Monday, February 2, 2009

Rhapsody in Blue

When I begin to get immersed in a creating a book, whether by writing or simply by working it out in my mind, I look twice at everything that comes my way, wondering if it is a gift from the muses.

When I received a solicitation from The Nature Conservancy describing the Karner blue butterfly and what they are doing to preserve it. I tossed the letter into the trash, then immediately fished it out. I’m familiar with blue wasps, and recently I saw a huge blue bee, but I had never seen a blue butterfly, and the thought captured my imagination.

I could see it, a scene in my novel — a savannah of blue lupines, clouds of blue butterflies, a swarm of blue bees, a few blue wasps daubing in the mud. My characters would be filled with awe as they made their way through the blue, but it would be so strange that they would also be fearful.

Of course, like all gods and goddesses, the muses are fickle and love to play tricks on us humans. I wouldn’t be surprised if by the time I finished writing my book and got it published, blue would have been done to death. The nine muses will be out there somewhere in the great blue yonder, laughing at me and my gullibility in thinking I was original.

3 comments:

  1. My muses gave me a lemon sky. Still trying to figure out why, but it ended up in the novel anyway.

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  2. When Gershwin wrote Rhapsody in Blue he didn't have to worry about blue becoming a passing fad. Art of merit lives forever. Good luck, Pat.

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  3. Yes, any character in such a fantasy would shudder if they even saw a saber-tooth from a distance.The little dwarfs that are in some fantasies have such an animal as a pet. It's better to dive into your story and become the victim who is facing the danger in order to write it in a point of view that would make the reader cringe. Making the fear prolonged and the solution delayed would also continue to be effective in holding the reader's attention.

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