books – Page 24 – twenty-one words

The one true story

July 14, 2016July 7, 2016Posted in anxiety, books, favourite quotes, on writing, Other people's words about ..., reading, solace, staying humble, staying true, UncategorizedTagged blogging, despair, mental health, writers, writingLeave a comment

Other people’s words on … writing

He said, ‘What is your job as a writer of fiction?’ And she said that her job as a writer of fiction was to report on the human condition, to tell us who we are and what we think and what we do.

from ‘My name is Lucy Barton‘
by Elizabeth Strout

When I first began this blog, I was adamant that, though I am a published writer, my blog would not be about writing. A writer can blog about things other than writing, right? A writer isn’t just a writer: a writer is a person; a writer has a life. That’s what I wanted to blog about.

Besides, it seemed to me that blogging about writing would be, in my case, an inexcusably audacious act. My thinking went like this: I have published only two books. I haven’t published anything since 2010. My books have gone out of print. What can I tell anyone about writing? Who would want to read what I had the temerity to say?

I don’t much like the word ‘writer’. Perhaps it’s because I haven’t published much and don’t make a living from my writing, but I feel pretentious and arrogant when I call myself one. I think of myself instead as someone who has written two books, and would like to write another one, but is struggling to do so.

That’s another word I don’t like: ‘struggle’. When I first began writing stories and fiction, the writing was an act of joy. It was a process of humble discovery. Each word that I wrote, each sentence, each chapter, was a journey. I was learning to do something new. I was learning to do something I loved. I was learning.

Writing is a learning process — Lessons in writing: all part of the learning process

So when I first read the words I’ve quoted above from Elizabeth Strout, I thought: Yes! Writing fiction, for me, has always been about opening myself up to sorrow, and to joy, and to humility, and to discovery. It’s about expressing those things, however afraid I am to do so. It’s about making sense of my life. It’s about trying to make something beautiful. It’s about having the temerity — the audacity, the arrogance — to share my words with other people: people who, like me, love reading.

Most of all, writing fiction, like blogging, is about sharing.

And so that’s the reason I’m posting these words about writing today. Call it pretension; call it temerity. Call it audacity; call it arrogance. Call it learning; call it sorrow; call it joy.

Elizabeth Strout again (from the same book):

You will have only one story … You’ll write your one story many ways. Don’t ever worry about story. You have only one.

Maybe this is the only story I have to share, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth sharing.

The butterfly bush

July 7, 2016May 15, 2022Posted in books, favourite quotes, nature, on writing, Other people's words about ..., reading, summer, Uncategorized4 Comments

Other people’s words about … English gardens

The garden was in a jungle state of desuetude: weeds were everywhere. The top lawn descended to a second, where was a tangled rose garden and sun-dial: thence further descent, past more noble trees to a third lawn in the middle of which was a pond, or miniature lake. It had an off-centre well-scaped island, containing one weeping willow and some iris out of flower. Pigeons flew heavily out of bushes like people leaving a play of which they disapproved. Rabbits cavorted and then escaped their attention just in time. A huge old buddleia was spattered with either tortoise-shell or Painted Lady butterflies. Arabella seemed delighted by the whole thing.

from ‘Odd Girl Out‘
by Elizabeth Jane Howard

When I was fourteen years old, my family spent a year away from Australia, living in England. My whole family, on both sides, comes from the UK; my sister and I were born there, too. We migrated to Australia when I was three.

So the year back in England was a homecoming of sorts, for my parents, at least. We lived in an old stone coach house, in Oxfordshire. As I remember it, the coach house stood on stilts in the gardens of a much grander house, also built of stone. There were brambles, and two black cats — one bold and prowling, the other timid and long-haired and neurotic — and several peacocks strutted the spreading lawns, letting out frightening, ghoulish shrieks beneath our windows. That year, the winter in England was unusually severe, and drifts of snow built up in the garden and in the country lanes leading to our house. My bedroom in that cold house was tiny, with room only for a single bed, a chest of drawers, and the hot-water boiler. Because of the presence of the boiler, though, I remember my room as being always cosy and warm. It had cheerful Laura Ashley wallpaper with sprigs of tiny green flowers dotted all over it.

My grandparents on my mother’s side had retired to live in Dorset, and we spent many weekends there. My grandfather loved to garden; he had a small allotment on the fringe of the village, where he grew runner beans and potatoes and lettuce and — that most English of vegetables — spring greens. Their own backyard was small, with a stone wall at the end, beyond which cows grazed in a field.

Near the house grew a bush with beautiful purple flowers. Memory is a strange thing — I remember this bush as a buddleia bush; I remember my grandfather telling me that’s what it was; and I remember the butterflies that visited it in the spring, drinking nectar from the flowers, their wings warmed by the sun as they clustered on the blossoms. Now, years later, my mother tells me the bush wasn’t a buddleia at all: it couldn’t have been, because my grandmother considered buddleias weeds. It was, in fact, a lilac tree.

However faulty my memory is, I know that it was in my grandfather’s garden that I learned to distinguish between tortoiseshells and painted ladies and swallowtails and cabbage whites. Though we returned to Australia a year later, I retained my love for butterflies. The butterflies here are different, and I delight in them just as much, so much so that my house is cluttered with butterfly ornaments and trinkets and gifts from friends.

How do I remember England and our time there? That’s another memory for another time. Lest anyone wonder, this post isn’t intended to be a commentary, condemnatory or otherwise, about the recent Brexit. The timing of this post is purely coincidental. Still, what I love about the words from Elizabeth Jane Howard in the quote above is how, in just a few sentences, they capture an English summer in all its Englishness … at least as I remember it.

Some books say

June 30, 2016June 13, 2016Posted in books, favourite quotes, life, on writing, Other people's words about ..., readingTagged books, readingLeave a comment

Other people’s words about … self-help

Sometimes I am guilty of believing that if I can just read the ‘right’ book, I will know how to change my life. If I can just follow the right advice (and adhere to it), I will know how to live.

That’s the appeal of self-help books, right? You don’t have to think for yourself anymore. You just have to do what the author says, and you’ll find happiness. Success. Wealth. Health. Glory. Inner peace.

Then again …

Some books say start a garden, sing to your plants. Some books say join a book club, take music lessons, start a stamp collection, get a pet. Some books say brew your own beer. Some books say try paintball, enter a local trivia competition, take dance lessons, learn to rumba. Some books say listen to James Brown. Some books say give yourself a hug. Some books say when someone hugs you, let them be the first to let go. Some books say let a dog lick your face. Some books say swim naked. Some books say kiss a stranger. Some books say climb a mountain. Some books say overcome a phobia. some books say change begins with pain. Some books say get busy living or get busy dying. Some books say never say the word try. Some books say there’s nothing you can’t do. Some books say accept your limitations. Some books say don’t take no for an answer. Some books say buy a karaoke machine and invite friends over. Some books say learn a new language. Some books say leave no regrets. Some books say beware a person who has nothing to lose. Some books say do no harm. Some books say never cut what can be untied. Some books say admit your mistakes. Some books say you are not your mistakes. Some books say forgive everyone everything. Some books say never criticise what can’t be changed. Some book say don’t be afraid to say I don’t know. Some books say don’t bore people with your problems. Some books say when someone asks you how you feel, say terrific, never better. Some books say ask questions. Some books say don’t ask too many questions. Some books say carry someone. Some books say let yourself be carried. Some books say there’s nothing to fear. Some books say it’s okay to be afraid. Some books say whistle in the dark. Some books say give more than you take. Some books say God never gives you more than you can take. Some books say God never blinks. Some books say God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Some books say read the Psalms. Some books say if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Some books say choose your life partner carefully. Some books say tape-record your spouse’s laughter. Some books say that if you live with a partner, one usually dies first. Some books say surrender. Some books say do not go gently. Some books say recognise that you are lost. Some books say put yourself back together piece by piece. Some books say it’s never too late. Some books say it’s not unusual to live to ninety. Some books say you will probably be old for a long time. Some books say you can’t kiss your own ear. Some books say it’s nice to meet someone after a long absence. Some books say reunion is a type of heaven. Some books sat there’s no good in goodbye. Some books say never say goodbye, better to say see you later, see you soon, see you someday, until we meet again.

from The Book of Why
by Nicholas Montemarano

Maybe it’s time for us (me?) to remember that there is no single, right way to live: that for every piece of truth someone offers you, there is another, opposite truth.

But maybe there is comfort in that plurality. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe it’s all about acceptance, and making peace with that acceptance.

And maybe — just maybe — that’s part of the adventure …

The third year

June 16, 2016June 13, 2016Posted in a thought, books, favourite quotes, gratitude, on writing, reading, solace, staying humble, staying trueTagged books, conversation, reading, writing5 Comments

Beautiful words

I love reading.
I love words.
Maybe you’d noticed?
After all, reading and writing have been two of my core themes on this blog, right from the start.
So.
This year — my third year of blogging (yes, really! twenty-one words has been around for over two years now) — that will be my main focus.
Other people’s words.

Each week, I’ll be posting a quote from something I’ve read and loved,
either recently or long ago.
(Some writers’ words stay in your mind forever.)
Sometimes I’ll post a photo to accompany the quote,
sometimes I’ll post a comment instead.

A cup of tea to accompany reading makes it even better ... — A cup of tea to accompany reading makes it even better …

I hope you’ll find some words here, in the next year, that tickle your fancy;
that make you think;
that make you laugh,
or smile,
or cry;
that make you go to your library and read those other people’s words for yourself.
For me, that’s what reading’s all about.

Note
For readers wondering about my original theme — twenty-one words, after which this blog is named — fear not. ‘Twenty-one’ will still be a theme around here. Watch this space to find out how.

The circle of life

May 26, 2016April 21, 2016Posted in anxiety, books, favourite quotes, life, reading, solace, staying humble, staying trueTagged books, conversation, despair2 Comments

I can’t resist coming back to Kim Leine’s ‘The Prophets of Eternal Fjorde’ today to post a couple more quotes. This time, we are not focusing on intestinal discomfort. (Enough already!)

My constitution would seem to be better than I would have thought, for I have survived two attacks upon my life this winter and may thereby once more look forward to further prolongation of my futile destiny.
(p. 406)

Morten Falck, a Danish missionary, struggles with his own fleshly weakness, with his desires and cravings, and with the despair that comes from leading a life whose purpose is not entirely clear to him.

I cannot go back … I can only go forward, in a ceaseless circle, and my only hope is that when the circle is complete and the motion halts I shall have arrived at the place that is best for me …
(p. 505)

Life as a ceaseless circle:
Don’t you, too, sometimes feel you are pushing forward blindly, hoping — hoping — that you will one day arrive at a place that makes sense?

The flesh is weak

May 19, 2016April 21, 2016Posted in books, favourite quotes, reading, solace, staying humble, staying true, UncategorizedTagged health, reading, solace4 Comments

Other people’s words about … well, elimination

Writers don’t often describe bodily functions in literature (other than sex). After all, reading is about escapism, right?

But in ‘The Prophets of Eternal Fjord’, Kim Leine describes the main character’s afflictions with — ahem — a sensitive colon so evocatively that his physical suffering becomes embedded into the story.

His intestines are in an uproar. He senses the ominous ripple of diarrhoea in the bowel, the quivering alarm of the sphincter.
(p. 114)

Morten Falck is an eighteenth-century missionary in the Danish colony of Greenland.

His bowels emit a series of shrill tones of varying intensity. He grimaces, then collects himself.
(p. 127)

This is a story of suffering, weakness, morality, intestinal discomfort and (perhaps) redemption.

It gushes from him the moment he pulls up his cassock and sits down on the privy seat, a mud-like mass, almost without smell, an inexhaustible landslide of brown. His intestines writhe in agony, and yet there is a considerable element of joy at being able to release, to discharge this spray of filth and empty the bowels. He groans, bites his hand and chuckles. His sphincter blares and squelches, and then there is silence. He feels more is to come and shifts his weight from side to side, bent double, his head between his bony knees, his hands massaging his stomach, but nothing is forthcoming. It is as if something is stuck inside him, a thick log of excrement blocking his passage. But most likely a fold of the intestine, he considers. He recalls images of the corpses he dissected and drew as a young man, and he sees now his own colon in his mind’s eye and the blockage that has occurred. He imagines its slow release and the sudden slop that comes with it. The thought of it helps. A new deluge is evacuated and his anus trumpets a fanfare.
(p. 151)

Seriously, how can you not admire such a vivid description of intestinal torture?
Come on, admit it — we’ve all been there at some time!

Kinship

March 31, 2016March 6, 2016Posted in anxiety, books, favourite quotes, health, reading, solace, staying humble, staying trueTagged books, health, readingLeave a comment

Other people’s words about … headaches

One of the things I love about reading is the sense of kinship
you can find in another person’s words.
Sometimes, the smallest phrases from a book sing true.

Since he left, a headache had followed Laura, the kind like a bird that settles and soars.

from ‘Questions of Travel’
by Michelle de Kretser

(p. 177)

Sometimes I, like Laura, get headaches that come over me, varying in intensity —
for a few hours, or days, or weeks.
Medication doesn’t help:
and I’ve learned just to sit the headache out.

… she could feel a headache coming on, the close-fitting, all-over kind like a swimming cap made of lead.

(p. 498)

So I find solace and companionship in these words of Michelle de Kretser.
I may never meet her.
But I know how her world is coloured,
and I know that she is kin.

My hourglass

January 28, 2016January 16, 2016Posted in a thought, anxiety, books, favourite quotes, health, on writing, reading, solace, staying humble, staying trueTagged books, readingLeave a comment

Slowly, it started to feel as if I had clawed my way back to something resembling a life. It was such a relief to know that I hadn’t finished changing — I wasn’t an hourglass that had timed out, all the grains fallen through. I wasn’t stuck, too soon the best I could ever be.

from ‘Inbetween Days’
by Vikki Wakefield*

Have you ever wondered if you’ve already achieved the best you can?
Have you ever thought that it’s all downhill from here?
If so, perhaps — like me — you will find these words comforting.
I like to think of the grains in my hourglass still trickling through slowly …
… not quite timing out.

*Note:
Vikki is a good friend of mine and fellow writer. Check out her website for more information.

Happy/sad

January 7, 2016December 31, 2015Posted in a thought, anxiety, books, favourite quotes, life, reading, solace, staying humble, staying trueTagged reading4 Comments

So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.

From ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower‘
By Stephen Chbosky

Have you read The Perks of Being a Wallflower?
I came to it a few years ago — later than most people, long after the film was released. I think I thought (cynically) that it was a kind of super-cool rewrite of The Catcher in the Rye. And I don’t like super-cool books.
But it isn’t.
I like Charlie’s voice. The narrative is simple and poignant, and gets at the heart of the loneliness of being an adolescent.
Happy/sad.
That’s not just adolescence, though, is it?

PS Happy birthday to my mother for today! ❤

The chef gets healthy

October 1, 2015September 3, 2015Posted in a thought, anxiety, books, cooking/baking, favourite quotes, health, life, on writing, reading, solace, staying humble, staying true, What I love about ...Tagged books, reading3 Comments

Other people’s words about … life

Cookbooks are all about food and cooking, right?
But here’s what I found in a cookbook I borrowed from the library recently:

I generally don’t get into the whole ‘life quote’ thing; I pop them in a basket with mason jars and hip-hop yoga. But there’s a snowboarder I follow on Instagram called Kevin Pearce … who listed the non-negotiables in his life and it really stuck with me. I adapted the list to suit my life, but the fundamentals are still the same. When I am disciplined about making time for these rules, I find everything else falls into place easily and I am a better person, inside and out. That’s a good thing, right?
Make space for this:

Start the day with exercise.

Do yoga or meditate (even just 5 minutes): morning, noon and night.

Eat a healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Prepare food in advance so there’s no excuse to eat crap.

Drink lots of water, at least 2 litres a day.

Get outside, look around (not down at your screen) and listen.

Be present!

Take care of hygiene.

Read and learn something new every day.

Keep in touch with friends and family.

Lead with your heart and keep your mind close behind.

Remember that conscious breathing will always centre you.

Be appreciative and be patient.

Surround yourself with awesome, like-minded people.

Sleep and rest, as much as you feel you need.

from ‘The Chef Gets Healthy’
by Tobie and Georgia Puttock

I have to confess: the recipes in the cookbook didn’t do much for me. I like my carbs! (Tobie and Georgia have eschewed carbs in the name of health.)
But I loved Tobie’s list.
It’s a recipe for life, not just for food.
And, as with all the best recipes, you can adapt it and make your own.
It’s a starting-point, I think —
a good one, too.