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Lionheart

2010-08-05T11:38:00.000-04:00

You gallop away
inside of me
oblivious to all
they claim will harm you
insulated
isolated
incubated
I will take the berating for you
a hundred needles to draw my blood
squeezing of veins
all manner of prodding
should it mean keep you safe
from the same

You gallop away
shortening the days
I have you all to myself
your strong heart
your lion's heart
bearing you through
the brave unknown

Concentrate

2010-07-26T17:22:00.000-04:00

All the years
the miles
the distance
concentrates
to a few moments
memory
recalled in an instant
slammed into place

All dark corners
and elements forgotten
alight
await inspection

There: the steel of old anger rusts
hard
flaking slowly orange
There: the porous driftwood
of nostalgia
the scent of treasures drowned
Here: yellowed pages embossed
curled from words
by pressure, heat, inertia
his calloused hands...
There: a scent remembered
a voice through the telephone line
coiling again through your hair
my fingers
my breath
words that disappeared once
past my lips
I wonder if you even heard

All these elements
these moments recalled
precious things cherished no longer
concentrate
slam into place
before they melt and
slowly diffuse

Diagnosis

2010-07-23T17:08:00.001-04:00

In my blood
a ghost
who haunts
unseen
Notorious named
and wicked
he pursues
in darkness
Known well
these parts
a legacy of the south
long taught how
to exorcise
an oral tradition
by way of mouth

So high he soars
and dances
cackling in the vein
Craves forbidden things
relishing his sweet
succubus
Havoc on a body
a baby
a lifetime

Untitled I (cont'd)

2010-07-20T14:56:00.000-04:00

Part II

Temperature rising
a clock ticks
wears away
week after week
until there are only days
then hours
then minutes
then you arrive

Your feet dance
a sean nos
your fists drum
a snare untuned
and ever you bounce
to unheard rhythms
or the sound of
my heart

How will I know you?
How will you know me?
The outside is not
the same
as the deafened drowned
space we share

Untitled I

2010-07-19T14:53:00.002-04:00

Prelude: Part I

Something in the weight
of atmosphere
pressing down
into and through
the depths
the sea within
sinking
swimming
diving down

Creativity

2010-07-18T11:28:00.003-04:00

Where do you live

elusive one?

Are you inside a mind

a body

a culture?

Or are you in the air

intangible

un-graspable

slick with anticipation

or the slime of neglect?

Can you be in two places

at once?

Both inside and outside

acting upon

and acted upon

sealed in the dark, warm womb

and walking in the light besides?

How am I able to channel

one and the other

the poet, the mother

the ship and the drowned?

Can I wrangle

the tangled brain

pull from it an image

of verse

while umbilicaled

to a creation I have yet to meet?

This is the first poem of my attempt at 30 Poems in 30 Days. I got started a little later than 15 July, so my 30 days will run from 18 July-18 August. As always, your comments and constructive criticism are welcome, as these are zero drafts and absolutely unedited (with the exception of spelling). Thanks for reading!

30 Poems in 30 Days Returns

2010-07-14T11:27:00.003-04:00

A writing friend of mine has proposed another round of 30 Poems in 30 Days, from 15 July-15 August. I feel I inclined to participate, since I have not been creating much writing other than documentation of my physical condition during pregnancy. It would be interesting to see what comes from applying my creative mind to poetry during this time. Of course, it might be that all of my creative energies are going into, well, creating a life. I've certainly had some interesting thoughts running around my head, and even stranger dreams, so if anything, they will serve as the roving from which I spin a round of thirty poems. It's interesting this is around the same time I started last year. Perhaps this is my new annual routine.

Checking In with the WIP

2010-05-11T11:01:00.003-04:00

So, what's going on with my novel, you might be wondering? Honestly, I haven't even looked at it since December. That does not mean, however, that I haven't been rolling it around in my head. I stopped writing at a very important scene, so important that I want to make sure I get things right.

My lovely protagonist, Katherine, is about to come face to face with the man of her dreams, well, the man who's recently invaded her dreams, though he is a figure from her past--serious past--past lives past. The "man of her dreams," in the romantic sense, is off fighting in the Crimean War, and had no idea that his beloved is about to face the ultimate test of their love. I know that sounds cheesy, but seriously, John is one of the most charismatic men Katherine will ever encounter, and though not powerful in the sense that her betrothed, Lewis is powerful, John has power over Katherine she does not yet understand--he remembers every instance they have met in past lives, and he has been searching for her his entire life.

Katherine is about to face the biggest existential crisis of her Victorian life. She's about to remember, instantly, all of her past lives and how both John and Lewis have been intertwined over centuries. Needless to say, she is about to have a bit of a breakdown.

This disclosure sequence has got to be written just so. I'm nervous about it, and worrying it in my head. I have a truly bad habit of editing before I begin, self-editing to the point of retarding the creative process, often fatally. But, one of the reasons I halted writing where I did is so this doesn't happen. The scene needs to happen, it's the how that has me stumped. It's one of the most exciting elements in this arc, not at all boring explication that has tripped me up in the past. The writing needs to mimic Katherine's realization, needs to be cinematic, quick flickers of memory, both visual and emotional, as well as sensual (of the senses). It needs to be sufficiently overwhelming, maddening, worrisome and beautiful. It's pretty daunting!

I was thinking about it in the shower the other morning. So, yeah, it's definitely on my mind. I thought I'd share, since I've not spoken about the novel in some time.

National Poetry Month

2010-04-22T14:19:00.002-04:00

April is National Poetry Month in the US. Most publishers hold their new collected volumes and compilations back until second and third quarter of the fiscal year, and certainly any well-known single author works do well if they are still in trade cloth and on display at the local big box bookstore. I wonder why April was chosen? Could it be the immortal line from T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland "April is the cruelest month" caused publishers and librarians to feel the need to apologize to a month that acts as harbinger of Spring?

I, for one, am consciously more moved to compose lines of poetry in the Autumn, but both the British and American literary canon share authors prolific en printemps. Much of the pastoral mode of verse finds setting in valleys of wildflowers, birds in canopies of trees of new buds, apple blossoms, daffodils, tulips, and more. The world re-awakening, the quickening of life, the cycle of rebirth, these are all themes within spring poetry.

Good poetry makes me feel this way. Something in me re-awakens each time I read Keats, Yeats, Eliot, Heaney, Levertov, Donne, Ginsberg, Shakespeare, Wilbur, Neruda, Whitman, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Dickinson, Blake, cummings, Creeley, Pound, Olson, Gluck, Auden and more. I feel the quickening of Heaney's fecund earth, the primal joining of sound and breath that Ginsberg laid bare and Whitman encouraged, the deep seed power and philosophy and joy in so many of the others named above. These are the folks in my personal library, these are the words I return to as they are somehow eternal in my mind.

The Lost Art of Journaling

2010-04-08T12:38:00.002-04:00

My poor handwritten journal feels neglected. It is also a little jealous at all my electronic "blog" updating. I carry my journal, a hardcover acid-free sketchbook, around with me in my purse, every day, everywhere I go. This is a habit, from back when I used to write multiple entries every day, by hand. Pen and paper, ink and pulp, falling in love with each blank page, or relishing the feel of the embossed pages before. Handwriting is therapeutic writing, sensual, tactile, a true physical release. It is so much different from pressing little squares, even with their comforting clicks. Sure, it is satisfying to see a page fill up behind the a cursor, often more quickly than script from the pen will allow. And there is the security of spell-check, and less second-guessing about whether a word feels right, so long as it looks correct. But changing the font on a digital entry will never be as artistic to me as the look of my own handwriting-filled pages, or the goofy doodles I attempt, or the ornate designs that fill the corners and empty spaces where there are not words. I blog for economy, for a purpose on a specific topic (hence this writing process blog you are reading now, which is different from my music, spiritual, or self psychoanalytical blogs). Could it be I have too many outlets? My writing spread out over too many "journals," thus distracts me from the physical writing I used to create daily?

In a previous entry, I discussed the idea of returning to a visual journal I began some years ago, that I call a "soul journal." I was composing it using prompts from a book by Christina Baldwin titled Life's Companion : Journal Writing as a Spiritual Quest (sadly, out of print), and recording my responses using words and various methods of collage including magazine cut-outs, rubber stamps, inks of various colors, and other ephemera. I still really like the journal, but I've not worked in it for years, yes, years. I feel that if I attempted a return, it would be a different person responding, vastly different from the person I was when I began, and without having that progression of the soul somehow chronicled in that document. It feels wrong to me. But I want to return to the process.

I constantly talk myself out of starting new journals, whether online or physical. I have TOO many, and the majority are only updated on rare occasions. In the case of physical journals, this feels wasteful, careless. I want to be creative every day, and the way I accomplish manifesting my creativity is through writing. (I have other crafting hobbies too, but writing is more forgiving somehow. It's a place where I can experiment and file away the creatures who are a bit wonky, and showcase the creatures who surprise and delight.)

So, I'm re-committing myself to taking the time to write in my physical journal daily. I encourage myself to use medium other than a standard ink pen. I will use a prompt if I have nothing on my mind. I will adventure to write in non-standard paths--horizontal, vertical and non-linear. I will allow myself to draw in the margins, be messy, add clippings, ticket stubs, lists and other outside ephemera. I continue to be inspired by the 1000 Journals Project, and other visual journaling groups. These compilations are striking, intensely moving, and powerful, more so than words alone. The combination of words and images have always appealed to me, and so my goal is set. There are more guidelines, or notes, on being less concerned with neatness and organization, and not being afraid to "mess up" or wreck a page. There is beauty in the mistake, in flaws, in the character each creates.

Time to let go, and get going.

New Historic Fiction

2010-04-07T10:09:00.002-04:00

"Daughters of the Witching Hill" by Mary Sharratt is released today, and after reading a detailed interview by Jason at The Wild Hunt, I'm quite interested in picking it up. Not only is it right up my alley in terms of its subject matter, it's also the sort of thing I'd be keen to write myself. The article at The Wild Hunt also features a You Tube advert Sharratt did for the book, explaining a bit about the historical events and characters motivating the novel. It's well done, and worth the six minutes.

I quite appreciate Sharratt's perspective on writing historic fiction. She states in her interview and in the video that she is "particularly inspired by how the true stories of our ancestors haunt the living landscape. I also believe that storytelling is a sacred calling and that it can serve ancestral memory." That illuminates my own philosophy of the craft of storytelling, a cunning craft in and of itself, and a magical tradition inherited perhaps not directly through bloodlines, but through the energy pathways of the spirit. Storytelling is one's spiritual inheritance. I quite like the sound, and the feel of that.

I have not been writing, despite the writing schedule I set for myself after the New Year. We received the unexpected news in February that we were expecting our first child by September, and have been scrambling to prepare the house, and ourselves, for life with a newborn. Most of my free time goes to cleaning and organizing and economizing and looking for ways to be more frugal and budget conscious so we may establish those habits now to help save money in the future. Sitting down to write more than a journal entry has been out of the question. So, the novel is on hold, again, waiting patiently in the parlor of my mind until I am ready to sit down with it again for tea. This novel is good for that. She's a congenial and patient friend, both forgiving and graceful. I will do right by her, and soon.

Otherwise, I'm brainstorming freelance adventures, blogging for money, and considering what I can do for income from home, should the opportunity present itself. Lots of ideas swarming, dozens of lists and links and article fodder to track and organize. I must research first, it seems, before I can put my tentative foot onto the ice. It is spring, and ice is getting thin. Time to remember how to swim!

Be well, as the colors and scents of spring refresh you!

Inspiration

2010-02-25T13:00:00.004-05:00

There is a lot going on at home. The accelerator has been pushed down hard on many things that were thought to have more time. However, there may be more time to write in the future, as I feel inspiration speeding towards me like a bullet train.

I've had trickles of poetry, a line or two here and there, but nothing spectacular. I jot them down in my ever-present notebook and continue through my day. There has been a surge in personal writing, especially the journal that keeps my deepest, most private thoughts. Not terribly creative, but writing. I always feel better when I dump my brain out onto the page and start fresh.

So many things are changing. Friends moving, bringing home babies, beginning new ventures. I feel isolated sometimes, but that is a little bit like what I wanted this year, some proper ME time. I'm not going to get that much of it, maybe a concentrated dose will do just as well. I'm hopeful that the things I felt needed fixing will be fixed in the flux. Cosmic pot-stirring is occurring and it's simply a matter of keeping my little boat from capsizing and then I can say it's all right.

Yes, I'm being intentionally vague. Yes, part of that is because I don't really know what's going on, and that is difficult to put into words. My creative juices are flowing, but only around the core, the necessary organs. Extremities can be sacrificed for the time being. It is winter, after all.

There's a List for That, and Other Adventures in the New Year

2010-01-05T09:42:00.005-05:00

The happiest of New Years to you all! May 2010 be the best year yet.

Recently, a friend introduced me to Listography. She and I are both avid list-makers, and this has allowed me to access my lists, from to-do to daily reminders, in one easy to access place. I have not yet established a writing to-do list, mostly as I'm still recovering from the last big project (which had over 55,000 words once finished). I have a proof of a recent draft from my good friend Natania Barron to read, and then it's back to work for me. I'm brainstorming a reasonable, yet disciplined writing schedule for 2010, and making some hard choices in what to keep and what goes when it comes to my social life.

2009 saw me become a bit more of a homebody--as much as I can be as a slight E-NFP. I'm enjoying sticking around town, close to home, more than "going out," and hanging out with my husband and the cat children, or reading a good book are far more attractive pastimes to me than any bar or party, however intimate. This is also a wonderful thing for my desire to write, which I should rather do than watch television so much. The long holiday break numbed my brain--not such a bad thing, when temporary--but it is time to get back to work; back to work that is play.

So, I'm going to be working on writing lists at Listography. A weekly schedule, as well as a 'to do' for my WIP. Then, when I go to Listography each day, I'll see my lists immediately--no better reminder of what is on the agenda for the day. I find that lists work best for keeping me on track and accomplishing goals. And I have set some challenging goals for myself in 2010, in the form of resolutions, which I normally make and break, even after swearing that I won't make resolutions. Not this year! I will succeed, and the list is there not only as a reminder, but also as motivation. The satisfaction of checking off items, and watching the list of goals dwindle from accomplishment and achievement, is my greatest motivator. Not to mention, most of my goals for 2010 are health related, physical and mental, as well as spiritual, and to meet the goal is to inevitably become my best self.

Do you have goals for the New Year? Share them if you like, or share some of the ways you stay motivated, in the comments. I'd love to hear them!

On Wanting to Write, then Not Writing

2009-12-14T11:24:00.003-05:00

It's the strangest thing. This weekend, after an end-of-week jolt of inspiration hearing Natania Barron read with Mur Lafferty and Jeff Vandermeer at Chapel Hill Comics, I thought at some point this weekend I'd try to finish out my outline for the Victorian element of my WIP. Phrases and snippets of dialogue entered my mind on Saturday, but for whatever reason, I did not sit down to write. I wonder why this is?

I have one other writing project I'm working on, really data entry, that has a deadline fast approaching. I have been less and less able to disengage from the content of the writing and just enter the data. The content, plus my ongoing mental argument with it, distracts from my ability to type quickly and accurately. This is only made worse by the fact that the writer's arguments are not well supported, when they are supported at all, and the insipid anecdotes moralizing about how to be a good Christian and every other sentence showcasing some of cliche's worst offenders...combined this is probably my worst nightmare. I have to resist editing everything to my own style and turn of phrase, which admittedly would dissolve the personality of these little newsletter passages. The author's character comes through, her personality, and her thoughts and her moralizing are genuine. I am trying to get over the fact that I don't like HER as well as her writing. That's a difficult challenge.

I have eight more years of newsletters to type. It looks like eight plus hours of literary torture on the page.

So, out of guilt for not having this project completed, I did not work on my own story, which would have been fun. For whatever reason, I feel I can have no fun until my most unfun project is complete. I made a promise to someone that I would tackle the project, and I will hold to my word. I will not, however, take on this sort of project again, religious or not. I've noticed that I am too much of a "yes" person, and I'm finding that if I am ever to get any of my own projects done, I'm going to have to learn to say "no" to others and "yes" to myself.

The next few nights, I plan on tackling this outstanding project in earnest. I'd like to finish it this week, before the holiday, so I can use some of my well-deserved time off for writing I WANT to be doing.

Remember, Remember...

2009-11-24T08:08:00.002-05:00

...the ebb of November. I've heard the question asked before: why is NaNoWriMo done in November? It feels fine in the beginning, though the second week. But by the third week in November, gearing up for the Thanksgiving holiday must drop word counts far and wide. It certainly has mine.

Actually, I should be honest and say that I stalled out for other reasons, reasons that puzzle me more than the choice of month for NaNoWriMo.

I was re-writing my initial draft of the "time-travel romance" WIP, the Victorian England bit, the bit I thought most likely to generate the 50K needed to satisfy the requirement for November. As I neared the end of my drafted content, I outlined the rest of the episode and LOVED where the story went. But when it came writing it, tacking it on to the re-worked previous 14,ooo+ words, I couldn't muster the courage. That break in flow broke my momentum, and it's been steeping in my brain ever since. Now that it's the end of the month, and Thanksgiving week, I have a lot of distractions that I let keep me from writing. I still WANT to finish the episode, but I know it is not going to be finished for NaNoWriMo, so part of me says why bother?

I am glad to have attempted it. I feel that if I have a viable WIP for 2010, or have neared completion on the current WIP, I will start something from scratch. I don't feel bad that I did not succeed, because, in a way, I did succeed. I upped my first draft by about 5,000 words, and that's good news for me. And, I have an outline I like for the rest of the episode. It feels good to write, and I experienced some of the oddities expected from NaNoWriMo--characters doing what you'd least expect, more moving than I bargained for scenes and dialogue, and some evocative description. I felt myself relax and let the words flow onto the page, rather than feeling as though I fought against them to shape and mold them before they reached the page, and that was a great improvement.

I look forward to continuing these trends and good habits into 2010!

And We're Off!

2009-11-02T15:45:00.003-05:00

Off schedule, that is. NaNoWriMo started yesterday, 01 November, and despite having done nothing all day, I also managed not to write 1500 words. So, I've started today, and completed day one totals (1551), and will continue tonight to break 3000 words. Close to on track then. Feels good to watch that little bar graph fill up, I imagine.

I have one "buddy," Natania, who I often mention here. If you are participating in NaNoWriMo and read this weblog, you can add me as a buddy by the name of "boreasword." Just a brief update, and I may post a brief excerpt later this evening once the word count is met. Wish me luck!

Projection

2009-10-27T13:28:00.005-04:00

I'm trying to get back to writing here more frequently than once a month! Good grief!

I've got a link to myself at NaNoWriMo in the sidebar, and have been thinking really hard on what I'm going to start for the month of November. Migraine has kept me from truly researching the next historical element in my current WIP, so I might start something from scratch, just to be writing. My schedule is cleared, with the occasional exception, and I should be able to escape into the work long enough each day to meet the word count I've set for myself. If I get into the groove, and write more, that's fantastic. I'll be that much closer to making 50,000k! Part of me expects not to succeed, but the rest of me knows I'll come close. That's fine for my first attempt. If all goes well, meaning if I don't kill myself writing, I'll plan on joining the race again next year.

At the request of my mother-in-law, I am entering data from many years worth of a pastor's columns from a monthly church bulletin. The woman in question has just celebrated an anniversary in her calling, and my m-i-l wanted to make a gift, but her rheumatoid arthritis keeps her from typing quickly or accurately. I volunteered to enter the data, edit and create a perfunctory layout based on the liturgical year. If anything, it's speed practice for my touch typing and some experimental experience laying out what will be a magazine, as far as I'm concerned.

Entering in someone elses' text has reminded me how much I take for granted my grammatical and editorial skills. In correcting spelling, punctuation and errors in tense shifts, I realize that I am very lucky to have the knowledge and skills to do these things on the fly. (Spelling I can forgive, as many of these articles were composed before the advent of spell-checking programs. In fact, I think the first few years of her column were typed instead of word processed.) These mistakes certainly slow down the typing, which for me is pretty quick and mindless after 20-odd years of touch typing, but I also find myself getting hung up on comma and M-dash usage. While in most cases, their placement is technically correct, they tend to stilt the style, leaving the message of the column difficult to suss out without a second, closer read. In some ways, I understand this is the pastor's personal style, using longer pauses and caesuras to hold a moment between the set-up and delivery of her point. The project has been an experiment in getting into a writer's style that is so completely different than my own--a bit like a character study.

Revisiting the Idea of a Soul Journal

2009-09-24T09:18:00.009-04:00

I was reading an article in the New York Times about the decision to publish C. G. Jung's The Red Book, the noted analysts personal documentation of his own individuation. The article was fascinating, and the images accompanying it inspiring. I was reminded of a long languishing project I started some years ago that I called a Soul Journal. I started it with a book of prompts for journaling, and it also doubled as a way for me to practice some altered book techniques in advance of actually altering a book. It was visual, dynamic, and deeply personal. I shared it with members of a short lived artists group, and it was met with praise. Shortly thereafter, it got packed away during the renovation of our bedroom and I haven't added anything to it in years.

I was first inspired to start my Soul Journal after seeing results from the 1000 Journals project. I have kept a personal journal since age 10, when I first started realizing that what my imagination was generating was sometimes too big for my brain to hold. I started with single subject spiral notebooks, college ruled, and eventually moved to massive 3-subject Five-Star brand journals, as I've mentioned here before. Up until I first encountered the vibrant journals at 1000 journals, my notebooks were filled with various iterations of my handwriting with the occasional doodle in the margins or images stuffed into the subject divider's pockets. I never used color (only blue or black ink), let alone mixed media. The pages of these journals spoke deeply to me. (Now I see there is a sister project called 1001 Journals where you can sign up for a traveling journal, or start one and upload images to the site!)

Seeing the Jung's calligraphy, the intense and strangely beautiful images, fully grasping the effort it must have taken to create this tome whilst in the throes of "a schizophrenia" as he claims, is incredibly inspiring. I want to bind my own book. I want to fill it with elegant penmanship. I've been thinking of taking a beginning calligraphy class, and I will sign up in the spring. I've been wanting to practice drawing in my journals, and I am making a conscious effort to do so each time I write more than a few lines. More inclusion of ephemera, found objects, color, handwritten fonts...more than just my pen to page. I'm not having any sort of episode, and I feel like I provide the bare minimum in my handwritten space. No more! I need to practice technique for my new Soul Journal.

I also find myself thinking that I may actually need to do the work that accompanies individuation, or soul reclamation. Documenting this process is a little frightening, but I suppose going in too the deep self often is foreboding. I know that it is also rewarding. 2010 has to be a year of some big changes for me, so it's time to start laying the groundwork now. Prioritize. Actualize. Energize. Visualize. Synthesize.

Post 50, or Progress Report

2009-09-16T10:31:00.003-04:00

Hello, Dear Readers.

You may have noticed that the 30 Poem in 30 Days Challenge fell just shy of thirty poems. I went on vacation and naively thought I would have time to write poetry on the road to PA, NY, and DE. Alas, I hardly had time to sit, let alone compose verse. I considered making it up, after the deadline, but have decided against that as well. LaToya and I may revisit this challenge sometime in the New Year, and until then, I have these poems on a writer's group for critique and will begin editing them in a few weeks, to include a culling of the herd. I was pleasantly surprised at the number of drafts I have worth keeping, molding into shape. What's more, it was fun and it got me thinking about the next big challenge on the horizon: NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month.

I attempted this challenge last November, but I wasn't ready. It was excruciating staring at the page, the flashing cursor, the silent elipse is sends into your brian, as though saying, "And...?" I had thought to work on Aiden and the White Arrow, I started a blind re-write using only my six year old outline, but I wasn't feeling it. I certainly couldn't keep up with the pace needed to finish 50,000 words in 30 days (about 1667 words per day).

This year, I'm going to try again.

Yes, that word count seems a little daunting, especially when I consider that my current writing sessions produce 500-700 words and occur once or twice a week. But this is what I want to do with my life, right? Write? I am inspired, I am ready, I just have to break the awful habit of not writing. My good, and inspiring friend, Natania, recently made a firm comment about doing the work (something she's said before, only this time it smacked me in the head), about showing up and writing. Period. So, that's what I'm going to do, since it is the only thing I haven't tried. Simple solutions are best, and this one is a no-brainer.

As for the WIP, I'm about 1/3 of the way through the draft of the Victorian England episode. To the good scenes, with less exposition and more action, to include all the wierd happenings between my heroine and one of the other protagonists. The scene where they finally meet was tough, meant to be awkward and it was to write as well. But, that's what first drafts are for, and this is only a draft. I can't have 7 historical flashbacks at 10,000+ words in a novel. Just can't happen. That's why I feel this is such an ambitious project--it's not for the writing, but the editing to come.

Evening

2009-09-03T15:55:00.004-04:00

10:00 a.m. EDT

Cathedral of the woods
calling
veiled in a rain
of gold
set sail on a sigh
through boughs

Freckles of sun
frolic upon the earth
below the branches
cooling

Autumn arrives
in an instant--
one morning
the swelter-sweat
of summer
the next
a kiss of frost
the tumult of rain
the lengthening shadows
born of evening
a vespers hymn
as the geese turn south

Pearl

2009-09-02T16:01:00.003-04:00

3:00 p.m. EDT

Drawn
ever to the sea
the tumbled shore
of stone
the long horizon
that cradles the moon

Breathe
the salt spray
the sound of waves
exhaled against
the pale curve of land

Mysterious depths
full of myth
of selkie brides
finmen on the crests
hear the siren-song carried
on the gale

Worn away
with each tide turning
a grain swirling
until I rest
and am pearled
in mollusk maw

Mondays

2009-09-01T19:10:00.002-04:00

10:15 a.m. EDT

In the morning mist
I am embraced
little hands
hands of proto-frost caress me

Hear the doorknob click
brass cools finger
feet of stone
stony as the dew finds my toes

Every day the same
spider-strand face
shimmer-web
web with flaxen hair entangles

Many tiny traps
lie in wait
attempt to save
save me from the muse-killing place

Song for Ran

2009-08-31T19:46:00.000-04:00

2:00 p.m. EDT

I've a vision:
drive to the beach
ask directions to remote island
untraveled, unaware
ragged with clifface,
jagged caves exposed at low tide

I travel there
alone
carry only my piety
my pity
a worry-worn pearl of despair
brought in offering for thee

upon the white shore (or black, or stone)
I care not that my feet are torn
bloody shreds
we will lure something deep
I soon bloody hands and knees as well
as I crawl along the bowels of the rock,
most unforgiving as I am
of myself

Then, in the cool damp
darkness
and the lull-breath of the waves,
deep within I'll exhault thee
who would have swallowed me years ago,
waiting the tide-return
to fill my lungs
as would song

Ransdottir (prosepoem)

2009-08-31T12:01:00.001-04:00

12:40 p.m. EDT

Prelude: There is something in the breath, something in the air I don't know how to shake. It weighs on me, stones in a cairn, pressing me slowly into the dark of earth--Hel's realm. She meets me on the path, walking up from the river, in the mould and the mist of morning. I know her, feel the fear of her cool touch, and smile. Not even the gods in Asgard can shake the feeling, set her to table in her own hall instead, queen to the great hoards of the dead.

Accentato: Heavy, the weight of water drawing me down like a stone in her depths, pulled this way, pulled that way, and I stop struggling. I hear the breakers against the strand, muted beneath the thick silk of her sea-colored cloak. I feel the tangled mass of her hair whipping against me in riptide. And in these moments I know absolute peace, succor in her saline arms, the sinking lullaby of the sea. All creation within that embrace, familiar to me, whisper, babble, gurgle my name. She knows my name. And I feel elation and joy, and what must be my heart threatening to burst with her love. Then, in the shattering of her resolve, and I'm reclaimed by the arms of a man who swam the great lakes, and the name he is calling is no longer mine as I am lain upon the sand. His broad hands, like heavy stones on my chest, draw out the poison of her kiss. I sputter and cough. I can no longer like the air. There is something in it, the scent of sun-baked carrion, of my beached sea-family, borne on the beaks of gulls again from the water. Again. I feel the change, my movement from land to sea, from sea to land. I bear a new surname, no longer the name of those shipbuilder ancestors who harbored amid the fjords, though as revered. Ransdottir.

30 Poems-30 Days Stall-out

2009-08-31T11:25:00.004-04:00

Well, I guess I stalled out for a moment on the 30 Poems in 30 Days challenge. I have two poems to post for this entry, and need two more to be caught up. Even though the challenge never said 30 poems, one every day for 30 days, I have considered it that way, thinking I'd be able to keep up that pace. I also thought that the weekends would be full of time for writing better poems, but they are typically so busy that I feel I have to scramble to jot even one very raw poem per day.

So, without further ado, here are poems 21 and 22 of 30.

________________________________________

Argue

30 August
1:36 p.m. EDT

Must be a better way
to speak
of all that we
annihilate
every absence
of thought
all empty words
rimmed with frost
They hollow me
to thinner skinned
each time
we move without
openness

Each word
percolates
beneath the surface of
a permeable layer
where they
re-ferment
concentrate
and intoxicate
to anger

______________________________

Untitled #4

31 August
10:05 a.m. EDT

Neither you
nor the rain
today may breech
the membrane
Thin and suffocating
it clings
leaves me saturated
A closed system
polluted with
clouds
from dark
gruesome thoughts
that cycle
re-cycle
unable themselves
to penetrate
and disperse in the
clear-washed air beyond

Honey

2009-08-27T23:24:00.001-04:00

10:10 a.m. EDT

The door is sealed
tight
neither air nor
microscopic parasite
may enter
golden cell
comb-like
cathedral window
all intricate geometry
hues of
butter to wheat
amber to caramel
so sweet it hums
against the tongue

Rime

2009-08-26T21:36:00.000-04:00

5:26 p.m. EDT

Of ancient days
a poisonous spray
wrought well from a
world at odds
Like salt lick
who brought quick
to the world the first gods

The whale-road
bears a ships load
heavy the ghost
of an albatross
The verse sung
'twas a long one
of the might
of a mariner lost

These measured lines
contrived at times
lose reason
beside a measure rod
Don't bother to count
what I'm on about
'lest you find me
a silly old sod

Figs

2009-08-25T17:02:00.000-04:00

12:10 p.m. EDT

My nimble fingers
release
the umbilical of stem
from limb

Tender brown skin
dimples against gentlest touch
weight deceiving
such a small
ripe parcel

Milk-white seep
from stem wound
sticky-sweet
revealing pale flesh
and purple seed-flesh within

Drop carefully into bowl
as not to bruise
against its brothers
such frail flesh

I smile each time
fruit finds my hand
reminded of the very things
fig leaves were intended
to hide

Keep, Pt. III: Rain

2009-08-24T16:10:00.004-04:00

12:14 p.m. EDT

All wrong
but this
precious--
Wide-open window
a summer rain shower
as the screen splits
drops into mist
sends cold shards
on the wind
where we ride out
the storm

I devour you
like the thunder-wolf
devours the air
And all I know of myself
you immolate
tearing across my landscape
like wildfire

Keep, Pt. II: Storm

2009-08-23T22:34:00.001-04:00

6:15 p.m. EDT

From far away
you find me
beneath the dark anvil
of thunderheads
And there
at the feet of mountains
we collide
strobe skin on skin
kinetic

Over ocean
you have come
but more difficult navigation
is here
as the culmination of our lust
calls lightning to ground

Wind gusting
swift down the slopes
of jagged range
whips us 'round
tangling hair in a garland
black and gold
and carries it across the plains
making tall grass prayerfull
we bend all but do not
break

Where the world is
lips and teeth and tongue
and the press of length on length
we shelter in the power
in the heat of bodies
steaming in the storm

I'd have had you
had I cared less
or the leaves not shuddered so

Torch

2009-08-22T12:01:00.003-04:00

12:02 p.m. EDT

I know you lay there
In a bed of despair
Craving the honeyed caress of my hair

Desire flares so
Like flames from below
Devouring all the possessions you own

My gift to you is life unfettered
Unburdened by the ghost-thoughts of night
You shall rise up and away with the smoke
And the sugar-sweet sound of good-bye

Unless you're a phoenix you don't stand a chance
Everything I touch turns to ash

Again on the Wheel

2009-08-21T23:43:00.002-04:00

3:46 p.m. EDT

What have you for me today?
Ink-stained fingers
nib-scratched page
the familiar pressure of the pen in three points
a racing mind soothed to silence

Where has the muse been
these many moons
hidden in spaces I'm unable to see
so possessed was I by mundane

As spirit awakens
my eyes are made keen
the slightest of movements
trees leaves in a breeze
the soft haste of the mouse
glowing embers at first light
the click of a key in the lock

The length of the page grows
dark with ink
and staves of another kind
cascade in my mind
Smooth cinema of image
present, alive, dance
in a sonic landscape
vibratory color of sound
roused from the ash of those who came before
a vocal bed for all that is to come

Keep, Pt. I: Moon

2009-08-20T19:04:00.004-04:00

10:00 a.m. EDT

Had I my life
to live over
I would keep the moon
that long-ago evening
near dusk
when I wove through
tall stalks of pale sweetgrass
spiny yucca
vermilion tips Indian paintbrush
mounded Texas sage
soles crunch sandstone gravel
in summer
blonde as my hair

Long flat hill
a butte
an eroding mountain of fill dirt
I climb
toes dig in
soil shifts
legs burn as I surmount
the level ridge
eyes to the east

Low on the level horizon
she sits full
her glowing face blushed
by the dust in the air
so large as to fill
my whole gaze

For the first time
I know awe
feel all gods
breath comes in quick gasps
from the host of hope
held in the sphere
the pregnant moon
who for these long moments is
my beloved
my beauty
my all

Untitled #3

2009-08-19T15:24:00.002-04:00

12:25 p.m. EDT

Skin like milk
you said
like milk
Skin like milk
you said
so cold

Hair like gold
you said
like gold
Hair like gold
you said
now dull

Song like gulls
you said
like gulls
Song like gulls
you said
at sea

Eyes so green
you said
so green
Eyes so green
you said
like moss

Time slips by
you said
slips by
Time slips by
you said
like silk

Untitled #2

2009-08-18T16:06:00.002-04:00

10:05 a.m. EDT

Won't live in fear
you say
What keeps you
from sleeping
safe bed
heart-leaping?

The urge
to protect
to possess
too bold
When friend
made foe
where lay the borders
of fear?

Tape tick
of thought
of action
some future
plot a dialogue
before its time
Waking into
dreams
that knot gut
and glut mind
I won't
live in fear
you say?

Gullveig

2009-08-17T17:16:00.005-04:00

12:15 p.m. EDT

"Solveig, my fairest, my purest gold." -Peer Gynt

Might of Sun
or Gold
You come for me
The barley field
is dimmed by your presence
as two long shadows
'come one

Into your harrowed hall
I cannot go
though your hands of
liquid light
beseech me

I would hail you
thrice burned
thrice raised
most cursed and praised
of gods
To know what of your body
brought offense
and what path returns you
evermore

Aubade

2009-08-16T16:17:00.002-04:00

4:00 p.m. EDT

Lavender laced dawn
drowns the darkness
of my room
Prying behind closed lids
Livid
bearing birdsong

Nothing I can say
prevents you from
shifting
Slip from me
without sound
Am I so easily forgotten?

You leave me
drunk with longing
bound in bedsheets
an ember smoldering
where bonfire blazed
before day
drew my dream away

Indian Summer

2009-08-15T16:00:00.000-04:00

3:45 p.m. EDT

In tales
Sun was angry
Breeze soft
leaves rode to ground
crisped by heat
parched
a rain of gold

These days shorten
Mornings lengthen
brisked by frost-whiskers
paw prints on
frozen dew
Breath visible
sliver clouds
held before the eyes

This is slow progress
buffalo over grassland
thunder across sky
the trickling of brooks
beneath the leaves
beneath the ice

What lies buried in
the warm womb of earth
Many silent seeds
like voices
shall rise again
with the chant of Spring

Untitled 1

2009-08-14T18:06:00.002-04:00

5:15 p.m. EDT

You inhale a
final tail
of smoke
Cigarette cinders
little cracklings
amplify over
ancient phone lines

Your breath
exhaled
in my ear
on a line
under blankets
like a wave
against the sand

We are stranded
each bed an island
near paradise
and more intimate
than words
allow

Cut

2009-08-13T16:22:00.003-04:00

10:05 a.m. EDT

Buried
so far out of control
irreversible
The too-taut cord
in the gut
restrains rage
and shame
and sorrow
Halts
even the production of tears
The eyes forget weeping
knowing only
the involuntary clutch in the throat
from weeping's red-faced companion

There is release
in the ritual
setting the space
just so
A clean white cloth cradles
a chromed craft knife
X-acto blades curved in a smile
a dish of rubbing alcohol
Music starts
aligning a prayer to Pain

The rhythm of the rite
Lift
Dip
Draw
with pressure
a thin line
on the top of the forearm
Slicing the band
that knots the belly
Purgation
through blood sacrifice

Once more
the release a kind of pleasure
the relief of pent-up pressure

Thrice
a punctuation
an underscore
a punishment
Red threads
an etching
upon etchings
a palimpsest

The Trouble with Muses

2009-08-13T10:55:00.005-04:00

I wondered when it might happen, for the first four poems in the 30 Poems in 30 Days challenge came a bit too easily, which is to say that they came at all. For months previous to this little challenge, I had been beating my head against the door of my muse's house (the muse for poetry, at least, my knight of the novel was charging gallantly on), unable to write song lyrics for a band that I loved, not even a prayer or invocation to those gods I hold dear. Truly, nothing poetic, lyrical, devotional was available--I was cut off.

I should discuss a bit my relationship with my poetic muse. As writers, I think many of us tend to personify our inspiration in the form of a muse, one of the nine goddesses from Greek and Roman mythology who are said to have overseen and inspired artistic endeavors. Many famous authors describe them in detail, others are tight-lipped. All, I believe, have a kind of love-hate relationship, somehow worshiping and despising them at the same time, often in the same breath. At least, I do.

Yesterday, when she didn't show up for the work, I was dismayed. I started worrying, wondering what was keeping her, chewing my fingernails and sweating that I might have to pull poem five, well, from somewhere less inspired. I took a deep breath, calming myself and jotted a list of topics I might be inspired to write about. Reading over it, nothing winked its shiny eyes at me, nothing to draw out my magpie of a muse. Really?, I thought, but blood is on that list! Nope. She wasn't even arriving fashionably late.

My muse is a flame-haired Harley chick, who likes leather in all its fashionable iterations, and, the less of it, the better (think AEon Flux, only less mannish, and with a purr of a Scottish brogue). My version of Brigid, quite honestly, and she and I have been everything from best girlfriends, to lovers, to bitter enemies. She's unreliable, a free bird, whispering in my ear when it is most inconvenient, and stone silent when the cursor pounds its rhythm on a blank white screen, or when pen trembles above the page. I amuse her. In a way, that's all I can hope for, since the day I cease to amuse her is either the day she leaves, or the day she kills me.

But even blood wasn't drawing her attention, so I chose salt from my awful list and worked something out. I'm not happy with it. Sloppy and uninspired, it fulfilled the requirement and that is all. Angry, and a little sad, I hoped for a better courtship on poem six.

This morning, LaToya agreed that she had also felt the "slow down" yesterday. Good that I've got another person who shares my frustration. Only, I couldn't tell from her poem she'd suffered a loss. I figured if my muse showed up today, we'd have to have a little talk.

Of course, when she did it was like all the cliches we hear about abusive relationships. She sweet-talks (very convincing, I might add) and I fall for it, the whole "any touch is better than no touch at all" kind of cycle. But she's in the poem today, dark as it is, it's no wonder. A relief, but what about tomorrow, or the any of the remaining 25 days? What about the rest of my life?

No sure things. Little blessings (or beatings?). Move through, move on. Keep pushing out the images, like giving birth. Some are precious, others wailing, some more are still. What about you, dear readers? What is your experience with muse, if you're at liberty to share?

Salt

2009-08-12T17:39:00.002-04:00

12:15 p.m. EDT

In the water
blood of us all
Smaller than the
passage through a cell wall
You penetrate who we are

Necessary
commodity
owned and warred over
both dear and despised
In the blood
in black powder
canon and cannon fodder

Small
crystalline
of all life and
all of death
Hinge
on blood
and water
and your unseen presence
therein

Regret

2009-08-11T15:18:00.003-04:00

2:30 p.m. EDT

In youth I swore
we would never meet again
Not after that night in the woods
when I lay
too petrified with fear
to scream
Fingering over and over
the rosary of remorse
finding the fault mine
with my back in the leaves
We parted ways the very next morning
I vowed never to speak
your name

Twenty years have passed
and unless my eyes
deceive me
it is you who dogs my steps
Tailing me now with long shadow
an apparition of the past
Peering down from high windows
you haunt the bombed-out buildings
of Love's battlefields
Where I am made The Morrigan
and chooser of the slain
The valkyrie spares herself
each time

Is it the doom of age
to find our eyes ever-gazing
over chipped shoulders
to the ruins and
the monuments of life?

How are we meant
to propel ourselves
from the trauma
of war
of suffering
of the death
of a heart
by our own hands?

Suppose we stand in silence
only to recall the sweet moments
allowing the havoc we have
wrought upon others
to be forgiven?

Or are you like
the finest wine
refined in the cask of time
concentrating a bittersweet draught
Whose complexity of character
is only admired through
the clear glass of hindsight
incredible on the tongue
of memory
A most worthy drink
for toasting the fallen?

Barley

2009-08-10T18:16:00.003-04:00

4:11 p.m. EDT

Like a great hand
caressing the tops of the stalks
the whole field moves
in a deep ripple
a primal dance
The grain sways to an ancient music

I am taken back

Amber the hour
we joined the dance
entwined like stalks
at their roots
All around us
molten light
burnished the bright curtain
of our bower

Sighing soft songs
the breeze shared
in the glory of our
gilded union

We become the fecund field
and the plough
The seed and the mound
root and shaft
flower and fruit
All wind and rain and sun and time
and the quickening
that precedes a harvest
Compressing all in the space
of a barleycorn
Long-ago memory
and always
mine

On Recalling Time Long-Ago

2009-08-10T16:40:00.005-04:00

Before I post the next poem in the series, I wished to talk a bit about progress on the novel. The poem is related to the phenomena of discovering old memories, so it and the novel are becoming a process of recall.

In my last novel-writing session, the words came in the form of a letter from one of my male characters to my heroine. Captain Lewis Albright has just been returned to the front in Crimea, Balaclava to be precise, and the letter is for his betrothed, Katherine Greenwood, daughter of a wealthy merchant, who is serving the British East India Company. The day previous to Captain Albright's voyage, he has shared a passionate conversation with Katherine in the garden of her father's London home, the first acknowledgement of their true feelings for the other. Up until now, their entire courtship has been absolutely mindful of social decorum and etiquette, as Lewis is betrothed a bit above his station, and he is an upstanding gentleman of the Victorian era. Katherine is a bit put out by the demands of society, and often plays along the edges of what might be deemed proper, especially when it comes to Captain Albright. She cannot imagine a marriage to a man without dreams and passion, such as she does, and she often tests this with him.

In the garden, the couple reveal their deep feelings for each other, much to the relief of both parties. Lewis announces that he will marry Katherine upon his return from the front, without delay, and that evening he delivers a letter to her containing more revelations concerning his feelings for her, and proves they share more than she had hoped or even dreamed.

Katherine and Lewis each feel they have known each other before, though they have only known each other for a few seasons. Katherine has struggled with recurring visions and a strange memories that she has been afraid to share with anyone, but she believes they are real and that she is not mad. Lewis' letter to her, that she reads as his ship is leaving, bears his confession of similar memories and his understanding that they only prove he and Katherine were meant to be together.

The novel is organized as a series of these memories, Katherine and Lewis being memories themselves, memories of a set of three characters who are again brought together as they were meant to be, doomed to play out the same elemental relationships they have since the beginning of time.

Writing Lewis' letter to Katherine was difficult. I struggled with the language of a Victorian man so used to being restrained and proper as society demands now full of the knowledge that his betrothed returns as deeply his emotions. He's almost giddy, and yet, perhaps out of habit, he makes every attempt to restrain himself in the revelation of his hopes and dreams of a life spent with his loving future wife. It was challenging, and fun. I haven't re-read it; I won't until I complete the first draft of the scenes from this period, but I felt fairly satisfied once I'd finished what amounts to his monologue.

Gjolp

2009-08-09T16:58:00.001-04:00

4:32 p.m. EDT

I am come
the robber's daughter
draped in the webbing of the sea
One of nine maidens
song of waves
it is from the depths I call you

A treasure for weather
good or ill
You presume much
to sway my will
Pity you drown before
the brightness of my father's hall
meets your eyes

30 Poems in 30 Days

2009-08-08T23:00:00.000-04:00

My good friend LaToya and I have decided to take on the challenge of writing thirty poems in thirty days. The challenge will run from 08 August-06 September. We'll be sharing our efforts with each other, and in some ways this will keep me honest, but also motivate me to create better verse (she's GOOD). LaToya is a former classmate from many workshops in college, and this will feel a bit like old times.

I'm allowing myself only minimal editing, only on the day the poem is wrought. I will date and timestamp the "final" version at the start of each entry, before the title, if the poem has a title.

So, without further ado, here is the first poem.

_________________________________

06 August, 10:40 p.m. EDT

Muse

Knock loud
I will hear you
Though my bower
thick with sleep
surrounds

Knock loud
I am home
Too comfortable
with complacent dreams
I await a prince's kiss

Knock loud
these ears are deep
Head empty of cobwebs
I've a ready pen to thread
clear pages

Knock loud
through sleep
Or princely dream
pray, hasten
Your arrival

On Writing

2009-07-28T19:35:00.005-04:00

I just finished reading Stephen King's memoir, On Writing. Natania lent it to me and I have been reading it over my breakfasts for the last few weeks. It's a quick and easy read, and its conversational tone was a nice companion to my morning coffee.

The memoir, comprising the first half of the slim book, tells us more about how King became the writer he is using episodes taken from early childhood through his first novel, Carrie. There is very little about writing that is of use in a practical sense, but it is interesting to read King's homey tone applied to scenes from his Maine upbringing. His family and co-workers could easily be characters in one of his novels, and for a time, I felt like I was reading one of his novels. Luckily, part two began, and therein lies the meat of the book, the part about the craft of writing.

King turns an anecdote about his uncle and a handmade toolbox once belonging to his grandfather into a metaphor for the tools a writer should have before beginning work. Common tools on top: vocabulary and other grammatical tools, and he recommends taking a look at Strunk and White's The Elements of Style. Below the first shelf of the toolbox lay further style elements, including form and sentence structure, even word choice (diction). These are the basic tools for practicing the writer's craft, most of what one needs to begin writing a story.

Practice the craft--read and write a lot. This is the gist of King's instruction manual. Other suggestions include keeping to a writing schedule, like a work schedule. Set aside a block of time when all you do is write, or set a word count and do not leave your writing area until you have met your goal. The old adage "write what you know" appears here, but also what you can imagine.

Remember that a story consists of three things: narration, description and dialogue. King likens the story to a fossil the writer has found, and that these three methods are what a writer uses to reveal elements, or the entirety of the story. Intuition is involved here, as well as the characters' process of revealing themselves. Just as the stone reveals its form to the sculptor, so does the story reveal itself to the author. King likes to begin with the situation of his stories, and build everything else from there. He does not outline or plot. He recommends not considering theme until your second draft. The narrative should come naturally and not at all forced into some artificial construct. Doing this puts a writer well on their way to writer's block.

Also making an appearance is the writer's workshop mantra "show and don't tell." This is accomplished through visual description as well as active storytelling. "Squash" adverbs, as they reflect the passive voice and such actions make much better visuals to the imagination. For example: instead of telling the reader that Mark answered hesitantly, show us how he is acting, show us what makes him appear hesitant. This also helps to build character, which may help you as a writer better understand the story.

King suggests writing your first draft with the door closed, and at a brisk pace so as not to lose any idea of the fossil of the story. After the initial draft is complete, he recommends leaving it alone for six full weeks before reading it, again with the door closed, making note of what stands out to you in preparation for your revision/second draft. Write the second draft with the door open, and a formula is given that has helped Mr. King quite a bit, he claims: 2nd draft + 1st draft - 10%. Trim, concise fiction is the plan, anything that doesn't move the story along should be removed. The second draft is also where King brings in his Ideal Reader, and readers in general, those trusted folks or colleagues who will not necessarily encase their criticism and suggestions in kid leather. You as the writer can still take or leave what is said at the door, but it is worth listening with open ears to errors in logic or oversights that you might correct them, or think about why events unfolded as they did.

On Writing concludes with a description of King's tragic run-in with a van in 1999, and his recovery, as well as a few appendices featuring an actual edited example of a passage from his short story "1408," and a list of books he read during a three year period that he felt were fit to recommend (read a lot, he decrees).

If you're looking for a book about how to write, this is probably not the first choice, but if you are interested in learning how a storyteller tells his own story, and manages to include a few tips along the way, it's worth checking out from your local library.

Time-Travel Romance?

2009-07-21T09:52:00.009-04:00

When heard the term "time-travel romance" for the first time, I was sitting in Penny Jackman's creative writing class as she outlined the projects of some of her more successful former students. One of them was writing what Penny called "time-travel romance." This was probably about the time Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series started picking up sales, and may have inspired this now popular niche in genre fiction. Upon hearing the term, I think I laughed out loud. Having dabbled a bit in my early writing life in the romance genre (seriously, writing love scenes is hard work if you don't want it to sound like a porno), I just couldn't take the idea of kilted Highlanders or gnarled Norsemen as the love interests of the bodice-ripper seriously, especially considering the women I knew who devoured cheap mass-markets like a Whitman's sampler. Highly romanticized Scotsmen and Vikings--maybe. But not historically accurate, high-smelling, bear-greased men with poor dental hygiene. No way! If you look at the covers of any romance novel on the shelves of you local bookstore, you will see the sort of men most women like to imagine in the scenes bound therein--tall, broad-shouldered, well-groomed military types, or, those smoking hot Fabio beefcake types. Occasionally, there's a "privateer" ( not a pirate, I might point out) with a noble pedigree ("Till Dawn Tames the Night," still one of the guilty pleasures on my bookshelf), but very rarely an historically accurate portrait makes the page, even in those with a Western theme.

So, you can imagine my surprise when the phrase "time-travel romance" popped into my head as I wondered what pared-down descriptors I might use to sum up my WIP to curious friends. It certainly is, in one sense, as the threesome of souls are involved at all levels of intimacy, from lovers, to siblings, to spouses, and the roles change from era to era. But there's so much more, a fact that I find myself wondering about with other titles in the genre bearing this standard. Perhaps my judgment was hasty, as I find myself wanting to flesh out the body beneath the time-travel romance nomenclature.

The continuation of souls. That's something a genre romance might not feature. And I plan to include contemporary philosophy to support or attempt to explain the idea of past lives or reincarnation, exploring the idea from many angles. I don't think I'll be able to avoid religion, though I hope to keep it at a peppering throughout the novel rather than smother the actual story--the idea that our souls continue on without end.

Historical accuracy. As a reconstructionist and reinactor, this is the paramount of importance to me. I refuse to write about the Kiev Russ until I have fully researched the events of their history, as well as the event book-ending that particular era of the novel. As well the Coptic Christian sect and its underground network in Alexandria, as well the Crimean War. It's imperative to the story, to the realism, so that a reader might be more likely to suspend their disbelief of such an idea as reincarnation (and remembrance) or embrace the belief fully in the rich detail.

In the end, the structure of the novel is what will make it different from a genre romance. I haven't worked it out fully, but I have a strong idea. The plan is to write an era at a time, telling the characters' full story using only the most important scenes, in vignettes. Actually, it's rather like writing a screenplay, I'm finding. I will then have all the collected scenes, or the back story, ready to access when I begin the full narrative. Seems like a lot of work now, but I know I will appreciate it when I'm done.

I might have been too hasty in my judgment of the time-travel romance. I certainly never thought I would write one, but now I feel the urge to read Gabaldon's series and some others, just to see what's already been done, and participate in some voyeurism of the genre. Are there any recommendations from my audience? It doesn't necessarily have to be genre romance (I'd probably appreciate smaller doses of that, actually), but fantasy, or fiction that plays with time travel outside of the sci-fi mode (the "Time Machine" by H.G. Wells I've read, and is not really what I'm looking for. The same goes with portals or other means of time-travel teleportation to some extent. Machines for such things are not the point of my inquiry)? I'd be glad to hear of them.

The Newest Big Idea

2009-06-30T10:53:00.006-04:00

I realized that I'd written nothing for June. It's not out of obligation that I'm writing now, for I do have something to write about, it's merely that busy time of year in the commercial world: end of fiscal year. I've been busy up until now, and this week at work is wonky due to EOFY 09 and the Independence Day extended weekend. I hope to get some time to work on the following idea during the holiday down-time.

I have always thought of myself as a fantasy writer. Not all swords and sorcerers, but definitely magic and alternative histories, and a strong penchant for myth and for characters who have a psychological melee to transverse before the end of the story. Sometimes my ideas are too big for my writing britches, as it were, and the most recent addition to my development journal is no exception. The difference is I've found the story buried in a box from my past, a memory, a reality, that is quite unbelievable, and, therefore, highly compatible with fiction. Having a little first-hand knowledge and experience apparently makes all the difference--I'm eager to get started on this story, eager to dive in and see what happens. That is very encouraging!

The idea came to me when I was enjoying some cassava melon for breakfast about two weeks ago. It reminded me of the first time I'd had cassava, and then the circumstances surrounding that moment. This was not necessarily a productive time in my life, nor was the relationship begun with eating that melon, but it certainly was strange, fantastic even, and for a long time I tried to block elements of what had occurred for fear that I might be a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

I believe every writer considers the fact that they might be crazy. What else so conveniently explains the voices in our heads, the spontaneous creation of new worlds, the twisted and often horrific events that happen to the folk of our stories and shock their author, leaving her wondering how something that terrible could exist inside her own mind. Losing time to composition is always worrisome, pulling oneself up from the depths of the story and realizing that hours have passed and the sharp smack of reality leaves one painfully aware that a great deal of living was going on in that last passage, and perhaps the writer did indeed travel there in some way.

So it happens, for probably about six months of my life, I felt as though reality was one of my stories. I kept trying to shake myself to sense, rationalize away a realization of philosophy, of the supernatural: I had been alive a long time ago, with these same people, in a similar situation, AND I remembered it suddenly and very clearly. It was an epiphany: our energy, our souls, continue on after our corporeal selves fail. It is clear to me that we are not meant to remember who or what we were before, but that on occasion, the opportunity for recall presents itself, and we are either ready to listen, in denial, or, as I was, jolted into the depths of all our existences at once, so quickly that we take the rest of our lives figuring out what happened and what meaning there is from which to learn lessons. Well, either that, or it fries our brains and we do indeed go mad.

As I wrote that, I thought to myself, "they are all going to think I'm a quack." You may. Or, you might try to come up with scenarios to help me rationalize what must be my overactive imagination, experimentation with herbal drugs and alcohol, or say that it is a flat out lie. You may, but believe me, I've tried every explanation I can think of, and none of them jibe.

So, as a very long prelude to what I have been meaning to say: I have a new idea for a novel, loosely based on this experience. The story focuses on three characters...no. That is not accurate. The story focuses on three souls and tells the story of their lives through time, each with the same souls harbored within many different characters, participating in different relationships for many of the sequences. Lots of research into certain periods of history, specific events is required. Each of these sequences will be framed by a contemporary sequence featuring modern iterations of these same souls. There will be a little magic, a lot of period philosophy and religion, and some allusion to mythology.

Writer's never want to give too much away with regard to story and theme, so I'll stop there. I've begun the research in one aspect of the past, and I'm looking forward to continuing that and the rest of the historical elements. I'm treating the sequences from the past as independent modules--truly they are their own stories--and have been making notes as things fall into place with regard to character, believable historical elements and individual arcs. I'm finding enough that each story from the past could indeed be a novel, so cherry-picking the best scenes is going to be imperative. I do not want to be Proust, at least, not on this occasion.

Janet Frame - Recent Discovery

2009-05-14T15:44:00.005-04:00

"The only certainty about writing and trying to be a writer is that it has to be done, not dreamed of or planned and never written, or talked about (the ego eventually falls apart like a soaked sponge), but simply written: it's a dreadful, awful fact that writing is like any other work."

Janet Frame (The Envoy From Mirror City)

Never mind that she's been around for ages, but thanks to an article on NPR today, I've just discovered Janet Frame. Towards Another Summer is totally a book I would have picked up on the shelves at the local bookstore and stuck in my basket, even without knowing anything about the author herself. The excerpt at the end of the article floored me--it's brilliant writing. Add to that the fact that she hails from New Zeland, has acquired multiple awards for her talent, and has a devoted following within the arts community and without, and now I'm thinking, "where have I been?" It's also inspiring that Frame lived a long and prolific life haunted by the shadow of her own battles with mental illness.

My current state of mind leads me to artists who deal with depression though their art. Some have managed better than others; Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook vs. Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, Lessing being alive, Plath, not so much. While I love their work, I tend to admire Lessing more for her varied body of work, and the fact that she survived. But, I think good writers must experience the highs and lows of emotion, the depth and breadth, in order to generate truly realistic characters. Even autobiographical works, the like's of Frame, Plath, Sexton, and Lessing, however loosly based, revolve around the writer's experience within the world and within themself.

More About Workshops: A Personal History

2009-05-08T16:22:00.002-04:00

Experience:

My first official creative writing workshop occurred the second semester of my senior year in high school, the compendium to an AP Literature class the first semester. I mentioned the teachers in THIS entry, but I'll take the time to elaborate a bit on the workshop itself, as well as those following.

I say this was my first "official" workshop because I had done collaborative writing groups before this, though, their goal and results were entirely different. Some of my good friends and I got together and decided to write fan fiction (with ourselves as additional characters) about the Beverley Hills 90210 universe. Yes, we were in high school, thank you. And yes, it was episodic and very much a soap opera with fist fights, love triangles, mistaken identity, closet raiding, and all the things teenage girls like to watch and imagine in an idealized world. Of course, I started it. And from me, it got passed on to no fewer than 5 other girls who tried their hand at developing alternative story lines (loosely based on what tacit of plot existed in the show already), matching themselves up with the beau's of their choosing, and socially destroying the women who tried to get in their way. It was fun. It was sappy. We discussed story arcs, and complimented scene or dialogue accordingly. When I realized I was the only one still taking it seriously, I quit. The writing is bound in a three-ringed binder, decorated with glitter pens and pictures of characters from the show. I still have it, and I'm sure I'm about due to re-read it for S&G's.

The high school creative writing workshop was attended by 25-30 students. This was far too many writers in one place, and uniqueness of voice or vision got buried in what I termed "McReadings". We were required to read from our piece, but only allowed to read for three minutes. It was not required that we start at the beginning, so it behooved one to choose the absolute best three minutes of the story to read aloud. I managed to fail at this every time, because the parts I thought we the best were not necessarily the most interesting. Well, that, and a boy I liked was in the class, and I found myself gearing my choices to what HE might be interested in hearing (racy bits, action sequences, or both!). It proved more difficult because I have always had difficulty reading aloud.

We had plenty of exercises, one of which became our final project due to its popularity in the classroom. We were asked to select a photo from a magazine and write about it, in poetry or prose, description or simply using it for a genesis point for something else. These assignments were turned in, graded, and returned to us, then the teacher chose her favorites to be read aloud. Our final project was assigned: create an entire portfolio of poetry inspired by magazine photos. I put mine in a scrapbook and did very well. This is still something I keep out on the shelves and have a look at every so often. The poetry is not great, typical of a senior in high school, but the imagery, both in the poetry and the glossy pictures, is evocative.

My next creative writing workshops were attended in college. I signed up for Penny Jackman's workshops to fill credit hours, but I ended up meeting some of the most influential people in my writing life, including Penny, who is still a close friend and mentor. The class ran two semesters, the fall semester focusing on short stories, and the spring focusing on poetry. I'd not written short stories before this class, at least, none that I'd finished. So this was an exercise in discipline, not only for completing a story arc, but also because I had two jobs, no car, and 20 course hours each semester. I was a busy girl, but I still managed to get the writing done. (Yes, I toiled late into the night, and suffered for it the next day, and there were plenty of assignments I handed in hot off the Xerox machine.) Still, there were only a few serious writers in these classes, those who I would consider peers (or mentors), and many of the remaining writers either weren't keen on criticism or were there because they thought it would be a goof-off class. I learned a lot from this workshop, so much so I took it again the following year. I made lifelong friends, the beginnings of my nation spanning network of fellow writers. (Nick, Mike G., Benn, Jack, Gretchen, and of course, Penny.)

A long while passed before I was able to be in a physical workshop space again, but I did work in a few online writer's groups in the meantime. (WBS; Writer's Cafe and Write Now, and Dragon Writers on MSN.) These were great forums for bouncing ideas around, but on the whole all critiques were "good," raving about what people liked about the story/poem, with the occasional grammar debate or correction. It wasn't a realistic workshop environment, and avoiding the politics and flame wars became more and more difficult as time went on. But I made some network connections there as well, folks I still read and who would still read me, had I anything to send. (Kelly P., Renee, Mike/Lobo, Chazz, Laura, Annie.)

Then I went back to university, and took two more poetry workshops. I have to say that these were the most professionally run and attended workshops in my experience, and I think I have been spoiled to the wonderful hard critiques and genuine praise I received from each of these groups. Julia Johnson (Naming the Afternoon), and A. Van Jordan (M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A), taught the workshops, and I learned so much about poetry, voice, line, tone, word choice, and imagery than I can begin to express. I wrote my best poetry to date in these arenas, thanks to the excellent critique of my peers and professors, and gained great confidence in my ability to write poetry (and lyrics). I still work closely with some of the members of these workshops, and support them in all they do, just as they do me. (LaToya, Cesar, Katie, Carly, Kristin, Anthony, Toy.)

Since graduating (in 2005, so a long time ago), I've not been active in a writer's group or workshop. LaToya and I attempted to work a GMail writer's group, but it didn't last very long, despite various attempts at resurrection. In the meantime, I've been graciously asked to give good friends' WIP's a once over, providing commentary and editing as needed. These requests span article-length non-fiction to full-on (epic) novels, poetry to academic papers. And while I love this work (gratis, but for the promise of a mention or acknowledgment somewhere down the line), I get dismayed because I'm not generating my own work. I find the deadline of a workshop helps me, so maybe it's not a bad idea to see about getting some trusted friends together to share pages.

I'm not quite ready to commit to that yet, as the two likely candidates are in periods of flux and transition in their busy lives. I don't know how much longer I'll have them in my immediate vicinity, and the long-distance/Internet workshop seems not to work as well. Having a physical copy of a work read together in close proximity make critiques personal, and more easily understood. Body language and eye-contact can get a point across or soften what might otherwise be a blow to the ego. Assuming you have something to bring to the table.

The Pro's and Con's of the Workshop

2009-05-08T13:28:00.003-04:00

Having participated in several excellent writing groups and workshops (as well as some terrible ones), the idea of returning to the setting of group discussion lingers always on the edge of my thoughts. The prospect has come up twice in as many weeks, and I've been letting it stew in my brain a bit. I decided to write a pro/con list, since I like lists and there are funny stories to relate in their brevity. I think a second entry will follow.

Pros

The right group can open a writer's eyes to paths not seen while writing, opening creative options with even the smallest suggestions.
Networking with writers who are serious about writing. A forum for discussing process, development, breaking bad habits, goals, and, for the lucky few, the publication process.
Learning new skills. Having the opportunity to practice them.
Honest and constructive criticism from members who take the craft of writing seriously.
Having regular meetings (read: deadlines) can be a good way to habituate making time to write. Unless one wait's until the night before...
Producing a body of work, wherein a clear progression and growth might be seen. (Not to mention, these pieces might be pieces to return to in the future, either for editing up and sending out, or cherry picking characters and plot points, or lines of verse.)
Learning to distinguish voice, those of the membership, as well as your own.

Cons

One must feel that they are surrounded by peers, or, at the very least, that there are a few peers in the group.
Members who cannot take criticism, however constructive, and appear in need of handling with kid gloves.
Truly remedial writers. (Having to teach sentence construction to a member.) Dealing with members who have no idea how to tell a story, and having to teach it to them, slowly and painfully.
Dissolution of the groups purpose, that being to discuss chapters, poems, short stories, NOT favorite t.v. shows, horrible work life, or discussing others of the group in their absence. Writers group devolves into a social club.
Someone plagiarizing you. (Seriously, it happened to me.) Or, someone writing fan fiction based on something you presented to the group in earlier meetings. (This happened to someone I know!)
Writing to please the tastes of those one admires in the group. Losing one's voice and adopting an others.

Lynda Barry

2009-03-30T11:29:00.006-04:00

Last summer I picked up What It Is, a graphic novel full of autobiographical vignettes and subtle instruction on how to recover your inner creative, or artistic self, created by author and illustrator Lynda Barry. The book's concept intrigued me; it's an illustrated guide to writing, drawing, singing, dancing, all of the things we are unconsciously good at as children, before the adult world creeps in and somehow informs us we are not. Barry leads the reader visually on a treasure hunt for that lost sense of self, the carefree abandon that sent us spinning and jigging on the front lawn, and drawing or writing whatever came into our heads without any thought of realism or believability.

Surely, it is these concepts we learn from the adult world (coloring in the lines, drawing relative to perspective, a relatable character in a story, or melody) that begin the slow erosion of our careless abandon. No longer are we able to dance like no one's watching when we know our mother is, sitting in judgment. We learn about competition through coloring contests, or art contests in elementary school, and in the comparison of our art to others' we discover our artistic flaws. We start to shut down our creative imagination, either to conform to what others believe is "good," or to save ourselves the embarassment altogether. Barry's book handles this delicately, and lovingly appeals to the reader's desire to create with a firm "work through it" attitude. Reading What It Is feels like peering into a dream. There are reoccuring characters who function as muses, and Barry hints that these helpers are earned when we overcome our insecurities, which inherited from others.

In an interview with Barry, who also teaches a writing workshop called "Writing the Unthinkable" she says :

"What I teach with the book and the course...is a physical activity, which is doodling when you're not writing, which itself should induce a state of mind. Which is getting yourself to the place you are when someone tells a joke. You're open, right? It's the place you go when your body's asleep and you can feel the dream starting to come on. I try and get calm so the ideas don't go away. I let it come slowly. Then as the ideas come I write slower. Which may sound counterintuitive! But you don't have to catch ideas. They're like the ocean around you."

Counterintuitive indeed! I was just yesterday discussing how imperative it is for me to keep paper and pen available for capturing ideas. But this too is a product of our environment. If I were living on a farm in the middle of Wisconsin, had my own inspiring workshop/studio, and chose never to answer the telephone, I might be able to swim in that ocean of ideas more leisurly. However, I must drive away from my home to a job that requires that I answer the telephone all day, and when I return home too brain dead to navigate the idea sea, I pop in and out for a dip, snatching what I can in the time available to me. There is a lifestyle required for Barry's style of writing, to be sure. I hope to attain it sooner than later.

Of course, I could do more, and this is the meat of Barry's workshop and the jist of the quote. When I'm not writing I can still find ways to be creative. The suggestion of doodling is a good one, and keeping that option available for calls with long holds or mini-breaks between switching gears, whether at work or home. I fuss all the time about how I would love the ability to draw, but drawing, like writing, is a skill which requires practice. We all tend to forget that sometimes, but I am glad for Barry's gentle encouragement.

Story Ideas & The Development Journal

2009-03-29T13:46:00.013-04:00

In the last week, I've thought of three new story ideas. Yes, three. These days, this is a pretty freak occurrence, and I got very excited. Don't worry, they have been captured so I don't lose them. Back in the days when I was more prolific, I learned how imperative it was that I keep pen and paper on hand at all times. But leaves of paper like to lose themselves, no matter how important their content. I also discovered that what generated my ideas for story were not easily stored in text form on a computer or in a bound notebook.

In those days, I carried around a spiral bound Five-Star, three-subject notebook with college-ruled sheets. Their thick plastic cover assured that the contents would not shred within my bag or rucksack, and the different colors made nice visual cues for recalling what period of writing the notebook contained. I would add stickers or doodles in black Sharpie to further personalize the book, and on the interior cover there would be an image cut from a magazine that lent the journal its name. One memorable image was taken from a science periodical, a picture of the earth taken from space from a satellite telescope. The earth wears a ring around it from pole to pole, a ring comprised of tiny silver specks. The photo's caption claimed that ring contained every man-made satellite orbiting the earth. It was shocking, but it also served as a visual conceptualization for me of all the ideas floating around in my head at any given time. The photograph captured those satellites, froze them in time, and my Satellite Journal during its time did much the same.

The Five-Star notebooks had pockets on either side of the subject divider, perfect for storing clippings, images, scribbled on napkins, ticket stubs and other ephemera collected over the life of the notebook. I always tried my best to fill every page, from cover to cover. If this didn't happen, it was due to some event in my life that I felt began a new stage and deserved a clean slate. I was, however, always well into the third portion of the notebook, leaving fewer than ten or twenty pages unwritten.

Over time, I moved away from this format of journaling. First and foremost, I returned to university, and that thick notebook was taking up precious real estate in my stuffed-to-the-gills rucksack. Not to mention that the collection of ephemera from a given year, let's say, can weigh heavily and uncomfortably on ones back, and saving my spine was the second reason for giving up the spiral-bound method. I opted for a small, hardcover sketchbook with perforated pages of acid-free and archival paper. For a while, I cared to concern myself with writing only in archival ink, but now, I use gel-ink for ease of writing and boldness on the page. I sometimes doodle, or staple in ticket stubs or articles, but the notebook is always easily within my reach for capturing ideas and thoughts when they come.

Lately, I am sad to say, what used to be journals have become more like diaries. I recollect my day and my emotional state, and they have become incredibly boring. For a while I debated with myself whether or not I should continue to carry a notebook at all due to the infrequency of entries pondering subjects deeply, collecting lines of verse, or generating story ideas.

That was until last week.

I don't know what inspired them, what alchemical state my brain reached in order to receive them, but two interesting, individual and unique story ideas appeared there while I was at work. It was truly shocking, each came within a day of each other. And they are nothing like what I think I should write, but they are viable and interesting, and they got my creative wheels turning. I wrote down a third idea today that I've been mulling in my head for some months now, less inspiring, more autobiographical, but something that should be documented, if only for my self.

As a result, I decided to start a Development Journal, kept within a folder on Google Docs where I am currently storing a copy of my other WIP. I wrote these ideas in my hardcover journal too, but I know that I won't further them there. If research or deeper thinking needs to happen, I know that I have gotten far enough out of the habit of writing that process longhand. I'm a quicker typist, and collecting articles and ephemera on the Internet is a favorite pastime of mine. I've done the prep for the R&D process by giving each idea a folder, named so it will jog my memory as to what the idea was all about. Within that folder is a document listing the date and time of the idea's genesis (something I do in my journal/diary with every entry), as well as a short description of the story, or, the idea itself. Then, when I return to the idea, I already have a page to write new ideas on, or take notes about the elements of the story I feel need researching, snippets of dialogue, images, whatever gets my point across. (I've been thinking about trying the quite visual program Scrivener, which organizes all this data in one place. I'm doing more work now with Google Docs, but having it all in one place will make information easier to transfer to Scrivener if and when the time comes.) It's like having a digital Five-Star notebook for every idea centrally located and accessible from anywhere with Internet access.

I feel like I'm starting to form some of the creative habits that I'm going to need to facilitate ease of writing. In a sense, I'm re-learning what my creativity needs, then establishing the patterns I can use to form a routine. Routines, for me, produce results. In the end that's what this is all about, and documenting the process here is helpful, not only for me, but perhaps for someone else who reads them here.

Some Quotes

2009-03-22T10:30:00.004-04:00

A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
- Thomas Mann

I stumbled upon Thomas Mann's quote this morning and thought it would make a good beginning to this long overdue entry. I've been thinking a lot about writing, trying to figure out an appropriate series of tests for a group of boys to go through in transition from boyhood to manhood. So, there's been a lot more research than writing, as writing without the research proved difficult. And while this is not exactly what Mr. Mann meant, I continues his point that the choices a writer makes are important to how their story progresses and unfolds. The appearance of effortlessness is often that, the appearance. Writers painstakingly choose their words, the crumbs they leave the reader, the clues the leave just enough to the imagination. This is difficult, especially when the writer is out of practice, as I am. I realize at this point my effort is nearly double my success. As long as I remember that effort is not everything, I think I'll be okay.

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.
- Martin Luther King Jr.

Another quote from this morning that got my brain working on the thought that art can change the world. I don't presume to be that sort of creative change agent, at least, not yet. But isn't it interesting to think about? In your own life, hasn't there been a creative force that changed your mind, your heart, your world? Outside of what we all have in common, the biological artistry of ourselves, created when sperm and egg conjoined and began the process of our creation, our parents being the first creative artists we encounter at birth, we have surely been molded and shaped by the creative environment that surrounds us as children. Whether it be an animated television program, or music, or crayon coloring books, every day of our formative years shapes us. No doubt any of the people who first came up with the idea for that television character, that song, or that scene must have at one point been challenged about their career choice. Perhaps it was their parents, thinking they might still be the artists in control of their artistic product, egging them into a business degree as opposed to an art degree, or teacher in their program challenging them that their ideas be more original. Whomever it was, the artists who influence us faced challenges that could have easily broken them down, forced them into another career, and leave us without our earliest inspiration. That determined character of the artist within them refused to listen to nay saying and pushed on. This determination, the all-consuming need for self-expression obsessed them, saved them, and maybe us, from a life lived in conformity. Our lives are impassioned because of their passion for art. This is a powerful thought.

"The Shitty First Draft"

2009-03-04T11:33:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, I found this passage, taken from Anne Lamott's book Bird by Bird. This book has been on my radar for some time now, but I've not yet read it. In it, Lamott talks about the writing process, and everyone I know who has read it recommends it to me. Here, she speaks her thoughts on the first draft:

For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.

The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later. You just let this childlike part of you channel whatever voices and visions come through and onto the page. If one of the characters wants to say, “Well, so what, Mr. Poopy Pants?,” you let her. No one is going to see it. If the kid wants to get into really sentimental, weepy, emotional territory, you let him. Just get it all down on paper, because there may be something great in those six crazy pages that you would never have gotten to by more rational, grown-up means. There may be something in the very last line of the very last paragraph on page six that you just love, that is so beautiful or wild that you now know what you’re supposed to be writing about, more or less, or in what direction you might go — but there was no way to get to this without first getting through the first five and a half pages.

So, armed with this idea, I sat down last night to write, from one bullet on my outline to another, or through three, if that's what I managed before it was time for bed. You know what? It worked. I clocked just under 900 words in an hour, and though I tried to stay awake to squeeze out that last 100 or so, I was seriously falling asleep as I typed. (This isn't because of the story, I assure you!) I was not in the most convenient/comfortable location--writing in the bedroom since Husband was watching a hockey game in the other room, but not in the bed. A better set-up is needed if I am going to continue in that location. Of course, once spring and summer hours come around, and coffee shops start staying open later, I might try another venue altogether, or attempt to write on the back deck in the evenings.

Not having re-read what I wrote last night, I can't actually say whether or not this is a "shitty first draft" or not. It is a first draft, and I think I needed to change my perception to that end in order to take up the writing roadblock.

I'll continue to share inspiring ideas or writing hints as I use them, as this Anne Lamott excerpt helped me in my process. I'm currently reading The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Vogler, since my WIP follows the Hero's Journey without much molding. If I don't read Hero with A Thousand Faces again, the Joseph Campbell book that inspired Vogler's treatise, I might see if the local library has Bird by Bird on hand.

Trickle to a Flood

2009-03-03T14:29:00.001-05:00

I'm a little frustrated with myself today, frustrated about being frustrated. This morning I read the entirely good news that Natania has finished another novel, a reworking of pieces of Authuriana titled Queen of None. She finished it in six weeks! I'm overjoyed for her, excited to hear about the progress and her process, and of course, the novel's completion. I know there's much more work to be done, but stage one, draft one is complete. Congratulations!

Then, I think about the few hours work I managed yesterday on AWA, the fact that I had been rooming in it's spaces, thinking about the world and the protagonist, writing just a twee tiny bit...and now I'm upset that I didn't do more. And then I get frustrated, because I'm comparing myself to my very good friend, and feeling at a loss, when we are not at all the same writer and we are NOT in competition. Why am I not taking this as a silent challenge from within to step up my game a bit? Why am I only focused on those who have (a flood of creativity, of words to page) so that I am left the have not (a trickle of words, cloudy and unfocused ideas about my WIP)? And what's more, why does it effect me to the point of depression? That last trend leaves me feeling angry with myself.

Translate that anger, that frustration into energy for the work. Yes, but somehow I think the trouble is work, however. I have noticed that I will easily choose research over writing. Something about filling my head with stuff I might use, about reading and puzzling out how something works, draws me. But, when it comes down to opening a document and writing creatively, from any point in the story, I freeze. I have an outline that I like. I have made the time to write, and the space. But my fingers twitch, hovering over the keyboard, awaiting inspiration's swift current. I remember the flood of words. There was a time I was unable to type as fast as my brain would spit out images and words. These thing are not that far away from where I am today, but that distance seems like the length of Antarctica. I've been left barren, creatively frigid, and yearning, aching for the sweet creative waters. Gods! This is very frustrating even to discuss, because here I am writing, only it's not anything but whining.

So, tonight's resolution is to write, creatively, from some point in the outline, until I feel I'm done or it's time for bed (for me, that's no later than 11:00 p.m.). No stopping to research--instead I will highlight or jot a note signaling a need to return to that passage, and keep writing. No excuses. I will do everything else I need to do around the house before sitting down to write, and while I'm writing I will do nothing else but type. That means full-screen the IdeaPad once I'm in Google Docs, shutting out the world, and writing.

The Poetics of Prose, or Confessions of a Mary Sue

2009-03-02T09:57:00.004-05:00

I was trying to explain how I write to my good friend James last week at the pub, over pints. I waxed somewhat eloquent, maybe due to the 22 oz. of Highland's Oatmeal Porter dwindling before me, about my writing style, the way my words take shape on the page. I'm going to attempt to recreate that eloquence here, and ponder a little bit more about how/why that might be.

This weblog makes no secret about my friend and fellow writer Natania Barron being an inspiration and great motivator for me to get back to writing. She is talented but modest about it, and genuine in her efforts to encourage and share her own process. She is also incredibly prolific, having at last count three WIP's! I know I'm a bit of a Mary Sue when this gets me down on the fact that my writing flow is set at trickle, but she is my friend and I am truly happy for her creative torrent and her progress.

When I mentioned my progress to James, I couldn't help but talk about it in comparison to Natania's impressive word count. I discussed my tendency to self-edit, and how at times during my freewriting, I found myself thinking I was writing like Natania writes. My instinctual starts were being re-calculated by what is undoubtedly my current enjoyment of the way she's unfolding plot of The Aldersgate Cycle. I felt myself second-guessing my instincts, which was frustrating. Obviously, I'm a fan of Natania's writing, but I do not want to write like her. However, being away from writing as long as I have, I've found that getting to the crux of my own style is taking some time. There's a lot of trimming the fat, getting to the lean muscle of functioning prose.

I also mentioned my tendency to self-edit as I write, which tends to slow down how much I actually write while boosting the quality. I want to not do this, but on the whole it isn't the worst habit to have. I find that the lean muscle of my prose is a bit more like poetry, and where the editing occurs most frequently is where I've gotten verbose and long-winded in my description. This is an interesting observation, and something I'd not noticed before when I was writing more frequently. Eventually, I'll dig out some of my old short stories, and look at the previous writing I did on Aiden and the White Arrow and see if this is a style I've been continually honing, or if this is a new development formed in my time away from the page.

My favorite novel in recent years is Kate Horsley's Confessions of a Pagan Nun. Yes, the subject is intriguing, the story satisfying, but it is Horsley's writing style, what could be called her economy of words, that puts this book at the top of my recommended reading list. The slim novel is poetic yet kinetic, ascetic yet lush with imagery. I was blown away. This is the sort of storytelling I would aspire to, the full idea realized as a delicate lacework of phrases interwoven as uniquely as a snowflake. And yet, Horsley manages to speak to the grander concepts of philosophy, spirituality, and love while encompassing the whole life of her protagonist in the span of 200 pages. It's a literary sigh, managing to speak volumes in a single breath.

And so, I chose to return to Aiden, and the mythology that I dreamed up some years ago, with my eyes set on accomplishing the same feat. This subject could very easily be a novel-length work, but my hope is that I can keep it to novella length, perhaps between 50,000-60,000 words. I have no idea the word count of Horsley's novel, and I do not know the conversion from word-count to manuscript pages, but I think that is a worthy goal in order to satisfy the story and practice this poets-eye prose. It is a story based on traditional folklore structure, and keeping the themes of sacred kingship reigned in will likely prove the most difficult of challenges. I will be assuming a lot of my audience, I feel, in the initial draft. As peers read the draft, then I will listen to their suggestions as to how to clarify any elements in need of more explanation in order to connect the threads of my own story-lace.

I'm certain I used different metaphor with James, but that is the gist, I think. James, feel free to edit me if you feel the need.

36 Plots

2009-03-02T08:46:00.005-05:00

I remember my first formal creative writing class, taken as the second semester of an AP Literature class my senior year of high school. I was lucky to test into the AP Lit, and that was one of the best courses I'd taken, and certainly the one that set my feet on the path toward my English Literature degree (after a short detour through musical theatre and theatre tech, that is). I remember the teacher, Mrs. Hawker, for AP Lit, and just this moment I have trouble recalling the creative writing instructor's...no, there it is, Mrs. Lombardi. Entirely different women. Mrs. Hawker's appearance and mannerisms echoed her surname--a tall, somewhat masculine woman, with an aquiline nose and severe cheekbones, olive complexion, and sharp, hawk-like dark eyes that glittered at me, sitting in the back of the class, enamored by The Crucible and The Scarlett Letter in a way others in the class were somehow not. Though she was a strict instructor, I had the pleasure of actually getting to know her after class and in conference after school as she indulged my questions about the women of these two works...they just stretched my brain.

Mrs. Lombardi was, by all appearances, a sparrow. She was short and not slight, had a nest of dunny curls, cut short and often frizzy, a small, seed-beak of a nose, a round face and a quiet voice that barely reached the folks in the back of the classroom. (I sat nearer the front in this classroom, due to a seating chart.) She dressed like a librarian, lots of corduroy jumpers, cardigans and paisley skirts, and actual blouses! She's getting written into a book somewhere, sometime.

So, my high school English department was not a coterie of birds; I lucked out and happened to have these two, complete opposites in personality and appearance, influencing my direction in that pivotal year. The one thing these two did have in common was that they introduced me to Georges Polti's explanation of thirty-six dramatic situations, or plots, found in all literature, from the tragedies of the Greeks through today's modern novels. I think his philosophy still holds up, however, many writers think his 19th century mode of thought is antiquated. I guess it depends on what sort of story you're trying to tell, but as the cliche goes "there's nothing new under the sun."

I thought I'd post the gist of it here, for reference as well as a record of where Aiden and the White Arrow falls along these point. I think a plot may feature more than one of these elements, and you will see that they are all compatible and somewhat complimentary. These are, of course, whittled down to their bare bones, but I've provided a link to the entire work hosted at the Internet Archive if you're curious for more, or think they need fleshing out.

36 Plots

Polti, Georges. The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations. trans. Lucille Ray.

Polti claims to be trying to reconstruct the 36 plots that Goethe alleges someone named [Carlo] Gozzi came up with. (In the following list, the words in parentheses are our annotations to try to explain some of the less helpful titles.):

Supplication (in which the Supplicant must beg something from Power in authority)
Deliverance
Crime Pursued by Vengeance
Vengeance taken for kindred upon kindred
Pursuit
Disaster
Falling Prey to Cruelty of Misfortune
Revolt
Daring Enterprise
Abduction
The Enigma (temptation or a riddle)
Obtaining
Enmity of Kinsmen
Rivalry of Kinsmen
Murderous Adultery
Madness
Fatal Imprudence
Involuntary Crimes of Love (example: discovery that one has married one’s mother, sister, etc.)
Slaying of a Kinsman Unrecognized
Self-Sacrificing for an Ideal
Self-Sacrifice for Kindred
All Sacrificed for Passion
Necessity of Sacrificing Loved Ones
Rivalry of Superior and Inferior
Adultery
Crimes of Love
Discovery of the Dishonor of a Loved One
Obstacles to Love
An Enemy Loved
Ambition
Conflict with a God
Mistaken Jealousy
Erroneous Judgement
Remorse
Recovery of a Lost One
Loss of Loved Ones.

These ideas returned to my mind by another creative writing professor in college, Ms. Penny Jackman, who continues to inspire and influence my writing and my life. She remains a good friend and ally, and her mutual support in the craft of writing is truly a blessing. Penny doesn't look at all like a bird, by the way.

Climbing a Mountain

2009-02-19T17:16:00.003-05:00

My first real writing in a week or more came yesterday afternoon after work. I sat down for an hour and did a freewrite concentrating on a particular scene from the Aiden and the White Arrow. It happens to be the act of climbing a mountain, and now I feel it was fitting for the exercise. I'm fairly certain that once I get back into the habit of writing many of the obstacles I run into now will be easily averted. My boulders are self-editing, which inevitably slows down the amount of writing I am able to do in an hour's time, and second-guessing. The self-editing is something I can rationalize as OCD, and in the end isn't a bad thing, but the second-guessing is most frustrating. I'm sure that every writer deals with this during the process, realize it is futile and unproductive, and learns to get past it. I haven't found that path around obstacle at this point, and that can be very frustrating.

So, after 500+ words of description and very slight character development, I felt fairly satisfied at the work. Not much in the way of progressing the plot, though it was action, a pursuit. It is the section of the story I've been thinking about most, the climax of the story. I made a discovery about my antagonist in the writing, and that was wonderful. Some decent stuff, if a bit of an upward battle. I'll find the trail or I'll blaze it; there's no other option.

Here's a snippet:

As he climbed, Aiden noticed wear on the stones and the ground between and realized he was following an ancient herding trail. The ascent was much easier once he looked ahead to where ramps and switchbacks ran over the mountains' stone face, the lines of long use and age. He thought of his mam a moment, a flash of the woman's deep creases of cheek and forehead, the lines of laughter like lace at the corners of her eyes. With determined feet he pushed on.

As he walked, he felt himself fall into a rhythm, each foot planted a beat, and the beat brought to mind a rhyme his mam used to speak whilst working the churn. He hadn't heard it for years now, but it came back with clarity and kept his mind off the stones against his boot bottoms and the fire in his chest.

slow to curd and quick to burn
quick, and the crock is empty
slow to churn and quick the bird
crumbs from a table empties

I don't know if that's the rhyme I'll keep, but it works for a place-holder for now.

Literary Patron Saints?

2009-02-13T14:25:00.000-05:00

A few days ago, Boing-Boing featured guest blogger Gareth Branwyn, and he wrote an entry about the people who inspire our life philosophies, our art, our beliefs--he calls his "saints" in the entry Show Us Your Saints. His list is short, but concise, and Branwyn shares a brief comment on why those men (admittedly, he could think of no women to include) made the cut. The post illicited many responses, but I thought to move my own list here, since the following people are inspiring to me and continually influence my writing.

Topping the list is William Butler Yeats. While I can't remember the first poem I read by him, I distinctly remember spending all of my time between classes my first year of college pouring over his complete works. I would curl up in an armchair near the window of the small community college library and Yeats would take my breath away, line after line. I would let the words form on my tongue, feeling each of them in my mouth, and they would drift upon the air, a precious votive to the gods of verse. Reading about Yeats himself made me crush on him a little--his unwavering, yet unrequited devotion to Maude Gonne, and his love of his country and its autonomy from England makes him my patron saint of perseverance and steadfastness. Yeats wrote until his end, and I would aspire to the same.

One of the academic pursuits I am most passionate about is researching the points in history where religious ideologies meet and either overlap, or assimilate. One of the most difficult aspects of integrating this into the stories I tell is not choosing sides, balancing the factions at work. A poet who, to me, is the epitome of this balance is Denise Levertov. She weaves spirituality into her work so subtly, yet so efficiently; it's a master class. She is my patron saint of delicacy in representing traditionally heavy subjects, who I call on when I want to retain the depth of a subject, with the fine look of lace.

I have to include J.R.R. Tolkien in my personal cadre of divine mediaries. For his life's work, his research in philology, linguistics, and medieval literature alone he would be on my list. But he is also responsible for what is arguably one of the most influential pieces of fiction of all time, and the world we have come to know as Middle Earth. Such rich world building, depth of character, and full, satisfying stories and histories put him in line for my petitions for a guiding hand when I focus on these elements in my own writing.

The first novel I read by Kate Horsley was Confessions of a Pagan Nun. Admittedly, I picked it up for the title, but her writing style is what made me a believer. Like Levertov, Horsley fills her subjects with the breath of gods, and her delivery is sublime. She has honed the skill of word choice, delivering prose that verges on poetry. I would invoke her presence when my tongue needs gilding.

John Keats died at the age of twenty-six. In that time, he proved to be one of the most prolific poets of his time. There is no excuse not to produce; quality and quantity are possible. When I am in need of motivation, St. Keats lights a fire under my butt.

Often called "the father of free verse," Walt Whitman has remained in my personal canon, his masterwork, Leaves of Grass, being a book I return to when I need something of a manifesto. As a man, Whitman was an interesting character: anti-slavery, pro-temperance, something of a nationalist, a deist and, though it is conjecture, homo-or bi-sexual. This was a man living his convictions, singing them to a nation who deemed them quite controversial. For his guts and his integrity, Whitman is one of my personal saints.

To know thyself and not compromise those convictions, to live life as you believe, and to hold these truths up for constant inspection after living and experiencing them, are the goals of constructing a life philosophy. Henry David Thoreau embodies these elements to me. Thoreau was the balanced mix of philosopher and scientist, environmentalist and libertarian. He, like Whitman, held steadfastly to his beliefs, enough to spend a night in prison for resisting paying his taxes. Thoreau is my patron saint of anarchy, dissent, and resistance for the greater good of all.

John Muir believed in the preservation of the American wilderness and protection of the natural beauty of the land. If you've ever been to Yosemite, you have Mr. Muir to thank that it was made a national park. He was a great friend of the land and the natives who tread lightly upon it, finding Native American ways of living worth emulating. He was a prolific essayist and explorer of the world around him. The moments when I stop writing and mentally take in a scene or setting are the moments where I feel most the presence of St. Muir.

I tend to write sonically. I edit myself with the voice, reading aloud, feeling the words in mouth and savoring them. There is a lot of poetry in my prose, a rhythm, whether I do this consciously or not. Sound assists in creation of imagery, and my patron for this has to be Tori Amos. Her sonic landscapes are so intricately woven that each album is like a novel, a slow unfolding of story, setting, and scene. Reading aloud is something not done enough in our current society, and when I feel I should attempt to help this back into fashion, I give Tori a little shout.

Magic

2009-02-08T09:22:00.013-05:00

This recent question from Natania Barron's weblog prompts today's entry:

Do you find that your perception of magic has changed? In what ways? Does it affect how you read/write? -NB

I think magic should first be defined. Certainly the idea of magic can change from context to context. Some magic is supernatural, sometimes it's technology, other times, it's commonplace and accessible to everyone, and some magic can only be found by the elite, god-touched, or those somehow fated to wield its power. Magic can be newly discovered, or ancient and long-forgotten. There is constructive and destructive magic, either bound to spirit or elements or realms of the living or the dead.

I feel that magic should have consequences, that those using magic should be responsible for its use. There will be those who are not, and that is good for tension and proving the effects of adverse use of magic. I do not like the idea of magic being easy, either to obtain or to use. Magic should be earned, or learned, and there should be stiff consequences for it's misuse, either by general society, the society of magicians, or the gods.

My perception of magic used to be quite heavily influenced by playing Dungeons & Dragons. Character affiliations (good, neutral good, neutral, chaotic, neutral evil, evil, etc.) defined my ideas of magic and magicians for a long time, and these defining words were rigid boxes in which I kept my characters. Now, however, I understand more about human behavior, and that, when driven, even the most upstanding characters fall prey to their desires. Call it hubris, karma, self-fulfilling prophecy, but whatever you name the fall, it is imperative to the forwarding of the action and the development and believability of a character. A character without faults is just like writing the happy (see previous entry). Boring. Just like magic use without some sort of consequence is boring.

Some good examples of books that follow what I believe to be a proper magical code of conduct are the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordon, Neuromancer by William Gibson, The Changling of Finnistuath by Kate Horsely, The Thrall's Tale by Judith Lindbergh, and, of course, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien, just off the top of my head. Books that are not following my guidelines towards acceptable portrayal of magic are the Dragonlance series (Chronicles and Legends) by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman (magic was pretty easy to come by from what I reacall), the Alvin Maker series by Orson Scott Card, and much of Charles de Lint. (For the record, this does not mean they are not good storytellers!)

How does all of this affect the way I write? If there is magic use, it comes at a cost, and those who enter into the prospect without care of that cost are made to pay it with something dear. Magic abilities come with a sacrifice, whether that be before or after its use, and the affects are lasting and irreversable. One of my biggest pet peeves is when characters wreck everything with magic and are then brought back in time to correct the damages. This feels like a cop-out on the part of the writer. Kill them if you must, but don't you dare try to resurrect them and expect everything to be hunky-dorey.

I don't often give a character magical skills. They may have a natural aptitude, like Hermione Granger for example, but magic for me is earned or learned, as I said. Even if magic is granted through a found or gifted object, the consequences of its use must play into the my story or I feel I'm cheating the reader. There is no such thing as windfall in my writing. I reward hard work and sacrifice. Gifting may occur between characters, but not between the creator and the creation.

Encouragment and Avoidance

2009-02-05T09:24:00.005-05:00

My good friend Natania Barron just finished the second draft of her huge novel, The Aldersgate Cycle. After two years of hard work and editing, she deserves warm congratulations. I called her yesterday after reading the announcement she had finished and shared my exuberance. If you'd like to better understand why I'm so excited for her, listen to some of the chapters she's made available at Alderpod, a podcast of the novel. It's a great story and I wish her the best of luck with it.

Natania has another general writing weblog where she muses on process, the what and why of writing. Her most recent post there ended with a question that I would like to use as a sort-of prompt for this entry.

Are there things that you avoid when writing? Concepts or ideas that you consciously/subconsciously don’t write about?

I can say immediately that I don't write "happy." First, and obviously, it would not make for an interesting story. Conflict and tension are necessary, they forward the narrative and preserve hidden barbs to hook your reader. In a sense, a story is a puzzle that the characters are working out, and, if you're lucky, those characters will go along with your slow disclosure until the desired ending point. Happy is boring.

That is not to say there can't be moments of joy, elation, jubilation. I should say, however, that I feel no expertise writing those scenes, and will edit them to death if given the opportunity. Best for me to write them and leave the initial text. What comes spontaneously in those instances will simply have to do.

In pondering this question too, one must consider the cliche "write what you know," which I touched on in my initial list of "notes." Natania states that she knows illness, as she's been surrounded by it her whole life through every member of her immediate family. I have been near illness too, in my mother's diagnosis with Multiple Sclerosis when I was still in single digits, and both of my in-laws-- a father-in-law who passed in 2004 after a long bought with pancreatic cancer (and two other varieties previous to that) and my mother-in-law who lives with rheumatoid arthritis and Parkinson's Disease. But it's not something I care to write about, mostly because I am not very good at dealing with it. I hate hospitals, get grossed out by phlegm noises, I'm just not very good at being a nurse, ask my husband. Somehow, I missed the line for compassionate, nurturing genes, and I think I'm okay with that. It's not that I don't care, I just don't take care of people well.

As for things I consciously avoid, at this point it's difficult to say. I've been away from actively writing for so long, outside of assignments for creative writing classes that is, I only know what I wrote then is what I want to avoid writing now. *ahemfanfictionahem* I've always been drawn to fantasy, to magic, to myth. Avoiding the cliches and worn-out tropes of these things is something I want to avoid as well.

I will ask myself this question again in some months, see if there is anything more that I find myself avoiding while writing.

Truest Line

2009-02-03T21:38:00.002-05:00

Tonight's writing and research was based on the idea of doing a character study for the white arrow of my WIP's title.

I began writing in the first person, the arrow describing itself to the reader. The tone is high, the language of a mythic character. The arrow is old, and it describes not only that but it's origins as well. Towards the end of the paragraph, the arrow revealed a bit of prophecy, veiled in the wisdom of how to be a just king. I am glad to have written it, even if it is just over 200 words. I edited myself a bit towards the beginning, trying to home in on the right tone. I can tweak the second half easily having found the right voice in the first.

After finishing in the first person, I moved on to stats on the physical appearance of the arrow. I did a little research into native birds, trees, and stones of Ireland, but also Northern Europe in general. I was lead to my arrowhead material--rainbow obsidian. In some of the web photos I came across, the igneous glass looked glowing white as the light reflected off its smooth surface. Otherwise, it appears in shades of gold, green and violet, all of which are acceptable for this arrow. I've used other materials from rare and mythical beasts as finishing touches, incorporating the idea of sacrifice and honor with each element.

I am toying with the idea of making an arrow of my own. What better way to understand how a thing is made than to make it oneself? I may not be able to get my hands on rainbow obsidian or albino osprey feathers, but I can find other elements just in my backyard. It will be a nice way to focus my mind before sitting down to write, looking at the fruit of my arrow making and knowing that I am capable of anything I put my mind to.

Sabotage & The War of Art

2009-02-03T08:17:00.002-05:00

I got sour with myself yesterday for not writing here, and for not making progress on the WIP in general. I started to get angry about it, ready to call this a failure before I've even begun. These are old habits rearing heads. I have a routine of self-sabotage and when you are familiar with something you will typically stick to it. I feel that was the problem yesterday.

I talked to a very good friend about my progress last night after a class we share. She was genuinely excited for me, especially with regard to my recognition of and overcoming the obstacles to my progress. She had lent me a book some months ago, Stephen Pressfield's "The War of Art," which contains a lot of the same bullshit excuses that I often make, along with suggestions for how to break the habit. Self-sabotage creates a septic environment where it is impossible to create. The artist becomes infected by that type of negative thinking, and this can be witnessed in the very first post on this weblog. What is the use of perpetuating a feeling of worthlessness and inadequacy when the goal, ultimately, is to nurture the creative spark, fan it to its full life as a flame? I've got to be nicer to myself, but I also have to be disciplined. With practice, I will find the line between lazy and a good healthy routine.

Practice. It doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't even have to be good. I simply has to be done.

Nocking the Arrow

2009-02-01T14:31:00.001-05:00

Yesterday's writing consisted of generating a list of research points for the folktale I mentioned in the previous entry. The folktale is titled 'Aidan & The White Arrow.' In making the research list, I noted what items would need lengthy research and what would be shorter, easily done with an hour's time. I also divided the list into practical/historical research and spiritual/magical research. Both are fun, both will be peppered into the story, though the story will not rely too heavily on these research points. I think those are the best sort of tales anyway, those that hint at some particular time, culture, mythology, but don't give everything away, or tweak the lines just askew enough that the reader has something to chew on.

Some items I feel drawn to familiarize myself with through research:

-Northern European Bronze Age tribal culture and organization
-Rites of passage in variety of cultures, from boyhood to manhood
-Arrow-making, fletching, bow construction--earliest known
-Bridge construction of the period
-Punishment traditions for law/oathbreakers
-Indigenous flora and fauna, period Northern Europe
-Mythologies of landscape features, multi-cultural, mountains particularly
-Mythologies of weapons, multi-cultural, archery items particularly
-Tradition of sacral kingship in Northern Europe

I re-read the outline. I like it still, and that was a bit unexpected. I have not, however, re-read what I have of the text, and perhaps I shouldn't. The last time I even touched it was sometime in 2006, and rather than scrap it after reading, I'll keep it, unread, until I have some more significant text. If the two can be interwoven, excellent. If not, then I won't feel the loss having a word count already in the books.

For the time being, I am keeping this weblog a secret. Anyone who reads my other blogs can find it easily enough, but if I know I am writing for an audience I think I might be less honest. This is practice at brutal truth, openness about my process as a fledgling writer, all the difficulty and success documented mostly for myself. I want to know what my tendencies are, what gets me stuck, when do I become dismayed and frustrated. What inspires me? I feel I have forgotten, but I want to use this forum to remember. This is a process of recall for me, an attempt to return to a place I inhabited years ago: writing everyday, having too many ideas to write at once, a flood of words and images, scenes and dialogue. It's my Atlantis for the moment, and I am the determined believer, the explorer who will not quit until I've unlocked the secrets for locating the forgotten city whenever I wish.

“Notes”

2009-01-31T17:03:00.000-05:00

-I think a lot about writing, but I never do any work towards writing.

-I think a lot about what sort of writing I would like to do, but I never prepare to write.

-One could say that any research they do is research done towards writing, every snippet of information gathered, all reconnaissance for the end product. Writers are like magpies, collectors of information, sometimes shiny, sometimes with the patina of verdigris, but always of some value at some future juncture.

-It could be said that a writer's life is a metaphor for their work. When I apply that anecdote to myself, I don't see how I am surprised at not writing. I say a lot and don't do. I live in the realm of thought and not action. I tend to be passive and not aggressive. I am lazy and undisciplined. This is my life craft. This is my writing craft.

-As much as I talk about making changes to this life path, I do not. Just as I talk about longing to write, then make excuses why I can't.

-My thought just then was to add something revolutionary, a phrase like: Now is the time to end all that! Or, I am changing my entire life right now, that my writing life shall not perish! This is something I always do and it obviously does not work.

-So, what is the plan? Just now, my Husband offered suggestions to me to counter my excuses why an hour was not enough time to write. “Make notes,” he said. “Make notes so that when the time comes for you to write, you have your ideas handy.”

-These are my notes so far, and I've not stopped writing for ten minutes. Granted, I do tend to self-edit as I write, to over analyze the next word. That is why there is not more on this page after ten minutes.

-So what would I write if I had time? Triteness like this, apparently. But that is another hang-up of mine, writing my life, as mundane as it is, in order to get rid of all the crap at the front of my mind until there is nothing left, until I reach the emptiness point. Once I find that place, that moment where there is nothing else to say, nothing else to fidget with, then, from that moment, everything I write is creative, everything based purely on my imagination working and not on my brain blathering on about nothing.

-Like it is now.

-I've thought about writing what I know. What I know now is that I am miserably depressed, uncomfortable with myself, anxious, disturbed and frustrated. What else shares these qualities? Young reader's/adult fiction, full of angst-filled teens trying to figure it all out. Romance novels. Some characters in all the genre fictions wear this mask, or these characters are featured in self-fulfilling stories like 'The Bell Jar.' But someone wrote that novel already, and better, I daresay, than I would. Anna Wolf is a far sight crazier in 'The Golden Notebook' than I shall ever be. So, what?

-I tend to want to write autobiography—journal entries highlighting the process of figuring out how I got the way I am now, shining a spotlight on all my personal skeletons, demons, dysfunctions—but my life really is not that interesting.

-I am, then, inclined towards fantasy. I enjoy reading the genre, tropes and cliches and all. I enjoy settings in a far away time and place, where mythology and the human condition are made parallel, learning from each other, one becoming the other. For a long time, I wanted to take old myths or fairy tales and reshape them for modern times.

-I had an idea for the myth of Persephone and Demeter and Hades, updated and made into some sort of modern dysfunctional romance. I don't know where my notes for that are, but I believe Hades is a Dutch bulb trader (haha, the Netherlands), and Persephone a horticulturist from the US who's mother adores tulips, or something like that. There is some sort of mystery and Hades is on the bad end of a deal, has to go into hiding (underground) and Persephone gets caught up in that crazy trap. Demeter is left to hunt for her daughter, and the myth is played out in some fashion or another. It could work, but reading this as I've written it makes it seem really contrived.

-In November, I had every intention of attempting National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo, as it is fondly called by it's adherents) with Natania Barron. The goal is to write 50,000 words during the month of December, and good chunk of a novel. Natania finished; this while she was editing and practically re-writing 'The Aldersgate Cycle.' I started, unofficially, and got a few paragraphs.

-“Write what you know,” they say. For this NNWM snippet, I wrote about making black gall ink since we had just made our first batch of black walnut ink at home. A young monk, a boy really, wakes up and reports for his morning instruction and is made to climb trees to collect galls alongside the other boys living at the monastery. That's as far as I wrote, and I kept getting caught up in Wikipedia looking for monastic hours for prayer and vigil, the monastic cycle of time, and I realized I didn't know anything about that at all. So those paragraphs sit...

-I have a long chapter from another attempt at writing a young boy's transition into manhood, as it takes place in a vaguely Celtic tribal society. I wrote an outline for this, something I rarely do, and thought a lot about how to pace this and plot it out. That was years ago, and I've not revisited it. Perhaps I will begin there, re-read the outline, attempt to spark my creative fire.

-I just remembered, tonight is eve of Imbolc, or Candlemass. Maybe I'll make sacrifice to Brigid, to Bragi, in hopes of receiving the favor of their inspiration on the day of their light. Not a bad idea...

-Husband's arrived home. I may have to return to my day soon. This has been a bit helpful, however. I still can write when I need to, even if it is only half ideas.

-I will dig up that story/folktale and see where it is I need to begin. If there is research I need to do for inspiration (I can think that I should research the making of arrows in the early period, fletching), I will work on that in my spare moments today, and get down to business tonight.