This is just a revamp of the Pope/Wordsworth post, but I catch myself wondering still. I see boatloads of books on the process of writing. And as we are all individual, so our writing styles and quirks are varied. In high school, I threw everything onto the page and pronounced it good. In college, I learned how to shape what I said and form it to what I wanted to say. Recently, I tend toward abstraction; I sit/lay around with a pen in my hand and my eyes glazed over, dreaming stories and scenarios.
I own billions of sheets of blank paper, a dozen favorite writing implements, an electric typewriter, a printer and a keyboard attached to a computer.
From Switchfoot's "Bomb" (Legend of Chin):

With a blankness staring back at me
Screaming from the pages
I feel the fear of apathy
Gripping me, pushing me
On

ps. John Updike died this morning.

Be his fan on facebook. Yes this is the same guy I mentioned earlier and sent you to myspace. But now he's got a record contract and living the big life working landscaping to pay the bills up in Tenn. If you're in the Nashville area, give him a look up. But don't expect him to buy lunch.

UPDATE:
Interview here.

I give whole-hearted recommendation to his Red-Black-Green Circle. Some of his other books have been a little too dark for my taste, but the Circle books were just creepy enough, if you know what I mean. I'm really looking forward to reviewing Kiss. Check it out at the bottom of the sidebar.

Here's the link to my entry. The photo that the whole contest is based off of appears here along with the rules. I encourage all three of the people who sporadically load this blog to enter a story.

Full Text of my entry below for those with slow connections, or laziness.

Further Up, Further In
by B. Nagel


Leigh Monaley waited seven hours at the station. The private investigator assured her that Walter Davidman would be on the 4:05 to Jackson. But Davidman hadn’t been on assurances 10:20, 12:05 or 2:15.

Leigh checked her cellphone. Six missed calls from her mother. Three voicemails. Ten minutes until the bus was due.

She pulled the yearbook out of her bag and opened it to the dog-eared Homecoming page. Her mother, Katie Lopez, in the back of a red convertible driven by a young man with blond hair and thick black plastic glasses.

Leigh’s mother claimed not to know his name, but Leigh knew this man was her father. Where else could she have gotten her abominable vision? Certainly not from her mother’s husband.

“What do we have here?” asked a quaky voice and an age-spotted hand obliterated her father.

The hand’s woman squatted down beside Leigh and the stench enveloped them both. “What a beautiful woman. Are you meeting her here?”

“I’m sorry. This seat is taken.” Leigh shut the book and waited for the woman to move on.

“Not unless you’ve been holding it for the last few hours,” the old woman cackled and winked. “How about I keep you company until the bus shows up with the pretty lady who doesn’t know you’re her daughter? I’ll be your foster mother and we can. . .”

Leigh bolted for the exit and ran up the escalator two steps at a time, past the poet in new jeans.

For now.
I've joined one reading contest and one writing contest. Which means that I have no reason to whine about being bored. And more importantly, I have creative, constructive and inspirational activities to combat the drudgery of Southern winter weather. Which is rain.

Maybe you'll join something. I hope you do.

We got a new cat after Christmas. And this is good. I've been off for the holidays recently, but my job works afternoons and nights and my wife works regular hours. And while we try to figure out how we get any quality time together in the 45 minutes to an hour that we have together, our cat Athena gets a little left out.
So we brought home a new kitten boy-cousin who we named Sport.
That's what the shelter told us.
Turns out Sport is a little girl. (No external apparatus, and an incision from the spaying operation.)
Que sera, right? Right.
Except that Athena is a big old scaredy-cat. Seriously, Athena weighs five times more than Sport. But if they ever end up in the same room, Athena hisses and growls and runs away.
Sport is a kitten and innocently curious, so she follows.
And this is the funny part, Sport trees Athena. Like in Where the Red Fern Grows, except the dogs are a 3 lb kitten, the coon is a 15 lb cat and the tree is the refrigerator.


**Update. Sport has been renamed. Sticking with the Greek theme we inhereted via Athena, Zora, meaning "sword"

Thomas Nelson has set up a fantastic program called Book Review Bloggers. Any blogger can sign up and receive review copies of current books with the commitment to post two reviews. This is my review of The Truth About You by Marcus Buckingham.

Rating: 4 out of 5 thumbs up.

Visually very eye-catching. The cover is reflective metallic silver with the title in white opaque block lettering. The printed material is only 110 pages long, but the “revolutionary toolkit” appears twice as thick. The toolkit includes a 20 minute DVD and a small memo pad.

Buckingham presents us with a challenging experience. This “toolkit” is not feel-good self-help, but based in self-realization and self-actualization. In other words, it’s not just a book, but a workbook that requires time, effort and commitment. The text does not suggest, but demands.

The chapters are short and to the point, rich in detail and example. Buckingham creates his own specific language: “Strengths path,” “strengths,” “weaknesses.” He convincingly re-defines the job interview favorites “strength” and “weakness” as ‘that which leaves you stronger” and “that which leaves you weaker,” respectively.

Because I read tee book over the holidays, I was unable to implement the ReMemo Pad in the work environment, but I believe that it would be revealing to note the specific occurrences of “strength” and “weakness.”

Overall, the toolkit is visually appealing and catchy. The experience is challenging, but not daunting. It would make a good gift for the graduate, the job seeker or the disgruntledly employed.