In My Side Bar - Madeira

Its time I wrote a post in here. And now I've got some time, but I don't know what to write about. So I've decided to look at my side bar and wait for the muse.

The first thing I see is me doing some musing in a garden in Funchal, Madeira. This garden is at the Quinta das Cruzes. Click the link to read an earlier blog post about it. I have also written a post about The English Church in Funchal. In my Wordless Wednesday posts I've included some photos I took on the island. This one is of one of the drainage channels covered in netting that flowers ramble over. Here is a pleasant nearby coastal walk. And this one is something that really surprised us as we wandered through the beautiful gardens of the Palace of Monte - a gallery of African art.

We loved our holiday in Madeira in 2007, which was before the dreadful floods that devastated Funchal and surrounding areas. I'd love top go back and see how they have coped with all that. Anyway my first excursion into my sidebar has sent me so far down memory lane that I've no time for more.

Perhaps I'll return to it again.

Using Other People's Imagination

pic cropped from one by Eileen Henderson at Wikimedia Commons

A couple of days ago, I was driving with hubby to Blandford. As we crawled through the 30 mph villages on the way, we saw a man coming towards us on one of those four wheel buggies that farmers use nowadays in their fields, a bit like the one in the picture. The chap was grinning so broadly, it was infectious and we both found ourselves smiling along with him.

"He looks happy," I said unnecessarily.

"Yes," replied hubby. "He's just completed a sale of a whole bunch of sheep and cows. And he's going home to tell his missus she can now have that expensive new four wheel drive she's been hankering for."

We both laughed and I was struck by the thought that it could make the basis of a good story. Then I found my self ruminating on other times when hubby, who never writes things down, would think aloud about his fantasies.

I don't really need my own imagination when I can borrow his.

More Lovely Awards

Many thanks to Linda at When I am Rich for the Noblesse Oblige Award. When I am Rich is a brilliant theme for a blog but Linda is also a fellow Writelinker with many writing successes (see her Writelink blog here) . I am so proud that she also chooses to follow my blog and believes I qualify for this award.

The recipient of this award is recognized for the following:

1) The Blogger manifests exemplary attitude, respecting the nuances that pervade among different cultures and beliefs.
2) The Blog contents inspire, strive to encourage and offer solutions.
3) There is a clear purpose at the Blog; one that fosters a better understanding on Social, Political, Economic, the Arts, Culture and Sciences and Beliefs.
4) The Blog is refreshing and creative.
5) The Blogger promotes friendship and positive thinking.

The Blogger who receives this award will need to perform the following steps:

1) Create a Post with a mention and link to the person who presented the Noblesse Oblige Award.
2) The Award Conditions must be displayed at the Post.
3) Write a short article about what the Blog has thus far achieved – preferably citing one or more older posts to support this.
4) The Blogger must present the Noblesse Oblige Award in concurrence with the Award conditions.
5) Blogger must display the Award at any location at the Blog.

What has Jean’s Musings achieved? I like to think that it promotes friendship and positive thinking. It has certainly made many online friends for me, all over the world. It receives comments from people living in different countries and cultures, and with different beliefs. The main purpose of my blog is to recognise the overlap between my personal life and my creative life, and how they influence each other. It would be good to think it could help other writers to find ideas in the same way.

Inevitably though, we are all also influenced by outside events, both those on a grand scale and those smaller happenings that can have an enormous impact on individual people. Although unfortunately I missed the most recent Bloggers Unite day, I do try to contribute to these. See my posts for World Aids Day, Uniting for Refugees and the blog action day on poverty.

Now I know it’s not easy to respond to awards, follow the rules and find bloggers you feel deserve the award, so if you get this from me, please don’t feel under any obligation. For me, it’s an opportunity to let people know how much I appreciate their online efforts with some link love. So I’d like to pass on this award on to:

Jenaisle at Campaign for NON Violence on TV. I know that Jena is reluctant to accept more awards, but I do hope she will at least display its logo. She is the most hard-working and generous person I know online and she really deserves it for any of her many blogs. In the unlikely event that you are not already familiar with Jena, do visit the campaign blog, and then scroll down the right hand column for links to her other blogs.

The Writing Nag - a great source of inspiration and motivation.

Robin at The Way I See It for his no nonsense opinion pieces, which often start inspiring debates.

Jennifer at Writing to Survive for the inspiration of all the courage and determination she displays in her writing.

That then is the first award. I really should now move on to the second, which is The Attitude of Gratitude award passed to me by Lily at Essays & Utter Nonsense. But I’ve run right out of time and I’m sure she’ll forgive me if I elaborate on this in a separate post.

Finding Ideas

In a writers’ forum, I and other authors were recommended to visit the TED Talks List for those times when we were stuck for inspiration. You can select from a list of videoed talks on some fascinating subjects.

I decided to watch the talk by Amy Tan, who wrote the Joy Luck Club and other books. She was talking about creativity and the influences on us that affect what we write about, a subject which always intrigues me. And her unique slant on this didn’t disappoint me.

This made me think about non-fiction articles about writing – I’ve been successful with a few of those just recently.

But there are lots of other ideas on TED. I just have to find some time to listen, and any one of them could get my creative juices flowing.

A Prompt

Occasionally I have to resort to using prompts to get me started on writing something. Recently I accepted the word synchronicity as a prompt for a poem. What came to my mind was this:

Using synchronicity is making connections

between things in your life,

and letting those connections

add up to an opportunity

that takes you from where you are

to somewhere better.

My wonderful Readers’ Digest Wordpower Dictionary tells me that synchronicity is the simultaneous occurring of events.

In his book, The Celestine Vision (the reading of which I was assured would completely change my life), James Redfield wrote about synchronicity. He refers to a series of amazing coincidences that lead to opportunities which we must grasp on our journey through life, if we are to follow the spiritual path set out for us. I’m not sure I’m ready for the spiritual side, but I sure agree about the coincidences.

One of my treasured memories is bumping into an acquaintance I liked and admired but had lost touch with. It happened that we both took a holiday on a Greek island starting on the same day. And we both chose to eat in the same restaurant on that day so that we met up there. We were both bowled over by this coincidence and spent a lot of time together during that holiday. That was about twenty years ago and we are still firm friends who trust each other and rely on each other for all kinds of support.

That’s what I call synchronicity.

Am I Inspired?

I got home today after a long weekend of looking after children for absent parents. It was exhausting but rewarding, I guess. I stayed in my daughter’s house to care for my four year old granddaughter, had to collect her from school together with a little friend whose mother collected her at 6 pm on Thursday and Friday. On Sunday I swapped granddaughter for an eight month old boy while she went off for a swim with baby’s sister and father.

This baby was supposed to be a doddle, and had been fed before I got him. But that was just what Dad said. Baby disagreed. I did make up some formula eventually., and after that he slept as long as he was on my shoulder, but cried as soon as I laid him down. In the end I laid myself down with him on top, and we both drifted off into dreams for a good half hour.

Coincidentally, last week I read an article on The Writer Within newsletter about getting inspiration for writing from kids. Although I had this in mind all the time, it seems I was too busy to generate any ideas over the weekend. I’m just hoping they’ll germinate in the next few days.

I did spend my time playing lots of games, trying to persuade girls to eat their greens and to stop arguing and play nicely, and some of my strategies paid off. There was also the nightmare of the nit treatment. (Oh God, there I go again. Every time I think of that, my head starts itching.) So I guess there is some food for thought there.