Posted on by Solveig Hansen · 3 Comments

Charles Bukowski on writing

Today is Charles Bukowski’s birthday. He was born on August 16, 1920.

I’ll write to my last god damned breath, whether anybody thinks it’s good or not. The end as the beginning. I was meant to be like this. It’s as simple and profound as that.

—Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski: On Writing is one of the books on my list of “writers on writing,” alongside books by Stephen King, Thomas Wolfe and A. Scott Berg. They are not writing manuals but inspirational books that give an insight into the writer’s life and the craft of writing.

Read more: Writers on writing

Posted on by Solveig Hansen

A day in a writer’s life

This popped up in my Twitter feed today. Just another day in a writer’s life, I thought.

Posted on by Solveig Hansen

Christmas Calendar 2020: Musing on Writing

One way to repurpose blog content that would otherwise just sit there is to create a Christmas calendar. So that’s what I did. One snippet from here, a quote from there… This is my calendar, recycled from last year and the year before.

  • Welcome to my Advent Calendar! If not otherwise stated, all images are from Pixabay.com. Enjoy!
  • Dec 1
  • Dec 2
  • Dec 3
  • Dec 4
  • Dec 5
  • Dec 6
  • Dec 7
  • Dec 8
  • Dec 9
  • Dec 10
  • Dec 11
  • Dec 12
  • Dec 13
  • Dec 14
  • Dec 15
  • Dec 16
  • Dec 17
  • Dec 18
  • Dec 19
  • Dec 20
  • Dec 21
  • Dec 22
  • Dec 23
  • Dec 24

Posted on by Solveig Hansen

Me, my camera & a blue bike

 

April is National/Global Poetry Writing Month. Write a poem every day. Today’s prompt is to write a self-portrait poem. Here’s mine. I’m trying to become a better mobile photographer.

 
ME AND MY CAMERA

I always have my camera ready
to capture the day:

a stray cat here
a sunset there
a building construction there
a bench in front of a graffiti wall here

a face
and another one

Sometimes I get it right

Today, I captured a blue bike
I tilted the camera ever so cooly

 
(Zol H, 2020)

 

Posted on by Solveig Hansen

One ring to rule them all & lawn mowing

 

“So they stumbled on through the weary end of the night, and until the coming of another day of fear they walked in silence with bowed heads, seeing nothing, and hearing nothing but the wind hissing in their ears. Before the next day dawned their journey to Mordor was over.”
— J.R.R. Tolkien, “Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers”

 
First he brought Frodo close to the gates of Mordor and then he mowed the lawn. These are excerpts from 1944 letters from Tolkien to his son Christopher, published in Humphrey Carpenter’s J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography.

As someone on Twitter noted, this is a “reminder that great art is made on a normal Tuesday afternoon.”

 

 
Header image by Erik Stein at Pixabay

Posted on by Solveig Hansen

Christopher Tolkien (1924–2020)

 

“And the ship went out into the High Sea and passed on into the West, until at last on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.”
— J.R.R. Tolkien, from the ending of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy

 
Christopher Tolkien passed away on January 15, 2020. RIP, guardian of Middle-earth.

Posted on by Solveig Hansen

Happy 2020!

 

Happy New Year! May 2020 be
a prosperous and creative year for you.

“Discover yourself anew,” an Internet friend wrote in his New Year message to his followers. “Share yourself.” “Will do,” I answered. And I hope I will. Because words matter. Art matters. Dan Rather said it best:

 
(Header image by Gerd Altmann @ Pixabay)

Posted on by Solveig Hansen

Autumn moods

Trying to improve my photographic eye to produce my own images for articles and blog posts and writing, I decided to take an autumnal photoshoot around the neighborhood. Just because I took the time to look around, I saw a stairway to heaven, reflection of tall trees in the water stretching down to the sky far below, and a graffiti guy sitting by himself in a corner.

 
AUTUMN BLUES
Today,
autumn again
tried to seduce me
with its colors.
I didn’t fall for it.

Zol H, 2019

 

Stairway to heaven
Reflection of trees stretching down to the sky below
Graffiti guy in a corner