JARVIS, MY SAVIOR
Am I blocked or just too busy at work?Since my return from vacation in Germany I haven't been able to write much, not with my short stories, nor with my blogs. I do have a very busy surgery schedule and there is nothing like 7 30 a.m. surgery start times - of which I have had plenty - to stifle my writing, since most of my creativity occurs early in the mornings. That said however, last Christmastime, when I returned from Turkey, despite a similarly busy schedule I went through the biggest burst of creativity, completing numerous half finished stories[...]
WITH HEMINGWAY ON THE BUS TO NUREMBERG
On a boring bus ride through the Bohemian countryside, headed from Prague to Nuremberg, I restart Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast in hopes of acquiring new inspiration from it. At the end of the trip we'll spend a short time in Paris that I hope I'll spend exploring the old master's steps in the Latin Quarter where he lived and wrote in the 1920's.It is slow going, both the ride and the read, for a young woman, our tour guide, keeps interrupting with random proclamations in the P. A. system. "The yellow fields you see to our left and right[...]
A SPARK OF INSPIRATION
All fictional stories start with a spark of inspiration, often small ones. For example, Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina was inspired by a news account he read about a woman who threw herself in front of a moving train. He then imagined the back story of what might have led to such an act. In the process he created a massive classic that, among other things, includes Tolstoy himself in the character of Levin, with accounts of real events from the author's own life. The novel ends with Anna killing herself by jumping in front of a train. For non-writers it[...]
PHOTOGRAPHY AND WRITING; TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN
Nearly a year after I published my memoir Dogmeat I sent my editor Mim her first photo of Dr. Wilson, the mentor and tormentor so prominent in the story. It was within the context of an unrelated issue. She wrote back and said that the photo was the spitting image of the way I had described him in the book. Dr. Wilson was exactly the way she had imagined him. I was proud and much pleased with that comment.With my current book project Mim is suggesting that I include some photos. Many of my stories happen in exotic locales such[...]
AN INVITATION BY JANE JAFFE
I knew something was amiss when I received an invitation to the Jaffe's house. Peter Jaffe is the conductor and musical director of the Stockton Symphony. His wife Jane, a musicologist with a Ph. D. from the University of Chicago, annotates music programs. Over the years we've become friends and they have educated me - Jane in particular - on the finer details of concert music as they helped me prepare my music lectures for the Symphony.The last time I was invited to their house was in 2000, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Symphony. They had[...]
MIM’S BRAVO, CLAUDY HANIM, AND TURKISH CURIOSITY AMID REVISIONS
"I really liked this one," said the brief e-mail from Mim, "Bravo!"An attachment to her e mail contained my story entitled "On the Night Bus to Fethiye," liberally sprinkled with red revisions despite her brief proclamation. Usually the e mails that accompany her reviews are full of questions, criticisms and suggestions. This one came at a time when I had set aside my short story project to prepare a music lecture for the Stockton Symphony. At first I placed it into a file where I have been accumulating Mim's edits, to be reviewed later after she's done with them all,[...]