Spectacular Settings! (#WEP)

Hosted by wonder-women Denise Covey and Yolanda Renee, the WEP (Write - Edit - Publish) Spectacular Settings hop is all about the power of place -- and the part it plays (can/should play) in writing.

Got a spectacular setting from a favorite book? Join the hop (it runs from the 19th to the 26th) and share! (More info here.)

The setting I'm sharing here is not from fiction but from poetry. And not just any poet, either. If you've followed this blog for a while, you might know I'm a huge fan of T.S. Eliot. A couple of months ago a long-time friend -- one of those people from the past that sometimes pop up into the present, usually bearing extraordinary gifts -- got together a small group of poetry enthusiasts for a reading circle on Skype (we're scattered all over, geographically), and the first piece we read was Eliot's Four Quartets. 

It's a piece I know well, maybe more than well -- it was none other than this old friend who introduced me to Eliot some 20 years ago, and the Eliot collection I own is one he gave to me back then... twenty years almost to the day we began reading. Several bits from Four Quartets have, in these two decades, gained special significance. For instance,

#Cherished: If This Teddy Could Talk...

On a bookshelf behind my desk, out of sight unless you know where to look, sits a toy koala bear. He's old, dusty, and faded. The hair on his ears is matted. His eyes are scratched, and the tan felt of one eyelid has peeled off. The plastic pear he wears as a nose needs to be glued back on. Again. And yet his grin remains. A tad sardonic maybe--not surprising, given the degree of abandonment he's put up with. But there's real bonhomie, too. Good-natured patience. I'm here, that grin seems to say. Whenever you remember.

Is there anything as sad as a forgotten once-beloved toy? These cast-offs speak of lost childhoods, changing priorities, the ephemeral nature of our attachments, even the ones that feel, at the time, forged in steel. Most of all, I suppose, these little personalities -- for who can deny them that bit of humanity? -- remind us of the selves we've left behind.

#atozchallenge: Pinterest (or The Discovery of A Digital Bulletin Board To Share With Readers)

Today you're in for a treat--via fellow 2014 author, the extraordinary Gay Degani.

Awarded the 11th Annual Glass Woman Prize for her flash piece, “Something about L.A,” Gay Degani has had other stories nominated for Pushcart consideration. Pomegranate Stories, eight short pieces about mothers and daughters, is available at Amazon, her novel What Came Before is currently serialized online, and her linked stories are being published monthly in Pure Slush's print anthology, 2014-A Year in Stories.

I never understood Pinterest, at least not as a place for me to actually join. I never surf the net looking for shoes or stainless steel appliances. I'm not planning a wedding anytime in the near future.

Then someone—I can’t remember who—blurted out the words “digital bulletin board” and something clicked.

Above my writing desk I have a bulletin board with pictures of 1920’s houses and the gates to Indian Wells private communities as well as movie stars from the past and the present, both white and African-Americans. This is my inspiration board for my suspense novel, What Came Before, released earlier this month.

[more about Gay's novel for W day.]

Two thoughts collided: What if I could share my REAL-LIFE bulletin board with my future readers—digitally! So I signed up, put together not only a board for the novel, but for another project I’ve been involved in, Pure Slush's 2014: A Year in Stories.

Sybil's bungalow

Because the task of 2014 is for me (and the other thirty writers) to create twelve linked stories, one for each month of the year, in present tense, as if happens on that exact day in 2014, it meant juggling many characters, settings, and story-lines, and researching details so that my Old Road stories would have authenticity.

The Riolito canyon floor

Sybil, my landlady, showed up on the page in a silk robe and I kind of knew what it would be like, but I typed “silk robes” into Google and came up with dozens to look at. I did this for many of the details I needed. The board is open to readers to see how their imagination lines up with mine.

Visit The Old Road board at Pinterest to see what’s inspired me in writing these stories, and check out the What Came Before’s board too.

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Want to know more about Gay's 2014 story cycle? The next installment is happening tomorrow, April 19th. I, personally, can't wait. 

Thank you, Gay, for sharing your Pinterest experience. I was also a late-comer to it, and I'm not sure I've got the hang of it yet, but one thing's for sure--it's addictive.

Gay isn't the only 2014 author with a Pinterest board to illustrate and inspire the story cycle; Mandy Nicol has one, and Sally-Anne Macomber. And me. If you have time to check them out, we'd love to hear how you feel about seeing the images that inspired the 2014 stories. Do they enhance the experience--or do they clash with your own visualizations?

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Thanks for the visit, and happy (Easter) A-to-Z-ing!