This photo was taken by Jenny Caywood and offered on Unsplash.
Henri Frédéric Amiel was a Swiss philosopher, poet, and critic. I love this quote because it clearly differentials the difference between thankfulness and gratitude.
Being thankful is the first step to gratitude. Expressing thankfulness in words leads to gratitude.
Something to think about as Thanksgiving approaches.
C.S. Lewis is probably best known for his The Chronicles of Narnia. His Narnia books have sold over 100 million copies and been made into three major motion pictures. He’s also the author of The Screwtape Letters, Mere Christianity, Out of the Silent Planet, and The Great Divorce.
His biography is fascinating. Did you know he and J.R.R. Tolkien were friends? Want to learn more? Click here.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=826864
Lewis has long been a favorite author of mine. He is, after all, Irish. Born in Belfast, the The Mountains of Mourne inspired him to write The Chronicles of Narnia.
I’ve read the Narnia books to my children and grandchildren. Recently, I read a blog that shared some of his advice to budding young writers from his Letters to Children.
I wasn’t familiar with that book but discovered great advice that applies to writers regardless of age or what you write.
Four of pieces of his advice were very familiar. All were things I’ve heard repeatedly in workshops, podcasts, and from editors.
Lewis elaborates on Number four: “I mean, instead of telling us the thing is “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful;” make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers “Please, will you do my job for me.”
His advice boils down to immersing the reader in your story. It’s so much easier to just tell a story. Today editors use terms like show, don’t tell, write for emotional impact, and keep it simple.
Which of Lewis’ four pieces of advice to authors is most important to you as you read?
All of these are vintage postcards connecting romance and Halloween. Postcards—the text messaging and social media of that period—were sent on holidays.
Being a romance writer, I find them fascinating.
Victorians adapted pagan Halloween celebrations and traditions into a genteel holiday about romance, parlor games, and child’s play. Even ghost stories were softened into tales of passion.
Turn-of-the-century Halloween postcards depicted cute, fat jack o’ lanterns topped with equally adorable chubby-cheeked children. Black cats weren’t portrayed as “witches familiars,” but cuddly icons on these cards, and witches were shown as pretty ladies bringing messages of love.
Sadly, the trend only lasted until about 1918.
Makes me kinda sad. I would prefer romance to scary ghosts, goblins, and vampires.
I saw a fun meme recently of two people reading while sitting in the back of an SUV with piles of books around them. It made me think about how we interact with other book lovers.
We talk about the books, we share books, and we belong to book clubs. But how often do we actually sit quietly together and read ?
I’m picturing the old silent reading days where on certain school days all the students brought a book to read. I loved those days. Silent Reading days are probably why I’m such a voracious reader today.
My writer’s heart speeds up when I see someone reading like I am in a waiting room. That’s kinda like reading together. But I’m picturing the days before television and radio when evenings were spent reading.
Nowadays that would mean turning off all the electronics and television, but it’s doable. Sometimes, Hubby-dear and I do just that.
Think about it, reading together could be the best response to this noisy world.
Besides being an accomplished chicken catcher, Bella is also quite adept at playing hide and seek. I’m not sure that is her intention however, I frequently find only parts of her sticking out from under various objects.
Most recently I found her under a couch cushion.
She is particularly fond of the blanket on the couch and can get herself completely under it. (That’s Tucker’s tail. He was looking for her.)
Sometimes she gets completely under the sheet.
Other times she leaves her head out.
She also likes to be under the table – especially when we are trying to eat.
Most of the time she just lays in the middle of the floor – tongue out. 
Being Bella is very tiring.
About the memeOn October 6, The University of Arizona ran a full page congratulations ad in the Houston Chronicle for the students, faculty and staff who participated in the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration. The group had received the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, which is the “Oscar of Science.”
Congratulations to all of them.
Their ad graphic was the first-ever image of a black hole taken by the collaboration group. This graphic is one I selected from a stock photo website to convey the idea of wonder.
The words immediately reminded me that without wonder very little would be accomplished in this world. Most often wonder translates into What if and discovery begins. Or, if you’re a writer like me, wonder and/or what ifs create plots and stories.
The important take-away is this: It doesn’t matter if you’re part of the some collaboration or simply sitting on a porch swing looking at the sky, never lose WONDER. Always look for unseen possibilities.
The blog title might suggest I’m blogging about how to respond to an e-invite or invitation. I’m not.
I’m talking about are the small white herons that are seen in fields with cows. They’re about 20 inches long with a 36-inch wingspan when they fly and stand in a hunched position.
Recently, I spotted the white birds wandering in and out of cattle at the edge of a friend and fellow writer’s pasture pond.
“Oh, those are cowbirds,” she said.
We begin to discuss how we always see cowbirds but had no idea why the name. or anything about the bird. That led to some research. Writers do love their research.
Cattle Egrets are native to Africa but somehow reached South American in the 1870s and migrated up. By the 1960s the white birds were documented as far north as Canada, west as far as California and east as far as Florida. Since Texas is about in the middle of those three, that would explain why we see so many of the birds in our cow pastures.
Sometimes the birds can be confused with Snowy Egrets. If you look closely, you’ll see a thicker neck, an orange or yellow bill, and dirty yellow legs and feet. Snowy Egrets like wet, water feeding.
Cowbird egrets prefer foraging field grass and pastures for the crickets, grasshoppers, and other insects the cattle hoofs stir up. They also clean the cows’ hide of ticks and fleas. That’s why you’ll see them on the cows’ backs and pecking the legs.
Their name comes from the grazing animals they team up with to forage. In other places, they are known as cow cranes, cow herons, cow birds, elephant birds, rhinoceros egrets, and hippopotamus egrets.
Breeding season runs April through September and depending on the arrival of fall even into October. Fall is running late here in southeast Texas and that’s why there are still so many cattle egrets this year.
My romance writer heart fluttered to learn they pair up and nest in established heronries year after year.
Now the next time you’re driving and spot a long-legged white bird on a cow’s back, you can wow your audience with tidbits of trivia.
If you really want to impress, throw in this little fact.
The oldest Cattle Egret on record was at least 17 years old when it was captured and released in Pennsylvania in 1979. It had been banded in Maryland in 1962.
The chicks that were hatched at my school last spring have grown into full sized birds now. The hens are even laying eggs so we are finally getting a return for all our investment.
One of the boys at my school was telling me that their hen was also laying eggs. He was very excited. He said they saved the first egg that was laid. That is a sweet thought but not very practical.
I didn’t tell him this.
I remember the first egg laid by our hens. It was a green egg and appeared shortly after a chemical fire near our house that required us to evacuate for the evening. At first I wasn’t sure if the green egg was a result of the fumes from the fire. Then I remembered that some breeds of hens lay green eggs. I was very relieved.
Anyway, the birds from the school are quite adventurous. Beekeeper Brian looked out the kitchen window to see them on top of the coop.
This is would not be a big problem except that several times I have found one of them in the yard next door. Fortunately they always manage to find their way back.
Guess it is time to clip wings.
About the authorI had a high school English teacher who was very big on memorization. When we studied American poets, she made us memorize poems by Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Walt Whitman, James Whitcomb Riley, and Edgar Allen Poe. I didn’t enjoy the assignments much back then. Now as words from the poems flow through my memory, I do.
Robert Frost’s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening is a favorite. When we lived where it actually snowed in the woods behind our house, I found myself reciting Frost’s poem often as I watched the snowflakes fall.
In the throes of that English homework to memorize all those poems and passages from Shakespeare, life passed slowly. I didn’t think the semester would ever be over. Like Frost, I can say in retrospection — life did go on.
And, I’d add that all those memorized words were not wasted.
October brings a flood of pink, specifically pink ribbons. Since 1992, the wearing of a pink ribbon has been the international symbol of breast cancer awareness.
Ever wonder where ribbons and symbolism all started?
Penney Laingen, wife of a hostage who’d been taken prisoner in Iran in 1979 started the trend. Inspired by the song, “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree,” she tied yellow ribbons around the trees in her front yard to await her husband’s return.
Yellow ribbons were used again to remember soldiers fighting and dying in the Gulf War. AIDS activists piggybacked on that, turned the ribbon red, and sent it on stage Jeremy Irons’ chest for the Tony Awards.
That propelled charitable organizations to begin using colored ribbon campaigns for their causes.
The first ribbon for breast cancer awareness was a peach-colored loop handmade by Charlotte Haley whose granddaughter, sister, and mother had battled breast cancer. She passed out sets of five along with a card that read: “The National Cancer Institute annual budget is $1.8 billion, only 5 percent goes for cancer prevention. Help us wake up our legislators and America by wearing this ribbon.”
Evelyn Lauder wanted to enhance upon Haley’s idea. Lauder had her lawyers approach Haley, who refused to relinquish her grassroots, word-of-mouth project. Lauder’s lawyers advised her to come up with a different color and she did.
She traded peach for pink and put pink grosgrain ribbons on cosmetics counters across the country promoting her Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF).
Pink is playful, life-affirming and studies show it has a calming, quietening effect and lessens stress, according to the Color Association of the United States. It’s perfect to symbolize everything breast cancer is not.
Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation gave a pink ribbon to runners in its New York City Race in 1991. The origins of the Run for the Cure ribbon is here.
And, so the pink ribbons we wear every October became the icon for awareness and and show moral support for those with breast cancer.
If you’re like me, you have one or more friends or family members who have been affected by breast cancer. I’ll be wearing a pink ribbon this month.
How about you?
