Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Day 359 of the 365 Days of Blogging

The author/publisher,
Dane F. Baylis

THIS CLOSE TO THE END AND I BET YOU THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO FORGET!

 

HAPPY DAMNED NEW YEAR WORLD!

 

MAYBE WE CAN MAKE THIS ONE JUST A LITTLE BETTER THAN THE LAST! GO ON, SURPRISE ME, I DARE YOU.

 

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Meanwhile...live, love, write! A page a day in 2014 and, before you know it, you've written a damned book.
 
Want to follow or subscribe to this blog? There are gadgets for that on the right side of the
page. You can leave comments in the form below. I can be reached directly at dbaylis805@gmail.com . You can also find links to some of the sites I visit from time to time on the right. I'm also looking for submissions to the Your Work/Your Love page. Authors retain all rights.
 
Tomorrow,
 
Dane F. Baylis
Author/Publisher.

Monday, December 30, 2013

Day 358 of the 365 Days of Blogging

The author/publisher,
Dane F. Baylis

ONE WEEK LEFT

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Hard to believe, but I've been hammering away at a blog for over a year now. Most of that time has been spent in this 365 Day Challenge. It was just after the New Year that I began inflicting myself on the world on a daily basis and I am a little proud to be able to say I haven't missed a daily opportunity to do that very thing!
 
One of the side benefits is that I have reconnected with a number of people in the literary, visual, and performing arts. I've re-ignited the passion that I had let die down for so long. I have been afforded opportunities, over and over, to get my name and presence into the public conscience, and am enjoying the whole damned thing immensely.
Having spent the last twenty years dragging my ass into a day job that, to be kind, isn't exactly "intellectually" stimulating, I am grateful for the chance to unpack the wild and perverse avenues my mind is capable of creating.
 
The people I have rekindled my friendship with are enormously stimulating. The interactions we have are no less than mind boggling at times and the constant give and take is a well spring of inspiration. All of this because I decided to remember that, first and foremost, I am an artist and, when I am immersed in that milieu, I am as happy as a fucking clam. For those of you who have followed my rantings over the preceding months, Mille Grazia. It was a wonder to watch the visits counter ticking away. At the end of this next week of posts I'll release the official tally for the number of times people have found their way to my page.
 
This weekend we will be practicing a bit of paganism. A new acquaintance is hosting a burning of the Yule. Let's all celebrate the rejuvenation and renewal of the sun in its passage through thew sky and the beating back of the night!
 
 

 
 
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Meanwhile...live, love, write and hold on to your passion as you would your own life!
 
Want to follow or subscribe to this blog? There are gadgets for that on the right side of the
page. You can leave comments in the form below. I can be reached directly at dbaylis805@gmail.com . You can also find links to some of the sites I visit from time to time on the right. I'm also looking for submissions to the Your Work/Your Love page. Authors retain all rights.
 
Tomorrow,
 
Dane F. Baylis
Author/Publisher.

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Day 357 of the 365 Days of Blogging

The author/publisher,
Dane F. Baylis

CLEARING AWAY THE DETRITUS AND CLEANING HOUSE.

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Another Christmas is packed back into its boxes. The house has been put back in order now that the guests have gone home. The New Year looms just around the corner. What are your plans?
 
What are mine? Oh, there are so many things either waiting for their date or for me to initiate their beginning. I have a  couple of readings coming up, one in Santa Barbara and the other in Ventura. (See below).
 
February 8, 2013, 4:00-6:00 PM at Grenada Books, Santa Barbara, CA. (Dane F. Baylis and Fernando Albert Salinas.) Open mic follows.
 
March 9, 2013, 2 pm, All Erotic Reading at Sylvia White Gallery, Ventura, CA.
 
I have feelers out to try and schedule more. I am offering my chapbook, SELF INFLICTED, for sale on-line now that I've figured out how to do the Paypal thing.
 
In several days I'll be starting the transition from this blog into a new site on Wordpress. That ought to prove a little challenging, but nothing that can't happen. The end of the 365 Days of Blogging Challenge is now only eight days away. It will be nice to get it over with. Being "on" everyday has been a bit more difficult and time consuming than I thought it might. That I'm the only member of the original group still doing this (as far as I know) is both satisfying and disheartening. It's more a reflection of my pit bull nature than my talent, I'm afraid. The new blog is something I see as a weekly publication with possibilities of guest bloggers in the form of writers, editors, publishers, and artists from several disciplines.
 
In the meantime, short stories and poetry get written and revised, submitted, and rejected on a fairly regular basis - and occasionally something does get accepted. The imprint I started in November has had a couple of inquiries from hopeful poets and we'll see how that fares. The Editor-in-Wife has shown a good deal of enthusiasm about her part in that enterprise and is urging a more proactive and aggressive marketing approach.
 
The Wordpress blog will include more of my photography and art. The art will be available for purchase, the photography may be offered in a stock licensing arrangement. There's also a nascent idea I have brewing involving poetry audio books. I'm not one hundred percent sure on those last two yet, but, as my retirement from the day job gets nearer, I am looking for something to fill in the open time and I can't think of anything I'd enjoy more than getting eyeballs deep in the art scene again. I'll keep you informed as things progress. Also look for the new website, I'll be providing a URL, opening date, and any other data that seems pertinent.
 

 
 
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Meanwhile...live, love, write as if you were already a Pulitzer winner!
 
Want to follow or subscribe to this blog? There are gadgets for that on the right side of the
page. You can leave comments in the form below. I can be reached directly at dbaylis805@gmail.com . You can also find links to some of the sites I visit from time to time on the right. I'm also looking for submissions to the Your Work/Your Love page. Authors retain all rights.
 
Tomorrow,
 
Dane F. Baylis
Author/Publisher
 
   

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Day 356 of the 365 Days of Blogging

The author/publisher,
Dane F. Baylis

THE MILLION WAYS TO GET THERE.

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Yesterday I went on a bit about the advantage of carrying a camera with you to capture those moments and places that pass through your world and might be useful or inspirational later. I was wondering what to follow it up with tonight when it occurred to me that sharing what I fill my surroundings with might give you a better impression of how my mind works. In the background right now is the Impulse recording of Charlie Mingus, MINGUS MINGUS MINGUS MINGUS MINGUS. Last night, while I was writing and posting, I was listening to Miles Davis, KIND OF BLUE. Both of these albums are powerful displays of jazz musicianship and make a great soundtrack for my thoughts. On the shelf above my desk is a large collection of blues, folk and rock.
 
As you might guess, I'm surrounded by books. The latest acquisitions are comprised of some that came as Christmas presents, others that were bought in second-hand shops, and some borrowed from the local library. I received my very own copy of the CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE, 16th EDITION, from my darling Editor-in-Wife for the holiday, and yes, I'm actually reading my way through it. Also in the office right now is WORDPRESS ALL-IN-ONE FOR DUMMIES, ASK THE DUST by John Fante, THE AGE OF REASON and NO EXIT AND THREE OTHER PLAYS by Jean Paul Sartre, several Buddhist texts and scholarly works (Mahayana and Theravada), and any number of writing 'how to' references. I have a Kindle which has everything on it from the ENGLISH STANDARD VERSION BIBLE to THOMAS PAINE, ULTIMATE COLLECTION and BEAT TO A PULP, an anthology of pulp fiction.
 
There are several sketch pads in different sizes and paper types and a cabinet full of pens, coals, pencils, chalks, pastels, cray pas - You name it. Of course there's my camera, which was out beach walking in Carpenteria today - a short twenty minutes and a great breakfast up the coast. Guitars and percussion instruments are on the walls and shelves around the room, and that most eloquent of instruments, my computer, is at the desk. The muse cat wanders in and out and reminds me to take breaks and pay her homage about every forty-five minutes.
 
There are photographs and art throughout this room and the rest of the house, some of it mine, some of it other's work. You can't wander five paces, it seems, without coming on another stack of books, magazines, and works in progress. Outside there's the gardens (I need to get the next round of vegetables in), flower beds, the Editor-in-Wife's roses, an herb garden (the culinary type), and my bonsai trees and shrubs. There's a fairly well supplied workshop in the garage which helps hold the place together and turn out the occasional piece for the house or a gift.
 
Where's this eclectic ramble headed? Right to that point. It's all about eclecticism - about stretching your mind and horizons beyond where they want to sit and stew. It's about insisting your brain go outside and play every now and then. (It's good for that blob of gray matter's health and the sanity you so tenuously house inside of it.) As you come to the end of another year, tell yourself that the very next suggested reading list you come across is the one you will make your way through completely before the year 2015 arrives. You will go to the local craft store and buy those watercolors or oils and finally start learning to use them. You will buy the complete Beethoven and listen to it from one end to the other.
 
 

 
 
Oh, and you WILL stop obsessing about the next thing you're going to write and just write it. It will be what it will be - and every word you commit to paper will grow and improve because of the words before it. Success or not is as much a matter of luck as talent. So, make your wager and roll the damned dice. Lucky seven or snake eyes, it's all a matter of the odds.
 
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Meanwhile...live, love, write.
 
Want to follow or subscribe to this blog? There are gadgets for that on the right side of the
page. You can leave comments in the form below. I can be reached directly at dbaylis805@gmail.com . You can also find links to some of the sites I visit from time to time on the right. I'm also looking for submissions to the Your Work/Your Love page. Authors retain all rights.
 
Tomorrow,
 
Dane F. Baylis
Author/Publisher. 
 

Friday, December 27, 2013

Day 355 of the 365 Days of Blogging

The author/publisher,
Dane F. Baylis

SNAPSHOTS FROM THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED

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While I was putting together last night's post, I used a couple of my recent photographs to help illustrate my point. One was really more of a snapshot, a cabin on the snowy bank of Big Bear Lake. Something intended as a reminder of a wonderful week spent there. The other was a more formal shot done with the intent and purpose of capturing the magnificence of the sunsets we often experience here on the West Coast. As I was flipping through the latest download from my camera, I was reminded how often inspiration enters first by way of one of the five senses. (That's the occidental view, the oriental view counts intellect as a sixth sense.)
 
As a westerner, I still see the mind as the great filter of the mundane world. Here color and form, smell, feel, sound, and taste are all melded and transformed into our thoughts and emotions. This is the beginning of the creative process and a step past true inspiration, the spark that ignites the powder train of our desire and ability to express. We are incessantly bombarded by sensory input, the vast majority of it being visual - after all we are human animals and the most effective avenue to our mind and spirit is through the eye.
 
How many times have you encountered something that started your artistic mind whirling, only to find yourself struggling to recall the impact of the moment when you finally gained access to your chosen medium? This is why I so often carry a camera. I am a school trained photographer, one of that army turned out by Brook's Institute while its major campuses were still in Santa Barbara and the school's reputation was at its zenith. Long before I walked those halls though, I had been taught that a true photographer always had a camera in his hand.
 
Through this extension of my vision I learned to frame a moment in time in such a way as to tell a story. I wandered the streets of Europe, catching the people and the scenery, rarely posing anything, always trying to anticipate the moment when the frame would contain the right elements in the correct relationship to communicate what I was feeling as I watched.
 
As writers, we should remember that what we are trying to do is to communicate a sense of environment, inhabitant, and interaction in order to express emotional content. The things in the world we encounter are so fleeting that it only makes sense to have a camera at hand. With the advent of the ubiquitous smart phone, this is so easy. It gives us the opportunity not only to capture the still image, but also the motion picture - with sound.
 
No longer should you be in the unenviable position of struggling to recall a detail of light, form, melody, laughter. All these are yours for the keeping. Especially when you encounter that something so unique and out of place that it triggers your inner storyteller instantly. As, for example, this apparent memorial found on an evening's stroll on a less traveled side trail. What story is implied by flowers and a rough cross partially obscured by snow in the hollow at the base of a tree?
 
 

                                                  
 
What tale does an image like this evoke for you? Something created from whole cloth? Or, perhaps, it touches some memory and takes you back to feelings you thought long past? How long have these things been there? Are they intended as a memory for someone gone to the ravages of age and time? Maybe they are a memory of a fond pet? They might be intended as some religious shrine in a natural world more significant to their arranger than ever could be a church or cathedral. How many roads have you walked or driven along and said, "I just don't have the time to wander down that path or trail. I'll try to come back someday"? Have you? I think you should, don't you?
 
Just another helpful hint from your Uncle Dane.
 
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Meanwhile...live, love, write. Then go take a walk. Oh, and don't forget the camera!
 
 
Want to follow or subscribe to this blog? There are gadgets for that on the right side of the
page. You can leave comments in the form below. I can be reached directly at dbaylis805@gmail.com . You can also find links to some of the sites I visit from time to time on the right. I'm also looking for submissions to the Your Work/Your Love page. Authors retain all rights.
 
Tomorrow,
 
Dane F. Baylis
Author/Publisher.