Heather Wilkes: The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love, and to be greater than our suffering. ~Ben Okri


Heather Wilkes: In order to learn the most important lessons in life one must each day surmount a fear. -Ralph Waldo Emerson


Heather Wilkes: Whatever you are, be a good one. ~Abraham Lincoln


Heather Wilkes: Does the time of the year typically affect anyone else's writing? Lately most of my topics have been darker than normal...maybe it's the oncoming Halloween holiday :-)
    --Turtle.: Ah, the angst of shorter days and longer nights, cold breezes and browning leaves. I think I my moods change with the seasons.
    -
    LYLE: Heather,
    Congratulations on your success in the "I Remember" contest. It was a beautifully descriptive poem.
    Fondly, Lyle -
    Heather Wilkes: Thank you so much, Lyle! I really appreciate it! I'm still a little in shock...in a happy way :-) -
    Ann Smith: I enjoyed reading the different posts on your profile. I especially liked the quotes from the songs of the Beatles. You're right that kind of depth is not found as often today. -


Heather Wilkes: Happy 70th Birthday, John Lennon!!!


Heather Wilkes: I spent the day listening to the Beatles (I love them) :-) and started thinking about some of the great quotes they have. Just brilliant wordplay and philosophical depth. You don't find that as often in modern songwriting.

"Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letterbox" -Across the Universe

"Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see." -Strawberry Fields Forever

"Here I stand, head in hand, turned my face to the wall. If she's gone I can't go on, feeling two foot small." -You've Got to Hide Your Love Away


"Picture yourself in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies." -Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (also in this song, the description of a girl with "kaleidoscope eyes")

Brilliant? Oh yes.


Heather Wilkes: Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.
-Helen Keller


Heather Wilkes: I'm starting to discover that I like haikus. I mean, I REALLY like haikus. It's just really fun to play with words and syllables with so little space and try to give a thought palpable meaning.
    JeJo: haikus are so much fun! keep writing them! -


Heather Wilkes: Reading a lot of my works that I wrote in college and high school and comparing them to my works now, I realize that I really have evolved as a writer. My language is more distinguished. I have more range in topics and I'm not afraid to make my characters and prose enter a darker state of being. My typical writing still incorporates a candid optimism and appreciation of the beauty of the world around us...but there's also an underside to many of my works. I'm growing up :-)


Heather Wilkes: I've decided today that criticism can be a blessing in disguise. No one is perfect...and an author definitely needs to express their own opinions and styles through the stories they tell or poems they write, but no matter who you are there is always room for improvement. I don't care if you're Stephen King, Ken Follett or Fannie Flagg...everyone could use an editor. You may not agree with criticism, and that's OK, but I really think that outside perspectives can always help a writer to grow. Consider feedback with grace, and don't attack someone who took the time to read your work.


Heather Wilkes: I think that the biggest thing I search for when I read AND when I write is descriptive detail. How can you become immersed in something fully and totally if you can't see it? Details can be found in the most innocuous of places. If your character is anywhere (ANYWHERE) there's usually a plethora of things surrounding them, whether the character realizes it or not. I'm not saying that you have to describe things in ridiculously meticulous detail or use ten trillion adjectives. I'm saying that in writing we need to incorporate all the senses. We need to taste the citrus squirting out of the ripe orange the character is eating and crave the freshly baked bread as the steam drifts in thin tendrils off the golden crust. Words are poetry within themselves and in stories they do more than guide us through plotlines. They immerse us into worlds beyond our own.