Dyker Lights @ Dyker Heights

saying what you mean

poet Diane Wakoski, (b. 1937) whose more than 40 books of poems include, The Collected Greed, Parts 1-13 (1984) and Argonaut Rose (1998), said: "Poetry is the art of saying what you mean but disguising it." (photo: rear of an old sussex church)

cracked pots

"Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That is how the light gets in." -Leonard Cohen

a good proper royal title

Did you know that when she crowned in 1952, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s full title was over 200 words long? And included such lofty and important terms as “Sovereign of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle.” Here it is in full: "Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas Queen, Defender of the Faith, Duchess of Edinburgh, Countess of Merioneth, Baroness Greenwich, Duke of Lancaster, Lord of Mann, Duke of Normandy, Sovereign of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Sovereign of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, Sovereign of the Most Illustrious Order of Saint Patrick, Sovereign of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, Sovereign of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Sovereign of the Distinguished Service Order, Sovereign of the Imperial Service Order, Sovereign of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India, Sovereign of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire, Sovereign of the Order of British India, Sovereign of the Indian Order of Merit, Sovereign of the Order of Burma, Sovereign of the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert, Sovereign of the Royal Family Order of King Edward VII, Sovereign of the Order of Mercy, Sovereign of the Order of Merit, Sovereign of the Order of the Companions of Honour, Sovereign of the Royal Victorian Order, Sovereign of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem." (try saying that every time you'd like her to pass the toast)

hard nosed advice to writers

An interviewer once asked Ursula Le Guin advice for writers, and she replied, "I am going to be rather hard-nosed and say that if you have to find devices to coax yourself to stay focused on writing, perhaps you should not be writing what you're writing. And if this lack of motivation is a constant problem, perhaps writing is not your forte. I mean, what is the problem? If writing bores you, that is pretty fatal. If that is not the case, but you find that it is hard going and it just doesn't flow, well, what did you expect? It is work; art is work." Ursula K Le Guin (b.1929)

success...

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm."

- Sir Winston Churchill

picture books: words and pictures together

Two really cool picture books (The Snow Show and Snow) are reviewed in the Times this week. But it's the review, written by a Prince of Children's Books, Paul O. Zelinsky, and his words about how a good picture works that struck me. He says (among other great things): "In any good picture book, words and pictures complement each other, each of them necessary and neither sufficient." Working on picture books, you must check your ego at the door. At least if you want a good picture book. It's what one of my publishers calls, "Breaking through The Author Barrier": where you suddenly find that what you're most concerned with is not keeping all of your words, but making the best book. Even if that means, as Faulkner said, murdering "your darlings." (Those pieces of text you are so fond of and think are so wonderful and the very apex of your literary skill usually are the very things that must go. Because in order to keep them you make everything else work around them and end up forcing things. And that, as far as I can tell, never works in books and stories anymore than it does in life.) Putting the book first--not your words--takes the focus off you (and saves you from that awful self-indulgence and thinking it's all about self-expression) and puts it where it belongs: to thinking first of the reader and asking not "Am I a good writer?" but, "Am I telling a good story?" Read more here.

"one of the funniest books of the year"

No, it's not just me saying it. Radio 4 said it. Honestly. And they know things. (Radio 4 is the high brow radio station of the UK--for the benefit of non-Brits) In FRONT ROW'S round up of the best books to give younger readers this Christmas, How To Be A Baby: by Me, The Big Sister was in the list! And that's when they said that thing about it being "one of the funniest books of the year" (sorry, did I already say that?) Listen here if you feel like a bit of Brit Radio... Front Row.