Category Archives: Elseblog

It’s that time…

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Mermaid Lounge It’s that time again. That time of year when I join the insanity known as The Dog Days of Podcasting, and commit to doing a podcast a day for thirty consecutive days.

This year’s project began on Tuesday (which, coincidentally, was my last day of The 100 Day Project), and continues through September 4th, and you can find my stuff at The Bathtub Mermaid, but I’m also in iTunes. (There should be an itunes link in the collection of social media icons in my sidebar.)

In previous years I’ve had oodles of essays and flash fiction to share, but I’ve been busy on other projects this year, so I’m mixing it up with interviews, creative non-fiction pieces written earlier this summer, and pieces inspired by the 100 notecards currently adorning the front and sides of my refrigerator.

The things is, my creativity always wanes in July, but my birthday is in August, and as soon as the calendar page flipped, I was inspired again.

So watch out – and listen to my Tales from the Tub – you might be pleasantly surprised.

Elseblog: The Summer Smile Ten Dollars Can Buy

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bucket of flowers My friend Debra is hosting a project called Summer Love Notes this year. It’s free, and if you sign up you get an essay or piece of art sent to your email box every morning.

Debra loves to share her ideas with her friends, and I’m really flattered that she invited me to be part of the amazing group of writers and artists she’s assembled. I’ve been reading and enjoying all sorts of great stuff.

Today’s SLN post is courtesy of yours truly, and you can read it HERE.

Here’s an excerpt:

More than once, I have spent my last ten dollars fulfilling that need – buying a bouquet of irises, indulging in five bunches of daffodils, filling the house with carnations – because those small joys that bring summer into the house are the things that keep me going, even when I feel tired, frumpy, and boring.

And here’s the photo-credit for the image we used:

Photo Credit (for the bucket of flowers): Copyright: fotogestoeber / 123RF Stock Photo

Please do consider signing up for future posts – it’s really nice to have something lovely in one’s inbox every morning.

14 Days In

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14 Days In

So I’ve completed the first 14 days of the #100DayProject on Instagram. I’m doing #100DaysofNotecards, which involves me writing a scene, sentence, or fragment of fiction on a 3×5 post-it index card every day, and posting it to my instagram account. (For just the images from this project, click HERE; for my entire feed follow @Melysse on Instagram.)

I’m also sticking the cards on my refrigerator door every day (that’s why I chose post-it index cards), so I’m forced to confront myself with the evidence of my own creativity every time I walk into the kitchen, and I’ll confess, there are some days when looking at the increasing number of colorful bits of paper makes me really happy, but there other days when I look at it and go, “Why did I write that? That really sucks. This project is stupid.” So far, however, the positive reactions outnumber the negative ones, so maybe this project will be good for me in many ways.

I’m finding that limiting myself to just ONE notecard a day is making me much more prolific when it comes to other writing, and I’m also finding that I look forward to the few minutes I spend on each composition. Sometimes, I even take the time to make the pictures more than just a flat index card, although that really isn’t the point of the exercise.

I’m also having a great time viewing the stuff all the other participants are posting.

I had something much more profound to say, but it’s 6:43 in the morning, and my youngest dog woke me at 4:48, and then the big dogs, who usually sleep til ten, got me up again an hour later, so now it’s not even seven, and they’ve eaten, and I’ve had some yogurt and a vitamin drink (no, no coffee yet), but I have nowhere to be this morning, so I’m going to click “publish” on this entry and toddle off back to bed for a bit.

Be well, and happy Sunday.

100 Days…

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Show Up | 100 Day Project

It was Deb’s idea, actually. She’s been listening to me whine that I feel disconnected from my writing, and especially from my blog.

She’s also been fielding my email messages about how I keep having ideas for things to write about but can’t find the right image (because blogging is ALL about the art now, and never mind how good the writing might be, right?) or had to finish wrangling dogs/cooking dinner/doing laundry/whatever and lost the thread of what I wanted to write.

Now, she’s a pretty patient friend, but she’s also a fixer. I mean, you wave a problem in her face and she wants to solve it. I love that about her, but the thing is, you have to want the solution.

And sometimes it’s easier just to whine.

But then the sent me a link to Elle Luna’s 100 Day Project, and at first I thought, “well, the thing I would like to try is kind of similar to what she’s already sort of doing,” but I was intrigued.

I was really, really intrigued.

So I emailed Deb and said, “I’m kind of thinking of doing something with post-it notes.” And she thought it was different enough, and ME enough that I should go for it.

Since that conversation, I’ve decided that either 3×5 or 5×7 notecards might be better, though I’m still planning to affix them to my fridge. Then, after the 100 days are over, I’ll use them for blog- and fiction-fodder.

But at least I’ll be doing something I can complete, and that will keep me interested in amused.

For more about the project, in general, follow the link above (you can click on the image in this post).

For my stuff, specifically, you can follow me on Instagram: @Melysse.

What would YOU like to do for 100 days?

Sunday Brunch: School Figures

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natural_skates

It’s my turn for Sunday Brunch again over at All Things Girl.

Here’s an excerpt:

I’ve been thinking, lately, about how I used to be a daily blogger, and now my blog is nearly an afterthought. I still write every day, but it’s typically writing for a specific purpose, not just chatty musing. I don’t keep a journal, partly because I don’t understand the point in writing things no one will ever read, and partly because without an audience to keep me accountable, I find other things that pull my focus.

But daily blogging, in many ways, was my version of skating school figures. They’re not particularly pretty to the uninformed, but they teach discipline, help you hone technique, give you stamina…and sometimes you do something when practicing a basic figure that informs or inspires a larger piece – leads you to your long program.

You can read the rest of this post HERE.

Image Copyright: vkovalcik / 123RF Stock Photo

Sunday Brunch: The Art of Procrastination

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ritual bath

My Sunday Brunch post is up at All Things Girl. Here’s an excerpt:

Here is an example of how not-writing works in my brain:

‘I should be working on Sunday Brunch. But I don’t know what to write about. There are all those notes on the post-Odile piece about getting news from fishing reports. Fishing reports. Oh, there’s a new episode of the Seascapes podcast tonight. Tonight. Dinner. Fish. Salmon. There’s salmon in the freezer. Is it wild-caught? Of course it is, why would I buy anything else? What should I make with it? I think we have beets and yams. There was that recipe I saw in that magazine. Beets and yams in hash. Hash. Hash-browns. We have leftover hash-brown casserole. Maybe I should eat something. If I eat I’ll be able to focus better. Focus. Film. Movie. Stephen King’s IT is in my Amazon queue. Tim Curry was so creepy in that movie. Tim Curry. Clue. Wadsworth. One plus two plus two plus one. No, it’s one plus one plus two plus one. One. Singular Sensation. Musical. Rocky Horror. Time Warp. Time. Ack! I should be working on Sunday Brunch.’

So, yeah, that’s my brain on…not-words, I guess.

Read the rest of the piece HERE

Image Copyright:poznyakov / 123RF Stock Photo

Welcome Autumn

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autumn coffee

Autumn has always been my favorite season, and even though it doesn’t technically begin until tomorrow night, I wrote about it for Sunday Brunch over at All Things Girl this week. You can read it THERE or you can listen to it on my podcast HERE.

I’ve been a bit off-kilter this last week, staying up too late writing, waiting for updates from my parents who live in La Paz, BCS, Mexico and weathered Hurricane Odile last weekend (they still don’t have power, but Los Cabos is nearly flattened, so it’s all relative).

I pre-ordered the new iPhone 6 plus and it arrived on Friday, and I’m already in love, but I spent a good chunk of yesterday downgrading my iPad Air away from iOS 8 because iOS 8 breaks Audiobus, which means that podcasting apps don’t work.

I have lines to record for two different projects, but my voice is icky. Tomorrow is my studio day. Someone hold me to it.

It’s hard to believe September has just zoomed by and we’re almost into October.

I love fall.

Also? I’m ready for the mosquitoes to die.

DDoP: Fairy Dust

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Originally Written: June, 2008
Inspiration Word: fairy dust (I think)
Inspired By: Becca Rowan

She stopped in the village square, intrigued by the array of market stalls, all offering things never seen for sale in her own home town.

“Inspiration, just five dollars!” one of the peddlers called, holding up a glass bottle adorned with vines and flowers.

She was tempted, but was fairly certain that it was just an empty jar, however beautiful.

Booths offering warm nuts brushed shoulders with other booths offering half measures of imagination and ambition.

At the booth where fairy dust was sold, she could not resist, and traded $20 for a heavy cut-velvet bag.

Deep inside, possibilities glittered.

Listen: Bathtub Mermaid: Fairy Dust

DDoP: Pictophone

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Originally written: June, 2008
Inspiration word: Pictophone
Inspired by: Clay Robeson

Random sentences inspiring even more random drawings, which lead to other sentences, or just the connection between word and image in the slideshow of our own brains? Which is more real? More creative?

The answer? Both. And neither. To see a picture and be inspired is magic whether you share the results or not. To find a poem in a photograph, a novel in a portrait, a scandalous love story in the naturally occurring vignette of two people in the park…this is what the creative spark provides.

Whether with verbal pointillism or a game of pictophone, we connect the dots.

Listen: Bathtub Mermaid: Pictophone

DDoP: This Isn’t Treasure Island

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Tonight’s Dog Days of Podcasting post is a 100-word distilled moment written in August, 2009:

Robert Louis Stevenson’s poems were constant friends in childhood, poems my grandmother and I would memorize and recite. I knew all about having a little shadow, and going up in a swing.

One poem that I never appreciated until this weekend, which has been spent largely in bed, was “The Land of Counterpane,” in which a sick child turned the hills and valleys of his comfortable bed into all manner of landscapes for his imagination.

I don’t imagine my quilt squares as separate countries, but I do still let imagination run wild.
Even days spent propped on pillows have magic.

You can listen to it HERE.