April Fools ?

Rather than my normal re-blog today, I’m sharing something from Smashwords.

Image Courtesy of Michelle Dennis ~ http://www.freeimages.com/photographer/saine-39175

However, before I share that, I must reveal a particular confluence of my writing and my gullibility…

Yesterday, I published the Thirty-Seventh Tale on my Friday Feature, “Story Bazaar”.

It was called “Alternative Facts”—that title echoing something that became an “issue” here in the USA (and, I’m sure, a few other countries…—and, in case you missed it, here’s a bit of news coverage…)

Also yesterday, as I often do, I sent my Best Friend, who lives in Australia, a link to a story from one of her newspapers.

It claimed the Mayor of Melbourne was instituting a policy to keep Daylight Saving Time going in the Central Business District to increase financial benefits…

It turned out to be an April Fools’ prank that totally took me in (and, if you’re wondering, it is true that Australia gets to any given day sooner than I do…)

So, when I put those two things I did together, I get this weird formula:

Alternative Facts ?=? April Fools

And, all that leads me to the hard-hitting article from Smashwords—Fahrenheit 451 Meets April Fools—read it and ponder…

I’ll give you one excerpt to entice you to take the link:

“What does it portend for civil society and humanity when willful ignorance is celebrated above facts?

“As authors and readers, we should care. Books are the best vehicles for deep thinking. We authors have the power – one book at a time – to right this wayward ship.  We readers have a responsibility to demand truth telling.”

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Something for Your Heart To Think About . . .

My Best Friend often surprises me—in the most delightful ways… 

Image courtesy of David Vives Coll ~ http://www.sxc.hu/profile/davidvives

She’s an author and immensely empathetic…

There are things I do that affect her far beyond what I suspect…

Today she sent me a Gift that I must share with you—whether you’re a Reader, Writer, Publisher, or some other amazing kind of person :-)

Before I pass on the Gift (which is the video below), let me introduce Coleman Barks, lauded interpreter of the poet Rumi, “considered by many to be the Shakespeare of the ancient Islamic world”.

And, here is the poem, read by Coleman in the video, that my Best Friend sent me…

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How does a part of the world leave the world?
How can wetness leave water?

Don’t try to put out a fire
by throwing on more fire!
Don’t wash a wound with blood!

No matter how fast you run,
your shadow more than keeps up.
Sometimes, it’s in front!

Only full, overhead sun
diminishes your shadow.

But that shadow has been serving you!
What hurts you, blesses you.
Darkness is your candle.
Your boundaries are your quest.

I can explain this, but it would break
the glass cover on your heart,
and there’s no fixing that.

You must have shadow and light source both.
Listen, and lay your head under the tree of awe.

When from that tree, feathers and wings sprout
on you, be quieter than a dove.
Don’t open your mouth for even a coo.

When a frog slips into the water, the snake
cannot get it. Then the frog climbs back out
and croaks, and the snake moves toward him again.

Even if the frog learned to hiss, still the snake
would hear through the hiss the information
he needed, the frog voice underneath.

But if the frog could be completely silent,
then the snake would go back to sleeping,
and the frog could reach the barley.

The soul lives there in the silent breath.

And that grain of barley is such that,
when you put it in the ground,
it grows.

Are these enough words,
or shall I squeeze more juice from this?
Who am I, my friend?

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My Best Friend’s Best Friend . . .

Some folks have the same best friend for their whole life; some have serial best friends, as life swallows or absconds with people…

I’m an author. My current best friend is an author. Her best friend is an author. Does this seem strange to you?

Or. perhaps, all authors seem strange to you, even if you like some of the books they produce…

One of the strangest things for me is finding in another author’s words the sensations and feelings I thought were internally unique to me.

My best friend’s best friend is Paddy O’Reilly and she managed to invoke that strange awareness in me…

She’s won many awards and published both novels and short stories.

My best friend sent me a link to an interview in the literary journal, Verity La, called, Snapshots of Truth.

The tone of the piece made me feel like I was at a Cafe table with Alec Patric and Paddy, listening to their high-level literary chat.

Paddy said a number of things that startled me because of the powerful way they resonated with my own experience:

“I always think that interpreting your own work for the reader is a mistake – either you constrict the reader in their reading, or you constrict the story in its possibilities.”

“Not that I’m saying I sit around waiting for the magical moment to arrive, that moment of the plunge into a half-lit world where stories come from…. impossibly, I feel myself sinking and when I return to normal consciousness I find I have caught hold of a story and pulled it back up with me.”

“People often talk about what is ‘left out’ of a story but I think that rather than leaving things out what we must do is allow the words in the story to carry the weight of the lives contained in it, even when not everything is explicitly described.”

“I think you can have all the integrity in the world, but that won’t help a story that does not have a human truth at its core. Just as earnestness will not compensate for sentimentality. Just as beautiful language will not compensate for emptiness. That is the struggle — to create work of value.”

Are those quotes enough to make you click on this link for her latest book, The Fine Colour of Rust?
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