Sunday Morning Musing: Bukowski Wisdom

'There is no losing in writing, it will make your toes laugh as you sleep. it will make you stride like a tiger...'

I love this line especially from Bukowski's declaration. 'There is no losing in writing...' There isn't. It is beneficial, it is all becoming. Even if you are never published, never famous, writing will still be there, will still re-make you and bring the world into clearer focus. It is a gift, a privilege, a power. It will make you 'stride like a tiger' down the terrain of life (yes.) And although I've never thought about it before, the idea of toes 'laughing' as we sleep is just fantastic. Fingers thrum, heart bebops, brain flicker-flashes when you're on a roll, so why wouldn't toes be laughing too!

For more of Bukowski's tough-guy hard-earned writerly wisdom, click on his name in the Labels below this post. He has a lot to say on the craft and separating the real writers from the just-a-notion ones. All straight-up to-the-point talk. And all of it tried, tested and true. 

~ Siobhán

Summer Shorts: Hello August

 

 “The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.”

~ Natalie Babbitt, 'Tuck Everlasting.'

A short post this, but the above quote is just too good not to share here. I used to think August was the end of summer, nothing but its last dying amber embers. The sliding descent towards the routine of September, a month for kindling regret. Until I came across this quote that is. The reprieve of this first week sounds tantalising, doesn't it? What a wonderful way of looking at it!

I admit I have been largely absent from here for the past few months. A combination of sunny days and other priorities (which have included reading - lots of yummy summer reading!) have been the reasons (not to mention the fact that the longer you stay away - the harder it is to come back.) But I have noticed too that responses to this blog have fallen off considerably. Maybe I need to blog more often. Snazz up my content. Or maybe it is just a seasonal thing... with a quietude falling on the blogosphere.

Anyway, I hope to be more prolific this month. There are just so many things I want to write about! And I hope to maybe hear from some of you then.

Enjoy the last of the summer!

~ Siobhán