Category Archives: Life reflections

Book Zodiac

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For those who want to find their soulmate on the same page, here is my Book Zodiac list, based on a lifetime of observing readers:

1) MYSTERICUS – You like your mysteries intense. No Pattersons, but you’ll take a Kellerman now and again. You have been known at parties to break into Dashiell Hammett-speak after a couple of drinks. Compatible with Humorouses, under no circumstances should you date a Cozymyst.

2) COZYMYST – When you say you love mysteries, you mean Tamar Myers and Diane Mott Davidson. You think Janet Evanovich hung the moon, and your house is full of candles, soap, beadwork and braided rag rugs you’ve made “just like the one ” in the latest mystery you read. You have an entire attic full of bookshelves holding color-coded-by-spine cozy mysteries, because you never know when you’ll need the patterns in them again. Your family lives in terror of your handmade Christmas presents. You will get along well with anyone from Humorous and, oddly enough, the Faulkneresque signs.

3) HUMOROUS – The most versatile of the signs, you love to read funny stuff. Crossing genres and streets, you go out of your way to help others, to be the laugh of the party. You can recite “Who’s on First” in three languages, and you light candles on Dave Barry’s birthday. You and your sign siblings might be the only people left alive in America who still read Bennett Cerf. Although everyone gets along well with you, you really need a Cormacite or a Polisigher to round out your life. Make friends with Scifighters, but DON’T marry one!

4) FAULKNERESQUE – Do not date a Fauxfaulk; it will end in disaster. You read the classics list for your older sister’s Advanced Placement Literature class when you were ten. By the time you entered college, you had to major in business studies because the English classes were too dull; you could have taught them. You carry War and Peace around on subways in a real hardback, and your family doesn’t shop for your birthday anymore; they just give you the next leather-bound Harvard Classics volume in the series. When you get duplicates, you donate them at Goodwill. Marry a Scifighter; it might not seem like a natural fit, but you two need each other.

5) CORMACITE – If it’s dark, you like it. The Road, On the Beach, 1984…. you devoured them. Malcolm Muggeridge’s Winter in Moscow is your favorite book, and while you will read non-fiction, you really, really want to live in a world created by Allen Drury or Dean Ing. A  downer at parties, you are the only sign that doesn’t get along with Humoruses; you mistrust cheerful people because they don’t understand we’re all doomed. Although you hung around with the Scifighters in high school, it’s time to grow up now and marry a nice Rosepetalist. She’ll make you happy–and you’ll like it!

6) POLISIGHER – You should not marry or be friends with Cormacites; you can’t take them seriously. Polisighers devour conspiracy theory books, read the latest Ann Coulter or Michael Moore (depending on their leanings) religiously, and believe that the world is going to hell in a non-fiction handbasket. Boring on the surface, Polisighers are surprisingly good conversationalists when offered food; you can forge strong and lasting alliances with Cozymysts for just this reason. Histbuffs should be avoided; you know too much about each other.

7) FAUXFAULK – You are the person who rushes out to buy Great Gatsby and Atlas Shrugged–the day after you see the movie. You LOVE to talk about the intellectual underpinnings and societal messages that the hoi polloi are too dumb to get, which you can explain, in great detail, at dinner parties. Which is why you get invited to so few of them. Do yourself a favor; marry a nice Rosepetalist and raise kids who are Faulkneresques. It’s inevitable.

8) SCIFIGHTER – In high school you faked a broken leg to read undisturbed during gym. You know the name, episode number, plot, and errors of every episode of Star Trek AND what the TV novelizations did wrong. You know the difference between Clifford Simak and Larry Niven, and you dismiss McCaffrey, Whyte, and Foster with a disdainful sniff. You are underemployed and underappreciated. For a life of poverty but being understood, marry a Goreifyer. If you want to eat and own a house someday, marry a Faulkneresque.

9) ROSEPETALIST You are deeper than people believe, but content to let it go. After all, life is for loving, not fighting. So you know more about King Henry VIII’s court than your average history professor; does it matter? Go by, mad world, so long as the chocolate supply holds out and the newest Harlequin is delivered to your door each week. You like bad boys, so are drawn to Goreifyers, but for true happiness, get yourself a nice Fauxfaulk and a house in the ‘burbs.

10) GOREIFYER – If it’s gross, you love it. Don’t try to hang with a Cormacite; you don’t understand each other as much as you think you do. Robert McCammon is your patron saint, although Steven King can sometimes deliver the goods. Marry your high school sweetheart Scifighter, or break from the pack and hook up with a Histbuffer. You’ll have more to talk about than you might suppose.

11) HISTBUFFER – You hate the term amateur historian, because you’ve dedicated your life to a well-rounded reading list of the latest equivalent to Simon Schama and Thomas Cahill. You know more about Thomas Jefferson than any person living–and are happy to prove it. That’s why you don’t get asked to parties much, but it gives you more reading time. Date across the signs; it will help you socialize.

12) YAER – You read young adult fiction almost exclusively. Suzanne Collins is your idol, and you write whenever you have spare time. Someday you are going to shove that Potter kid right off the shelf. Although you have many friends who are Cormacites, marry a Faulkneresque if you can; they’re good providers and you might not have to get a day job.

What Yarn has Taught Me about Writing

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Wendy yarnMy name is Wendy, and I’m a yarn hoarder [pauses for hellos from the assembly].

Not that this is a problem, mind. I enjoy my addiction. In fact, yarn has taught me many good things over the years, particularly about writing. The processes are similar: sit down, follow a thread, create a whole piece.

So here are a few pieces of wisdom that have found me during yarn meditations:

1) Every tangle – be it plot, wool, or life – has two entry points: the beginning, and the end. Find  either one, and it will eventually lead you to the other. And help you untie your knots. And leave you with a nice little ball to play with.

2) While tension is required to hold a project together, knowing when to finesse with gentle fingers (or words) versus when to give a good hard yank, is important. Too much tension creates an impossible situation–remember that television series known as 24?–while too little leaves a shapeless messy mass. Enough tension to keep the needle (or pen) moving with surety, not so much that the project fights its own creation: that’s the way to do it.

yarn kitten3) Cats do not help with the actual physical goal, but they sure are fun to have around during the work. Kids, too. Cuteness never hurts, and it lowers the blood pressure. Even if maybe you ought not let the cat or child actually write on any of the manuscript…. or play with the yarn.

yarn tangle 14) When dealing with a particularly large or vicious muddle, the first thing to do is separate out that which does not belong. Not everything in life is tied to everything else, even in Buddhism. Get rid of the bits that don’t contribute, and what you have left is a thread you can follow. Of course some projects are made of multiple colors and threads, but the time to weave them together is after they’ve been disentangled from each other and understood as themselves.

5) Don’t underestimate how much you’ve got to work with–or how fast words can pile up. Sure, kids, meals, day jobs, and the other stuff get in the way, but when you pick up your project–be it knitting needles, or nouns and verbs–just give it a few rows and don’t worry about speed. When you look back from the far end, you’ll be surprised at what those little bits and pieces of time and effort added up to, over the long haul.

birds in the nest6) Have fun. Joyless crocheting is like joyless writing: dull, misshapen and lumpy. You’re doing something cool. Disappear into it. Dive deep. Tangle and disentangle, sing the colors, swing those needles, and drink wine–or diet coke. It’s your project. Do what you want!