TToT: Boulder Slipper Lungs – Thanks Noodles! #10Thankful

No quote full of wisdom can possibly be any greater than the ones that come from young kids and their imaginative little minds. I am feeling that most acutely and holding on, looking for a little bit of that in me, while the little ones in my life remain this age and teach me so much.

For some reason, some reason we can’t figure out, his mother can’t quite explain, my nephew calls his lungs boulder slipper lungs.

🙂

Nobody Knows (Pete’s dragon Soundtrack) – The Lumineers

The things the children in my life continually come up with are things that are constantly surprising me and making me smile.

My nephew, for example, he loves noodles and he wants them plain, with only butter. He loves what he refers to as “Grandma’s noodles,” but I think my brother, for example, may pick out the Simpsons quote from the title of this week’s TToT post if no one else has the foggiest clue what I’m referring to.

I was thankful my sister, brother-in-law and nephew made it home safe from their first vacation together out west to visit family. It was my nephew’s first airplane ride. Western Canada and Alberta means dinosaurs for my nephew and fishing for my brother-in-law. My sister was just glad to get away with her two favourite boys. With my nephew starting JK in a couple weeks, things are about to get busier.

For their affect on my life.

They teach me to keep an open mind, even though they often feel like they are right, so who’s to say who’s right anyway?

For instance, if you were to try and convince my nephew that lungs are not called boulder slipper lungs, he likely might not believe you, but school will soon start and who knows what sorts of logic and teachings he will be introduced to then and there.

🙂

Reminds me of that song by Canadian band Rush, “The Logical Song”.

That my family puts up with my writing and this blog, are as supportive as they are, when I know many writers aren’t quite so lucky.

A lot of people write memoir and non fiction which involves stories of their family members in it. This can create resentments and other issues. Recollections are different for everyone. I needed to express myself, but how to do that without alienating those I care about?

Of course, if I write (even in my fiction), people in my life are going to appear because they are most of what matters to me.

I know they respect my need to express myself through words, but I never want to sacrifice their trust in me or their needs for that self expression.

Hmm. Perhaps I really should just quit with these pesky words and return solely to visual art instead.

That all my family survived the destructive, unpredictable tornado of August 7th, 1979

TORNADO: Part One, Whirlwind

I wanted to mark the anniversary and write an interview with my parents. It was too late to speak to my grandparents about their recollections, as I only started this blog after they both passed away, though I had spoken to them both about it many times before.

It’s raining as I type these words, hard and noisily just now, and I imagine or I try to. One of those things I can’t really fathom without experiencing how it must have felt firsthand, which I am lucky and hope I never have to do. I am just glad my father survived to tell the tale, or else I wouldn’t have been here to be able to help him tell it in the first place.

For that moment that I often find myself awake to witness, at three or four in the morning, when the sound of the nighttime crickets and the start of the early morning first chirping of the birds intermingle with one another.

If I am unable to sleep in those moments, at least I am awake and tuned in to hear such a natural thing as that.

For a nephew who just turned four.

We had spaghetti and meatballs (noodles) and cake (which I received a big bite of just icing when finishing). We may need to whisper Happy Birthday for his fifth birthday, if he doesn’t grow out of the shyness he had this time when we sang out loud.

I will never forget his birthday, as I was there the day he first arrived.

It was a very special day for me for so many reasons.

Read here to find out why.

Memorable. Unforgettable. Incredible.

For a fierce game of dinosaurs.

This includes “THE DEEP UNDERGROUND” from my nephew’s favourite movie “The Land Before Time”.

The underground, in this case, is the front entrance which is down two steps. The Sharp Tooth is inevitably pushed off the edge by Mother, Littlefoot’s mother with the long neck.

For a chunk of days of rain, whether the weather is a loud, hard downpour or a sprinkle off and on throughout the day. We needed the rain, something to break up all the intense humidity.

For a gift from my father. I know he feels bad when he hears how much I miss the vision I used to have, but he still brings me markers when I speak of wanting to revisit all that anyway, despite my worsening sight, an activity which will likely bring back both joy and sadness all at the same time.

I heard my favourite scented markers from childhood, a somewhat brighter time in my life, visually I mean.

Mr. Sketch

Well, thanks to

Lizzi

and

Ivy,

I have been thinking about colours, flowers, rainbows. I am going to try art, which I have been aching inside to give myself another chance to do for a while, but kept on putting it off because it will never be what it used to be for me again.

I sat down with my pack of colourful markers this afternoon, with a piece of braille paper because it is the perfect thickness, at my kitchen table because the light from the window there is the best place for maximum brightness.

Well, it was frustrating some moments and at others I had hope, with the slightly damp texture these particular marketers leaves behind and with the correct colour of marker fitting to the corresponding scent all coming back to me. I want to make something for Ivy’s Art Challenge and maybe involving 10 Things of Thankful because it has been so important for bringing light and colour back into my life these last fifteen or so months of extra reminders of the things I have to be thankful for.

That my five-year-old niece has a love of art and colouring and drawing pictures.

She got that from my brother I’m sure, her burgeoning artistic talent, but she reminds me a little bit of myself at her age and I feel somehow comforted by that notion.

I know she will continue to create beautiful things because that’s just who she is and where she comes from.

For this old favourite of mine from fifteen years ago.

Perfect Day – The Cranberries

This song perfectly incapsulates my feelings about the August birthday boys in my life. I celebrate their birthdays and I selfishly want them to remain young like this and never grow old, as Dolores sings, but I know that’s neither fair nor plausible.

August, within ten days of each other but spanning a year apart in age, are my two amazing nephews. They have inspired these songs today.

It’s the two boys and my niece who inspire my attitude that all art is open to me because I’ve seen the amazing things that come from their imaginations and my own imagination is the one thing I haven’t lost. They help me never to forget that.

2015 October Platform Challenge: Day One

October has arrived, once more. Hmmm. This is not very Halloweenish, but here goes.

Growing up, we started getting a subscription for Reader’s Digest. Soon, very soon, the wall of our computer room in the basement was lined with Reader’s Digest volumes, in braille.

I read one particularly gruesome story in RD, on the way to a family function, and I never read from those braille editions again.

Eventually, we got rid of them, when I moved out and we were cleaning house.

I was delighted when I discovered, not only was there such thing as Reader’s Digest (as much as I loved to read) but that Writer’s Digest existed too.

A lot of selling of their products, but I loved to write and I am now participating in their month long

2015 October Platform Challenge

As for platforms, I have mixed feelings.

I know it is important, in this modern moment in time, to have one. I have one and am trying to find my voice there, but the mood comes and goes. I am not quite sure why.

Here goes and I am not participating in the commenting on WD’s website. It involves all that fun stuff I just love about websites. I tried to sign in and it wasn’t a simple process.

Surprised? Not at all.

😦

I don’t care about winning some prize of a huge book for writers, one I can’t even read anyway, so I will go with the daily promos and see how that goes. See if I make it through the month.

I have never gone and done any monthly challenge, posting every day, so I hope this will not annoy the hell out of any readers I have gained in almost two ears of blogging.

My platform is this blog and the second blog I began a year ago, I guess it was now.

Name (as used in byline): I am Kerry Kijewski

AKA

Kerry L. Kijewski

Kerry Kay (a future author’s website title idea)

Her Headache

The Insightful Wanderer

Kerr

Kerr-Bear

Take your pick.

🙂

Position(s): published author, writer/blogger, public speaker, travel writer, interviewer/interviewee

Skill(s): writing, literary writing, creative writing, fiction, non fiction, memoir, reviews, interviews, poetry, articles and blog posts, speeches, public speaking

Social media platforms (active): I am on Facebook and Twitter most often.

I have a LinkedIn page, but not sure I like it.

Also, an Instagram account for any future travel, but not sure I like it. Need a photographer on staff.

😉

I started a Pinterest page a few weeks ago. Don’t yet understand that platform at all.

Did I do that, trying to find more of a platform, just because everybody else did it first? Why do everything everyone else does anyways?

URL(s):

This blog.

http://www.theinsightfulwanderer.ca/

Accomplishments: being a blogger, published author, Certificate of Creative Writing, public speaker, guest blogger on many blogs

Interests: creative writing, fiction, non fiction, memoir, doing interviews, blogging, reading, travel, movies, psychology, marine biology, astronomy, feminism, women’s and gender studies, history

In one sentence, who am I?

Kerry is, first and foremost a writer, but also she blogs and she is interested in honing her writing skills for any and all future possibilities which might present themselves.

I am bad at summing up, at being brief, and that is why I hate these one sentence questions.

“Feel the rain on your skin. No one else can feel it for you. Only you can let it in.”
–Natasha Benningfield, Unwritten

THIS IS MY PLATFORM!

http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/there-are-no-rules/2015-october-platform-challenge-guidelines

Guidelines were made to be broken, right?

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Who are you? What is your platform? Can you sum up who you are, using just one sentence? Or do you need more than one, like I do?

What’s in a Pen Name?

If the rumours are, indeed, true:

Hillary Clinton to Announce 2016 Run for President on Sunday – New York Times Politics

It’s funny that I mention her in this post from just over one year ago,

(Women & Books),

as I spoke about women, on International Women’s Day, 2015 and as I thought about feminism, equality, writing, and the pen name.

I wrote about two specific women writers in that post last year: L.M. Montgomery and J.K. Rowling.

I have a lot to say on women’s rights, but today I wanted to focus on another issue that has been at the back of my mind lately. The two things come together in the end though, as is often the case for me these days.

For this week’s Fiction Friday I wanted to discuss pen names and both L.M. and J.K., other than the fact that these two follow the order of the alphabet,

🙂

they also represent actual ladies, with real, full names: Lucy Maud and Joanne Kathleen.

Why do authors use pen names?

I have heard several reasons for the act of writing by one name or another, or more, when publishing several books or series of books.

Funny how I wanted to write this post and then, suddenly, I come across a few blog posts on the subject.

I am including them here, but I want to mention that I have not yet read them, as I write this.

I know writing is repetitive. It’s hard to truly come up with anything original anymore, so I did not want to have read another blogger’s thoughts on this topic, before I could explain my own.

Pen Names-Necessary Evil or Ticket to Crazyville?

and

What to Do When You Absolutely, Positively NEED a Pen Name

Anne Rice is best known for her novel Interview with the Vampire.

She had written so many novels over her career, but I only recently heard about her romance/erotic series of novels: Beauty’s Kingdom.

With the release of the Fifty Shades of Grey books and movie, Anne has been discussing the place erotica takes up in literature.

I visit Ms. Rice’s Facebook page on a regular basis.

Anne Rice on Facebook

And so I heard about the release of her newest Beauty’s Kingdom novel, on April 21st, first one since they first came out in the 80s.

Back then Rice wrote these erotic fiction stories under the pen name A.N. Roquelaure.

Funny how her initials are AN, so close to her actual name. What a coincidence.

😉

She said on Facebook that she preferred a pen name back then because it distinguished her persona, from one genre to another.

I happen to think that vampires can be a highly suggestive and erotic creature. It isn’t such a stretch from one to the other. I can’t say I was totally surprised, when I first heard about her alter ego.

From mainstream author to the indie world:

On Facebook I became aware, recently, of a female writer named Joanna Penn.

The Creative Penn

Perfectly literary name and the perfect name for today’s topic.

🙂

Joanna writes thrillers, under the “penn name” of:

J.F. Penn.

She goes by Joanna when she does podcasts, interviews, and speaking engagements.

She writes non-fiction on writing and on being an entrepreneur.

Anne Rice was trying to separate her writing personas, but in the 80s erotica was mostly secretive.

Nowadays, with Fifty Shades, it is becoming mainstream.

There is no more need to hide. Or is there?

It’s still important to keep separate, even when the audience knows the truth.

Hiding in plain sight I suppose.

Today’s world is a lot different from the one where Anne Rice wrote Beauty’s Kingdom.

It’s not the 80s anymore and nobody can keep a secret in the technological age we now live in.

Why does Joanna Penn even bother with the distinction now? Why do any of them?

When Harry Potter came to an end and Rowling wanted to go in a different direction, she first wrote The Casual Vacancy.

After a mixed review, she moved even further away from wizards, with a good old fashioned who-did-it detective story.

Only Rowling did not write this.

A man named Robert Gailbraith did.

J.K. Rowling to Publish Another Book Under Pen Name

So she has already fiddled around with her name in the past, using initials to disguise the fact that she was a female writer.

Now she chose to go with a male’s name, surprise surprise, when writing in a genre that has historically been known as a male genre.

This makes me mad and it confuses me. I love her and Harry Potter, but I can’t say her choices since have impressed me.

I wish I could talk to her about why, as a writer who has been given the extreme honour of writing books, why she has done what she’s done.

So I see it, still, partly as a fear of being unable to sell as many books if people realize you are a female. If you use initials, at least it may fool readers or customers, in the moment.

Is this a male writer or a female writer?

Hmmm.

Oh well…

But the creation of a whole new male author, Gailbraith, this is baffling to me on many levels.

No room for ambiguity with initials here.

On the one hand I know all about the importance of branding.

I have branded myself as Her Headache, for my writing blog.

I don’t disguise the fact that I am female or hide my real name, but I do put myself out there in a certain light.

Even more recently I have rebranded myself, for my “alter ego” as The Insightful Wanderer, with the creation of my travel blog.

So I have two names now, plus my real name underneath.

I see the value in having separate titles, to distinguish oneself in separate areas of one’s life. I just wish there was no issue, from a feminist perspective, but I believe there is.

I guess I just wanted to explore this topic, here, and to hear your thoughts on branding and pen names.

Do you understand why these authors and others have chosen, in the past and in present, to go by different names?

Okay, now I will go and read those other blog posts on the existence of pen names.

🙂

What’s in a name anyway?

Spotlight Saturday: Interview With Writer Jordan E. Rosenfeld

Today’s Spotlight is author/editor Jordan Rosenfeld.

I have been following an online magazine for a while now: Sweatpants & Coffee.

Who doesn’t love those two things?

🙂

I must say that title caught my attention.

Then I read an essay she wrote, which was published on one I visit weekly:

Full Grown People.

After I read her there I decided to contact her, at her website, to see if she might agree to do an interview with me.

Lucky for me, she said yes, and here we are now.

Here is a sample of her writing, one of the most recent articles she has written:

http://www.rolereboot.org/life/details/2015-01-motherhood-broke-addiction-busy/

And now I welcome Jordan.

***

K: What can you say about yourself? If you wouldn’t mind introducing yourself a little first.

J: How funny is it that I draw a blank here? I guess most people know of me as the author of some books, two novels, some writing guides. I’m a writing teacher, as well as the mom of one 6 year-old boy and a teller of dirty jokes. I live in Northern California with my husband and son. I’m a born and bred Californian, in fact, though all my family hail from New York. Writing is the only thing I”m really good at and my one great love.

K: How long have you been writing?

J: In earnest, as in writing stories and such, since the age of 8. Yes, I still have those scribbled on binder pages and hundreds of journals. In pursuit of a career? About 20 years, since I was 20.

K: What education/training do you have in it? How important do you think formal education in something like writing is?

J: I have a Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts, and a Masters Degree in Creative Writing and Literature. Education is good and I never think you can go wrong learning more, but I have come to believe that the best education for writing is reading widely and writing a lot. Writing is a craft you learn best by doing it. 

K: Do you think, to be a good writer, you must open up and reveal as much as you can?

J: I think if you’re writing non-fiction, essays or memoir, you must strive to tell the emotional truth and be as vulnerable as possible. That means that you don’t write from a position of judgment or blame, but rather look at your own part and experience. I don’t think “confessional” writing is particularly interesting, either, unless there’s a lot of strong craft involved–imagery, language, and a goal of the writing. A good essay or memoir should take the reader on a journey. In fiction, which is actually what I’ve written most of in my life, it’s much different–then, you’re crafting experiences through the eyes of a fictional character. In which case, you want to make sure you understand plot/story structure and keep your language interesting.

K: What do you think is the most important quality for any writer to have and why?

J: Persistence. I’ve written an entire book on it, forthcoming in April, called A Writer’s Guide to Persistence. Why? Because if you don’t persist through the many challenges of being a writer, you will give up, or feel depressed, or waste time. Life’s too short to feel sorry for yourself.

K: It can be very hard out there, with so many writers and material for readers to choose from. How would you advise a writer who is just starting out, to get the experience often required for literary magazines and online publications to give them a chance?

J: Read the places you want to be published. Really read them and try to understand their aesthetic. My success as a writer in placing pieces went up exponentially when I finally started doing this. Otherwise, it’s like any craft: practice your craft. Keep at it. Don’t hurry. Rushing something to publication is a form of self-sabotage. 

K: Do you think writers must have a lot of struggles in their life to be good? Why or why not?

J: No. I think writers are often just people with a keen sense of observation, or born storytellers. Not all art comes from suffering. 

K: Which do you prefer: fiction or non fiction? What do you like about both?

J: To read: I’m drawn most to fiction, which is my first love, which rescued me from difficult things as a child. As such I wrote mostly fiction, predominantly novels, for years. But in the past year I’ve been writing personal essay (and reading them) and have fallen in love with the form, so I’d have to say I love them both for different reasons. I like taking the messy raw materials of life and shaping them into a crafted essay that makes meaning of them.   But I will always love a good page-turning story, to escape, to become another character, to travel to other worlds and places.

K: Can you explain a little about Sweatpants & Coffee and your role as Persistent Optimist over there?

J: We are an online magazine dedicated to inspiration and comfort in an often uncomfortable world. We share content that fits our mission. I pen a column called The Persistent Optimist, since I am a natural optimist, that tries to offer some of that optimism back to my readers.

K: What is your writing routine, if any? Do you work best on a deadline?

J: I am pretty self motivated, but I do work well under deadline, yes. My writing routine USED to be rise at 5:30 and write until 8 and then begin my paid work. But once my son was born 6.5 years ago that all changed. Now after my husband takes my son out the door to school around 7:20, I get to work on whatever is most pressing, be it paid work or my own fiction. When I start a fiction project, I write every day as is possible.

K: What tips would you offer a new writer? What is the best way to learn and to get your writing out there?

J: Write constantly. Read widely. Be open. Don’t wait for inspiration and don’t believe in writer’s block. Don’t assume you’re too talented or not talented enough–just keep writing. Persist. Love your writing practice. Ask questions and submit your work when it’s done, widely. 

K: Have you had anyone in your own life, a mentor of any sort, who has taught you about writing or supported yours? Or have you been that for someone else?
How can this benefit a newer writer? What does the mentor get out of the relationship?

J: I have had many mentors in and out of school. I always gravitate to people who can teach me. It behooves the young or new writer to ask questions, be open to feedback and realize that others have already trailblazed the path. 

K: How do you handle rejection in your writing?

J: I see it as a sign that I either need to go deeper into the piece that is rejected, or take it elsewhere. I used to have a thinner skin but quickly realized all that does is keep you from writing, so I got over myself. I mean, there are days, and occasional rejections that hurt worse than others, but overall, I’m okay 

K: How do you think writing has changed with the growth of the internet and social media?

J: I don’t think writing itself has changed all that much, though trends and genres go in and out of popularity, but how authors have to market themselves has changed. Social media is necessary if an author wants to sell books or share online pieces. 

K: What sorts of things are you working on now? What would you like to see happen in your writing in the future?

J: I’m working on half a dozen articles or essays and about to begin a new novel. I’d like to have a new agent soon and sell some novels. 

K: What do you love about writing? What do you like least?

J: I love everything about writing: the thrill of new ideas, organizing information, the lure of language and creating imagery, the power of making meaning out of things with my own brain…I love using it to connect to others, and to calm and soothe my own brain and heart. I love revising and I love drafting new material. I don’t think there’s anything I don’t love except maybe trying to write to the specifications of someone else when I don’t quite know what they want.

***

I love all those things about writing too Jordan. Thank you.

While some things about writing are fairly universal, I learn something new each and every time I interview a writer who has something valuable to share.

For anything and everything Jordan (list of all blog posts, articles, essays, books, and courses offered), visit her website at:

http://jordanrosenfeld.net

Follow her on her author page, on Facebook:

Here.

And on Twitter:

Here.