In which I ought to make it up to you

Yesterday was scary, no? So today I offer you something genuinely lovely. It is Contrariwise and the concept is simple--it is a blog that records and celebrates tattoos based upon favorite literary works. Some are visual, some are words, all are terribly meaningful. (Again, this is a site someone else linked to and I've managed to forget where I saw it. It may have been my friend Kristin who had herself inked in honor of her darling son with a few lines of e e cummings.) In any event, it got me wondering, what words are powerful enough that you would want them engraved on your skin forever? If I were to do this today, the quote would be from Tolkien--All who wander are not lost. But doubtless I would find something different tomorrow and deeply regret something that requires lasers and skin grafts to undo. (I do have a tattoo but it's so discreet it took my former gynecologist a year to notice it. It's on my left hip, high enough to be hidden under shorts.) 

Revision watch: 350 pages done and the next two days will be the most challenging. Today I have to write a lengthy scene that isn't in the first draft but ought to be, and tomorrow will be a 75-page push to finish instead of my usual 50. But it's almost there and it's going VERY well, so I'm not complaining.

Comments

[Lara H.]

Don't forget to take some time off for Thanksgiving! Have a wonderful time and congratulations on meeting the tough goals you have set yourself. I cannot wait to read this new masterpiece!

[Gladys]

I am drain to tattoos like some people are drawn to train wrecks. I can't help book look at them. I met a young man on a flight one time who had his entire head tattooed. I asked him why and he said it made him feel tribal. I'm not sure why others do it but his explanation left me wondering why people feel the need to put permanent marks all over their bodies.

[Ms. George]

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving! I'm eagerly awaiting the new book, but make sure you take time for you.

I have "Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure" on my leg. I am a Harry Potter fan; it's the motto for Ravenclaw House and perfectly appropriate for me.

Laurie Halse Anderson has the opening to Beowulf, Hwaet, on her wrist. It is the Old English call given by the storytellers to listen or attend to what will be told.

[Melissa( The Artist)]

Yaya,My mom says I can get a Tattoo for my 21st b-day, I planning to get "Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence." -Edgar Allen Poe maybe with hello kitty in the center....haha

I only have a year to wait and plan... and think of the pain .

Have a wonderful Thanks Giving!

*smiles*

[Lara]

This is one of my favorite sites; if ever I decide to become the tattoo lady in the circus, they will all be literary tattoos. Except for the family memorial tattoo concept I'm working on now. But I'll make one up for that.

[Nancy]

What is yours, Deanna? Can't say you have one and then not tell us. . .pleeeaaase?

[halfy]

credit goes to KimmyD for introducing our "crowd" to that site. i so love having the ee cummings line on my back. i think it suits me and him perfectly.

i never would have guessed that YOU have a tattoo!

~kristin

[Deanna]

Oh, thanks, Kristin! I totally forgot it was Kimmy D. (The fact that you still think of me as prim kills me. Dead.)

Nancy, it's a drawing my husband did--a small red heart with vines twisting off of it. I had it done three months after my daughter was born.

[Kristen K]

I've seen this site before...I love it!
I'm surprised how many people have Le Petit Prince images or quotes. I think if I were to get a tattoo, I'd do a quote from that as well (in original French, of course) or I'd get the quote "for life is not a paragraph and death i think is no parenthesis" by e e cummings.
Or possibly I'd quote something from "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho...although there's so much to choose from!