Echoes in a Hollow Space

Random quote of the day:

“If the world were perfect, it wouldn't be.”

—Yogi Berra, When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It! (with Dave Kaplan)



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Bert and Ernie, Celine Dion, or the Band of the Coldstream Guards. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“It's not about perfection. It's about purpose. We have to care about our bodies and what we put in them. Women have to take the time to focus on our mental health—take time for self, for the spiritual, without feeling guilty or selfish. The world will see you the way you see you, and treat you the way you treat yourself.”

—Beyoncé Knowles, Elle, May 2016



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“We must surrender the idea that this perfection that we see in the mind or before our eyes is obtainable or attainable. It is really far from us. We are no more capable of having it than the infant that tries to eat it. But our happiness lies in our moments of awareness of it.”

—Agnes Martin, lecture, Institute of Contemporary Art, February 14, 1973



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

 

Random quote of the day:

“Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.”

—Antoine de Saint Exupéry, L’Avion, tr. Lewis Galantière

 

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

 

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

“By your stumbling, the world is perfected.”

—Sri Aurobindo

 

 

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

 

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

 

“My life is music. And in some vague, mysterious, and subconscious way, I have always been driven by a taut inner spring which has propelled me to almost compulsively reach for perfection in music, often—in fact, mostly—at the expense of everything else in my life.”

—Stan Getz, quoted in Stan Getz: A Life in Jazz by Donald L. Maggin

 

 

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

 

“The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing.”

—Eugène Delacroix

 

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:


"It occurred to her for the first time the power of knowing oneself perfectly turned out—it could beget a feeling of inward tranquility that even religion was powerless to bestow."

—Linda Berdoll, Darcy and Elizabeth: Nights and Days at Pemberley






( Illustrated version. )




Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Yes, it does. Especially in the first draft, but sometimes even in the final draft. I have to accept that and move on. There is no perfect thing on earth. Rather than beat myself up for not attaining perfection, I remind myself (on my good days) that we are all striving for enlightenment, and must not cease striving for it, but nirvana does not exist on earth.

And I also realize that if I don't have a crisis at the front end of writing a novel, I will have one in the middle, or at the end. (Please, God, not all three.) It seems to be part of the process.

Night Warrior/Born to Darkness seems the worst of the four I've written, but I wonder if that's colored by not remembering the sturm und drang of the previous experiences? I think the life stress of the year in which I've written it contributed to that feeling, but there were life stressors going on for all of them. It's probably a function of selective memory that this seems worst. I remind myself it took me twelve years of false starts on this novel before I could get it to go. At least the middle went fairly smooth.

Shivery Bones was also a bear to start, had the predictable saggy middle, but my perception is that once I'd passed that, it went well in the last half. Blood Geek went great at the beginning and end, but that middle was soooooo nasty. Heart of Power, my first completed novel, was a real puzzle piece, trying to figure out how to do this for the first time. When I'd finished, I lived for a time under the illusion that I'd finally figured out how to write novels. It wasn't until I tried the next one that I realized each one basically starts at zero. Each time is a different process and has to be figured out in different ways because, hopefully, I'm writing a different book each time with unique problems of its own.

Not what I wanted to realize at the beginning of a project, but there you are. And having realized that, I didn't have quite as big a crisis of faith when it came to novel number three. There were plenty of other crises of faith for me to get over, but . . . it's not a perfect world.


Quote of the day:

"Everybody owned their memories, no matter who was in them. She had a brief vision of the scattering of selves she'd left behind all over the country, snakeskin [selves] in the heads of this person of that, [selves] she had stepped out of but which still held her shape and character."

—Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Past the Size of Dreaming


Ironically, in light of my post of yesterday, this came out of the random quote file today.

In other news: Dr. Dramaqueen last night told me I was lucky. My eye healed completely without any scarring. He was sure I'd have a scar. I'm glad he was wrong. I now have my contacts back and can see again. Huzzah.