Tiah Beautement's Blog, page 106
January 8, 2013
On SlushPile Hell
A few years back a man was telling me about his son's school. His son is on the autistic spectrum. The school was full of children who all had challenges similar to his son’s. The man observed that practically all the children were prone to moments of breakdown – be in sensory overload, or the tasks of the day had become too much. There would be crying, loud yelling, as the frustration worked itself out. But what the man found amusing was that each child, when seeing another do it, would look at the overloaded classmate in a manner that...
January 6, 2013
On Eloquent Body
Dawn Garisch, Eloquent Body - A few years ago, I found myself up all night, as though with a new-born. Every time I started dropping off, another thought arrived, demanding that I commit it to paper. I knew that if I left the ideas till morning, they were unlikely to survive. - - Wholeness as a mass-marketed idea increases the pressure on us to reach an unattainable perfection. It provides a lever for businesses to get us to hand over money to acquire the latest machine, tonic or pill in the uncritical quest for health. Alternatively, we might live a...
January 3, 2013
On holiday reading
Ah,the joy of visiting others during the holidays. It is a great opportunity to pick through the bookshelves. One gem was The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield. A book for writers and bookworms. Quotes: - Politeness. Now there's a poor man's virtue if ever there was one. What's so admirable about inoffensiveness, I should like to know? After all, it's easily achieved. One needs no particular talent to be polite. On the contrary, being nice is what's left when you've failed at everything else. People with ambition don't give a damn what other people think of them. - - Life...
January 2, 2013
On the next big thing
Happy New Year! December was a tough month. Many lovely things occurred, but between the chaos and the rollar coaster ride of heath issues this blog took a bit of a back seat. But life doesn't let anybody hide for long, and I've been tagged on this Next Big Thing relay that has hit the writing blogs. My entry is live today on Books Live: My next small thing. Please also read Rachel Zadok's post: My next big thing And next week (9th of Jan) I pass the batton on to Jenna Mervis and Shafinaaz Hassim. (I'll post links later....
December 11, 2012
On being 35
'What are you working on?' my mother asks me, as I sit in my bedroom, frowning at my laptop. 'It's an essay about turning thirty, and what I've learned as I've gotten older,' I tell her. 'Oh,' she says, and thinks about it. 'So, a very short piece, then.' - Jennifer Weiner's essay '35', The May Queen -
December 7, 2012
On the last day
Today I looked at the woman who taught both my children to talk and said, 'I have no more children for you to teach.' "How did it get so late so soon?” - Dr Seuss - “Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.” - Sometimes credited to Dr Seuss -
December 3, 2012
On what Rachel told me
Originality is the art of concealing your sources. - Benjamin Franklin - What moves those of genius, what inspires their work is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough. - Eugene Delacroix -
December 2, 2012
On A Change of Climate
Hilary Mantel, A Change of Climate - When she was thirteen or fourteen, she had made up her mind to go to a foreign country: preferably a distant one. Her idea was that she would say goodbye to her parents, and write to them twice a year. - - She wanted peace from her own thoughts, from their relentless, spinning nature. She realized that not once since she had been in prison had she prayed. It had not crossed her mind to do it. She looked into her heart, on this sixth morning of her imprisonment, and found a void...
November 29, 2012
On hope
I heard a preacher say recently that hope is a revolutionary patience; let me add that so is being a writer. Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up. - Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird -
November 28, 2012
On overachievers
Magwazephindele (m): One who is never satisfied with a single achievement. (NGUNI) - Phumzile Simelane Kalumba, Jabulani: A dictionary of South African Names -
