Grace Notes

I am now part of Alltop – Top Writing News .  I mention this for two reasons:  1- because they asked me to; and 2-  because Networking is what we do on the Internet, is it not?

Since writers are in the communication ‘business’, sharing ideas, tips, just having a conversation, a disagreement, an explanation, an elucidation, etc., etc., this being part of a circle that gets larger and larger helps shrink the world a bit.  The setting for telling stories changes from sitting around the campfire to the kitchen table and so on down through our history, but the need to tell stories is a very human.  We can cross cultures and generations at such speed, you would hope we could all understand one another better.  Hope, too, is a very human quality.

I read through a few of the other writing sites on Alltop and came across this thought on Writing Forward comparing the ancient pursuit of alchemy to the creative process:

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9:26 am    feet on the desk, coffee cup handy, keyboard on my lap—- morning light casting a pleasant glow—- good way to start the day.

Been thinking ’bout developing voice, or finding voice might be more accurate.  A writer’s voice should be authentic, shouldn’t be a trumpet for some cause.  Are some people born with the courage to stand up and speak their mind, or is that trait nurtured by the right environment?  Stand up, speak, write, proclaim, question:  all that kind of activity stirs the pot, the pot of contentment and stability, the pot of appeasement.  This musing led me to remember a story we read in grade school, maybe the 4th or 5th grade, called A Man Without a Country.  I remember the illustration for that story in our reader: a young hearty man looking longingly at a shore,  a shore where he was never to set foot.  From what I remember this man had uttered words of disloyalty to the new brand new United States of America— I do not recall what he was supposed to have said, but the words, the words, were considered treasonous.  His punishment was to board a ship and sail the waters of the world, never allowed to set foot on any soil.  Any soil.  He was permanently adrift, rootless, homeless, friendless.

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