A View from Outside the Box

This image was taken from “A Charlie Brown Christmas” which aired in 1965.

I hope you all have a good Christmas, and for the Finns celebrating tomorrow, “hyvää joulua!”

I ‘come not lightly to the blank page’ this morning. Stephen King’s words serve to remind me that it’s not just an act of will on my part, putting words on this page, but it’s also a show of faith - faith from the reader that their time reading what I have to write is worthwhile. I look forward to sharing the results with you, when the time comes.

For Charlie Brown, the proverbially discontent and Snoopy, the freest of spirits - this is a rare moment of contentment.

Tonight before turning in, I was waylaid by nostalgia. I was hunting for a photo and came across my favourite beagle, Snoopy, eccentric hero of the Peanuts, and a blast from my past, the Easy Bake Oven. I had one of these until I worked out that the big oven produced better and more satisfying results. It looked roughly like the photo, was that same horrible institutional swimming pool colour but was full of wonderous possiblities. You could bake your own little cakes in it, all under the intense glare of a - well, an incandescent lightbulb actually. The man who developed this exciting toy for girls (gender stereotyping was fully engaged), Ronald Howes also had a part in Play Doh and the Spirograph. I wonder what happened to all the little girl’s who owned this oven, are they leading enchanted lives of domestic bliss?

(For those who ended up here because they linked with the tag, girl’s toys and were looking for something different, I’m laughing!)

BEYOND THE SECRET DOOR

If you could look into the life of a writer at work, beyond the door to their studio or office and into their heads, what do think you would see? I don’t really know but I wonder. If you could look into my mind today, you’d see some very happy, fast racing thoughts; thoughts of success and pride, imagination running away with itself, of opportunity and hope of making connections. Today after a poor week I sat down and wrote, and wrote and wrote. My fingers on the keyboard had wings, the words flowed out to the noisy clack of my old keyboard and I smiled within. Allow me to share some numbers I’m fond of just now, number 3, for three chapters completed, and 10,300 for words written. That sounds like a lot but it’s only just over 1/8 of the total. Numbers don’t really matter but they’re my breadcrumbs on the trail, leading me home. Where is home? Home is when I can stop, the story well told and earn a little rest.

“She taught me about pointillism, how many small points of pure colour can produce something radiant, brilliant and bigger…It’s those small points that really stand out for me, tiny luminous moments where truth is revealed. Khalil Gibran said, ‘In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”

An excerpt taken from “It’s the Small Things,” to be found on “A View From Outside the Box,” url: adialogue.