Words Not for the Counting

It's hard not to see from my last several posts - and, for that matter, their lack of blathering content - that The Ax and the Vase, and my writing as a thing itself, took a turn for the productive in recent weeks.  Periods of creativity (and motivation of all kinds) ebb and flow, come and go, but I would be disingenuous not to notice that this period seems to have come upon me just as I shed one job for another.

I'm a bit old for girlish crushes on new jobs (not that I don't do that anyway - shoot, my crush on my last job lasted nearly two and a half years).  The new one hasn't got me scheming with myself to get all my friends to come work there, nor gushing constantly to everyone how gorgeous and what a great cook it is - but, I do have to say, when the BOSS came to my cube today and smilingly said, "Is this week over yet?" I did get a warm fuzzy.  Heh.  And, completely with no-harm/no foul, it's not beyond anyone's comprehension that a job and an employee no longer being a good match is exclusively and unilaterally measured by an employER's satisfaction.  I loved my team so much - but my job itself changed in ways I wasn't coping with.  It happens.

The thing is, I don't actually chalk this new period of productivity up to leaving my old gig.  Two of the greatest stressors in my life, which have not one thing to do with any job, have not gone anywhere.  My work schedule changed, so my sleep patterns and free time throughout the week are on different rhythms - that's got nothing to do with the jobs themselves, it's just a matter of time itself.  The weather's different, the year is all new, the holidays are over.  The surge in my creativity could come from any number of sources, including that one butterfly across the world who beat her wings that one time eight years ago.  Life just acts like that, it's a smarty pants business.  That's why I like it.

The best part of finishing the revision night before last - and taking one day off - is that I've already sent out two queries tonight, and the NEXT novel has already been much on my mind.  As backburnered as that idea has been for years now, it's gratifying to feel energy in that direction.

To be perfectly frank, between stress and the amount of time it's taken me to complete (and complete and complete) The Ax and the Vase, I wouldn't have sworn confidently I had another novel in me.  But now, not only am I excited to get back to early-stage writing work again, I've learned enough that I do feel confident the next work won't take so long.

And I've stuck out this process through all this time.  I have seen this thing through - and will keep on doing so, and producing more.

My confidence in Ax--in Clovis, really--has always been unwavering.  I've learned the degree to which that was ill-advised, in those first years when I believed all that nonsense about editing and revision applied to OTHER people (I may be Diane Thoughtkiller, but from where I sit now the unrealistic precious-baby-ness of my earlier expectations is clear enough; fortunately, I only needed to learn ... not quite be "lessoned" ...).  I've also learned the degree to which my confidence is an asset, and it's the one asset as an author I've never found wanting.  I will do all I can for Ax, and for the WIP, and for that one idea for Novel #3 that never has disappeared either.

Whatever day job I have - and whatever its stressors or distractions or benefits:  I will always be an author.  Published or not, nobody can deny it.  And, soon, a whole lot more than just you guys reading here will know about it, too.

"David Bowie Is" ...

At last, a post that combines my love of artifacts, the history of costume, my middle-aged chick bragging rights about having seen all the cool concerts, and Ziggy/The Thin White Duke/any spider you ever found on Mars ...

No less than the Victoria and Albert Museum has sold, apparently, nearly 50,000 tickets to an exhibition of David Bowie memorabilia, creating what promises to be an exhaustive and multifariously fascinating retrospective of the man, the art, the career - and, yes, the costumes and his various dramatic personae.  Hit the link if for no other reason than the photos The History Girls have posted (by special permission; so not reproduced here) - the Yamamoto bodysuit alone is worth the clicks (two clicks - if you don't view it full size, you aren't viewing it at all!).

Bowie is a valid subject for those interested in history for - pick your reason.  He is the 20th (and 21st, as long as he's been quiet this century) century's answer to the Renaissance man - and his collaborations have  reached farther across the arts and popular culture than anyone in Renaissance times, perhaps, could have, or could even have conceived of.  Not merely by what he has himself done, but by his myriad associations and - let's face it - a dizzying fortune the like of which Michael Jackson never even dreamed - Bowie has accumulated force unlike any other rock star.  Far more than personifying glam rock, he practically invented reinvention - a dynamic so necessary to pop stars today it's almost unthinkable to associate him with the idols who have lived within one image throughout generations-long careers.  There was a time, boys and girls, when even Elvis's single transition from leather jackets to spangled pantsuits could cause cognitive dissonance.  To this day, people still talk about the "fat Elvis" years as something almost alien to the rock and roll guy who gave us his most iconic music - and gleefully cheesy movie musicals.

David Bowie had already lived nine rock and roll lives even by the time *I* saw him in 1984 - and was candid about having damn near lost his, literally, thanks to some of the more florid chemical excesses of his glam years.  The Thin White Duke wasn't ghostly merely in a visual way - he was the husk of a man all but displaying his own corpse.  And that was thirty years ago.

Bowie is the man who caused me my undying adoration for snaggle teeth (I never did forgive him for getting braces - that was actually worse in my mind than marrying someone who wasn't me!).  He was my second big arena show.  He has crooned Wild Is the Wind into my ears since I was a weeping, overdramatic teenager, and my own encroaching age has only deepened my appreciation for the instrument of his voice.

I can hardly even comprehend the level of technical expertise, the sheer madness of his creativity, the scope of his contributions on the stage, and in all the lives of those who are his fans for one reason or other.  Few people have developed the ability to offer quite so damned many reasons, at that.


What's funny is - as hagiographic as all this hyperbole embarrassingly is, and I don't deny it - the fact is, I'm trying NOT to be a gushy little fangirl.  Bowie has DONE all these things - he just IS an immense presence, it's not my gooping about him that makes it so.  If I'm honest, most of my goopier feelings about Bowie are long since dessicated in my own drying-up hide, and I just enjoy (a) the nostalgia memories of my own Bowie experiences bring on, and (b) his catalogue of music, which is literally matchless - without hyperbole.

For those who have the chance, I envy them the opportunity to see this exhibit.

For those who never have - y'all can envy *me* the memory of seeing him live, from the front row.

Getting Limber as A 'Nartist

It was gratifying for me, in the workshop yesterday, when they began by asking a few questions of us - who has completed a work - who has *submitted* it - etc.  I've accomplished a good deal, even if I'm not yet published, and it's nice to sort of be given permission to be proud of that.

The assignments we had started with this:  write down a word.  Where it came from, who the heck knows or cares, but I put down Anglophilia.

When it was time to use that in a six-word story, I went to "My Anglophilia is unsatisfied, staying home."  I'd written "at" home at first - so there was that minor edit.  But I got the thing done well within our brief time limit.

Next it was time to round-robin our six-worders to the next person over, and we changed one word of each other's works.

I tended to stay within the rules pretty rigidly, and it was nice to see the way the rest of the class worked within the limits.  They seemed to suit me, which is an instructive realization.  Naturally, such structure wasn't comfortable for everybody - but everybody produced, and I was so impressed.

The 55-worder was our "big" assignment, and with five minutes, fifty seconds to do it, I finished in probably three or four minutes.  Faced with the job of inspiration on speedy demand, I found the sentence "I must, and am paralyzed" - and refused to take that to The Writerly Place (I really need to get my "Writerly" post written some time soon), so when perhaps the ultimate tale of conflicted "must" occurred to me, it was just a matter of placing Isaac before Abraham and bringing the ram onstage at the last, conflicted moment.  Angel ex machina, sure, but in fact, the story got a good response in the room at least.  I hated the overwrought dialogue, but it met my central criterion, which was not to write about sitting in a room where I was forced to come up with a short story.  Hitting the word count well within time limits was good enough for me to stay my editorial hand, so the work came out and remained essentially un-edited.



The weekend was good, but like last weekend, I've been so occupied I feel ready for a weekend.  Boy is the 20th looking good already.

I did actually complete my taxes, got a lot of bills done - RC was not my sole focus for the past three days.

But it will be a pleasure, next go round, to get back to my ordinary round of housecleaning, getting all the sleep I need, and ordinary amusements once another work week is under my belt.

Passion, or Love?

Writers talk about passion all the time, and there are quite a lot who talk about love, in discussing the creation of their characters.  Working on Clovis' emotional urgency, I've been thinking about this a good deal lately.

Being a middle-aged suburban hausfrau ... Clovis has never been an avatar for me.  He's not in any way my "ideal", someone I wish I could be, nor wish I could know or be with personally.  Characters are so often an expression of desire on the part of an author (or writer or 'Nartist) they often become meaningful in a very real emotional way for their creators.

For me, the emotional power of my characters is ... very different.  Perhaps, rather than passion, what I get from the inspiration of my story or my characters, or even the setting in which they live, is ignition.  Something indeed burns - but it's not my heart, not even my sighing admiration for these people or what they do.  To this day (and I have lived with Clovis now something like seven or eight years in the making), I could not say definitively that I quite "admire" the king.

I have enormous respect for the character as he seems to me, and a deep liking born both within his story and from what I brought to telling it myself.  I am fascinated by the dynamic of his choices, his legacy, his unquestionable charisma, ambition, power, and accomplishment.  Clovis is both intimately familiar to me and still almost alarmingly alien.  There is an extent to which gaining too much affinity for the man he was (the character he is) doesn't appeal to me, as it would sink me so far into the work I'd never be able to deal with it honestly.

Finally, though "admiration" is a bit of a precious offering to put before someone as pungent and (dare I say this) frank as the old Frank.  It seems a bit twee - like leaving a frilly Valentine card for Attila the Hun.

Certainly, I don't fear my own creation.  He lit a fire in me, and I do confess a hope almost as potent as prayer I brought forth a little more than a glowing ember.  Along with the respect, the liking, comes immense gratitude as well - to have known this story, this monarch, this husband, this founder - and to have had the privilege of relaying his story.  If there is kinship at all, as an author, with the character, that is the link through which we are bound.  That I was the conduit here, that - if a subject chooses its teller, not the author in control - I should have been chosen for this story.  This fresh tale, so new for my audience - and yet so fundamentally riveting.


***


I sit here tonight, an afghan poorly bunched up behind my back, not supporting it nearly enough - and in more pain, I believe, than I've been in throughout the past month and a half - and there it is.

Ignition.  The passion of a girl who won't do pink love notes.  The inspiration of a woman who can take on a man like Clovis.

I Can Actually Deny ...

... that I do ANY writing at work (anymore).  If I tried plugging in a flash drive to pull up my novel, The Lord on High would get a security alert.  I wanna keep my job, because I don't expect those fantasies about movie deals and all that to come true, and because it is, frankly, a bitchin' position.  I LOVE my job, and (most of) my team.

I can remember, though, jobs with a little smidge more time for things like that.  (Not at all) sadly, I haven't had one since starting on Ax.  Poor me.


The piece is pretty good, though, and *does* remind me of those days before I actually really was a writer - or author ...

When I Really Get Into It ...

... I'm grateful that I have the willpower, when need be, to get back OUT of it.

When I am writing, revising - down in the trenches of my work - it seems to me possible I could write this one book forever.

From HFO

I was responding to a thread at Historical Fiction Online, and decided what I was writing really had to go up here, too.  Still in pain most of the time, I hope everyone will forgive me if I don't re-edit this.


***


There is a dividing line, in my mind, between having been a writer of sorts all my life - and finally becoming an *author*.

Some years ago, my brother invited me to join him for the James River Writers annual Conference, and I said yes.  We'd both always harbored sort of minor dreams about being writers, but the good fortune was that we're both also not "joiners" and kind of needed each other to go with in order to participate in something that made us feel sort of vulnerable.  I never counted on how important this Conference would be for me (and I have been a faithful JRW member since they began memberships).

The education and the INSPIRATION of this community transformed what had always been a formless idea into the directed, educated, and confident motivation which pretty quickly became the beginnings of The Ax and the Vase.

E and I have often talked about creative people who say they are something, but never truly produce anything professionally (and there is precisely nothing wrong with that), and the people who dedicate themselves to some form of professional product to be recognized publicly in one way or another.  Because E is a graphic artist, we ended up coming up with the phrase "I'ma 'Nartist" (sincerely not intended as derogatorily as that may sound) for those who fill sketchbooks and party chatter, but never push themselves nor feel the need perhaps to reach the specific goals of publishing a graphic novel or what have you.

I was quite happily a 'nartist all my life.  But once I actually learned something about how to publish, I decided that I *wanted* to do so - and have worked at it with passion and professionalism ever since.  I don't care about being King or Rowling, and would be sorry if I did.  I don't care about rights options.  I do care very much about making my work good enough to get it repped by the man whose positive response to me so far has been about as gratifying as any creative accomplishment I've ever managed.  I care that this will be sold in Europe, too.  I care that it should sell well enough to make me a going concern as an author - though I don't fantasize about wild wealth in royalties, nor even quitting my (excellent) day job.  I care about being well repped, per the note above.

Above - and beneath - it all, I care about my story.  Without Clovis, I never could have gone anywhere, and I'm as grateful to have found a subject (well - or three!) as to have found JRW.

But without my pragmatic and mercenary expectations and motivations - I would still just sort of "think" I was a writer.  And that was okay - and would be still, if I din't know what I do now.

I wrote a book.  I'm an author.  Even if I died tomorrow, unpublished and in my grave - I accomplished something real.  I produced the book.  Now I want to do it the service of seeing it read.