read a lot
When I was about 11 or 12 I think I must have said something about how I wanted to be a writer; I don’t remember having any such aspiration until much, much later. But I must have said something, because Lucy [my governess] wrote to Somerset Maugham and said that she was governess to a little girl who wanted to be a writer and what would Mr Maugham suggest? Heaven knows how she managed to write to him – I suppose care of the publishers. He wrote a very nice letter back saying absolutely the right thing: “If your little girl is interested in writing then the best thing she can do is read a lot.” Perfect answer; exactly what I’d say myself.
Penelope Lively
On writing: authors reveal the secrets of their craft
The Guardian, 26th March 2011
One Last Kiss
If that one last kiss is still
The thing you’d long to give someone
Then give it now before they’re gone.
Give it daily; never be caught out
For never passing on
The one last kiss you’d give
Just because you didn’t know
That’s what it was.
Frieda Hughes
Reading out loud
Keep writing, and read every poem you write, out loud each time you work on it, and through every draft. Reading out loud exposes the weaknesses in poetry – and prose – that our eyes and minds gloss over when we skim through it otherwise. Letters and emails should also be read out loud!
Frieda Hughes
An Interview with Frieda Hughes
The London Magazine 3rd July 2017
our yesterdays
this makes me think of a poem i might have written when i was passionately in love with someone years ago … oh, lost youth
Every time our yesterdays cross paths, tomorrow seems so much better.
The smile that graces my face always manages to catch me off guard,
As though I’m still surprised by my body’s reaction to you.
Though I should know better by now because no other has made me feel like you do.
Always need to have your way when it comes to me
Why can’t I seem to say no to you?
Heaven help me, but this love seems too much to handle,
Because ever kiss pulls me deeper, every touch intoxicates me,
Making my mind hazy and ready,
I’ve lost myself in you, and I’m not sure I want to be found,
Fallin’ in and out our your yesterdays…our forever and always tomorrows,
Some nights, I can’t believe I call you mine,
And this 3AM love keeps me up well into the night,
Unexpected and still so unsure in…
View original post 52 more words
I love this poem
write regularly
You can only write regularly if you’re willing to write badly…Accept bad writing as a way of priming the pump, a warm-up exercise that allows you to write well.
Jennifer Egan
Why We Write: 20 Acclaimed Authors on How and Why They Do What They Do edited by Meredith Maran
(vi of swords)
via (vi of swords)
I Do Not Want a Grateful Child Today
Sunday is Mother’s Day. I know this because I have been to the mall three times in the past few weeks (through no fault of my own). You can’t walk past a single shiny window without being bombarded with the certain way to make your mother happy come this Sunday morning — BUY THIS. Mom needs that. IF YOU LOVE HER, YOU WILL SPEND A LOT OF MONEY ON HER.
I hate this stupid holiday. I hate the flower commercials and I hate the greeting cards and I hate the “spa day” thing and I hate the alcohol marketing, the you’re-why-Mommy-drinks little “jokes.” I hate all of it and it makes my skin crawl every year.
(I hate this holiday despite having a good mother, who cared for us and exhibited all the qualities lauded on greeting cards and in syrupy jewelry commercials: generosity, patience…
View original post 825 more words
Of Breakdowns and Breakthroughs
What I needed to read this morning.
Jenny Aurthur | Longreads | May 2018 | 28 minutes (6,886 words)
On the Monday before Thanksgiving in 2004, my father went missing. I was at the Santa Monica apartment I’d been subletting to a friend while working for three months in New York City, getting ready for bed when my phone rang. It was my mother, wondering if I’d spoken to him. I had not seen or heard from my dad since he’d picked me up from the JetBlue terminal at the Long Beach Airport three days earlier. I was 30 and had returned home to L.A. from New York to spend the holiday with my family.
I’d never missed Turkey Day with my folks. Nothing about my childhood had been typical. I was raised by atheist, socialist activists who called me “Jenny Marx,” never just Jenny, after Karl Marx’s wife. They skipped religious holidays, but observed Thanksgiving, well…
View original post 7,040 more words
silverapplequeen 