July thoughts...

Life is about practice. It’s about spending time with those activities that I most want to excel at. Often these pursuits are subjects that I love. But often I don’t take the time. I allow myself to be distracted.

If I want to get better at drawing trees, I need to spend time drawing trees. I truly enjoy drawing trees. Trees come in so many textures and shapes. Trees have so many personalities. I’ve learned to take photos of trees for reference… or sometimes I see an interesting pic online. I learn by tracing or eyeballing the details… trying to capture the specificity, the texture. Experimenting. Remembering the hours of drawing in my adolescence… when there were no deadlines to hit or clients to please. Trial and error. Discovery.

If I spend the evening watching TV, I have nothing to show for it. My skills have not increased. My mind has not likely been challenged much. And yet all too often, it is the path I choose.

I want to spend more hours creating and less time consuming.

I have had a lot of satisfaction creating this year… I’ve stepped back from the trap of TV somewhat. The Camel Train diorama, the chess pieces, or the assorted minis that I’ve painted and am proud of. They might not affect world peace, but they are fun to do. And with every hour, my skills improve.

There are so many projects to finish, to start – if I simply choose to do so. If I choose to make creative time a daily habit.

I encourage you to do the same. What could you do if you weren’t scrolling the internet right now? Don’t get me wrong. I love that you’re visiting The Purple Fantastic. Please visit again and again… but… what could you be creating in this moment?

So many projects keep whispering in my ear… so going forward… I’m going to push harder at making creation time a daily practice. Please join me. 🙂

July Reading

The Purple Fantastic Book of the Month

Alec

It is easy to pass over this humble cover art, but you shouldn’t. This is the story of EM Forster’s Maurice from the point of view of the gamekeeper, Alec Scudder. This story starts long before Maurice, with Alec’s childhood, and continues on beyond Maurice, beyond the horrors of WW1, to the years beyond. It was written with the blessing of the Forster estate. It truly lives up to its predecessor and arguably is even better. I enjoyed reading Maurice – but for anyone familiar with history, the end of Maurice is problematic. Two gay men going off into the woods in 1914 leaves a big unknown with Great Britain plunged into the war that year. So Alec continues this story. And this novel does so with details of time and place and dialects… this is a piece of literature, beautifully written and gripping in its storytelling. Perhaps one of the best books I have read in recent years.

* * * * *

William di Canzio’s Alec, inspired by Maurice, E. M. Forster’s secret novel of a happy same-sex love affair, tells the story of Alec Scudder, the gamekeeper Maurice Hall falls in love with in Forster’s classic, published only after the author’s death.

Di Canzio follows their story past the end of Maurice to the front lines of battle in World War I and beyond. Forster, who tried to write an epilogue about the future of his characters, was stymied by the radical change that the Great War brought to their world. With the hindsight of a century, di Canzio imagines a future for them and a past for Alec―a young villager possessed of remarkable passion and self-knowledge.

Alec continues Forster’s project of telling stories that are part of “a great unrecorded history.” Di Canzio’s debut novel is a love story of epic proportions, at once classic and boldly new.

The Purple Fantastic Steam Meter gives this a soft 3. This is an extraordinary bit of writing, there is a little steam but it is a minor part of this epic story.

More about The Purple Fantastic Steam Meter on the About page.

 

book-author

William di Canzio

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Description

William di Canzio’s Alec, inspired by Maurice, E. M. Forster’s secret novel of a happy same-sex love affair, tells the story of Alec Scudder, the gamekeeper Maurice Hall falls in love with in Forster’s classic, published only after the author’s death.

Di Canzio follows their story past the end of Maurice to the front lines of battle in World War I and beyond. Forster, who tried to write an epilogue about the future of his characters, was stymied by the radical change that the Great War brought to their world. With the hindsight of a century, di Canzio imagines a future for them and a past for Alec―a young villager possessed of remarkable passion and self-knowledge.

Alec continues Forster’s project of telling stories that are part of “a great unrecorded history.” Di Canzio’s debut novel is a love story of epic proportions, at once classic and boldly new.

Additional information

book-author

William di Canzio

Format

Audio CD, Audiobook, Hardcover, Kindle Books, Paperback

Language

English

Pages

352

Publisher

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Year Published

2021

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“We read books to find out who we are.

What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel…
is an essential guide to our understanding
of what we ourselves are and may become.”

 

Ursula K. LeGuin

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“When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature.
If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world,
I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.”

 

Maya Angelou

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“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies.

The man who never reads lives only one.

 

George R. R. Martin