My Heart Beats for Bradbury

Dear Aspiring Writers,

I have discovered, what you probably already have. And I have fallen, quite suddenly, in love...

He is so wonderful that I forgive him for his semi-mullet...

Ray Bradbury is my newest crush. I forgive all of you who ever heard of him and didn't personally open one of his books in front of my nose and tell me to sit on my butt and read for five minutes. He is humorous, unique, quirky, descriptive, brave, and eloquent. Plus, he writes short stories, which are perfect for my attention span. Consider, this passage from "The Fog Horn":

Martha Graham's 117th Birthday, French Puppies, & Creative Writing

(This is what happens when I don't post in a while... I write one big post full of RANDOM material... My brain is funny...)

1. It's Martha Graham's birthday today! Everyone go to Google RIGHT NOW!!! Okay, sorry for yelling... But isn't that the coolest little dancing Google name-thingy ever?! As a side note, Martha Graham is one of the most recognized and celebrated dancers in the modern dance world. I love Martha Graham. However, I love Lester Horton more. (For oddly flexible people wearing unnecessarily tight leotards and moving in trance-like motions to weird elevator music click here... Yes, I dig this. It's like the power yoga of the dance world...)

2. We have puppies. 2 French puppies with ridiculous French names. They are Jean-Claude (psycho, black & white, friendly, maniac, happy, weirdo) and Pascal (acts traumatized most of the time, mostly black, shy, cuddler, hater-of-harnesses & leashes). I'm pretty sure I'm in love!!!

This is a horrible picture... I really need to take some more pics!!!

These are Coton de Tulear pups. I HIGHLY recommend the breed. They are sooooo sweet. And I can recommend a great breeder (although she lives in Ohio) that sells for really good prices.

3. I'm trying to flex my creative writing muscles a little. Here are some fantastic creative writing exercises that I found:

• Locate a writer whose work you do NOT particularly care for and write a parody of the story.
• Take any story you have written and rewrite it from a different point of view. If you originally wrote the story in first person, try it in third person restricted. You'll discover that you need to do more than simply changing the pronouns.  You should find that it is easier to be more objective about a character you are rendering in third person. If you've written a story in third person, try it in first. This can be an especially fruitful exercise if you've had trouble making the character sympathetic.
• Open a random book to the first page of any chapter. Copy down the first sentence. Then, close the book and spend 15 minutes creating your own story based off of that first sentence.

Happy Wednesday! Stay cool. It's HOT!! :)

Unique Things I Love... Like Karmin's "Look at Me Now" Cover & Black Baroque Art

I last posted about the importance of being ordinary. That's important if you're a hero/heroine in a story. This post is dedicated to uniqueness, especially when it comes to combining two unlikely elements. The end result? Fabulousness!

Take Karmin. I adore Amy's retro-pinup style meets down and crazay rapper (say what?!)

(Visit Karmin's webpage for more!) 

Or, how about Black Baroque's fanciful images printed on antique book pages? (Note: The author in me is slightly appalled by the notion of using old book pages for anything other than reading... but I am also enthralled...) Check it out: