Sunday, January 04, 2009

Gaza on a Sunday


I'm writing the end of a Young Adut novel, a ghost/mystery/Tarot story. A break from my regular writing. Fun! I'm sitting on my red couch in front of a big window. Every now and then, I google Gaza, to try to find out what's happening. 


Musee des Beaux Arts
~W.H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong, 
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along

Thursday, January 01, 2009

the deadline


I decide that I want my protagonist's wrapping paper to be designed with some detail from the Fool card in the Tarot. I google Fool card and get an image of the card. I mess around with the image, trying to make the little circles on the fool's shirt bigger. They would make a good design for wrapping paper: circles, with something inside them. But what is inside them? Are those stars? I decide maybe Wikipedia will tell me if they are stars.
But when I google Wikipedia, I see an article saying that the Wikipedia guy's appeal for money has worked. Wikipedia has been raking in donations. I read the reader's comments about the donation article. I get pissed off because some asshole complains about Wikipedia's entry concerning global warming. I start to get my debit card out to make a donation. Wait! First I should write a comment, telling the guy to stop being a jerk. Oh, a lot of people have already done that for me. I read through their comments. Most them agree. Shut up. Wikipedia is cool. We love it. Our kids love it.
Stop! I'm on a deadline. The first draft of the novel needs to be finished by Monday. Four days. My protagonist is still standing in the doorway with her present. I think they are little stars, little stars set inside circles. Just make the wrapping paper yellow and get on with it.
But first I want to go blog about all the things that pull at us, when really we just want to write a little scene.