The Creative Spark with Uvi Poznansky discussion

Please introduce yourself: who you are, what do you do, in what ways you give expression to your own creativity. Post your blog if you have one, and place your book on the group's bookshelf.

I'm Sheila. I write and draw, both on the computer.

Hi Sheila! I noticed that your debut novel, Divide by Zero, will be released in July, and its name made me chuckle, because I took a lot of math courses over the years. I am always fascinated by cross-polination between art, writing, music and science. Would you mind telling me about the novel and how your math background enriches your writing.

Also, I would like to know what tool do you use for drawing on the computer (Photoshop?) and why you prefer it to drawing with paper and pencil.

Hi Ken. I admire the consistency of writing. It must be so revealing for you to glance at your handwriting from two decades ago, and to be transported magically to that place! I would love it it you chose a brief segment of your writing and posted it right here, it will tell me a lot about you!

Oh NYKen, I so love the use of dialogue! It brings the listener, ever so cleverly, directly into the lives of these people. I can start sensing the tensions and cross-purposes between all three of them. Very observant of you!

And I appreciate that you 'masked' their names, to protect the innocent... Indeed this is what a novel writer would sometimes do: invent characters and let them carry out actions, reveal secrets that should be left unspoken in the author's 'real' life.

Thank you so much for sharing!

I figured it was 'watered down', and understood why.

It is a good question NYKen. I did not write an ongoing journal, but at one point I had a need, suddenly, to write a memoir, and spent a few months sketching my life on paper. It helped me to cast certain doubts away, and to put my life and relationships with my family in perspective.

Hi Everyone! So here is a great way for me to introduce myself. Listen to my conversation about writing and art with the host of Conversations Live Radio, Cyrus Webb! http://www.blogtalkradio.com/breakfas...

Uvi wrote: "Hi Sheila! I noticed that your debut novel, Divide by Zero, will be released in July, and its name made me chuckle, because I took a lot of math courses over the years. I am always fascinated by c..."
I'm a mathematician by training, so I suppose the title was kind of inevitable, but I think math and writing and drawing go well together--so much symbolism. I guess I get the same feeling from something making mathematical sense as I do from a story feeling right or a picture that comes out balanced just how I wanted.

The main reason I started drawing on the computer was I wanted to self-publish a book and I couldn't face scanning all my old pictures in, so I just redrew them--with MS Draw. My son was playing with Draw at the time so he gave me lots of hints, but now I move the mouse as easily as I would a pencil and it feels quite natural. Not fancy, but it works.

That's so amazing, Sheila. I enjoy using photoshop, for example the back cover of my book was done in photoshop, while the front cover is an image based on my oil painting. Which book was it, and what was the style of your drawings for it?

My name is Christine Hatfield and i'm 25 years old and i work at the riverside elementary school where i help little kids that are handicapped and i play the piano and i'm making bracelets for the make a wish foundation of new jersey and i have a medical problem

Hi Christine, so nice to meet you! I have just looked at your questions and insightful comments in the other discussion threads. It is such a great thing you are doing, a mission really, both your help for handicapped kids and the bracelets you make for the make a wish foundation. I truly admire you for that. Not going to ask about the medical problem, even though I wonder if that lead you to your calling in life.

Hi, Goodsreads so far is very strange. Like a US library where Balzac's Human Comedie is reduced to one story. (And why that one?) It will take some getting use to orientate myself.

Hi James! If you have a particular question I'll try to answer, but I see you're learning the ropes all right. I'm new to the scene myself, so can easily relate. Welcome to this group!

Hi Uvi, I'm pretty new as well. Enjoy sportts (basketball and swimming mostly), I don't think I'm creative in any way but I love reading.

Hi Dave, good to meet you. I noticed you added Apart From Love to your 'currently reading' shelf, and would love to hear what you think of it, even before you finish it.

btw I happened to think there is a lot of creativity and problem solving skills in sports.

Thanks for inviting me to the group. I'm Michelle. I'm a writer. In fact, my newest novel,Embracing You, Embracing Me, was just released today. It is a YA. I have two other previously published books. You can learn about them at michellebellon.com.

Congrats, Michelle! So happy for you. Love the title, it has a great rhythm to it, almost like a dance. Just my impression. While your book is set in the 90's, mine is set in the 80's. (still, I call it contemporary fiction.)

I have just gone to read your book description on Amazon. It would be interesting to do a comparison in the character development between your female protagonist and mine. Are you game? (Take a look at Apart From Love)

Here is a short excerpt from my book Apart From Love:

"I touch my skin right under my breasts, which is where the little one’s curled, and where he kicks, ‘cause he has to. Like, he don’t feel so cosy no more. Here, can you feel it? I reckon he wants me to talk to him. He can hear me inside, for sure. He can hear every note of this silvery music.
It ripples all around him, wave after wave. I can tell that it’s starting to sooth him. It’s so full of joy, of delight, even if to him, it’s coming across somewhat muffled. Like a dream in a dream, it’s floating inside, into his soft, tender ear.
I close my eyes and hold myself, wrapping my arms real soft—around me around him—and I rock ever so gently, back and forth, back and forth, with every note of this silvery marvel. You can barely hear me—but here I am, singing along. I’m whispering words into myself, into him."

Doesn't it have a rhythm close to the name Embracing You, Embracing Me?

Hi NYKen, welcome back!

Indeed, conflict is the engine of a story. You remembered quite accurately the opening line from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: "Happy Families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." What a great beginning! How true it is! And by a strange twist, the more specifically you define your particular family, the more deeply you touch your reader (in your case, your children.) I am so glad I gave you the urge to write. You have a lot to give!

It definitely has a rhythm to it that reveals poetic prose.
I have marked your novel as to read. I'm looking forward to checking it out.

Uvi wrote: "Here is a short excerpt from my book Apart From Love:

"I touch my skin right under my breasts, which is where the little one’s curled, and where he kicks, ‘cause he has to. Like, he don’t feel so..."

Uvi wrote: "Here is a short excerpt from my book Apart From Love:

"I touch my skin right under my breasts, which is where the little one’s curled, and where he kicks, ‘cause he has to. Like, he don’t feel so..."

As an exercise, try stepping into his shoes and speaking in his voice, in first-person narrative.

So now, lets say he's describing a dialog he's taken part in. (I know you have an ear for dialog.) He may quote the other person with great accuracy, but would interpret what he hears from his point of view, to the point of misinterpreting, at times.

Get into his point of view. What is his past history? How did he get to become what he is at this moment?

Soon enough, your character will take over. He will start chatting in your mind faster than your can write him!

Hi, I am a writer currently working on a sequel to Roses of Winter, my novel set in WW2 Glasgow, Scotland. I have also published A Hole Without Sides, a memoir of my time as a volunteer in early 1970s Britain. I recently produced a video in which I interview Wilbert and Sheila Hart about their experiences with the Philadelphia R&B group The Delfonics. You can find that at http://youtu.be/0zTCruwFUGo.

Hi Murdo, welcome to the group. I love the way you invite your readers to discover, along with your characters, that even in the winter of wartime flowers may yet bloom. Three of my characters come from that era.

I invite you to engage in the conversation here, about writing, creativity, learning about my book,
Apart From Love, and drawing comparisons to your own writing method.

So glad! I must share. The first UK review of my book appeared minutes ago on Amazon! A. Rose, a Top Amazon Reviewer (ranks #118 in the UK) writes:

"Uvi Poznasky is a very talented lady, not only is she a very accomplished writer, she is a poet, sculptor, artist, teacher and much more. The beautiful cover of the book is of one of her works of art and after visiting her website I see that she is indeed gifted and worth taking a look at uviart.com . This is a beautiful and sophisticated novel of love, loss and torture and well worth reading."

To read more, click the link
http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-revie...

Congrats for the review!

Started reading Apart From Love . So far I find it truly captivating! The beginning of each chapter pulls me in, and by the end of each chapter I find myself sitting there and saying, Wow.

Thank you Dave!

Hi Uvi, Just here to let you know that I have finished reading your book, and posted a review of it! I found it captivating all the way through, and with all the twist and turns could not even guess where the story was going.

Boy, you are a fast reader Dave! Thank you for the review, it was beautifully written. Now that you've read Apart From Love I would be glad to answer any questions you might have.

NYKen wrote: "Hi Uvi. I am Ken, and I have a journal that I've been writing on a regular basis for the last two decades."

Hi Ken, here is a short segment, not of my memoirs, but of a biography this time. A few years back I started writing a biography, which I am yet to complete: my father's life. The starting point was this moment, when the old man, who was an author, poet and artist in the prime of his life, nods to sleep, propped by pillows on his armchair:

"Here is the place – he can bring it back – his first home.
Straight ahead is the door with a big handle high above. He can easily reach it, standing on the tips of his toes and pushing, pushing forward. It opens! Here is the room, which he shares with his sister, Batia. He is three yours old; she is five. And somehow he knows: she will come in later, much later. He can climb into bed now. Sleep is coming; he can feel it. Sleep is almost here...

To read more click the link:
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/05/fu...

No it's ok if you can ask about my medical problem and i have broncho pulmonary dysplasia and it's in both of my lungs and i was in the hospital until i was fourteen months old and i was a 24 week old premature baby so i have an oxygen tube in my nose and a g-tube in my stomach

I can't even begin to imagine how you fought your way to survival, Christine. I have not asked so far, because I don't want to pry, you understand. That said, I'm so glad you chose to share your experience with me, and appreciate how difficult that may be for you. I think this is rewarding to us both.

What I want to know is how did these difficulties shape you as a person. I could see clearly that they gave you a calling in life. They must then continue, even now, to affect what you choose to read, and what characters you feel close to.

We all have challenges, we all stumble through the trials of life. This is something I like to explore in my writing. I do a lot of research on every aspect of my character's life. One of the characters, Natasha, is on a rocky descent into the depth of her Alzheimer. I treat her journey with the utmost sensitivity. Another one, Anita, is a survivor of child abuse at the hands of her mother's boyfriend. This has shaped her view that Love is a diluted word: "Why, why can’t you say nothing? Say any word—but that one, ‘cause you don’t really mean it. Nobody does. Say anything, apart from Love."

(btw if you wish, I could point you to some of the entries in my blog which highlight some of the characters in the book. You might find an affinity with them.)

Uvi wrote: "Boy, you are a fast reader Dave! Thank you for the review, it was beautifully written. Now that you've read Apart From Love I would be glad to answer any questions you might have."

Here's a question for you: You write about Natasha's decline (because on early-onset alzheimer). How did you know how to 'pace' it? Were you already familiar with such cases, or have you done extensive research for the book?

My first encounter with Alzheimer's was through the phone--I would talk to my father, who up until a year before his passing at the age of 94, was bright and coherent. That year I found myself having to repeat, "It's me dad, it's your daughter.'

That, and a visit here in LA to a 'home' for elderly people where I met several people inflicted with the disease, drove me to research it in more depth.

I asked myself: What if my character, Natasha, had it for several years and nobody recognized it, because she was still in the prime of her life and the height of her career? How would she absorb that moment of recognition? In the memory of her son Ben, how far back could he go and still discover--to his surprise--that she was already suffering from it? How does he face his own denial, his dream to 'save' his mother and take her away from the 'home' where she now lives? What impact would her descent have on a family already laden with conflicts?

Michelle wrote: "It definitely has a rhythm to it that reveals poetic prose.
I have marked your novel as to read. I'm looking forward to checking it out.

Last night I finished reading Michelle Bellon's book and posted a review on Goodreads. Let me first explain the initial burst of interest I found in the title, Embracing You, Embracing Me --before I even knew what it was about. I was intrigued by an apparent similarity between this title and an idea I explored, with great curiosity, in my book Apart From Love. And this is it: The new lover embraces his partner, who in turn embraces the shadow of his love for someone who can no longer be here. In the words of Anita, the female protagonist in my story:

"So I take a step closer to Lenny, and this time I don’t allow myself to be stopped—not by him, not by that shadow, and not by nothing else I’ve seen in my head, just now. And I brush my lips over his hair, and spread my arms real wide, hugging her hugging him."

To read my review click here
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/05/re...

Hello, I am Angela Davis and I have been a voracious reader since age 2. I love to write, and journal daily. I also enjoy photography, and often utilize humor to express my creative side. I very much admire those who create art in all different forms. Living in New Orleans, Louisiana, I have am fortunate to have that opportunity literally everywhere I turn.
Uvi,I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of your book, so that I can discuss it in this blog with others who have read, and appreciate it.
I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and graduated with my Master's in Social Work from Tulane University. I have worked with a wide variety of people who have tugged at my heart and soul, and who all have amazing stories to tell. I hope to put something like that together one day, if I ever have time!
Thank you and have a wonderful week everyone!
Angela

Hi Angela, New Orleans girl! Great to see you here! It'll be so rewarding to discuss the book with you. Meanwhile have a great week yourself!
Uvi

Angela wrote: "I've been enjoying your art work and sculptures periodically throughout the day, because they are very soothing yet complex. I'm going to re-post your blogspot again on my FB page so that more peop..."

Bless you Angela!

Morning Angela, your note is so refreshing to read this morning. Talking about the devastation of Katrina, I have painted a large oil painting after the disaster, named Katrina. I will post it for you sometime today in my blog, and let you know right here about it, because it may touch you directly.

I truly enjoy the conversation too.

So here it is, as promised:

Some subjects leave such an impression in my mind that words are not enough. Such was the case with the human disaster that came about at the heels of hurricane Katrina, which formed on August 23 during the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, and caused devastation along much of the north-central Gulf Coast.

This is a big canvas, 36x60. When it is hung on the wall, you are face to face with...
To read more, click the link
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/05/wh...

I am not familiar with The Grand Failure, but remember vividly certain passages in Tolstoy's book, The Death of Ivan Ilych. It is quite a journey the protagonist takes until he draws his last breath.

It's a good thing you're reading such dark literature, because then, when you start reading Apart From Love it will seem one shade lighter... ;)

I can totally relate to loving quaint bookstores with old books. You're very lucky to have one nearby.

Great question Angela! I have lived here about three decades. It is incredibly hard to move, but when you are young and adventurous, it is all in good fun.

Being multi-lingual, English was no problem--rather, it was the nuancing of the language. I mean, back in Israel people would blurt out exactly what they mean, while here I had to 'read between the lines.' Which, incidentally, teaches you to listen--really listen--to the way they say things. I make full use of my listening skill in writing dialogue.

The book arrived in the mail, and with good timing too! I called in sick to work this morning, so now I am at the point in the book when Ben learns the truth about his mother. Heartbreaking. Reading along! ;)

So glad it arrived finally! Do not hesitate to post your thoughts here as you are reading along. Ben is on a roller coaster of emotions, taking you along for the ride... But eventually (I promise) you'll see him find his bearings.

Ben is with her right now, as she stares vacantly out the window. Having worked with individuals with Alzheimer's and dementia, I can truly picture this scene in my mind.

You can truly judge what I call the 'truth in fiction', because you have a unique, first hand familiarity with people suffering from the disease. This chapter is the first of two chapters Ben is watching his mother and trying to talk to her, which turns out to be talking to himself and bringing up early childhood memories.

Here is an excerpt of how he views her:
"I push forward, aiming to view it, somehow, from her angle, which at first, is too hard to imagine:
In my mind I try, I see a map, the entire map of her travels around the world. A whole history. It has been folded over and again, collapsed like a thin tissue, into a square; which is suspended there—right in front of her—a tiny, obscure dot on that window.
And inside that dot, the path of her journey crisscrosses itself in intricate patterns, stacked in so many papery layers. And the names of the places, in which she performed back then, in the past—London, Paris, Jerusalem, San Petersburg, New York, Tokyo—have become scrambled, illegible even, because by now, she can no longer look past that thing, that dot. She cannot see out of herself.
She is, I suppose, confined."

I love your use of olfactory memories and also the importance of the piano in the story. I have just reached the chapter where Lenny's voice is heard for the first time.
Also, was there any particular inspiration for the character of Anita?

Thank you Angela! I try to write so you have all senses awakened, with descriptions that are tactile, olfactory and visual.

Many readers asked me about Anita, the girl in the midst of a firestorm of passion in my new book, Apart From Love. She is so different... How did she spring from my mind?

Here's a blog post I wrote about her:
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/03/wh...

;)