Currently Reading The Portrait of a Lady (Penguin Classics) By Henry James see related

I’ve been so busy these past several weeks that I’ve hardly had time to notice. But I am glad that it is a new year – all these beautiful blank days and weeks and months, like empty white pages begging to be filled with words.

What have I been up to these past several months? More things than I could possibly describe, so I’ll just try to write about the wonderful things; those are always the best to remember anyway.

I’ve read a bit of fiction – finally finished The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky (one of the most amazing books I’ve ever read), managed to make my way through Eliot’s Mill on the Floss (some rather fine writing, but overall a rather weak storyline), felt in the mood for a play and discovered a collection of Henrik Ibsen’s on my bookshelf (read A Doll’s House and was impressed but left with a feeling of dissatisfaction).

Since then, I’ve been looking for a good book to read that won’t leave me disappointed and just started The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, courtesy, once again, of my bookshelf. It’s amazing what I find there: all these beautiful leather-bound classics with gold-edged pages. So far, I am enjoying the novel immensely and, even though I usually wait until I am at least halfway through a book to recommend it, I have quite favorable opinions of this one.

But I did find one treasure that wasn’t on my bookshelf. I was in the library one day when I stumbled across Mystery and Manners by Flannery O’Connor. I’m not a very big admirer of O’Connor’s stories, but I am an admirer of her skill. She was a very good writer. This book is full of non-fiction and has some very fine essays on the craft of writing, most inspiring and encouraging for any serious writer.

What does it mean to be a serious writer? I’ve been mulling over those words these past several months. O’Connor believed that fiction is an art form, that writing well is a gift. When asked why she wrote, she replied, “Because I’m good at it.” It may sound a bit prideful, but isn’t that why people usually pursue a certain field?

These past several months I decided that I must look on my writing as more than a mere hobby. I have always loved to write, but writing is not self-satisfying. Like any art form, it must be shared with an audience.

My parents have always encouraged me to find ways to reach a larger audience with my writing. I did publish a literary newsletter during my early high school years, but since then I haven’t written very much fiction (and only slightly more non-fiction). It must have been my British Literature class this past year, then, that really got me serious about writing. There is definitely something beneficial about having to write a well-thought-out essay every week and absolutely immerse yourself in good literature. My teacher was wonderful too – she was constantly trying to convince me to get some of my work published and very helpful in critiquing my writing.

Unfortunately, my success in the area of fiction has been rather small, though I have tried very hard to write several short-stories. My serious projects always end up unfinished, boring me before I get past the first page. Yet I find it very easy to write children’s fiction, things in the style of Edith Nesbit’s novels.

My younger brother will see me with my laptop and ask me to write him a story. We’ll sit down on the couch together and I’ll begin typing away. And there I am, with five pages of material in the time it would have taken me to write half a page of a serious short-story. It appears that though I love reading serious short-stories, God is leading me to write children’s fiction. And that is not necessarily disappointing. It really is wonderful to write for children.

As to non-fiction, well, here I really have had a bit of success. As I have previously said, my parents and teachers have been encouraging me to share my writing with a wider audience. This autumn I finally took my first daring steps. I had been researching scholarship opportunities and was quite amazed at the numerous essay competitions that I found. One of these was run by the Veterans of Foreign Wars organization. Their Voice of Democracy contest for high schoolers was originally a radio program sponsored by the National Association of Broadcasters. Now it is simply an audio essay contest. The author must read his essay onto a CD and submit both the CD and essay to the VFW. Essays are judged not only on the writing, but also on the author’s speaking skills.

This year’s theme for the contest was “My Role in Honoring America’s Veterans.” As I began writing my essay, I fell in love with the topic. I have two grandfathers who are both American veterans (one served in World War Two) and it was wonderful to have a chance to honor them with my paper. Perhaps I’ll post it this Memorial Day.

Anyhow, my essay did very, very well. I won on the post, county, and district level and finally for the whole state. That means I get to represent New York for the Voice of Democracy in Washington, D.C. this March, tour the nation's capital, and possibly meet our president. There are even more prizes to win on the national level. Here is more information about the contest.

I am very excited and so thankful for this award! It's such a great honor. I am so amazed to see how God is working in my life, giving me this opportunity to share my writing with others, especially with the veterans of my VFW. Sadly, many Americans have forgotten these veterans' sacrifices, how their service protected our freedoms. Several veterans have told me that every time they hear my essay on the recording they are moved to tears. I have given the essay aloud in person and seen the audience so moved. It is an indescribable feeling that washes over you when you touch a person with your words. It makes me truly thankful to be a writer.

Flannery O’Connor wrote that God gifts some to be good writers and, because He has given us this gift, we must in turn glorify Him through our words. That is what it means, I think, to be a serious writer.

I have so much more to write about, but so little time now to write. Let me just end with this quote by Lew Wallace (author of Ben-Hur), a quote I heartily agree with.

I know what I should love to do - to build a study; to write, and to think of nothing else. I want to bury myself in a den of books. I want to saturate myself with the elements of which they are made, and breathe their atmosphere until I am of it. Not a bookworm, being which is to give off no utterances; but a man in the world of writing - one with a pen that shall stop men to listen to it, whether they wish to or not.

NB
[http://www.inkwellmusings.blogspot.com/]

[Those of you who are waiting for an email from me -- don't worry, I haven't dropped off the face of the earth - yet. :) I'll try and catch up on emails by the end of this week.]

Meanwhile, I couldn't bear to see this xanga looking so obsolete.

So I'm posting.

Hmm...how about some Dylan Thomas? This is one of those poems that makes you catch your breath -- it's beautifully rich with imagery. I took the pictures last October at Rockefeller State Park here in New York, though I debated whether to post them or not. If you read the poem, you'll see why. :)

Poem in October

It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
    And the mussel pooled and the heron
            Priested shore
        The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall
        Myself to set foot
            That second
In the still sleeping town and set forth.

    My birthday began with the water-
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
    Above the farms and the white horses
            And I rose
        In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days.
High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
        Over the border
            And the gates
Of the town closed as the town awoke.

    A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
    Blackbirds and the sun of October
            Summery
        On the hill's shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
        To the rain wringing
            Wind blow cold
In the wood faraway under me.

    Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
    With its horns through mist and the castle
            Brown as owls
        But all the gardens
Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales
Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.
        There could I marvel
            My birthday
Away but the weather turned around.

    It turned away from the blithe country
And down the other air and the blue altered sky
    Streamed again a wonder of summer
            With apples
        Pears and red currants
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
        Through the parables
            Of sun light
And the legends of the green chapels

    And the twice told fields of infancy
That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.
    These were the woods the river and sea
            Where a boy
        In the listening
Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
        And the mystery
            Sang alive
Still in the water and singingbirds.

    And there could I marvel my birthday
Away but the weather turned around. And the true
    Joy of the long dead child sang burning
            In the sun.
        It was my thirtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
        O may my heart's truth
            Still be sung
On this high hill in a year's turning.

Mull over that for a while. :) New post coming soon!

NB
[http://inkwellmusings.blogspot.com/]

Currently Listening The Fantasticks (Original 1960 Off-Off Broadway Cast) Featuring Harvey Schmidt, Tom Jones & Jerry Orbach Try to Remember see related

It's the last week of summer, isn't it? You wouldn't know it by the chill in the air. I thought that it had ended days ago, but glancing at my calendar, I realized happily that there are still several nice long days left.

That doesn't prevent it from feeling like Autumn though and I love it that way. I believe it's the most beautiful time in New York. The summer is wonderful too, of course, though sometimes it can be muggy and the air thick and heavy. Spring is lovely too with the frosty mornings dissolving into warm afternoons.

But September in New York -- ah, that is a very special time. No other state has a September quite like New York. The mornings are long and grey. And the air is sharp and cold. And one day you'll wake up and look out your window and see the trees transformed into deep gold and fiery crimson. Not quite yet, though. It's still summer.

I have written quite a bit about all the things I've done these last several months, but not quite all. The entire month of August is unrecorded and I've left out going golfing, visiting relatives in Florida, and a whole list of other little excursions.

But there is one very fond memory I haven't written of. This past July my mom and I went to see The Fantasticks in New York City. It was an off-Broadway production (which, strangely enough, simply meant that it was performed in a smaller theater than most Broadway productions -- the theater itself had a Broadway address). But if you've seen a show like Les Miserables or The Phantom of the Opera, the term off-Broadway would not seem unusual at all.

Broadway is one of the City's busiest places. The sidewalks are crowded with people. Usually when you enter the theater, it is huge and it is also crowded. Not so with The Fantasticks. The small theater was reached by climbing up a very long flight of stairs. All sounds from the street vanished. In fact, it was very easy to forget you were in the City at all. I'm not sure exactly what to compare the show itself to -- it was like a travelling theater troupe fresh from a Charles Dickens or Mark Twain novel. It reminded me a little of Our Town by Thornton Wilder which I read several years ago, though I found The Fantasticks much more enjoyable. It should be -- I was told that it's the longest running musical in the world. My mom saw it years ago and had been waiting to see it again ever since. After seeing it with her, I too would love to see it a second time.

The set is virtually nonexistent, most of the props being produced out of a large wooden box. One reviewer wrote, "Set like a makeshift show behind a bedsheet curtain, The Fantasticks contrasts foolhardy fantasies with rewarding reality. It's the story of a boy and girl, both dreamers, who celebrate a fairy-tale ending by the end of the first act. Bored by the second act, they seek other adventures and return a little wiser."

Though the story was quite enchanting, I loved the music most of all. The orchestra was very small, centered around one piano. There was one song in particular that anyone who goes to see the show will never forget. It's called Try To Remember.

Try to remember the kind of September
When life was slow and oh -- so mellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When grass was green and grain was yellow.
[...]
Try to remember when life was so tender
When no one wept except the willow.
Try to remember when life was so tender
When dreams were kept beside your pillow.

And now that it's September, I've been humming it a little more than usual these days. :)

Yes, I had an absolutely lovely summer. I am a bit sad to see it end, though I have so much planned for my senior year of school, some of which I am enjoying right now as the first semester begins to unfold. I will miss the warm summer days, but I will also relish the cool September ones and hope that winter does not come too soon.

Don't forget, September is the very best season for baseball, especially if your team is the Yankees. I'm not setting my hopes too high (it would be quite spectacular if they did win the division), but sweeping the Red Sox once in our own stadium and then winning the series at Fenway has made me very, very happy.

Happy September, everyone!

NB

(Oh, and, yes, this post does mean I have officially returned to xanga and will be blogging again...)

Currently Reading Strong Poison By Dorothy L. Sayers see related

Summer Academy was wonderful! :)

Several highlights -- studying Church history, drinking tea at midnight, Scottish accents, Bobby Burns, bagpipes, dancing, bluegrass music, poetry, Dorothy Sayers, 'The Time Will Come', seasick ants (don't ask, lol), The Tale of Sir Topaz, 'by all that's blue', astronomy, stargazing, laughing, talking about Chas. Williams, singing hymns, baseball, fellow scholars.

My only complaint? A day and a half are hardly enough time to talk to everyone or have any particularly deep literary or philosophical discussions. ;)

But it was fun, even though I was sick with allergies most of the time. I desperately wanted to read "Dover Beach" or some other poem during the poetry readings, but I had lost my voice. o.O That was rather sad.

It was great meeting so many people in person that I've only known online. Strangely, some of them are very much like their internet personalities and others aren't at all. I wonder if I am.

Anyhow, life is good, though entirely too busy. It seems like I've been running all over the world since summer began. Whew, I need to find that 'to-be-done-list' I made sometime in June -- everything I needed to accomplish and read and study and write before the end of this summer. Which means I should probably cut this entry short.

But, oh, before I do -- remember last year when I wrote up that summer reading list which was a huge success? I don't think I'll ever get that many comments again, lol. Well, I haven't quite forgotten it (in fact, I was asked to write up a new one for this year). Yet, owing to the fact that I have a very limited time to spend on xanga these days, I've done something a little bit different. Several months ago, I stumbled across a wonderful free internet service entitled librarything. If you are the least literarily inclined, you'll absolutely adore it. Quite simply, it helps people catalog and tag their books easily -- you can also write reviews and a whole range of other bookish things. And you can put it on your blog. Anyhow, I've set one up for my summer reading list. Check it out if you get the chance:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Inkwell_Summer07

And get one too. :) If enough people set one up for their summer reading, I can make a special private book group for us.

Have a great summer!

NB
[http://inkwellmusings.blogspot.com]