Conversations with Calliope- Learning frrom Print

(Martin House Orchids)

JOE: Good morning Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How is your learning of Dreamweaver coming along?
JOE: Interesting you should ask. I am wading through video tutorials while I await the manual I ordered.
CALLIOPE: Do you prefer one approach over the other?
JOE: I thought I would like the tutorials and liked being talked to by a person.
CALLIOPE: I sense a "but."
JOE: Very perceptive of you. Although I like the multisensory presenations, I tend to find written materials more useful.
CALLIOPE: How so?
JOE: I feel more in control of the material. I have an index, table of contents and can focus in on the material as specifically as I need to rather than following along with parts of a presentation I might not need or don't understand.
CALLIOPE: I see. So you think there is a future for books?
JOE: As far as I am concerned, I certainly hope so. I would miss them if they disappeared. Perhaps I would adjust but it would be difficult.
CALLIOPE: Some people think books are here to stay and others think they are on the way out.
JOE: I've heard both opinions too. I guess I will adjust to whatever happens. I just happen to like working from books.
CALLIOPE: Didn't your Latin friends have a maxim, "De gustibus non est disputandum?"
JOE: Yes. There's no arguing about tastes. Talk with you tomorrow.

Conversations with Calliope- Coping with Technology

(Joey and the Robot)

JOE: Good morning Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. I was wondering where you found the title “Notes to Myself” for yesterday's blog.
JOE: I was hoping you might know. I went to post it on my site and there was the title.
CALLIOPE: Can't help you.
JOE:Hmmm. Mysteries still abound.
CALLIOPE: Apparently. Did yesterday's outing restore your creativity?
JOE: I made stopped at Barnes and Noble on the way home from helping my friend with his pool to do some research on web development programs.
CALLIOPE: I thought you used Front Page.
JOE: It will no longer be honored by my web host after the end of June.
CALLIOPE: What are your options?
JOE: Get a new program, become proficient in HTML or pay someone to do it.
CALLIOPE: How are you inclined?
JOE: Microsoft has a program, Expression, which looks like it has possibilities.
CALLIOPE: Gilda Radner was right, There's always something.
JOE: No doubt. Anyway, I did some painting when I finally arrived home. I'm trying an abstract expression style.
CALLIOPE: How did it turn out?
JOE: That's not the point. I had fund doing it. Talk with you tomorrow.

Conversations with Calliope- A New Day

(Morning- Leroy, NY)

JOE: Good morning Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How are you today?
JOE: Good. Yesterday I finished working on my narrative time line.
CALLIOPE: Any further discoveries about yourself?
JOE: I think I am getting a better understanding of how my life has progressed.
CALLIOPE: What has been your pattern?
JOE: I have experienced periods of feeling competent and alive amid some long stretches of loneliness and feeling rather worthless.
CALLIOPE: Sorry to hear it. How are you feeling about yourself now?
JOE: Happy to say, I have overcome the doldrums and feel happy with who I am and what I have become.
CALLIOPE: Glad to hear it. How does what you have learned in this process affect your outlook on the future?
JOE: I'm still working on that and will keep you posted?
CALLIOPE: How about the effect on your writing?
JOE: That remains to be determined as well. I hope to spend some time on both these issues over the weekend.
CALLIOPE: I'll be interested in seeing what you come up with.
JOE: You'll be the first to know. Talk with you on Monday.

Conversations with Calliope

JOE: Good morning Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How was your weekend?
JOE: Very nice. There is something relaxing about water no matter where it it. I awoke early on Saturday morning sharing the Allegany River with only a circling eagle. It was one of the high points of the weekend.
CALLIOPE: Did you enjoy being with people for a change?
JOE: I did. Many of them I knew only marginally. But our hosts were good friends of many years.
CALLIOPE: Now that you are back to work, what plans do you have for today?
JOE: I plan to review the information I gathered from the Writers Digest book, The Craft and business of Writing. It is one of the most informative and practical books I have encountered in some time. It gave me useful information about voice as well as editing, both of which are current concerns of mine.
CALLIOPE: Any other plans for today?
JOE: I would like to continue working on a revision of Marital Property. I don't think I told you I decided to write it as a series of first person accounts, somewhat in the style of Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible.
CALLIOPE: Have you started on it?
JOE: I did last week and completed a few chapters. I was pleased with the result.
CALLIOPE: How do you think this change will affect the book?
JOE: It feels more immediate to me and hopefully will bring more life to the characters than evident in my limited omniscient approach.
CALLIOPE: I will be interested to see what develops.
JOE: So will I. Perhaps I will post the first chapter on one of my websites for anyone interested. Time to get going. Talk with you tomorrow.
(Sunrise on the Fourth of July- Allegany River)

Conversations with Calliope

JOE: Good morning Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How are you today?
JOE: Humbled.
CALLIOPE: What brings you to this state of awareness?
JOE: My presence last night in the PEN World Voices presentation.
CALLIOPE: Tell me about it.
JOE: Salman Rushdie and Umberto Eco both read from their works and Joanna Scott hosted a conversation with the two writers. Both inspired me to be the best writer I can be and gave me some ideas about how to do it.
CALLIOPE: Excellent. What did you learn?
JOE: More than I would from one author alone. Joanna Scott did an excellent job facilitating a conversation between the two authors.
CALLIOPE: Specifics please.
JOE: Okay, one insight from each author. Eco sees fiction as inviting the reader to think about how we think. We step back from our practical world and look from a distance at ourselves and how we operate. This is similar to what Eckhart Tolle suggests as awareness in A New Earth.
CALLIOPE: And Rushdie?
JOE: One of my favorite insights he shared was that we often get stuck trying to answer the question why when reading. Concentrating in writing on answering the question how leads to the understanding of why.
CALLIOPE: That sounds rather profound. I'll have to think about it for a while. What's up for today?
JOE: I will continue working on editing Marital Property. I am reading the manuscript first for clarity and consistency. After that I will look at it's musical properties, an insight I gained last night. But more about that tomorrow.
(Polar Bears- Peter Langen)

Conversations with Calliope

JOE: Good morning Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How are you today?
JOE: Good. I have been very busy exploring Internet marketing for my books.
CALLIOPE: What did you learn yesterday?
JOE: More valuable information about layout and use of websites and email.
CALLIOPE: Where did you learn that?
JOE: Surfing as well as a live phone seminar by Armand Morin yesterday afternoon.
CALLIOPE: Did you have a chance to do any writing yesterday?
JOE: No. The whole day was taken up with learning about marketing.
CALLIOPE: Aren't you afraid you will lose your momentum for writing Marital Property?
JOE: No. When I started it, I made an agreement with myself that I would take breaks as necessary to work on getting The Pastor's Inferno moving. In between efforts, I have had time to write. However sometimes publishing efforts take priority. I expect The Pastor's Inferno to be available very soon and want to be ready to promote it.
CALLIOPE: Why the urgency?
JOE: With my other two books, I did not do anything of note by way of promotion and my corresponding sales (or lact thereof) were predictable. I think I am about ready to make at least a little money. I have come to realize that people can't buy my books if they don't know about them.
CALLIOPE: What have you been doing specifically?
JOE: Revising my websites and ways to get people to them have been my chief priorities. To get back to your earlier question, I am not worried about losing steam for Marital Property since I have an exciting chapter ready to write. Now I'm off to visit Aunt Lucille. I hope to write the chapter in question when I get back.

Staying in the Middle of the Road

I remember a quote I learned in high school which I think was by Alexander Pope, "Be not the first by which the new is tried, nor yet the last to lay the old aside." I saw it as an admonition to play it safe and not stick your neck out. I think I remember it because it was never my way. I was more "Ready, fire, aim." I have sometimes wondered what the would would have been like if no one had ever taken any chances. I thought of the wisdom in the fifteenth century about the world being flat, with concern about falling off the edge if one sailed too far. It seems dumb now, but only from the perspective of what we have learned in the mean time. I think life and personal growth are a matter of what risks we are willing to take. How many famous inventors went ahead with experiments which everyone else was convinced would not work?

Learning Along the Path

I read a motivational sign at the Y yesterday, "If a path has no obstacles, it will not take you anywhere." It made me stop and think. Does everything worthwhile have to be difficult? I think that when there are challenges along the way and I learn to deal with them, I am better prepared for other obstacles I meet later and appreciate reaching my goals more than I would if it happened without difficulty. But there are some times when things happen easily and there are no associated obstacles. These are times of joy and comfort. They might not happen all the time but are welcome when they do come along. I think there are people who seem to like doing things the hard way and always look for ways to make things more complicated. They seem to relish creating challenges for themselves. Sometimes it is nice to have something happen without difficulty and just enjoy the experience.

Gustatory Delights

After my post yesterday on the joys of smell, I thought it only fair that I gave some recognition to the sense of taste. This is another of those shortchanged if not entirely overlooked source of sensory information. I find it interesting that the mere memory of a taste can start the digestive juices flowing as easily as the taste itself. We have four taste receptors in our tongues-sweet, bitter, sour, salty. Whoa! I just looked to be sure I had this right and discovered that there is a new taste classification whose acquaintance I have never made, the umami variety which senses certain salts like MSG. I wonder how long that has been lurking in the collective consciousness of the internet. Learning through taste is usually reserved for foods. We do taste other things sometimes by accident. I suppose we could learn something about each other by tasting although that doesn't usually happen until we are on a quite intimate basis. Please enjoy you umami taste receptors at your discretion.

Walking in Another's Shoes

The title of this post is a phrase used to suggest a way to get to know how someone else thinks in order to understand his or her life. I have thought of it in another way. Sometimes you find yourself stuck every time you find yourself in a particular situation. You might have trouble figuring out what to do no matter how hard you think about it. You could ask for help, but you might not know who to ask or might be to embarrassed. Here's another idea. Think of someone you know who has faced the same situation and handled it well. Pretend you are that person the next time the situation faces you and act as that person would. If you are not sure what he or she did, try to observe him or her the next time it happens. You don't always have to understand what you are doing before you do it. By acting as the other person would, it might all might start making sense to you in the process.

Guerrilla Living

I just received a copy of Guerrilla Marketing for Writers. The book is about how writers can market their work without huge resources by concentrating on the little things that can make them successful. It occured to me that the same is true of life. I remember thinking "If I only had..." It is easy to identify things which can be used for excuses not to accomplish our goals. We can sit and wait until our wish comes true and not feel we are wasting our time. After all, how could we accomplish anything until... I am learning that If I want to get anywhere, I have to get moving with the resources I have, network with people who can help me and learn what works for others in my situation. See you at the finish line!