When I'm not reading, I'm not writing

There was a period of about two years, when I began seriously writing The Ax and the Vase, that I was not reading for leisure. Research absorbed me in a very special way, I read the work itself, I talked about it a great deal. And I've always read a great deal online. But sitting down with an unrelated novel in my hands, taking an evening or a whole DAY ... I didn't do that. My enthusiasm was all for my own work in progress. Maybe I feared reading other people's writing, even on different subjects, would influence - maybe even compromise - my own voice or story.

Some of this, I think, is new-writer superstition, or more charitably, maybe it was just a different process. There is this, either way: I can TELL you the day I read again for the first time just for myself. What the weather was, what time, where I was, what the novel was. (The Dogs of Babel, by Carolyn Parkhurst.)


My (counter)point is probably a matter of course for most writers: if we are not reading, we are not writing. Say it with me now: "Duuuhh!"


I have not been reading. "There was family visiting" ... "I've been occupied for months with two big meetings" ... "My stepfather's been failing" ... "Holidays" ... it's all the usual load of dingoes' kidneys. The more insidious truth is that I have not been ALLOWING myself to read. I think, ultimately - never knowing why, probably - that was why I didn't read for those two years, back when. I felt like reading was a luxury, or an adultery against my own work.

What we all know is, of course, to BE a writer, you have to be a reader - and suspending that is painful to the process.

So is viewing *writing* as a luxury, as an adultery to the life you're living.



Today, I stopped work and read at my desk. For a few months now, I've been avoiding this; working through, doing other things. Generally acting like That Guy, like what I do is so important it must never be paused - at work and in real life too. In my family, I'm behaving like my stopping to read on my own time may be disrespectful to the difficulty my mom is up against as a fulltime caregiver. At the office, I've had occasion for some guilt nobody has put on me, and I'm overcompensating for acts committed that I know perfectly well nobody holds as sins.

And so, today ... sitting down with just a few pages of LeGuin's Orsinian Tales ...

Ahhhhh. Not merely a luxury, not merely the indulgence of cheating on my job or even my own writing. It was - of course it was - inspiration.

And I found a scene in my throat, urgent as pain, which at first I thought might be a letter to Mr. X, and then I found ... was a scene a certain character really needed. Two of them, in fact. And I learned a little something new about one of the most important events in my WIP. And I learned how to feel from inside a man's skin, for this particular moment. And I saw what it meant, ultimately and really *meant* for the woman he's feeling for, for years and years and long after he is gone from her.

The scene, oddly enough, is all about something incomplete, something un-built; a whole, sought.

It doesn't work out, in the novel. No building, no completion.

But it worked its way out of my brain. No small thanks (eternally, consistently, recurringly) to Ursula LeGuin.

“Incomplete. It’s like building something. Unfinished.

And sometimes, putting a brick against a brick, you end up with a building.

Sometimes.

Collection

The (Not) Just No Stories ... Casey Karp tells us about yet more ways for The Internet of Things not just to run, but to ruin, our lives. Not scary at all!

Art history, religious history - on the history of the fig leaf, all the way to Instagram. Spiff.

Reider reading! I am shamefully late to getting to it, so probably anyone here who frequents the comments at Janet Reid's blog has read this already, but Jen Donohue was published recently, and her short story is very good. Hop on over to Syntax and Salt, sink into it slowly, and enjoy.

Can we please dispense with the precious little phrase "open secret" now? In the past three weeks alone, we've encountered an open secret in Hollywood - oh, and in politics - now it's academia - and media-curated regions of the world or remoter reaches of the United States - and it's been discussed about Silicon Valley for many years, at this point. "Casting couch" is a phrase probably nearly as old as the phenomenon is, which may be about a century at this point (if you only count *film*). THIS IS OUR CULTURE. Not some isolated little "secret" - open or otherwise - affecting isolated little islands of people other than ourselves. This is the world. Women have never not-known this. So who thinks this is any sort of a secret? Oh yeah. All those men who're so surprised that rape and sexual extortion/blackmail/revenge is a thing. And it's not a secret, even from them. They've just enjoyed the privilege of obliviousness.

Collection

Surface tension linguistics - how cities and bubbles build dialects. This is an article about population centers and the creation of dialects; fascinating research for *most* writers, I might say.

A very cool look at developmental spelling science, because there is NO SUCH THING as too many linguistics links, and kids' brains are neato.

Can you imagine a policy that prohibits white girls, many of whom are born with straight hair, from wearing their hair straight? Absolutely not!

White readers: imagine having your hair policed. It's all but inconceivable to you, right? The politics - and systemically discriminatory policieis - of hair. For anyone who finds themselves distracted by braids - the problem is not the hair: it is your perception of the person whose hair it is. It is you.

Okay, a lighter note. Now imagine a world without windshield wipers! Well, that's messy. Score one for the woman who invented them - thank you, Mary Anderson! "She didn't have a father; she didn't have a husband and she didn't have a son. And the world was kind of run by men back then."

Kind of.

History! Now that we've had time to cool off about the U.S. election (or not), how about a look at another electoral upset that was so profound it ended an entire type of democratic process? The fact that ostracism is still practiced - just not with pottery - doesn't lessen the interest of this story! Courtesy of Gary Corby.

And a click beyond worth a little blurb all its own here in Collection-post town, a little further reading in Gary Corby's blog took me to the Met's FREE ONLINE DIGITAL BOOK COLLECTION. Holy drooling reading/history/art nerd Heaven! FREE BOOKS, y'all! Available to read online (Google Books), for download to PDF, or print-on-demand. A look at the very first title displays a good, clear digital copy, too. So: free and clear. Literally. (So many puns...)

Collection

In today's collection: splendid, exhilarating, strong, and superb writing.


Who else remembers picture-day combs? The Atlantic, on behaving, duck-walking, fixing yourself up, and the ritual glamour of unison inevitability ... or not. Splendid writing.

Now listen, this isn’t some sepia-colored essay about realizing I was different, and embracing a conflicted racial identity through the experience of receiving a single comb.

Six years on a boat. Amy Schaefer's glorious OPPORTUNITY ... She writes with such exhilaration!

John Davis Frain has been doing weekly flashfic mystery posts. I am either the best or the worst mystery consumer - I don't tend to do any guesswork while reading or watching. Reveals are most often reveals for me, because I get absorbed in stories without becoming analytical. Usually. When SHERLOCK, of all things, recently dropped a "clue" that even I was like "wait, doesn't anyone know THIS though?" - I have to say, it was disappointing to witness their poor estimation of their viewers (never mind the betrayal of their characters' supposed intellect). So JDF got me this week. It's a strong story, and I almost don't care what the key is.

I said almost! Will check back soon ...

Movie MAGIC. How to get that wildly expensive model you never thought you could have, or make up a fantasy car - or re-skin your ride. The piece doesn't say whether this makes crashing extremely expensive vehicles possible as well; my violent mind goes right to that place, of course.

When "child molester" is the NICE part of what someone has to say. Erick Erickson won't allow his kids to watch the President on TV ... but gives him a B-. He says of Milo Yiannopoulos' travails this week, "Trying to cash in on someone’s alt-right fame to drive attendance cheapens the conservative movement.". And he says the representative democracy may isn't sustainable. I will leave you to grade EE's own good works.

The problem then is not in accepting legends, but being so rigid in our acceptance, that we fail to allow it when someone re-imagines it a little differently from the accepted script.

As an author of historical fiction, I'm always intrigued with questions of historicity - especially "was this person real?" - but this literary/historical question comes tied up with many other questions, too. One of them: why is paleness equated with beauty, even in an Indian tale? Why are physical beauty and lust passed for love in literature across the world? How do we feel about "history is not our concern" and "even role models need proper branding" ... ?  And, of course, without legal disclaimers - where lies the line between history and story? (Included at the link is the story of Rani Padmini - queen, martyr, or fantasy ...) The final analysis of her appeal is an intriguing deconstruction of the way we wield myth in religious politics.

The one percent at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and how mad some of 'em are. Because now #OscarsSoWhite is - some feel - becoming #OscarsSoAgeist. The New Yorker has an in-depth look at changes in the Academy now, and over generations. It's in-depth enough you won't get my one percent reference until about 1/3 the way down the scrollbar. (Also, The Third Purge makes a REALLY good name for a story.) This piece itself is engaging storytelling - and also good entertainment journalism/history. Superbly written! And ROFL on this quote:

It’s like the process of trying to win an election. It’s no longer about the material or the merit.

Finally - "Fashion is costuming." Which has long been a theme on this blog, so congrats for catching up, WaPo.

Collection

I meant to post this first link yesterday, but the good news is, Dena Pawling is updating EVERY DAY with delicious facts!

Dena Pawling is going to have me thoroughly addicted to her new daily tidbits – this is GREAT stuff! National chocolate covered cherry day. Aww. My grandma LOVED these cordials, every time I see a box of Queen Anns, I think of her and it makes me so happy. She was a source of joy and still is. Also, Alaska became a state on this date in 1959. I may someday forgive it, but my personal associations with that state are NOT joyous ones. Martin Luther and Fidel Castro share the date of their excommunication (if not the actual year!).

Longtime readers (and Reiders) of mine know I am poor at marking big milestones, like writing profound New Year's posts, but I quite liked this one, from Elise Goldsmith. Short, honest, and not without hope. Let's make 2017 count, indeed.

The Atlantic has a nice take on first sentences ... on restraint and drawing-in rather than grabbing a reader by the throat. The piece may be spoilery of an Alice Munro story, but the essay is a nice analysis of quiet intensity.

Smithsonian Magazine always has intriguing content, but I'll admit that this piece attracts me more for its pettiness than its social or scientific implications. How claiming an exclusive on a color can come back and bite you - or, have you heard of vantablack?

I suspect many of my reiders have accounts with Librarything - how many have heard of, or participate in a library of things? The Atlantic again, on the new sharing economy, and the origins of ownership.

Collection

It just does not get better than the idea of "poop studies" as the "motherlode" of information in archaeology. (Ask an archaeologist!)

The Caustic Cover Critic has a great look at The Clothing of Books, which sounds as fascinating and somewhat frustrating as he describes. It makes you wish you could see this author speak on the topic that gave rise to the book itself, which is how covers are the wardrobe of a book.

Lahiri's talk begins from her own experiences as the child of immigrants, always dressed incorrectly in clothes that are durable but out of fashion, marking her out as an Indian amongst Americans.

Fellow Reider Donna Everhart's debut, The Education of Dixie Dupree, has found its way into my hands (can I just say: deckled edges ... you had me at deckled), but I have not had time of late to crack into it. Everyone has splendid praise for it, but either it's a busy season for me or I am savoring the anticipation for a while. I like to say it is the latter! Alla y'all will be done and feeling Bittersweet, longing for more, by the time I settle down on a long winter's day with an afghan and a Gossamer the Editor Cat, to enjoy it on my own.

Popularizing science and scholarship in the news is a blessing and a curse. While it can dumb-down or over-promise studies and breakthroughs to the lowest (read: most exciting) terms, journalistic coverage of historical study, archaeology, medicine, and other gee-whiz science serves the very real purpose of providing hope and inspiration to those suffering pain, ignorance, or fear and to those who may in turn bring innovations of their own into the world. Here is a great slice-of-life look at one such story - the supposed 14th-century caesarean ... or not - and its journalistic and intellectual implications. (Found by way of The History Blog's perhaps less critical look a the story, where the comments are worth reading.)

26 Tabs

“it (is) like heroin mixed with crack mixed with anime”

I started off several days ago, amused by some link I saw somewhere about The Dung Ages. As my regular readers know, I have a few issues with the whole idea of The Dark Ages, illusions of recency, and The Dirty, Stupid Past. So the link-intensive piece on The Dung Ages led me to Medieval Morons and The DARK Ages.

TV Tropes looks like a lightweight site, but in short order I’ve been through dozens of tabs (part of the addictiveness is the brevity of many of the articles), and I’m extremely impressed with the scholarship here. It’s more intelligent, and far less snarky, than so many “this is how” websites about pop culture, writing, or television. It also goes far, bar beyond “TV” and examines sources back to ancient mythology and oral traditions.

This might not be a site to use for research if you need a depth of understanding, but I’d call it a hell of a reliable one-stop-shop for general understanding of … well, many things. It is great for writers (though dangerous, and filled with The Bunnies of the Plot), or just consumers of entertainment. It’s even responsible and intelligent.

TV Tropes is also an absolutely superb place to educate yourself, if you have a nerd of almost any sort in your life whom you do not always understand. Five minutes’ reading can teach you a lot about their obsessions!

Of course, five minutes reading there is not possible …

I would caution against clicking even a single one of the TVT links (mine are probably safe; I am not addicting except in very limited ways!) for a few minutes’ reading. The very brevity is what makes clicking “just one more” all too easy. You can get a wide array of tabs open, and winnow your way back down to a mere three, the tantalizing promise of “I will stop” so close before you, and that hope will disappear when five more fascinating links present themselves in those three innocuous little tabs. TV Tropes may be a cruel mistress.

But dang. Sure is fun. Enjoy! Carefully …

Collection

Museum Day is coming, September 24! Do you have one you'd like to see but haven't been there, or not recently? Check to find out whether they are participating ...

Awrighty, fellow Trek fans. We've been saying since 1987's Next Generation debut that Star Trek's tech was prescient - the personal computer ubiquitous by the late 80s strongly resembled the terminals used in the original series, flip phones looked rather like the original communicators ... and, later on, we pointed to Trek's PADDs as inspirations for today's tablet devices. Welp, ladies and germs, please officially welcome the food replicator. Kind of. There's been talk of 3D printing's resemblance to some of the sci-fi technologies long dreamed of, even before Trek. At bottom, though - all the "wow, look how predictive science fiction is!" gee-whiz comes down to this: humanity is composed of a whole lot of dreamers and a few innovators, and the latter bring to life the visions of the former. Because you don't have to be an Asimov fan to be into robots, or read Philip K. Dick to want to talk to someone and see them at the same time.

In need of a funny story? KD James has a great one, about a frog in a fireplace. Go! Enjoy!

Ooh, a nice post from someone I knew about six lives ago - no parking, comfort zone!

I've known for years that dying in the hospital - or living in one, for that matter - is anathema to me. As it is to most people. But I fail to subscribe to a unique tenet of modern life, that you have to go to the hospital every time something goes wrong, especially the older you become. Here are two reasons there is hope this could change. Understanding is growing, that hospitals are bad for us, particularly for the elderly. And there are other ways to find care, such as hospice. I could live with hospice. And I could die with it, too. Much more happily than any hospital bed.

And, as an antidote to thoughts of death - how about the top 9 things John Davis Frain has to teach us about owning a convertible? Bwaaaaaahahahahahahahahaaaa!! (Notes: my brother and I used to ride in the back seat of my dad's Fiat Pininfarina as kids; this was a family car! I had forgotten about the rain thing. Dad bought another Fiat in the early 1990s, and brother asked him, "Hey dad, did you break down and get a radio?" Dad replied, "Yes; it even has a tape deck! But they don't make 8-tracks anymore, do they?" My Beloved Ex was MOST excited to take that 8-track off his hands. Because: dork.)

Paul Lamb's summer of waning ticks and chiggers, horseflies ... and how writing is really rewriting. He's such an evocative writer of *place*.

... Telling Me Something?

Sometimes, it's hard not to think Janet Reid, with her familiarity with her own community of writers (not clients), is trying to tell us something personal ... Such is both the ego and the insecurity of a fretful writer Woodland Creature.

In this week's week-in-review post, she quoted me ...


DLM said
But there seems really to be no "middle class" in traditional publishing now. You can't be *dependable*: you have to be a breakout, and - never mind the pressure, it's just a matter of numbers, and the numbers dictate, we simply cannot all be The Next Big Thing.

JANET said
We call it mid-list but you're right. It's like the Army; you can't spend five years in the same rank or your career is pretty much over. Get promoted or get out. Like baseball: you can play on the farm teams for a while, but either move up, or hang up your glove.

Publishing is not the only place this up or out pattern applies.  But it only applies to COMMERCIAL publishing.  You can publish and sell your own work forever. That's one of the many great things about the electronic marketplace: it's easy to access and it actually works. I'm not saying it's easy to self-publish (well, it is, but let's assume I mean self-publishing well here) but that the barriers to buyers are much diminished from where they were 20 years ago.


I think she's seen enough of my comments at her own blog contemplating commercial (what I've been calling traditional, which she rightly calls commercial - augh, and now to fix my tags ...) publishing versus self-pub, and certainly she knows my writing, for my interpretation that she's Telling Me Something - or, at least, agreeing with my self-evaluation - not to be completely out of hand.

And even if it is, at the end of the day, she's neither my agent nor my ultimate guide; just a kind reader - and a professional - along the way I am taking.

So whether she meant "anything" or not ... the upshot is the same. I don't know that I want to hold out for the big leagues. I sure know I don't want to be in the military ...

And, really, right now, what I OUGHT to be worrying about is the WIP.

ABCDarium

It is the time.


It is the time again, when many of my beloved blog friends are joining the annual April A to Z blogging challenge.

I get the networking and camaraderie, but ... I just never have been a joiner. And this year, with so MANY blogs I like to check in on, I've learned there is a problem with the A to Z.

There is no. way. I can keep up with the umpty-seven blogs I like, when every one of them is posting every single day, for an entire month!

Y'ever heard of TOO much of a good thing ... ? Ack!

I've quit reading, y'all.

I'm sure you will gain other readers. And I get the networking and the fun and the challenge to seat-in-chair WRITE every day.

But some of us can't hope to keep up. Not with all of you.

It's beyond overwhelming, it's got me not reading an awful lot of the blogs I usually enjoy, at all. I dig y'all the mostest, but you've got me opting out on each of you. For a full month.



Hmm.

Unintended consequences ...

Well, SOMEBODY Wants It ...

My thanks to Tom Williams for pointing me to the one person in the world eagerly seeking a novel about Clovis I, King of the Franks.

Only tens of thousands more to go, and The Ax and the Vase is a product I can sell.

In the meantime: WIP. And sighing.

Collection

I'm beginning to wonder whether I ought to change the title of my links posts from "collection" - being an occasionally churchgoing girl, sometimes it has the sound of an offering plate ...

One of the strange things that comes from global warming, after heat waves and insane, snow-stormy winters, and flooding and drought, is the archaeology uncovered in the latter of these disasters. The changing course of water, and of late especially drought, has literally exposed our past; and this is not the first time I've heard of it. Here, a not-exacly-a-"dig" at Vistula in Poland (as so often, via The History Blog). Resident archaeology experts encouraged to comment, ahem.


The History Girls has a lovely collection of portraits of women reading; the Japanese one is a nice addition to note. I am aware my blog skews heavily Euro-centric, even more so than American, so please take a look at the Kuniyoshi print; I actually have a great love of Japanese art. Perhaps I need to showcase this (or African or Mongol or Polynesian ... suggestions always welcome!).

Not quite in that vein exactly, we can take a look at a repurposing of foreign-distribution a particular cover for Penguin Classics. As he always does, the Caustic Cover Critic treats us not just to fascinating cover art, but his own worthwhile commentary.

Speaking of archaeologists - if you've ever wondered "What comes with an archaeology action figure?" the answer is here. (Product update: photogenic archaeologist has a couple more years on 'im now.) OSUM.

Okay, and now I must away. I have already rebuilt my bed an flopped the mattress (many people like to flip theirs occasionally, but when it's queen size and you do it singlehanded, it's definitely flopping), it is time to begin laundry, clean the cat box, and dust a bit. Related note: vintage Melissa Ethridge makes absolutely excellent housecleaning music.

Happy 78th birthday, dad. I'm celebrating by getting a few things DONE. Miss you.

The Week That Tech Ate

Time seems to be my theme lately.

Every now and then, time makes itself apparent – in surprising ways, such as seeing a kid you once knew, suddenly grown up and with kids of their own – in happy ways, such as realizing the vacation you planned a while ago is getting closer – in annoying ways, such as … well, maybe almost anything, depending upon how your day is going.

These days, of course, we’ve traded in watched pots for loading websites, but it’s still remarkable how true it can be that certain moments somehow feel like “never” on a completely different scale. This is not merely a matter of patience, Grasshopper, but one of philosophy and expectation, personality, stress – almost anything you like.

My week last week was spent on tech issues. One afternoon, I came home after lunch, hoping to work and make a few calls to pay bills without bugging my cube mates – and ended up instead in a morass of stubbornness and desperation, when my VPN (the virtual private network) would not work so I could network in online. I sunk myself into troubleshooting, and hardly realized I had not done a lick of work until I bobbed my head up out of the rabbit hole and realized hours were gone with no net result.

It took several days, but that issue was resolved – even as, inevitably, others arose (some of my own, some I worked to shepherd along for my coworkers).

It can be the same with research (of any kind, of course; but indeed I mean “for a novel”). I had to learn to discipline myself long ago – sticking to looking at what I might need or use, without plumbing any given subject to its depths nor following interesting tangents beyond my limited needs.

At the same time, though, reading beyond the requirements is still a good habit to cultivate. The old advice to writers, to READ, includes not just the exposure to style, but also the lifetime exercise of knowledge and breadth. And so, even leisure reading (I like that better than the phrase writers and agents sometimes use, “reading for pleasure”) has taken on a kind of discipline; I find myself applying knowledge or asking questions, and then sharing them here, or finding places they fit perfectly within my work. Sharing here is especially gratifying when I see people are actually interested, and for me – even if the themes most repeated; costume, archaeology, innovation; don’t seem obviously connected to my writing – it’s all of a piece, and all feeds the same ends.


Time has been bending and distenting of late. I think summer makes our mental clocks more limber; the longer hours of light fool and confuse us.

And, it will hardly seem but days from now ... the days will turn around again and constrict on us.

Summer has been a time of power and autonomy for me, and the creative work has been energizing. How's it treating you so far?

Peculiarities

It’s a boring old truism that one of the jobs of a writer is to spend some level of mind-time, *all* the time, on finely observing people, the world, and experience and quantifying these things for themselves so they can eventually steal these considerations, then cannibalize and synthesize them within stories.

It’s a fascinating fact that this self-consuming manufacture comes out of our minds into really cool stories, plays, movies, poems, the texts of graphic novels, and all the genres and forms my wee and paltry little brain has slighted or forgotten. The recent reading of H. G. Wells has provided a master class in tension and character, and the ridiculous as well as the finer points of a society we’d like to pretend was consigned to a dustbin 103 years ago … And all in what, at bottom, is the straight
forward and simple story of two people who get married. If I reduced Marriage to its plot, nothing could compel most people to read it. It would not be possible to baldly explain his wit; and yet, phrases from throughout the work have stuck with me, and may do so for a long time to come.

THAT is awfully good writing.

Now and then, I contemplate regurgitating those things on which I spend my own mind-time day by day. I consider blogging the experience of my commute home, or the way the rain fell yesterday – not from the sky, but from a single oak tree, shuddering from what unknown cause I could not imagine – or the absorbing and yet ugly sensations of what it is like to suffer from prolonged, untreated eczema intentionally, at its height and in preparation to meet a new doctor.

Most of the time, I either turn away from writing these minute observations or vignettes. Illness and injury are my stumbling blocks, and I am all too likely to tarry on the details there, because honestly this sort of experience engages me – probably unhealthily – but there it is. Usually, though, I go in real time, writing my moments or those I witness, letting the words mean something in their course, and letting them go as they pass. Not unheeded, but unrecorded. Some considerations need no more memorial than that we know they *are*, that life has been witnessed. Maybe a prayer, later on. Maybe oblivion, though the moment becomes part of that great swath of memory whose details are invisible, but exist even so.


All caveats intact (though Marriage is nowhere near so awfully uncomfortable as The Cone, it has its share of problematic philosophies), I spent every page – indeed, almost every paragraph, through many long passages – dying to know What Comes Next. What would happen, what decision might be made? Marriage___ may be the deepest exploration of (mostly) two characters I have ever read, and certainly it does expend copious philosophy in the bargain. The latter may be less gripping, but I never put it down, as it were. I read every word, and committed many to memory on purpose.

I honestly recommend it pretty widely – and people who know me know I am rarely to be found spouting about my reading. Either because I have this intimacy issue with my reading, or because in my childhood I was often amusedly chided for sharing in exhaustive detail every last story that crossed my path, *sharing* a book is all but imposible for me except in the most personal of circumstances. And yet – for my readership here, the writers, the history lovers, the random one-offs – I hereby recommend a book. Its language is sumptuous and wonderfully slightly-foreign. Its story is ordinary, and yet keeps you wanting more throughout. Plain as it is, it’s also an astoundingly limber piece of literature. A drawing room comedy; a Sagan- or Tyson-esque musing on science, religion (and the lack of it) and philosopy; a scathing social critique and/or satire at moments; a road novel; a romance. It’s the most acute rendering of a young girl’s mind I’ve ever seen an old man render, and at points an evocation of family relationships par excellence.

Yes. There is recourse to the term half-breed in one act of this saga, which is queasily unforgiveable, and the gender and Semitic politics have aged badly. Indeed, the recurrence, for a while, of the term Eugenics is not clearly pejorative, which is giddy-making in the extreme.

No good-guy here wears a purely white hat; even if there aren’t really any black-hats on hand. And it’s not as if we’re above such problematic currents in any writing today … Perhaps, in a way, it’s worthwhile to read flawed fiction in any case – warts and all.


***


For those of my readers who are writers: do you write down your vignette moments? Do you blog them? (Or share them in the vomments at Janet Reid’s blog?)

I wonder sometimes whether it’s economy or callousness on my part, that I let go so easily of the screeds, scenes, and letters I write half-in-my-sleep; that I sacrifice moments which excite me one hour, but I lose because time gets away from me?

How much of what you think to put on your own blogs/sites do you think better of later, or for one reason or other file away unpublished – invisible, but there, like those experiences we all observe … ?

Project Gutenberg Rocks, and Other Stories

Character is one of England's noblest and most deliberate products, but some Englishmen have it to excess.

My lunchtime reading of late has been H. G. Wells. We all know ABOUT his work – we all know about The Time Machine and Moreau and The Invisible Man, anyway – or we all know the movies – or know there *are* movies, but can’t remember whether we’ve seen them or not …

But how many of you have read H. G. Wells? Until this past couple of weeks or so, I can say, I had not.

I started with an anthology on Project Gutenberg – The Hidden Door and Other stories, and have come upon an unexpected gem in The Marriage. Hidden Door shows a wonderful range, and, unfortunately, not a tiny little tidbit of deeply hideous racism**, intentionally or not embedded in the most gruesome story of the bunch. Some of these pieces are on the pedestrian side, and some – from the vantage point of the twenty-first century – may feel been-there/done-that for some readers looking for adventure. The final one misses a truly intriguing opportunity, but is still interestingly conceived. The Star, I would say, is in many ways the star of the show – an asteroid-coming-at-Earth prototype, the journalistic remove of which ends up delivering rather a remarkable blow in the end.

The Marriage – which I haven’t finished reading yet, but is a GOOD enough read I feel the need to babble about it – is another example of the literature we now view as antique, which has a wonderful nimbleness of language and irresistible wit. It’s even funnier than the dog in Lady Audley’s Secret - and at greater length. Written in 1912, when the man and his career were seasoned and confident, the characterization of a twenty-year-old female character is remarkably good (less remarkable, perhaps, is how assured it is – but I’ve read male authors’ feminine voices before which, though clearly written with all the *assurance* in the world, were more difficult to believe), and the family dynamic is recognizeable and alive, not entirely the relic of a forgotten and dusty old fusty English age.

Wells at this point in his life was philosophical and experienced, and he brings that to bear in support of the humor and plot at work in Marriage. I am absorbed and cannot wait to see where Wells goes.

(S)he had over her large front teeth lips that closed quietly and with a slight effort after her speeches, as if the words she spoke tasted well and left a peaceful, secure sensation in the mouth.

**I also don’t want to give short shrift to the point above, about racism. It’s a trick of our culture, 100 or more years later, that a white woman with tons of privilege and a different point to make, can breeze by a point like that and get away with it – but even if I meant to make a different point, the world is still not one in which it’s reasonable to gloss over bigotry as if it were not there.

“The Cone” is the story in which That Word we all know too well is prominent. The description of a particular character of color, as well as the omniscient voice’s judgement of quite a number of races, detailed with highly squeamish results, is difficult to reconcile to the biographical facts of Wells’ stated outlook on prejudice and racial tyranny. Yet I can’t write this prose off, as a reader, with the old “It was the mindset” dismissal that lets me concentrate on something else in the face of virulent details. When people like me fail to observe things like this, we give ourselves the excuse not to see them in life, and … we don’t live in a world where that is a tenable position. There is no defense for dismissing the past, in a present in which the same problems exist; to answer #BlackLivesMatter with #AllLivesMatter as if that puts paid to the devaluation of an entire class within the “all” of our society.

The more I face the privilege I possess, even as the rarefied and perhaps irrelevant exercise in personal creativity that is writing a novel in which not everybody is white and well-fed and well-off and unthinkingly, unblinkingly secure … the more I understand that one facet of this blog – particularly if I gain any success – is to deal with the subtext and the offstage workings that I DON’T, perhaps, write about.

It is unfortunate that, in my recent attempts to deal with this issue, I’ve couched it entirely in the ME ME ME ME ME ME ME context of MY novel not selling, and hoping to do better with one that contains more diversity. I see the problems there. I see problems in myself I may never have the courage to write about publicly. But I also know that this blog is only one voice, and my voice in the world, the one I want to have heard, is that of an author. And so, knowingly – even if incorrectly – the content here is filtered that way. This may be detrimental. Maybe some day, I’ll have the courage to put down the mirror and stop making everything about my own reflection. In the meantime, I am learning.

Easter Grass

Church was short one Diane today; I've been spotty in attendance since we lost our priest, and I have a thing about being one of those people who only show up at the high holidays. So yesterday, I spent time with my family. Today, I am spending time alone.

Image: publicdomainictures.net

Just came in from mowing the grass. It is a beautiful, breezy, and sunny day; and, for me, there is as much (and perhaps sometimes more) worship in the act of maintaining my greatest material blessing apart from my body - in doing something around my home that is for my neighbors too, which going to church is not. And in simply being outside, my happy Yella Dawg watching and berating the mower when it comes too near her, the wind in my hair and using that body which is my first and last material blessing; working it and sweating and waving at occasional passersby.

Coming inside, I visited Janet Reid's blog for the firs time since last Sunday (she was taking time for prayer and worship of her own this week), and saw that she'd opened a forum for the community of her Reiders to get to know each other by posting links to their blogs and sites - and the comments section is nearly 200 responses deep.

And so, now I shall observe the holiday by adding links to my bookmarks, by reading a few individual pieces to add to upcoming Collection posts, by learning a bit about the lurkers, by learning more about those who comment most.

I haven't put up my own link - per usual, a bit late to the party; and there is so much to swim through as it is I can't add to the ocean. Sometimes it is better reading.

And, indeed, it can be instructive. Like writing, the best way to learn how is to READ. So with blogging; curating and cre-ating the most worthwhile content takes understanding what works!

The only thing missing today is pancakes. But, come to think of it, I have the fixin's for daddy's biscuits, so that might work.


And so. Hello to my Reiders. And my readers, too. And blessed weekend to all - whether it was in learning why this night is not like other nights ... or whether it was in contemplating what exactly "fondant" really is, as defined by the good folks at Cadbury ...

A Simpler Time

I’ve reached that age where, with a certain chauvinism and privilege, the memory of youth and childhood appear to me “a simpler time.” This isn’t couched in the presumption that my childhood was better than YOUR childhood, if you are of a different age – nor that my childhood could beat up your childhood on the playground. It’s not even a reflection of technology and so on. It probably IS the result of responsibility; we all think in those terms, I think. And (assuming I have gained any), there is the influence of increased knowledge, and emotional experience, always mucking up the works in life.

My kid-dom in the seventies, and teen years in the eighties, weren’t an exceptionally halcyon period. I didn’t like either stage of life very much at the time, and have zero yearning to return. Yet it wasn’t bad stuff, my youth and childhood. There were bullies, but they never physically harmed me, and if they scarred me much emotionally – well, it still led to who I am now, and I like that person pretty well, so though I can remember them it’s not with feeling.

Much was forbidden, especially in the very much younger years, and I was one of those kids always griping of boredom. I didn’t love going outside to play, and though I did love reading, when I read about agents and other writers’ PASSIONS for it, devouring Proust and so on from the earliest ages – I won’t lie, a lot of what I read for a good long stretch was MAD magazine anthology books, and as much as I liked The Secret Garden and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s stories, I couldn’t say with any accuracy that they changed my life or have a tearfully cherished place in my heart. My reaction when given the first NOVEL I ever read, was resentment that there were no damned pictures. Seriously – it didn’t mean maturation and getting older (that attainment that meant finally gaining every privilege denied to the very young), it meant my parents were trying to bore me to death.

Then, of course, I read the book (a blue hardback with dustcover I am fairly certain I still have, and in mighty good condition – unless I gave it to my elder niece …). It was called “War Work”, which was an extremely unfortunate title to proffer to young-me. I found the very word War a complete drag (reasons I am a Trek nerd and not Star Wars – seriously), and where my parents, especially my mom, undoubtedly associated the WWII story with certain halcyon days of their own, all I heard was “this is a story about war, something that interests me precisely not at all.”

Of course, the novel was about a bunch of kids many thousands of miles and nicely protected continents removed from actual wartime, and involved playing games and the small hurts and so on of the characters and the times.


As I’ve said before here– the fact is, I generally feel like I fall short in the “passionate reader” aspect which is pretty strongly emphasized in the industry I aspire to. I don’t have moist stories to share about the first time I ever heard Charlotte’s Web read to us in school, though it certainly affected me, at least at the time. (My readerliness falls short in so many ways.) I can’t pretend I was outlining my own career nor plans as an authoress, indeed, before my mid-thirties. And we see how I have progressed there … ahem.


Back when things (and my brain) were simpler, the prevailing assumption was still that a girl child grows up and gets married, and husbands provide the breadwinning function. Yet even by the time I got to middle school and high school, that was changing. For a while, it was, “women CAN work” … and I was all, “Well, who needs THAT!?” – and then it pretty much became apparent that we were all going to have to work, aspirations or no. I was not excited by this aspect of social change, but let it be said I was never really into the whole wife-and-mother thing either. It’s just that I was an underachiever, I did LIKE boys, figured for (perhaps too long) sooner or later I’d find one who could feed me well enough, and nothing much shone forth in the firmament, leading me toward some magical calling.

Once high school had worn on for a couple of years, I began to realize the inevitable – not only that I was probably going to have to work for a living, but that the likelihood of being able to do so by simply being admired by millions and made independently wealthy thanks to my beauty and (acting) talent was vanishingly slim. I still majored in theater (or Theatre/Dance, as the also vanishingly slim department at the school I unfortunately chose as a non-launch-pad for this career) in a ditch effort to get some program to do that work for me, but knew well enough that I’d probably have to get a job.

Job, for me, meant “secretary” – and still does, though my level of commitment has arisen somewhat.

I took typing at age seventeen, in a horrible room at the back of the school filled with Selectrics and a punctilious teacher with little use for my brains and creativity (ask me about the jobs where that was the case too! not.), and managed to get out of there with the necessary skill set to feed myself if the right rockstar didn’t come along.

Of course, he did, but he ended his rock starring career in support of our marriage, which I promptly discarded. There were conversations during our bliss, as to whether we could afford toilet paper or not. I can’t even say “we were rich in love” because I was a nasty little vain shrew (back then), and money wasn’t even my problem.

Things, already, weren’t very simple anymore. And didn’t get moreso from there.


One of the biggest ways life is no longer simple lies in the fact that there is only one soul to manage the whole thing. From kitty litter scoops to mortgage payments and some sort of social life, there’s nobody to share it with. Nor, as when my childhood was so *delightfully* simple, to depend upon without thinking. Anything gets put off? That’s me without gas in the car or a slipping credit rating, or no heat because – no oil. Or hungry cute furbabies, subtly bonking around metal bowls, because mommy’s distracted. Aww. My life’s not actually all that complex, Batman – but heck if even the smallest detail can be left to somebody else.

It scarcely leaves time for the dazzling gorgeousness of Authoressial glamour, I tellya. And I am nothing if not heart-stoppingly glamorous. Just ask the cat.


So of course there’s a fantasy, that publication will somehow change things around here.

I don’t want to be Rowling, or King. Yet I’m well aware the old dreams I joked about, of “midlist glory” are frankly kind of dangerous, second-career-wise.

Yeah, I’ve always got typing. But typing isn’t paying for refinishing my kitchen floors, or vapor-sealing the basement. The joke about glamour – look, I picture myself talking at colleges and JRW_____ events and even churches and doing signings, hopefully. I like the idea of my bespectacled, turtlenecked nerd-chic portrait, and working to support my books. I *love* the idea of some fourteen-year-old kid falling for the story, and studying the history, then maybe turning around and telling more stories of their own – because they read me, once upon a time (har). I can’t wait to get scared that nobody showed up at that bookstore where I’m shilling, and even more scared because lots of people did.

I can’t wait for things to get MORE complicated. Unexpected. Unusual. Even frustrating, whatever the frustrations may be between advance and paying-out, another novel, and royalties. I can’t wait to cross the ocean, even if only vicariously flying on the leaves of my book, as it’s sold in Europe – and, hopefully, maybe even beyond. If I ever got to GO where I write about – Istanbul, Ravenna, the Channel Islands (oh yes, I have a third book in mind, once Ax and the WIP are out) … dang, that’ll be something neat.

And I hate flying, y’all.

Lay on the complications; childhood gave me much to be grateful for, but life’s not done yet, and I’m not persuaded my simple, safe youth and childhood are the be-all and there’s nothing left to seek. Let’s find out what sort of kinks this second job will bring on once it’s PAYING, at last.

Simple was so seventies. Show me the coming years. Show me the future …

Antique Style

His sister Rebecca—tall, erect, with grand lace, in a splendid stiff brocade, and with a fine fan—was certainly five-and-fifty, but still wonderfully fresh, and sometimes had quite a pretty little pink colour—perfectly genuine—in her cheeks; command sat in her eye and energy on her lip—but though it was imperious and restless, there was something provokingly likeable and even pleasant in her face.

How OSUM are the phrases “command sat in her eye and energy on her lip” and “provokingly likeable” … ? This description is as appealing and meaningful 152 years on as it was the moment he wrote it; that is the immediacy, the “there-ness” of wonderful writing, and it ignites neurons no matter how old.

This is why I love nineteenth and even late-eighteenth century novels. Far from prim musings on tea and crumpets, or the pinings of silent, tragic heroines, its finer observations of character and place have gathered no dust (I can never forget the DOG in Lady Audley’s Secret – so funny I still laugh, and I can’t even remember the words). I don’t “love it for itself” or “love it for what it is”, but entirely because so much of the preserved literature (not necessarily “the classics”) is such good writing.

There is a precision of language that gets lost in the presumptions we thrust upon a wide swath of century-old works, and a terrifying, trembling depth of feeling. “Sensation” novels especially, perhaps now the artifacts of our tut-tutting supposed evolution, can be wonderfully harrowing; the tension is incredible not only in Edgar Allen Poe (whom I do love, and who was reared in the same swamp and clay as I), but in Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Sheridan Le Fanu, Matthew Gregory Lewis, and Louisa May Alcott herself, mother of some hair-raising tales.

Metaphors of the repressed retro-image of the 19th century in particular, crinoline and drapery were not the smothering death of human feeling, as some people presume (and then decide to don corsets themselves and tell their own versions of retconned history, since they feel nobody did it right the first time). Perhaps, instead, those forces “repressing” our recent forbears presented a dramatic choke point we have lost.

I don’t mourn for the loss of centuries past, and am hardly the dreamer wishing I could fly back in time, but I *do* defend the humanity of those who came before us, and refuse to accept that the past itself represents any compromise of our ingenuity and talent. Creativity is stimulated by the restrictions we have faced and still do; certainly I won’t say that with twenty-first century license we are freed from all psychological constraint, and my stance that The Dirty, Stupid Past is indeed not more wretched nor intellectually dim than we are today does not equal bemoaning “what we have come to” nor any of the “why in my day” traps so many at my age begin to indulge.

Let us not forget: you and I live in tomorrow’s pathetic and ignorant history, slogging through with too much technology – or not enough – perpetuating, as humans ALWAYS have, our own worst miseries, and no more knowing what comes next than any of the billions we sneer upon for not having known before we came along. You and I are denizens of the past, and don’t know it. We can’t live like that.

Neither could anyone before. They were all the latest-and-greatest, and their talents are not lessened because they failed to know you and I would be inspecting their fruits once their bones were become dust.


A mind cultivated with no eye on history, on the arts and words and works of our past, is an intellect missing out. Not merely on instruction, but incredible entertainment.

And knowing past literature looks good at a party. So consider just a few recommendations …

• Lady Audley’s Secret … Mary Elizabeth Brandon
  A seminal detective story in the guise of a sensation novel, here is a funny and gripping set of twists modern readers will know from the start, but which still holds you to your seat – and even introduces a sort of proto-Columbo, in a character who actually grows a bit over the course of the novel.
• The Monk – A Romance … Matthew Gregory Lewis
  This utterly deranged romp through the exact same perversions and criminal insanity that still obsess us today. Written for the same rebellious reasons any young adult produces shocking statements, Lewis spent pretty much the rest of his life disavowing the work (published 1796), but it’s actually a fascinating read – and not the worst story I ever read, to boot. Grand Guignol storytelling!
• Carmilla … Sheridan Le Fanu
  This novel is THE goth kids’ must-read, the earliest lesbian vampire novel (and YES, Virginia, that is totally A Thing) and a precursor to Bram Stoker. For darkling cred, knowing Le Fanu widely, and this novel particularly, should be de rigeur****. I was lucky and read this for the first time during a power outage, with a flashlight; it’s easy reading, and fun in the dark.

I don’t mean to reduce recommendations to sensation or horror novels – just happened that I was sipping on some Le Fanu when this came up (see above!). I would *love* to see other people’s personal recommendations in the comments (as if my TBR pile is not extreme enough, here I’m inviting more … !).

Writing and Communicating

There is some irony, perhaps, in the fact that, though I’m a novelist and can barf out a block of text topping several hundred words in no time flat, when I’m at work and see an email consisting of more than about 200 words in paragraph form, with no formatting to highlight key points or organize information visually, messages are lost on me.  It was a fun fact of life at my last job that “messaging” was commonly effected by the Giant Block O’ Text method, and sometimes I still find this true at the “new” (now nearly a year old!) employer.  When working on communications with one of my own kids, I’ll massage a message (har) with at least a bit of formatting, especially when it comes to emails we’ve got to share with big groups.

When working on anything, ever, in PowerPoint, I’ll gnash my teeth and go mad at Giant Blocks O’ Text, flat out.

Perhaps precisely because I’m guilty of producing giant streams of NON-information in excess, when I see actual information treated to the essay format (or, Maud help us, novel lengths – which you all must have seen yourselves in pointless emails), seeing GBOTs in forms definitively unsuited to it (PowerPoint, I am looking at you) hurts my head.

GBOTs hurt *everyone’s* head.  It is unkind and unproductive to try to stuff a Word document into PowerPoint or an email.  PPT and email are visually and cognitively rotten vehicles for anything but the most high level media.

For pushing twelve years, let it be said, Mr. X and I have brought novel-length emails to the level of an art form – I won’t pretend that when options are limited, you use whatever medium you can.  But even then, once there is any exchange, we have always reorganized big blocks into smaller chunks of dialogue, responding to each other point by point in a visual equivalent of real time.  Sometimes, if we don’t read an entire email before responding, the results can be curious – amusing – even disastrous, of course.  Limitations.

But the point is, given constraints, the only kindness to our fellow beings is to work within them.

Because PowerPoint, for instance, is theoretically designed as a presentation software (often used to present without an actual speaker or even a meeting involved, of course), it is optimally used to illustrate data, plans, concepts, or team information at the highest level, eschewing detail.  The idea, again theoretically, is that a big-picture chart or bullet list allows a speaker to expound further than what’s on screen and make their speaking role relevant while perhaps more dynamic, with graphics and other visual/auditory information supporting them rather than the other way around.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever watched a presentation in which 100% of what a speaker said was emblazoned at great magnification directly behind them on a big screen.

Yeah.  That.  Or, really:  NO ("noooooooooooooooooo!!!").  That.

It’s torture, waiting for a presenter to catch up with their plodding, hyper-pedantic slides.

It’s torture, too, going through email and getting a message the sender passionately believes is crucial for you to understand, and it’s half a screen of black-on-white prose in ten point font.



When we’re being paid to read and receive information, spelunking for it when it’s buried in paragraph form in a copious message can be bitter work and wasted time.

When we’re alone on a train or at home, reading a book we chose out of interest and hope – no matter how long – the same is still true.  The nature of the reading, the working of our brains, the organization are completely different – but the need can be very similar:

“Give me the story.”

This doesn’t mean rich descriptions and context and world-building needs must be pithy – or that, literature forfend, prose should be organized in some other way than a wonderful block of text, perhaps even topping four hundred juicy, pulpy pages of reading goodness.  It just means that everything contained in those pages ought to be serving something, ought to be accomplishing something (even if that something isn’t pushing out the sales figures for Q3).

The luxury for authors is that what we’re out to accomplish may be conveying something as subtle as the alluring turn of an ankle, the way a character’s walk romantically captivates another (or, as in “Pippin”, the arch of a foot!).  We may need to place a reader in a moment of stillness which, redolent with some flower’s exotic scent and the soft, golden light of evening, may be broken at any moment.  The need may be to leave our audience wondering whether we’d rather stay in the stillness or heedlessly throw ourselves into the next action, the next sound, the next rapture or disaster …

There just should always be some need.  That “tension” our beta readers like to go on about, that agents get so excitable about.  Even if the tension isn’t that of a spy rifling through a drawer just as the Russians are coming back to the office.

If we have a Giant Block O’ Text going, but its essential message isn’t apparent, we’re doing no better work than the Communications experts who bury the lead (lede, if you prefer …) and render it invisible with too much pointless verbiage.

Like this post, if you will.  Which started with a 532-word intro before I revealed the point.


Was that clever context and tension … ?  Or just torture?

Linguis...Tics

My lunchtime reading recently has been an author I’m revisiting, who gained huge popularity in the 80s and 90s, but whose career began in the 70s and continues today.  This is someone who could frustrate with “get ready for the sequel” novels, but who also has an undeniable gift with language.

The problem with a certain level of publishing success is that, so often, it leads to a certain level of creative control that ends up meaning an author can eschew editing.  Colleen McCullough is an example of this, and her works for some years sank deeper and deeper into the “if a fact or anecdote can be told once, it can be told SEVENTY times” and the corollary, “if it can be told in twenty words, it can also be told in seven pages.”

The books I’m revisiting of late suffer a lack of editorial presence, too, and have me looking at my linguistic habits pretty coldly.  I have a thing for adverbs, and “just” and “actually” are, for reasons I can’t explain, constantly present in my writing.  And, of course, the overlocutive, unnecessarily complex sentence issues.  Reading this author’s work, though, has me finding previously-unnoticed habits in my writing as well.  “Almost”, for some reason pulls a lot of punches throughout my own work.  Given the first-person voice in The Ax and the Vase, this requires some review – Clovis is not the most likely punch-puller in the world.

It’s “and” and serial commas that seem to be a problem for this author.  She puts no comma where a new clause begins, and creates paragraph-long sentences with both lists and multiple clauses, with “and” between every element and commas following no apparent logic.  It feels like none of this writing was ever read out loud, and it also muddies the voice.

This author writes from the perspectives of very large casts of characters in many novels, and even from vantage points in time spanning literally hundreds of years.  And every character sounds the same.  And every second sentence begins with “and”, too.

Now, obviously – I’m not one of those purists who shudders and pearl-clutches at the very idea of beginning a sentence with the word “and” or “but”.  However (hah!), I don’t want to see it fifteen times in a single page.  AND this author does that.  It’s so painfully obtrusive (and punch-pulling, at that – it sucks drama out of moments and statements time and again) it’s impossible to ignore.

SO (hah), it becomes impossible to lose yourself in the novel – or in a single character’s story – because not only does every character in every individual novel sound alike, but every character in ALL this author’s MANY novels sound exactly the same.


This is why writers must read so much.

The good news is, this has me looking pretty mercilessly at my own writing.  I’m aware that parenthesis, hyphens, difficult constructions, and “pretty” are recurrent with me.  The words and patterns that seem to hover throughout my work, I try to at least SEE – even when I don’t necessarily choose to “correct” them.

To a degree, it is my own voice that makes me a writer.  The degree MUST be limited and regulated, I know that.  But it’s also true that some part of the charm of reading some particular author is *their* way of expressing things – even through the filter of POV and characters’ voices and so on.  It feels like it’s okay to infuse ourselves into the way a story gets told.

But (hah) it’s important, too, that the author’s presence should be a support, not part of the story in an obtrusive way.  In a way, this is like research – you have to do enough to know your period, but you can only put into the work what really needs to be there.  You have to know your story and be involved (even “passionate”!) about it, but most of the time – the author doesn’t need to “be there” …


Ever read a novel where the author felt like an uninvited guest at the party?  Or do you know works where the author’s palpable presence helped rather than hindered … ??