Favourite Pen Friday #4

This pen was purchased by MM for DD last Christmas. At that time, she was working in Athlone, and that is where the particular shop and artisan are located. The pen is made of Irish bog oak, bog wood being wood that was preserved under the ground of the Irish bogs for thousand of years (from 2,000 up to 9,000 years). It is normally pine, oak or yew. The conditions of the bog change the colour of the wood to red brown (pine) jet black (oak) or dark brown (yew). It is commonly found while digging for turf in the bogs, and many artists use it in their work. It has a wonderful sheen when softly polished.

Sepia Scene #103

Sepia Scenes

Why I Don't Edit

Someone commented a while ago on one of my poems about how the meter of the last line was longer than the rest and so stood out in a bad way, just giving advice on how to edit it. The thing is, I don't edit things I post on my blog. There are few reasons why. It is not that I am insulting my readers and saying you don't deserve the best, it is that you are important to me.
Say someone spends years learning the violin, painfully screeching out each note, causing their family to clap their hands over their ears and run and slam doors to block it. They play the same song over and over. And over. And over. They finally get it right and at their recital they play it. Their family has heard the song so many times they hum it in their sleep, they have resolved to never ever buy their kids another violin, and they have a special drawer for earplugs.
Even for that, who applauds the loudest at the end of the song?

Do you see?

Also, I think blogging is a stream of consciousness. It is different to other media. Just like Twitter has a "science," so does blogging. Most bloggers are honest creative people. I am just being honest by sharing things straight from my head, without editing them.
The truth is, I don't edit. At all. Anything. And I know it is silly and ignorant and stupid but here's the thing...So many people have told me writing is good, that it deserves praise, that I believe them. Truthfully, when I look back at some of my writing it seems so horrid that I think it would have been better not to write it at all. So I listen to those people and think it is good. I send it off almost as soon as I am done writing it. Then it has no chance to slowly change over time to something horrid in my eyes, because someone indifferent has already said it is good. It is like a safeguard, not editing.
I do edit some. As I write, if things sound off I fix them, if a word is wrong, I change it. It is not that I don't edit full stop, just that I don't do that thing where you put in  drawer for two weeks and "come at it with fresh eyes."
I know it's stupid.

Chrysalis

Caterpillars climb our white exterior walls like they are horizontal and stay motionless for days or a second. When they move on, we see a pile of small yellow eggs that stick for twenty rains and hatch whenever we aren't looking. Sometimes the eggs are broken and eaten by a fat black spider, or just don't hatch at all.
A caterpillar lay by our door for days, and never moved. Now there is a green form, where it sleeps. Sometime it will emerge, ordinary as waking from a nap. But this time it will have wings.

Do you find it odd that the chrysalis is so uniform? Each raised bump and ridge is a duplicate of its siblings'. The shape itself is odd, like a bug at rest with furled wing. But each bump and ridge must have a purpose, must fit one toe, or a leg, else why would they exist? It is perfectly efficient, nothing wasted and no space or ornament there if unrequired.
Either God was a genius who created every single thing on earth, in our solar system, everywhere, perfectly efficiently, first try, in seven days...or...evolution smoothed some bumps and raised others so the caterpillar would fit perfectly, uniformly, in its infancy and adulthood, exactly into a chrysalis that it was born with the knowledge of how to construct.

Cuisle

Last year I expressed remorse for placing in a poetry competition with a low-quality poem. This year I have pulled out all the stops and written a poem I love, and I really hope to win. I am the top age in my category and I like this poem where I hated the last "commendable" one, so I am fairly confident.
I am not the only one of my contempories to do so: PonyGirl has also entered. I am hoping we both get something so we can see each other there...
This competition is Cuisle, if you remember I posted a lot about it and Killarney. We are not going to Killarney the same day as we did last year, so it should be less rushed.
I will post about it if I get anything. Here's hoping :)

Favourite Pen Friday #3

Well there goes me saying I hadn't mentioned ten consecutive weeeks of Favourite Pen Fridays, because I did. Ah, well, here, after much ado, is Favourite Pen Friday Number Three, and I daren't count how many weeks late.
Still, better late than never in most cases save CPR, so...

These must be the cheapest pens in the series, costing just 4 cents each, but they are not missing in quality the same proportion they lack in price. I haven't found the ink to run out any faster than other pens, they certainly aren't ugly, though they may not be beautiful. They have no branding on them, and they are colour-coded. Sure, if you have a pen fetish they won't be up to standard with your Cross or artisan produced (see next week :) ) work, but they suffice for a writing utensil if what matters is the writing, not the medium in which it comes from the mind to the physical world of the page.
I have noticed they sometimes need a little prompting to write, but lots of pens do.

Willow's Ball...

This is a terribly long post, so I apologise in advance. Today has been full of things to do and places to go, and all of a sudden I look at the calendar and the Third Annual Willow Manor Ball is here!

I rushed to the bus station to go home and change as I was attending the Over the Edge Reading tonight. It was lovely as always, and I was able to see much more this time, though my mind did drift a little. Hey, I'm a writer, what do you expect? Wonderfully a poem read early in the evening won the poetry section of the Over the Edge New Writer of the Year. MM and I got coffee and a chocolate éclair at the local bakery. Mind you, this was at eight pm. Then we strolled down Shop Street, listened to Key West playing.

When I returned home, I remembered the Manor Ball, so of course I had to rush! I had my dress, my shoes, my accessories, my car... I decided to go dateless, as there are so many wonderful people attending, perhaps I shall just steal...But no, I am too polite for that, I will soak up the atmosphere while reposing on the sofa. Not for the whole night mind you, have you noticed the moon? Moonlight and my dress go so well together...
Here, my stylists have worked so hard I can't let their magic not be showcased.
The car ( a customised Bentley GT Continental) of course, will rush down the roads, taking the bends dangerously.

Lucky I have already applied lipstick! Just before the manor it slows to a crawl, silently sliding up to the entrance. What is the first thing you see as the driver opens my door?

Blue Carvela satin shoes. Ah lovely, and not so expensive. But there must be a dress, perfect for dancing and moonlit strolls and I have found it.

 

And that necklace I am also wearing, complete with a twig ring , Hercules-knot bracelet, and chandelier earrings (earrings from here), all below.

  

 

My hair (it's dark brown by the way) is coiled in an elegant Victorian coiffure, seen below. 

 

You will perhaps have noticed that my theme is timeless elegance and simple grace. Achieved?

Now if you will excuse me, I just have to sample something chocolate. My guess is that there is a great variety. I myself have taken the liberty of asking my personal chef to prepare the same cake he baked for my birthday. It is made with Lindt 70% Cacao Noir and Belgian powdered chocolate. It is simply named Death by Chocolate.
I do believe I see him now, the cake elegantly wrapped in brown paper and ribbon and deposited in the wicker basket of his penny-farthing.
Here, chef!

 If you patiently look you will likely find the owners and makers of these images and objects. I apologise that I have forgotten some and have provided links for the ones I knew that you can follow by clicking on the pictures. If you see your own and would like credit or for me to remove it, contact me through my profile, link on the sidebar to the right.