Friday, December 31, 2010

Year End Address || David Hunter

At the end of my first decade on this planet, when 1979 turned over to 1980, I remember being frightened by the number.  It represented the unknown, and for a little kid the unknown was awfully scary. When the 80’s ended I was more concerned at how strange the number 1990 looked.  And in 1999 …

Well, you get the picture.

I’m nostalgic by nature; I used to get sentimental watching final episodes of old TV shows (The best was M*A*S*H, but the saddest was The Wonder Years …) and watching a new year turn over always gave me that weird feeling, that sensation of being hurled into unknown territory, after all, the New Year is unscripted, an unknown quality.  What lies beyond December 31st, 2010? Who knows.

It’s all in the mind of course; there’s no cataclysmic changes set to occur on January 1st, 2011, but the very date suggests change, catharsis, new meanings, new resolves, new feelings, new directions; and when the winds of change take hold people tend to go with the flow.  In other words, people will change things, not a date on a calendar.  But oh what those changes bring!

Because it’s not just a new year, but a new decade, and if you look back, you’ll find that the turn of a decade brings about great changes (See 1950: Rock ‘n Roll, 1960: Hippies, long hair, Psychedelia, 1970: Disco, Earth-tones and Heavy Metal, 1980: New Wave, MTV, Rap …etc, etc ... and with that in mind, I guess there's nothing we can do but ride the wave of this coming decade, and see where it takes us.



One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: To rise above the little things. ~ John Burroughs


So here’s to the people we left behind, the old ideas, the old ideologies, the old words, the old fads, crazes and trends, the old clothes, the old music, the old movies, the old TV shows, the old books, the old tragedies, calamities and disasters ... but not the old friends: those we keep, along with our hope for a better world.

It’s a new decade; let’s make something new of it, okay?

Happy New Year, from David Hunter and the Writer’s Den.


Le Buzz on David Hunter

I’ve been growing rather static on the blog front, so I decided to try and improve the Writer’s Den with a few changes. Mostly, the changes consist of writing more content (and more writing is always a good thing …) and adding more features.  One of those features is a new Dashboard called Wiki-Den, intended as a hub for all my activity: links to stories, articles, Writing Resources and other things.  It’s a ‘Wiki’ because it’s short and quick information for the time-challenged peruser.  And lord knows we’re all a little time-challenged …

I want to thank all of the Den’s readers, you made this blog possible; I know it’s been wildly inconsistent and there have been long stretches between posts, but I hope to rectify that in the New Year (Hope!) and I wish you all the best.  Be blessed, and take care.  May we meet again soon.

Time to go: It’s almost 2011, and there’s a party waiting.

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Retro Den Presents:

The Writer’s Life: A Bohemian Manifesto




"... The writing has taken over. I feel like a true bohemian lately ..."





  

You wouldn’t believe how I’ve been living lately; food has been a low priority. So has housekeeping; there are articles, magazines, newspaper clippings and related dementia strewn across my work area. Seems my books have been multiplying like rabbits too (although I have twelve thousand books, I still felt compelled to buy Stephen King’s Detective novel The Colorado Kid for two bucks at a yard sale) When I do eat I take impatient spoon-full’s of food, chew hastily and return to my computer; I’ve been subsisting on PB & J sandwiches and tea. The writing has taken over. I feel like a true bohemian lately.

It’s the book of course, isn’t it always? And the blogs, like this one. I think about them all day, then I come home and think about them some more, then whenever the synapses are firing correctly I dive in and try to get something down on the page before my famously wiggy short-term memory kicks in and wipes the slate clean. Sometimes I stew over an idea (usually at 5 AM or thereabouts) and get all excited and start wandering in circles, coffee in hand, searching for a pen or something to scribble a note on ... Cont ->

Wednesday, December 29, 2010



"... Man is always marveling at what he has blown apart, never at what the universe has put together, and this is his limitation ..."

- Loren Eiseley


  






"While wandering a deserted beach at dawn, stagnant in my work, I saw a man in the distance bending and throwing as he walked the endless stretch toward me. As he came near, I could see that he was throwing starfish, abandoned on the sand by the tide, back into the sea. When he was close enough I asked him why he was working so hard at this strange task. He said that the sun would dry the starfish and they would die. I said to him that I thought he was foolish. there were thousands of starfish on miles and miles of beach. One man alone could never make a difference. He smiled as he picked up the next starfish. Hurling it far into the sea he said, "It makes a difference for this one." I abandoned my writing and spent the morning throwing starfish."
— Loren Eiseley



"One does not meet oneself until one catches the reflection from an eye other than human."

"To have dragons one must have change; that is the first principle of dragon lore." — Loren Eiseley


Harlan Ellison: Pay the Writer!