The Accidental Novelist has Relocated

Sometimes people end up here because the Open ID function on the blogspot comments page doesn't always work and the only way I can comment on a blogspot site is to use this ID.

If you'd like the location of Danika's latest blog, CLICK HERE.

If you'd like information on her Faerie Tales from the White Forest children's book series, CLICK HERE.

And if you'd like to see some photographs of sad monkeys, CLICK HERE.

WE'VE MOVED!!

Hi, yes, I've moved over to WordPress.

I'M HAVING A BLOG WARMING PARTY ON FEB 1, 2009 from 4 - 8 pm (Pacific Standard Time)

Feel free to poke around on this blog all you want. There's disapproving cats, sad monkeys, and a few useful writing exercises. I do receive and read all comments.

We've having a Moving Sale soon. Check back for details.

Monday Poetry Cha-ching (last one on this blog)

Getting ready for my permanent move to my new blog. I'll be having a moving sale and a blog-warming party. There will be poetry games and treats and music and frolicking, so stay tuned for that. Frolicking is so underrated.

The poem below combines lines from three separate 3:15 experiment poems written August 15, 2008 by Gwendolyn Alley, Tod McCoy and myself. The 3:15 Experiment itself is a work of collective consciousness. We used these poems as part of our process of creating a collaborative poem to submit to an on-line journal; this is a draft of the stanza I produced. We're still working on the final poem and will let you know when it appears.

Thunder and lightning
arriving back from the dead
thawing a bottle of wine
with a drum roll please
my dream angel solid and
drowned for safe
when the light flashes
fiercely beautiful down the hallway

Let’s not fool ourselves
inside a shoe that doesn’t fit
shed some clothes
roam the house
of my youth more human than
closing windows and
slowly warming coal

I ALSO have a Monday Poetry Post on my NEW BLOG this week.

the TRAIN leaves every Monday.

Monday Poetry Thang

daily grind

miracle birds fly on miracle wings under a miracle sky

someone loads a parking meter with time and the “oo”

in the school sign makes me think the world is looking

out for me. every brick in the library was fashioned in

its brickiness to perfection and laid brick upon

brick and somewhere along the way someone thought

up electricity, the discarding of light, the key to your

heart, like a blossom in the spring snow. clever despite

the cold. I crack open my own, a walnut with a teardrop

center, and fold my hands into the brunt of winter. all

day the miracles follow me around like housecats. all

day I thank them for their moody persistence.

Have a great week! Have two, they're fat-free!

(Join the Poetry Train)

Thursday (gettin my poem on)

The theme this week on Read Write Poem's "get your poem on" is "beginnings and endings." To me, they are always the same thing. This poem speaks to that idea.

(still working on accompanying video poem)

avoiding the woolly worms

I drive 10 miles an hour slower to avoid them crossing the road

it is the season for so many things

don't know what they will become if left to become

some moth or butterfly fluttering to light

but for now they simply creep across every path

subtle as skin, twice as vulnerable

and I know I must be insane, crying for black and orange

fuzz-piles on blacktop as commuters back up I

swerve into the opposing lane

my life an unconcern

as worms are enlightened

be free be free

in the next lifetime, perhaps they will live

in a great ocean

* * *

if you listen to sea turtles laying eggs

it sounds like a moan of human pleasure

exhale so familiar it makes one shiver

afterwards they leave their young

to predators and elements

return to ocean with straight necks

sun and salt stinging tears mistaken

for regret

At recess, village school children shield emerging

baby sea turtles from vultures

They would tear their heads off

if we let them…

they say in Spanish

So few, so few after egg gathering season

ever make it to the water.

* * *

Upstairs, I stand at the window

wondering if you are asleep in the hammock

one leg thrown over the side

It is as if I am looking down on the memory

of something

or a distant happy dream

It is green and dry through the trees

I'm at the window upstairs as the hammock swings

back and forth and back and forth

filling the space between us

You wave slowly and I wave back

far too calm and quiet

from Every Day Angels and Other Near Death Experiences

Monday Poetry Something or Other

Something from the vault.

phobia

after much food and drink
I take a walk in the night
while Baby does the dishes
I turn down a dark street
I am not
frightened by the dark street we are in
Platanes, Crete
and the most dangerous thing
I can think of
is the uncertain sidewalk

a motorcycle takes the corner
heads intentionally for me
at the last second veers
and speeds away
there isn’t any laughter

back at our hotel prepared
with my motorcycle story
I find my husband on the floor
keep your shoes on he says I dropped a wine bottle
there are shards in every corner
of the room this is his fear
right now he is frightened by bits of glass

when flying with my husband I figure
one of us should not be afraid as the plane dips
I take his damp hand and smile

I am frightened sometimes by herds of animals
because of the way they all move at once
one thought becomes all thought
all thought becomes sudden

I am not frightened by cherry blossoms
although they are just as sudden
and of one mind

but I’ve never
had to jump out of their way
and when they drop on stone floors
it is merely fragrant snow

Best / Most / Favourite of 2008

The Best Happy Surprises from the Youth of Today that make me hopeful for the future.

I write/direct (basically showrun) a TV show called VJIAM tv. Even though the job has been extremely overwhelming at times, one of the positive aspects of the show is that it's given me the warm fuzzies for the youth of today. Let's face it, they get a bad rap in the media, and we've left them with a mess. Oops, guys, sorry about that!

The show features the work of emerging video journalists sharing stories about their communities. They cover arts, sports, music, dance, environmentalism, and more. But the really cool thing is that their work is uplifting. They create stories about saving the planet, building community, teaching each other, and being strong in mind, body, and spirit. Some of it has been mighty inspirational.

Here are just a few of my favourites:

At 22 years old, Emily Jubenville was voted Greenest Canadian.

Teens in San Francisco organize a solar powered hip hop festival.

Reel Grrls helps young women get a head start in filmmaking.

Five teenagers are given free music lessons and then put in a band together.

Circus Smirkus... a circus made up entirely of teenage performers.

There are a few that haven't aired yet; I'll link them to the segments when they are online. In the meantime, I've linked them to some information about them, which you'd want to know anyway.

Girls Helping Girls was founded two years ago by 15-year-old Sejal Hathi. It's an international nonprofit organization that partners girls in the U.S. with girls in developing countries to jointly identify problems in their communities and develop social change through micro lending projects.

(Uhhh... what was I doing at 15... hmmm, yeah, working at Winchell's Donut Shop and writing bad poetry.)

Matt Harding travels the world, connecting people, through one simple dance.

And here's a story they haven't covered yet, but I'm hoping they do:

18 year old kid invents a silent, electrically powered motorcycle. I saw this kid on Dragon's Den, a show where entrepreneurs pitch ideas to a panel of investors. When one of the dragon's pointed out that it was the same concept as the segwey, and the segwey had failed, he replied, "yeah, that's because the segwey wasn't cool."

He received a $2.5 million development grant.