THE BLESSINGS OF CANNIBALISM

On this day in 1300 Dante was made one of the six Priors of Florence,

the top political office in the city-state.

Though only a two-month term — the legal limit,
so suspicious were the citizenry of corruption and power-plays —

Dante's appointment set in motion the series of events that would eventually cause his permanent banishment,

and inspire some of the most memorable lines in the Divine Comedy

Like Dante, have you noticed that life doesn't stand in line?

It demands service ... right now.

The earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan.

The health challenges of three of my good friends. My sweltering apartment. The enforced move to another.

The destruction of the only road that leads to my apartment complex.

What has this to do with writing? Everything.

Soon or late, you will hear a pounding on the door. Take in a deep breath. It will be life demanding your attention ... now!

You will have to deal with it, dropping for a moment your writing ...

which will not necessarily be a bad thing.

From Dante to Mark Twain to Ernest Hemingway, authors have found it enriched their writing to put it away for a time, to not even think about it.

The mind is a funny thing :

your unconscious mind will be fiddling with your novel all the while you are dealing with life.

In fact, as a writer you will be listening to the people all about you, noticing every gesture, every interpersonal exchange displayed before you.

When you get back to your novel, you will, of course, want to read all of it until the point you stopped.

And the flaws in the flow of prose, the tension, the pacing ... the humanity portrayed in your novel will stand out as if highlighted.

All because your unconscious mind digested your experiences while dealing with impatient life.
***

STRANGER IN A FAMILIAR LAND

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Amazon.com: http://amzn.to/hX2ieD }


Have we become obsolete?

We as writers,

as thinkers,

as empathic observers of the human condition?


Have we become strangers in a familiar land?


"He whom God has touched will always be a being apart: he is, whatever he may do, a stranger among men; he is marked by a sign."
Ernest Renan


Those who read books are becoming fewer and fewer, causing the publishing world to become tense observers of trends and profit margins.

And thus, they have become stoic, ruthless guardians of the portals of publishing which are emblazoned with :


"You Enter Only If You Bring Us Certain Profits."


Children equate reading with boring, agonizing homework assignments.

They want quick, easy thrills offered by video games and movies : no mental assembly required.

Just blood, action, and sex (not love.)

But are the viewing children and adults like the husband who roars at his wife to just shut up. He gets what he asks for but not what he truly wants.

He wants the love of his life back. The sweetheart who thought the world of him and whose sight made the breath catch in his chest.


“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.

It is the source of all true art and all science.

He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead:

his eyes are closed.”
Albert Einstein



We need the magic back.

Not the Harry Potter kind of magic exactly. But the magic that can take a day of remembrance of Rosa Park's courage and cast a spell with these words by former American poet laureate Rita Dove :


How she sat there,
the time right inside a place
so wrong it was ready.

That trim name with
its dream of a bench
to rest on. Her sensible coat.

Doing nothing was the doing:
the clean flame of her gaze
carved by a camera flash.

How she stood up
when they bent down to retrieve
her purse. That courtesy.


But the world is too much with us :

its clamor, its demands, its cliched entertainments that cause our minds to slumber, our souls to slowly wither.

We forget the dreams and hopes of our childhood. We forget to listen to the lament of our starving hearts.

We think it is a conditon of the 21st century. It is not.

On this day in 1821 Percy Shelley's "Adonais," his elegy to John Keats, was published in England.

A cornerstone of both Romantic poetry and the myth of the Romantic, the poem paints Keats as Adonis in pursuit of Beauty and Truth, brought down by those less noble and talented.

This was a fate Shelley predicted for himself,

and he died before Keats's gravestone had been erected.

He had one eye upwards on the pursuit of Beauty and Truth, and one downwards on all that was in pursuit of him.

Could that be said of us as we pursue our publishing dreams? Are we selling truth in a marketplace that wishes only affirmations that the moment is all there is?

That there is no tomorrow, no place for nourishing kindness in an unkind world, that success is the product of the manipulation of the masses?

Keats wanted his gravestone in Rome to read "Here lies one whose name was writ in water."

Are we writing in water?

Perhaps. But the world and we, humans, are three-fourths water. Water is the key to life.

If, in our writing, we touch only one heart that finds strength for the next step in a harsh, dark world, have we not made our striving worthwhile?

We, as authors, do not think of masses. We think of the individual : the solitary protagonist -- the solitary reader. I do not think of many reading my book. I see one reader reading my book at a time:

A lonely young boy emboldened by the plucky courage and wit of Victor Standish.

A thinking man nodding at the reflective compassion and courage of Samuel McCord.

An intelligent lesbian finding worthwhile role models in Ada Byron and Margaret Fuller.

A struggling married couple finding empathic connection with Renfield and Magda, making an impossible situation forced upon them somehow work with love and courage.

The British writer and naturalist, Henry Williamson was born on this day in 1895.

Although Williamson’s reputation now survives only in connection to Tarka the Otter, his beloved 1927 children’s book, he wrote a series of autobiographical books.

One such was entitled, A SOLITARY WAR.

We, as writers, as empathic thinkers ... we, too, are engaged in a solitary war whether we are married or single.

No one truly sees into our minds, our hearts, our dreams. Nor do we see truly the depth of those things in others.

It is an external war. It is also a perpetual inner warfare as well.

As we go about the hustle and bustle of our holiday activities and our routine work grind,

let us stop for a moment to see if someone by us is one of the walking wounded of their solitary war.

And if so, soldiers fight better together, having one another's back.
***

THE BLESSINGS OF CANNIBALISM

Have you noticed that life doesn't stand in line?

It demands service ... right now.

Eric's unborn child. Sangu's visa. The riots that made Jessica's life interesting some months back. My double hernia or double muscle pulls (depending on which doctor you listen to.)

What has this to do with writing? Everything. Soon or late, you will hear a pounding on the door. Take in a breath. It will be life demanding your attention ... now!

You will have to deal with it, dropping for a moment your writing ... which will not necessarily be a bad thing.

From Mark Twain to Ernest Hemingway, authors have found it enriched their writing to put it away for a time, to not even think about it.

The mind is a funny thing :

your unconscious mind will be fiddling with your novel all the while you are dealing with life. In fact, as a writer you will be listening to the people all about you, noticing every gesture, every interpersonal exchange displayed before you.

When you get back to your novel, you will, of course, want to read all of it until the point you stopped. And the flaws in the flow of prose, the tension, the pacing ... the humanity portrayed in your novel will stand out as if highlighted.

All because your unconscious mind digested your experiences while dealing with impatient life.
***