On the Birthday of Emily Brontë

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Passionate. Disciplined. Wildly imaginative.

Growing up isolated on the moors of England, Emily Brontë found the inspiration for her masterpiece Wuthering Heights in the cold and windy hills of her own back yard. I remain spellbound.

Bronte

Spellbound

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.

Emily Brontë     1836

Incorporating Setting into Your Scenes

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Modern readers often skip over passages of description in search of the action scenes in fiction. This, like channel-surfing, may be a sign of the shorter attention span of our times.

That’s why it’s critical to incorporate a sense of place into the scenes as you tell your story. Short story writer and novelist, Eudora Welty, is a master of creating settings that are as powerful as her characters. In her essay “Place in Fiction,” she reminds us:

Harris beach

Harris Beach, Brookings, Oregon, by Jacalyn McNamara 2014

“Location is the ground conductor of all the currents of emotion and belief and moral conviction that charge out from the story in its course. These charges need the warm hard earth underfoot, the light and lift of air, the stir and play of mood, the softening bath of atmosphere that give the likeness-to-life . . . ”

Whether you’re writing mysteries, science fiction, or literary fiction, this “likeness-to-life” makes your story real for the reader.

Writing Your Own Creed with Poet and Novelist D H Lawrence

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“This is what I believe: That I am I,

That my soul is a dark forest,

That my known self will never be more than a clearing in the forest,

That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back,

That I must have the courage to let them come and go,

That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will always try to honor the gods in me and the gods in other men and women, 

There is my creed.

dark forest

                                                         Redwood Forest by Jacalyn McNamara 2014

A creed is a set of beliefs that guide your actions. Many adopt the creeds of a formal religious group or an organization to which they belong. But freethinkers must generate creeds of their own since they are originators in the world. 

What set of beliefs guides you as artist and writer? Take time to think on this and share your creed with me or on your own blog.

In Praise of Beatrice–Much Ado About Nothing

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Star dance

We have just finished reading Much Ado About Nothing in my Introduction to Shakespeare class.

It’s been a few years since I’d read it, and while I hadn’t forgotten how much fun it is, I am surprised by how contemporary it seems today.  With themes of gender wars, slander, bullying, deception, shame and honor, the plays characters could make headlines in the digital world of social media today: “Girl Commits Suicide Following Gossip and Bullying.”

And once again, I joined poor Benedick as he falls for the bold and biting Beatrice who makes his life a misery from Act 1:

“It is so, indeed; he is no less than a stuffed man:
but for the stuffing,—well, we are all mortal . . . 

Is it possible disdain should die while she hath
such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick? . . . “

All women would be wise to approach marriage with her full wit and defiance;

all women would be wise to value themselves the way she does.

Much ado

Happy Birthday William Shakespeare!

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Four hundred and fifty one years ago today, William Shakespeare, arguably the greatest writer in the English language, was born. His plays and poetry are still being studied all over the world in spite of the difficulty of reading Early Modern English and the bard’s complex sentence structures and arcane language.

For those who dare, who want to learn more about Shakespeare’s work, his life, and times but feel overwhelmed by the dense language of the plays, I’ll be offering an Introduction to Shakespeare class online this summer through College of the Siskiyous–ENGL 1033 5031 beginning June 1, 2015.

We will focus on the fascinating social and cultural matrix of Renaissance and Elizabethan England to set the stage for our readings of “Much Ado About Nothing” and “The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra,” along with the sonnets and other poems. Both plays will be produced this summer by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in neighboring Ashland, Oregon.

Lest you think Shakespeare is too old school for you, here’s a poem from “Much Ado.”

Young man among roses

Young Man Among Roses, by Nicholas Hilliard, 1588–believed to be the Earl of Essex.

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more;

Men were deceivers ever;

One foot in sea and one on shore,

To one thing constant never;

Then sigh not so,

But let them go,

And be you blithe and bonny;

Converting all your sounds of woe

Into, Hey nonny, nonny.

If you’re ready to read more,  you can check out Jeremy Hylton’s excellent site The Complete Works of William Shakespeare on the Web.

If you’re already a fan, what are your favorite poems and plays? Favorite quotations?

Earth Day Poems by E E Cummings

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Pacifist and innovative stylist, Edward Estlin Cummings 
was born in 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 
A structural non-conformist, Cummings self-published
until the counterculture of the 50's and 60's discovered him.

DSC01173"as is the sea marvelous" 

as is the sea marvelous
from god’s
hands which sent her forth
to sleep upon the world

and the earth withers
the moon crumbles
one by one
stars flutter into dust

but the sea
does not change
and she goes forth out of hands and
she returns into hands

and is with sleep….

love,
    the breaking

of your
        soul
        upon
my lips


Yellow mountain
"O sweet spontaneous"

O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting

fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked

thee
has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy

beauty .
how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
(but
true

to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover

thou answerest

them only with

spring)