After I wrote my blog today, what did I do? Forgot to proof-read it. I ignored my own advice. I pressed publish, without a thought to the typos.
Slow down the moment, Liz.
Author and photographer Nina Egert has written a lovely photo biography honoring poet and professor Yone Noguchi, father of the famed architect and sculptor, Isamu Noguchi. As a teen, the elder Noguchi apprenticed under California’s famous poet Joaquin Miller. Miller’s friends included Bret Harte, Samuel Clemens, Ina Coolbrith, Jack London and John Muir.
One of his poems is accompanied by a nearly ethereal photo of “The Cascades” at Joaquin Miller Park in Oakland:
Mystic spring of vapour;
Opiate odour of colour;
Alas –I’m not all of me!
Wanton fragrance, dewy, dim,
Curls out from my drowsy soul;
Wrapping mists about its breast.
I dwell alone . . .
Yone Noguchi lived from 1875 until 1947, coming to San Francisco in 1893.
Not only is this book a wonderful look into this man’s life, history of California, and his poetry, the California photos within its pages are fascinating and many downright breathtaking. What makes the book more amazing is that it is published by a nonprofit group, the Vinapa Foundation, so all the profits go to worthy causes.
The author graciously donates any money from her sales at the CWC meetings to the California Writers Club, Mt. Diablo Branch’s Young Writers Contest. To get your own copy you may attend one of the California Writers Club, Mt. Diablo luncheons on the second Saturday of the month at Zio Fraedo’s in Pleasant Hill.
Another way is to attend Nina Egert’s signing and tea ceremony from 2:30 – 5:00 p.m. at 2465 34th Ave at Hyde in Oakland, CA. This event will benefit the Peralta Hacienda. Visit www.peraltahacienda.org
For the past couple of months our oven’s fan would turn on all by itself. The first time it happened I was in my office working. My husband, Bob, was outside. When I told him what had happened he looked at me like I had been sipping the sherry I put in the beef stew the night before.
“Bob, I haven’t used the oven all day!”
“Uh huh,” he said, one eyebrow of his arched high.
“Really!” I defended myself. Why is it the harder you try to prove you didn’t do something, the easier it is to sound like you’re guilty of it?
“You probably had your mind on something else and switched the knob on without thinking about it,” he said.
But when he couldn’t turn the oven fan off, a few words flew out of his mouth I can’t type here. He ended up resorting to flipping the electrical breaker in the garage. That night when I needed to use the oven he had to switch the breaker back on.
We forgot about that incident until when a few days later it happened again. Only this time he sat with me a few feet away in the family room. Now I had proof I hadn’t done it.
People were called. Turns out, our oven is so old and the parts needed to fix our ghost-like oven aren’t even made any more. We continued to turn the breaker on and off for another month until we realized we might destroy the breaker itself.
Time to buy a new oven.
Now new oven is installed, black and shiny in kitchen. Problem is, new oven is computerized. Wave hand over it and say abracadabra! Lights blink on with a twinkling melody! Will it work if I twitch my nose instead?
First night, we make lasagna together. Bob reads directions from Oven Quick Direction Sheet. I slide lasagna pan in for twenty minutes. When timer’s cute little song erupts, I remove the pan.
But instead of hot, steamy lasagna, we eat lukewarm pasta. We did something wrong here.
Second night, I broil salmon. “I’m reading those directions,” I say as I push Bob away. Me woman. Me take over kitchen. Me brave.
Fifteen minutes later, smoke alarm shrieking, windows open as we shiver through our smoke-filled house and eat blackened salmon.
Finally, this weekend, I sat down with the oven’s booklet and READ THE COMPLETE DIRECTIONS. I learned we didn’t pre-heat the oven correctly the first night. (Engineers don’t believe in reading all the directions. Writers don’t bother reading anything that deals with mechanics, instead trusting their engineer husbands.) I also learned this oven is much more efficient and hotter than my other oven, so I can turn down the heat and or the oven time.
So this weekend’s muffins and almond cake came out minus the smoke alarm, but with the added flare of my right index finger placed on the tip of my nose. Hey. A childhood fantasy needs to be acted out now and then.
Writing Prompts:
1. Write about how you reacted to a physical or emotional change in your life.
2. Ever have an experience with an appliance? Use it to motivate a personal narrative, short story, or poem. An Ode to An Oven perhaps?
3. Reading directions can be useful. Write a short story about a character who tosses or loses the directions to something life-changing and suspenseful. Now she or he must proceed throughout the story without the directions!
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Winner: Moon Over Manifest By Clare Vanderpool
Honor: Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night By Joyce Sidman Illus. by Rick Allen
Honor: Heart of a Samurai By Marqui Preus
Honor: Turtle in Paradise By Jennifer L. Holm
Request them at your local library or visit your bookstore today!
After reading the great book, Born to Bark: My Adventures with an Irrepressible and Unforgettable Dog by Stanley Coren, I realized the author and I had more in common than the Carin Terrier he once owned. Excuse me. The Carin Terrier that owned him.
We both have had covers that don’t fit the book we’ve written. Grant it, the cover for Born to Bark is adorable. 
But the picture on the cover doesn’t match the description of Stanley Coren’s dog. His Carin Terrier is similar to Toto, as was the one I had when I was a child. I wrote about her spunky adventures in Help! My Life is Going to the Dogs. 
Seeing the dog on the cover of this book will show you how far off this illustrator was in capturing the true dog essence of a Toto-like dog.
So why the discrepancy? With my book, I was told by my editor that the illustrator didn’t bother to read the book. There were no illustrations within the text. So he merely read the blurb the editors read for publicity! Yes, there was a dog party in the book. But no dog ever smashes a birthday cake.
Could this dog be held in the girl’s arms and carried around when she’s sad? I suspect it would be easier for her to ride this animal like a horse. I never saw the cover art until it was too late; it would have been expensive to make changes so no changes were made. The editors were happy because they said the cover would sell books.
Bottom line: which cover will sell more money? Which cover will be less expensive to produce?
Fortunately, since that time I’ve had many more positive experiences with editors and illustrators. Editors have asked for my opinions and listened when I gave my comments. So each book, each illustrator, and each editor will provide every author with a unique publishing creation.
In Born to Bark, I wonder if the author had more in-put to the cover than I did. Did they present him with potential sales figure to show him why this cover made more sense than one with a Toto dog? Or did the photographer happen to own this dog and not have to find a trained Carin to pose for the shot?
Writing and Art Prompt: 1. You are an author of a recently acquired book. The illustrator has just presented the cover to you for your novel/memoir/chap book/or whatever you’ve chosen to write. The cover isn’t acceptable. What book have you written? Create the jacket flap for your book. Write your imaginary biography for the back! Now YOU create the cover!
2. The publishing world has been compared to the movie industry. Where are their similarities? Differences? Write a poem or short story with this theme.
3. Write a letter to an author or illustrator you admire. Ask them questions about anything in their craft that you’d like to know. Get their e-mail address or publisher’s address with online research. You never know, you may get an answer!
My friend, Susan Taylor Brown, told me of the free music site on Facebook.
You can request the kind of music you like and they’ll select that type of music for you as your own personal radio station.
Soon piano music filled my room. I had forgotten how much music takes me to places far beyond the stretches of my ordinary world.
I used to listen to classical music as I worked. Amy Tan listens to the same piece of classical music over and over, so her mind is trained. As soon as she hears it, she’ll become immersed into her creative world immediately.
Years ago when I had insomnia, I listened to a tape of ocean waves so I’d fall asleep. One day we took our son to the beach in Monterey. You can probably guess what happened. As he played in the sand, I sat on a rock and could hardly keep my eyes open.
But the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me with regard to music was one day when I played a difficult piece on the piano. I hadn’t played it since I was a teen, and in fact, as an adult, could barely read the notes any more. But my fingers seemed to know instinctively what to do. They raced up and down the keyboard as though they were not a part of the rest of me.
And my mind? I was miles off in the middle of the life of a main character I had been writing that day.
Let music inspire your art.
Creative prompts:
1. As your choice of music plays, write or create art and see how the music affects you. Does it help your creativity? You may need to get used to it if silence is a regular part of your life.
2. Do you have a clarinet stashed away in a closet somewhere? Play it a little every day. You never know how another form of art may help your writing. If you don’t have an instrument, consider taking lessons or singing in the shower.
3. Speaking of Susan Taylor Brown, as a writer, she began taking art classes and now has some amazing collages that are informing her poetry. Try a form of art you normally might not attempt and see where it takes you! Go out of your box and it will lead you on a journey of creative discovery that will give your writing a new depth.
On Friday, a friend took me to lunch and out shopping in Berkeley for a belated birthday outing. It all felt so scrumptious . . . sneaking off during the week to play. Abandoning our work, our chores and our to-do-lists, we got a chance to talk about the minutiae of our daily lives, our art, our dogs, and solve the problems of the world. Well, maybe not quite all of that, but it did seem like anything was possible on that glorious day of freedom.
Our lunch at Bette’s Diner, a crowded little enclave filled with scents of corned beef, pancakes and good coffee, was eclipsed by their bakery next door. I brought home a piece of the best lemon cake my husband and I have ever eaten and a brownie to swoon over. What a lovely way to celebrate my birthday.
Some people my age don’t care for birthdays, as they see it a sign of getting older and getting farther away from youth. Perhaps closer to death? I enjoy this little ritual, maybe because I love rituals. And maybe because I love cake!
Much later that evening, I logged on to my e-mail to discover a note from my friend. When she entered her house after taking me home, she found her eight-year-old beloved furry dog, Yogi, nearly comatose. Later at the vet’s, the diagnosis was grim. A cancerous tumor pressed on his spleen. Yogi in shock, was unable to make eye contact with her. He was completely out of it.
“I couldn’t even say goodbye,” she said. “It happened so fast.”
Yes, Yogi passed away that night.
So we will enjoy the rituals of our life. And we will honor the passing of one life to the next with loving rituals as well.
Writing Prompts:
1. Write a tribute to someone you have lost.
2. Write about how you value a person now in your life and give it to them.
3. Create a piece of art work to help your grief over any loss you may have.
4. Journal your feelings if you have lost someone close to you. The holidays can be a difficult time and this may help.
You know the times when people say the darndest things to you and you want to reply but you: 1. are shocked out of your socks 2. struggling with yourself so you won’t be incarcerated for murder 3. couldn’t remember your middle name right now much less a witty retort.
Writing Prompt:
1. Here’s your chance to make it right. Go back into your memory. Replay that scene on paper. Write exactly what happened. Next, REWRITE the scene and say what you could have said to put them in their place.
2. Rewrite the scene and instead, write what you could say to create peace between the two of you. How can you strengthen the bond instead of destroying it? Be the better person.
3. Write a fictional scene with two characters who are in conflict over something humorous.
4. Write a fictional scene with two characters who are in conflict over something serious but they come to a mutual understanding.
5. Read the original replies below. Can you come up with any of your own?
The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor: She said, “If you were my husband I’d give you poison.” He said, “If you were my wife, I’d drink it.”
A member of Parliament to Disraeli: “Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease.” “That depends, Sir,” said Disraeli, “whether I embrace your policies or your mistress.”
“He had delusions of adequacy.” Walter Kerr
“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.” Winston Churchill
“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.” Clarence Darrow
“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.” William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).
“Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time reading it.” Moses Hadas
“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” Mark Twain
“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” Oscar Wilde
“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend…. if you have one.” George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill
“Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second…. if there is one.” Winston Churchill, in response.
“I feel so miserable without you; it’s almost like having you here.” Stephen Bishop
“He is a self-made man and worships his creator.” John Bright
“I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.” Irvin S. Cobb
“He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others.” Samuel Johnson
“He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.” Paul Keating
“In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.” Charles, Count Talleyrand
“He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.” Forrest Tucker
“Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?” Mark Twain
“His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.” Mae West
“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.” Oscar Wilde
“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts . . . for support rather than illumination.” Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.” Billy Wilder
“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.” Groucho Marx