A Post With No Pictures

August 29, 2014 ~ Alina ~ 2 Comments

Ever noticed how violent some photography words are? Like capture, frame, shoot?

Don’t get me wrong. Photography is one of my hobbies, and I like composing a good image and goggling at beautiful galleries as much as the next person. Maybe even more.

But especially in this age of social media, of iPhones and Instagram, I think photography can be overdone.

This week has been really busy for me. Besides being a writer who has less than 100 days until the publication of her second book (eep!), I also work as an editor and an English tutor. All of these jobs were chugging away at full blast this week, leaving me pretty tired.

Sometimes you have to choose between taking pictures and enjoying experiences–between looking happy and being happy. Sometimes you just don’t have the time or energy to do both.

This week, I chose being happy. So this post has no pictures. There are no photographs of the moments of rest and smiles I found this week. Because I was busy enjoying them.

Like a melty, gooey chocolate chip cookie in the afternoon.

Or the moves I make when I’m enjoying the stretchiness of yoga pants.

Like my first pumpkin spice latte of the season.

Or a floor full of beautiful pictures as I sit planning with my illustrator.

Like a well-placed comma finding its way into a manuscript.

Or a friend who watches in amazement at the melding colors of M&Ms melting into a bowl of vanilla ice cream.

We can spend so much time trying to capture, frame, shoot our moments, forever preserving them like scientific specimens in formaldehyde, that sometimes we–I, at least–forget to actually live them, enjoy them.

And sometimes it’s nice to take a break from the shutter button for exactly that purpose.

Hello, Orange

August 22, 2014 ~ Alina ~ 10 Comments

These are the colors of my soul.

They’re also the colors of most of my laundry. And my bedroom wall. And obviously, my book cover.

I’ve always found myself attracted to purples and blues. They’re peaceful, refreshing, and easy to be around. In a way, I feel like they represent me.

I used to think that only one color range could do that. But recently I’ve become fascinated with the color orange.

My writer friend Angela Wallace has been a fan of orange at least since we started writing stories together as teenagers. Even some of her book covers are orange.

The orange memo has only recently reached me. But now I see it as representing fearlessness, power, energy, and fun.

Maybe I’m attracted to the color now because I want to be more of these things. Maybe it’s because I’m already becoming them. And I haven’t stopped liking blue/purple or repainted my bedroom wall. But in 2014, orange has become my other favorite color.

Like for toenail polish.

And for my new indoor cactus garden.

When Angela and I got together for a photo shoot, I even wore some orange in my scarf.

After all, blue and orange are complementary colors.

Maybe a person can be more than one color–can be peaceful yet also fearless; can be easy to be around yet also powerful. We humans are multifaceted, with each facet constantly in a state of change–growing, shrinking, morphing. That’s a fact of being of being alive (and of staying out of ruts).

Maybe that’s also why we need friends who are multiple colors, to help stretch us and balance us out.

So hello, orange. It’s nice to meet you.

Beach Poetry

August 15, 2014 ~ Alina ~ 4 Comments

Yesterday my family and I spent an afternoon at the beach. It was the first time I’d been there this summer. This may sound ridiculous, living as close to the ocean as I do, but I protest: I’ve been writing a book.

I love the ocean, even–maybe especially–when it’s overcast and silvery, like yesterday. It’s the perfect place to rest and read in the warm sand. Or to walk and think to the rhythm of the waves. And to write poetry.

Because the whole place is poetry.

So here’s what comes of a walk along the Northern California coast on a foggy August day.

Beachcomber

She runs down the beach,

feet kissed by

the cream-white foam,

soul blue as the gradient of waves.

She combs the beach,

not for coins or glass,

not for complete shells

or perfect rocks.

She seeks

pieces—

fragments battered and broken

by the relentless blue waves.

She sifts for shards of shells:

one ridged like a potato chip,

one translucent white like a nail paring,

one striated with warmth like an Arizona canyon,

one shimmering iridescent like mother-of-pearl,

her favorite a feathered infinity spiral

like the twirl of a dancer.

She hunts for rocks

smoothed by the rough-and-tumble sand—

one spotted like a leopard,

one crinkled like a brain,

a jade-green speckle.

Some are ordinary gray rocks, scarred with

fractal patterns,

straight white stripes,

or irregular embeddings of fossils.

One has a smooth indent

just the size of her fingertip.

She walks up the beach,

soul blue as the gradient of waves,

fists clutched full of

fragments—

shell-shards and

smooth stones,

pieces

battered and tumbled and

beautiful.

What do you love about the ocean?

All Day at Panera

August 8, 2014 ~ Alina ~ 1 Comment

I present a short post because I was here all day:

At a very accommodating local Panera with a certain corner in which three tables can be pushed together.

Want to know what I was doing at this very accommodating local Panera for six hours?

This.

Sitting with my incredibly talented illustrator Mollie, planning… *drumroll please*

…illustrations for the sequel to The Illluminator’s Gift!

Be excited, because we are VERY excited. Stay tuned for updates!

Squee!

Office Supply Love

August 1, 2014 ~ Alina ~ 4 Comments

After books, some of my favorite things are office supplies. As a self-employed writer/speaker/editor/tutor, not only do I need these tools for my trade(s), but they also make me really happy.

Like really, really happy. Probably way happier than a normal person should be about lots of paper, plastic, and ink. But normal is overrated.

Because smoothing the pages of a blank planner, cracking the plastic on a new box of post-it notes, opening a fresh dry-erase marker–these are the signs of new beginnings, like daffodils in a California January. With this new batch of tools, who knows what new starts I could make this year?

I’m serious about my office supply shopping. I wait for back-to-school sales, compare bargains, then stock up for the whole year. This year my brother and I even made a date of it. He deserves a medal for waiting with great patience as I stood waffling in the notebook aisle.

The best part of office supply shopping, obviously, is choosing pens. Though it’s also the hardest. Good pens are like good friends–with you through thick and thin. Nothing irritates me like a pen that gives up in the middle of a battle scene or that writes inconsistent sentences.

My new love is the Sharpie pen, which I discovered when I started signing books last December. It’s a fine-point, felt-tip pen with an absolutely consistent ink flow, just like a regular Sharpie. But unlike a regular Sharpie, it doesn’t bleed through paper. I meant to keep my supply specially for book signings, but found myself reaching for them all the time. So now I have them in 6 colors.