Saints and Angels

THIS, my friends is a fabulous piece of musical poetic inspiration. It is an Irish group playing a piece called 'Saints and Angels.' I believe their group name is The Water Boys.

I would like to know this would be played at my funeral. It is an upbeat song with a deep meaning. About people, and their relationships and living and the in-between part. Of course, it has a blessing at the end - and it glistens like diamonds in the heavens.

".. a ship that never goes to sleep.. friendship."

Hey!! Much love and peace t'ya. (I do hope it's a while before the need for this song at such a place for me.. but you get my meaning I hope.)

This. is. simply. magnificent.

Turkey trouble and 56 would be novelists

This is a post about a turkey and electricity in Willits, California, but it is also about some would be novelists (sorta).

I know. Not exactly war and peace plot material, but stay with me.

Anyway, here goes: I was awakened this morning at 3:47 a.m. - don't ask why.. just did .. 'course then I couldn't get back to sleep, so what do I do?

Turn on the computer.

Duh.

Ok, so I'm checking news sites, blogs, thinking of writing more on my book, wishing for coffee, but it seems against the rules since I might not be done sleeping yet.. (the jury is still out on that one tho).. click over on my favorite searches to see what's brewing in the world of "novel writing" because that's my hot topic these days..

Find this story from The Willits News dot com, which is a story about 56 Willits Charter School students participating in National Novel Writing Month this November (NaNoWriMo).. interesting since I'm doing that too.. (and my daughter informed me yesterday that she signed up for it at her school).

Interesting little piece and I'm intrigued by the beautiful picture at the top of the Willits News dot com web site. It shows a beautiful mountain scene with lakes.. slightly foggy.. looks a bit dreamy. At that particular moment in my life - I had never heard of Willits and I certainly did not yet know in what state of the union the place existed. Actually it could've been Canada as far as I knew - or somewhere in the UK. I was clueless.

Curious gal that I am, I scrolled down the web page to see where this place actually was. Didn't see any clues right away.. my husband peered over and said, 'Alaska'? Nah, I didn't think it was Alaska.

I didn't tell him that tho. The mountains in the picture just didn't look like Alaska mountains. The tops were too rounded. Aren't Alaska mountains really tall and jagged and pointy? That's what I'm thinkin'.

Still, the picture does have a very Pacific Northwesty feel to it.

Actually, what my husband saw that made him guess Alaska was an ad at the bottom of the page for a car dealership named 'Ukiah Ford.' He thought the word 'Ukiah' sounded Native American, Eskimo-ee - please forgive my colloquialisms this morning - it is early - and I mean no harm, really.. I'm just yammering along.

I scroll back to the top.. nope - it's California. See, the little banner with the current weather thing.. it says Weather: Willits, CA. Now, 44 degrees.

Cool. Mystery solved.

Next on my agenda is to see what's cookin' in my new found favorite little California mountainee town with kids that are writing would be novels. So I view and click over on the 'most viewed' stories on the right of the web site to check out the other happenings in Willits.

Well, 'most viewed' is mostly crime stuff and an interesting I'm sure (but not to me at this hour) article on living with Lyme disease. So, I pass those stories up and click on 'most emailed' stories. Nothing there grabs me.

But under that little section is another little heading called 'More news'. Somebody's searching for some men, somebody's reporting on an election, there's a public hearing coming or going, can't remember which.. then there it is.

There it is. The story.

The thing I was looking for but didn't know it.

It found me.

Turkey Causes Monday Power Outage. That's the story. I waited all early morning for these two sentences - and it was well worth the wait.

By The Willits News staff - Posted: 11/06/2009 10:56:38 AM PST

A wild turkey's encounter with some PG&E equipment knocked out power to 492 Willits area customers from 7 to 8:30 a.m. Monday morning, says PG&E spokeswoman Jana Morris.

No information was available regarding the condition of the turkey.

Wanna guess?!

You write what you read

A post.. this one.. it's one of a thousand to read before you die. It's by writer Alexander Chee. And then, read this one too. It's 'Annie Dillard and the Writing Life.'

Fantastic.

The street where you live

Nice.

Well, whatever

Presenting Kingsbury Manx .. whatever gets you through the day. This is helping me.
(psst! - turn off the player at the bottom of my blog to hear this best-without going nuts).

Be cool - easy

Oh so many thoughts and so little time. I have to hurry and go to work now.. but leaving with thoughts of what to write down next time I have time.

Time. Take it easy.

Take love easy - so says (sings) Sophie Milman. Click me.

Nanowrimo, John Green and a Video

Click here. You'll see. All will be revealed. Kinda.

The question is - who in the world is John Green?

Daylight Savings

Or is it daylight spendings.

Whatever it is .. I'm not for it.

I want my daylight back to match the clock. I don't like when it's 4:30 and dark. I don't live in Alaska.

If I wanted to move to Alaska where it's dark in the winter at 4:30 (heck, 12:30 noon).. I would move there. But I didn't.

I moved to Alabama years ago.. and here I remain.. in the dark .. in November at 4:30.

This is where I would cuss if I knew for sure my kids wouldn't read this.. but they occasionally do .. and so does my brother.. but I figure he can handle it.

Anyway.. consider me cussing.

Shoot.

Write for the pleasure of writing

So says Cassandra King. And, so do I.

(She is a novelist. The Sunday Wife is one of her best books-I loved it).

I feel such pleasure when writing. It is what I am - a writer. So, when I'm doing what I am, I am being me. I exist in words. Without words, I cannot be what I was meant to be.

Here's a link to an article about Ms. King - it was written by Peggy Ussery, published today at the Dothan ( Alabama ) Eagle dot com. I consider it one of a thousand to read before you die.

NaNoWriMo - November is National Novel Writing Month

And I'm writing a novel, so I'm a NaNoWriMo - er type person. Hooray for me. I'm excited. And busy-er. Oh well. Hip hip hooray.

You say hilshire, I say farms.

Hilshire! Farms. Go beef! (does hilshire have 2 l's?) . . . things that make you go hmm.

Walking up a spiral staircase . . .

. . . and other designer writing secrets. Wait, there are none.

I love this post I found this morning over at Shore Acres's blog, The Task at Hand.. the author wrote of furnishing our stories.

It's seriously one of a thousand to read before you die (I have a series of those y'know - thousands, indeed dozens, of posts to read before you die).

And, for your listening pleasure, click on this blog link- a blogger in Tennessee from Great Britain ... beautiful peaceful soulful music there. I like it a lot.

Brought to you by the dreamers of Shelby's Cafe Playlist.

Spooky Day

When I was growing up, we never really participated in national spooky day the day before November starts. Some might say (and did say it) - well, your parents were too conservative and uppity - it's not really a cultish day.

Maybe. They were conservative and strict (are still - although not so much), but they were never uppity.

If there's one word that describes my family - uppity ain't the word.

No, we didn't dress up and go begging for candy. We didn't have scary parties. We didn't make the party stores richer.

To be sure, there were times when I didn't understand my parents. Some years I wanted to be a regular kid and do all the scary hoopla things .. but not really to do them ... it was more of the want to say I did them.. so I wouldn't be considered different.

Mostly though, when I look back .. I couldn't have given a rip about most of it. I was one of those rare kids who got my parents. I understood them. I believed they knew what they were doing and I believed they gave much more in life than the one silly spooky day that sometimes I missed out on. I had hugs in the morning, hugs at lunch, hugs at snacks, hugs at dinner, hugs at night (ok, it wasn't a hugfest all the time .. but we were loved).

I had a hot breakfast every morning (toast counts doesn't it?). I had a nice home, clean sheets, warm towels, heat and air, a dog, sometimes horses, cats (and my parents hated cats), a lawn to help mow, dishes to help clean up, a sister to learn what real rivalry meant, grandparents who lived on farms, cousins who liked to play chase, uncles who played guitars, trips out west, trips up north, a house full of books and parents who grew up dirt poor, but who always knew (and know) the meaning of happiness and satisfaction. Simplicity. A quiet life. The gift of being unassuming. Love. Hope.

That's what I grew up with. I got that. I didn't always do it. Don't still. But I know what is important - those family values that I was given and cherish. I had it pretty darn good.

So, when spooky day rolls around each year and I pine for November, it's partly because I really do like November, but it's also because I just don't like spooks, and I don't like having to convince folks that I didn't have a deprived childhood.

But, in honor of spooky day this year, I give you the best I could find this morning. The video below is Johnny Cash singing one of the spookiest songs I love - Ghost Riders in the Sky. Yippee I Aye ... Yippee I Ohhhh .. minor key, guitar sounds, horses hoofs, galloping rhythm.. dark skies.. fire.. spirits and threats to live better or spend eternity with spooks.. True yikes.

Johnny's song is one of a half dozen to listen to before November .. I might try to find more if I have time.



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And, I did find another (and others) over at That Nasvhille Sound blog, where they posted a super list of ten spooky songs for the ween o' hallo .. This one is Guy Clark pickin' The Guitar. It's deliciously wicked.

Don't ask why - just go

Click here. Then scroll down and just pick a story (or 3 or 4 or 12) to listen to. You will NOT be disappointed. There's a huge chance you'll be addicted to your computer for the next little while.

It's worth it.

Go. It's story time.

My Losing Season

This is a link to a National Public Radio interview by Bob Edwards with author Pat Conroy, about his book (not new, but great interview) My Losing Season. The book is about Conroy's senior year at the Citadel and his basketball team's losing season.

The interview is fairly short, about 7 minutes.. but it's a great snapshot into all things Pat Conroy. He really has a unique hold on writing about life, as most of us know it.

He has a way of putting a positive spin on the deepest of hurts. That is what I like.

Lovin' this

This girl speaks my language - visually, lyrically and spiritually.. emotion is all there right at the front.

Mindy Smith.

Forget the soup - listen to the music

Soup has been on my mind this morning as I sit here in the dark in my bed thinking of things to write about.

It actually wasn't the first thing in my awakeness, but after reading a bit online - the word soup kept appearing.. you know, it is the season - squash, butternut, potato, pumpkin and the rest. It's a soup season.

So, I do my own little soup misearch (that's short for mini-research a/k/a googling). Of course, when I do a misearch, I don't simply type in the word (in this instance, 'soup'). I type in other words along with it - to get a more Shelby friendly search result list, more apt to be full of things that interest me. For example: I will type in the word, 'soup' and also the word 'cottage' and of course the word 'blogspot' and maybe even 'south carolina' or 'appalachia'.. that way I find articles or posts (hopefully) that are full of other interesting things that could quite possibly (again, hopefully) trigger other interesting things that aren't yet interesting.

Adventure is always around the bend. I just have to find the bend. Sometimes the road isn't curvy enough-so I have to make the curves myself.

Ok, so after I typed in all my interesting words, I ended up with a list in google and I clicked on "Daisy Cottage - Let's Take a Trip!" - after all, that is the perfect sounding title to all things Shelby Dupree related.

I was not disappointed. At Daisy Cottage's place, I was welcomed with lovely music, beginning with Stranger on the Shore, by Mr. Acker Bilk. It's a piece for the clarinet and is super smooth and transported me to a place I wanted to be (the shore of course!).

The link to her playlist is here .. take a listen, you'll like it too I bet.

I didn't actually find any soup there, but I liked the music. That was enough to make one misearcher happy.

The artistry of memory

I am convinced that no writer or painter or artist of any kind can truly create anything as intriguing as one's own myriad of memories.

This morning I came across a post (follow this link) at a blog called Keep the Coffee Coming that caused me a short pause in the suspension of time . . . and I went back to the past for a few seconds at a time - for about seven or eight minutes.

In my mind, it actually happened. I could see memories as well as I see the computer screen as I type these letters into words.

I remember standing (I was about 4 years old) in our dark garage by the car one winter morning in North Dakota. I remember the ice and frost and coats and mittens. I do not remember the cold.

I remember waiting for the school bus in second grade when we lived near Houston, Texas. I remember getting to the bus stop early to put my books down to save my place in the long line of what seemed to be about a dozen kids each morning. I do not remember ever actually being on that school bus in Texas.

I remember spinning a globe in my class as a child and closing my eyes and moving my finger - and letting my mind create a story based on the place wherever my finger landed when the globe stopped spinning. I do not remember never creating stories.

"I have more memories than if I were a thousand years old."

- - -

This post is next in my series of a thousand posts to read before you die. Here are the other posts of thousands (ok - dozens).

When it all starts coming undone

Presenting - Lady Antebellum.

I run to you. Happy Friday!!!!!!

One minute I held the key . . . and other lyrics

Today's music playlist choice for me - and you (should you choose to listen).. is here.

Try it.

"It was a wicked and wild wind..."

A Preview of Sorts (did I mention I'm writing a book)

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