Gary Gauthier's Blog, page 7

More Beautiful Than Direct Sunlight

I learned early in my career as a painter that limited or filtered light is inherently more interesting and beautiful than direct sunlight.

I learned that people are irresistibly drawn to depictions of dappled sun on a wooded path, morning light sifted through mist or clouds, lamplight piercing the gloom of dusk.

Filtered light is soft and gentle. It feels safe and comforting rather than harsh or glaring. And it still does its job of brightening and illuminating the world.

— Thomas Kinkade

Painting: Llewelyn Lloyd (1879 - 1949)

My Shiny New Laptop by David N. Walker

Today is LLC Friday and our guest is fellow Life List Club Member, David Walker. David is going to share with us his adventures in securing the latest in computing technology. Meanwhile, I'll be over at Lara Schiffbauer's Motivation for Creation Blog. Lara motivated me to write How to Structure the Plot of a Novel as a guest post. Be sure to stop by.

David is running the show today, so please join me in extending a warm welcome.

WANA: We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.
My Dell laptop is about 100 years old in computer years. It's slow and cantankerous, working when it feels like it and not when it doesn't. Kristen Lamb harps all the time about my need for a new computer, and when I look around the room at WWBC meetings, mine is at least a grandfather to the others.

Don't laugh, but changing computers is always a stressful event for me. First of all, I'm about the least tech-savvy person on the internet, and secondly, old farts people my age don't like change. Of course, I've been saying that ever since I was 35, but that's my story, and I'm sticking with it.

Most of the people in my group have Macs, which I've always avoided like the plague, but I've begun wondering if I'm missing something and should really look into taking a bite of the Apple. After looking online and going over to an Apple Store to talk to a peddler sales associate, then talking with the man I've used for technical problems with my computers for several years, I decided there wasn't really a compelling reason for me to make that switch.

Okay, that left me back at considering a new PC. I spent some time online in total confusion studying a number of different models. Then I went to Best Buy to look at some first hand and talk to a sales associate there. A little later I walked out with a new Lenovo laptop. 6GB of memory and some ungodly number of 500 gigabytes on the hard drive. That's more than my trusty desktop has.


After only about four hours of cursing working at it, I think I have it all set up with everything I need on it. Well, at least until I discover I don't. Anyhow, when I walk into our Warrior Writers' meeting Saturday, I'll have a bright, shiny new computer to show off. I know Kristen will approve, because she loves anything shiny.


David N. Walker is a Christian father and grandfather, a grounded pilot and a near-scratch golfer who had to give up the game because of shoulder problems. A graduate of Duke University, he spent 42 years as a health insurance agent. Most of that career was spent in Texas, but for a few years he traveled many other states. He started writing about 20 years ago, and has six unpublished novels to use as primers on how NOT to write fiction. Since his retirement from insurance a few years ago, he has devoted his time to helping Kristen Lamb start Warrior Writers' Boot Camp and trying to learn to write a successful novel himself.

Like the Head of an Elephant

It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness.

It contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and to-morrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next.

Charles Dickens, Hard Times

Painting: Vincent Van Gogh; Factory in Asnieres (1887)

The Piston of the Steam Engine

It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness.

It contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and to-morrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next.

Charles Dickens, Hard Times

Painting; Vincent Van Gogh; Factory in Asnieres (1887)

Of Fasting and Feasting by Sonia G Medeiros

Prayer
For many folk, the next several weeks will be spent in preparation for Easter with a season called Lent. Lent is a time of penance, sacrifice, preparation and spiritual renewal. The Lenten fasting prepares the body and spirit for the tribulations ahead and for the joys, the celebration and feasting.

(If you're struggling with that whole sacrifice bit, check out Jenny Hansen's solution to sinning.)

While our family observes Lent for religious reasons, I also admire the practical reasons for such a season of preparation. As our world grows ever more complex and fast-paced, we can easily lose sight of what's important and skid wildly out of balance.


This is especially true when we decided to follow a big dream or goal. The moment we open ourselves to it, the distractions, obligations and activities seek us out ruthlessly. Before we know it, our fledgling hopes can be buried. Our friends and family call us out for not paying attention to them and our work volume (in the home and/or out of it) seems to quadruple.


Buried Alive
It's enough to make anyone want to curl up in a fetal position nursing a bottle of whiskey and snorting pure sugar.

On the other hand, we can get so caught up in our dreams and goals we let everything else begin to slip.

Either way, it's the whiskey and sugar again.

But every once in a while, we need to step back and look at our lives, our dreams and our goals. Along with all the good stuff, the dreck builds up. We need to clear it out.

The dreck is all the things we do without a lot of thought. The things that we can't say "no" too, like those obligations that aren't essential but are so sweetly asked of us (and sometimes not so sweetly). The myriad ways we waste our time on activities that don't really do anything for us (*cough* playing Plants v Zombies or watching a Netflix marathon *cough*). While a little of all of this is good, too much is...too much.

Fasting from the dreck resets our inner compass, our sense of priorities and balance. Without that reset, the abundant times feel less like celebration and feasting and more like drowing...in whiskey and sugar.

This year, along with my usual Lenten rituals, I vow to take a good look at my life, schedule, dreams, work and goals. And I vow to remove as much of the dreck as possible. To streamline my priorities and to engage in those "extra" activities here and there but not to let them swamp me.


Perduta or Lost
Yeah, I've done this all before, the clearing of the dreck and the resetting of priorities. No matter how good our intentions or how hard we work, the dreck creeps up. But that's why Lent comes around every year. We human-type folks (no offense intended to those of us who may not be human...or entirely human ;)) need regular tune-ups.

How do you balance your dreams, goals and priorities? Do you set regular times to clear the dreck?

Sonia G. Medeiros is a writer of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. She's the author of more than a dozen short stories and flash fiction pieces, blogs at WordPress, and is working on her first novel, a dark fantasy. When she's not wandering along the tangled paths of her wild imagination, she wrangles home life with one fabulous husband, two amazing, homeschooled children, three dogs, one frog and two cats who battle each other for world domination.

Dawn Kissed her Brow

Phoebe slept, on the night of her arrival, in a chamber that looked down on the garden of the old house. It fronted towards the east, so that at a very seasonable hour a glow of crimson light came flooding through the window, and bathed the dingy ceiling and paper-hangings in its own hue.

There were curtains to Phoebe's bed; a dark, antique canopy, and ponderous festoons of a stuff which had been rich, and even magnificent, in its time; but which now brooded over the girl like a cloud, making a night in that one corner, while elsewhere it was beginning to be day.

The morning light, however, soon stole into the aperture at the foot of the bed, betwixt those faded curtains. Finding the new guest there,—with a bloom on her cheeks like the morning's own, and a gentle stir of departing slumber in her limbs, as when an early breeze moves the foliage,—the dawn kissed her brow. It was the caress which a dewy maiden—such as the Dawn is, immortally—gives to her sleeping sister, partly from the impulse of irresistible fondness, and partly as a pretty hint that it is time now to unclose her eyes.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables

Painting: Jean Francois Millet, Sleeping Nude (1844)

Have you Got an Idea?

Not so long ago when someone wanted to send a message, they hired a messenger. The messenger got on a horse and delivered the message personally. The message was on paper, parchment, a clay tablet, or whatever physical medium was prevalent at the time.

This whole process seems wasteful now, but that's because you and I are sitting comfortably at the dawn of the electronic age. The thing is: messages are ideas. Physical things like ink, paper and horses have little or nothing to do with ideas. These physical things are just carriers for ideas. But in reality, the ideas are paperless, horseless and messengerless.

The neat thing about computers is that they manipulate ideas efficiently. A computer network, carries nothing but the ideas. They do this with no muss, no fuss, and no extra physical baggage.

When you start dealing efficiently with ideas, very nice things can happen. Suddenly, all the overhead is gone. Instead of pushing paper and trees, you're pushing numbers and concepts. Without the overhead, you can do more, faster, and accomplish things that are much more complex than ever before.

Inspired by Barry Burd, Java for Dummies, 4th Edition

Painting: Henri Matisse, L'Odalisque, Harmonie Bleu (1937)

Guest Post: 3 Ways to Love YOU by Marcia Richards

I'm thrilled to be a guest at Gary's place today! See you later, Gary! He's off to guest post at Sonia Medeiros' blog. So be sure to go visit him there when you're done here. He's talking about creativity today.

Valentine's Day is right around the corner. It's all about love, giving and receiving. We scurry around making sure our Moms, kids, and significant others have a special day so they know how much we love them.

Uh, oh...you forgot someone. "Who did I forget?" you ask, slightly offended by the inference that you hadn't thought of everything and everyone.

YOU...that's who you forgot. YOU. I know, making everyone else feel special makes you happy, too. And they do their part to make you smile. But what have you done for YOU lately?

1. Kick Your Own Butt  Have you been slacking in some pocket of life? Don't feel like exercising, don't feel like cleaning, don't feel like working? Maybe it's hormonal, or it's holiday letdown hanging on, or it's the gray cloudy days.

If you read my last ROW80 post, you now that I haven't felt like writing for about a week. Yes, I've written my blogs, but they were sometimes really tough to complete. I hadn't fulfilled my ROW80 goal of writing 2500 words week on my WIP.

Then my good friend, Diana Douglas, came to my blog and simply said, "It's a daily job". Well, kick my butt! Of course, I knew this but had conveniently "forgotten". That simple comment from Diana got me back on track. I'm doing it for ME. I want to feel good about my writing, so I'm getting back to it.

2. Check Your List  When was the last time you looked at your life list? Do you even have a life list? If not, take a moment to think about a few things you'd like to accomplish in the next few months. Small or large, it doesn't matter, just jot them down. If you need an example of a life list, click HERE.

Now, look at the list. Find something on that list you can do for yourself today. Eat an extra piece of fruit, stash a few dollars in your savings jar, put down that piece of cake, write 250 words on your story, take inventory of your clothes closet to see what needs to be repaired or replaced, go buy the paint for the room you've been meaning to get to. Choose to do something that will give you the feeling of moving forward.


3. Reward yourself  I saved the best for last! So, you've been getting things checked off your life list or your to-do list? You are exercising regularly? You wrote 20 pages on your manuscript? You've saved enough cash to pay of a bill? You've just been an extra loving and supportive friend/spouse/parent/child?

Do something nice for yourself - go out to dinner, get a new haircut, get a facial/massage/manicure, buy those new shoes you've drooled over, go dancing with your main squeeze, luxuriate in the tub with a book and a glass of wine.

With the heavy schedule most of us keep and with all that we do for others, it's necessary for our mental and emotional health to give ourselves a break. Otherwise, our immune system is overloaded and we get sick. Gary offers up some other ideas to take a break and feel good HERE.

Valentine's Day has always been a day for loving others. Institute a day every month for loving YOU.

What do you do regularly to show a little love for yourself? Do you do it often enough? Please share your ideas for ways to make ourselves feel good.


Marcia Richards is a veteran blogger and author of Marcia Richards' Blog…Sexy. Smart. From The Heart. Marcia writes about SSS (strong, smart, sexy) Women, Health and the path to realizing your dreams. She has a Historical Trilogy and a collection of short stories in progress. When she's not writing, she can be found playing with the grandkids or her husband, seeing the sights of her home state or turning old furniture into works of art. She believes there is always something new to learn and always time to play.
Visit Marcia at: Marcia-Richards.com. Hang out with Marcia at: twitter/@MarciaARichards or facebook.com/MarciaARichards. 

My Ideas, Take Them or Leave Them

I am far luckier than most men, for I have been able since boyhood to make a good living doing precisely what I have wanted to do—what I would have done for nothing, and very gladly, if there had been no reward for it. Not many men, I believe, are so fortunate. Millions of them have to make their livings at tasks which really do not interest them.

As for me, I have had an extraordinarily pleasant life, despite the fact that I have had the usual share of woes. For in the midst of these woes I still enjoyed the immense satisfaction which goes with free activity. I have done, in the main, exactly what I wanted to do. Its possible effects on other people have interested me very little.

I have not written and published to please other people, but to satisfy myself, just as a cow gives milk, not to profit the dairyman, but to satisfy herself. I like to think that most of my ideas have been sound ones, but I really don't care. The world may take them or leave them. I have had my fun hatching them.

H.L. Mencken, Letter to Will Durant

Painting: Salvador Dali (1904 - 1989, Apparition of the Visage of Aphrodite

The Palace at Versailles

And despite all this, legacy publishers don't realize a revolution is afoot.

I think they're aware of it, but in an abstract way. I talk to a lot of people in the business, and when most of them talk about digital and the changes it's causing in the industry, you can tell they're imagining a future that's safely abstract and far off. Something you acknowledge in conversation, of course—you're not in denial, after all—but that fundamentally feels to you like theory. Because you're still having your Tuesday morning editorial meetings, right? And you just launched a new title that made the New York Times list, right? And signed that hot new author, right?

Sure, there are rumblings in the provinces, but at court in Versailles, the food is still delicious and the courtiers still accord deference appropriate to your rank. When you live at the palace at Versailles, the rumblings in the provinces always sound far away. Right up until the peasants are dragging you out of your bed in the middle of the night and setting fire to your throne.

Barry Eisler, Joe Konrath: Ebooks and Self-Publishing: A Conversation Between Authors

Painting:  Madame Adelaide, Louis XVI's Aunt (1787) by Adélaïde Labille-Guiard