Sea shells and favorite books

Sea Shells are like art. I love sea shells. They are so beautiful and fragile and functional all rolled into one. Check out this guy: Mr. Spiny Oyster... makes you think twice before snuggling up to him, eh? I don't know if you can tell from this picture but those spines are, like, three inches long. And some are broken! I have to admit there are some days (like today, er..Friday mornings when I don't want to go to work but want to stay home and write....grrrr!) that I know exactly how Mr. Spiny feels. I read somewhere that these particular oysters only exist off the Baja coast - but I'm not sure if that's true and accurate - so don't quote me! But kind of cool to think they have developed their own little secret society hidden in the briny depths, as it were.


Which leads me to my next shell - The Lion's Paw. (Camera panning slowly to the right please....) This shell became one of my favorites in part because of a book I read as a child aptly entitled 'The Lion's Paw' by Robb White. To this day I still love this book, though it is out of print and very difficult to find. I secured this copy, at great personal risk on ebay, (cough cough, make that financial risk - the tattered old 35 cent paperback doesn't sell for 35 cents anymore...go figure...). Can you see the knobby knuckles and the flanges that look like the paw of a lion? Cool, huh?

Which then leads me to the notion of inspiration in writing. Great books like The Lion's Paw are a huge inspiration for me. Books that I love, still, many (many) years later and will never forget. That's my goal with my writing - to make the characters so real and the story so magical that someone remembers it, fondly, many years later. What do you find as inspiration in your writing or if not a writer, in your world?

Since we were talking about Crop Circles...

I, for one, love mysteries. Love them. Especially the kind that are real, touchable and defy logical explanation. Take crop circles, for instance....(Get used to this - you will see this topic again - I love the mystery of crop circles... :)

Have you really ever looked at crop circles? They are absolutely fascinating! Some of these formations are bigger than football fields and appear overnight. Turn off the lights at 10 pm, everything's normal, wake up with the roosters, go out to find a big, beautiful, amazing design blazed into your crop. Can you imagine?

Who does these things??

The stalks of wheat or rye (or whatever crop they have appeared in) are never broken, but simply bent over with all the stalks lying the same direction to create the design. It is truly amazing. When you look at these from the air you can see how intricate the designs are. Always perfectly to scale. There's no way you can ever convince me that somebody is sneaking out into a field in the middle of the night and playing a big trick. How could you possible create these perfect circles or arcs or angles on a scale of this size from the ground (which, in essence, becomes an ant's eye's view) in a few short hours IN THE DARK???


For those you who don't believe in magic - take a look at some of these crop circles! Most of these are found in the old fields of England.

Who do you think makes crop circles?

I'm Launched.....eek!

Well, after months of thinking about it, changing my mind, wondering what the heck I would blog about (and even more confusing....who would even read it?) I've decided to launch my own blog. Which is potentially a fabulous opportunity to talk to myself (in print) whenever I want. But maybe someone, somewhere, will read it and want to talk too, and then things might really get interesting! So, if you're out there and feeling chatty - dive right in!


We went to see Prince Caspian, the movie, of the Narnia series this weekend. Though I loved the book The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe I have to say the talking animals thing in the movies always throws me. A bit much on the battle scenes too, but our friends loved the whole thing. What did you think?