TEN BLOGGERS BLOGGING …

One blogger talks to herself

Two bloggers are friendly

Three bloggers are musketeers

Four bloggers rock

Five bloggers roll

Six bloggers laugh together

Seven bloggers seriously debate

Eight bloggers start awarding

Nine bloggers advocate

Ten bloggers are a virtual community

Community: a beautiful thing, a force for change

Blog on …Pass it on …

Life is still happening and it’s been impossible to get back to my normal blogging schedule, but I have peaked in at your blogs and Facebook accounts as I can. Thank you for many smiles, memorable poems, much cherished comments, useful information, and often inspired and inspiring stories. Kudos to all. This post is for you, my valued blogger friends. Many blessings. Jamie

Photo credit ~ morgueFile

SUNDAY WRITERS’ ROUNDUP #17: The Measure of Our Lives

We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives. Toni Morrison

OUR WONDERFUL THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY IS OVER, but thanksgiving is something that dances on endlessly. It is no more bound to this holiday than love is to Valentine’s Day. I have much to be thankful for, not the least is writing, writers, and reading. Simple gifts, which are simply beautiful. The question arises: Why do we write? I would say we write to know ourselves and our world, to celebrate beauty, and to ferret out the shadow side. We use language to form poems and stories that help us live hugely. With their pens aflame, writers have much to say on these topics:

ANDRÉ ACIMAN (b. 1951)

American novelist, memoirist, essayist, and

scholar of seventeeth-century literature

Aciman says he writes “to give my life a form, a narrative.”

JENNIFER EGAN, (b. 1962)

American novelist and short story writer

A Visit from the Goon Squad, 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

“For me, anyway, [writing] is what infuses the world with meaning.” Jennifer Egan at the National Book Festival, 2011.

KATHERINE PATTERSON (b. 1932)

American author, children’s stories

“I was once asked when I felt closest to God, and I surprised myself by saying, “When I’m writing.” I guess it’s because when I am really writing, I feel absorbed in a life that is much bigger than I am.” Katherine Patterson at the National Book Festival, 2011.

VITA SACVILLE-WEST, Lady Nicolson (1892-1962)

English author, poet, gardener

Hawthorne Prize, 1927, 1933

“It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.” Vita Sackville-West

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007), American Writer and Humanist.

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Photo credits ~ Andre Aciman by Meenween, Public Domain, via Wikipedia; Philip Alexius de Lászió’s portrait of Vita Sacville-West in the U.S. public domain

Video uploaded to YouTube by G 

SUNDAY WRITERS’ ROUNDUP #15: Stand up for your writes…

ONE PIECE OF ADVICE a writer-friend offered me when I was young wasjust glue your tukus to a chair and write. That’s all well and fine but some people – my own son is one – prefer to write standing up. I’ve been looking for a standing desk for him.

This standing-to-write business might seem like an eccentricity, but the CitySon Philosopher actually has quite a bit of company. When he was a kid he always cited Hemingway as an example. There are – or were – others: Leonardo Da Vinci, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Clay, Thomas Wolfe, Virginia Woolf, Vladimir Nabokov, and Isaac Bashevis Singer, my favorite among these.

I’m sitting (yes!) here working without glasses (broke them), but I think you can tell that Mr. Singer is standing as he writes here:

ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER (1902 – 1991)

Jewish-American Author, Nobel Prize for Literature (1978)

I don’t think Mr. Rumsfeld is anyone’s favorite writer, but this is the clearest photograph of someone working at a standing desk that I could find.

DONALD H. RUMSFELD (b. 1932)

American Politician, Businessman and Author

Standing to write appears to be good for our health. A recent news-story advised that when we stand instead of sitting at a desk we use more muscles because we have to stay balanced. Ostensibly, that makes it better for retaining muscle, burning calories and, one would assume, fighting inflammation. It probably mitigates the potential for back and shoulder pain. Last year the American Cancer Society came out with a study that linked “more time spent sitting to higher risk of death.”

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Rumsfeld’s standing desk looks bland. There are some that are actually quite lovely:

If just standing isn’t enough for you, there is the treadmill desk:

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I can image that there are actually motivations for using a standing desk other than health reasons:

  • Not feeling so trapped at your a desk
  • A sense of physical freedom that might foster a sense of mental freedom
  • Ease in using equipment (phone, fax, printer/copier)

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Canadian horror writer, Ian Rogers, provides a tour of his office:

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THIS WEEK’S QUOTABLE!

“The waste basket is the writer’s best friend.” Isaac Beshevis Singer 

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First photo credit ~ morgueFile

Isaac Beshevis Singer ~ courtesy of Wikipedia under Creative Commons Share and Share Alike license

Donald Rumsfeld ~ public domain photograph courtesy of the U.S. Department of Defense

Executive Stand-up Desk ~ courtesy of StandupDesks.com

Treadmill desk ~ courtesy of TrekDesk

Video uploaded to YouTube by