New fairytales found! Do you hide away your treasure?

This morning I came across a news article that caught my attention.

We all are familiar with the collection of fairytales known worldwide that were written by the Grimm brothers Jacob and Wilhelm. Well, it seems that at about the same time that they were collecting those tales, there was a historian by the name of Franz Xaver von Schönwerth who was also gathering myths, legends and fairytales. For decades he talked to country folk, servants, and labourers, recording on paper their local habits, traditions, customs, and history that otherwise were passed to next generations only by word of mouth. The Grimm brothers admired his accuracy, and Jacob told the king of Bavaria that Von Schönwerth was the only one who could ever replace them in their work.

Von Schönwerth’s research was compiled into a book called Aus der Oberpfalz – Sitten und Sagen, which translated: is From the Upper Palatinate – customs and legends. It was released in 1857, 1858 and 1859 in three volumes, but, sadly, all his meticulous work never gained popularity and was forgotten. Last year the present cultural curator, Erika Eichenseer, published a book of selected fairytales by Von Schönwerth. If you are interested, you can find it here: http://amzn.to/xEvOma

Eichenseer, while looking through Von Schönwerth’s collection in Regensburg, also discovered 500 new fairytales he had recorded and which had been locked away in an archive for over 150 years! Many are not mentioned in other European fairytale collections. So, in 2008, the curator helped to found the Franz Xaver von Schönwerth Society devoted to studying his work and publicizing it. Work has already begun on an English translation. Eichenseer said, “Their main purpose was to help young adults on their path to adulthood, showing them that dangers and challenges can be overcome through virtue, prudence and courage.”

Another society member – Daniel Drascek, a professor of language, literature, and cultural sciences – was quoted as saying, “Schönwerth’s legacy counts as the most significant collection in the German-speaking world in the 19th century.”

Why am I telling you all this? I found this news story to be fascinating, amazing, and sad. It made me wonder …

What if your work is so well done, even to be envied by other writers, but for one reason or another it just doesn’t make it? Would you keep trying? Would you file it away?

Do you keep those things – those treasures you so passionately created – that are rejected time and again, or do you finally give up in despair and toss them?

Do you have a secret file, or a ‘just in case’ file, for your rejects or those stories you just aren’t ready to send out there?

And finally, do you feel inspired or encouraged by this story? Would you want your work to find its place even long after you are gone?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Read the full story here: Five hundred new fairytales discovered in Germany (guardian.co.uk)

What is your favourite quote about reading or books?

Here are a few interesting quotes about reading and books. Some are funny, some are serious, but all are thought-provoking. Enjoy!

“A fondness for reading changes the inevitable dull hours of our life into exquisite hours of delight.” – Charles de Montesquieu

“The time to read is any time: no apparatus, no appointment of time and place, is necessary. It is the only art which can be practised at any hour of the day or night, whenever the time and inclination comes, that is your time for reading; in joy or sorrow, health or illness.” – Holbrook Jackson (1874-1948)

“To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all of the miseries of life.” – W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)

“So please, oh PLEASE, we beg, we pray, Go throw your TV set away, And in its place you can install, A lovely bookshelf on the wall.” – Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

“Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.” – Emilie Buchwald

“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” – Groucho Marx

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss, “I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!”

Do you have a favourite quote about reading or books?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

2012 Month of Poetry and “12×12 in 2012”

It seems I closed my eyes for just a moment, and when I opened them again .. there it was .. gone! 😉

P O O F !

The first half of the first month of this new year has been used up already! And what, I wonder, did I do with my portion of it? There is not much I feel I have accomplished thus far.

In my last post I mentioned signing up for two writing challenges – #MOP for the whole month of January, and 12×12 in 2012 which is for the whole year.

M.O.P.

Since 2008, Month of Poetry has been coordinated by Australian poet and children’s author, Kat Apel. You can visit her here: http://katswhiskers.wordpress.com/ and check out #MOP here: http://monthofpoetry.wordpress.com/about/

Last year I participated in #MOP and fully enjoyed it, so this year I signed on again. Each day participants are to write a poem, anything at all (as long as it is child appropriate because there are even a few very young ones taking part, too), and post it to the board if wanting to share. The posting is not a requirement but in doing so it is inspiring and fun and helps draw ‘poets’ together in the sharing. This is not a competition, nor is it set up with prizes or anything. It is to encourage those who love to write poetry, opening up the possibilities and getting the creative poetic juices flowing. Kat gives suggestions for improvement where necessary, as do other fellow writers, and it is a great way to learn as you go.

I have been finding it harder this year to write anything, including poetry, but I am still working at it. For today I wrote a poem about words. This little verse is the much simpler short verse I extricated from it before posting the more involved part of the poem to the board. I thought I’d share the orphaned part here as it just didn’t belong with the rest.

Words to share my heart’s intent

words to change and reinvent

I need words to clearly say

what is on my mind today

If you are a writer then you know what a love-hate relationship we can have with words. Sometimes they are sweet in one’s mouth and mind, sometimes the most difficult of partners, sometimes they amaze, sometimes they dismay, sometimes they are right there .. readily accessible, sometimes they just will not surface when wanted. This is the way it has been for me the past several months. A mixture of challenges but more difficult than easy. Even so, I believe that it is important that I write, perhaps only for my own sanity, but perhaps for something yet unknown down the road.

12×12 in 2012

This challenge – found here: http://writeupmylife.com/2011/11/30/12-x-12-in-2012-picture-book-writing-challenge/ – is headed up by Julie Hedlund. Check out her blog here: http://writeupmylife.com/

In Julie’s words: “write one picture book per month for each of the twelve months of 2012. This means a first draft: beginning, middle, end. NOT a submission-ready piece.”

Her idea came out of PiBoIdMo – Picture Book Idea Month – when she realized she still needed to do something with all her ideas. You can check out my December 8, 2011 post: http://bit.ly/rDpv8F regarding my efforts in November 2011, and if you are interested you can read through my November 2010 posts for more. Although I had come up with 44 ideas in 2010, I had not pulled together one manuscript (naughty me!), and with almost that many more this year I knew I had to do something with those to honour the pledge I’d made in signing up. Then along came 12×12 in 2012! (Thanks, Julie!)

You may wonder how I’m doing with that so far. Ummm, wellll … to be honest I have barely looked at my pages and pages of ideas, other than skimming them and selecting the ones I think have possibility, but I am going to try to get one story seriously worked on this month. And since there are only two weeks left I have to get a move on!

What are you doing with your goals so far this year?

If you are a writer, is your Muse keeping you busy?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Do you use a pen name? Here are famous ones.

Pen names.

I got thinking about this strange name game that writers employ. Which famous writers are better known by their pen names? Why did they adopt a different name? I decided to do a search to see what fascinating things I could find out about famous writers – or rather, their famous pen names.

There are many more, but here is a list of what I found, with the pen name mentioned first:

Acton Bell was Anne Bronte
Anatole France was Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault
Andre Maurois was Emile Herzog
Angela Knight is Julie Woodcock
Anne Rice was born Howard Allen O’Brien
Ann Landers was Esther Pauline Friedman Lederer
Artemus Ward was Charles Farrar Browne
Boz was an early pen name for Charles Dickens
Clive Hamilton and N.W. Clerk were both pseudonyms C.S. Lewis used
Currer Bell was Charlotte Bronte
Dr. Seuss was Theodor Seuss Geisel
Elia was Charles Lamb
Ellery Queen was Frederic Dannav and Manfred B. Lee
Ellis Bell was Emily Bronte
Ernst Ahlgren was Victoria Benedictsson
Flann O’Brien and Myles na gCopaleen was Brian O’Nolan
GBS was George Bernard Shaw
George Eliot was Mary Ann Evans
George Sand was Amantine (also spelled Amandine) Lucile Aurore Dupin later to become Baroness Dudevant
George Orwell was actually Eric Blair
Isak Dinesen was Karen Blixen
Irwin Shaw was Irwin Gilbert Shamforoff
J. D. Robb is Nora Roberts who was born Eleanor Marie Robertson (Nora Roberts is really her first pen name)
John le Carre was David Cornwell
Joseph Conrad was born Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski
Lemony Snicket is Daniel Handler
Lewis Carroll was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
Mark Twain was Samuel Langhorne Clemens and also Sieur Louis de Conte
Mary Westmachott was Agatha Christie
Maxim Gorkey was ALex Makimov Peshlov
Moliere was Jean-Baptiste Poquelin
O. Henry was William Sydney Porter
Orion was J. K. Chesterton
Pearl Grey was Zane Grey
Poor Richard was Benjamin Franklin
Publius was a pen name for Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, when they were writing the Federalist Papers
Richard Bachman is Stephen King
Saki was H. H. Munro
Toni Morrison is Chloe Anthony Wofford
Voltanic was Francis Marie Arouet

You may not be familiar with all of the above-mentioned authors, but were any of them a surprise to you?

Why do authors use pseudonyms? Reasons I have found are varied.

Some writers do not want people knowing that they write in a certain genre, examples being erotica or genres commonly written by men. In the latter case they often use their initials, as in the case of J. K. Rowling.
Some prefer a name that better suits what they write. An example is Pearl Grey who used Zane Grey for his western writing.
Some, an example being Stephen King, are advised by their publishers to use an alternate name so that when they have a few titles released around the same time the public will still buy them.
Many women would use a man’s name because it used to be that women were not accepted as authors. Mary Ann Evans, aka George Eliot, is a good example of this.
Some writers simply want a name that stands out better than their own. There are other reasons, too, but these are the most popular ones.

If you were to use a pen name, have you thought about what it would be?

For what reason would you use a name that is not your own?

If you do use a pen name has it been a positive experience for you?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

What do you like to read, what would you write?

If you have been here before, you may notice that I changed my blog theme. I like that now the comments link, where you share your thoughts with me, is located at the top of the posts.

Thank you so much for taking time to come here and read what I have to say, and for leaving comments for me. I look forward to reading next week what you write to me this week. Time away from my computer for the next few days will be used for reading and hopefully a little writing.

In all the reading I am doing I’m discovering more about my varied taste in books – from children’s picture books, middle grade, young adult, to adult novels in different genres. If you want to check my 2011 “have read” book list page, I’m keeping track there, as I did in 2010.

I have been learning what I am not very interested in, what I like but with qualifiers, what I get totally lost in, and what I would love to write myself.

Lately I have been wondering about something, and I would love to hear from you on these four questions.

1. What do you like most to read? Themes, genres, authors?
2. Do you have favourite authors and would read anything written by them?
3. What have you found that you are not interested in spending your time reading?
4. If you were to write a book, what would it be about?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

What are your reading and book buying habits?

How’s your reading coming along?

I have been slowly making my way through the large and varied collection of books I have accumulated over the years. I got into the habit of obtaining a book and not taking the time to read it yet, so now I have a great amount of catching up to do. To make matters ‘worse’ – or rather, more complicated – I keep gaining books. I am either buying them or winning them, but either way my bookcase is getting stuffed with new books. And I love it! (You can see most of my books listed on Library Thing – link in right sidebar, if you want to take a peek.)

Want to know what my newest classic addition is?

War and Peace.

Yes, you read that right. I bought a copy of the newly revised War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. You may ask, why did you do that, Lynn? Wellll .. I’m not really sure except that it is on the BBC’s 2009 list of 100 books that people should read – and I hadn’t read it yet. War and Peace is number 24 on that list, as you will see in my January 13’10 post: https://lynnadavidson.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/have-you-read-these-100-books/ Also, I had heard people talk about this book that is long to read, but not much about it otherwise. Curiosity got the best of me, I want to be able to say I read it, so now I have eliminated one excuse. 🙂

Have you read War and Peace?

If you check the above link you will find that number 18 is Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger. Such a little book which I bought last year and have yet to read. I’ve heard mixed reviews of that one so I’m interested in finding out if it makes any sense to me.

So much to devour, so little time free to do it! But I am trying to read, read, read, while not totally forgetting the writing. Not that I’ve been doing any writing, what with all the changes happening in our lives right now, but I haven’t forgotten about it. 😉

So, what are your reading habits? And what are your book buying habits?

Do you buy and read one book at a time? Or do you buy the book when it comes out and then file it away to read at a later date? Or do you have another method? I’m very interested in hearing from you on this.

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

This post has been scheduled, so I look forward to early next week, if not before, when I can enjoy your comments and reply to them.

Interview and book-giveaway coming soon!

It is a stormy night here, snow, freezing rain, wind. Nice night to be home snuggled in where it is warm and dry.

For your information: An interview with Laura Best is in the works. Soon I will post it here for your enjoyment. Also, I will be offering a free copy of her book to someone who posts a comment on my blog in response to that interview, duplicates will not be included. I will write down all names and put all the little slips of paper into a basket, then I will have my husband draw one out. The winner will receive a copy of Bitter, Sweet – by Laura Best and donated by Nimbus Publishing. Yay!

Before the interview is posted I will fine tune the details. So stay tuned!

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂