Three Years

When I first created this blog, on October 1, 2021, I did it to celebrate both my pen name — Afarin Rava — and my first memoir, Languages & Life Lessons. 

Since then, I've posted daily on this blog for three years. This morning, I went through all my previous posts — a combination of reviews of my books, quotes from my books, photos (of me in different countries, my books, my furry companions), tips for writers, fascinating words and their etymologies, quotes from various writers, and anecdotes. 

I just want to take a moment and thank everyone who reads my blog posts. A few readers comment about what I've posted here on social media, so I know who they are and appreciate them. Most readers, however, remain anonymous. All I can say is that I'm grateful for the number of views I get. It gives me great pleasure... and motivates me.

Promotion

from Monday, September 30, 2024,

to Wednesday, October 2, 2024,

the two anthologies 

Dear Twelve-Year-Old Me

and

Dearest Devised Darling

will have a price promotion —

Kindle Countdown Deal!

Unplugging

a quiet exit from social media... it started subtly... no dramatic deactivations... just a gentle withdrawal... first from all notifications... then my Gratitude Girl blog... LinkedIn... fewer posts on Noosha's blog... Facebook... BlueSky... 

the pings and vibrations that once demanded my attention stopped and life got quieter... less demanding...

small pockets of time... for books... art... more writing... more time with my dogs... cooking... baking...

cutting back on checking in... leaving my phone off for an entire day... 

deactivation of some accounts... leaving some there...without checking in...

social media feels distant now... popping in occasionally... like visiting an old neighborhood... without lingering...

space... clarity... being present... nature... life... freedom...

a quiet return to myself.

Turtles

My morning walks never disappoint:

And fifteen minutes later... on my way back: 

Book Review

Dorothea Lange

"The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera."
Dorothea Lange

Dream-Scripts

I don't know if anyone else experiences this, so I'll just share what I go through quite often: 
Sometimes when I fall asleep with my DVD player on, my subconscious mind goes rogue. It takes the sounds of the film and spins them into an entirely new story. The dialogue still fits, but the plot? It’s something completely unexpected. In my dream, the characters go on different journeys and encounter strange twists, and somehow it all makes perfect sense. I wake up thinking, Wow! That was brilliant. Too bad the details slip away. It’s a fleeting moment of genius, crafted in the haze of sleep. If only I could capture those dream-scripts and bring them to life. Instead, I’m left with the vague impression of a masterpiece that never quite made it to paper. 

A Fresh Canvas

It's the first Monday of a new season... and the page is blank — a fresh canvas, ready to capture any creative's wildest ideas, deepest thoughts, and untold stories. 

This is an invitation for writers, artists, and dreamers to fill that page with creativity without worrying about getting it perfect. The blank page doesn’t judge; it’s here to hold the ideas, thoughts, scribbles, sketches, and doodles, no matter how scattered or polished they may be.

Not All Paws...

I announced a few days ago that a new book was in the works...
Here's a little more on that:

This book, about a cat that has recently adopted me as its human, is different from my other creative works in that I'm illustrating it, too. I mean I am drawing and painting images of the cat — not designing images on the computer. All the writing (and drawing) I've done the last few weeks has been about this cat, so every word I hear or read or say reminds me of something cat-related.

This morning, I wrote about the word so on my other blog: https://nooshasblog.blogspot.com/2024/09/so.html

In the blog post, I added a personal comment at the bottom, discussing the pause after the word so used as a discourse marker... because not all pauses are alike.

And my brain kept telling me "Not all paws are alike." 

I guess this is what happens when the brain obsesses with a topic for weeks?

Quiet

Quiet and alone, 
In solitude, peace will grow — 
No need for the crowd.

A New Book

A new book is in the works.
Stay tuned for a cover reveal...
coming soon.

Colors

By and Large

Did you know that we owe the expression "by and large" to sailors?

Here's Merriam-Webster's explanation:

"By and large means “in general” or "on the whole" in most contexts, but in sailors’ lingo of yore, whence the phrase arose, by and large described a vessel alternately sailing as directly into the wind as possible (typically within about 45 degrees of the wind)—that is, by—and away from the direction from which the wind is blowing, with the wind hitting the vessel’s widest point—that is, large. (Note that this by also appears in the term full and by: "sailing as directly into the wind as possible and with all sails full.") William Bourne’s 1578 book Inventions or Devises offers insight into the phrase’s original use: “… to make a ship to draw or go but little into the water, and to hold a good wind, and to sail well both by and large, were very necessary …” As has happened with much nautical jargon, the phrase eventually came ashore. By and large, landlubbers welcomed it, first in the sense "in many directions" or "in all ways," and ultimately with its present meaning of "in general.""

(taken from Merriam-Webster)

To see it in context or listen to the pronunciation, check the link: https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day (September 18, 2024). 

The Morning Fog

I love writing early in the morning. In fact, I look forward to it. My pre-writing morning routine goes pretty fast: take the dogs out, greet the cat that's waiting for us right outside and watch her stretch, take the dogs back in, prepare the dogs' and cat's breakfasts, feed them all, boil water for me, and do all my stretches in the ninety seconds it takes for the water to boil. By then, everybody has eaten, and I get to wash their dishes. I squeeze a lemon in the water and add salt to it and take my mug of tea to my laptop, ready to write... or so I think.

Some mornings, the brain just isn’t ready to play. I sit there, determined to write, but instead of words flowing onto the page, there’s a fog — thick and stubborn, especially following a day like yesterday. It was the second anniversary of the Woman Life Freedom movement in Iran, and I spent the entire day drawing and painting because I couldn't focus on much else.

So my brain has its reasons for not playing this morning — and sometimes other mornings — but morning brain doesn’t have to be the enemy. In fact, it might even be a creative asset: When the mind is still waking up, it sometimes drops the filters and lets randomness through. I've had some of my best ideas on mornings like this. 

I often use one of several tricks to overcome the fog and get ideas flowing:

1. I write the first things that pop into my head, no matter how ridiculous they seem. This simple strategy can unlock a creative thread I wasn't expecting, as it has in the past.

2. I open a book to a random sentence. Even a single unexpected phrase can shake things loose. The more out of context, the better — it jolts the brain out of its morning fog.

3. I think about one of the bigger projects that I have already thought about or even outlined but haven't started yet, and I start with bite-sized tasks. 

Having a foggy brain in the morning isn’t a curse; it’s just a different type of creative space. So embrace the fog, and see where it takes you!

September 16

Kangaroo Words

Kangaroo words are words that contain a synonym (called a joey word) within them, where the letters of the joey word appear in the same order as they do in the larger word. Here are several examples:

Masculine → Male

Observe → See

Blossom → Bloom

Encourage → Urge

Contaminate → Taint

Friend → Fiend

Illustrious → Lustrous

Feasting → Eating

Enlighten → Lighten

Instructor → Tutor

Each joey word hides within its parent kangaroo word, carrying a similar meaning.

Friedrich Nietzsche

“My solitude doesn’t depend on the presence or absence of people; on the contrary, I hate who steals my solitude without, in exchange, offering me true company.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

Friday, September 13

Happy Friday!

 

Book Review

 

Jimi Hendrix

“I'm the one that's got to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to.”
Jimi Hendrix

Novel: First Draft

A while back – around March 2023 – I shared with a few members of the writing community that I wanted to try writing a novel. I had a lot of reading and learning to do... and it took forever, but, now, about eighteen months later, I'm happy to announce I finally have a complete first draft. And you all know what they say about first drafts, right? If you don't, read Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott. 

Anyway... I look forward to the editing phase.

Silent Saboteur

I can vividly recall a few occasions, and only because of how I've felt afterward, where I've typed a quick message, trusting my phone to keep me on point, and then autocorrect has swooped in, eager to turn my sentence into something embarrassing. 

The silent saboteur of modern communication, as I call it, doesn't discriminate. Whether it's a professional email or a casual text or a blog post, it can turn a friendly message into something awkward... or even an unintended insult.

Here are two of my cringe-worthy experiences with autocorrect:

1)
I used to work for a tutoring company for about a decade.  I would meet students who needed tutoring within a twenty-mile radius of my place, each at their local library. A coordinator arranged all this, and I always communicated my students' results with her so that she could keep all the records updated. One day, I had to test a student of mine, a Mexican kid named Jesus. He didn't pass his test. It was just before 5 pm, so I decided to use my phone to send a quick email to the coordinator and let her know right away. I typed "Jesus failed his test"... and pressed send, feeling really good about myself, too, because I knew the coordinator would get on it immediately and extend the student's tutoring hours. About a minute later, I got three laughing emojis in a row as a reply. Confused, I opened the entire email and felt mortified. I hadn't even realized that the overzealous editor had transformed my message into: "Jesus Christ My Lord and Savior failed his test." I immediately apologized for the email I had sent and explained that autocorrect must have done that. 

2)
A couple of years ago, I used to post an open letter of appreciation every Wednesday to someone I felt grateful for, as Gratitude Girl, on gratigi.blogspot.com. One Wednesday, I wrote my post while waiting for my clothes to dry at the laundromat, on my phone, and autocorrect, insisting on knowing better than I do, changed the person's last name, so instead of Henry Winkler, I had Henry Wrinkler. Of course, I didn't notice it then and proudly published the blog post and even tweeted about it. A week later, when I went to publish a new letter of gratitude, I noticed what had happened. Did I mention I had tagged Henry Winkler when I had tweeted about my blog post?

In addition to digital embarrassments, I've also had a different kind of unpleasant experience:

Once I missed out on seeing a dear friend of mine, Shahram, because our mutual friend texted me "I'm at the park, enjoying my time with Shahram"... but what I received said "I'm at the park, enjoying my time with sunbeams." Had I known my friend Shahram had been at the park, I would have immediately joined the party, but I thought my friend / colleague was sharing that he was enjoying the weather. I did think the wording sounded strange, but I assumed he was drunk, so I didn't try to clarify... until the next day when I saw him at work — and he was so surprised when he realized how his text had been corrected. 

This is, I believe, something everyone has experienced — some people more than others. Now, I consider autocorrect an uninvited companion always ready to turn serious moments into laughable or cringe-inducing ones.

Memento

Merriam-Webster's word of the day is 

memento

pronounced muh-MEN-toh

a noun

meaning souvenir; it refers to something that is kept as a reminder of a person, place, or thing.

: something that serves to warn or remind 
: souvenir

In Latin, memento is the imperative form of the verb meminisse, which means “to remember.” (The term memento mori, which refers to a reminder of mortality, translates literally as “remember that you must die,” for example).

The history of memento makes it clear where its spelling came from, but because a memento often helps one remember a particular moment, people occasionally spell the term momento. This is typically considered a misspelling, but it appears often enough in edited prose (including the work of such esteemed authors as George Eliot and Dylan Thomas) to have been entered in most dictionaries as an acceptable variant spelling.

(taken from Merriam-Webster)

To see it in context or listen to the pronunciation, check the link: https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day (September 8, 2024).

Artistic Fun

Art is not about perfection but about expression. Embrace the childlike wonder in your creations. I've been working on a tiny collection... and I hope to share this fun creation soon. 

Author-Invented Words

Interesting...
https://www.vox.com/2016/3/29/11324552/author-invented-words

Cat...

I would say "cat on a hot tin roof" but it wasn't really hot at the time I took this photo, so it's "cat on a tin roof." Pishi Pishi Miao Miao has been having fun chasing squirrels on the roof the last few days. These days, she only comes down to eat and to go for a walk. 

Artwork

A kid picks up a crayon for the first time, not really sure what to do with it. But as soon as the crayon touches the paper, something magical happens. The kid starts scribbling, then drawing, and suddenly she's in a whole new world. Colors blend, shapes appear, and she's totally caught up in the moment, lost in her own little masterpiece. It's messy, it's fun, and it doesn't have to make sense — it's just pure joy. In that simple act of drawing, she discovers what art is all about: expressing herself, no rules, just freedom.

Then this kid becomes an adult, and suddenly, art isn’t just about fun anymore. It’s about getting it right, making it look perfect or making it mean something deep. There’s pressure to impress, to create something worthy of being called art. The joy of just messing around with colors or doodling whatever comes to mind gets buried under layers of self-doubt and judgement. The freedom that once came so easily is now tangled up in what others might think, and that pure, simple connection to art gets lost in the noise.

Now this kid is in her fifties, and she's creating art like she did when she was a kid — like nobody's watching. But that's not all. She intends to publish her artwork, too. 

Subplots

The Importance of Subplots: Adding Depth to Your Story

Subplots can add richness and complexity to your main narrative, providing additional layers of interest and depth. They often explore secondary characters or themes, offering a broader view of the story world. A well-crafted subplot can also reinforce the main plot, creating a more cohesive and engaging narrative. For instance, a romantic subplot in an action-adventure story can highlight the protagonist's vulnerabilities and provide emotional stakes. Subplots can also introduce new conflicts and challenges, keeping the story dynamic and preventing it from becoming monotonous. However, it’s essential to ensure that subplots are well-integrated and don’t overshadow the main plot. They should complement the primary narrative, adding depth and variety without distracting from the central storyline.

Book Review

 

Creative Journey

When ideas start to come together, it feels like magic. It’s as if random pieces of a puzzle suddenly find their place and create something special. Watching this process unfold is like seeing a messy pile of puzzle pieces turn into a complete picture. Embrace those chaotic brainstorming sessions — they’re where the real magic happens. Even when it feels like a jumbled mess, trust that it’s all part of the creative journey. With a little patience and love for the craft, those scattered pieces will fit together and surprise you in the best ways.