Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 17

A Writer's Moment: Revealing the picture 'bit by bit'

A Writer's Moment: Revealing the picture 'bit by bit':   “Something happens between a novel and its reader which is similar to the process of developing photographs, the way they did it before th...

A Writer's Moment: Stirring the ingredients for success

A Writer's Moment: Stirring the ingredients for success:   “Creating characters is like throwing together ingredients for a recipe. I take characteristics I like and dislike in real people I know, ...

Stirring the ingredients for success

 

“Creating characters is likethrowing together ingredients for a recipe. I take characteristics I like anddislike in real people I know, or know of, and use them to embellish and definecharacters.” – Cassandra Clare

 

Born to American parents in Iran on July27, 1973 Judith Rumelt started writing as Cassandra Clare while still in highschool.   By the time she finishedcollege in the late 1990s she was writing under the name full time, beginningwith a series of magazine jobs and then switching to YA fiction in2005.    

 

She is perhaps best known for herbestselling series The Mortal Instruments, which include her mega-bestsellertitles City of Bones and City of Ashes.  Hernewest works are the novel The Ragpicker King in The Chronicles of Castellane series– on the market since March; and the collection Better in Black: TenStories of Shadowhunter Romance, scheduled for December.

 

A prolific writer, she has threedozen novels on the market or scheduled and also has written more than a dozenshorter works of fiction, all highly acclaimed and most as awardwinners.  Clare said her recipe for “lots of writing” is simple:

 

“Write every day. Don't killyourself. I think a lot of people think, 'I have to write a chapter a day' andthey can't. They fall behind and stop doing it. But if you just write even onehundred words a day, it's not that much. By the end of a month, you'll havethree thousand words, which is one chapter.  And write what you love - don't feel pressuredto write serious prose if what you like is to be funny.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Opening doors of perception'

A Writer's Moment: 'Opening doors of perception':   “There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.”  – Aldous Huxley    Born in Surrey,...

'Opening doors of perception'

 

“There are things known and thereare things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.” –Aldous Huxley 

 

Born in Surrey, England on July 26, 1894Huxley wrote more than 50 books, hundreds of essays and many other works, but hewas and is most recognized for his masterpiece Brave New World,destined to be studied, discussed and worried over for decades (if notcenturies) to come.   

 

Huxley said he was always interestedin writing, looking at life and things around him in new ways.  Hecompleted his first novel at the age of 17 and began writing seriously in hisearly 20s, almost immediately establishing himself as a successful writer andsocial satirist.  “Writers write to influence their readers, theirpreachers, their auditors,” he remarked, “but always, at bottom, to be morethemselves.”

 

It is sometimes forgotten that healso had a successful career as a screenwriter and playwright, living for 25years in Hollywood and then in the artist community of Taos, N.M., up to his deathin 1963.   Among his screenplays were Madame Curie and Prideand Prejudice and the well-received stage shows Mortal Coils and TheWorld of Light: A Comedy in Three Acts.

 

“The finest works of art,"Huxley said, "are precious, among other reasons, because they make itpossible for us to know, if only imperfectly and for a little while, what itactually feels like to think subtly and feel nobly.” 

 

 

'A condition, not a profession'

 "To be a poet is a conditionrather than a profession."    –  RobertGraves

 

Born in Wimbledon, England on July24, 1895 Graves was a second-generation poet, the son of the celebrated Irish poet AlfredPercival Graves.  He wrote more than 140poetic works, some for adults and some for children, as well as several award-winningnovels, including I, Claudius and Claudius The God, still bestsellers.

 

For Saturday’s Poem here are twoshort Graves’ poems – the first for adults; the second for children– or both for adults depending on how childlike you feel.  Cheers!

 

     Symptoms of Love

Loveis universal migraine,
bright stain on the vision
Blotting out reason.

Symptoms of true love
Are leanness, jealousy,
Laggard dawns;

Are omens and nightmares -
Listening for a knock,
Waiting for a sign:

For a touch of her fingers
In a darkened room,
For a searching look.

Take courage, lover!
Could you endure such pain
At any hand but hers?

  

       I’d Love To BeA Fairy’s Child

Childrenborn of fairy stock
Never need for shirt or frock,
Never want for food or fire,
Always get their hearts desire:
Jingle pockets full of gold,
Marry when they're seven years old.
Every fairy child may keep
Two ponies and ten sheep;
All have houses, each his own,
Built of brick or granite stone;
They live on cherries, they run wild--
I'd love to be a Fairy's child.

 

A Writer's Moment: 'A condition, not a profession'

A Writer's Moment: 'A condition, not a profession':   "To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession."     –  Robert Graves   Born in Wimbledon, England on July 24, 1895 G...

A Writer's Moment: 'It's that inner image of yourself'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's your inner image of yourself': “Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if...

'It's that inner image of yourself'

“Integrity is not a conditionalword. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your innerimage of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won't cheat, thenyou know he never will.” – John D. MacDonald

 

Born in Sharon, PA on this date in1916, crime/suspense novelist and short story writer MacDonald achieved thehighest accolade in his genre, being named a Grandmaster by the Mystery Writersof America shortly before his death in 1986.   A self-proclaimed“accidental writer” (he was considering a military career and had achieved therank of Lieutenant Colonel during WWII), he also was the winner of a NationalBook Award with critically acclaimed Travis McGee series. 

 

MacDonald's first novel appeared in1950, but it was his 1957 title The Executioners that put himon the map.  An almost continuous best-seller since, the book also holdsthe distinction of being the focus of two feature films, both box officesuccesses.    

His character Travis McGee made his first appearance in 1964 in TheDeep Blue Good-bye, starting a run of 21 bestsellers featuringhim.   Each title in the series includes a color, the lastbeing The Lonely Silver Rain.    All told, MacDonaldwrote dozens of short stories and more than 60 novels with 15 adaptedinto movies or television series.

 

“Every day,” the always humbleMacDonald said, “no matter how you fight it, you learn a little more aboutyourself.  And all most of it does isteach humility.”

'Full heart, full life'

 

“Nobody has ever measured, not evenpoets, how much the heart can hold.” – Zelda Fitzgerald

Born in Alabama on this date in1900, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald was a prominent Socialite noted for her beauty andhigh spirits, and was dubbed by her husband Scott as "the first AmericanFlapper.”  She and Scott became emblems of The Jazz Age, for whichthey are still celebrated.   

 

A great writer of journals, sheoften is credited with providing key material for her husband’s book ThisSide of Paradise.  He also often used her as the inspiration forhis other key female characters, including Daisy in The Great Gatsby.  Herown artistic endeavors included a semi-autobiographical novel, Save Me theWaltz, a play entitled Scandalabra, and numerous magazinearticles, short stories and paintings.

 

She said her life was meant to be“lived!” especially through love of those around her.  She “lived hard”and died young – in her mid-40s.   “I don't want to just live,” Fitzgeraldsaid.  “I want to love first and liveincidentally.”