This creature is the Shachi:
A pagoda sculpture:
Aug8
Sculpture Saturday: From the Japanese Friendship Garden
This creature is the Shachi:
A pagoda sculpture:
Aug8
Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (May 7, 1840—November 6, 1893) was the first Russian composer to achieve international recognition.
Though musical from a young age, his parents encouraged him to study law so that he could enter the more lucrative profession of civil service. To please them, he spent nine years at the Imperial School of Jurisprudence, and worked in the Ministry of Justice for four years while studying music on the side. In 1863, he resigned from civil service and became a professor of harmony at the Moscow Conservatory.
Tchaikovsky was greatly influenced by Russian folk music, but also by the Western music he studied while at the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
In 1876, Nadezhda von Meck, the widow of a wealthy railroad magnate and an admirer of Tchaikovsky’s music, offered to become his patron. She provided him with a monthly stipend which allowed him to resign from his professorship in 1878 and pursue composition full time. Her only requirement was that they never meet in person. They did, however, maintain an extensive intellectual correspondence that documents their views on topics from religion to politics to creativity.
Tchaikovsky’s body of work includes 169 pieces, including 7 symphonies, 11 operas, 3 ballets, 5 suites, 3 piano concertos, a violin concerto, 11 overtures and single-movement orchestral works, 4 cantatas, 20 choral works, 3 string quartets, a string sextet, and more than 100 songs and piano pieces. Among his most beloved works are his three ballets (Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, and Sleeping Beauty), his Piano Concerto No. 1, the opera Eugene Onegin, and the 1812 Overture.
This sweet little hymn for piano is one of my favorites:
You can learn more about Tchaikovsky at Encyclopaedia Britannica and Biography.
Aug7
Creative Juice #202
Wow! Creative stuff this week.
- How museums are re-thinking their collections in light of the Black Lives Matter movement.
- The joy and beauty of raising a child with special needs.
- Shark merch that Donna found on Etsy a couple of years ago.
- Incredibly beautiful quilts.
- What you can do with $1, vision, and skill.
- Remember when kids used to go back to school? It could happen, and if it does, you may want to take special photographs to record the momentous occasion.
- Do you like sci-fi short stories? This article from two years ago tells you where to find some good ones.
- Do you like to read YA? Here’s a list of particularly intense books.
- Different interpretations of a Zentangle challenge.
- Gorgeous drone photography. There are so many pictures in this article, I never made it to the end. . .
- An artist’s watercolor journey.
- I love this artist’s work.
Aug7
In the Meme Time: Plot a Course
Aug6
Kammie’s Oddball Challenge: Dome
Aug6
Video of the Week #: A Carpet of Flowers
Aug5
Flower of the Day: Bougainvillea
Did you know that the actual flowers of the bougainvillea are the tiny white ones? The bright pink ones are bracts, or leaves, like the red bracts on poinsettias.
More FOTD.
Aug5
Wordless Wednesday: See the Koi?
Aug4
Flower of the Day: Mum’s the Word
More Flower of the Day.
Aug4
Good Articles for Writers
Writers tend to be compulsive readers. Especially about writing. And the internet is full of wonderful (and not-so-wonderful) articles about writing. When I find one, I add its URL to a now 56-page file in my documents called “Blog Posts I Really Like” so that I can reread it whenever I want.
From time to time I share my wealth of resources. It’s been a couple of years since I last did this, so here are links to ten articles about writing that I found particularly interesting. Most of these articles focus on fiction writing.
I’m gonna warn you: this is meaty stuff. You can’t skim it. You’re going to need to dedicate an hour or two of your time to explore this information. You don’t have to do it today; but bookmark this post, and schedule a time for you to come back and wade through it. I promise it’ll be worth it.
- Rules for writing.
- Great storytellers talk about story.
- What novel should you read next? How about something that will help you with your own fiction?
- How to write better fiction.
- How to ramp up your description.
- How to troubleshoot a problem scene.
- To learn how to write like your favorite author, copy their books, word for word, longhand. I’m going to do this, really. I’ve even picked a book: Even If I Fall by Abigail Johnson.
- It finally happened—a publisher is interested in your book! What questions should you ask a publisher before signing a contract?
- Bad news: your publisher’s promotional budget for your book is zip. How to schedule your own book tour. (Also good for self-published authors.)
- Ways to market your book (and yourself!).
Photo by Startup Stock Photos on Pexels.com
Now it’s your turn. Once you’ve read these articles, it’s easy to say, well, that was interesting, and not do anything with the knowledge you’ve gained. Hello, use it or lose it. I challenge you to choose one piece of information you’ve gleaned from these ten articles and turn it into an action item to improve your skills. Then tell us in the comments below what you’re going to do. (I’ve already told you what new thing I’m going to do—see number 7 above.)
