Sleeping in
enjoying dream embraces
of a book boyfriend when
the doorbell rings
with delivery of the next instalment
in the relationship.
“The odd sense of calm with which he’d waked was still with him. Something had changed in the night. Maybe it was sleeping…among the ghosts of his own future.”
Diana Gabaldon
Written in My Own Heart’s Blood.
These lines resonated with me. While the character in this scene is being literal, I think we sleep among the ghosts of our own futures on a frequent basis. For example, you know how they say men carry within them the seeds of their own destruction. The ‘hamartia’ or fatal flaw of literary characters occur within our real lives, and who we will be is created by the decisions that we make.
Destinations require both journeys and beginnings. We go to bed with a decision, and we rise with a spectre of our future self as a result.
I suppose this also works in reverse. If we have a ‘someone’ we want to be, we can only get there by the conscious and sub-conscious decisions we make toward that image of ourselves. Just like if you want to be a teacher, you volunteer with kids, graduate from high school, study at university, so there are steps to every image.
If you want to write a book some day, sit today and pound out two hundred words. Tomorrow pound out five hundred. Get your rhythm, Keep writing. Eventually you will have a book, and eventually, you will have readers.
In chapter 15 of Diana Gabaldon’s Written in My Own Heart’s Blood, Jenny says of Jamie,
.
.
This line made me chuckle. My husband is just like this, though he also very frequently explains himself. 😉 Kind of scary how observant he is.
“
Diana Gabaldon just posted the Chapter 82 to 94 titles for her next book in the Outlander series, entitled Written in My Own Heart’s Blood (aka MOH-B, aka MOBY) Those chapter titles were mixed to create this ‘found poem.’ Words in bold are Diana’s titles. Regular print and punctuation are mine. The fun with found poetry, is that one often senses something profound hovering just below understanding. Can you find a message here?
.
Keeping Score:
One Day Cock of the Walk—Next Day, A Feather Duster
but
I Will Not Have Thee Be Alone
on the
Long Road Home
Through
Sundown
Nightfall
Moonrise or
The Sense of the Meeting
In Which Rosy-Fingered Dawn Shows Up Mob-Handed.
A Whiff of Roquefort
in
The House on Chestnut Street
reveals that
It’s a Wise Child Who Knows His Father
Oh yes, for
Even People Who Want to Go to Heaven Don’t Want to Die to Get There.
Diana Gabaldon just released the next set of chapter titles (68-81) for her next novel, “My Own Heart’s Blood.” They looked like they were asking to be a poem, so now they are. I have taken the liberty of re-ordering them for my own purposes. She assures readers there are no spoilers, but I make no such promises. (ha!) I usually use phrases exactly as found, but in this case, the bold words are the titles, and anything not bolded is added for sense or transition (or my own entertainment).
.
The Cider Orchard
High Noon
A Single Louse
In the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time
ponders the
Peculiar Behavior of a Tent, full of
Morasses and Imbroglios,
a Folie à Trois,
The Dangers of Surrendering to passion are,
The Sort of Thing That Will Make a Man Sweat and Tremble,
(and a louse, too) when it must
Go Out in Darkness.
Consider,
The Price of Burnt Sienna:
is a Sparrow-Fart
Among the Tombstones
Pater Noster
Holy louse,
wrong place, wrong time, indeed.