Magazine Flower Bouquet, Magnets

Writing is my preferred creative outlet, but every now and then I need to relax and disengage my mind a bit, and create something...else.  Of course I love paper, and words, and words on paper, so my creations usually incorporate these elements somehow.

It all started with Pinterest.  Somehow Connie Stewart's Upcycled Magazine Flowers drew my eye, and I started punching out all magazine pages with interesting colors.  I didn't have any gifts to wrap or cards to  make (Connie used hers to embellish gifts and cards), so I quickly devised a way to add a sturdy support (beer bottle cap) and stem (large paper clip).  Once I started making these little lovelies, all I wanted to do was stay sequestered in my craft room hunched over my pile of used bottle caps, hot glue gun in hand.


Start with Connie Stewart's blog and make the flowers--she has an excellent step-by-step tutorial on there, which I won't try to duplicate here. 

Once you have several flowers made, gather some bottle caps, paper clips and a piercer.  And a hot glue gun, with lots of glue!

Pierce each bottle cap in the center, and bend the end of a paper clip to insert it in the bottle cap and glue it in.  You'll have to hold the paper clip in place for a minute until the glue hardens as it tends to move around a bit.

Once the paper clip is secured, pull the trigger on that glue gun until the bottle cap is about half full of glue.  Insert the flower, pressing carefully in the center.  The bottle cap will heat up quickly!  The tricky part here is to avoid burning your fingertips off.  I haven't lost any fingerprints yet, but I can't guarantee you won't suffer a minor burn during this step of the process.

After the glue is hardened, adjust/trim the paper clip stem as necessary to create different heights for the bouquet, and place them all in a small vase. 

Voila!  Flowers that will never rot or die. 

I also made some into magnets by gluing the flowers into bottle caps, then gluing a magnet on the back (instead of installing a paper clip stem).  There must be other possibilities out there...see what you can come up with! 

Meanwhile, I must get back to my book.  No more procrastinating.
 

Superior Sacrifices: It's Here!

Superior Sacrifices

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A tale of betrayal, redemption and the consequences of silence by the author of Bookworms Anonymous and The Word That You Heard. This is the story of Mitch and Marcia: twins, best friends and local celebrities in the small town of Iron Falls, Michigan. Mitch’s superhuman dedication to his detective job and Marcia’s near-obsessive focus on her family and bookstore business appear ordinary until the secret they’ve shared for three and a half decades threatens to surface.

 

Get your copy today! 

Also available on Kindle.

 

 

Writing Weather

It's a grand day for writing. The wind is whipping the trees around (no power outages at our house yet, but there's still hope) and the rain comes and goes so it's impossible to plan any outdoor activities. The clouds are cruising west to east so fast they look like the time release camera shots on reality TV shows, the sun only winking at us now and then. It's sweatshirt weather, and it's about time! We've had a long, hot summer but it's been so nice for so long, I'm ready for a stormy day.

The muse likes days like this. It's easy to motivate oneself to write, to work on the latest story or novel, when the air is calm and comfortable inside and I can draw energy from the invigorating weather outside the window. And it's a three day weekend! Maybe we'll have three days of crazy weather and I'll finish my entire project...

The only other activity that's mildly entertaining on such a day is cooking, but of course that comes after writing, then reading, and it's a pretty distant third option. Maybe I could start a large pot of soup and let it simmer so I can say I cooked all day, when I'm really engrossed in words and agonizing over syntax and comma placement (not realistic, if you know me at all).  I'll daub some flour on my face for effect.

Extreme Writing

As mentioned in Bookworms Anonymous, extreme reading is a little recognized sport performed by reading outside.  I doubt we'll ever see it in the Olympics, or witness a district extreme reading tournament. It's not really a spectator sport; the reader/performer is the team, the audience and the coach. 

Extreme reading exercises the brain and can improve coordination when re-filling lemonade glasses require frequent trips into the house  (setting the book down isn't allowed;  the extreme reader can walk and read at the same time, navigating stairs and thresholds with ease).  After cocktail hour begins and vodka is added to the lemonade, the challenge of extreme reading increases.  Barked shins and bruised books serve as evidence of extreme reading while under the influence. 

This summer, with its sweltering, sweaty heat (yes, even here in the UP, we're stewing daily in 85+ degree weather), has forced me outside to work on my book.  The laptop runs hot, so I set up the extreme nerd outdoor office, consisting of a TV tray table and a shelf with my reference materials stationed at my elbow.  We don't have central air conditioning because we would only use it about once every five years, so we seek shade and air movement outside to survive the threat of heat stroke.  We dream of blizzards and icicles, hoping the mental images will trick our brains into cooling us off.  So far, it isn't working, but at least I'm getting some writing done. 

The roar of the keys

Some days my writing is on fire. I can barely hear my thoughts over the roar of the keys. My focus is completely internal as I listen to my inner voice and close my eyes to shut out all visual distractions, determined to capture every salient phrase bursting from my brain. These miraculous times only last five to thirty minutes, but the resulting paragraphs and disconnected concepts are so rich I can build on them for hours. Word count doesn't matter; subject doesn't matter; personal comfort doesn't matter (I'll cross my legs for an hour if necessary to avoid halting the flow of ideas).

And so, I write. I write until my fingers are numb and I can no longer focus on anything beyond the computer screen. Sometimes I find myself wondering what is that object on the shelf across the room? Oh, its a clock. But it's stopped, so it must not matter what time it is right now. I purposely keep the clock there, in my direct line of sight, perpetually reading 6:00 and assuring me there's time to write, time to create, time to compose. A dead clock is very calming for my type A mind--there's nothing to race and I'm free to write slowly or quickly until the page is full or the chapter is finished.

Write on.

No time to read? Horrors!

"I don't have time to read,"  mused my friend.  I'll call her Dora.  Dora Boring.

I considered her statement, glancing around her immaculate house and yard.  She doesn't work more than 25 hours per week (I work 50 outside the home, not counting my writing);  she has two kids and a husband and never seems to play catch-up with her laundry or run out of vital household supplies such as toilet paper or beer.  She drinks gin and tonics on her front porch (without a book).

"Did you  hear me?"  Dora says.  "I want to read, I just don't have time.  I'm too busy!"

I contemplate this.  I'm usually too busy to read on the four days I work my full-time job each week, and I'm usually exhausted at the end of each business day.  This means I read while brushing my teeth and getting dressed, a skill I've perfected over the years, holding the book out while balancing on one foot, strategically jutting out one hip or the other so my jeans don't fall off when they're halfway on.  If I ever lose an arm, I'll still be able to dress myself.  I also listen to audiobooks in the truck, rarely driving longer than ten minutes without enjoying a story or a book about writing.

Back to Dora.  She watches the news, like a good citizen.  I don't watch the news because it would cut into my reading time, and I'm constantly pretending to know what people are talking about while I scramble to catch up.  "I just caught the tail end of the story,"  I usually say, "can you fill me in?"

Dora also volunteers for every committee, fundraiser, and community event, and gives her time and resources selflessly.  She misuses words and installs an apostrophe at the end of every plural word, but the only things she writes are checks and Christmas cards.  She decorates her house, passes the local homeless man gourmet sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper and attends every school-sponsored event.  If there is a gathering of more than six people in our town, Dora's there.  She's involved.  Connected.  Vital.

I, on the other hand, am reading.  Instead of decorating, I wipe the dust off the walls (one handed, of course; the other hand is clutching a book) every three years or so, to discover the true hue.  I greet the homeless man, but never feed him.  I don't even fix myself gourmet sandwiches, as it's nearly impossible to spread anything on bread with one hand.  I eat only for maintenance, not for enjoyment.  I carry at least one book with me everywhere; right now I have one in my purse, one in my nerd bag, and an audio book ready to play on my iPhone. I also have two books I'm working on writing:  one in the end stages of editing and one in the beginning stages of note-taking. 

Dora's watching my face as I'm mulling over her statement;  mere seconds have passed, but my head is full of weighty justifications for her not reading and (slight) doubts about the habit I allow to rule my life to the exclusion of nearly all else.

"I understand,"  I tell Dora, vowing to watch the news tomorrow.  "You really are too busy!"

I probably won't watch the news tomorrow.  I'll have to find out what happens next in my book.  What would happen if everyone were like me, hiding in their houses reading books?  Society would probably collapse.  I guess I'll let Dora continue to volunteer and watch the news;  I'll regret not being more involved, and she'll regret not reading.  Society will survive.

Ten Favorite Words

I've been listening to Anne Lamott's audiobook Word By Word.  Anne narrates it herself, presenting a portion of her inspiring Bird By Bird, about writing and living as a writer and incorporating writing into our daily lives.  At first I consumed the audiobook in great gulps, listening at double speed, before I realized I'd better slow down to properly absorb the wisdom. 

Near the end of the audio presentation,  Anne announces she's going to give us writing assignments to do later.  The first assignment is to make a list of my ten favorite words.  I immediately pause the audio presentation, eager to attack this assignment while my mind is sharp and elastic and itchy. 

Ten favorite words...sounds simple, but how shall I determine they're my favorites?  On what basis am I supposed to judge these words?  I could use words I often use (doesn't this indicate a favoritism of sorts?): fabulous, cinch, scandalous. 

I hate questions like this because I'm hardwired to provide the correct answer and when there is no correct answer, I try to read the mind of the person asking the question to discern which answer they're expecting me to give, which is probably an incorrect answer because it won't reflect my style, but theirs.  If someone asks me what my favorite color is, for example, this is what happens:

Okay, I think to myself Mike just asked me what my favorite color is.  I don't have a favorite color, but that sounds lame. Everyone has a favorite color!  Scanning his clothing and mine, I notice our shirts both have red accents.  I grasp at this one similarity and nearly shout with relief, "Red! Yes, red.  What's yours?"  I'm already thinking if I like red so much, how come I don't have a red car?  Red socks?  Red shoes?  He's going to think I'm lying and I am!  I'm a fraud!  "I don't really have a favorite color," Mike says.  Somehow it doesn't sound lame when he says it. 

Back to the list of ten favorite words.  I'm flummoxed.  Ooh!  Flummoxed should go on the list!  Let's see, it is fun to say, it sounds like what it means, I don't overuse it but I'm comfortable using it, and most people know what it means so it doesn't require translation.  Here's my full list:

1.  Flummoxed (see reasons above)
2.  Neologism (I heard it on TV recently, and I'm trying to work it into conversation without sounding pretentious)
3.  Bamboozle (is this too close in meaning to flummox?  Does my listing two words meaning 'mental chaos or confusion' point to a mental illness I'm unaware I have?)
4.  Solstice (I like the meaning; I like the balance and beauty of the word; it's fun to say, and it's scientific!)
5.  Malapropism (I like the meaning, and I like to collect malapropisms.  Maybe my next list will be the ten funniest malapropisms I've heard)
6.  Synergy/Synergistic (great meaning, fun to say, not too popular)
7.  Phooey (a nod to my grandma, and the only curse word worthy of a favorite word list)
8.  Integrity (an important word; a weighty word; the word by which I choose my friends and those I respect and admire)
9.  Caliginous (shades of the Wizard of Oz; who doesn't watch and wait for opportunities to inject this word into everyday conversation?)
10.  Sagacious  (more scholarly than 'wise', something I aspire to in my dotterage)