Inspiration in the final stretch

I have mentioned before (perhaps prematurely???) that I am in the homestretch in my piece. Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it before because I am still pushing toward the end. I have told some (or many) of you that I write s-l-o-w-l-y and I do. Not because I can't type or I am having a hard time with my computer but simply because... well, I'll spare you the excuses (you've heard them before). Anywho... One of the things I use for inspiration in certain segments are pieces of art or music. Not so much because I am in love with the piece, but merely because the fit with where I am going. The artist that is inspiring the particular section I am working on right now is Edvard Munsch. I'd never heard of him before but I went in search of a picture that fit the mood I was trying to create-- so I googled (isn't it funny that's now a verb? I never would have used that word in that way 10 years ago. I would have said, "researched", "search for" or "looked up.") "long ghost-like features" which led me to narrow my search to "ghostface". I learned that was a term used in Scream but they chose that term because it was a nickname given to this painting

It was painted by a man named Edvard Munsch. He was a Norwegian painter who was at the forefront of the expressionist movement and particularly influence the German Expressionists. His art is deeply evocative- his philosophy being that he did not just want to paint pictures but wanted to paint emotion. The Scream (seen above) was done in four versions all portraying the agonized expression.  Munsch described his inspiration for the painting this way,

 One evening I was walking along a path, the city was on one side and the fjord below. I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjord—the sun was setting, and the clouds turning blood red. I sensed a scream passing through nature; it seemed to me that I heard the scream. I painted this picture, painted the clouds as actual blood. The color shrieked. This became The Scream .

Like I said, it's not my favorite piece of art, not even one I love but it does evoke emotion and it is leading down a winding road- not unlike the one in the picture. Do you have art or music that inspires you?

A quiet week

I've not done much blogging this week and if I hadn't signed up for the 'Favorite Picture Book Blogfest', I might not have done any at all. Part of the reason is that this is my busy week- getting my son back and forth to school means leaving the house at 7 and not getting home until 6:30 or later leaves me with little energy to write anything, even a blog entry. The other reason is that I also spent some time updating my resume as a new position opened up at work and I had to have it all polished up and sent in by Friday. It was done Thursday afternoon but it always takes time to get that sort of stuff done. But even today I find little interest in writing with all of the tragic news coming from Japan, the ongoing rallies in Wisconsin and the rest of the country which seem to have little or no effect in slowing down the corporate takeover of the government run agencies (and they should be government run!) and on a more personal level, the loss of work for teachers and support staff in my son's school district as well as a four day school week which is simply stunning, to say the least. We've also experienced job loss in our home as result of budget cuts on the part of Denver Public Schools and as Denver looks at balancing it's budget for next year, my position may not be cut but we will be under increasing pressure as the library will not be able to replace workers who transfer positions, retire or quit and of course we will still have at least five unpaid days off next year, and of course there will probably be increase in cost of our benefits (again) *sigh* And with the last remnants of the winter blues still clinging to my sleeves I am just too worn out to write anything beyond an explanation of why I am not writing anything. So, perhaps what I need, perhaps what we all need is poetry and the peace that comes with a new day:

Sea of the Morning

Here let me stand, that, for a while, I too

may gaze on nature. Marvellous blue tints

of a morning sea and an unclouded sky

contrasting with an amber-coloured shore, —

all luminously beautiful and grand...

Here let me stand and think I see these things  

(I really did see them for a moment,

soon after I had stopped) —

and not, here also,

my fantasies, my reminiscences,

the incomparable idols of delight.

~~C.P. Cavafy, translator

Inspiration for Writing

Streams of Life
The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day

runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth

in numberless blades of grass

and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth

and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.

And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

by Rabindranath Tagore