Category: Creativity

Full

Throwback Thursday, March 13, 2021

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Writing can come in fits and starts, but I am full of words, every day, all day.

“My God, it’s full of stars.”

My God, I’m full of words.

It’s only that I don’t always write them down, but when I do … catharsis.

The dance of the pen across the page is a deer prancing in the snow, kids racing through the grass, a performance car zipping across the flats so fast the videographer struggles to keep the machine in the frame.

When it works, the words flow like water.

When it doesn’t, the words drip – drip – drip –

and then stop.

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This is the title entry from my book Full: Rockets, Bells & Poetry, available wherever fine books are sold — have your bookseller order ISBN 978-1-7373499-0-7

Binging the magic

Listen to this post:

The stream giveth, and the stream taketh away. I recently discovered the TV show Nashville, which had its first run from 2012 to 2018, just in time to also discover that it was leaving Netflix after Monday, Sept. 14.

I finished Season 4 on Sunday night, and I had run out of time to binge Seasons 5 and 6 in their entirety, so I looked at the IMDb ratings and found the top-rated episodes from the final two seasons. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that most of my Monday was devoted to catching eight or nine 42-minute stories including, of course, the series finale.

I am clearly a sucker for stories about writing songs and trying to make a life making music. They built a pile of endearing and not-so-endearing characters and tossed them in a room together. Even though I’ve now seen the best of those last two seasons, I expect I’ll revisit those seasons and all of Nashville when the stream decides to give it back, someday.

Watching all that songwriting magic gave me the itch to pick up my own guitars and see what comes out. But first I need to turn off the television and get some sleep.

Once again down those paths

Listen to this post:

I have (once again) found the surface of my desk so I can write on that surface — but behind me on the recliner is a pile of papers that needs to be reassigned to another location. And in my mind this desk belongs to the other side of the house as I contemplate converting the master bedroom back into a bedroom and the second bedroom back into an office.

Here and there I found Bible verses I’ve written down through the years. I must revisit those verses. I wrote each of them down for a reason, and I must recapture those reasons.

I look up from my journal and see three notes to myself on the back wall of this rolltop desk. One is a mission statement that begins, “At the end of each path is a finished book.” Another, recalling a Super Bowl moment from nearly 15 years ago, says in big bold letters, “IT IS TIME.” The third is a Ray Bradbury quote that begins, “Action is hope.”

It feels like it is (once again) time for me to take action and start moving down those paths. Clearing the desk is Action #1 — not to be confused with the comic book worth millions, but right now it feels like a million dollars worth of sound advice.