I Wish I Could Catch It Like a Cold! ;)

"No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader; No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader." -Robert Frost

As writers, we all have experienced that moment when we know we have accidentally written something wonderful! It may be only a sentence, it may be a twist in the story, but whatever it is, each author treasures that warm pleasure that seeps through your mind when you have penned it, and captured the moment. Suddenly your writer's cramp disappears, and for the next few moments, all else is oblivious to you as you scribble as fast as you everly can to secure your idea. This fleeting, illusive, rare feeling is what most people call "inspiration". I often look at famous authors' writing, and marvel at the creativity in their works. How did Baroness Emuska Orczy manage to write such thrilling books about The Scarlet Pimpernel over and over and still make them heart-stopping? How did Jane Austen manage to create such witty dialog between her characters? How did Lucy Maud Montgomery know that the perfect name for her red-headed orphan was Anne Shirley, and that she had to live at a house called Green Gables? How did Charles Dickens learn to describe so perfectly the little idiosyncrasies of humanity? How did Frances Hodgeson Burnett write about the transformation of Sara Crewe's attic in such a way that her readers can almost see the room for themselves?
I could go on for a much longer span of time. One thing I have learned, is that inspiration does not come when you'd like it to, and it only comes at times when you least expect it! :) Often the times I am inspired are when I am hanging laundry out on the line, or spreading mulch in our landscape business, with nary a pen or piece of paper in sight. So I hold fast the idea in my brain, mull it over, and by the time I get home, run up the stairs, grab a notebook, and begin scribbling at least the bare bones of it. Have any of you ever had a moment of "inspired-ness"? :) There are times when I read over my writing, and think, "Wow. That is actually a neat name." or "I actually wrote that? That's pretty good!" as well as times when I think, "Oh mercy! I ought to burn this!" :D I tend to have bits and pieces of ideas I hoard. Mostly names. Names of houses, names of characters, names of places.....I am saving them for the perfect moment, and it has not yet come! :) One name I have spoken of before is "Katharine Durrant". I think it is a beautiful, regal name...the problem? I have yet to write a story where a beautiful, regal, woman comes in to take possession of the name! :D I have named three houses in three separate stories "Windyside Cottage". None of the stories have made it to completion. The name of that cottage belongs to a place in my mind that I have not yet been able to recreate! Names do not stick if they don't belong to the character! :) I've learned that the hard way! At some point I will tell you my grand, name-thinking-up strategy, but that belongs to another post! :) Anyway, I am doing a post about inspiration, because I am scrubbing around for some in my brain, and as all too often happens, it doesn't want to come right now! Can you imagine the amazingly, awe-struck feeling the writers of the Bible would have had when God inspired their writing? I cannot begin to fathom that idea! :) I began a tradition last year of writing a Christmas tale for a gift to some member in my family. Last year, it was "A Tale of Fairfax and Cloves" for Sarah. I will post it in full around the holidays, but do remember it had absolutely no editing done to it, so it isn't extremely good writing! But I need to get some inspiration for this year's story, so I'm keeping my thinking cap on! I need one of Josephine March's "Scribbling Suits"! ;)

"Her `scribbling suit' consisted of a black woolen pinafore on which she could wipe her pen at will, and a cap of the same material, adorned with a cheerful red bow, into which she bundled her hair when the decks were cleared for action."

So here's to brilliant ideas! Keep those pens scribbling! :)
Waiting for a good idea to stumble upon me,
Rachel

Reading Aloud: Refreshing The Lost Art

All right everyone! So sorry about this little mix-up, but I accidently posted the post I had written for this blog on our family blog, and since you can't copy/paste in blogger (argh!) and it was a rather long post, I'll just have to link you there. Just remember, it was written for you fellow scribblers, so you'll simply have to go read it! ;) Thanks all you girls who have recently joined this blog! It is a blessing to know that so many of you love writing and reading as well! :)
So here you go! Just click here: Enjoy it! :) I suppose it would be too much trouble for ya'll to come back over here and leave a comment, but I'd love it if you would! :P -Rachel

The World Is Having Wash-Day

I wrote this while sitting on our front porch this afternoon and watching the rain we have needed so badly! :)

"The World is Having Wash-Day"

By Rachel H.

The world is having wash-day

And good old-fashioned showers

Have come to rub the smudges off

And freshen up the flowers.

The world is having wash-day,

And in the new-scrubbed sky

The raindrops fluff the cotton-clouds
And hang them up to dry.

The world is having wash-day

And all creation stops

To have their faces scoured

By the friendly silver drops

The world is having wash-day

and a cleansing cool and deep,

And soon will put on Autumn robes

before it's winter sleep.

The Pecking Order: Which Came First? The Hens or Mine?

"A Conversation"

By Rachel H.

I stood in the hen-house

I'm certain I heard

A chuckling cluck-

`Twas a cozy hen-word;

A word from the beak

Of a little barred hen,

Though also, a normal-type

Cluck could have been.

But her eyes were so bright

And her feathers so gay,

I'd almost believe

That I just heard her say:

"Isn't this simply fine

Egg-laying weather?"

As she fluffed up anew

Each black-speckled feather.

When I wrote that poem last year, I thought it had turned out to be a sweet little work. Our new barred Plymouth hens had inspired it. But if I have found one con to reading as much as I do, it is the fact that everything you write has the tendency to remind you of something someone else has written. And so I could not be completely comfortable with my poem, because a little thought kept pricking me like a second conscience: "You have read something similar to that before. You know you have." I kept reasoning with myself and still do to this day: "This poem was inspired entirely by our hens...I was not copying someone else's ideas!" and it is true! I had not a thought in my head of being a pirate and recycling something that had already been written. The something I had read before turned out to be Elizabeth Maddox Roberts's poem: "The Hens" here is the sample that sounds most like my poem:

"Up in the barn I thought I heard

A piece of a little, purring word.

I stopped inside, waiting and staying

To try to hear what the hens were saying.

They were asking something, that was plain;

Asking it over and over again..."

So the question still stands....Is my work: "A Conversation" too similar to "The Hens" by a very famous author? I cannot make up my mind...certainly it has a similar flavor! I would definitely say it is reminiscent of her poem, but I have read very often of famous authors like Lucy Maud Montgomery and others admiring lines of other author's poetry, and rephrasing that line to include in their poems, or using it as a title of their book, or something else....so what do you fellow scribblers say?Is it bad ettiquette to write a poem, unintentionally with the same style as something that is already well-read? I did not set out to make it so. At times, I can agree with the Mediocre Writer who's famous (altered) quote is Mediocre Copies of Another Writer's Genius". :) What do you think of my poem by itself? Leave a comment and let me know! :) -Rachel

"I Never Saw The Moor"

"I Never Saw a Moor"

by Emily Dickinson

I never saw a moor,

I never saw the sea;

Yet know I how the heather looks,

And what a wave must be.

I never spoke with God,

Nor visited in heaven;

Yet certain am I of the spot

As if the chart were given

I have always loved this poem, because it says, is so few words, how I feel about many things! I have never seen heather until this past summer, and then, only in a picture, and yet I have always had a mental picture that I knew somehow was correct! (Nevermind the fact that it was ever so slightly wrong... :) This is what I find inspiring about poetry! Someone else taking an illusive feeling you've always had, and pinning it down in a beautiful way! If you have never seen the ocean, and yet know what a wave must look like, is it not a million times over more true that even though you have never seen God, you can see and are certain of His existance? Anyway, just thought I'd share that little brilliant poem of Emily Dickinson's! Also, below are some things that have made me pleased as punch over the past couple of days! ;)

A calligraphy/ink-pen...bliss! :)

Not as fine as the 18th century French ones in the photo, but still very nice! :)

and a set of eight different drawing inks! :)

Here is a picture of some of the darling little bottles!

Aren't they cute? Ah...the good old days! :) There is nothing like a real pen with nibs and blacker-than-black ink to inspire good writing! :) -Rachel

In Honor Of This Month...

"September's Step-sister to August"

By Rachel H.

September's step-sister to August,

And she hasn't October's rich blood

But September supplied

The Autumn's fair pride

with the beauty of Summer's gold flood.

The golden-rod torches she kindled

With a grape-scented, playful young breeze

And the hollows she kissed

With a pale, clinging mist

While her blush reddened tall maple trees.

She danced with the royal-clad monarch,

Then laughed with the dimpling stream,

And she said goodbye

In an evening sky

And faded away like a dream.

So, what do you think? :) Of course, it is not as good as Helen Hunt Jackson's poem "September", which I think is unrivalled. You can read that here: But I was pleased with how it turned out! :)

-Rachel

Pack-rat or Simply A Saver? ;)

Many of the fellow scribblers I talk to, have agreed that you should seldom completely throw something you've written away. Stuff it in a drawer, crumple it in your desk, but by all means, never throw it away! :D I'm not suggesting you be a packrat, but do save things! :) Just today, as we were going through all our homeschool materials, I found a note-book entitled: "Rachel's Notebook (of warious and sundry items of wery little interest to the rest of the world)" Okay. So you could tell I had just finished reading "Pickwick" and was imitating Samuel Weller, but that's beside the point! I opened the book, and found so many things I had written a year or so ago, and forgot about! There was one poem entitled "Going To The Store" which detailed what it is like for large families at the grocery store. (needs new title) Then there was the one about Gracie playing dolls. I remembered writing them, and thinking they were awful, but now, in retrospect, the poems themselves were not at all bad! One of my favorite things was finding the "plan" for a story: "The Tale of Fairfax and Cloves" that I wrote for a Christmas gift for Sarah last year. It had started out to be a full-length novel, with a quirky plot. It ended up being a reasonable story, perfect for reading in an evening, and alot of things had changed. For instance, originally, the shop the principle characters owned was "Weaver and Webbley", but it changed to "Fairfax and Cloves". It was so fun to see that forgotten plan, and compare it to the final result! That is why I say never throw worthwhile things away! One of the finds I treasure most is the first few pages of my first draft of the first pages of "A Mother for The Seasonings" I was writing it from third person, the characters were drastically different, and now, every time I read it, I laugh! :) Save things! You will be amazed at how your writing will improve! If ever you are in a dry time with your writing, and think you are awful at it, just read back on some of these old compositions! I have a notebook of poems I wrote as a ten year old. It is dumbfounding to read most of them! And not in a good way. Check this one out:

"I'm sick of being sick because

It's fun being healthy. There are 8 people

In my family and we get sick a couple at a time.

So always take you vitamins."

(Or something along those lines) Can you believe that?!?! It wasn't even good blank verse, not to mention the kind I write now! But it really does boost your spirits to look back over the years and laugh at your writing away back then! :) -Rachel