Last weekend I attended a local sci-fi convention. We were able to catch a few interesting panels and hear a few of our favorite Texas authors give some depressing but clear insights into the genre & current publishing trends. The dark news and general emptiness of the convention dissolved most of my enthusiasm into a bare remembrance of being in college.
Repeatedly, panelists would remind attendees that we "among our people" and should be enjoying the chance to relax among others who would understand our quirks and carrying out the complex conversations missing from everyday interactions.
In fact, this particular convention is one of the least friendly and conversational places I attend. This year, the hotel didn't bother to put out chairs for conversation areas in the main halls and the attendance was already sparse (presumably another economic victim). I don't think one person said anything to me that wasn't trying to entice cash from me or was employed by the hotel.
These are my people? I am barely educated compared to the majority of the attendees and writers (who tend toward scientist/professor/grad student types) and found that I was becoming increasingly put off by the end of the weekend.
It was at this point that I realized that these were NOT my people. These were his people. I was finally over the daydream of being a writer, of being interested in fantasy or science fiction, or wanting to spend one more second taking notes on subjects that are no longer required.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Friday, June 10, 2011
The Squeaking Drives Me Crazy
I’m rubbing the ashes from my fingers, or perhaps the dust of the shelf in front of me. Someone has designed a careless cover for this book but I bend the soft covers and think it might give me time.
Once upon a time, a singer in a white suit—Eddie Rabbit? Michael Jackson? Elvis?—sang a ballad that gave a fading prom its magic gateway; gave a wedding its dissolved proprieties; gave a story its backbone.
It was a sturdier backbone than elf bones. These are the soft fungus of the forest, bleached and eternal, creeping beneath the bones of men to live again, dissolving in sugar lumps on the lips of small children. Elf bones crept through the story like nerves, but the song held the story upright, a supple ballad of emotions that carried the essence of time and the force of life in the bend of a glissando.
When it was sung by the man in white, the vital incarnation gleamed around him, a blue nimbus of stage lights burning in the bright spotlight. The blue clung to the notes, the low ones soaking in the lighter fluid that floated his voice.
The story that used such a spine burned as well. The book hid a thousand snapshots of the people who read it, just beneath the text. Fairy tales crept through the memories, devouring life but linking a narrative and notion.
Critics roasted their opprobrium in the flames, watching the simple skeleton smile and dance beneath the words. Empty, they said. Wrong headed, they said.
But the story smiled. Whatever we have against showing our bones, against watching our veins jump, the story had no such self-consciousness and it burned them with the flame of a particular eternal now.
Eventually, someone was humming the song and thought of the story. It belonged to a parent and showed an odd reflection of the parent, a distortion—a person not yet a parent, neither aspect completely understandable apart from the other. Blue ballpoint in the margins. The flames cast strange images on the cave of the family. It burned the edges of the child’s imagination until the sugary elf bones melted into hard bright lollipops. The child feasted on them in quiet moments on the edge of crowds, always a child on those anonymous shores.
The story died down to embers. It was studied, and then acclaimed. People took possession of it. The singer died, and then the writer. A flame caught from a tribute special and branded the culture with symbolism that was taken into the academy and further studied.
The song was recorded again by a woman in a white suit, the distaff and the universal, and a book trailer was made. This I watched years later on the faceless recommendation of the web and felt something flicker in my memory. A foxfire remnant of bygone nows chased me into the mire of myself. Skeleton days shivered around me. Are the bones of the plot grinning, even now?
The song is the spine of the book. The text is the flesh of the story. It smiles at me, reaches one finger toward the tinder of my imagination.
Once upon a time, a singer in a white suit—Eddie Rabbit? Michael Jackson? Elvis?—sang a ballad that gave a fading prom its magic gateway; gave a wedding its dissolved proprieties; gave a story its backbone.
It was a sturdier backbone than elf bones. These are the soft fungus of the forest, bleached and eternal, creeping beneath the bones of men to live again, dissolving in sugar lumps on the lips of small children. Elf bones crept through the story like nerves, but the song held the story upright, a supple ballad of emotions that carried the essence of time and the force of life in the bend of a glissando.
When it was sung by the man in white, the vital incarnation gleamed around him, a blue nimbus of stage lights burning in the bright spotlight. The blue clung to the notes, the low ones soaking in the lighter fluid that floated his voice.
The story that used such a spine burned as well. The book hid a thousand snapshots of the people who read it, just beneath the text. Fairy tales crept through the memories, devouring life but linking a narrative and notion.
Critics roasted their opprobrium in the flames, watching the simple skeleton smile and dance beneath the words. Empty, they said. Wrong headed, they said.
But the story smiled. Whatever we have against showing our bones, against watching our veins jump, the story had no such self-consciousness and it burned them with the flame of a particular eternal now.
Eventually, someone was humming the song and thought of the story. It belonged to a parent and showed an odd reflection of the parent, a distortion—a person not yet a parent, neither aspect completely understandable apart from the other. Blue ballpoint in the margins. The flames cast strange images on the cave of the family. It burned the edges of the child’s imagination until the sugary elf bones melted into hard bright lollipops. The child feasted on them in quiet moments on the edge of crowds, always a child on those anonymous shores.
The story died down to embers. It was studied, and then acclaimed. People took possession of it. The singer died, and then the writer. A flame caught from a tribute special and branded the culture with symbolism that was taken into the academy and further studied.
The song was recorded again by a woman in a white suit, the distaff and the universal, and a book trailer was made. This I watched years later on the faceless recommendation of the web and felt something flicker in my memory. A foxfire remnant of bygone nows chased me into the mire of myself. Skeleton days shivered around me. Are the bones of the plot grinning, even now?
The song is the spine of the book. The text is the flesh of the story. It smiles at me, reaches one finger toward the tinder of my imagination.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Scary Smart
Writing? Ha! My backyard is a dust bowl, we've been hosting a temporary dog we've named Angel, and Varda is stress shedding dust puppies.
Angel is a scary smart border collie who is both friendly and probably smarter than the rest of us in the house. We've decided that Merlin would make an excellent Pinky to her Brain, so we're keeping everyone as separate as possible. Merlin already has perfected the art of leading Varda astray (and narcing her out when she takes the bait). If the three of them get together, it won't be a pack, it will be a gang. Possibly with the kind of skills that get made into shows on the USA network (the one with the "characters welcome" tagline).
They were three dogs in an average suburban house, but they had the skills to be so much more. Angel planned the operations, Merlin had both charm and sneakiness, and Varda was the muscle. No pet store, shelter, or counter was secure enough, until they were recruited by The Government for Various Patriotic Purposes. Coming this fall.
Hopefully, Angel's family will find us soon. Before, you know, The Government.
Angel is a scary smart border collie who is both friendly and probably smarter than the rest of us in the house. We've decided that Merlin would make an excellent Pinky to her Brain, so we're keeping everyone as separate as possible. Merlin already has perfected the art of leading Varda astray (and narcing her out when she takes the bait). If the three of them get together, it won't be a pack, it will be a gang. Possibly with the kind of skills that get made into shows on the USA network (the one with the "characters welcome" tagline).
They were three dogs in an average suburban house, but they had the skills to be so much more. Angel planned the operations, Merlin had both charm and sneakiness, and Varda was the muscle. No pet store, shelter, or counter was secure enough, until they were recruited by The Government for Various Patriotic Purposes. Coming this fall.
Hopefully, Angel's family will find us soon. Before, you know, The Government.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Zombie Post #3
Urrrr. Paaaaages. More Paaaaaages.
Just finished Martinez's Chasing the Moon, which read like the best kind of literary mix tape to date. It left me thinking of tempera paint & jello, as monsters popped from puppetry, bookcover graffiti, and darker places and the entire edifice sank through layers of reference and memory like the apartment tower in which the main character lives. So...thick lines and primary hopes & fears coupled with squirmy humor? Just loved it. :)
Meanwhile, I'm fighting a battle between my urge to be rude, my desire to give in to despair, and my addiction to drowning both in cascades of Frappucinos. So far, the caffeine is winning, by a sip. More group nonsense. Hopefully, that will be all be resolved after Thursday, especially if rudeness wins (I'm kinda pulling for it).
Just finished Martinez's Chasing the Moon, which read like the best kind of literary mix tape to date. It left me thinking of tempera paint & jello, as monsters popped from puppetry, bookcover graffiti, and darker places and the entire edifice sank through layers of reference and memory like the apartment tower in which the main character lives. So...thick lines and primary hopes & fears coupled with squirmy humor? Just loved it. :)
Meanwhile, I'm fighting a battle between my urge to be rude, my desire to give in to despair, and my addiction to drowning both in cascades of Frappucinos. So far, the caffeine is winning, by a sip. More group nonsense. Hopefully, that will be all be resolved after Thursday, especially if rudeness wins (I'm kinda pulling for it).
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Reviews
Kurban Said's Ali and Nino sat on the shelf for a while. Other books came in, were devoured, and stacked for adding to our miniscule library. It was, I confess, added to the shelf because of its smoochy/swoony reviews and the fact that I was reading a biography of the author, never having heard of the book itself until I had begun the biography.
Since I am past the "smoochy/swoony" stage of my own life, I was cautious but hopeful. The story began in Baku prior to WWI and followed Ali, a young Muslim of high estate as he fell in love in with Nino, a Georgian princess who attended the nearby girl's school. The love story is both about the relationship between the two and about Ali's love for Baku and the careful balance that both made it possible and that bit into his own identity.
Was it a beautiful love story? I don't know. That part of the story and the alien culture to which both Ali and Nino belonged made it difficult for me to find my way into the story. Ali tells the story, sometimes obliquely, in terms of generalizations of temperment and culture with which it was challenging for me to empathize. Nino feels like a culture unto herself at times rather than a person.
Despite these places were I slipped over the surface without sinking into the heart of the story, Ali's elegy for a place that used to be reasonable, safe, and welcoming proved to be the love story that I found most compelling. Without Baku, there could be no successful relationship with Nino and therefore, no place for Ali.
By the end, it was a heartbreaking indictment of the constant struggle for these places in which we can exist, coexist, and flourish.
Since I am past the "smoochy/swoony" stage of my own life, I was cautious but hopeful. The story began in Baku prior to WWI and followed Ali, a young Muslim of high estate as he fell in love in with Nino, a Georgian princess who attended the nearby girl's school. The love story is both about the relationship between the two and about Ali's love for Baku and the careful balance that both made it possible and that bit into his own identity.
Was it a beautiful love story? I don't know. That part of the story and the alien culture to which both Ali and Nino belonged made it difficult for me to find my way into the story. Ali tells the story, sometimes obliquely, in terms of generalizations of temperment and culture with which it was challenging for me to empathize. Nino feels like a culture unto herself at times rather than a person.
Despite these places were I slipped over the surface without sinking into the heart of the story, Ali's elegy for a place that used to be reasonable, safe, and welcoming proved to be the love story that I found most compelling. Without Baku, there could be no successful relationship with Nino and therefore, no place for Ali.
By the end, it was a heartbreaking indictment of the constant struggle for these places in which we can exist, coexist, and flourish.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Urrrrrrr
This blog is dead, really, officially dead--therefore, you are reading a zombie blog. It's not yet six in the morning, but the sky is shifting and the windows are blank spaces anymore and the dogs are squeaking about their first morning trip to the backyard.
I've come back to the zombie blog because I've been mindlessly consuming pages. First, yesterday afternoon, then yesterday evening, then at 2 pm when I woke up from a bad dream and realized I had to finished the book and from then until now. It's almost six am and the windows are sapphire and the book is lying beside me on the desk, the front flap quivering in the a/c.
At first, I thought I might contrast the way this book didn't have the same lingering chill of another one only I didn't know what it had instead. Now I do. Urgency. It was four, then five, and now almost six and my eyes hurt and they are watering but the book is done; it is just as exhausted as I am and we are both tense with the tear through the words.
I am frequently guilty of reading as if I were at McDonald's, shoving word after word behind my eyes and into my brain. I like stories that weave images like delicate and intricate line drawings, but I am not always patient enough to appreciate them. There are books everywhere. So I have come back to my undead blog to accuse myself of literary gluttony (and physical as well--there were the chips and pie that fueled several hours of reading) and to say that despite that, I am struck still by the unexpected book that is vibrating from my chest like an arrow.
I'm glad that I picked up The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, glad that I will have it embedded in my brain as I waver between sleep and waking today, glad that it was there when I woke from a nightmare and laid a hand on the nightstand. As it is now after six, I'm going to the dogs and then we are all going to the backyard.
I've come back to the zombie blog because I've been mindlessly consuming pages. First, yesterday afternoon, then yesterday evening, then at 2 pm when I woke up from a bad dream and realized I had to finished the book and from then until now. It's almost six am and the windows are sapphire and the book is lying beside me on the desk, the front flap quivering in the a/c.
At first, I thought I might contrast the way this book didn't have the same lingering chill of another one only I didn't know what it had instead. Now I do. Urgency. It was four, then five, and now almost six and my eyes hurt and they are watering but the book is done; it is just as exhausted as I am and we are both tense with the tear through the words.
I am frequently guilty of reading as if I were at McDonald's, shoving word after word behind my eyes and into my brain. I like stories that weave images like delicate and intricate line drawings, but I am not always patient enough to appreciate them. There are books everywhere. So I have come back to my undead blog to accuse myself of literary gluttony (and physical as well--there were the chips and pie that fueled several hours of reading) and to say that despite that, I am struck still by the unexpected book that is vibrating from my chest like an arrow.
I'm glad that I picked up The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, glad that I will have it embedded in my brain as I waver between sleep and waking today, glad that it was there when I woke from a nightmare and laid a hand on the nightstand. As it is now after six, I'm going to the dogs and then we are all going to the backyard.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Nothing and Nobody
Today is the end of Moon Pools and Mermaids. A writer should be honest and I am a liar--easily frosting the sharp words with baroque description and swallowing them whole. I smother stories.
If I had been courageous, there was a time when I could have either corrected this habit or weaned myself from the idea of writing. Throwing myself into the ring with other writers in college or fighting submission battles on my own would have been the wise choice and the strong one.
Instead, the idea floated on a stream of dithering until the first writer's group. Since then, it's been easy to work for the group, to make their submission deadline, to take their criticism and praise. I've read the suggested books, listened to the lectures, and attended meetings. Writing "for real"--for publication--slid to the side like scenery through a train window; the idea of moving into a published state was a great daydream while I moved through another draft or another short story.
Two years ago, I lost my job and then my dogs, and then--because it wasn't yet a great country song deep in the heart of Texas--I left the first writer's group. Ever since, I've felt something scraping my insides thinner and thinner. You could almost see it pressing against the flesh, preparing the hide for a different purpose.
What will I do now that I'm not a writer?
Swallow the dizzy meringue descriptions until the lies burn them light and I float over the afternoon, the thin skin finally finding a purpose.
If I had been courageous, there was a time when I could have either corrected this habit or weaned myself from the idea of writing. Throwing myself into the ring with other writers in college or fighting submission battles on my own would have been the wise choice and the strong one.
Instead, the idea floated on a stream of dithering until the first writer's group. Since then, it's been easy to work for the group, to make their submission deadline, to take their criticism and praise. I've read the suggested books, listened to the lectures, and attended meetings. Writing "for real"--for publication--slid to the side like scenery through a train window; the idea of moving into a published state was a great daydream while I moved through another draft or another short story.
Two years ago, I lost my job and then my dogs, and then--because it wasn't yet a great country song deep in the heart of Texas--I left the first writer's group. Ever since, I've felt something scraping my insides thinner and thinner. You could almost see it pressing against the flesh, preparing the hide for a different purpose.
What will I do now that I'm not a writer?
Swallow the dizzy meringue descriptions until the lies burn them light and I float over the afternoon, the thin skin finally finding a purpose.
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