Close quarters
Author: Jnana Hodson
In downsizing to a remote fishing village in Downeast Maine, this eclectic writer feels everything's coming together.
Heavy maritime chains
Three flash story masterpieces
“The Scarlatti Tilt,” by Richard Brautigan
“Old Joe Clark,” American folksong
The Garden of Eden, Genesis 2 and 3
My daily rituals
- Wake up and fill a mug with coffee.
- Grab the paper from the front steps.
- Do Spanish. (Not a bad way to wake up.)
- Check emails, the blog, etc.
- Clean the coffeemaker and refill for tomorrow.
- Write, revise, whatever.
- Household chores plus yardwork and errands.
- Check the mail.
- Try to get some exercise in. Laps in the pool, a hike up the hill, that sort of thing. Maybe followed by a nap.
- Sit down together for a lovely dinner.
~*~
So much for the plans I’d set up for my retirement years. Extensive meditation, Bible study, copious reading?
What frames your days?
The world opened up
The hippie movement opened Cassia’s father’s horizons. He wound up trekking through the Himalayas. Many others hitchhiked through Europe.
What’s the most exotic place you’ve been?
Kinisi 80
me, cast as existentialist Zen poet, circa 1999
just before being swept up in love
Fresh out of the oven
To the rook, wherever, in that wintry evening
A MURDER OF CROWS (collectively)
a hundred crows a minute
according to a professional counter
over Owings Mills
as I stood on my deck, transfixed
maybe a half-hour
Happening, Mel
yes, you know what they say of bread and roses (well, that gilt-edged smoked gouda’s still in the refrigerator, a rare indulgence from last week’s after-inquest) and legitimate French bread (the stuff in this town only is regular dough inside; what a delight to know immediately with the first knife stroke that THIS was the genuine crusty article) (dinner tonight onion soup with gobs of cheese toasted under the broiler, leafy salad, and baguette slices heaped with Vermont butter. if she’d only been with me) Parbleu, this is weird!
Trailings from a writer’s life
Random notes in no particular order:
- Consider each chapter a movie – beginning, middle, and end – conflict and some resolution. Boy meets girl etc.
- My characters don’t lie … it’s one of my defects.
- Any time it sounds like writing, cut!
- Always go for RIGHT BRAIN revisions
- Each book is unique, special, fragile in its own way. Honor it.
- Talk to your readers. Like in a smoky bar.
- Rereading an old favorite, only to realize how much my own standards have risen.
- Certainly, there is room for a range of Midwestern writing as well – and for recognition of the manifold subtleties among the smaller localities within that country. It ain’t as bland as you’d think.
- “Riotous complexity moving swiftly within a basic unity” (from How the Irish Saved Civilization) … not a bad formula for creativity, is it?
- What was I really hoping to accomplish, back when there were only 500 new novels a week?
