Sing-Spiration

Although my musical training and expertise is mainly as an instrumentalist, my years of accompanying choral groups have given me a profound admiration for the craft of singing. Choral music and vocal singing are fulfilling on two levels - my musical ear is satisfied, but so is my writer’s ear. Singing tells a story by setting words to music, and the best choral groups and vocalists convey the depth of this meaning with the nuance of their performance.  Listening to glorious music automatically makes me a happier person. My recent trip to New York was a unique opportunity to hear some of the best male choruses from the midwest and eastern sections of the country. The IMC (Intercollegiate Men’s Chorus) convocation brings together groups of male singers of all ages, who gather to share their love of singing with each other and with their audiences. For the past 100 years, male choruses have joined this collegium to celebrate the inspiring power of song.

I took the opportunity to share more about the experience in this week’s Sunday Salon at All Things Girl magazine.

Reading Revisited

A few weeks ago when I finished arranging all the book on my new bookshelves, my husband asked me how many of them I had read. "Well, all of them, of course!" I answered, somewhat surprised that he even had to ask. I do have a separate shelf for library books and review books, and I've been doing a great job of keeping that under control (yes, that's me patting myself on the back). I might have a huge TBR list in my mind, but  everything placed on my shelves right now has been read - at least once, and often more than once.

I'm a big re-reader. In fact, as I was unpacking books and organizing them, I started getting all kinds of urges to re-read this one, and then that one, and then this other one...

It all started me thinking about re-reading, and thinking led to writing, and   - well, here's the result, in an essay at All Things Girl today. Here's a snippet to get you started. Read it, and maybe you'll be inspired to revisit an old friend from your bookshelves too.

Why shouldn’t we return to those wonderful stories we loved the first time we read them? Would we consign a Monet painting to a dark closet after seeing it once? Would we leave the concert hall after hearing a Beethoven Symphony and say “I know how that sounds so I need never listen to it again”? Of course we return to the music and works of art that move our spirits, bringing fresh eyes and ears to the familiar melodies and images. Why shouldn’t we do the same with literature?

Coffee and Conversation, Blogger Style

Although I don’t consider myself a social animal, I’ve never had too much difficulty making friends. I can usually suss out a peer group pretty quickly, and because of my quiet good nature it’s fairly easy to find someone sympatico in any crowd. It doesn’t hurt that I enjoy listening to other people's stories. Almost everyone likes to talk about themselves, to share their personal stories of triumph and tragedy, and I’m truly interested in hearing them. That’s probably one reason I love the new Conversations Over Coffee series at All Things Girl magazine. It gives me an opportunity to “meet” some fascinating women and hear a little bit of their story.

This morning I’m excited to sharing some virtual coffee and conversation with one of my favorite bloggers, Angie Mizzell, who talks about everything from birthdays to bike rides and tells us how she set herself free from a career that no longer fulfilled her and set out on the path to define her own life.

Pull up a chair, pour a fresh cup of coffee, and join us.

Write on Wednesday: Streamlined

I just euthanized two of my blogs. And no, I’m not in mourning. Not even sad.

It was time. Everything has a season, and it felt like the blogging season as I once knew it was waning.

I had a lovely conversation  - a real live conversation! on the telephone! - with one of my favorite fellow bloggers on this very subject. We talked about how blogging has changed in the years since we started, about the growing tendency to use blogs as one part of a “platform,” about the way social media like Facebook and Twitter have risen to prominence and almost usurped blogging as a digital network.

The conversation was a good one because it helped me recall the reason I started blogging in the first place (I wanted a place I could express my ideas in writing and share them with others), why I want to continue with it (to share those personal stories which I believe create connections between people), and what I hope to gain in the future (the impetus to continue writing, continue connecting with others, continue exploring life in general and my own in particular through the written word).

But it also made me realize that blogging has revealed other ways to satisfy my urge to write, that same urge for connection which provided the impetus to register a blog and push “publish” for the first time. Because of my involvement with blogging and other social media, I can write for e-zines like All Things Girl. I can connect with other readers through Goodreads and my Bookstack Facebook page. I can even go old-school and call people like Angie on the telephone.

I don’t need three blogs to do any of those things. So instead of three separate blogs, there will now be just this one, the place where I started almost seven years ago.

The place where we meet to talk about life in general.

I hope you’ll join me here.

The New Order

Simplicity. I’m embracing it wholeheartedly as I begin the process of moving out of the home I’ve lived in all of my adult life and into a new condominium in a neighboring town.

There will be ruthless shedding of stuff in this process - certainly real physical stuff, but also shedding of habits and routines and all sorts of emotional baggage.

I’m looking forward to this new home, to starting out on a new journey. I want to make life simple, at least as much as can be in this crazy whirlwind of a 21st century.

In the interest of such simplicity, I have decided to discontinue Write on Wednesday as a separate blog. Posts about writing things will now appear at Becca’s Byline, under the Category “Write on Wednesday."

I hope you’ll follow me there to find out what’s going on in my writing life, and also what’s going on with Life in General. I will also be writing regularly  in my role as Contributing Editor at All Things Girl magazine. Please subscribe for  all sorts of interesting reading- about writing and the arts and lots of other things.

Because no matter what else happens in my life, writing is - and will always be - a very important part of it for me.

And I know it is for you, too.