Happy Half Year!

STT-21

First Sip:

So long as you write what you wish to write
that is all that matters.
And whether it matters for ages or only for hours
nobody can say.

– from A Room of One’s Own
by Virginia Woolf

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Slice of Cake:

This week marks half a year since I started this blog.
January 6, 2019 to July 6, 2019
That’s 21 posts in 26 weeks!

This calls for a celebration!

What we don’t recognize, we won’t celebrate.
What we don’t celebrate, we lose.
– Melissa, blogger

I started this blog because I wanted my own website as a writer,
as a reader,
as a thinker of long thoughts that—eventually—
gotta go somewhere.

I’ve compared this blog to…
a garage sale for intellectual odds and ends;
a treasure box of favorite passages from favorite books;
an especially nerdy cocktail party;
an encyclopedia of hodge-podgery;
an online room of one’s own.

Like a Good Cup Of Tea:
Calming, Refreshing, Stimulating, Reviving
A contemplative pause in your busy day.
– KJH
(my goal for this blog)

Happy Half Birthday
sky-t-tray!

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Linger Awhile:

When I felt bad, writing kept me from feeling worse;
it put my inner emotions into exterior form,
and gave me an outlet for words that never came in conversation.

― Langston Hughes
from the first page of his autobiography
I Wonder as I Wander (1956)

I’ve been thinking this week about writing what I wish to write.

I started writing a diary when I was 9,
I started writing poetry when I was 12.
I didn’t start writing plays until I was in my 40s.
Before that I’d been trying other kinds of fiction…

Me: It’s not so bad… Is it?
Greek Chorus: Too short.
Me: But short stories are supposed to be short.
Greek Chorus: Your descriptions aren’t short, they’re nonexistent.
Me: I wrote ‘Mary is tall.’ That’s a description.
Greek Chorus: Hardly. What is she wearing. What is her age.
Me: Oh, who cares about that.
Greek Chorus: Everyone.
Me: I always skim over all that to get to the good stuff: the dialog.
Greek Chorus: We are willing to admit that you’re good at dialog…
Me: If only there were such a thing as a short story that’s all dialog!
Greek Chorus: …
Me: Wait…

And that‘s how I became a playwright.

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“Half Cup More”

A classic is something that everybody wants to have read
and nobody wants to read.

― from The Disappearance of Literature (1900)
a speech by Mark Twain

So… why a literary blog?

I’ve always loved reading.
But I wasn’t an English major or anything.
I don’t have an M.F.A.
The education I got was concentrated in science and math.
I wasn’t even assigned any novels to read in school.

But I’ve always loved reading.
So when, a few years out of college, I heard about a book club, I enthusiastically joined.
First book was Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez.

I read it through like I read all novels: quickly turning pages, eager to see how the story turned out.
Got to the meeting.
People said they liked the book. I said, I liked the book, too!
Then people started discussing it.
I thought, what book are they talking about??

Then I thought…
…
…
there must be more to this reading thing than getting quickly through to see how it ends.

I prescribed myself a regiment of reading all the books of one author and reading critiques of that author and then see what I learn.

I chose Jane Austen.

I learned a lot.

And I fell in love with reading all over again.

Literature. Maybe you learned this stuff in school.
Me, I had to pick it up in the streets.
― KJH

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Take-Away Box

The Hatter shook his head mournfully…
— It was at the great concert given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing:
Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you’re at!
— You know the song, perhaps?

— I’ve heard something like it, said Alice.

— It goes on, you know, the Hatter continued, in this way:
Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea-tray in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle—

Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep:
Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle—
and went on so long that they had to pinch it to make it stop.

– Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
by Lewis Carroll
from ‘A Mad Tea-Party’
chapter 7

And that‘s how sky-t-tray got its name!

As always, thank you for reading.
Kelly J Hardesty

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Thank you for reading!
— Kelly J Hardesty

Thoughts? Questions?
Scroll down to the end—and you can leave me a note!
Always so lovely to hear from you. .

You Can Read More…

STT-21

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© Kelly J Hardesty 2023