Up in the writer's garret, eating low fat Oreos

Only one more day to work on the novel for the May word count!

I'm up here in my artist's garret with Chino-cat the landscape painter (he loves the outdoors), Mystery-cat the musician (mraw mraw mraw), and Sassy-dog the struggling actor (she's got the diva personality.)

Mystery and Chino

Chino - being *helpful* as writer cats are wont to be

Sasserooo!

It's La Bohème, I tell you. I hope no one dies of tuberculosis.

When I was a teenager I'd visit my mother every summer for a month or two.

17 yrs old: I can remember when she was living with her uncle in North Vancouver; thumping away in a little office, at a typewriter all night until I saw her leave for work in the morning.

15 yrs old: Little historical house in Kingston, Ontario, which she shared with three other law students. She'd be in the living room watching TV and reading, and I'd be down the hall in the dining room slapping away at the electric typewriter. She'd always make sure to procure one for me--those big fat powerful ones.

13 yrs old: I can remember two different kitchen tables, when she housesat for two different people in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories (up by Alaska.) My soundtracks for my stories always consisted of my mother's music, and whatever was in the home she was in.

10 yrs old: When I was a child and she lived in Edmonton, Alberta I would sit on the floor of the living room making "newspapers" using various clippings and my own drawings. I had a beer ad called: Alcatraz Beer. The slogan was: "A beer for alkis, a beer called Traz."

When I got older and my trips were only a couple weeks cause I was working now, I didn't do much writing. So it's been a weird experience sitting up here typing away, while my mother is downstairs watching Dancing With the Stars and CSI. Sometimes I feel like I'm 15 again, in a good way. Recapturing that feeling of "pantsing"* my way through a comedy about a time traveling Shakespeare, or a comedic Middle Ages play, or some story about my friends.

My inner teenager has come out to play.

Today's Song - From one of the Yellowknife novel's soundtrack...

   
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* "Pantsters" make up a book as they go along, versus "plotters" who preplan.
     

Childhood Potential: still up for grabs!

I was reading today about someone who was remembering what she was like as a child--cheerful, bright, creative--and how she hopes to get back to being that child. She wants to be Like Herself again, as reflected in the above song.

A worthy goal! :-D  We all feel that way sometimes (albeit this is someone who's had a very hard life and I tip my ten gallon hat to her.)

So today I want to post another of my favorite Joseph Campbell passages, for her. Because Campbell promises us that our Inner Toddler Goofball never goes away! Yay!

...the infantile unconscious. ...We carry it within ourselves forever. All the ogres and secret helpers of our nursery are there, all the magic of childhood. And more important, all the life-potentialities that we never managed to bring to adult realization, those other portions of ourself, are there; for such golden seeds do not die.

If only a portion of that lost totality could be dredged up into the light of day, we should experience a marvelous expansion of our powers, a vivid renewal of life. We should tower in stature. Moreover if we could dredge us something forgotten not only by our entire civilization, we should become indeed the boonbringer, the culture hero of the day--the personage of not only local but world historical moment.

In a word: the first work of the hero is to retreat from the world ...

 Here's my inner child. She's got a book and a cat. Big surprise eh?