Thankful Thursday: No Crescendo

When something does not insist on being noticed, when we aren't grabbed by the collar or struck on the skull by a presence or an event, we take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.

- Cynthia Ozick

I expect crescendo. I don't want to be struck on the skull, but I have grown accustom to big gestures that alert body and mind to big events. A vote that will change everything. Battering winds that sever trees. Champagne bottles popping. Every hour something big, pressing, important. It's fix after fix after fix. Everything matters because nothing matters.

Isn't this why we love sunsets? The slow easing, our rapt attention to quiet change. Even while we want to be grabbed by the collar and made acutely aware — feel blood moving, heart beating, skin flushing — we crave calm. We want to hear the smallest bird call, feel the chill of dawn, taste a singular satisfaction.

I don't really want big voices and urgent attention. Draw me, please, to the quiet corner where gratitude lives, and makes room for me.

It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause for appreciation.
What are you thankful for today?

Get Smart: 8 Essential Writing Guides

Money is short, time precious. You like to write and want to get better, but how? Reach for the bookshelf and lead your own course!

There's no shortage of how-to-write guides. To help navigate the plethora, I've culled a list of suggestions that combine my own favorites with those of respected writing colleagues — novelists, essayists, poets, and more. With detailed instructions and concrete examples, the following books serve as valuable guides to improve your writing.

Story Engineering
by Larry Brooks
see also www.storyfix.com

MFA in a Box: A Why to Write Book
by John Rember

Naked, Drunk, and Writing: Shed Your Inhibitions and Craft a Compelling Memoir or Personal Essay
by Adair Lara

 

In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet's Portable Workshop
by Steve Kowit

The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets
by Ted Kooser

Tangible tools are important, but be sure to also ponder and reflect:

The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing
by Richard Hugo

Every Writer Has a Thousand Faces
by David Biespel

The Writing Life
by Annie Dillard

Have I included your favorites? What have I missed?  

Winner!

The winner in the drawing for a free, signed edition of All the Dancing Birds, a novel by Auburn McCanta, is:

Katina McClure.

Thanks to all who entered the drawing (via blog and email). Your enthusiasm for this wonderful book, and its author, warms my heart. You can get your copy here (print edition) and here (e-book).

You can read the interview with author Auburn McCanta here.

Try This: Book Spine Poetry

Listening to your life,

torch the simple truth.

Risking everything,

love always

the imperfect paradise

of gravity & angels.

Love a cut-up, a collage, a literary re-mix? Me, too!

Inspired by artist Nina Katchadourian's Sorted Books project [via Brain Pickings] I searched my shelves and assembled titles for the spine scramble above. And in the process I rediscovered several loved-but-forgotten books:

Listening to Your Life
daily meditations by Frederick Buechner

Torch
novel by Cheryl Strayed

The Simple Truth
poems by Philip Levine

Risking Everything: 110 Poems of Love and Revelation
edited by Roger Housden

Love Always
novel by Ann Beattie

The Imperfect Paradise
poems by Linda Pastan

Of Gravity & Angels
poems by Jane Hirshfield


Book spine poems are fun — and addictive. I bet you can't try just one!

Goodbye, Hello, Inbetween

Every goodbye is heartbreak. Every hello

is celebration. The endless hours between

are excruciating. My days are now divided

between what is lost and what is found.

What is joy and what is grief.

What is now and what is not.

- from All the Dancing Birds
a novel by Auburn McCanta

Win this book!
Enter the book drawing here.