It’s one thing to tell you how special this little book is. It’s another to show you. So here I am in a one-take video, reading my book out loud and explaining it as well as showing you the pictures as best I could.
Want to look for the balloon-man with me?
I was really shy about admitting the whole story about how Far & wee came to be. Why on earth would that be? I mean, I’ve already admitted I wrote twenty sonnets (and illustrated them) in nineteen days (okay, maybe that’s a bit of a flex…). I’ve admitted that I had no patience for getting feedback on the sonnets (this wasn’t that kind of project, honestly).
So I’m impatient and proud and may have rushed this project through (not just to be able to brag that I got it done in twenty-five days, but that doesn’t hurt). Why would I be embarrassed to admit what the spark was that put this whole thing in motion?
Well…
And here’s the shy part.
…the spark came from my persistent and somewhat consuming fandom for a K-Pop group.
There. I said it. I’m a K-Pop fan. K-Pop came along in my life when I needed a lift. And it gave me that! It started with BTS, but it quickly expanded to include groups like TXT and Enhypen…but especially the self-produced group Stray Kids.
If you come into my store, you’ll no doubt hear Stray Kids. If you surprise me in there, you might catch me dancing and sometimes singing along (you don’t need to hear that—I’m bad enough in English). I was fascinated when I found out they write and produce almost all of their songs. They help with choreography and producing the music videos. But especially the writing part. The poetry of these songs is incredible. In three different languages, no less. Mostly Korean and English, but they also write entirely Japanese songs as well as Japanese songs with some English mixed in.
It doesn’t hurt at all that they’re also handsome and charming in addition to prodigiously talented. And they adore their fans.
So how did they inspire me to write Far & wee, a book of sonnets about the balloon-man in e.e. cummings’s “[in Just-]”—when I’d been considering writing such a book for a long time?
It all came about when the leader of Stray Kids, Bang Chan, who loves to tease fans with spoilers they’re never going to figure out until it’s far too late, messaged his fans that his favorite color combination was pink and blue. And how together they made a whole new color.
Well, my first thought was that pink and blue really just makes purple. But I started thinking about pink and blue and purple and somehow it got mixed up in my head with the balloon-man (balloons come in all colors!). And there you go.
I won’t call Far & wee Stray Kids fan art, because it isn’t. But it is art that was done by one of their fans and definitely owes some of the inspiration to them. And a good bit of it was done with them playing in my AirPods or in the background.
So, thank you, Stray Kids. Because I’m really proud of this little book.
So you’ve been with me from the beginning of this thing. May 21 doesn’t seem like that long ago, right? What is that, 19 days?
I never would have thought in a million years that I would write, illustrate and publish a book in nineteen days. But I did.
I’ve often felt that I write what is given to me from…somewhere else. I write for someone else and there’s a purpose I don’t necessarily know about for my writing. I don’t know who it is out there who needs to read this book, but it’s here now. It was my obsession, pushing everything else out of the way for 19 days. Now I need to move on to finish up some other projects. Projects that took me longer than 19 days. But I think I can do it now.
Anyway, as a little introduction/excerpt to the book, here’s the actual introduction of the book as it appeared on my computer while I was laying out the book.
Is there a correct amount of time to spend writing a book?
If there is, I broke every rule with this one.
My previously untitled “balloon-man project” is nearing completion. I designed the cover this morning. I finished the layout last night. I’ll probably publish it tomorrow.
This book is really about obsession—especially as it applies to us creative types. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of need that an especially appealing project creates in the belly of a creative.
And there’s nothing like that feeling of knowing it’s done. Even if you broke all the rules getting there.
It’s 12:30 a.m. and I have to be up at 7 a.m. My son graduates high school this weekend. I’m working between graduation events. It’s a busy weekend.
But I’m up right now because I really wanted to share something else from my balloon-man project. You know, the one that seized me by the freaking throat, picked me up and shook me until I agreed to indulge it? And now it won’t let me go.
Okay, maybe that’s a bit violent of a description for what’s going on here, but I do feel like this one came out of nowhere. I mean, I decided to write sonnets one day and bam. There it was. Twenty sonnets in two days, all connected, telling a story. And now I’ve illustrated more than half of them and I’m pretty sure I know how to lay them out in book format (a very tiny book), and I’m thinking it’ll be ready about the same time as Hypercreativity, which I worked on for months.
I’ve never had a book happen this way before.
A walk after rain is often enlightening. A walk after rain in the spring never fails to bring to mind e.e. cummings. A walk after rain while thinking of e.e. cummings will either bring inspiration…or make you feel like a dullard. I’ve had it both ways, but I still like to try.
April 9, 2020
Inspiration After the Storm
By Michelle Garren Flye
Shhh.
This is my favorite part.
After the storm,
When the world comes back to life.
Listen.
The birds sing their
Survivor song.
I walk quiet
Through the mud-
Luscious world
Cummings warned me about.
Careful. Feel it?
Desire.
For the words
For the waiting photo
For inspiration—
But all I see is the mess after the storm.
Leaves and branches
Cast aside,
Petals litter
Wet pavement.
My dog stops to watch as a bird bathes in a puddle—
But I didn’t bring the right lens.
We walk on…Oh,
Where is my balloon man?
But wait.
Listen.
Shhh.
I hear him now.
Or maybe it’s a frog.
No, look.
That leaf is new.
That rose.
That puddle with petals
Of the dogwood tree
Drowned inside.
Oh yes.
This is my favorite part.
Inspiration always comes after the storm.
Happy Valentine’s Day! A day dedicated to this crazy thing called love.
But why “crazy”? you ask. What do you mean by that?
Because nobody knows what causes it. And you risk ruining it by examining it too closely.
Because what else could it be but crazy to open your heart and show someone else what’s in it?
Because loving someone—or something—is the biggest risk you can ever take. If they don’t fail you, the world might. Life happens all around us every single day. And it happens to all of us in different ways all at the same time.
Because if you let love into your heart, it will take up all the space there—and if life happens to the subject of your love in a way that takes it away, the emptiness might just become a black hole that sucks you into the void.
So why, then? If it’s such a big risk, why do we do it? Why do we search for love? Why do we willingly plunge into the risky waters of love?
No one knows. And certainly no one knows better than the poets that no one knows. In his aptly titled poem “Poem”, e.e. Cummings said:
love is the voice under all silences,
the hope which has no opposite in fear;
the strength so strong mere force is feebleness:
the truth more first than sun more last than star
I like this and I feel like it comes closer to identifying the what and the why better than anything I’ve ever read. It’s like “The Force” in Star Wars. Love underlies everything, is everything, the one superhuman strength that you can’t really identify but it’s really there. It makes us stronger and weaker at the same time.
Love—whether it’s for parent, sibling, child, spouse, pet or all things—is the way we connect most intimately with the world. The more we feel, the closer we are to the universe. The more we open ourselves up to love, the more risk we are willing to take for the love—the more fragilely strong we become.
A Million (and 1) Things to Love
By Michelle Garren Flye
Where is love?
Songs simplify,
Poems complicate.
But love is there.
Reach for it.
The love of saving,
The love of believing,
The love of finding.
Love fleeting,
Love flying,
Love staying.
The world is full.
All around you, things to love.
Objects for affection.
A cat, a dog, a child.
A rose, a plant, a sunset.
A soul mate for the very lucky.
Hope will find love.
Trust will strengthen love.
Faith will keep love safe.
Reach for it.
Hold it tight in your heart—
And hope it doesn’t
Break
You
Open.
For those who don’t know, April is National Poetry Month. This year I’ve celebrated by teaching some amazing kids about poetry. It’s been fun, rewarding and, at times, truly amazing.
But I digress. Last week we wound up our study with a look at concrete poetry, which gave me the opportunity to share e.e. cummings’s haunting “[In Just-]“. I’ve always loved this poem and read it regularly to see what else I can discover about it. I remember the first time a teacher displayed this poem on the overhead projector and I was so puzzled by it. I was just getting used to poetry that looked like poetry and here was this crazy mishmash of unrhymed, strangely patterned words.
And yet, it’s the poem I come back to most often when I think about poetry. And it’s the poem I think of when the world is mud-luscious and starting to warm up and the flowers aren’t blooming yet but you know they will… Just spring.
Perhaps the world does us an injustice by making just spring so short a time. It’s over here now, ending with the brief month of April. The first flowers are past their bloom, the mosquitoes are beginning to bite. Summer and pool time and the beach and lazy days are coming. We’re all looking forward to it, but we’ll miss those first days of spring.
Next year when March and April come around, though, I look forward to again listening for the far and wee whistle of the little lame balloon man. And in the meantime, I’ll watch for the seeds I planted this April to sprout and grow.
What’s your favorite poem? Share it with me in the comments!
BREATHE: Michelle Garren-Flye 