I didn’t think I’d have any particular goals this year, other than the ones I normally make throughout the year. My reading time is slim, so I didn’t want to make any reading goals, such as the number of books I’ll read. While I want to continue reading deliberately, I also have to realize that there’s going to be more fluff in my reading than there normally might.

So after I read this quote that I’ll paste at the bottom of this post (over at Smoothpebble), I realized that there’s been something pinging around in my brain for a while, and I took it out and decided to make it my inspiration for the year:

Harder

I want to live harder, love harder, write harder, read harder. You could replace harder with ‘be more passionate’, I suppose, but I like the feeling that harder invokes. Sometimes I take a child and hug them as hard as I can. I make a joke out of it by grunting and turning red. They love it. So instead of joking about it, I’m going to do it. I’m going to hug harder. I’m going to love my husband harder. I’m going to write harder.

And this was all inspired by this:

“Advice? I don’t have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing. If you’re writing, you’re a writer. Write like you’re a goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there’s no chance for a pardon. Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God’s sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves. Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we’re not alone. Write like you have a message from the king. Or don’t. Who knows, maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have to.” — Alan Watts

This writing exercise is provided by Jacquie Reaville (The Book Imp). You can find her at Calliope’s Coffee House. Here’s the rundown, in Jacquie’s words: “Just to recap on what this is about – take a copy of the pictures that I post here and then write 500 words or more fiction on your own blog, then post the link to that entry back here in the comment section for everyone else to see, visit and hopefully comment on your creative writing. Much as is being done for countless other groups in blogger, multiply and elsewhere.” This particular photo’s deadline was June 14th. Oh well.  

Autumn tilted her face to the sun and felt the rays warm her cheeks. She hadn’t been out with her camera in years. Being a wife and mother had taken up all of her time, but after talking with her husband about needing some time for herself, they’d agreed she could do whatever she wanted on Saturday afternoons.

Last week she’d gone to the library and checked out a couple of books, which promptly sat on her nightstand, unopened and unread. Apparently reading, which she’d done a lot of before they’d had kids, wasn’t what her mind was looking for. She didn’t know what she needed, but she knew she’d know it when she found it.

Autumn’s trusty (and dusty) Canon beckoned to her today. She’d dabbled in photography before she got married…nothing serious. She enjoyed taking pictures of random things: signs, garbage cans, anything colorful. She’d never been interested in it as a career, but as a hobby it was usually just what the doctor ordered. Time to herself, time to think, time to just be.

Looking around Center Street, Autumn saw a mother playing in a patch of grass with her toddler. She quietly walked over and snapped a couple of pictures, hoping she wasn’t being intrusive. Click. Click. Not wanting to seem strange, she kept on walking, looking at her town with new eyes, eyes that saw pictures waiting to be taken.

As Autumn was approaching a bus stop sign, she saw two men waiting for the bus. The man on the right, nearest the bus stop sign, appeared to be in his 20s. The man on the left, decked out in a suit and tie, appeared to be well over 70, perhaps even in his 80s.

“Well hullo young lady,” the older man’s voice was soft, though more from age than anything.

“Hello,” Autumn said shyly.

“You takin’ pictures?”

“Well, yeah. Trying at least.” Autumn gave a little laugh. “Do you think I could take your picture?” There was something about the old man sitting on the bench that intrigued her. If she could just get the composition right….

“Yes, you may.”

Autumn moved a little farther back, kneeled down so she was looking directly at her subject, and looked through her viewfinder, focusing on the old man. Click. “One more!” She said, holding up her hand. The last one wasn’t quite right…click…yes, that was it.

She smiled at him, said thanks, and turned to walk away.

Looking at the ground, she saw the young man’s face standing in the shadow of the bus stop sign, making for an odd looking shadow. She quickly put her camera up to her eye and clicked the shutter, hoping the picture would turn out.

Autumn started walking home, taking pictures along the way. There was a picket fence she passed every day, old and rundown. It never looked like much before, but seeing it now, it looked more like art than an old rundown fence. Click.

Approaching her house, Autumn could hear her girls squealing. Vaguely she could hear “daddy!” and “monster!” and “hot lava!” She smiled and shook her head.

Walking in the door, the girls came running up, breathlessly yelling words like “park!” “now!” “we’re going!” Laughing, Autumn looked up at her husband. Putting her camera down, she wrapped her arms around her daughters who were clinging to her legs and begging to be picked up.

“We were just about to go to the park. Do you want to come with us?” Her husband had a bag slung over his shoulder. Peeking through the bag she saw shovels, buckets, and a blanket, all the makings for a good outing at the park.

“Sure.”

“Why don’t you bring your camera, hon?”

Autumn paused only a fraction of a second. “Oh, okay.”

“I’m sure whatever pictures you take will be great.”

Today’s guest post is from author Kate Jacobs. Ms. Jacobs wrote Comfort Food (my review is HERE) and The Friday Night Knitting Club. She definitely has a way with words, and this post is no exception!

Writers are readers, and I’m no exception. Indeed, I tend to acquire books at rather a fast pace – I have no impulse control when it comes to purchasing a book – and so at the end of last year I found some great-looking and really inexpensive bookcases on craigslist to deal with the chronic piles of books around the house. But guess what? That only spurred me on to fill them up! And, once again, I have stacks of books on my coffee table, and the dining table, and, of course, the requisite groaning nightstand practically buckling under my current reading load.

I do love contemporary fiction, from Ian McEwan to Kazuo Ishiguro to Alice Munro. I always buy any book that is a first novel – I’ll give anyone a try and often discover a new favorite. I just read Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen and thoroughly enjoyed its whimsical nature. But, in recent months, I have come full circle and returned to the books I loved first: dog stories. I’ve enjoyed Marley and Me by John Grogan. Merle’s Door by Ted Kerasote. Dog Years by Mark Doty. I’ll admit it: I’m a sucker for a good dog. Like my beloved Springer Spaniel, Baxter, who raised a paw to insist he get a mention in the acknowledgments of my new book, Comfort Food. After all,he pointed out, it’s not like my feet kept themselves warm during the long hours of writing. (He had a point.) And who reminds me when it’s time to gooutside? He does.

But my love of the dog story goes waaay back. Before Baxter and even before my adored childhood Springer, Pepsi. It stretches to Barney Beagle, a fictional dog who existed in the pages of a battered old learn-to-read storybook that had once been my older brother’s. It was at least a decade old by the time I got my hands on it. But a classic is a classic. Now, Barney’s story is that of a pet store puppy waiting patiently in the hope that one day his child will come for him. It is a tale of anguish and faithfulness, repeated heartbreak and, finally, the joy of true love. Because Barney’s day does eventually arrive and he goes home with a little boy and all is happily ever after. At least until Barney Beagle Plays Baseball and makes a nuisance of himself out on the field. But – thank goodness! – all is resolved and everyone returns to being happy again. Of course, I never knew what happened after Barney’sbaseball game because I only had those two books of the series – and a recent Google search reveals there weren’t too many more Barney stories. (What? I expected to find several and have a chance to catch up on his shenanigans.)

But I’ll tell you a secret: I privately attribute much of my love of making upstories to the hours I spent imagining a different future for Barney. A world in which he went home not with a boy who came to the pet shop but with a little girl named Katy and the two went on grand adventures…And that’s how I think readers, who sometimes grow up and become writers, are made.

So this is the second time I’ve participated in The Calliope Experiment, which is where Jacquie posts a picture and you write a story of at least 500 words. This is fun! You should try it. Even if you’re not a writer ’cause goodness knows I’m not.

This is the picture we have for this week:

I have a hard time coming up with a title for my stories…so here ’tis:

The little girl wiped her brow as she set down another stone. It didn’t matter that it was cold out; she was hot from moving the stones from their original rock pile to her new squiggly design. She would change it eventually, just like she always did. She’d written SOS a couple of weeks ago; she pretended that she had been abandoned on an island and a ship would come and rescue her. She would get a new mother, father, and siblings, and they would all love each other and live happily ever after and she could just be a kid. It would be weird, for sure, but she thought she could get used to it. Oh, and she’d make sure the new family wanted her sister, too. There’s no way she’d leave her sister.

She heard her mother calling her in the sing-song voice that only alcohol could bring on. “Saaaaar-ahhhhhh! Dinner’s read-yyyyyy!” She looked around and saw that she was out of sight of their house. In fact, she couldn’t see any of the summer homes from where she stood. She picked up a rock and skipped it into the ocean, wondering if she should even go back. But if she didn’t go back she’d miss her sister and who would take care of her sister besides? Her mom certainly wasn’t up to the task, especially not since their dad had left. She’d told that guy in the black robe at the, what was it called? Coat? Curt? Cort? That she wanted to live with her dad but he said she needed to be with her mom right now, that’s what her mom and dad wanted, that her dad would come get her as soon as he ‘got on his feet’, whatever that meant. She didn’t think he understood that being with her mom was so much harder and she ended up taking care of her mom rather than the other way around.

She knew there had been times when they’d been a happy family, when her mom didn’t always have that funny smell alcohol gave her. Those times were getting harder to remember, though, so she’d started writing in a diary so she wouldn’t forget.

She’d taken a sip of her mom’s drink once, just to see what it tasted like and she didn’t know what the appeal was. It was gross and tasted like her shoes smelled.

She heard her mom calling her again, this time more insistent. She knew she had to go back soon, otherwise her mom would get really mad, and when her mom was drinking, the really mads were even worse.

She turned and looked at the rocks she’d placed near the water. As she trudged up to her house, she decided that tomorrow she would write SOS with the rocks again, but this time leave it out longer. That was why no one had come before…she hadn’t left the rocks out long enough. She crossed her fingers and told herself not to forget to pray about this. Surely God would grant her this one request?

I was just about to go to bed when I saw Lisa had published another post on her blog. I didn’t recognize what she was talking about, so I settled in to read. *side note: It seems as if me and Lisa are on the same wavelength. The book I’m reading right now, The Wednesday Sisters, is about five women who form a writing group. The book is excellent so far and has made me want to form a writing group. end side note* Lo and behold Lisa’s post was about a blogger who ’recently started a writing challenge called The Calliope Experiment in which she posts a picture on Saturdays, then asks people to write 500 words about it and post it before the following Saturday (read about it HERE).’ So I tried my hand at a little story…it’s not great, but it was fun. I think I’ll try this on a weekly basis…

Here’s the picture I was to use as inspiration for a story:

My story doesn’t have a title. Here it is:

It looked like rain, she thought, as she pushed her cart over the bumpy asphalt. Nights like this were nice for a girl like her because she didn’t need the streetlamps to see where she was going, and it sure was nice when it didn’t rain while she was out and about. She was pretty good about predicting the weather…being outside for so long had almost made her at one with nature.

She didn’t know where she was going, but she never did. She just always found herself somewhere, and that somewhere always seemed to be the perfect place. Sometimes she ended up at the recycling center, usually when her cart was so loaded down with cans (bottles were too heavy) that it was getting difficult to push. Sometimes she ended up walking past her brother’s house late at night, wondering what his life was like, wondering if he ever talked about the good times they’d had. They’d been close a long time ago, but he never could understand her need for an open sky when she slept and no responsibilities. She’d made it easy on both of them by cutting herself off from everyone. There was no way her brother could reach her (without a job to pay the bill, a cell phone was useless) which she thought was for the best. But lately she’d been thinking about him more and more, thinking that maybe she could handle life again.

It’s hard to start from scratch. She prided herself on only having the clothes on her back. This would be unacceptable to most people, but to Sarah, oh, to Sarah it just made her feel more secure. The way the clothes molded to her body, she knew that these were hers and hers alone. She was careful about washing up and she’d been especially careful this time. She wanted to look her best when she saw her brother.

She wasn’t far from her brother’s house, only a couple of blocks now. The moon was now completely covered, illuminating the tops of the clouds, giving them an ethereal look that made her doubt that today was the best day. She was extremely superstitious, but a full moon had always brought her good luck before, so hopefully tonight would be no different.

As she rounded the corner, she saw the light in the living room and bedroom was on. She suspected his wife wasn’t home, otherwise she’d only see one light, acting as a tribute to their ‘green’ lifestyle. As it was, there were at least two lights on, so it was probable her brother was home alone.

She knocked softly at the door, almost hoping he wouldn’t hear her. That was silly, she knew, but she didn’t know what she’d do if he rejected her, and him not being home was infinitely better than being rejected by him. She heard feet padding to the door as she tried to pull a lock of hair behind her ear. Her hair was haphazard today, but it was better than it was most of the time. In anticipation of seeing her brother, she’d cut her hair as best she could with some dull scissors she found at the homeless shelter. Some ideas don’t translate well into reality, and giving herself a haircut was just one of those ideas.

A middle-aged man opened the door and smiled wanly as he recognized Sarah. Before Sarah could say anything, he held up his hand and told her he’d already explained to her what she needed to do to come back. His voice seemed wary, almost as if he were defeated. He gave Sarah the lecture he’d given her many times before, and when he was done he quietly closed the door. Sarah’s mind whirred as she tried to piece everything together. It didn’t really matter right now, though. She’d make it work, one way or another. She stuck out her chin and started back the way she came, just as the raindrops started to fall.