Warren Bluhm's Blog, page 27

Each of them a universe

Technology is freedom. The electric toaster changed the universe. The boat opened worlds. Clumping kitty litter saved continents. Paper handkerchiefs saved lives.

Every picture tells a story, a picture worth 1,000 words, they say. But words expand the picture.

Every person who encounters the words hears a different story. How many novels did Harper Lee write? One — and several million.

A closet is full of universes, a shelf is packed with lifetimes, collections of rare gifts waiting to ...

What’s the point

We spend a lot of time trying to figure out what is our purpose in life. What’s the meaning of “all this”?

You work your way through something day by day and sometimes try to conjure what all the somethings mean: To find a purpose, to find a story, to find a point behind it all — because we all go through life wondering what’s the point? and perhaps not knowing exactly why until the story ends — At the end you tally up whether you served your purpose, or you tally up what the meaning of y...

Blue Guitar is 1; what’s next

Full

So this weekend is the anniversary of the day I woke up in the morning not intending to publish my next book yet, and it was posted to various bookstores by nightfall.

How To Play a Blue Guitar was a work in progress, and I sat down to proofread what I’d done so far and decided it was a completed book.

I have not made a similar decision about Full, but I have a) a cover and b) an announcement: My next collection is called Full and it ought to appear soon, this spring. Either I’ll g...

Opening scene in a story to be named later

This is why I came: to see if what they were saying was actually true, that there was an alien being up a tree. And well, yes, yes it was.

Perched on a branch was a vaguely human, vaguely insectoid little girl — it may have been a boy, but the long hairlike extensions from her head reminded me of a girl — the legs bent outward from the knees the opposite way from ours, so that the thighs were tucked under the feet stuck out in our direction. The face was fly-like, so it was like looking at so...

A fine whine before journaling

I wanna go back to sleep!

No, young man, you got up early to journal, and journal you shall. What kind of journalist doesn’t faithfully journal?

The kind that wants to snooze!

You’ve been hitting the snooze alarm of life all your life, haven’t you? Oh, I’ll finish that book after I nap, won’t you? I’ll take care of that business or this business later, won’t you. That’s why you’re still working a day job while the rest of your generation is retiring and traveling and enjoying their ...

Choices we make today

A scream of consciousness cuts through the quiet: This is today, isn’t it? The debris from yesterday continues to haunt, and the promises of tomorrow may or may not ring true, but today is here, right on time, to be shaped and formed now, to our pleasure and delight or to our weary horror — here and now, in any case, and ours to have and to hold.

This is today. With an ear for the echoes of yesterday and an eye for tomorrow, we hold today in our hands tightly, but not so tight that it can...

Gator belongs to Dejah, and what that means

Dejah seems to love her new Gator, and it occurred to me that this is her first toy that is just for her.

All of her previous toys had to be shared with her older sister, Willow, who could be very possessive when she decided any new toy actually was hers. All of those other toys in the house must have a lingering scent of Willow The Best Dog There Is, who became Willow The Best Dog There Was almost a month ago now.

Now, with the presentation of Gator, Dejah knows unequivocally that we ...

Just write

It doesn’t have to be a poem.

It doesn’t have to be a song.

It doesn’t have to be anything,

not yet — just write.

Let loose the hounds of more!

Pour the words onto the page

in quantity, searching for quality,

diamonds in the rough — no, not even that,

just send the words — no, not even,

just pull the words from the ether

and thank the Muse,

just thank the Muse,

and run back to the well

for more

Time enough for your real job

“Come, child, there’s work to do, cease your playing now.”

“But Mah-ahm, this IS my work. A kid’s job is to run and jump and explore and dig and poke and all.”

“Time enough for your ‘real job’ after you finish your chores. You’re almost done anyway, aren’t you?”

“I guess.”

“Then finish up and you’ll have the rest of the day after that.”

“OH. kayyyy …”

He set down his instruments of play and trudged to the corner where his false job awaited, full of lights and humming thinki...

The art of wind harnessing

Live intentionally. How do you fulfill your mission? On purpose. So stay on purpose.

Is it time for a change? Too late; while you were asking the question, everything changed.

Ride the wind, they say. But what is the wind? An ever-shifting maelstrom of interactions, some intentional, mostly random, some proactive, mostly reactive. The intentional and proactive can influence the direction of the maelstrom somewhat – ride the wind, and keep a hand on the tiller.

Take time to learn. But no...