Alexander - Shoes & ships & sealing wax : a writers blog

The time has come," theWalrus said,

"To talk of manythings

Of shoes and ships andsealing-wax

of cabbages andkings.

The Walrus and theCarpenter

(Alice Through The LookingGlass) Lewis Carroll

Visiting your blog is oneof my web highlights. You and Neil Gaiman Lisa Jefferson

I love how you describe YOUR river --and your relationship to it. It's poetic, lyrical...a love song-- newport2newport

You are very good atenjoying things -- PaulaBerman

Cats, magic, music, living in theNorthwest, living other places, living with the children of yourheart -- I think I'd like to read just about anything you want toblog about -- Minerva Zimmerman

This is so beautiful itmoved me to tears. I am honored to be given these glimpses intoyour life and who you are -- JenniferAdam

K O S

Kos Books

A & DDeckert

343 Sudden ValleyDrive

Bellingham WA98229

Shoes &Ships

& SealingWax

A Writers Blog

By AlmaAlexander

Copyright 2010 AlmaAlexander

ISBN:978-0-692-01193-5

Library of Congress ControlNumber: 2010939265

Smashwords Edition

The essays in this bookhave previously appeared online as part of the Authors blog(s).They have been selected, and edited into the form in which theyappear in this volume. All rights reserved for the version of theessays as they appear in this volume. No part of this book may bereproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrievalsystem or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical,including photocopying, taping, and recording without prior writtenpermission from the publisher

Printedition available online and in bookstores, including VillageBooks http://villagebooks.com/

TABLE OFCONTENTS

"My God, it's full of stars..."

The essays in this book consist of ahandful of original and one-off publication pieces, and a best-ofselection culled from the blogs that Alma Alexander owns orcontributes to:

http://anghara.livejournal.com

http://www.redroom.com/author/alma-alexander

http://www.sfnovelists.com

http://www.storytellersunplugged.com/almaalexander

http://www.swans.com/library/archives.html

On the social front, this was the yearthat Kuwaiti women were granted the right to vote (yes, in 2005);the Kyoto Protocol went into effect, but with major players likethe USA sitting it out; a 7.6 magnitude earthquake in Kashmirkilled nearly 80,000 people; the IRA officially laid down its armsand declared the war it had pursued since 1969 to be officiallyover. In America, Rosa Parks died, Americans prepared for four moreyears of George Bush, and the world watched appalled as theaftermath of Hurricane Katrina unfolded in Louisiana.

In science, 2005 was the year thatsurgeons in France carried out the first-ever entire human facetransplant; the Huygens probe landed on Titan, Saturns largestmoon, and at the same time the discovery of a tenth planet, way outbeyond Pluto (which would soon enter a critically controversialidentity crisis of its own), was finally announced.

In the cinemas, we watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ,the first Narnia movie, and the tragic conclusion to the new StarWars trilogy. Twilight, thevampire phenomenon, was published in this year, with an initialprint run of 75,000 copies and a debut at #5 on the NYT Bestsellerlists, but we were yet to find out what Team Edward meant; JamesDoohan, Star Treks immortal Scotty, died.

On the Internet, 2005 saw the birthdayof the now ubiquitous YouTube.

On the personal front, I had a fewbooks of my own making their way out there in the world. And on May10, 2005, at what appears to be 1:14 PM local time, I typed thesewords into my brand-new Live Journal account:

Looks like I've joinedthe blogger age. There will be more here in

days to come, but I justwanted to start things off and dip a toe in the LiveJournalwaters...

Seven comments welcomed me into theblogger world. One of them, the last to be posted to thatparticular entry, was by a cybercitizen going by remus_shepherd,and it read, Welcome to the digitalcommons, Alma. Don't let it become a timewaster. :)

I had entered the BloggingAge.

Id kept diaries and journals before,in longhand, sometimes in those dinky little diaries which youcould lock so that their deeply private contents would never beseen by prying eyes. But that never lasted, somehow. Possibly thatwas simply because I kept on approaching them as diaries, includingbeginning at least one notebook with Dear Diary and there wassomething in me that rebelled at the twee aspects of that. Besides,I was early on a writers writer, and the idea of writing somethingthat was intrinsically written for my own eyes only and that nobodyelse was even supposed to see was quickly considered and foundwanting. Perhaps there is a place for such diaries. But that placewas not with me.

I initially approached blogging with alittle trepidation, and a strange fear that I would be a failure ifI did not Blog. Every. Day. I had a responsibility, right? But Iquickly came to realize that the only things I needed to set downin THIS journal a journal which had a potential audience werethings that were of a bigger appeal than what I had had forbreakfast that day. So I began to think about a wide range ofthings, and my Live Journal blog remained happy, healthy, andgrowing.

It quickly became only a base ofoperations from which I would branch out into other arenas. Ijoined two group blogss torytellers-Unplugged and SFNovelists . I contributed a writing-relatedentry on the 30 th of everymonth to SU; on the 5th of each month I wrote a somewhat lighterpost to SFN often on the craft of writing, sometimes just onideas, or on a more general riff on the writing life.

I began to hone the craft of theessay, the micro-essay, the perfect blog post which said things ina pithy, insightful and focused manner. And in the meantime, backon LJ, I would still allow myself to drift lazily down the streamand out would come blog posts that were funny, or poignant, orreminiscent about life and times and the people I have loved. Iadded other blogs for instance, RedRoom and I also contributed essays elsewhere, on theWeb and off, and wrote a number of original ones some of which arepublished for the first time in the collection which you areholding in your hands.

This collection includes over fiveyears of thoughts and feelings, of laughter and tears, of teachingand of learning, of comedy and tragedy life, the universe andeverything; ships and shoes and sealing wax, and cabbages andkings. I wrote about my travels, I wrote about my memories of mygrandparents and the places where I wandered during my tumbleweeddays on this earth, I wrote about the craft of writing and aboutthe writing life that I was living, I wrote about rivers, andstars, and clouds, and cats, and words, and love, and growing upand growing older.

Some people might paraphrase a certainwell known dictum and choose to say, Iblog, therefore I am and certainly it can be likethat. But for me its always been more along the lines of, I am, therefore I blog.

Thats because blogging is, after all,simply writing, and I have always written, will always write, andif I dont pour out thousands of words or fiction every day I canusually be counted on to have blogged. Something.Somewhere.

At times its pure frivolity or evenjust a link to a video, or an article that someone else had writtenand I had discovered and wanted to share with the world. But moreoften than not Ill sit down in front of my computer and somethingwill come a memory triggered by something unexpected, an essayabout faith, an opinion about a current war, a dream of starlight.Its ideas being shaped into words, its the purest form of what awriter does, and this collection of essays is a selection from allof my blogs, from the moment I first began, to the present. This isa book for dipping in, for snatching a moment to smile or to frown,for grabbing at a piece of inspiration if your own flow is stalled.Use it as you will its a window, and for every reader who looksout through this window the view will be different.