A Is For… Again!

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Contributed by Laura F.

When I was in school (long ago now), a classmate claimed that anyone who went a full year without having sex automatically became a born-again virgin.  I won’t comment on the validity (or invalidity) of this claim, but I want to connect it to something I heard from another classmate in another context.  She remarked that one of her professors had told her that he envied students who still had the experience of reading Anna Karenina for the first time ahead of them.  Of course, it would be possible to substitute any book for Anna Karenina.  There are videos on Youtube by booktubers who lament that they have forever lost the ability to read – oh, the Harry Potter series, to give one example – for the first time.  How did they lose this ability?  By reading the series, of course.  The first time, it appears, is always the best time.

But is it true that we each get only one first time?  Recently I’ve re-read a few books and I was astounded by what a “first time” experience each of these re-readings was.  No, I don’t mean that my increased maturity, greater experience, and expanded consciousness :>) led me to new and brilliant insights into what I was reading.  I wish!

I understand that there are people who proclaim that enduring a painful breakup/becoming a parent/undergoing a serious illness/[insert important life experience of your choice here] has given them an entirely new perspective on their favorite books.  That is NOT what I am describing.

What I mean, somewhat embarrassingly, is that the books I was re-reading seemed entirely new to me because I didn’t remember a dang thing about them.  Oh, PRIOR to picking them up again, I would have said that I remembered them.  I could have named the major characters and identified significant aspects of their personalities. I had a pretty solid grasp of the plot, or at least I thought I did.  I had vivid recollections of one or two particular incidents.  I wasn’t expecting any surprises.

But it turned out that on a sentence-by-sentence, page-by-page, scene-by-scene, chapter-by-chapter basis, I had one surprise after another.   Eventually, the surprises ceased to surprise me because I no longer had any expectation of recognizing anything I read.

Now, admittedly, these were all books I had read years ago.  Perhaps I shouldn’t have expected them to seem familiar upon re-reading.  Nonetheless, despite being in what a lot of people apparently consider the fortunate position of being able to read the same book “for the first time” twice, I’m not sure that I consider it quite so fortunate.  After all, what does it mean to tell people I’ve read a certain book if I have so little memory of it?  What does it mean to tell MYSELF that I’ve read that book?

I wonder now whether I should turn to another “A” word”: annotation.  I’ve never been one of those people who mark up their books with all kinds of underlining, highlighting, and marginal notes.  I’m used to reading books that I’ve taken out of the library and libraries prefer that patrons return books in the same condition they found them.  But I do own some books, including quite a few that I’ve never read.  If I annotated those books as I read them, would I have only one “first time” experience with them?  Would I retain more memory of the books once those books have returned to the shelf?

Despite what booktubers might wish for, despite what that professor envied his students for, I think I’d rather be an experienced reader instead of a perpetually first-time reader.  Maybe it’s time to make highlighters and other annotation tools my new best friends.

 

The A to Z Blog Challenge – New Beginnings!

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So, you know how that whole “time” thing works? Where it’s January 1, 2, 25, 527, then all of a sudden it’s April 1st?

Which is the first day of the A to Z Blog Challenge?

Which you’re planning to do on your group blog with friends?

And then your partner’s power goes out and your work blows up?

And…

And. We’re HERE.

Happy April everyone! Welcome to the A to Z Blog Challenge, an annual challenge to post everyday in the month of April except for Sundays. Each day corresponds to a letter in the English alphabet. You can pick any theme that you want.

Theme: Moving Forward

Our theme for this year is “Moving Forward.” We all agreed that 2022 was a rough year for many of us, and 2023 has been intense as well. We are feeling a collective sense of wanting to move forward, build momentum, and bring new life to our writing and craft.

Other words that we came up with:

  • Spring
  • nature
  • balance
  • inspiration
  • muses
  • new beginnings
  • rebirth
  • momentum
  • actual movement

Our first post will be by our member, Laura Fasick, and will be up shortly. Enjoy!

Z Is For… Zombies!

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Contributed by Evilynne.

In the horror genre, zombies are used as a metaphor for ‘xenophobia’, that is fear of ‘the other’.  This is a logical fear as the unknown is always just that, unknown.    Writers and directors work to create art that resounds with others.  “Let’s make a movie, write a story, paint a picture about it.  Everyone responds to fear.”  Zombies have become a useful, and evolving, creature in this art form.

In the black and white horror movies of the 1950’s zombies were depicted as black slaves, usually from Haiti, most of them entranced by a witch doctor.  They were forced to obey their master; they moved slowly and had no thoughts of their own.  Their circle of influence was very small, within a few miles of their creator and they died when their master did.

Looking at those first movies we can see ‘the other’ was usually a black man, and we don’t need to make a reach to see the Civil Rights Movement of the time feeding these fears — especially considering the witch doctors often used their zombies, dirty from working the fields and dressed in rags, to kidnap blond, white women, dressed in flowing white gowns.  What a terrifying image: the vulnerable, unconscious landowner’s wife thrown over the shoulder of a black man and carried away into the night.  Not only did it look great on the black and white film of the time but tapped into the upheaval that movie goers lived with in their daily lives.

Now let’s fast forward to the modern zombie movies. In their newest incarnations zombies are the reanimated dead; horrible and unnatural as that thought is in and of itself.  Most are brought back by a disease, a comet from space or some government experiment gone wrong — common fears of recent times.  The ‘newer’ zombie’s hunger for human flesh and will find and attack any human to get what they desire, often in the most fast paced, claustrophobic, and gory way possible.  And these monsters don’t die when their creator does, instead they create more zombies through their bite, making their numbers grow exponentially, infecting not just our country, but eventually the whole world.  As for killing them, most movies rely on killing the brain by shooting, beheading, or a knife through the eye.  The genre must now use extra violence to compete with the wars and crime that are seen every evening on the news.

Yes, the most recent zombies reflect the immigration problem at the Mexican border, terrorist attacks from the Middle East and diseases like Covid and Ebola.   These ‘frightening people’ and the diseases they bring are now a part of American society.  “They will take our jobs, put a drain on the economy, overthrow our government and take over our culture, and heaven forbid, most of them don’t even speak English!” is a frequent fear expressed by some.    Not only will these monsters kill us, they will bring down our whole nation and civilization. Images of survivors wandering a vast cityscape of empty ruined buildings, foraging for food and safety, prey on our primal fears of being alone, vulnerable and desperate.  Without our technology and the help of others we are forced to be our own police, food provider, mechanic and doctor; we have become very specialized in our culture and most are not prepared to learn all of these skills.  More vulnerability awareness.

Zombies just hit the spot when you want to scare someone, don’t they?  Who knows what zombies will look like in the future, what they will do?  I believe they will echo the fears of the period.  So, next time you are watching a scary movie, especially one with zombies in it, try to figure out what it is about the monsters that triggers you.

The writers and actors have planned on your reaction. Were they successful?

Yes Is For… Yes! Say Yes!

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Yes!

I said it. Yes, I’ll do the A to Z Blog Challenge this year! Yes!

Am I glad that I did?

Yes!

Am I glad that I asked the folx who come to our weekly craft gathering, A Good Yarn Craft Salon and Makerspace to do it with me?

Yes!!!

Did we create something amazing?

Yes!

Did we do more than we thought we could?

Yes!!

Would we do it again?

Yes!!!

There’s something magical about challenges – National Novel Writing Month, Month of Letters, the A to Z Challenge, Month of Letters, the A to Z Blogging Challenge… They focus our attention on what we can DO. Not on what we are reading, or consuming, or scrolling. But what we, as ourselves, individuals, just you and me, can actually DO – write, or make, or speak, or say, or move… And by doing that, we remind ourselves of our inherent birthright: we are meant to be creative.

I’ll say that again: we are meant to be creative.

And when we, each of us, make something, just for a moment, we are reminded of our inner power and sometimes, even, a spark of our own inner joy.

And that, my friends, is why I continue to do challenges. Not because they’re challenging, though they are; not because they’re kind of silly and made-up, because they are; but because, for the duration of the challenge, I’m reminded that I can DO this. And together, WE can do this.

One more day of the challenge, friends; check back tomorrow for Evey who will take us home with Z Is For… Zombies!

X Is For… X Marks the Spot!

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by Mary Economou Green

So what to discuss when you get the letter X to write about? So I did what we all do – googled.

Not much of a gamer, so talking about X-box and its generations is out of the question. Nor X-Factor (never really watched the show, and Simon was rather mean). And x-rays remind me that I’m getting older and clumsier (sigh). Also not into American slasher films, so very unlikely to run out to see the new movie X (definitely not my cup of tea). Thus so far, not much to say.

But I did come across two interesting Xs – in music. The song “ X”  by Jonas Brothers has a catchy dance beat with the inspired words, “kiss me like your ex is in the room.” Cheeky, isn’t it? Then there’s the American punk rock band called X (formed in 1977, still performing apparently). The song “Los Angeles” has a great vibe and a line I can relate to somehow, “she gets confused flying over the dateline.” Love it.

Well, I could talk about EXs. But too many, too complicated, too long ago. A word of caution though, going back almost never results in a positive outcome. Remember yourself at that moment of EXdom and be kind to that younger more innocent self: don’t look back longingly and/or in anger; don’t have regrets; remind yourself that there’s a reason they are an EX. In the wise words of Fleetwood Mac, “don’t stop thinking about tomorrow…yesterday’s gone, yesterday’s gone”

This is sealed with an X, for all you readers.

X

W Is For… Walking

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Contributed by Laura F.

“W” is for “walking but it is also for “writing” and in this, my final post in the A-Z Blog challenge, I want to pass along and recommend the best piece of writing advice that I have ever received, which is to use walking (or any other physical activity, no matter how slight) as a stimulus for writing.

Based on publication records, there appear to be some fortunate individuals in this world who never experience even the briefest difficulty in getting words on the page (or on the computer screen).  I’ve read Stephen King’s On Writing and in that book he claims that he gladly – GLADLY!! – writes every single day of every year.  Oh, yes, once or twice he told pesky interviewers that he didn’t write on his birthday or on Christmas day but that was only because they refused to believe him when he told them the truth.  The truth is that he is eager to sit down and write every day and he DOES sit down and write every day, including his birthday, including Christmas Day.  He writes EVERY day.  Every.  Single.  Day.  He writes every day without any inner forces holding him back, whispering in his ear that he’s too tired, too distracted, that dishes need washing and the dog needs a walk and he’d better finish reading that library book today because it’s due tomorrow.

I can only say, “Mr. King, I salute you. This consistency is part of what makes you Stephen King while I . . . . am not.”

Of course, I don’t want to be Stephen King.  The very word “horror” fills me with, well, horror.  I’ve never read anything of King’s aside from On Writing, and I don’t intend to read anything else of his.

However, I often wish I could be as effortlessly diligent about my own writing as he is about his.  No matter how satisfied I am with my plot, no matter how much I love my characters, no matter how much I’m delighted that I have written once I’ve done it, starting is almost always hard for me.  Sometimes it’s so hard that an entire day goes by without my advancing in my latest project.  Or two days.  Or a three.  Or a week.  Or . . . . .  I don’t want to admit publicly how long I can go without writing.

Yet, even when I find the writing process most difficult, walking stirs my creative juices.  Often I have walked out whatever inhibition kept me from my writing desk.  Once I walked, I wrote.  The equation has often been as simple as that.

Of course, many, many writers have recommended walking as a spur to creativity.  Julia Cameron, the creator of the Artist’s Way, devoted an book to the subject.  Yet Cameron insists upon the need to walk outdoors, and I regard that insistence as a serious mistake.  For those who love the outdoors and for whom it is possible to walk outdoors, Godspeed!  For me, indoor walking is best, preferably with some of my favorite music further lifting my spirits and stimulating my imagination.  I live in a climate where it is almost always too cold or too hot to walk outdoors, even if one is an ardent fan of nature, which I am NOT.  What suits me is walking in my apartment, in shopping malls, even in the stacks of a university library.  Walking is the magic, not walking outside.

At times when physical limitations have made it impossible to walk, then less taxing physical activities have helped me get back to writing.  Any movement, even simply the hand movements of craftwork, have often inspired and motivated me to return to my current manuscript.

Whether my feet move or my hands move, I almost always end a movement session with fresh enthusiasm for my writing.  Perhaps you have had similar experiences.  Perhaps you can share other suggestions for those of us who, unlike Stephen King, do not find it easy to write every day.

V Is For… Victory!!

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Did your high school use the “V – V-I – V-I-C-T-O-R-Y” chant at football games? Kind of corny, I know, and nowhere near what some of the immensely creative students are doing these days (like my nephew, say). But ya gotta work with what ya got.

I, apparently, have got no mas el spoons.

What the heck does that mean?

For those of you that haven’t heard the term spoons before, let me ‘splain. It came about in the chronic illness community as an illustration of what it meant to be chronically ill. Each day you wake up with a finite number of spoons. You can’t borrow or trade them, and when they’re gone, they’re gone.

Some of you know I am a child abuse survivor and have complex Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. And if you didn’t, now you do. The reason that’s relevant is that I’m working with a therapist on a new-to-me modality called EMDR: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It’s an amazing treatment that uses emerging learnings from brain science and I have found it to be one of the single most effective ways of healing past traumas that I’ve ever tried.

We started a new “target,” or memory, about two weeks ago.

I didn’t realize how much work it was taking until I looked up and it’s already the 29th of April and I’d lost track not only of my own posts, but of our guest posts. So sorry!

So why is my post called Victory, then?

Because, my friends, some days it is a victory to accept where we are, stop and say “Oops,” and pick ourselves up to keep going. And that, friends, is what I’m doing today.

Resources

Find an EMDR therapist: https://www.emdria.org/find-an-emdr-therapist/

T is for… Taco Tuesday! or, The Dubious Value of Trademarking

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Contributed by Laura Rios

In October 1933, the White Star Cafeteria in the Saint Regis Hotel of El Paso, Texas launched a weeklong advertising campaign to announce that they would be offering “Mexican tacos” each Tuesday. The tacos were a terrific value, even during the Depression, at three for fifteen cents!

The Saint Regis Hotel, El Paso, Texas

Photo source: THC Historic Resources Survey Collection  provided by the Texas Historical Commission to The Portal to Texas History, digitally  hosted by the UNT Libraries. Used with permission.

In the 1940’s, Albuquerque’s Zia Lounge gave away free tacos on Tuesdays. In 1965 a restaurant called La Cucaracha advertised tacos as their “Tuesday special”. (Let’s not debate the wisdom of eating anything – even tacos – from a greasy spoon named for a cockroach.)

During the next several decades, a number of restaurants across the nation began designating Tuesday as The Day for great deals on tacos. Maybe it was our growing love of Southwest cuisine. Possibly it was because we all love bargains. Or it might have been our love affair with alliteration. Whatever it was, having tacos on Tuesday became a thing.

The first use of the actual phrase “Taco Tuesday” is shrouded in mystery because restaurateurs disagree on that point.  Gregory’s Restaurant and Bar in New Jersey holds the oldest trademark on those two words, dating back to 1979. But alas, they only trademarked Taco Tuesday in the state of New Jersey. Ten years went by before the government granted Wyoming-based Taco John’s the U.S. trademark for the phrase they “invented”; Taco Tuesday is still officially trademarked nationwide by Taco John’s.

 Many times, Taco John’s has threatened legal action against smaller restaurants and bars that offer discounted tacos promoted by the phrase “Taco Tuesday” but to date, their cease-and-desist efforts haven’t been very effective at quashing the practice. Using those two words in tandem to advertise a special has become so commonplace that it is virtually impossible to legally regulate the use of it, even when a particular entity holds the lawful trademark.

So, is there any real value in trademarking? In the end, both the phrase and the tradition ensure that nearly ALL taco joints enjoy a brisk taco business on Tuesdays. To trademark or not to trademark? That is the question, but the answer is not clear.

If today happened to be a Tuesday, I would happily discuss this further over a couple of bargain tacos from virtually anywhere except a place named for cockroaches. But alas, it’s Saturday so maybe we’ll just grab a pizza.

S Is For… Solo Travel!

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Contributed by Carolyn Malone.

There are two things that I take into consideration when traveling solo as a female: safety and walkability. In a previous post I mentioned travel to Cape May, New Jersey. For those who wish to venture outside the United States, I recommend touring Venice, Italy.

Unlike what some movies and novels might suggest, Venice has a low crime rate, much lower than Rome and Milan, and it is considered to be one of the safest cities in Italy. The best times of the year to visit are spring and fall. It tends to be hot and crowded in July and August.

Where to Stay

Historical Venice is comprised of six neighborhoods: Castello, Cannaregio, Santa Croce, Dorsoduro, San Marco, and San Polo. The latter two neighborhoods are touristy and crowded, filled with overpriced restaurants and lodgings. For cheaper accommodations and a more local feel, I recommend staying in Santa Croce, which is much quieter and slower paced. Here, you can get a sense of how the natives live. You’ll have to take a short walk or ride on the Grand Canal to get to the main tourist attractions, but it’s worth it to get lost in the charming alleyways and winding streets along the way.

Getting Around Venice

There are only two modes of transport within Venice Proper: water and foot. On the water, most people (tourists and locals, alike) use the vaporetto (a water bus) to reach stops along the Grand Canal, the city’s main waterway. The “side streets” or waterways that run perpendicular to the Grand Canal are only accessible by gondola or water taxi. Some people say not to bother taking a gondola, as it is a tad expensive, at around 100 euros a ride for up to six people. To me, not taking a gondola ride in Venice is like going to a winery and not tasting the wine. You must try this experience once. Believe me, it’s worth the price of admission.

Luckily, Venice is compact enough to navigate by foot. Don’t be afraid to get lost. Even if you are directionally challenged like me, you’ll eventually end up where you want to be. Aside from famous St. Mark’s Square, there are dozens of smaller squares and winding streets where you’ll run into charming cafes, gelato shops, museums, and small shops selling carnival masks, Murano glass, and other artworks.

Unusual Things to Do/See While in Venice

  • Pay attention to the array of boats on the water. There are police boats, ambulance boats, fire boats, garbage boats, house-moving boats, and yes, even hearse boats. A boat for every purpose under the sun.
  • Get up early. Dawn and dusk are the best times to see the “real life” of a city’s inhabitants. One morning I woke up to see garbage collectors on land, going from building to building, collecting garbage by wheelbarrow.
  • Take the Venice Ghost and Walking Legends Tour. In addition to ghost stories, you’ll learn about the history of Venice and the real purpose of wearing those masks.
  • Visit a Venetian Squero, a boatyard in Dorsoduro. Here you can watch master craftsmen build and repair gondolas while learning the history behind these iconic boats.
  • Go on a Venetian mask-making tour. Visit the Ca’Macana Workshop in Dorsoduro and learn about the different types and meanings behind the city’s masks. You can make your own mask as well.

Venice is filled with things to see and do if you are willing to look beyond the usual tourist trappings. I hope someday you get to experience the magic of this unique city and all that it has to offer.

R Is For… Research!

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Contributed by Nicole

Research is the dread goddess that breathes true life into our writing with the help of her consort, the Internet.

With the advent of the Internet and social media sites, it isn’t quite the onerous duty that it once was. A great deal of information is literally at our fingertips with the Internet. Social Media also lets reach out to your subject matter experts for more in depth knowledge. You know, if you are going to write about a zombie apocalypse, why not talk to a microbiologist? If you are writing about the police department in a specific town, call that department and see if one of the officers is willing to chat a bit. .

And, of course, there is still the library with their digital catalog, electronic books and those glorious hard copy repositories of information called ‘books’.

Realism will resonate with your readers, so research!