has compiled a list of free author resources that include two invaluable Word files:

• Dozens of websites and Facebook groups to submit your books for FREE! (Word file) and
• A FREE task list for your promo (Word file)

Even better, she keeps the lists regularly updated. These two were only updated last week, so you can rest assured they’re as up-to-date as humanly possible!

Check out Effrosyni’s full post for more author tips and resources!

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Courage for today and beyond…

“Courage is the most important of all the virtues because, without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue.”  – Maya Angelou

“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose site of the shore.”  – William Faulkner

“Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth — more than ruin, more even that death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid… Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.”                    – Bertrand Russell

 

Still I Rise

 

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

 

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

 

Just like moons and like suns

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I’ll rise.

 

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

 

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don’t you take it awful hard

‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

 

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

 

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I’ve got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

 

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past, that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear it in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

 

Maya Angelou – Still I Rise

 

With all that is going on in the world, we each must fight battles as our conscience dictates. Thought and rigorous prioritization will help us to know where to direct our thoughts and most of all, our actions. We can tell someone we love them, but our actions usually get their first and are usually much more credible. Ask yourself where your courage is most needed and dispatch it immediately.

Bisous,

Léa

Joyeux Anniversaire Monsieur William Shakespeare!

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”      – The Tempest Act 4, Scene 1

 

“Lord, what fools these mortals be.”  – A Midsummer Night’s Dream

 

JOYEUX ANNIVERSAIRE! In honor of the Bard’s birthday, I offer one of his well known and much-loved sonnets. Yet when I read it, or think of its message, for me it is not just about romantic love but the love of family, friends, humanity, and our struggling environment.

 

Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds

 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no! It is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand’ring bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me prov’d,

I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

 

Perhaps you have a favorite, and perhaps there is too much to choose from to eliminate others?

 

Bisous, Léa

Caligula Unbound

Caligula, Trump… what’s in a name? unconscionable.

Earth Tourist

CALIGULA UNBOUND

alan reynolds

copyright © 2019 alan reynolds
all rights reserved
http://www.alanreynolds.nl

Preface
Some stories need to told and retold. One of them is the story of the notorious Roman emperor Caligula.
Struck by the resemblances between Caligula and current American politics, I tried to capture them in this story of a ruler unchained and dangerously free from restraining, sane, and ethical influences and considerations.
In addition to being available in a print version and as ebooks* the full text of Caligula Unbound is online here.

Alan Reynolds
Monnickendam, 2019

* Please contact me at alanreynolds@gmail.com if you would like the print version or an ebook (either epub or mobi format)

Prologue
Long long ago when times were unenlightened
a madman gained much power. Don’t ask how.
His twitches soon had his own Cabinet frightened.
He cajoled, barked, and bullied trying to cow
those doubting that his dubious advent…

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Writer? Writer. — Young Adult, Old Soul

I am currently thinking about how I will evolve and where. It’s become obvious to me I need to move on (both for my own growth and because I cannot stand the routine, have gone way above my limit of round-trips to this business park I both hate and love.) It’s frustrating that I know […]

via Writer? Writer. — Young Adult, Old Soul

Writing Grows in Fits and Starts!

Pen & Paper

So often I hear people say, “oh, I can’t do that” and I say “ why not?” Believing in you and what you can be, what you can become, is totally dependent on believing you can. It really is that simple. You may not be the best at what you choose to be, but you can do it. Being the best is not the point. The point of it all is that you did your best.

A few years ago, I was the worst fiction writer ever, although I was good at research writing. However, fiction writing is a totally different kettle of fish, as they say. It was embarrassing, as I struggled to be a fiction writer, but I learned. I learned by reading lots of fiction, by observing and studying other people’s writing, especially on WordPress – a great place to learn.

Actually, several WordPress writers…

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How to Revise your Manuscript: First Draft to Final Draft – by Lisa Poisso… — Chris The Story Reading Ape’s Blog

Writing a novel is such a minuscule part of writing a novel. People who’ve never written anything longer than a school paper have a hard time imagining that pouring all those words onto the page isn’t the major part of the battle. Experienced authors know better. Writing the manuscript is just a fraction of the […]

via How to Revise your Manuscript: First Draft to Final Draft – by Lisa Poisso… — Chris The Story Reading Ape’s Blog

Verse out of time… MAXINE KUMIN

Maxine Kumin 1925 – 2014, Poet, Author,  Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress (now known as U.S. Poet Laureate). Pulitzer Prize winner who left us with a large and varied legacy of her works ranging from Poetry, Essays, Novels, Memoirs and Children’s Books. 

 

How It Is

 

Shall I say how it is in your clothes?

A month after your death I wear your blue jacket.

The dog at the center of my life recognizes

You’ve come to visit, he’s ecstatic.

In the left pocket, a hole.

In the right, a parking ticket

Delivered up last August on the Bay State Road.

In my heart, a scatter like milkweed,

A flinging from the pods of the soul.

My skin presses your old outline.

It is hot and dry inside.

 

I think of the last day of your life,

Old friend, how I would unwind it, paste

It together in a different collage,

Back from the death car idling in the garage,

Back up the stairs, your praying hands unlaced,

Reassembling the bits of bread and tuna fish

Into a ceremony of sandwich,

Running the home movie backward to a space

We could be easy in, a kitchen place

With vodka and ice, our words like living meat.

 

Dear friend, you have excited crowds,

With your example. They swell

Like wine bags, straining at your seams.

I will be years gathering up our words,

Fishing out letters, snapshots, stains,

Leaning my ribs against this durable cloth

To put on the dumb blue blazer of your death.

                                                                             – Maxine Kumin

While there is a wealth of current poets and authors, there is much to be gained by reading the works of those who have gone before us. While reading a book by the late Carolyn G. Heilbrun, I was introduced to the work of Kumin. There is a special joy in discovering another trove of treasures and perhaps some of you will stop by and mention a few that you have discovered recently.

 

Bisous,

Léa