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Welcome to the Archives of Literary Corner! Here you will find articles posted prior tp 2021. If you have a favorite, you can easily go back and review them all!

Writing

by Phillip W. Ward

February 4, 2021

I am not a writer in the way you may imagine if you are reading this.  It is my intent to make that clear from the start.  However, like all people, I have thoughts, feelings, emotions, and opinions on a wide variety of topics. More importantly, I have a desire to communicate those various sentiments in the most effective way I can.  Whereas I enjoy a good face to face discussion, which on occasion can boil over into an argument, I have found that many times, at the moment I am feeling whatever I’m feeling, there simply isn’t anyone around to talk too.  When that occurs, I turn to writing in order to clear my head, say my piece, clarify my thoughts, and ultimately, find peace with the issue at hand. So in that way, I am a writer. Furthering that thought, I have also learned to take a personal experience, write it down, come to grips with it, and somehow transform that experience into a written story.  Nevertheless, I have found that creating a written story is no guarantee that it will be interesting to those of you who choose to read it.  For me, it is a difficult struggle to put on paper, thoughts that would easily flow from my mouth.

To be completely honest, journaling is a more accurate depiction of what I do. For many years, I have used this technique to clarify thoughts, ease tensions, and on a positive note, document memories of enjoyable times, people, and events that have assisted me in creating the fabric of my life. Yes, I have always looked upon myself as a verbally gifted storyteller. I can spin a yarn,  or make you laugh, and on occasion, bring a tear to your eye through the process of using my voice to communicate a message in that moment.  I am and always have been very comfortable in conversation.  In fact, it is this comfort level that led me to believe that I could accomplish the same goals if I chose to use the written word.  To be blunt, I thought it would be easy.  However, the skill of writing has proven to be a significant challenge for me, as I suspect it may be for many of you reading this blog.

It is not my intention to discourage you at this point, although my words my seem discouraging as they are read.  Though writing is an extremely difficult task to perform well, it is also an extremely joyful experience, even if it is done poorly.  I can say this because I seldom write anything that is publishable, but I almost never write something that doesn’t affect me in a positive way.  The joy of writing is ensconced in a person’s desire to create a literal version of their thoughts and feelings.  The joy I feel from having written a story or a book is difficult to come by in any other medium.  Plus, the only way I know how to improve at the skill is to actually write.  While most of what I write is not a great read for anyone but me, I can assure you that I am totally fine with that outcome.  I write mainly for myself, and if I decide to try and share whatever I have written with others, the only real issue is that I approve of the finished product.  It is with that in mind that I feel comfortable presenting you with some non-professional advice.  If it helps, great!  If not, so be it.  It is simply my opinions on how a person begins to develop into a writer.

The first piece of advice is that you make your writing personal.  You may have a gifted imagination, but life experiences, even if you change the names, dates and places, will ring much more authentic than trying to create a scenario with which you have no prior knowledge.  This is not to say you can’t embellish your story.  But it is critical in my estimation to have at least some idea of how it feels to have been in the situation you are describing.  This will serve to enhance the tale that you are sharing with your readers.

Second, you must understand that writing well is hard work.  As you prepare a piece for publication, you will rewrite it so many times that you’ll feel as though you have it memorized.  Experience has shown me that no matter how well I may have written something, upon review, I can find a better way to write it.  It is an endless loop requiring you at some point to simply acknowledge that what you have written is good enough.  Then move on.

Third, demonstrate courage when you write.  There are critics everywhere, and not just in the field of writing, as you are already aware.  Toughen up, write something that interests you, that makes a point you want to make, and/or teaches a lesson you feel strongly needs to be taught.  If you want to write, then you can not be afraid to fail, to be criticized, or to be laughed at.  You will never accomplish anything if you approach your goals from a perspective of fear.  This is especially true in the process of learning to write.  I can assure you that I have written some horrendous words, and when I’ve re-read them, I was appalled at my work.  Chalk it up to experience and get better.

Finally, be kind to yourself as you create your work.  No one writes a masterpiece their first time out.  All writers have hundreds of re-writes with every piece they produce.  This is why it is hard work.  But on occasion, when you read something you have produced that makes you feel proud, make sure you enjoy the moment.  For it is in that moment that you realize that even if no one else appreciates what you have done, you’ll know in your heart that you have accomplished a worthwhile task. I love that feeling, and I encourage you to strive to find it for yourself.

I hope you write a lot, and I hope you enjoy it.  It is a unique joy for me to work hard at this endeavor in which I am clearly not gifted.  But in a real sense, the joy of writing is embedded in the work.  It is why I continue to write, and why it is my belief, I’ll continue this for a lifetime.  Good luck to you in your work, and don’t give up!

Does Beauty Exist?

(From the Philosophical Files of Kevin J. Ward)

December 16, 2020

Have you ever noticed that we humans have a way of complicating pretty much everything? Sometimes this is nothing more than an amusing annoyance. Sometimes, though,  these “misguided” ideas take us down the rabbit hole of a thought process that leads us to believe pretty silly things. For example, let’s think about the word “beauty”. It’s a simple word that we all learned when we were young. We all know what it means, right? Or do we? Let’s examine two statements that I call “truisms”. These are statements that are absolutely true.

Truism No. 1: There is absolutely nothing in this world, or even the entire universe, that is beautiful. Not one single thing. I realize this can sound depressing, pessimistic, and even a bit pitiful, but I can assure you that it is absolutely true.

Truism No. 2: Absolutely everything in this world, and the entire universe, is beautiful. Seems a bit utopian, but I can assure you that it is absolutely true. It is definitely as true as Truism No. 1.

How can that possibly be? Even if you’re crazy enough to believe one statement or the other, and even if you accept my truisms, certainly both of these statements cannot be true. Or might we not fully understand what beauty is?

We have all used this word countless times, but I suggest we typically do not grasp its significance. Is a rock beautiful? Some say yes, some say no, most say it depends on the rock. But a rock is just a rock. Just as a tree is just a tree. A tree cannot, of itself, be beautiful or ugly. It is just a tree. Tangible things in nature; rocks, trees, lakes, mountains, animals, literally everything, have no predetermined aspect to them that would allow them to be categorized as beautiful. They simply are what they are. To say a white sand seashore is beautiful says nothing about the white sand seashore at all.

Beauty is not a characteristic of some object that exists in nature. Beauty is very much an interpretation of that object made by an intelligent being (humans) to describe what it is they are observing. If one person says a tree is beautiful and another says the same tree is ugly, both are right, but only from their own personal perspectives. The tree is just a tree. There is no intrinsic beauty to the tree

Why is this important? We need to understand what beauty actually is and how we can find it in our lives. When a person describes something as “beautiful”, it tells us little, if anything, about that specific thing. However, it tells us a great deal about the person making the observation, and how that person thinks. You see, beauty does not exist in the world, it only exists in the mind. In other words, beauty is not something you see, it is something you experience. A person who sees beauty in many things has a beautiful mind. A person who sees little beauty in the world has a darker, cloudier mind. Beauty is a human construct that defines ourselves more than it defines anything else. And yet, look around the world and see the tremendous value we have placed on the misguided understanding of what beauty actually is.

There is only one world. Whether it is beautiful or not depends on the beauty within the mind of the observer. It has long been said that “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, but it would be more accurate to say “Beauty is in the mind of the beholder”. For you see, even a blind person can experience beauty. And more importantly, whether or not a person sees beauty in the world is a choice that each of us makes every single day.

If you want more beauty in your world, you have simply to let it exist in your mind. Let’s focus on Truism 2: Absolutely everything in the world is beautiful!

Reading in the Time of COVID

by Kathy Bates Johnson

November 21, 2020

So along came COVID.  We were in London (a trip planned solely to see My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante which was closing in days at the National Theatre – it WAS brilliant.  I’d read the four volumes of her Neapolitan series and HAD to see this production – it was so worthy), then off to Paris for a week because if I’m within 2000 miles of Paris, I’m there.  So, a lovely week in each of those cities with husband James and daughter Erica and we were home again – February 27, 2020.  The Louvre closed that weekend soon to be followed by the rest of the world as we know it.  There were two weeks at home before our world really changed.  We have been away from our home in Goliad, which is a good 2.5 hours from anywhere, only twice since March 15…so what to do, can’t go anywhere, can’t have anyone visiting, hmmmmm, all those books on all those shelves, in all those nooks and crannies…that’s what to do.

First organization was needed – we’ve lived in this house for approximately 15 years (not sure, time no longer has any frame of reference to me).  The books had been shelved in an orderly fashion, but many more had entered the realm, some read, then left in a stack somewhere and eventually just pushed onto a shelf, stacks on bedside tables, a mess on the coffee table, bookcases in the hallways, in the guestroom.  First a triage – take down every book off every shelf (dusting once every 15 years is a great idea!) and flat surface – give away if you know someone would like a certain volume that you can let go, take to the Ivy Vine where I resell fab stuff and have a great book section, then put them in a manageable order – fiction shelved by author, biography by subject, histories by author, then travel, general non-fiction, short stories – lots and lots of categories.  This took way less time than I expected, which seems to always be the case when facing a daunting chore – mostly just daunting when just thinking about having to do it.

So, with that done, time to settle down to reading for the COVID duration.  Where to start?  I decided to start on the lowest level of fiction, not with the As because they are on the top shelf of the built-in bookcases and require either a ladder or climbing on a chairback to reach.  So, I started with John Irving’s A WIDOW FOR ONE YEAR – hadn’t read Irving in years – a very different story, I thoroughly enjoyed it and remembering the pleasure of reading him.  The plan was to read a fiction, then move over to the biography section on the other side of the fireplace.  Oh ho, what popped up but PANCAKES IN PARIS by Craig Carlson – a man who fell in love with Paris (as some of us are wont to do) and opened a pancake house there because a big American breakfast was all he missed from home.  It was delightful – I’m afraid to look to see if his place has survived the pandemic (he had opened two, so maybe at least one will make it through the shutdowns, I hope).

So that was the beginning of the reading plan – the books were sorted, I could easily go from fiction-to bio-to history-to whatever in an orderly fashion.  I WOULD read all these books I’ve been gathering for over 50 years.  You will be pleased to know I’ve done a very good job – but not a great job because, despite my good efforts, books have sneaked into this house and interrupted the orderly reading.  I didn’t want to buy any more books, so downloaded from our friendly library, they would order a book for me to read online and it would arrive within hours.

Then my birthday was in late October and book friends, well, you know – a delightful book arrived, Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris by Paul Gallico, written in the mid 50s, very dated and classist if a light-hearted novel can be (it can), but it was as sweet as could be – and it WAS in Paris.  So that one sneaked in.  Then I heard Eddie Glaude Jr. speak on TV several times, his Begin Again about race and privilege in the US had just been published, I ORDERED IT.  One of the most important books I’ve ever read, which is leading me to James Baldwin, who I’ve barely read.  And then a friend brought a 500-pound book, wait, that’s pages, not pounds – THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS (The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration) by Isabel Wilkerson.  So, you can see I did follow, sort of, my rule to alternate between fiction and non-fiction.  Then my sister Mary mailed me books she was finished reading (she does not have my problem of keeping favorite books FOREVER).  So on my coffee table, in addition to the fat non-fiction I’m reading are: The Matisse Stories by A.S. Byatt, The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage, The Kurdish Bike by Alesa Lightbourne, Born Survivors by Wendy Holden, and Medicine and Miracles in the High Desert (My Life Among the Navajo People) by Erica M. Elliott, M.D. (a high school classmate).

So, you can see the problem – I have read a good selection of books I already owned, but have added to my load, happily added.  And to further my downfall, when Erica asked what I wanted for Christmas, well, you know, top of mind was  Thomas Ricks new book FIRST PRINCIPLES and what role religion played in the founding of America, what THEY read to formulate their thinking (the Greeks or the Romans?) – which begs the question, what, if anything, are our current leaders reading to formulate their thinking?  I wonder…

And so it goes, COVID came and it will go (it will go, right?).  Will I get all those books read – probably not because of the continued interference by others giving/sending more and authors continuing to write.  I have a worthy goal, and I’m loving trying hard to meet it.  But truth be told, I don’t mind the interference.  It’s a challenge I welcome, and an easy one to try to finish – even knowing it’s impossible.  That’s really a good thing – what if we DID read all the books — what then?

Falling In

by Amy Kopperude

February 24, 2020

On occasion, in that moment before sleep, I’ve felt the sensation of falling—the sudden and slightly nauseating tickle of disorientation mixed with fear as the ground disappears beneath my feet. In a flash, I’m awake, not realizing I had just slipped from consciousness.

We slip unknowingly between consciousness and unconsciousness the way a book has carried me away from the predictableness of my everyday life. Like Alice waking inside of a dream or passing through a mirror into an unfamiliar world, I have fallen into books over and over. I have fallen into and out of them, cried tears into them, been angry or disappointed all day over a tragic plot twist, daydreamed about the hero, rolled my eyes at predictable clichés, and even abandoned a book after 6 pages. I have fallen in love, been rescued, and had my heart broken.

When I was 7 years old, I read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, so I know that Dorothy never wore ruby slippers and that there’s more to the “wonderful” wizard than meets the eye, at least more than Hollywood would have us believe. Once I discovered Pippi Longstocking in third grade and wanted to be her, I knew there was something extraordinary about the effect that a book could have on a person—and about a writer’s ability to cause that effect. L. Frank Baum and Astrid Lindgren introduced me to real magic.

The kind of magic that you find in a book is not a sleight of hand; it is a sleight of mind, and the author is the magician. When I am engaged with what I am reading—when I have committed to the story—this magic is a feeling that I can’t fight. I become a part of the story. Having fallen into the rabbit hole, I can see every vivid detail on my way down. I can feel and smell the wall of cool, rich soil. When I reach for protruding tree roots, I can feel the damp slime that keeps me from grabbing hold. But I won’t know until I reach the end whether my fall will be broken by a hard floor or a force that slows my fall until I land softly on my feet. Like Bastian Balthazar Bux, who becomes a part of The Neverending Story in Michael Ende’s novel, I awaken from a book as if from a dream, wondering which parts were real.

By the time I was in middle school, I had either read, been read to, or read aloud to my sister books that ranged from the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder to stories about girls struggling to fit in—like Harriet the Spy and The Girl with the Silver Eyes, to Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books like How to Be an Interplanetary Spy (I still own my copy), to scary folktales like Whistle in the Graveyard, a 1974 collection of stories that I dare say surpasses Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. When my mom brought home a book of Washington Irving stories that she found at a yard sale, I was ecstatic, and I even read another yard sale find about the building of the transcontinental railroad and a beat-up copy of the play “Our Town” by Thornton Wilder, which I later used for a class project. In junior high, I devoured Lurlene McDaniel’s fictional novels about teenage girls with life-threatening illnesses and then multiple trashy V.C. Andrews books. I left very few stones unturned. It was around this time—when I read the anonymous diary Go Ask Alice almost simultaneously with another true-account diary of addiction and depression titled I Never Saw the Sun Rise by Joan Donlan—that I was inspired to keep a journal and write poetry.

I can tell you that almost every book I have read from the time I was 7 until now, 40 year later, has given me a way out…or a way in. There is an unsung hero, a loner, a weirdo, or an outcast in every story. Even my own. And in all of those stories is a struggle to be acknowledged, understood, accepted, and loved. There is a realness to the experience of every fictional character, even if, say, walking through a wardrobe into a world of talking animals isn’t real. We are faced with hard choices as children, and we are faced with different hard choices as adults. Sometimes we must ride alone as valiantly and true as we can into battle to fight for what we believe. Other times, we shrink away from the dark forest with the entangling cobwebs and giant spiders until we have comrades to fight the battle with us. Sometimes the details of these stories are subject to change, like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book.

If life is a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book, then it starts in our 20s. Sometimes, the wrong CYOA choice means certain death. Do I turn to page 64? Or page 87? In real life, my choice might mean I’m exhausted the next day during my 8:00 AM American History class (in the dark auditorium with the quiet instructor who lectures for the entire hour). Throughout college, I continued to write and hone my poetry. It was a cathartic way for me to work through some emotions and difficult experiences. I majored in English, minored in writing (with an emphasis on creative writing), became a bibliophile, collected favorite children’s books for my future children, and had my hands full with required course reading, including The Shining by Stephen King (likely the most terrifying book I’ve read) and Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (a reading choice drawn from a hat and read in one night for a Victorian literature course). I experimented with short-story writing and many times took strides toward writing a novel. I made a pie-crust promise to become a published author by the time I was 40. Eight months after college, I got married, a year after that I began my career in publishing, and 3 years later I became a mom. I had actually made it pretty far in my CYOA book without getting myself killed.

Although many of my early adulthood experiences were related to reading and writing, and I chose a career in publishing that I’ve maintained to this day, the impact that books and reading have had on my life is not really evident in my career path, nor the kind of mom I am or wife I was. Divorce was definitely the climax of my story. I would be hard-pressed to think of another event from the past or envision one in the future that could come close to comparing. I had chosen the page number that would end that adventure. Thankfully, life doesn’t let us start from the beginning again. I started where I left off, got a bit of a bumpy (re)start, and then began to experience some amazing things, which is when I learned what a LIFETIME OF READING had done for me.

Reading books has made me a more interesting person who is interested in learning more interesting things all the time. I am creative by design. Reading fiction made me more imaginative and more creative than I would have been with only healthy doses of reality. I cannot emphasize enough how the ability to turn words on a page into images in my head has contributed to the ease with which I brainstorm and process ideas of my own. I am able to accept that being in the middle of 20 projects at once is just part of my artistic process. I am confident when I try new things. I don’t wonder if an idea will work; I accept that it’s just a matter of time until it does. That is because the characters in storybooks and novels persist. They stick to their purpose and find creative ways to weather the storms along the way. Having read so many books about underdogs and outcasts, I find comfort in being different and standing alone. A good book is a good friend when you’re in need of one.

Studies show that reading fiction gives us multiple tools to self-improve. Imagining creates understanding; we are able to navigate our interactions with others better and be more empathetic because we have gotten to know characters’ longings, frustrations, and motives. We can identify with Pinocchio’s desire to be a human boy or the Velveteen Rabbit’s longing to be real because even though we are already “real” as humans, we deeply understand the desire to be something we are not. In many ways, fiction simulates the real world and its complexities, so we can maneuver through situations almost as if we already have. In addition, because of fiction’s unpredictable nature, those who are accustomed to reading it have less need for “cognitive closure”; in essence, our creativity is nurtured by uncertainty because we have developed procedures for processing information that lend specifically to how we process when we are working creatively. We are more open to experimentation as a means of discovery (which is why I have a scar on my wrist from using a drill to disassemble a toy metal phone for an art project). And perhaps it goes without saying, but we also get better sleep, have an improved vocabulary, and have slower mental decline as we age.

I did become a published author by the time I was 40…of a do-it-yourself beaded insect book that hit bookstores the year I turned 39. It was fortuitous. Something found me that I wasn’t looking for, which is one of the ways that life has surprised me and continues to surprise me. I published a second book 3 years later. Neither publication give me fame or fortune or even a following. They did, however, affirm for me that I had a unique imagination and that I could accomplish anything I set out to do because I already accomplished things I hadn’t set out to do at all. I credit my love of fiction, and being surrounded by people who nurtured that love and supported my artistic endeavors, for many of my successes. It has made me real. As real as Pinocchio’s desire to be a human boy, and as real as the Velveteen Rabbit’s desire to leap and hop about in a field. “Real…,” said the Skin Horse, “…is something that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” I like to think that stories love us as much as we love them.