Check out this gorgeous photo from the New York Botanical Orchid Show 2010 by Jessica Jenney. There are so many beautiful blooms arranged prettily around what looks like an architectural folly. You can buy the print on a pillow, tote bag, phone case and more at fineartamerica.com.
Interested in fashion history? Here is an interesting decade-spanning collection of women’s dresses, from the Edwardian era to the late ’60s, on display at the Hillwood Mansion in Washington D.C.
An adorable vintage-style kitchen found on Pinterest. I love all the colors. It’s colorful without being gaudy. Now, the trends are stainless steel, white walls and neutral colors.
View some gardens with a variety of full blooming hydrangeas in a palette of pretty pastels.
Read about Edward James, an English surrealist artist, and view photos of his dreamy, unusual structures in the middle of the jungle in Mexico. You could call them buildings, but they have no walls and have staircases leading to nowhere.
Lately, my life seems like one endless whirlwind of activity: caretaking for a mom who suffers from back pain and gout, giving priority to healthy cooking, eating and all sorts of exercise and caring for all sorts of dogs, cats and sometimes other pets for my pet care business. Sadly, lately, fiction writing or even nonfiction (blog) writing has not been one of those activities. It has all taken a back burner, and for someone who identifies herself as a writer, this has been quite frustrating. A computer failure that took place shortly before the pandemic started (and is still not completely resolved) did not help matters. But, I began to contemplate some things that helped me see a silver lining in all of the craziness.
“Write what you know” is oft-quoted advice for writers. Some people might interpret this bit of advice, thinking they are limited to writing stories that are autobiographical or semi-autobiographical. I don’t think so. One of the characteristics of a fiction writer is being imaginative, being able to think theoretically and imagine “what if” situations. If we were limited to writing stories strictly based off our experiences, it would make certain entire genres impossible to write such as fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction and period fiction.
Photo by Cederic Vandenberghe on Unsplash
Still, “write what you know” is good advice, and it seems to make sense that the more you know, the better. This could include book knowledge and experiential knowledge. Of course, there will always be things that you haven’t experienced or don’t know and will need to research or gain knowledge of by talking to those who have experienced these things. I remember my mom was reading a book where the main character harvested a potato and, apparently, pulled it up easily from the ground. My mother could tell immediately that the writer was not drawing from experience. Gaining experiences and knowledge, whether firsthand or secondhand, is really valuable to a writer, and this, I suppose, is the silver lining you can see if you are a writer at heart and life experiences seem to be temporarily pulling you from your writing.
Recently, I had an opportunity to speak as an indie author at a Virtual Career Day for Riverdale Public Schools in New Jersey. I spoke to fifth through eighth graders through Google Meet who were interested in writing. I told the students that I was also writing when I was their age and that the one thing that seemed to trip up or cause me to abandon a story was my lack of experience and not knowing how to research what I didn’t know. I then gave them some ideas about researching.
I’ll share some details that I didn’t share with the students. I can remember, as a child, trying to write about summer camp, but I had never been to summer camp. I also tried writing a story about a horse and a dog that were friends and did stunts together. Even now, I have pretty limited experience with horses and wouldn’t feel comfortable writing something where horses were the primary subject. I think, at that time, I may have gone on a couple of horseback rides but was far from being very knowledgeable about horses. I tried writing about a runaway girl, but I had trouble writing about taking public transportation, something I had definitely never done independently. So, you can see, how having an adult perspective and adult experiences expands your ability to write intelligently about more things.
Photo by Caroline Sellers on Unsplash
I enjoy the quote below from one of my favorite writers, C.S. Lewis.
It’s an interesting quote to contemplate. I would, of course, list writing as a primary interest, but an interest in writing is not enough to, actually, write. Writing is a skill, an art and a tool of communication, but, subject wise, it is not highly specific. There is really nothing of which can not be written. This might explain why I seemed to have little in common, other than an interest in writing, with my college writers’ group.
At group meetings, you could read a section of your own writing or from a book that you enjoyed. I, at least on some occasions, brought Jane Austen novels. Another writer friend was enthralled with Ray Bradbury and frequently read from him. At least once, one of our members, who was not an arts but a science major, read from one of his science textbooks with a heavy fake German accent, and, for some reason, we all found it hilarious.
I liked writing comedic short stories. Our group’s magazine was titled, “The Book of Ashes,” and I knew that I would or could not publish one of my funny stories in a magazine titled, “The Book of Ashes.” For whatever reason, the group I joined had a high percentage of vegetarians. I was not a vegetarian, but I was up to joining them occasionally at their favorite pizza place for vegetarian pizza. (I remember one had water chestnuts, and it was probably the only pizza I’ve had topped with water chestnuts.) I went to a Baptist college, and the majority of students were Baptist. Although I have always gone to nondenominational churches, my beliefs align with Baptist. This group had an Episcopalian and a Quaker. You can see how our different backgrounds, personalities and interests would color our writing.
Photo by Ergin Akyurt on Unsplash
When I reflect on my comedy mystery book, Action Men with Silly Putty, I can see how many of my little interests were worked into it in some way: antiques, art history, food and cooking, coffee, foreign languages, pets and animals, dancing, trivia, diverse curiosities about different music genres and more. Some things were drawn from book knowledge and others from experiences. I wouldn’t say that nothing was ever a challenge, but I didn’t have the same difficulty I had as a child writing stories, because I’ve experienced more, know more and know how to go about learning what I don’t know.
Photo by Jan Antonin Kolar on Unsplash
I know I am not the only writer who has had or has an unrelated day job. For 10 years, I was a journalist. Now, I’m in animal care. I have a writer friend, with several books under her belt, who is an art teacher. Another writer friend, who has published several books the traditional way, went into massage therapy. An artist friend of mine who is a poet as well as an excellent violinist with several CDs and books also sells MONAT beauty products.
I recently picked up a novel from Brian Jacques’ “Redwall” series off my shelf and read this interesting biography from the inside cover, “Born in Liverpool, and raised by the docks, Mr. Jacques, a man of many talents, has lived a life both varied and adventuresome. He has at different times been a sailor, truck driver, longshoreman, comedian, folk singer and radio host, and each of these pursuits has colored his rich tapestry of stories.”
Photo from Amazon.com
Interesting, right? So, even though our other pursuits may seem to distract from the act of writing, they can also provide a source of inspiration.
Recently, I’ve had some other thoughts on experiences that were less directly tied to writing. I was sitting recently with three other friends when we reflected on how long we have known each other and how quickly the time has flown. My friend, Adrienne, made the suggestion that, perhaps, time would seem to move slower if we gained some new and interesting experiences instead of the basic routine. She even suggested that she and I travel with our two Asian immigrant friends to the countries of their origin, South Korea and China (specifically Hong Kong.)
The discussion made me contemplate bucket list adventures. I had a tethered hot air balloon ride at Downtown Disney, now called Disney Springs. Adrienne has wanted for some time to go to a balloon festival in southern New Jersey, and a balloon that traveled somewhere rather than just rising and dropping down again, would be a new adventure to me. I tend to look at all things through the lens of a writer, and if experiences are good for me, perhaps I should seek out some adventures.
Photo by Alex Azabache on Unsplash
It seems to make sense that we can draw from our experiences, without necessarily writing autobiographical stories, and that the more experiences we have and the more varied they are, the more it would help us as fiction writers.
At the same time, I think it would be impossible to personally experience everything you might want to write about. You can use speculation, and you can also draw from a similar but different experience to put yourself in your characters’ shoes. Also, you can interview experts or even your friends or family on their experiences to help you fill in some gaps. I talked to my mother about her broken arm experience in order to write about a character’s broken arm in my first book, And the Violin Cried. I don’t think you want to go as far as to break your own arm just to know how it feels for your writing!
It also seems reasonable that having different life experiences and having varied activities might be more inspirational than staring at a computer screen. What if we never left our office or computer and saw sunlight and friends and did activities? Would we have inspiration?
What are your thoughts? What experiences have inspired you in any art form?
Currently, I am a professional pet sitter and dog walker, a bit of a change from former work I’ve done. I watch mostly dogs and cats, but, very recently, cared for a cockatiel, pet fish and even tadpoles. I’ve also given some care to backyard chickens.
I began reflecting on my former experiences with animals, and I realize I have quite a collection of interesting stories of my childhood pets, encounters with wild animals and more. Earlier, if you had asked me to describe myself, I would have told you that I was a writer, a dreamer or a creative person. All of these are true. I don’t know that I would have included “animal lover” in my description.
After all, I was an English major, not a veterinary science major. There was quite a gap in my life in which I wasn’t under the right circumstances to have a pet. I haven’t consistently been involved with animals in a major way, but there are little snapshots from my life that now indicate to me that I have always been an animal lover or had the potential to be so.
I should have known I was an animal lover when …
1) My Family Rescued a Stray Dog and Gave Her a Forever Home.
My dog, Trixie, with my cat, Frisky.
Lots of people have adopted rescue dogs and that is very honorable, but the story of my childhood dog is more unusual. She found us, more specifically, she found my three older brothers and my cousin while they were hiking at a reservation in New Jersey. She was an abandoned puppy, a mutt of some sort — the vet thought she was part fox terrier and part cocker spaniel — and was consisting off a diet of wormy acorns. She just began hanging around my brothers and cousin, and when Mom came to pick them up, she couldn’t resist her. We took her home, named her Trixie, took her to the vet, got her registered and dewormed, and she was ours. She was an energetic, bouncy, squirrel-chasing dog even to the end of her life.
Around the same time that Trixie found us, we took in a gray tabby cat named Frisky from a friend of ours. Unfortunately, we didn’t have Frisky long before he was hit by a car and died. Trixie and Frisky were friends though and voluntarily slept in the same bed and would eat from each other’s bowls.
You will notice in the list below that I’ve illustrated everything with stock photos. This is because, for most of my life, neither my family nor I were prolific photographers. Before I go on with my animal stories, I thought I would share a couple of photos from my youth where I am enjoying animals.
Nine-year-old me with my Aunt Linda’s dog LaddieCollege-age me with my Aunt Lorri’s cat
2) I Had a Caterpillar, Frog, Toad and Even a Clam as Temporary Childhood Pets While on Vacation in the Adirondacks.
Photo by Byron Burns on Unsplash
My family took several woods and lake vacations when I was growing up. On one of these trips, when I was about nine years old, vacationing at Schroon Lake in the Adirondacks, I collected some unusual pets during the time I was there: a green caterpillar called Dumb Dumb, a toad named Teddy, a frog named Freddy and even a clam I called Herbie.
Dumb Dumb received his insulting moniker, because I was frustrated when he would not crawl on the stick I so handily offered him. I was discovering nature all around me, and I wanted to capture him.
It was my dad who discovered Teddy, the toad. He rowed my mom and me across the lake, and we found Teddy on the opposite shore. Dad scooped him up and put him into the rowboat. Back at the cabin, Dad created a little habitat for Teddy, pulling up moss and other natural materials to line a cardboard box we kept out in the screened in porch. This is one of the best childhood memories I have of doing something with my dad.
Later, Teddy gained a roommate, Freddy, the frog. The amphibian apartment didn’t seem to suit Freddy as well as it did Teddy. He seemed to need more water than the tuna fish can swimming pool we had. He also had longer legs than Teddy and was a good jumper, so he often made his escape.
Herbie, the clam, whom I kept in a Kool-Aid can filled with water, turned out to be a pretty boring pet. He did absolutely nothing. You are probably wondering 1) why I wanted such a strange pet as a clam and 2) if there were clams to be found at the lake, why didn’t we just eat this one? We had already been told that this variety of clams was not good for eating. To explain what was going on in my nine-year-old brain, I was hoping that Herbie would not be so boring and would do something like open his shell once in a while. That did not happen.
All the animals were released at the end of our trip, except for Dumb Dumb whom my friend and I buried by the swing sets. I remember seeing Teddy and Freddy hop off in opposite directions. It looked like they were not going to live out “Frog and Toad are Friends.” Sigh.
2.) I Rescued Three Gerbils from My Dog.
Photo by Silje Rosenberg on Unsplash
I never had any pet rodents, although my older brothers tell me funny stories about some pet mice they had before I joined the family. One of these is so funny that I will add it as a little story extra. I did get to take home my class pet gerbils for one weekend when I was in the fourth grade. I had my dog, Trixie, then, but I was not at all worried that this would not be a good mix. The gerbils would be in their cage, right?
Trixie was so excited to see me carry those gerbils through the back door into our kitchen. She bounced up and down like she was made out of springs, bumping her head into the bottom side of the cage in my arms. That bump triggered a whole domino effect of crazy events. The cage door popped open. Three little gerbils made their escape and ran for their very lives towards my bedroom. I did not know what Trixie would do if she caught a gerbil, but I also didn’t want to find out. I raced Trixie, who seemed part greyhound at times, towards the bedroom and managed to catch all three by their tails before she did.
3.) I Picked Up a Cool Orange Salamander in the Poconos.
Photo by Tyler Donaghy on Unsplash
There isn’t any outstanding story connected with the orange salamander. At 14, I didn’t collect him as a pet, even a temporary one. It was just a moment of awe, where I plucked him off the tree where he was clinging, held him in my hand, admired his pretty color and put him back on his tree.
4.) I Found a Living Purple Starfish at the New Jersey Shore.
Photo by Mathis Jrdl
Similar to my salamander moment, I was amazed when, as a teenager, I found a small, living, purple starfish at a New Jersey beach. I had found dried starfish at souvenir stores before but never a living specimen right there at the beach. I was with a youth group. Another friend and I named him Sammy. We knew we had to throw him back into the ocean, but we were reluctant to do so immediately. We kept him by us in a bottle cap full of water for a little bit. He spilled out of the bottle cap somewhat, but it was a wider cap than some and was enough to keep him going so we could appreciate him a little longer before returning him to his ocean home.
5.) I Brought a Baby Turtle to a Chapel Service.
Photo by David Leveque on Unsplash
As a college student, I made a surprise discovery one time walking across campus. I stepped over what looked at first to be a dried leaf. Doing a double take, I realized it was a tiny baby turtle. I was on my way to a Christian ministry meeting, but I couldn’t ignore this little guy. I also remembered an interesting fact. Pet turtles were one of the few pets that, according to the student manual, were allowed in the dorms. So, I picked up the turtle and took him to my meeting where he was awed over by all the other students there.
Right after the meeting, we had an evening chapel service, since we were in the middle of a Bible conference. Attendance at chapel was required, and there were students there at the chapel entrances to check your name off the list, keeping track of attendance. Now, I had a dilemma. I knew I didn’t have time to go back to the dorm before evening chapel, and I had this cool little turtle I wanted to keep. So, I brought the turtle to chapel. I had to let him go while we stood up for the singing portion of the service, and I kept a close eye on him as he slowly meandered across the pew.
I named him Fred and got advice from a professor friend in the science department – I was a nanny to his children – on how to care for him. Unfortunately, Fred was not with me long, and I suspect I didn’t understand enough about caring for turtles and he wasn’t getting enough food. Still, I loved my time with Fred.
6.) I Fed a Wild Chipmunk from My Hand.
Photo by Alexander McFeron on Unsplash
My family continued the lake vacations even in my post-college years. After my brother Dan moved to Maine with his wife and family, lakes in the Portland area became a favorite vacation spot. On one vacation, we stayed at Raymond Pond. The owners of the cabin we rented talked about a wild chipmunk they named Chippy which they had tamed somewhat to eat seed from their hand. They kept bags of seed in the screened in porch and encouraged us to try it ourselves. We did, and it was great fun to have Chippy feed from our hands as we sat on a rock a little distance from the cabin.
One morning, Chippy hit the jackpot, discovering where we stashed all the extra seed. I discovered him in the porch, both cheeks filled to bursting with seed. I tried opening the door to let Chippy outside again, but the excited chipmunk got disoriented and confused and ran further into the cabin instead. I chased the poor excited thing, opening doors for him and trying to get him outside, as he ran around, spitting out a trail of seed wherever he went.
My Sister-In-Law Caught Me On the Floor Cuddling and Playing with Her Dogs.
Photo by Brandy Bellini on Unsplash
It was on another trip to Maine when Dan’s wife, Dorothy, noticed me sitting on their floor playing with their two dogs, a yellow Labrador named Latte and a Sheltie named Schnookums. I was letting them lie over me, petting them, rubbing their bellies and lavishing them with attention. Dorothy’s reaction? “Susan, you need to get a dog!”
I Began Following More and More Animal YouTubers.
Photo from Erin’s Ark channel on YouTube
Even before I was involved with animal work, I somehow began subscribing to more and more animal channels on Youtube. That may have been partly due to the last point, that I began populating my fictional worlds with more and more pets and animals, so I used the videos for information and inspiration.
Here are a few of my favorites …
Topi the Corgi — Short little films starring Topi in almost human situations, sometimes featuring his long-haired chihuahua buddies.
Vlog After College — Ryan vlogs about his daily adventures, always with his Corgi sidekick, Gatsby.
Griffin Frenchie — The adventures of Griffin and his Frenchie roommate, Haru.
Crusoe the Dachshund — Little stories acted out by voiced and costumed dachshunds: Crusoe, Oakley and Daphne
Doug the Pug — Song parodies, costumes, spoofs, all sorts of fun things starring Doug the Pug.
Erin’s Ark — British teen, Erin, shares about how she cares for her pets: guinea pigs, gerbils, bunnies, cat and dog.
Hello Denizen — Fun channel with hamsters in miniature scenes, bunnies that fly planes, iguanas that go bowling with their tongues, etc.
Tiger Craft Squad — Very creative videos with hamsters, cat, bunnies, chinchillas, other animals, in adventures with remote control cars, Lego creations, mazes and more.
Peekaboo Parrots — Features several birds, but the star is a yellow Indian ringneck parakeet named Bowie who has a voice like Elmo and says such expressions as “Tickle, tickle.”
Mr. Max TV — Max is an entertaining cockatoo with attitude.
I Began Populating My Fictional Worlds with More and More Pets and Animals.
Photo by Marcus Wallis on Unsplash
Jack Donegal of the “Jack Donegal Mystery” series has a beagle named George, and Grace Darby, who will have her own mystery series, has a Corgi named Shelley. Gradually, neighbors, supporting characters and even suspects had pets and not always either dogs or cats. My story worlds have a lot of single people, and I guess I feel like single characters need pet companions. Also, doing comedic writing, animals seem to bring comedy to situations.
My brother, as a kid, bought a pregnant mouse and hid it until Christmas as a gift.
My brother, Bruce, apparently, walked himself to a store that sold pets among other things. There, he bought a mouse, a pregnant mouse, as a gift for my brother Tim. Bruce didn’t understand the mouse was pregnant. Maybe, the cashier didn’t know it either. Who sells a mouse to a kid though?
Bruce hid the mouse in its cage in his closet, since it was a Christmas gift. Before Tim could get a Christmas surprise, Bruce got a surprise when several blind, hairless baby mice began wandering around his closet shelf. They were so small, they slipped through the bars of the cage. Bruce had to wake up our parents and explain the situation.
