Just a Note – January 3, 2016

Hello World!

So, yesterday this blog celebrated its third anniversary and I look back over the three years since I began blogging seriously reflecting on what I want to do when I grow up.

Since the day I opened this blog, I also opened four other blogs, two on WordPress and two on Blogger, well actually one of the blogs on Blogger opened in 2009 but I only began writing on it in 2014, so I consider it new.  I’ve been concentrating all my work here over the past months but I think that I will begin to transfer some of my work over to them and will put links on my widgets to get to them more easily.

Their names are: Through the Eye of Bastet : It is dedicated to my photographic experiments.  This year I will be buying myself a new camera and will begin to do photographic blogs again.  The second is Walking with Sekhmet, this will be the blog that I will use for short stories and other prose works, except for haibun.  My historical Blogger site is called Bastet’s Waka Library.  I Blogged there from June 2014 until February 2, 2015 writing only haiku and waka mostly in response to Carpe Diem Haiku Kai and Haiku Horizon prompts and am considering returning there in the future for these posts.  The last blog is called On the Empty Road, and it is empty, basically because I have to log into another account to write there.

Now diversifying means that I’ll have to do some planning and changing. Some might have noticed that last year I began to put up pages on the header of this blog.  That is because I’m slowly removing all the older posts, editing them and then archiving them as category pages.  This is Bastet and Sekhmet’s Library and therefore, all my blogging work will be available here (except haiku) even if one has to wade through it on pages.  This is a huge job though because I’ve been writing anywhere from two to six or seven posts a day for three years.  So it’ll be a slow go.  With every post I put to a page it will disappear from the main blog.

I will also be publishing this year.  Now this isn’t a resolution, it’s a necessity. The whole point of blogging in the beginning was to leave something behind to remember me by, mostly for my family, now for the friends who may wish to remember me once I’m gone.  Death struck very close to home, as many of you know and that event has pressed upon my mind that anything can happen at any moment.  I’ve been fearful of publishing, it’s not easy for me to learn all the programs and things I need to know to get the job done but as my friend Elena would say we have to overcome our fear to be the best person we can be (my liberal translation).  So, I’ll have to study up on how to get those programs to work best for me.  Already, thanks to Chèvrefeuille at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, I published a thirty page book of waka (Japanese poetry)  the lay-out work was done by my son whom I sure will help out, but I know he has a lot on his plate and will need to go this more or less alone.

I discovered over the years that I’m a haiku/waka poet.  I can and do write other poetic forms and I can and do write prose.  One of the forms I love is haiga (haiku with a drawing or photograph) … so in February to celebrate my 64th birthday I will hold a month of haiga and invite those interested in joining me in this month-long celebration to do so.  I will hold it here but will also post on Through the Eye of Bastet since that is my photography blog.

Ok … this is my game plan for the next few months of 2016.  I’m actually a terrible organizer so this is enough to begin with and maybe actually too much, we’ll see.

I’d like to thank all you who follow this post for your enthusiastic support.  You’ve kept me going through thick and then, though you might not have realized it.  One of my most faithful readers is a man called Harbin 77 who has passed by every day for the last three years … a special thanks goes to him.

Bastet

 

 

Mindlovesmisery’s Menagerie – September 20, 2014

Hello World!

This morning I wrote and published my Saturday Shadorma prompt on Mindlovesmisery’s Menagerie.  The thumbnail there is from today’s post … I don’t know how many of you have been round to try the Mindlovemisery’s prompts, so I thought I’d do a short intro.

So, you haven’t been to Mindlovesmisery’s Menagerie yet … you don’t know what it is?

It’s a great prompt blog … at the service of all you writers of poems and prose! We’re very easy-going .. you aren’t required to write prose for a prose prompt for example … an epic poem or a limerick is fine if that’s what tickles your muse.  You might say we’re muse friendly  😉  If you prefer to use your own photography for a fairy tale .. no problem.  We’re there to inspire and we know that inspiration cannot be chained!

Each day there is a new prompt … Monday‘s posts are one of my favorites … that’s Wordle day and alas, I’m a Wordle addict!  Then there are Yve’s photo challenges on Tuesday … they just draw you in … hard to resist.  Anmol  writes the weekly Heeding Haiku with HA on Wednesday – Oloriel does the Tale Weaver’s Prompt on Thursday and  Anja on Friday does the Fairy Tale Prompt.  As I said on Saturday I do the Shadorma (and other poetical forms) posts and then on Sunday,  Yves wraps up the week with another photo prompt … and what a great end to a week of prompts it is!

Here’s the Link to Mindlovemisery’s Home page … have fun visiting!

For those who know the site … what do you think of our new dress?  Lovely isn’t it!

Ciao, Bastet.

Yesterday’s Posts – July 9, 2014

As promised yesterday in Just a Note … here is where you can find the work I published yesterday … it’s a little scattered around as you can see 😉

Dawn Thoughts July 8, 2014

The Phantom of the Rap Opera

Bastet’s Pixelventure July 8, 2014

Chiyo-Ni – “in an unknown sky”

Party Blues

Shiki and Tanka

Just a Note

Sunroot Flowers (Haiku)

Sail Away – Laturne (Poet’s Corner Challenge)

Just a Note – July 8, 2014

Hello World!

I’m here to give you a little update on what I’m doing these days.

First of all, I’ve been doing a little work on my computer.  I cloned my tiny old hard-disk onto a monster disk of one terabyte!  Then I put in a new antivirus which also works inside Firefox.  Last weekend, my mail account was infiltrated.  Some strange message went out and if it hadn’t been for a couple of obsolete addresses, it might have kept on doing it for a while.  Fortunately I caught the thing a few minutes after it sent it’s message.  So I cleaned out my trash-bin, changed my password and opened a new account which I’ve begun using.

I’ve also opened up a private blog that I had opened last year called: Bastet’s Silver Polishing … and the purpose of it is to slowly edit my old poetry and short stories into a readable form, possibly in view of publishing…yeah I’m a slow poke.

I’ve also re-opened and refurbished my old Blogger blog and I’ve named it Bastet’s Waka Library here I will be transferring the stuff I’ve written in the last year in regards to Japanese Poetry and where I’ll be writing my future Waka (Japanese Poetry).

I’m going to try to publish at least daily on Through the Eye of Bastet and here I’m going to be doing my short stories, flash fiction and general prose.

I’ll also do a round-up of what I’ve posted and where in the morning.

I’ve got some other things I’m planning to change … but that’s a future post!

Ciao, Bastet!

 

Just a Note – March 27, 2014

Hello World…

you might have noticed I’ve added a new form to my poetry collection.  It’s called a shadorma.  I came across this form recently through Mindlovemisery who by the way has opened a new prompting blog called Mindlovemisery Menagerie.  There will be a new prompt everyday from Haiku/Tanka through to Fairy Tales and Shadorma, please click the link for more information.

I’ve been asked to host the Saturday post, the shadorma post, to be precise and I’m really excited about the idea, and have been writing shadorma to practice a much as possible before the big day!

This week I’ll also be hosting the “Saturday Story – From a Photo” as a Friday prompt at We Drink Because We’re Poets (from now on until Lilith returns). This week I have a special photo by a special person, to inspire you,  Leanne Cole!  So, I’ll be looking forward to seeing you then.  The Sunday 13th Floor writing prompt will remain…All in a Word and is open to whatever inspires you through the hosted word … I’ll be working on that to see if I can’t refine it better!

Thanks for dropping by and reading…see you soon!  Georgia (Bastet).

Just a Note – March 3, 2014

Hello World!

Lake Garda

What a week!  I passed most of the week preparing a short story, in Italian, for a contest entitled “Voci di Donne” (Women’s Voices) which is part of the month-long set of activities our “comune” has developed over the years for Women’s Day (March 8).  I don’t write in Italian.  I speak the language fairly well and being a reader I have a great vocabulary, but the grammar and, alas spelling are not one of my fortès.

Italian is a phonetic language so it’s written how you pronounce it and it still has the masculine and feminine endings which are supposed to concord with the various adjectives ect. when your writing a sentence.  I really make a mess of it, ’cause I don’t hear the letters especially the doubles properly and damn, if I can put the masculine “table” with its adjective especially as table in Italian can be either masculine or feminine!

Let’s just say, that when speaking the language it’s my accent that betrays me…writing the language is kaos and is just something I’ve given up on.  However, I do have people who are kind enough to translate for me!  Once the piece was translated I ran it past my son…he writes too and knows his Mom pretty well, I didn’t ask him to translate because he’s working on his thesis and is crazy busy.  Then set here with hubby to work out the last kinks.  On Friday I delivered the piece.  I don’t think I have a chance in hell to win anything but I did want to participate.  The piece will be printed in an anthology of all the participants work later during the year.

For the English Conversation course I’m holding, I did a lesson on “sports:   tether ball, croquet and badminton…and ended the lesson with a nod to one of my students who’d requested something about William Blake, and sent  along to my students a book of poetry, in PDF form, entitled Poetical Sketches a prefaced 1868 reprint,  which can be downloaded by the way at the link (in kindle and epub version are available if you prefer)!

The sport’s lesson was boring but the poem I ended the lesson with was much appreciated so we will be talking about William Blake this week!  Here’s the poem I chose to read with my group, as interpreted by Douglas Campbell for  Loreena Mckennitt’s album – Elemental.  The poem is found in the Poetical Sketches by the way, it’s the Prologue to Edward the Fourth.

Of course I tried to keep up my blog work.  That as we all know means producing original material and reading the works of the people we’ve chosen to follow.  I’m not even going to talk about how reading went.  I’ve long ago discovered that I’m following far too many people.  Some I started following when I began blogging a year ago, and perhaps no longer even blog, some I liked a piece but then I wasn’t impressed by later posts…some are very prolific and that is cool…I just can’t keep up with all they write (and I presume that happens to others with me 😉 )!

Rara not too long ago wrote a post about following.  She wonderfully broke it down to how many one can actually really follow profitably…in the sense of being able to read and comment ( I feel like I’m cheating if I don’t comment and just like…which I do so anyway) as well as writing one’s own blog,  the amount would be something like 30 or little more blogs. That is unless you want to try to pass every single hour of the day and then some going through those hundreds of posts you’ve earmarked.  In the end, you’ll never properly follow anyone and of course you won’t post anything yourself!  Then, if you participate in a prompt…you are specifically asked to read other people’s work and possibly comment, a courtesy and a pleasure by the way.  That’s an interesting quandary no?

Last week I wrote 27 posts…plus a few for my photo blog.  That’s because this was a slow week as I had so much to do in real life.  I’ve been know to write much more.

Looking at my stats for a year, (I was trying to find how many posts I average a week, but couldn’t) I’ve discovered that my most viewed post is “Front Page: About Bastet and The Blog…” with 3,686 views…the most viewed posts I have are the photography posts.  This is the first entry of a none-photography post The First Time I Saw- Trifecta Challenge 100 it has 76 views.  I average about 30 or so views for my poetry and short stories…a bit more for the photo posts.

The posts that get most read, are posts that are linked to a prompt…basically because other’s read my stuff because they’re part of the challenge.  The single most viewed and liked private post I’ve written was “Blitz Poem: 21st Century Words ” with 71 views.  Outside of the Weekly Photo Challenge the single most read weekly prompt I follow is Friday Fictioneers, followed by Speakeasy and Trifecta for flash fiction, Ligo Haibun and Haibun Thinking (Haibun Thinking is new) for Haibun and for poetry, until recently We Drink Because We’re Poets, The Poet’s Corner and Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. It’s also interesting to read that this Just a Note is viewed by quite a few readers too!  This is of course just for Bastet’s and Sekhmet’s Library for a year…Pixelventures’  is another blog…the Highest Pixelventures’ read was Photography: Introducing Cathy Ulrich with 83 views…from then on I’ve an average of all time reads of around 30 views.  I’ve only written 27 poems for The Poets Corner.

Recently I’ve seen people going critical because they think WP is cheating them with their stats.  I couldn’t say one way or the other, all I do usually is read my comments.  Stats really don’t mean much to me now, though in the past they did.  It’s something that’s infectious and it can get to a point where you’re looking at your stats every hour on the hour to see how your work is going.  You get stressed and it takes the fun out of what your doing…or so I think.

Yesterday, I read a beautiful tanka with photographs posted on a blog entitled: Wolf Song Blog…the post is entitled ~Reflections~ I really liked it;  the photos were great and I loved the tanka so I commented:

Very beautiful photos and the tanka is fantastic! Thanks for sharing. (not what you’d call a brilliant comment I admit…)

Sheila answered:

Bastet, you made my day when I read your comment! Thank you so much for your sweet words. I enjoy taking a photos and then trying to come up with a Haiku or Tanka or just a few words stating what the scene was about. (still all pretty new to me)

Love your site and your beautiful poetry! I hope you had a wonderful weekend!

I doubly loved this reply to my silly comment…firstly that’s very often what I do as well and so I feel like I’ve met a kindred spirit and secondly it’s nice to be appreciated!

It’s the many people like Sheila that makes blogging a happy experience…not stats.  It’s about writing,  working on photos or art work and then showing your work.  It’s meeting new people and making contacts with the wonderful people who are being creative like you that makes blogging worthwhile.  I think we shouldn’t lose sight of that.

Hope you all have a great week.  Ciao, Bastet!

Just a Note – February 24th 2014

Hello World!

Another Monday, and more reflections!

It’s been an interesting week.  I’ve been out a bit more, the rain having finally let off a little.  This has given me the opportunity to show you a little of what Trento, the capital of Trentino looks like.  Great old town actually in its small provincial way.

Last week was my birthday, I’m now officially a year older!  I wrote a few Micropoems for the occasion…though I thought last year’s poem wasn’t half bad!

Birthdays, Birthdays Birthdays…how I love birthdays!  My Birthdays, my friend’s Birthdays anyone’s Birthday, just as long as it’s a Birthday!

Ok, it’s not high literature.

So here I am, my second birthday on WordPress.  I’ve had the opportunity to meet some great people here in that year.  I’ve also found that the WordPress community is about as stable as water.  Very fluid.  You may find, those of you who are new here, that for the most part, people will be around for a few months and then “poof” they’re gone.  Sometimes people have just dropped off the face of the world…you can’t even find them on Facebook (I don’t tweet).  Other times, you’ll find them from time to time somewhere else, as I said before, like on Facebook.

Why do they disappear?  Sometimes because they’ve been harassed or offended by other bloggers…yes, it does happen.  Sometimes because their life has become too full and there’s no time to blog.  There are those who thought blogging would be a great way to promote their literary work…but were disillusioned.  Sometimes they’ve changed from WordPress and gone somewhere else, but forgot to tell you.  Sometimes they’ve discovered that blogging is not their thing.  Other times they’ve become depressed and can’t write now.  For whatever the reason and there are plenty…poof they’re gone.  Alas, sigh, as I used to say when teasing one of may favorite poets, who disappeared from WordPress in October.

Fortunately many are still blogging along…maybe just a post every few days, but they’re there.  I think it depends on why they decided to open a blog.  You see, many people are here promoting their artistic work, whether that work be in images or writing.  sometimes people are here to sell something.  Sometimes, like me, they just thought it’d be interesting to do something besides looking at Facebook (which is pretty dumb at times and boring).  They may get excited about what they’ve discovered blogging to be, as I did.  Last year for me, blogging was a really fantastic adventure.

Now I’m not promoting anything, though I’m happy to say that last year in August, Sahm King, who now only sporadically posts on WordPress since he’s started working, published an anthology of poetry and I was included with 10 of my poems.  Now that was a real high point for me in the year! (The First Round’s On Us! An Anthology of Poetic Musings) Uhm…just in case you wanted your own copy you can click the link and get one free!

Ok, I just promoted a book of poetry.  However, that is not why I blog nor why I began to blog.  I blog because I like to blog.  I’m very happy to know that there are people out there that find what I write is interesting, but I’ve no illusions to being the modern female Basho or Hemingway.

I presume that one day I’ll get the energy and the knowledge together to compile a work of poetry or flash fiction or maybe photos and publish them.  It does seem the next logical step.  I’ve actually been playing with the idea for a few months.  Fact is, I don’t know if I want to go Japanese poetry, western poetry or if I want to mix the stuff up.  And there’s another point..uhm…I’m shy.

Let’s face it.  I’m here behind my computer and no one can touch me.  You can say the most terrible things about what I write, and I wouldn’t know it.  However, when one goes really public, and puts their work up on Amazon or whatever, ah, then there they are, exposed to all and sundry.  From what I’ve read, you’ve got to be pretty thick-skinned at times to read some of the stuff people write about you and your work.

You may tell me that that can happen here too on WordPress or on Facebook or Twitter, and I’ll agree with you.  I’ve been very lucky so far (and may be pushing fate even mentioning this).  I’ve had someone give me some corrections and someone to mention that my cutting lines in my haiku were pretty lame.  However, for the most part, everyone has been really lovely!

So, what will I do.  Well, in about half an hour, I’m going for an early morning walk with my camera.  Then, I may do some shopping and when I get home keep hubby company.  Maybe later in the day, I’ll be back over here to write something if I feel inspired.  I’ll probably process a few of the photos, maybe post them.  I’ll write a story for Speakeasy, I missed posting with them on time last week, and run down a friend who’s translating one of my stories that I’ll be submitting for a contest here in Arco.  Fix some dinner and maybe hubby and I  will do some reading together – we’re thinking of Douglas Adams.  That’s what you do when you are 62 years old.  Live your life as it comes along! 😉

Have a great week folks!  Bastet.

P.S.  I wrote a poem in memory of the beginning of the First World War the other day, which Oliana liked very much…you can find it here.  I’ve put in this after thought in because she reblogged this post for that poem ;-).

Just a Note – February 10, 2014

Hello World!

I know, I haven’t been writing my Just a Note lately…actually I haven’t been doing a lot of my regular posts…I’m a little blue I think….

Here is sunny Italy we’ve been having a bit of wet weather…two weeks of wet weather in fact and that has more or less kept me at home.  I’d usually go walking rain or shine, but I’ve had a bit of bad weather myself and so it has been the better part of wisdom not to go out.  My muse hasn’t been happy with this decision.

I’ve been doing a lot of prompts to keep the juices flowing.  Last week I wrote for Trifecta, Speakeasy, dVerse, Friday Fictioneers, Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, Ligo Haibun, Poet’s Corner,  Haibun Thinking and Sunday Photo Fiction.  Think I’ve got them all down, might have missed someone, I’m not sure.  The links will take you directly to the prompt sites.

Reading other people’s blogs has really become a mess, as I was saying to Charles Yallowitz yesterday.  I’m trying to try with the daily digests…at least the posts are all together and it’s easier to follow them.  The reader is the pits lately.  I often  have the problem of having the same post about 20 or more times and nothing else.  Of course, doing the prompts, one should also read the posts of fellow participants.  That can be rather interesting actually as many posts from Blogger which I wouldn’t normally read.

I think that I’ve got the Mid-Winter Blues..probably a little left over energy depletion due to the flu I had and the vitamin and mineral deficiency that my doctor discovered.  I’ve also got a thyroid problem…which we’re working on.

Besides all that, many of the people I’ve been blogging with over the last few months have gone awol.  Poof all of a sudden they’re just not around to read.  I’ve found this pretty depressing.  Of course, I suppose one has to get used to that sort of thing.  There have been many over the last year who have been really prolific and there was a nice feeling and then they just stopped writing.  Maybe they opened a blog somewhere else.  Maybe they just got bored with writing.  Or just simply moved on… Who knows.

Anyway.  I’m hoping to get my act together and start writing again on the 13th Floor.  I haven’t been doing the Pixelventures’ Close-up, which I think I’ll have to rethink before retaking that one up.  I’m happy to say that I do try write for Poet’s Corner at least once a week.  Perhaps I’ll just choose a couple of prompts to write for, it may be less dispersive.

As I was saying to Oliana from Traces of Soul, whilst talking about her fantastic post,  I think I too need a project.  Maybe a series of children stories and poetry.  I should perhaps start deciding to collect my work from last year in some sort of an anthology,  see if I can’t come up with a pamphlet or two of poetry…one for the Japanese poetry, one for the other genre.

Well…that’s more or less all I’ve got to say this week.  Bless you all and have a good time.

Ciao!  Bastet.

Tanka: Limits

Tanka

Limits

cold grey morning light
reflecting on my talent
makes me kind of sad
never fun to see limits
happier to live illusions

Just a Note: January 6, 2014

Hello World!

Red leaf

Here I am with the first Just a Note of the New Year.

Just a note started popping up not from the beginning of my blogging career.  I don’t know when it first hapened…I’d have to go look it up…oh! it was April 9th!

Yesterday reading your comments I came across this fantastic comment by Barb Taub, on a poem I’d written about editing, the post was called “Unavoidable Pain“. So, here’s the poem:

Free Verse
Editing

here I sit…
back up straight…
choosing what should be edited
choosing what needs be chucked
and though it may all have seemed great
now I look over my year’s work
and I observe every mistake
not to speak of those
stilted rhymes
then I think
yes, this is it
the moment of
unavoidable
pain….

I often think that Barb knows more about what’s going inside me than I do…her comment has me reflecting…but here it is so you can read it too:

“There’s a world of difference between a blog post and a final product intended for publication. The former is the pure, ephemeral manifestation of creativity, while the latter is the formal application of editorial discipline. Both are equally important (unless you’re going for the Oscar Wilde approach — “I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.”― Oscar Wilde)

Frankly, I’m consistently lost in amazement at your creative volume. Sure, go back and edit the back end if you need to, but please make sure you don’t put your creative voice at risk on the front end.

We all need to hear your thoughts, your words, your voice!”

I think Oscar and I would have a lot in common as far as editing goes…well…not really.  Of 12 old haiku I printed yesterday to “edit” I rewrote all of them…sigh…

Dear readers…I think that I would like to publish something some day.  The problem is…I don’t think I’m a publishable writer.  That is I think that I’m better at blogging…getting the stuff out there and it gives me such great pleasure to see a story or a poem form itself under my fingers…but I’m afraid I’m not a writer … that is my stuff writes itself … I don’t write a piece then let it sit there for a week than re-write the piece then go over it again…and finally I’d have this lovely piece of story or poem or whatever.  It’d be perfect, someone would probably want to publish it…people would pay to read it.  Nope.  I’m not that kind of writer.

This summer, I tried to write that kind of story.  Or rather, I tried to write one of the little stories that I like very much based on this story: Short Story: The Train Chats – 1.

Note there is a one at the end of the title.  Well there was going to be a series.  Then, I wrote the second story…which only a few have read.  It went from one of the chatty little stories similar to this one to something I just didn’t recognize as my own.  Not only did I not recognize it, but it felt completely alien to me.  I edited the poor thing and edited it some more…and the more I edited it…the more someone else thought it needed editing.  Then there were the grammar errors…and then the syntax errors…in the end, I’ve got this story that someone said she knew where to find a home…but it just sits here.  And I think perhaps that’s probably just as well, because I don’t think I’d have the heart to say I wrote it.

So..I’ve gotten it into my head that it would be nice to put together some of my poems and publish them…or maybe some power shorts and sketches.  Thus the poem above…I’m looking for stuff I’d like to turn into an e-book. But…I probably won’t.  I don’t have the editorial discipline and know how…and I don’t think it’s something one learns at my age.

What I do have though…is the gift of the gab and written gab at that!

Will I ever publish…I wish I could say yes…but I won’t commit myself because I think not.  I just don’t have what it takes to get in out there and pull out a sellable product.

So…I’ll try to edit and maybe get a manuscript together…who knows maybe I’ll figure out how to make an e-book and maybe I’ll self publish…lots of maybes there.  Whatever, Barb, I won’t stop blogging.  In the end I create for number one and am happy when a few of you actually read my stuff and like it and it’s really a fantastic gratification when someone comments…like you do from time to time Barb dear. Sure, in my wildest fantasies I publish and all that jazz…

Have a great week folks…have fun doing whatever you do best…

Ciao Bastet!