On Age and Subject Matter...

I had the privledge of participating in a workshop with Dasan Ahanu this past weekend at the Methodist University Southern Writer's Symposium.  The workshop was fun and interesting for me as a writer, butI found myself facinated by the student response. There were several students there--most grateful to have been lured by the promise of extra-credit from their various teachers--and several willingly, even excitedly, participating. 

After we would do an exercize, Dasan would ask people to volunteer to read. Or, as we prepared to do an exercise, he'd ask people for images or things or ideas.  I was thrilled by how very much the students responded. And I was facinated by what they had to say. When I was their age (in high school or early college so many years ago I hate to even think it) and I thought about writing, I found writing profound. I thought that people should write about IMPORTANT THINGS like justice, women's rights, poverty, love, philosophy, God ... you know, stuff that important, long-dead people have written about. And this was one of the reasons I thought I probably couldn't be a writer. The thought of writing about my own life, the little things in it, seemed trivial and silly and not particularly worthwhile. 

As the students read their work, I noticed that they seemed interested in the things that I had been interested in then, too. One student wrote about God and his (the student's) own perfection and imperfection. Another wrote about the power of the written word.

I wrote about cold wood floors, warm blankets, and the DVR remote.

I wrote about the little things that reminded me, in the space I loved, of the people I loved. And it was small and sweet and utterly, utterly personal. But now, I didn't think it was trivial anymore. It filled me with emotion that I couldn't work up, but wanted to, when I was younger about big, philosophical things. 

And it occured to me that maybe this is normal. Maybe as I'm not getting any younger (I hesitate to say getting older, 'cause it scares me), it's the here and now that I find most facinating.

I think this does translate into my own writing of fiction. I'm more facinated by the small moments that fill our lives--the little evils we do to each other or the little graces we give to each other--than by the big events. Sure, the big events (and the Big Bads) are so necessary in Urban Fantasy, and they're fun, too.  But the story is so much more than that big event.

It's the small things, the seemingly mundane, that make all the difference, both in my life, and, I think, in my fiction.

It's been a few months...

... and they've been busy months.  I last posted in March! 

Summer involved two rewrites of the novel I'm writing with Sarah, three cons (Con Carolinas, FandomFest, and Dragon Con), and some new opportunities.

The rewrites of Knychtspelle went well.  Hopefully the last set of rewrites before we do rewrites for money. We'll see.

The cons were lots of fun. Lots of socializing, parties, chatting, connecting, learning, buying books, getting books signed, etc.  Dragon Con was amazing with all the costumes and stuff. I even bought a trebuchet--well, a miniature model of one. A real one would be cool, but perhaps too much work to transport. It's a medieval siege weapon that hurls stones over walls via a swinging weight system. I'm going to use it in my medieval and renaissance classes, to shoot things (good things like marshmallows) at my students.

The Newest opportunity that I'm excited about at the moment is editing an anthology with John Hartness tentatively called "The Big Bad." It's focus is all on villains--the MC has to be a villain. There really aren't any other requirements.  So far we're reading slush and I'm really impressed with some of the stories. They're really creepy and good.  If this goes well, we'll be editing another anthology in the next year--a spec fic one with the theme of corsets. That one will certainly be interesting.

I also published a piece in Drafthorse: A Literary Journal of Work and no Work called "Form 99B." 
I've got an academic article on the Siege of Jerusalem coming out in October in the South Eastern Medieval Association Journal. I'm excited about that too. 

All of this, though, has cut a bit into the writing I want to do on my new YA idea. It's forming in my head, which is a good thing, but I need to get it all out on paper, too.  I'm excited about it, because I love the main character and I think it is going to be dark and adventurous, but not dystopian. And it is set in a Fae world, too.  The MC is Cassie, and I'm enjoying getting to know her better.  I'm hoping once I get a conference paper written, I can turn back to Cassie and see what she's got to say and do.  It's the first novel I've written from a one-pov perspective, and it is in first person, too, so I'll have to see how that goes. 

And school is going on, which is a good thing. I'm enjoying my classes--I've even got a great, enthusiastic 8:00am class, which is awesome. 

So, all in all, while there's a fair bit of stress, most of it is good stress, or hopeful stress, and that is something I can cope with.

Hell Mary is out in the world, and the Huntington is beautiful.

At the end of last week, finally, I sent off my novel, Hell Mary: Full of Fire, to a few agents. I started with my "it would be so cool if..." list of agents. These are  folks whose reputations I know primarily because I've either met them or know the authors that they represent fairly well. Now I wait.

I will say, I wish there was one, universal set of information that agents want. I know each agent is a little different, but why do some agents want 50 pages, some 40, some 2 chapters, some 10 pages, some 5 pages, etc. Now, realistically, I'm pretty sure that an agent can tell if a book is one, good, and two, what they are interested in, within about 2 pages, max. They can tell they don't want it, for whatever reason, in about 2 paragraphs.  Some want a synopsis, some don't. Some want a 2 paragraph synopsis, some want a 10 page one. Others want everything inbetween. It's a buyer's market, of course, so I do what they ask, but there comes a point where I want to scream. "Was it four pages? Or fourteen? ARGH!" And my question is "does it matter"? I mean, if I totally blow off submission guidelines, stalk the agent at her favortie restaurant, call his personal number, don't send anything at all, yeah, blow me off (or call the police), but you know, if I send an agent 32 pages and not 40, is it the end of the world?

The problem is that I see their point. As a teacher I find myself muttering "I gave you instructions. 4-6 pages. Not 15! or not 2!" and if they don't do what the assignment requires, it is very, very hard to get a passing grade. So I get it. Some of the point of submission guidelines is simply "can you follow directions?" Which also helps answer the question "Do I think I can work with this person?" Because no matter how awesome a story/novel is, if the writer is absolutely impossible to work with, why bother?

Well, here's hoping that the people who didn't ask for partials ask for them, and the folks who asked for a few pages ask for more, and the ones who asked for a lot of pages want to read the rest.  Right?

Oh, and 75 and sunny at the Huntington Library and Gardens? THAT makes me understand why folks might like living in LA. The traffic? THAT reminds me that I can visit the Huntington once or twice a year. I don't need to live in LA, or indeed in California.

My favorite part of the Huntington art collection is the gallery of portraits, part of their permenant collection. The Blue Boy, Pinkie, Sarah what's-her-name (famous actress). The paitings are awesome. Of course, in the Library, the Ellesmere Chaucer almost makes me cry (yes, literally), as do first editions of Much Ado About Nothing and other gorgeous pieces they have. I love the physical arts (sculpture, painting, even manuscripts). I fully admit I don't understand much about them, but beautiful pieces of art make me cry, and I can't explain why. I guess that's one of the reasons it's art.

The Huntington Gardens were gorgeous, too. The Rose Garden is my favorite (and the Tea Room was yummy). All in all, a great way to spend a Saturday.

If nothing else it took my mind off the novel for a few hours. :)

Thanksgiving Horror Short

Here's a short I wrote today for a prompt over at Magical Words.


          A cool breeze ruffled Clarabell’s blonde hair. She settled her girth into her lounger, the metal and plastic creaking under her weight. She sipped her Bloody Mary. Certainly there was no better way to spend Thanksgiving: in her South Carolina house on the Atlantic, far from Connecticut’s November chill, a fresh turkey waiting for death in the pen.
          “Ma’am?” at the southern drawl of Earl, her low class butler, she curled her lip.
          “What?” She snapped, her sharp New England accent harsh against his easy droll.
          “There’s a problem with the turkey, ma’am.”
           She snorted and slammed her drink onto the table, sloshing the red liquid onto the white of the lounger. “You failed to slaughter a simple bird?” She hauled herself up and faced him.
          Blood trickled from a gash on the butler’s forhead, trailing down his cheek and gathering in the collar of his shirt. His normally whisky-pink cheeks were ashen and his bright blue eyes dim.
         “Was there some kind of accident?”
          “In the back yard, ma’am. We—Tommy and me—were getting ready to kill the turkey.” He jerked his hand full of blood spattered feathers. The black of his suit glinted, wet, and blood rolled onto his hands from under the cuff.
          “Did you cut yourself?” She stepped back, putting the lounger between the two of them.
          “No, ma’am.” He swayed back and forth and tumbled forward, the feathers fluttering into the air before floating down.
          Clarabell screamed. The gashes on Earl’s chest, revealed in his collapse, oozed more blood. She did not lean to down to check on him, but scrambled into the house, grabbing the nearest phone and punching in 911.
         Behind her, something rustled.
         She spun around, the 911 call at its third ring. A turkey—their thanksgiving dinner—stared at her, its beady black eyes glinting in the light of the room.
         “911. What is your emergency?”
         “There’s a turkey…” she trailed off. A patch of pale skin was visible on the bird where feathers had been torn away.
         The creature clucked once, twice. A flutter of its wings revealed a cleaver. How it held it, she had no idea, but blood dripped from the blade.

Moving forward and back...

This summer has had its ups and downs, most of which have been unrelated to writing. Got some rejections, on short stories and on the novel, but got some encouragement too.  A lot of other stuff happened that was hard (cat died, grandmother died, wallet and cell phone stolen from my office, windshield cracked). Stuff that mattered and stuff that just took my time.

Going through this, my boyfriend and I found a place and are moving in together.  That means going through four years of stuff (from my time in this place) and all the other stuff that I brought from Ohio or got from my fam in Cali when I moved to NC.  This meant I found bunches of old photos of my parents and family, or me, or my friends (elementary, high school, college, grad school), and that brings up a lot of stuff. The thing that hit me hardest was a card I found--an anniversary card from my mom to my dad. The note in it said that she was sorry the card was late (with a perky "better late than never") and then she noted that she was slipping, fading, and she thanked my dad for hanging in there with her. It was probably one of the last things she ever gave him. I'm not sure how it ended up with it--it probably went into a stack, that went into a box, than ended up with me.

My mom has been on my mind a lot lately. It will be 14 years in November since she died. Mostly it is the good things, and the fact that I wish I could share who I am now with her--I'm sure she'd be thrilled with a lot of what I'm doing, but she'd have her own well vocalized opinions, too, I'm sure. Maybe it is that I'm 35, or maybe it is that I'm getting more serious about my career and personal life. Maybe it is something else altogether. But I miss her.

Words came halting forth...

Ahh, Sir Philip Sidney, author of the Astrophil and Stella sonnet sequence--how I appreciate you today. In the first sonnet of his sequence about the lover Astrophil and his quest for a kiss from his beloved Stella, Sidney tackles both the inspiration for writing and the dreaded writer's block. The great lover begins "Loving in truth and fain in verse my love to show..." and what better reason have we to write than love? (Money? Fame? Pleasure? Because the voice just won't stop if I don't? Because if I don't, I've given up, and I don't give up, or at least I don't give this up? But I digress...) Perhaps, he muses, the lady will see his suffering in the lines, take pleasure in his poetry (hopefully not his pain, though sadism on the part of the beloved may be a part of love poetry), know of his love, and requite it!  Hooray.

But, he cannot write. (Alas!) He tried looking at others folks "leaves" but their "feet were but strangers in his way." Reading the current genre just isn't helping.  Trying to learn the craft doesn't work. Indeed, inspiration "flees Step-dame Study's blows." The more he studies, the less he can write.

Finally, he announces that, like a pregnant woman struggling to give birth, he is "helpless in his throes!" But wait, his Muse addresses him directly!  "Fool," says his Muse to him, "Look in thy heart and write!"

And so we have one of the most concise and lovely renditions of one of the most problematic myths about writing. Look in your heart and write. It will just come pouring out. Perfect and immaculate in its design. If your "words come halting forth," then you're just not looking in your heart. Or, if you are, maybe you're just not a writer.

Funny. That I know of, Sidney doesn't have a poem in the sequence about REVISION.

So, in my own writing lately, my words are "halting forth." And the ones that do come out, seem less than what I want. But, no fear, like Sidney (or perhaps like his narrator, Astrophil), I have a Muse. And my muse speaks to me.  His words are not quite as iambic as Astrophil's, nor are they as kind. And after hearing them, I do indeed pour more words on the page. I finish scenes, finish chapters, delight in the fact that I can open a new document and start a new section.

Unfortunately, my muse is not particularly original. Indeed he has spoken, I think, to the muses of many great and successful writers that I know, and cribbed merciless from them. (Perhaps the other muses ought to corner him to discuss the finer distinctions between references and plagiarizing.)

What does my muse say?

"Fool," says my muse to me, "get thy butt-in-chair and write!"

Teaching Hamlet

Today I finished up teaching Hamlet in my Shakespeare class.  I love Hamlet (and Hamlet--alas for my crush on the pre-goth, pre-emo, emo/goth grad student!). The play never fails to move me to tears, no matter how many times I've read it or teach it.  There is something that breaks my heart when Hamlet dies--his struggle through the whole play is to survive and bring Claudius to justice. He fails in the former.  The struggle to do the right thing in the right way in a corrupt world among weak, corrupt, or evil people simply moves me.  "Now cracks a noble heart," indeed.  

And, the older I get, the more I feel for Ophelia. When her brother leaps into the grave, I can't help but roll my eyes, just a little bit, but when he tells the priest that she will be a "ministering angel" while he "liest howling," I believe that he is right. The limited rites she gets in death because she *might* be a suicide smack of hypocrisy and ruthlessness.  

I studied Hamlet extensively my senior year in college, writing my senior thesis on some of the films. Early in the fall semester, my mother died. By spring, my father was dating someone else. It was nothing as untoward or ugly as Claudius, and indeed she proved to be wonderful for my dad, and is now my step-mom without any of the wicked Disney connotations.  Still, there were times I had to step away from the play, for obvious reasons. But it stayed with me, all this time, and the struggles of the characters seem so real to me.  I hope I did it justice for my students!