The Dreaded Synposis and Stephen Crane Cynthia 9:20 PM

This weekend I am working on a synopsis for my story, Afterdamp.This is the story I wrote during April last year. Powering your way through a 200+ page novel in 30 days is an accomplishment. Editing and re-editing said novel is brag-worthy. Writing a query for aforementioned novel is an inhuman feat, but writing a synopsis for said/aforementioned novel feels like an impossibility--like matter traveling faster than the speed of light or the dishes mysteriously washing themselves.

In short, it's a lot harder than it sounds and I need all your positivity-ness. Please clap your hands if you believe in me. Everyone. Now. Thanks.

In the meantime. Here is one of my favorite poems by Stephen Crane. Please note that it reflects my current mood:

III

In the desert

I saw a creature, naked, bestial,

who, squatting upon the ground,

Held his heart in his hands,

And ate of it.

I said, "Is it good, friend?"

"It is bitter -- bitter," he answered;

"But I like it

Because it is bitter,

And because it is my heart."

Bad battery and Elizabeth Bishop Cynthia 1:29 PM

I made a goal this year (not a resolution, I refuse to make resolutions) to write every day and I've stuck with it. This is one of my longest-lived resolutions thus far. Sometimes I write a word or two, someones 10 pages, sometimes a poem, but I write something every day. My laptop currently has some issues. It's time for me to buy a new battery, but it hasn't been at the tip-top of my priority list, since I can still plug it in and it works fine. The problem is that if the plug gets bumped, the computer shuts off instantly, releasing whatever I've just written into the ether. Bummer. After doing this several times (once when I was helping my daughter with her Sterling Scholar application (WOOT SHEYENNE!)), I thought of Elizabeth Bishop and my favorite poem by her - "One Art." I've loved this poem for years, but I get teary at the end every single time. She evokes emotion with such skill that I am helpless against the power of her words. I've included the poem in this blog for your reading pleasure. Please let me know your emotional state by the time you make it to the end. One Art - Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster, Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three beloved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. -- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.

Another favorite poem by Seamus Heaney Cynthia 3:37 PM

Last night as I was getting out of my car, I heard a succession of gunshots. I slammed the door shut and yelled,"those were gunshots," at least four times before I was convinced that everyone in the car knew they were gunshots.

Most of you have heard about the tragic shooting that happened in Ogden last night. I won't give the details here--you can get those on the local news sites, but it hit close to home. Literally for me.

Through the years, I've watched people I'm close to lose family members--children, grandparents, siblings and parents. I've lost some of my own. I've lost so many friends and family members, in fact, that I once wrote a poem called "Persephone," which explored the idea that I am an unwitting connection to the underworld since I've said goodbye to so many loved ones. This brought to mind another one of my favorite poems--this one by Seamus Heaney--in which he writes of his own personal loss. It seems that extremes make us want to write. It's harder to find inspiration in comfort. I've written many poems about the death of my brother. It's therapeutic. It's healing. For me, it's necessary.

Mid-Term Break by Seamus Heaney

I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying--
He had always taken funerals in his stride--
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were 'sorry for my trouble,'
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.