Tag Archives: rants

Pushing Daisies Around

I just want to know what the deal is with the damned daisies.

The summer heat came at last and they popped up, bright masses lolling all over my yard, so stupidly cheerful it made me giddy. I defy anyone to lie down in a sunny patch of daisies and not feel ecstatic.

So of course I wanted to pick some for my table. It was only when I tried to untangle them that I realized daisies have no structural integrity whatsoever. Unable to stand on their own, they lean drunkenly on their neighbours until everyone falls down.

Their lack of spinal fortitude is only enhanced in a vase: the stem flops, the head flops, each individual petal flops. My daisies were either engaged in some kind of work-to-rule strike or they are just naturally, intrinsically on vacation. Forever.

I kept pushing them around, to no avail. And I don’t think I was asking for too much, I wasn’t expecting the moral rectitude of a flipping Gerbera for heaven’s sake. All I wanted was a haphazard jumble of joyful blossoms, but they absolutely refused to cooperate. It was like trying to sculpt with pudding.

Does their uselessness make them happy? Or does being happy make them useless?

Is life just so good that they can’t stand up? Is succumbing to gravity the last surrender of the truly content?

If there was nothing to push against in the world – hardship, strife, pain – would we all just melt into a puddle of bliss?

Enough. I must go now and shake my finger at the flowers of the field, the birds of the air, and those irritating, dilly-dallying clouds…

“Shape up, everyone, do you hear me? Shape up!”

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Filed under Rambling

A Different Kind of Parenting Book

So here’s something I’m working on…

They always say you should write the book that you want to read yourself.

When my daughter was born I wanted to learn more about babies. I wanted to know how they perceive the world and how they learn. I wanted to know how her body was going to grow and develop. I wanted to know when her teeth would come in, and in what order, and what caused hiccups and if she would yawn if she saw me yawning right away or if that was something she had to learn. I wanted to know how she would figure out who the baby in the mirror was. I wanted to know about eye colour and hair colour and right- or left-handedness. I wanted to know what babies like and what they don’t like. I wanted to know what babies laugh at and why.

I wanted to know what was going on in that great big sweet-smelling head of hers.

So I searched through bookstores and libraries but couldn’t really find what I wanted. The parenting books I saw were all rather limited in scope. Continue reading

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Filed under My Projects, the Writing Life

The problem with blogs – in a nutshell.

I came across an article online yesterday entitled Four Ways to Make Sure You Always Have Something to Say Online. Cue the forehead smack.

Why would someone even begin a blog if they weren’t revved up with enthusiasm for their topic of choice, and bursting at the seams with thoughts and questions about it?

Why would someone even begin a blog if they weren’t fascinated by that topic – and were either an expert with loads to say about it, or a devoted amateur eager to learn more?

The problem here is twofold: that people with Nothing To Say are spewing out endless blog posts, and that other people with Nothing To Say, in order to churn out their own blog posts, are linking to those original Nothing To Say posts… (Ditto for Tweets.)

Arrgghhh.

This is what happens when the Business Model is applied to Providing Content. The actual dissemination and transmission of information has become so brilliantly innovative and technologically stunning that less and less time and energy is spent on the actual quality of that information/content.

I say this to anyone wanting to write stories and it applies equally to anyone who wants to start a blog:

You must have something to say about the world!

Or at least be on a passionate quest to find something to say about the world.

Either way.

And if the day comes where you can’t think of anything to say in a post, then for God’s sake don’t say anything! Have a cup of tea and read a good book instead.

Thus endeth my rant for today. You may return to your regular programming…

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Filed under the Writing Life