So today I'm thinking about music. Actually TODAY I'm thinking about the fact that my Western Civilization class finally added me back after dropping me the first day because I had a driver's test and didn't show up (yay persistance)and the fact that I just got a novel chapter length e-mail from a friend in China who I haven't talked to in probably a year. (Actually I've never talked to her at all the for real, in person kind of way, but we've been internet friends since we were both in high school seven or eight years ago.) A member of my crit group also just moved to Japan and another friend I've know forever is going to move there in December. Why is everyone suddenly in Asia?

At any rate, YESTERDAY, when I decided what I was going to ramble about today, I was thinking about music and so now I am about to start thinking about that again.

Music. If I were the type to use, music would be my drug of choice. I used to be a music major and sometimes it just felt like a bad addiction. I HATED being on stage. I hadn't decided to learn any kind of instrument until I was sixteen and had no natural aptitude for any of the ones I tried. And yet somehow I couldn't stop. I wanted to know music. I wanted to be music. To control with a twist and weave of my fingers the way my classmates did. I wanted it to obsorb me completely, and take me to whatever majical place it trickled down from. Becuase how could anything so sweet, so perfect, so exciting, come from our world? How could it even be compared with ordinary life?

Maybe that's why it didn't work out for me. Chopin and Motzart and Joplin and the unknown composers of folk tunes were too unreal for me. Too Other. I couldn't think of them with the casual, every day aditude the other musicians had. They played music. That was what they did. There wasn't anything special about it. It was just a part of who they were.

Some people like to say there is no such thing as inner born talent. People who say that have never seen my little brother pick up an instrument he's never touched before and start playing. Talent needs to be nurtured. It sometimes manifests itself later in life or when you least expect it, but it exists.

So my allotment of musical talent is small. That doesn't mean I don't still fiddle around on the piano from time to time. That doesn't mean that my fingers don't twitch when I hear a strain of particularly etherial flute notes and long more than anything to be the one holding that flute. It just means I know where my stronger talent lies. The one that is just a part of who I am. What I do.

Writing.

I wonder sometimes if when those classmates played their finals all they heard were their mistakes. I wonder if they agonized about them afterwards and went over in their heads about what went wrong.

Actually I know they did. I listened to them do it sometimes. "I held those notes too long. Did you notice when I acidently hit a mnor chord instead of a major?" To which I laughed nervously. Manically. I didn't hear their mistakes. What I heard was magic, otherworldly.

So then I look at my drafts. The long ones, and short ones, and finished and unfinished ones. The run on sentances and typos and over use of the word "saids" and wonder if my readers will even see those. That doesn't mean I'll ever stop agonizing over them or trying to find the exact perfect turn of phrase but I wonder if--or maybe hope that --my readers might see past the mechanics. If maybe to them the story itself will seem otherworldly.

U: Unknown

Never underestimate the power of the unknown.

Sometimes that might mean leaving something unstated in your WIP.

Sometimes that might mean allowing a piece of mystery to remain in it that even you don't know the answer to.

Sometimes it just means chasing new ideas, new styles; skill you're pretty sure you don't posess. Sometimes it just means taking a chance.

So go forth today and discover the unknown.

E: Experience

There are many ways in which experience is important to a writer. The obvious way is being an experienced writer. Having lots of credentials, developing the skills to type out fascinating characters and smooth and riveting plots without having to think about it,

Or . . .

There is the less obvious but more important. Experiencing life.

Everyone experiences life to some degree but when was the last time you experienced the full potential of the exact time and place you were in? When was the last time you let your mind stop talking long enough to listen to your senses?

Taste the playful freshness of the wind toying with your hair while you wait for the bus. Allow the tingle of the curry in your lunch to salivate a moment on your tongue. Drink the sight of your loved ones when they come to greet you. Don’t just observe the world. Absorb it.

This is important to us as writers because every moment is potential fodder for a scene, a description, a fresh idea, an inspiration, but it is also important to us as human beings to allow our mind, body, and soul to connect and rejuvenate. To war with itself and to find peace.

What will you experience today? Go and embrace.

Hazzah!

I have finished a draft of my story. It is a little too long and needs some polishing but I feel a lot better having it completed beginning to end. I will post an analysis of the process I used to write this story and what I think I've learned from it for those of you who are interested in that sort of thing. (If you aren't I completely understand. The analysis will be mostly for my own benefit as short stories are sort of a new teritory for me.)But for now I celebrate with these sonnets I've been tinkering with just for fun.

 
Erato
 
The black pulse of a thousand minds
Waits for truth to hold back time
Steeped in color and liquid light
The darkened roar demands its sight
With fists raised in unseen design
They cry for communion with the divine

Tonight the sky drops down its eyes
The silence drowns in lucid dies
Between the rifts of glittered strands
Hang the fates that mock demands
Beneath the pull of threaded sound
The tower falls, a toppled mound

Inspiration here at last
To join the present with the past


Food of Love

My forever faithless jealous lover,
Leaping from the fingers of another
Unresolved notes loose their effect
In punishment for my long time neglect
A word with a sonnet, a wink at verse
Moments when I was too lost to rehearse

My fingers slip and fall against your keys
Rough sounds flow through your hollow reeds
Nothing is left but your siren's screeching
A hand cramped from my ceaseless reaching
I am parched for the voice you will not grant
With a mind flailed with silence I recant
Flow back to my brain and out of my throat
Forgive if you can the false words I wrote


Motley

Whir of colorless gauze begging for dies
Shadow filled laughter drowning out sound
Paint covered eyes spinning round and round
Drink bitter delights to sustain the lies

A popinjay decked out in white and black
Swallow the emptiness. Wash out the hues.
Dance to the silence of a drunken ruse
With feathers and bells dripping down your back

With masks twisted out of charm and wits
Don't let them see that your eyes are their eyes
Don't look at yourself. Don't dare become wise.
Whisk your cloak full of glittering bits

Invisible in gilded finery
Wear the costume you expect to see

Beowulf

I always thought that the plot of Beowulf went on too long. Monster attacks stronghold. Hero kills monster. Monster's mother takes her revenge. Hero kills her too. That should be it right? The stronghold is safe. Conflict resolved. A little about the victory feast makes sense but why follow Beawulf all the way home if nothing is going to happen for another thirty years? And why, oh why add another episode with a dragon when no victory could ever compare to his victory over Grendal? A bit anticlimatic isn't it.

If Beowulf were only an adventure story that would be true but I reread the peom this week and on closer examination I don't think its about a single exploit of bravery. Its about mortality and how the Anglo Saxons thought that a life could be worth living in spite of inevitable doom. Cheery I know.

Grendal himself is an example of doom lurking outside even the strongest most prosperous stronghold. Beowulf conquers him but there is yet another monster, his mother, his source. Even after Grendal's mother is destroyed Hrothgar warns Beowulf that strength and victory are not long lasting acheivments. That they will fade with age and if a hero is not courteous as well as brave so will his aclaim.

Beowulf's acheivements after Grendal are only told in flash backs just before the final show down with the dragon but it is clear that he took Hrothgar's advice and lived as a just and courteous king. But why do we need this final battle? Can't we just enjoy imagining the hero living a long and happy life without fast forwarding to the end of it?

Many old poems show us a character's life from beginning to end. Morte D'Arthur begins with the circumstances of Arthur's conception and ends with his burial but while Arthur's story is a tradgedy of how a great kingdom went wrong and fell prematurely the death of Beawulf is not a tradgedy at all.

Beawulf's death shows that even the strongest, most vireous and most honored man dies but he also shows that if one must die one might as well die . . . with his honor on. He died the best posible death for a Geat and a reader fully emersed in the culture of the tale can not be satisfied with his long and happy life until they know how he ended it. In the beginning of the story he conquers doom, holds it at bay so that the Danes can enjoy Heorot again but at the end the inevitability of doom catches up to him. He dies but conquers doom once and for all by behaving heroically up to the very last second of his life.

So its not anticlimatic after all.

Oh No!

Last week I finished my first beginning to end draft of the novel I have been working on for five years.(Hooray!) Most of the individual chapters have all been edited a time or two though so I think I'll call it draft 1 1/2. At any rate as I sat typing the last few pages, a thrill of disbelief surging through me (five years really is a long time)my brain ran into some serious trouble. Ideas. For a sequel.

I've sworn up and down a thousand times that this book will not have a sequel. I have too many other projects squirming in line for a place on my front burner. Besides, a lot of sequels aren't done very well and suck the joy out of the original book after you read them. I tried to write one once. It didn't work. So when ideas started niggling at my mind awhile back about what happens to some of the characters I thought well, maybe a short story or two that happens in the same world. I could live with that. But here I was typing out the very last pages thinking "Ah, finished at last" (except for you know that whole editing process) and suddenly they aren't just vague ideas anymore. I'm seeing a plot direction, threads that pull together, flashes of dialogue, new sets, a connection to some folk takes I had wanted to novelize years ago but had forgotten about and a whole swirl of colors.

This may sound strange but I know I'm in trouble when I start seeing colors. Every manuscript I've actually finished has a very distinct color I associate with it.

"The Stable" --Chestnut

Sirela --Blue and Silver

Criminal Mastermind --White. With shades of gray.

Ruler of Geal --Amber. In Various shades and textures.

The colors aren't visible in the actual execution of the writing or any kind of theme or anything. They're just somewhere in the back of my mind when I think about that story, holding it together. Probably connected more to tone than theme. . .

So will Ruler of Geal have a sequel? Very possibly. A red and orange sequel,though focusing on a different protagonist altogether. I still say it needs to wait in line behind all my other projects but who knows? It's not like I'm in control here or anything.

"I Wish I'd Writen It"

Before I begin I would like to say that this is not in retaliation to anything said to me or even based on any specific incident. Only a meandering contemplation based on general opservation. I hope I would never actaully mistake a kind encouragement for an insult and would not encourage anyone else to do so.

There is a phrase that circulates around criteques and book reviews writen by other writers that purplexes me. "That was so beautiful (stunning, witty, informative, insert-other-complement-here) I wish I had written it." I can only ask, "why?"

I can understand a small pang of jealousy. That is part of the elusive chase of mastering words. A longing not to admire, but to pocess, to create. The artist is never quite satisfied, never quite there, always getting closer, always getting further away but though that is a small part of the phrase when someone says "That was so beautiful I wish I'd written it" I feel a stronger expression of someone being inspired rather than jealousy and that is why the phrase baffles me.

You will never have the privlage of reading your own writing for the first time. You will never surprise yourself the same way that you surprise your readers. You will never be able to catch your own breath the way other authors can.

"So beautiful I wish I'd written it." Why? If you had you would never have been able to experience it.

Things That I Love

I love stories. I love chanelling human experiences and emotions into something universal that we can all share.



I love the feel of a pen gliding acrosss the page beneath my fingers.



I love traveling and being in new places, exploring new ideas, savoring new experiences.



I love looking for beauty where no one expects to find it.



I love the tranquility of nature and the complexity of everything working together.



I love the busy chaos of the city where life has to be chased down or it will get away.



I love trying to make sense of things I don't understand.



I love standing on the edge of something bigger than myself and wondering if I might fall.



I love the smile of a stranger who takes a moment out of their own stress to pass on kindness.



I love watching things grow, quietly peeking out of the earth one fraction at a time.



I love the dawn and the sunset, swirling the sky in their endless cyle.



I love the excitement in other's eyes when they speak of what they love.



That is what I love. What about you? What do you love?