Points of view in creative writing

There is a general modern trend to believe that writers cannot change the point of view in one single story when it is written from one character's perspective. I have read this in online forums and critiques of other peoples' stories. There may be editors out there who express this idea but this should be considered a personal opinion, and an opinion is not a rule.
 I am reading The House of Mirth and found that the author of this book tells the story in second person from the main character's perspective (Lily Bart). However, whenever Lily has a conversation with another character the writer ventures to get inside the other characters' minds. We learn something about the feelings and emotions of the characters interacting with Lily by getting inside their minds even though the story is told from Lily's perspective; in other words, the writer becomes omniscient at times.
   Have you ever tried this? Do you feel uncomfortable when a writer does it?

New tenants over our door

We have new tenants: a family of robins built a nest over our door. I took a picture of their beautiful nest without disturbing them.

 Robins are very cute. The American robin's chest is orange. Its eggs are light blue. Robins hop along the ground after rainstorms, or in freshly overturned soil, looking for worms and insects. As harbingers of spring Robins presage new beginnings.

The origin of Mother's Day in America

  Even though Mother's Day is celebrated today, most people don't know the origin of this celebration. Mother's Day began in America in 1870 when Julia Ward Howe wrote the Mother's Day Proclamation in response to the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian war. She called on women to use their position as mothers to influence society to stand up against the unjust violence of war through their roles as wife and mother and to protest the futility of their sons killing other mothers' sons.
   I believe we as mothers  are role models, and we are empowered to cultivate the seeds of peace, freedom, respect and compassion in our kids' minds from a very early age.This act is in itself  the beginning of a better world. Many times I hear how the role of being a mother is underestimated by modern societies that put "production" and money above everything else.
   I believe that both mothers and fathers have a unique role. Happy Mother's Day.

You may wonder why I chose this picture for my blog entry. This is a photograph of myself on Granddad bluff, in the city of La Crosse, Wisconsin, where I spent the weekend celebrating Mother's Day with my family.

On why I like George Orwell

 My favorite writers are those who seem to talk to me on a personal level. They either put into words something I'd like to express myself, or they reveal a lot about human nature. I also admire writers who dare to reveal new insights and ideas that leave me reflecting after I finish the read. Those books can spark an inner transformation; they have a spiral thought-provoking effect that leads to new insights and thoughts.
   I feel relieved to read their work, as if I were finding a new friend with whom I can share my own reflections. This happens to me every time I sit to read George Orwell's stories and essays. I am now reading Down and Out in Paris and London and I'm planning to read more of his books.
    I recently finished '1984' and 'Animal Farm'. Both are thought-provoking stories and I appreciate his way of revealing so much about the dynamics of the societies he portrays. There is a timeless universality in them. Here is an essay I wrote about these tales and I analysed their interesting similarities. Enjoy it.

http://www.gringolandiasantiago.com/2012/05/03/george-orwells-1984-and-animal-farm/

Corporal expression and creativity

 During the five weeks I spent in Argentina I had the opportunity to attend a few classes of corporal expression. Corporal expression is an art in which the body is the medium to express emotions and the interaction between the inner self and the environment. It can be done with or without music.
 At the beginning I was stifled by inhibitions but, after a while, I was able to connect with the language that my body needed to express.
 This art affords us the opportunity to explore our emotions and materialize them through creative body movements. It is an artistic way of communicating with the world, just like music, dance, painting, literature.
   In addition to all the benefits that any form of exercise can provide, we enjoy the precious creative aspect of it. The impact on my  mood was very positive. All that fresh supply of blood to my brain was a precious gift to my writing habit.
When I came back to Wisconsin I decided to google "corporal expression" but most of what I found were websites about corporal expression in preschoolers and it left me wondering if adults are so much inhibited that we end up losing touch with this kind of art that allows us to connect our minds and bodies in meaningful ways.
   In Buenos Aires there is a a university career where you can get a degree in corporal expression. It takes five to six years to complete it.
   I wish I could find a place to do it once a week. It's something that both my mind and my body will be grateful for.

I'm back

 Hello bloggers. I have not blogged for a while. I decided to take some time off the bogosphere and the main reason was that I was very busy looking after my 96- year-old grandmother. She lives very far away, with my parents, so I spent five weeks away from home to stay with her.
 My grandmother has dementia and her mind wanders; it travels to the past and doesn't understand the present very well. As her memory fluctuates so much, she forgets where she is and, as I said, she is not oriented to time.
  My grandmother has always been like a mother to me  during my childhood and this closeness leaves an imprint that has to do with who I am today. No matter how different I am from her, I cannot deny that she influenced me and that our lives will be bound forever in ways that cannot be put into words. Love is like that. It is something that goes beyond words and reason.
   So here I am, rambling about those five weeks during which I looked after her. Her presence brought to the shore of my own life the reminder that my mind will one day become fragile as well, that our stay here is only temporary, that time is precious. These words may sound trivial. Saying them is not even close to experiencing them because the latter carries us to another realm. It is the realm of awareness, of awakening to the fact that we should not worry too much about problems that we cannot fix. Why? Because all we have is the present. I learned this hard lesson after a devastating experience I had in 2007. (It became a turning point that urged me to take writing seriously; I should blog about it one day).
   All in all, my grandmother reminded me once again that life is temporary. Our minds also are. We exist through our minds and bodies, and yet our minds are not going to respond forever, no matter how hard we try, no matter how well our bodies keep functioning.
    Go ahead and enjoy every minute of your existence.  As Albert Einstein said: "I am content in my later years. I have kept my good humor and take neither myself nor the next person seriously."
    Even though I haven't been blogging, my mind has been very active lately, developing new ideas for writing projects. Spring is the perfect time of year for new beginnings, don't you think?

 

An uplifting post

A few days ago I had the pleasure to see  the Anthony Petullo's collection in the Milwaukee Art Museum. The artists whose work is shown here are an inspiration to all of us. Their life experience sets the example of what passion and persistence can achieve when they go hand in hand.

-Many of these artists were self-taught.

-Many of them endured economic hardships and/or had mental disorders.

-Many of them started working on their art in their forties and even later.

 I would like to mention some of of my favorite artists from this collection:

Frederick James Lloyd: he grew up on a farm in Cheshire in England and had different jobs before he devoted himself to his art. He worked as a farm laborer, stoker, lamplighter, bus conductor and police officer. At the age of 42 he remarried and fathered nine children. You would not think that was the best time to work on his art, right? Wrong! He worked on something else to support his family during the day, but in the evenings he painted at his kitchen table with his kids running and playing around him. One of the paintings I am showing here (the one with the face) is Lloyd's work. 

Sylvia Levine is another self-taught artist who began painting at the age of 45. The landscape here is one of her many paintings.

Madge Gill is a woman who worked with ink and pencil. Here is a link to some of her interesting work:

http://madgegill.com/Pencil-and-Ink-Drawings

 I cannot finish this post without telling you about Leo Navratil, a psychiatrist and author from Austria who encouraged his patients to draw and paint. While supporting his patients' creativity, he discovered that some of them were very talented. He sent some of the artwork to Jean Dubuffet and they created a group called The Gugging artists. Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) was an artist attracted to the art of children and the mentally ill. He did a lot to promote their work. He attacked "conformism" and mainstream culture which he described as "asphyxiating". Here is a great link about him:

http://www.theartstory.org/artist-dubuffet-jean.htm

If you are close to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, you may appreciate a visit to the Milwaukee Museum of Art to enjoy Anthony Petullo's collection.