What’s All This About?<\/p>\n
The Life Literary is my workshop for word play and use.\u00a0 It\u2019s also where I note ways to live literarily.\u00a0 Here I write, record, comment, list.\u00a0 And play.\u00a0 Walk around a workshop.\u00a0 Find sawdust piles, half-finished objects , split wood, bent nails and maybe a rare, lovely find.<\/p>\n
The Life Literary\u2019s point is getting it out there.\u00a0 Its point is writing regularly.\u00a0 Its point is working to write excellently.\u00a0 On this blank sheet I will make a good faith effort to set words down nicely and interestingly.\u00a0 I\u2019m amazed at a sentence or paragraph that I think is pretty doggone good can later look, after a few hours or days, pretty doggone average or worse.\u00a0 But I won\u2019t know till it\u2019s out there, and The Life Literary gives me the forum to make it public, to stop putting off publishing until it\u2019s perfect, but to make it as good as I can at the moment, maybe sometimes very good, maybe sometimes less so, but always putting the pen on the paper and moving on from there.\u00a0 This is my chance not to care about or use as an excuse what real or imagined critics might say, but simply to write what I want.\u00a0 And maybe some of them will nudge or kick me to improve what needs it.<\/p>\n
It finally started coming together…<\/p>\n
Over the last few years, I started doing some things I now realize fit a lifelong pattern. \u00a0A couple years ago I started memorizing poems and am up to about 55 now. \u00a0Over nearly seventeen years, my family created unique, literary, word and theme-playing Christmas cards received by family and friends with puzzlement and delight, consternation and anticipation. \u00a0I also collect epitaphs. \u00a0These things and many others, add depth and fun to my life. \u00a0I call it living literarily. \u00a0Doing these things and more, I\u2019ve made my life a little more ennobling and used literary ways to stay a tad above the fray. \u00a0And I\u2019ve had and still have a great time living this way.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m looking for another word besides literary. \u00a0That handsome, proud word has a forbidding ring to it, as if things literary were mostly in the realm of the writer, the teacher, the book critic; the professional literary person. \u00a0I\u2019ve read books all my life, written letters and essays about exotic places I\u2019ve lived, but I never would have called myself literary, at least professionally, nor do I yet. \u00a0I dearly want to be that, want to write, publish a novel, a collection of essays, or a smaller piece in The New Yorker<\/em>. \u00a0Being literary was a goal I hadn\u2019t reached and I had a sneaking suspicion I never would.<\/p>\n …the goal is the journey.<\/p>\n Then I realized that life isn\u2019t just about arriving but also about getting there. \u00a0So what that I\u2019m not a professional literary person?\u00a0 I can still act literarily, can’t I?\u00a0 Even more, I started to realize that many of the things I do for fun, or in my spare time have to do with living life with a literary approach. \u00a0In fact, I would say that I think and act and do many different things literarily. \u00a0And it\u2019s dawned on me that being this way in different ways every day lifts me up, boosts my flagging spirit, and sometimes even makes me laugh out loud.<\/p>\n Take ‘er out for a spin?<\/p>\n I was reading a blog about meaning and religion and was struck by the author\u2019s point (that includes a Herman Melville quote) that \u201dthe meaning that one finds in a life dedicated to \u2018the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fire-side, the country,\u2019\u201d is basic and fundamental. \u00a0\u00a0I am finding that living these actions literarily sets them in a context that infuses such basic survival tasks with a spice, a flavor, a delight.<\/p>\n Thus, this blog. \u00a0I\u2019m going to write about things I do and see and think. \u00a0Gonna share some ideas for ways to live literarily, road-tested ideas that are worth taking out for a spin yourself. \u00a0I intend to play with words, develop my voice, my ear, and promote pausing, thinking a bit more deeply, writing a bit more thoughtfully.<\/p>\n Help Yourself<\/p>\n I\u2019ll be serving new wine with aged (and use what\u2019s turned to vinegar for salad dressing).\u00a0 Be my guest!\u00a0 Pour yourself a glass and take a drink.<\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What’s All This About? The Life Literary is my workshop for word play and use.\u00a0 It\u2019s also where I note ways to live literarily.\u00a0 Here I write, record, comment, list.\u00a0 And play.\u00a0 Walk around a workshop.\u00a0 Find sawdust piles, half-finished … Continue reading