Shawn L. Bird

Original poetry, commentary, and fiction. All copyrights reserved.

life changer April 2, 2011

Filed under: Pondering,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:43 am
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prompt # 68. Name a book that changed your life.

Will I sound hopelessly pompous if I say Grace Awakening?  The experience of writing this book, of watching the characters craft themselves around me, was life changing.  People who know about the book are awed that I wrote it.  People who’ve read it are members of an enthusiastic club, who share the information with everyone else.  Strangers come up to me to ask about my book because they’ve heard of it from someone else. 

I have been transformed from a reader to a writer.  Grace changed everything.

 

music for my iPod March 13, 2011

Filed under: anecdotes,Grace Awakening,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:12 am
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One of my former students, who was a beta reader for Grace Awakening, wrote me the other day to tell me how she was thinking about downloading some music for her iPod.  She thought, “I should download that song Ben wrote for Grace” and then realised with some chagrin, oh wait.  That doesn’t really exist.

The note has made me smile all week.  I love that my characters are so alive!  I love that Ben is so real that people want to find the music described in the book for their iPod. 

Of course, there was music that inspired all the music Ben writes for Grace.  I don’t think I could have written it without remembering the feeling of listening to a composition created just for me by a musician I adored.  (See the blog entitled “Starry Night of Music” for a general sense of it!)  When I find the missing cassette tape,  I promise to post my Graduation tune (providing the composer gives permission, that is).  Until then, perhaps you can find something inspiring among the demo reels at Bhatia Music?

 

Fluevog here, Fluevog there… March 3, 2011

Filed under: Commentary,Grace Awakening — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:53 am
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Hot on the heels of my recent blog on Fluevog shoes, I discovered John Fluevog himself looking out at me from the cover of Vista magazine while I was visiting my local health food store today (stocking up on dark chocolate covered ginger and stevia)  Check it out. The article is on page 22. http://www.vistamagonline.com/

Fluevog is asked how his love of cars influences his shoe designs and he responds,

I like cars because I like the way they look; it has nothing to do with the way they drive.  I actually walk to work every day and I don’t drive that much, thought I have four cars.  Oddly enough, cars and shoes have a lot in common.  They’re multi-angular, multi-functional, continuously moving shapes.  I think cars are fashion guards–the lack of fashion lately in cars is a reflection of society and what people think.

This amuses me because in Grace Awakening Fatima the Bug is almost a character,

Like everything else about her, Auntie Bright’s car was very distinctive.  It was an ancient VW Beetle that she’d had painted a vivid Mediterranean blue, and then she’d hand painted it with a swirling variety of giant paisleys in purples, blues, yellows and reds.  Here and there were dots of gemstones glued on as accents, just to add sparkle.  At first glance it seemed as if she’d upholstered the car with vivid cloth and sequins.  People did double takes on the highway, and she generally had at least one person stop to admire and to ask her about it wherever she went.  Children were drawn to it.  People smiled as they saw her coming.  It always made her shake her head and remark, “People are such cowards.  They come and rave about how beautiful my car is, how they wish they could have a unique car, and yet they content themselves to drive around in boring mud coloured cookie cutters.  I don’t get it.”  (p. 269)

We’ve already established that  Bright would love Fluevog’s shoes.   I wonder what he’d think of Bright’s car?

Or mine, for that matter!

 

Thinking again February 24, 2011

Filed under: anecdotes,Grace Awakening,Pondering — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:25 am
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Well, I am glad that Thinking Day occurs in Scouting Week, so I can carry on with my theme of Girl Guide memories with some impunity. 

Another fun memory of Guiding is singing around the campfire.  I even put a campfire scene in Grace Awakening to celebrate these moments.  One of my favorite things is making up a verse of Quartermaster’s Store for everyone present around the fire.

Got a name?  I’ll make you a verse!  I’m serious!  Send me the name (and pronunciation if it’s not a common name) in the comment section below and I’ll make you a verse for your personal use within Guiding (or wherever your campfire happens to be).

 If you don’t remember the song it goes like this:

♪ My eyes are dim I can not see ♪

♪ I have not brought my specs with me ♪

 ♪I havvvvvve no-ot brought . my. specs. with. me. ♪

♪ There was Shawn, Shawn making out with John ♪

♪ in the store ♪ in the store ♪

♪ There was Shawn, Shawn making out with John ♪

 ♪ in the quartermaster’s stor-or-ore ♪

Come on- gather ’round my fire!

PS. My husband is John.  My Guides loved the naughtiness of this! lol

 

Bright boots… February 20, 2011

Filed under: Commentary — Shawn L. Bird @ 8:28 pm
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Every once in awhile I feel obligated to draw to your attention a fashion source that Auntie Bright would love.  I confess that Fluevog Shoes, based in Vancouver, is so fabulous that it goes beyond the adoration of my fictional character, and I love it, too!  John Fluevog is a Canadian shoe designer who creates amazing, unique, retro, delightfully Bright shoes.  If you like the weird, wonderful and unique, go wandering through the on-line store at http://www.fluevog.com 

When you’re studying the various lines of shoes,you can probably figure out that Eris has the LA boots, and Bonnie loves the Wearever collection… 

These Libby Smith boots are coming home with me and Bright, but I’m sure you’ll find something you love as well… 

PS.  While you’re at Fluevog.com don’t forget to check out John Fluevog’s beautifully restored (and slightly reinterpreted) antique Jag  “The Flueguar” under “STUFF.”  What a car!

 

waiting for the other shoe February 12, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 2:46 am
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It felt too easy. No one else had a publishing story that went, “finished my book, pitched in to a publisher at a conference, she took it, seven months later she asked for more, two months later she signed it…”

Every other author I’ve met has a long list of rejection letters. I don’t. Grace has charmed everyone who’s ever heard about her. I know she’s loved, because those first beta-readers were ruthless enough to ensure the later beta-readers (delta readers?) loved it right off, without reservation.

But good though it is, publication coming so easily seemed surreal. Where was the challenge? the suffering for the art? the constant re-sending of the manuscript? I asked if perhaps we could move up release to the summer so I could get in a book tour before school started, and the editor was open to look at that, if the editing went well, when he started it in February. Everything was going just too smoothly.

Then the shoe dropped, and January 31st as I read the email that the publishing house was closing down and that the contract was voided, I actually thought, “Ah there we go. That’s what I was expecting would happen!”

Now Grace Awakening is off to meet a new publisher and the waiting game begins again. Hopefully only another week or two before I hear, and hopefully I hear that they love her as much as everyone else loves her, and is eager to have her out in the world representing their publishing house! Wouldn’t it be awesome if they fast tracked, and got her out by July so I can do a really thorough summer book tour?

 

freaky coincidences strike again… February 10, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening,Grace Beguiling - Petrarch,Mythology,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 7:59 am
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Click to view full-sized image

All the time I was writing Grace Awakening, I’d look up some myth or fact and there would appear a strange coincidence that made the hair stand up on my arms.

I just had another one. You know that famous picture by Sandro Botticelli- Printemps? I use the close up the Three Graces component of that picture to illustrate the Grace Awakening section of this blog. If you pull out the perspective a bit, standing right beside the Graces in the centre of the  painting is a young woman. I understood that she’s supposed to be Aphrodite/Venus. She’s supervising everything that’s going on.

Guess who Botticelli based this particular image on? Are you sitting down? I’ve just learned that it was Laure de Noves de Sade, muse of Petrarch who is standing there watching the Graces dancing with that beatifical expression.  Apparently Laure beguiled Botticelli as well as Petrarca.

(The source is Mario Fubini, Laure in Dictionnaire des personnages littéraires et dramatiques de tous les temps et de tous les pays , Éd.)

Wow. Creepy.

But oh so cool!!

Grace Beguiling, indeed!

.

PS click on the painting and it will enlarge to full screen

 

Gratia gratiam parit November 9, 2010

Filed under: Commentary,Grace Awakening,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 2:35 am
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I discovered a fascinating Latin Proverbs blog today:

http://audiolatinproverbs.blogspot.com

The proverb that drew me to the site was Gratia gratiam parit.   It is a rather profound proverb, because gratia has so many diverse meanings. Consider that favour, esteem, regard, liking, love, friendship,agreeableness, pleasantness, charm, beauty, grace, loveliness, courtesy, service, blessing, obligation, gratitude return, requital and acknowledgment are all components of gratia.

In this proverb grace is both the subject (gratia) and the object (gratiam).  Parit is the verb which means birth.  Think of it as creating, making, causing something to be.

I’m no Latin scholar, but the brilliance seems pretty clear.  Look at this list of definitions.  Now mix and match:

Favour

Esteem

Regard

Liking

Love

friendship

agreeableness

pleasantness

charm

beauty

grace

loveliness

courtesy

service

obligation

blessing

gratitude

giving back

requital

acknowledgment

  …creates Favour

Esteem

Regard

Liking

Love

friendship

agreeableness

pleasantness

charm

beauty

grace

loveliness

courtesy

service

obligation

blessing

gratitude

giving back

requital

acknowledgment

It’s kind of profound, isn’t it? What you put out, is what you get back, in all sorts of permutations.  Think of what it means in the context of the theme of Grace Awakening.  Grace herself is awakening to her birthright, Grace is creating Grace (and the 3 Graces create Grace, as well).  Fascinating stuff.

 

Not the one November 5, 2010

Filed under: anecdotes,Commentary,Grace Awakening,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:07 am
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A prose selection that’s been floating in my mind for quite some time………

.    

     “Just how near-sighted are you?” she asked from the side of the pool.
     He laughed, as he leisurely moved his arms to keep himself upright in the deep water, “Very.”
     She slipped into the water while she watched him. About 8 feet away, she pulled up. “Can you see me here?”
     He shook his head, “Nope. You’re just grey fuzz.”
     She swam a few feet closer. “Here?”
     “Nope.”  His voice had changed subtly.  There was a timbre behind it that drew her.
     She moved in again. “Here?” Her heart was beginning to pound.
     He whispered this time. “No.”
     She blushed in the cool water as she swam even closer. Their eyes were less than a foot apart now.   Their lips were less than a foot apart.  Inches.  She could see the creases, and followed his tongue as it licked across the bottom lip.
    She swallowed and murmured, “Here?”
    He stared into her eyes as his lips curled into a slow sultry smile. “Well, you’re almost clear there.”
   She gazed into his eyes, paddling her arms gently back and forth, her heart pounding in her ears at his invitation.  She felt her life unfolding before her in the depths of his eyes. Would it be?
   Time stood still as he waited, smiling with the challenge.  The gauntlet was  thrown. 
   Time was frozen as she waited, feeling for her future, wondering.
   And suddenly, it was clear.  

   Driving the heel of her hand across the surface of the water she splashed a wave into his face, then dived past him as he reached, laughing, to grab her.
   She swam away from him, beneath the surface of her dream, deep in the water of a new choice.  She was bidding farewell to the dreams that had haunted her.  Dreams that would probably haunt her forever.  Dreams are not reality. 

   He was not The One after all.

———————–
.
Technically, this isn’t about Grace & Ben although I’ve linked it to other writings about them.  It fits with the theme of Grace Awakening although it doesn’t fit into the plot.  Ben is definitely The One, so this could be Marco or Alex?  It’s a little closer to the Bright and Umed narrative, though of course, they would never have been swimming together.  Whatever it is, it’s a slice of life moment when destiny is looking you right in the eyes, and you know that the decision you make will irrevocably rearrange the rest of your life.  You have to stare deeply into the mists and decide if this is the future you choose.

It’s kind of profound when it happens to you.

 

Auntie Bright would love this! October 17, 2010

Filed under: Grace Awakening — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:08 am
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I just saw Ralph Lauren’s Fall 2010 line. Oh, this is stuff that Auntie Bright would not be able to resist! The floral prints, ruffles and Victorian styles would cause a shopping spree. Check it out here.  Auntie Bright (unlike me) loves a totally Bohemian look.  She would also wear some of the more colourful items available from Arwen’s Apparel in 100 Mile House.  Bright also has the figure to carry it off (unlike me).  ;-P 

I wonder what that peridontist in Kelowna meant when he said I had a Bohemian look going?  ‘Cause I didn’t at all.  I was just wearing a lot of purple.  Purple doesn’t necessarily mean Bohemian.  Really.