Tribute to Trivia

I just read Olivia Bean the Trivia Queen by Donna Gephart.  It is a fun book about a girl obsessed with Jeopardy who is trying to figure out her life.  Her mom and dad had divorced and when she talks to her dad on the phone, he doesn't sound interested or like he loves her anymore.  Her mom has a live-in boyfriend who tries to be friendly, but mainly annoys her (the girl, not the mom).  The story is about her trying to get on Jeopardy and what she learns about her family and friends along the way.  It is a fun read mainly because the characters feel real and there is humor sprinkled throughout.  For example, her younger brother Aurthur likes trivia too, but he focuses his fact-finding to the gross, "Did you know that the average human being makes twenty-five thousand quarts of spit in a lifetime, enough to fill two swimming pools?" 276 or "A cockroach can live without its head for a week." 265
Dig in, the book is in the hall.  :)

Flying Books

Watch The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr.Morris Lessmore by William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg it is among the Academy Award nominees this year for animated shorts.

What do you think?

Narcissus

It was either "Narcissus" or "Reflections on Reflection" and since the myth of Narcissus is about a guy lost in his own reflection it seemed a fitting title.  I got this book quite a while ago, and I read it then and liked it (but now I can't remember so I'm re-reading it).  The book is called Reflection in the Writing Classroom by Kathleen Blake Yancey.

I think it is important to return to books that have important ideas that may connect in stronger ways during different times in your life.  I chose to return to this book since I do remember one quote I had in a journal from it, "The ability to reflect on what is being written seems to be the essence of the difference between able and not so able writers from their initial experience onward."4 So the ability to pause, think about and make changes according to those thoughts is the key to writers who are able, and aren't all writers able to some degree?

Past Midnight

 

The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block and the Creative Brain by Alice W. Flauherty  This is embarrassing, the third entry on the same book.  I did say it was a slow read... well somewhere between Kipnuk and Newtok it got shelved, literally, and I finally finished reading it so this will be the last post on that book.  First off I love this quote: "In both students and professional writers, the act of writing both intensified positive emotions and blunted negative ones."206 This was part of a study where researchers were looking at the anxiety people feel writing... it was surprising that the act of writing makes people feel better.  It is like a friend who listens and doesn't interrupt, but lets you finish your thoughts.  In short writing will make you feel better.  Smile.  This is what makes writing teachers happy.  

The next part of the book was about how metaphor helps people think and make meaning out of their life.  "By giving abstract concepts tastes, colors, smells, and emotional resonance, metaphors fix them in our minds and make us feel we can understand them."230 

The book closes by discussing the writer's muse... or inspiration.  When writers feel inspired the words flow, time becomes meaningless it is just easy.  "Some writers, though, may truly write without ever getting lost in their work, without ever feeling as if it just flows out of them, let alone flows into them from some external source."238 This is sad, but I guess true.  I don't really think there are muses so to speak, but I do think there may be some divine inspiration sometimes.  Mostly it seems times like that for me, especially when I made pottery,  time drops away when things are going right.  I am enjoying the moment so much, I don't notice time.  It is meaningless.  (That sometimes happens when things are going smoothly in class, while quilting, reading a good book... you get the idea.)  I think everyone should find a job that time drops away from them when doing that work.  It is a sign you are doing the right thing.

Please comment on what you do that you enjoy so much you lose track of time.