“Is it not absurder still to refuse to listen to these voices from afar, because they come stammering and wandering as in a dream confusedly instead of with a trumpet’s call? Because spirits that bending to earth may undergo perhaps an earthly bewilderment and suffer unknown limitations, and half remember and half forget?”
Lady Gregory, Visions and Beliefs
Category Archives: Books
I was told by An Islander …
There are more of the Sheogue in America than what there are here, and more of other sort of spirits.
Lady Gregory, Visions and Beliefs
The power of negative thinking?
In the last few pages of Annie Duke’s Thinking in Bets, she mentions the work of Gabriele Oettinger, who — via 20 years’ worth of research — determined that people who imagine obstacles to achieving their goals are more likely to succeed than people who imagine purely positive outcomes.
Apparently Oetthinger proposes that if you consider obstacles, you become energized to overcome them.
Duke goes on to talk about how being open to the possibility of failure is effective in groups (corporate teams, for example) because it removes the stigma associated with being overly negative. Or seeming to be overly negative. Which gives the group flexibility to think more broadly and prepare for potential setbacks.
But I wonder whether there’s something else at play, also. Perhaps positive thinking — if it is forced or artificial — can function as a kind of denialism or denialist behavior that sublimates doubts/uncertainties/fears and thereby empowers them.
I believe I’ve observed that dynamic, personally. Have you?
The “other” Faust
Faust seducing Gretchen. This part of the story: easy to follow.
I struggled to understand the “other” part of Goethe’s Faust. The part after Gretchen’s death. Have you ever read it? Crazy.
Then I came across a bit mentioning that the play is an alchemical allegory. Really good piece on that, here. The Alchemical Drama of Goerthe’s Faust, by Adam McLean.
It all makes sense, now. In a cosmic allegorical kind of way.
Countdown to Launch: The French Emerald
It’s a mystery! It’s a romance! It’s a … serial novel? =O
I have written a serial novel.
I have written a serial novel. I’ll be publishing on my site, one chapter per week.
The first chapter debuts March 4.
I’ll post more about the how’s and why’s at some point.
But for now, please click here for the teaser copy and how you can play along :)
UPDATE: All 43 chapters are now online and free to read! Click here to start with Week 1.
My dog reviews Loose Dogs :-D
Come join my DH Lawrence group on Goodreads
Every once in a while I get interested enough in a writer that I decide to read “everything” he or she has written.
(No literally everything, perhaps, but a lot!)
This started in college, when I discovered that the college library often had volumes of letters or collected essays written by novelists that I was studying. I remember reading a collection of letters by Dostoyevski over one Christmas break, and a collection of essays by Virginia Woolf. It gave me a sense of connectedness with the novelists — with the human beings behind the novels. Continue reading
Rev it up
Some of you know that I have had, for some time, another novel in the works.
The title is Loose Dogs. The protag is an animal control officer. And I finished writing it in 2004.
Except that I didn’t.
2004 was an eternity ago in publishing history. The launch of the Kindle was still three years away. There was no such thing as an “indie writer.” Self-publishing was a euphemism for vanity publishing, and vanity publishing was the crazy aunt in the attic. She’s there, everybody knows she’s there, you feel sorry for her, you sure as hell don’t want to be her. Continue reading
Loose dogs . . .
Loose dogs don’t follow rules. They aren’t predictable. They don’t keep to the sidewalks or respect property boundaries. They don’t come when called.
Loose dogs are elusive things.
— Paige Newbury
mama did NOT say there’d be days like this. exactly. lol
So I’m giving away five copies of Can Job, print edition, on Goodreads.
And I’ve been monitoring how my giveaway has compared to the others by watching it in the site’s “Most Requested” list.
I check again this morning — and this is what I found. Totally cracked me up :-)
Hiya, neighbors!
UPDATE: contest over but you can purchase a copy of Can Job here.
UPDATE #2: Can Job got a new cover :)
