Sword Blades and Poppy Seed

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32236352009-12-04T15:10:10.281-08:00Sword Blades and Poppy SeedThe mad musings of a working writerBenjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.comBlogger1438125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223635.post-21627361292081682922009-12-04T15:05:00.000-08:002009-12-04T15:10:10.306-08:00Dancing

"Opportunity dances with those who are already on the dance floor."— H. Jackson Brown Jr., author.Email: It's Hot in TopekaTwitter: 500Turtles

Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223635.post-81529133449100861392009-12-03T16:03:00.000-08:002009-12-03T16:04:53.246-08:00Rock around the Xmas tree (please)

It's that time of year. Time once again to ponder what it means about American society that so many of our Christmas tunes are so depressing I want to bury my head in a bowl of figgy pudding.Email: It's Hot in TopekaTwitter: 500Turtles

Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223635.post-4134078644312777802009-12-02T04:20:00.000-08:002009-12-02T04:23:55.713-08:00How am I supposed to eat?

"I never had any doubts about my abilities. I knew I could write. I just had to figure out how to eat while doing this."— Cormac McCarthy (b. 1933), writer.Email: It's Hot in TopekaTwitter: 500Turtles

Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223635.post-24999137641632249482009-12-01T14:28:00.000-08:002009-12-01T14:31:53.012-08:00Killing the monster

"Writing a book is a adventure. To begin with it is a toy and amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him out to the public."— Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British prime minister, statesman and Nobel Laureate.Email: It's Hot in

Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223635.post-80013094782383571662009-11-30T07:24:00.000-08:002009-11-30T07:26:22.577-08:00The man behind the book

"Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book."— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), author and philosopherEmail: It's Hot in TopekaTwitter: 500Turtles

Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223635.post-70629580844505357452009-11-29T10:03:00.000-08:002009-11-29T10:06:28.531-08:00Not an act but a habit

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit."— Aristotle (384-322 BCE)Email: It's Hot in TopekaTwitter: 500Turtles

Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223635.post-30850063337724092312009-11-28T10:09:00.000-08:002009-11-28T10:19:37.920-08:00Quiet

Whoops, forgot to post yesterday. Well, I've missed a few days here and there in my determination to post something every day in 2009.I spent most of the day out and about, having determined to put aside my usual hermitlike tendencies. And truly, Los Angeles is rarely so pleasurable as on a holiday. The streets are deserted and the air is clean. Really, people, within one short day of taking

Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223635.post-49122925378091840252009-11-26T09:01:00.000-08:002009-11-26T09:11:10.942-08:00Thanks

Slept in, strong pot of green tea brewing, astounding weather in Los Angeles — AND NO DEADLINES. Aaahhhh, life is good.Many thanks to the tens of you who visit this blog and occasionally share your thoughts. I appreciate your patronage. There are big plans in store for 2010 and beyond. Hope you'll be here for the ride (and bring some friends). Of course, the next six or seven months also brings

Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223635.post-61331669707768320992009-11-25T19:43:00.000-08:002009-11-25T19:46:00.907-08:00No vacation

"A writer never has a vacation. For a writer life consists of either writing or thinking about writing."— Eugene Ionesco (1909-1994), playwright.Email: It's Hot in Topeka

Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223635.post-46356403868634154762009-11-24T08:59:00.000-08:002009-11-24T09:06:20.008-08:00Never happened

"My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened."— Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), statesman and essayist.Email: It's Hot in Topeka

Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223635.post-35173360706353872982009-11-23T03:00:00.000-08:002009-11-23T03:00:04.087-08:00Paddle like hell

"Be like a duck, my mother used to tell me. Remain calm on the surface and paddle like hell underneath."— Michael Caine (b. 1933), actor and author.Email: It's Hot in Topeka

Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223635.post-15778027824195435272009-11-22T15:28:00.001-08:002009-11-22T15:32:02.763-08:00...in a far-off land

"May I never grow too old to treasure 'once upon a time...'"— Author unknownEmail: It's Hot in Topeka

Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223635.post-8488141180541205302009-11-21T22:54:00.001-08:002009-11-21T22:55:38.077-08:00All that you have been

"All that you are becoming requires all that you have been."— Jan Whitener, author and medium.Email: It's Hot in Topeka

Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223635.post-49401973008421386262009-11-20T16:12:00.001-08:002009-11-20T16:17:26.988-08:00Gradually

"Success comes to a writer, as a rule, so gradually that it is always something of a shock to him to look back and realize the heights to which he has climbed."— P.G. Wodehouse (1881-1975), author.Email: It's Hot in Topeka

Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223635.post-44583490302049706132009-11-19T03:00:00.000-08:002009-11-19T03:00:02.493-08:00Hard work

"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."— Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Founding Father.Email: It's Hot in Topeka

Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223635.post-84894800264360469472009-11-18T18:01:00.000-08:002009-11-18T18:04:22.296-08:00Cast the bones

"People on the outside think there's something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn't like that. You sit in back of the typewriter and you work, and that's all there is to it."— Harlan Ellison (b. 1934), author.Email: It's Hot in Topeka

Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223635.post-63455819384144258182009-11-17T16:43:00.000-08:002009-11-17T16:50:18.754-08:00Displaced

Back for about three days now and jet lag comas are knocking me out. Yesterday I was drooping by 3:00 p.m. (midnight in Slovakia) and by 6 p.m. I was dead to the world. Didn't wake again until early this morning. Today for whatever reason I feel like I can probably make my usual bedtime, which you're supposed to do when you're back in your normal time zone. But then again, jet lag hits you kind

Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223635.post-61210551402903260942009-11-16T08:06:00.000-08:002009-11-16T08:09:35.367-08:00Remind me again...?

"Writing for adults, you have to keep reminding them of what is going on. The poor things have given up using their brains when they read. Children you only need to tell things to once."— Susan Wittig Albert (b. 1940), author.Email: It's Hot in Topeka

Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223635.post-35963226764463797982009-11-15T15:08:00.000-08:002009-11-15T15:11:20.729-08:00What he does

"What a writer wants to do is not what he does."— Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), author.Email: It's Hot in Topeka

Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223635.post-79490849914336560592009-11-14T03:00:00.000-08:002009-11-14T03:00:00.446-08:00Pillows

"No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow."— Lin Yutang (1895-1976), writer and inventor.Email: It's Hot in Topeka

Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223635.post-27282198961938492682009-11-13T21:55:00.000-08:002009-11-13T22:04:21.274-08:00Wild blue yonder

I've always rather liked the phrase "wild blue yonder." Anyway, today is a travel day. It's early Saturday morning in Bratislava. I am waiting to be whisked to the airport in Vienna, Austria. Total travel time, door to door, should be about 23 hours.“A man travels the world in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.”— George Edward Moore (1873-1958), philosopher.Email: It's Hot in

Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223635.post-3042244655812637922009-11-12T16:40:00.000-08:002009-11-12T16:58:03.868-08:00Spare time

"I got to thinking about the point in every freelancer's life where he has to decide whether he wants to a), have a social life, and do art in his spare time; or b.), do art, and have a social life in his spare time. It has always seemed to me that if you have any hope of making a living as an artist — writer, musician, whatever — you absolutely must learn to tell people to leave you alone, and

Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223635.post-35293647330422290732009-11-11T22:25:00.000-08:002009-11-11T22:30:55.353-08:00Communication

"Writing is communication, not self-expression. Nobody in this world wants to read your diary except your mother."— Richard Peck (b. 1934), novelist.Email: It's Hot in Topeka

Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223635.post-83970407637325118712009-11-10T06:31:00.000-08:002009-11-10T06:36:06.902-08:00I just want to write

"I never want to see anyone, and I never want to go anywhere or do anything. I just want to write."— P.G. Wodehouse (1881-1975), author.Email: It's Hot in Topeka

Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223635.post-33378985735432330212009-11-09T03:00:00.000-08:002009-11-09T07:04:59.788-08:00Swept away

"Remember what Bilbo used to say: 'It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.'"— Gandalf, via J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973), author, teacher and traveler.Email: It's Hot in Topeka

Benjaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623191460863933721noreply@blogger.com0