More voices from 2009
More voices on the page, or on the computer screen of this blog, continue to echo into the first hours of a new year. Here are some more of the voices that brightened "A Little Romance" in 2009.
Ghislaine Chock, whose poems "The Phone" and "The Office" appear in the new Bamboo Ridge collection ... I asked Ghislaine to comment on the creation of these two poems and the inspiration for them:
The creation of these poems came naturally. I learned from Eric that even if you are not a poet one can express feelings, moments, emotions, etc. through poetry. I am more than fortunate to live with a poet. Poets are able to make you understand and see the world through their keen eyes with exquisite sensitivity. That is their function.
Stephanie Chang, local graphic arts designer, who designed my 2009 novel Chasing Cowboys:
I was so thrilled Michael invited me to work with him on Chasing Cowboys. His story offered so much to work with: cowboy culture, American west, two narrators, two couples (one unexpected), and a lightness to the novel. It was nothing short of taking a joyous journey to Reno and cowboy land.
I was so pleased that in being asked to design BOTH the cover and the book inside, I had the opportunity to impact the reader’s entire experience. If design involves communicating a message or idea visually, these messages and ideas come through with every choice made to put the book together. It includes: treatment of chapter headings, page headings, font choice, layout of the individual page, page numbers even. With each of these, I ask: have we used these elements to best “fit” the book’s personality?
All of these elements together make for a book that is “easy on the eyes” (and highly professional) which means the reader can focus on reading, and the story can be received in the best way possible.
And here are some voices of writers from other lands and times, beginning with Frank Delaney and a passage from his novel Ireland, a memorable paragraph for all writers, and readers:
A story has only one master—its narrator; he decides what he wants his story to do. I know, I have always known, what I want my stories to achieve—I want to make people believe. Believe what I tell. Believe in it. Believe me. Belief is the one effect I’m always looking for, and I apply every device, every pause, every gesture, every verbal nuance and twirl, to that end. To achieve it, I myself have to believe; if I don’t, who will? I must believe ancient Ireland was as I describe it. The swords really did ring loudly off the shields. And the armor surely gleamed in the sun.
Finally, three classic endings. Here's Dylan Thomas, from A Child's Christmas in Wales:
Always on Christmas night there was music. An uncle played the fiddle, a cousin sang "Cherry Ripe," and another uncle sang "Drake's Drum." It was very warm in the little house. Auntie Hannah, who had got on to the parsnip wine, sang a song about Bleeding Hearts and Death, and then another in which she said her heart was like a Bird's Nest; and then everybody laughed again; and then I went to bed. Looking through my bedroom window, out into the moonlight and the unending smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steady falling night. I turned the gas down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept.
From F. Scott Fitzgerald, the ending of The Great Gatsby:
And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning—
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
The last word goes to E. B. White, with the closing words of Charlotte's Web, an enduring lesson to all writers in the elements of style, in the power of a few words. Not a bad paragraph for writers to place by the keyboard or writing pad in this new year:
Wilbur never forgot Charlotte. Although he loved her children and grandchildren dearly, none of the new spiders ever quite took her place in his heart. She was in a class by herself. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.
Tags: Dylan Thomas, E. B. White, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Frank Delaney, Ghislaine Chock, Stephanie Chang
