Better Than Dead

Here’s what I was concerned about on March 23, 2011. I never posted this, don’t remember why now, but came across it while cleaning up my hard drive. This is still something that concerns me, still a valid question to ask myself, but my life is so much more complicated now—and my creative life so much on hold—that it has slipped down the list of worries.

I have no idea when the Dos Lunas saga will see the light of day, although a member of my “fan base” was inquiring about it last week. I use “fan base” ironically for those who don’t get the quotation marks. When I was generating a lot of these DL stories I had a dedicated band of local readers who really liked them and always asked for more. One of them contacted me Friday to find out why I hadn’t e-pubbed them. I explained that time is not my friend these days and why.

Yet I still hope to do just that one of these days.

And so, last year’s concerns:

So. I’ve got this contemporary fantasy novel that I wrote about a mythical Southern California county by the name of Dos Lunas. I’ve been writing about this place for years, a bunch of short stories, and this is the first completed novel (though I’ve started and hope to finish others). Some of the vast cast of characters who inhabit Dos Lunas are Indians from a tribe called the Kintache, a tribe as mythical as the county they inhabit. I have for some time felt rather sensitive on the subject of cultural appropriation, as in this post, for instance. That’s why, with notable exceptions, I’ve tried to write from the outside in, rather than in the POV of my Indian characters. Being a middle-class white girl, I knew I couldn’t do justice to an Indian POV.

Now, I do have one character, JK Montmorency, who is three-quarters Irish and one quarter Indian. He’s been raised mostly as a middle-class white boy, privileged, taking his life for granted, so I’ve felt comfortable writing from his POV. And I’ve written in this special protection for the Kintache, a mother goddess who walled their valley off from the rest of the world through most of their history in order to protect them from the negative currents of history. They missed out on the Holocaust that visited most of the California Indians when the white men invaded their land in the late 18th century. They observe it happening to the other tribes, and they mourn for it, but they have stood somewhat outside the sweep of history. It’s been my hedge, you see, because most of the Dos Lunas stories are semi-comedic. With serious undertones, sure, but comedy-dramas, and the Holocaust isn’t really a suitable subject for comedy (Roberto Benigni and a different Holocaust notwithstanding).

I thought I was writing something I knew, this serio-comic place called Southern California with its goofy and eccentric ways. But like many things that are silly, there’s a vast reservoir of serious, tragic things just below the surface. I thought I was doing a decent job of reflecting that, too, but I’ve never been without doubt about it.

These days doubts are blossoming and growing, like the wildflowers in Dos Lunas, where it’s springtime at this writing. Reading Sherman Alexie, whom I love, has me feeling desperately inauthentic—and even disrespectful. Above all, I want to be respectful to the real suffering of the real native people of California. But I worry about it constantly. I think I’m being respectful, but what if I’m deluded?

I can only keep on, I suppose, and hope others let me know if I’ve stepped in a big pile of dog shit. Hopefully, with the same care and consideration I’ve tried to have in these stories.

Random quote of the day:

“For what is truth? A story well told…The truth is, a story can have a life of its own. And the most factual accounts have a point of view (admitted or not, depending on the truthfulness of the narrator).”

—Elizabeth Cunningham, The Passion of Mary Magdalen

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Not to be confused with these guys.

No, I’m talking about the guy who painted this:

I became enamored of this painting when studying Art History the year before I went to Europe for the first time—so enamored, in fact, with all the luscious Italian Renaissance art that I had to go see it in person. I was poor as dirt, but I bent all my will towards saving money to go. I quit Santa Monica College and worked full time for a year before applying to UCLA. My mother was freaked that I wouldn’t finish school, but I knew I would once I got a little traveling out of my system. Ostensibly, I was saving towards the Big U (and I did a little of that), but really I was hellbent on going to Europe. And I went. And then I came back and settled in to working part time to put myself through college. I did earn my BA, much to my mother’s relief.

But, oh! The sights I saw before that. I saw the original of my beloved Lippi and many another wonderful painting at the Uffizi in Florence. And the David at the Academia! Ghiberti’s doors! So much, so much. I was swimming in honey beneath the Tuscan sun.

A few days later I was in Assisi going through the basilica to see the Giotto and Lorenzetti frescoes, back before the basilica and the frescoes got ruined in an earthquake. I was going through the Upper Church and there was an open door leading to a outdoor balcony. It was a glorious, sunny fall day and this balcony offered staggering views of the rolling Umbrian countryside so I was naturally drawn outside. The monks probably counted on luring the tourists like that on beautiful days because they’d set up a little gift shop out there. I found this and had to have it:

(more…)

Terri-Lynne DeFino (bogwitch64) has started a collective story over at Heroines of Fantasy. It’s loads of fun. Bring your imagination and join the party!

Thanks to Deborah Kalin for sharing this.

I love how the sunshine bursts forth on her face at that one moment…

Inspired by matociquala and stillsostrange, here’s the first line meme.

The idea here is that we post the first lines of unfinished stories, on the theory that we might then be inspired to finish a few…

This is something of a Hall of Shame for me as I’ve been working on some of these a good long while, but there isn’t world enough and time these days. These are just the stories that I still consider “active,” in that the interest is still strong to finish them or return to them, and that my imagination, at least, is still working on them. Please note: these are all first draft stage.

ETA: Oops! I forgot this one, maybe because it’s so active in my mind these days that I just assumed it’s next in the queue. (But we’ll see when I get there.)

Carmina (in the same world as Blood Geek):
Carmina woke to the sound of a sword pulled from a scabbard. No, not that. Not this time. Only the wind blowing the loose tent flap up and along the long metal spike which should be staking it to the ground.

“The Bone Handler”:
Sea Eyes liked to take one last, long look at the shining bright ocean before turning away and descending into the earth.

“A Farewell to Dreams” (a brand new one):
Everyone knew, including Shennah, that a dream dreamed too long became a brittle thing, broken by even a passing breeze.

“Green Horse Bone” (unfinished a long time but still alive):
The long bone peeked out from a clump of ferns at the base of a pine as I hiked up Waterman Mountain in Angeles Crest.

“The Heart of the Western Tide” (this one calls strongly) (may be a stealth novel):
It was whispered in the bazaars of places more fortunate than Cromartine that long ago some importunate Cromartinian had angered the tide running along the shore of that sometimes cursed land.

“In the Black” (a spooky sequel to my novel Venus in Transit):
The absence of all light stepped through the door wearing the shape of a man.

“Jim Doesn’t Bring Me Flowers”:
My shadow moved along the wall although I stood still.

Beneath a Hollow Moon (book 3 in the Dos Lunas novel trilogy of which I have completed book two, Venus in Transit):
The body was heavier than they thought it would be.

Blood Boogie (sequel to Blood Geek):
It was their last night on the Mazatlan before heading north again, their very last night of lying on the beach under the stars and making love.

Sympathetic Magic (the novel version of my novella Sealed With a Curse:
As long as Molly kept to the open countryside modern day intrusions wouldn’t interrupt her walk through the past.

The Numberless Stars (book one of the Dos Lunas novel trilogy):
A blue-nosed garden gnome sits on the shoulder of JK, my grandson—one of those real ugly gnomes with a face like a baked apple left in the oven too long.

The Confessions of Thomasina (did for fun, posted a few chapters on the blog, always thought about getting back to it):
I believe that one should not set out to do a great deal of writing unless one has something to say.

So I told my mother that I had written a remembrance of Dr. Raymond La Scola. We discussed in general what I’d said. Mom never reads my stuff. I think it embarrasses her in some obscure way, like she doesn’t know what to say to me about it, so I’ve long since stopped offering it to her. But she was pleased with what I’d said about Dr. Ray.

“He used to tell you stories,” she said.

And just like that, I remembered that he had, when he wanted to distract me from some part of the exam. I’d forgotten that he was another dedicated storyteller in my life, like my father. I was surrounded by storytellers back then. No wonder I knew so early in life that I wanted to be a writer. Second grade, in fact, when Mrs. Cooper played a moody bit of music and asked us to let our imaginations go. It was the first time in my life I experienced flow, and I was addicted to it from then on. Another pantser born to the universe of writing! God save us all.

I must have told Dr. La Scola about that. Mom says that I was his patient until I was about nine, so it is possible I told him. I don’t remember doing that, but so much is lost to the haze of years. The reason I think I must have mentioned something about being a writer is because soon after I told Mom about my reminiscence, she dug that old novel of his out of the obscurity of storage and presented it to me. Man, it is somewhat the worse for wear. Not dog-eared or anything, but the tip top of the pages where it’s been closed and gathering dust for decades are real dirty, and there’s a freckling of brown spots on the pages.

And there on the back, a picture of Ray La Scola, smiling, effervescent, like he’d just finished laughing from a joke, or was just about to start in. That’s the sweet, kind smile I remember, those are the sparkling eyes. Except, dear me, they are clearly not brown.

“I remember him with brown eyes,” I told Mom.

“I think they were gray,” she said.

Yes, clearly light eyes. Though I think he had a certain brown-eyed soul.

But back to the book. He autographed the fly leaf for me, and this is what it said:

For Pamela, my favorite red-head, whose future I look forward to writing with, Best Wishes, Ray La Scola.

When I read that again after so much time, I experienced such a moment of wonderment, such an upwelling of “Ah ha!” and “So that’s where I got it from.”

“I must have told him I wanted to be a writer,” I said.

“You must have,” agreed Mom.

And this is what the back jacket says:

Ray La Scola was born in New Orleans, in an old house on Bourbon Street. Early in life, he became interested in the piano and organ, later studying at the New Orleans Conservatory of Music. His interest in writing began his sophomore year at Louisiana State University when he studied under Robert Penn Warren.

After graduating from college, the author entered medical school and while there continued the professional music career he had started at the age of twelve. Advanced medical study took him to the Chicago Medical Center and Cook County Hospital. He now practices in Santa Monica, California.

It doesn’t say anything about him being a lawyer first, so perhaps Mom misremembered that, or perhaps in the creative form of Author Bio it just didn’t fit the current narrative. I’ll never know.

And what of the book itself? Dear Reader, I haven’t had the courage to read it yet. What if I don’t like it? Mom pronounced it a “cute story,” but I mean…what if I don’t like it? Dr. Ray is probably beyond caring, so I’ll probably read it some day, but…

Not the WIP.  I think I fixed that.  Only time will tell.

No, it’s one of my short stories that’s broken in the middle.  And I don’t know how to fix it.  I’ve rewritten it ever so many times and every time I think, “Okay, I think that’s got it.”  I let it go, send it out into the world again to garner more rejections.  Then after many months (sometimes many, many months) I read it again and I think, “Dang.  It’s still broken in the middle.”

The beginning is good, the ending is good, I’m very fond of this story, but I know in my heart of hearts why it keeps garnering rejections.  There’s a clear drop off point in the middle where the opening momentum collapses and the oomph doesn’t pick up again until the closing pages.

But I don’t know how to fix it.  And it makes me very sad.

I seem to always have trouble with middles.  I can grab with openings, I can satisfy with endings (if anyone reads past the middle to find out about the endings), but middles slay me every time.  Sometimes I can figure out how to make them work, and sometimes I can’t.

Dang.

marshallpayne1 wrote (about writing):

What do you consider your greatest strength as a writer. Your biggest weakness that you try to overcome? (Listing more than one strength or weakness is cool.)

Feel free to post this question on your blog and link to it in your answer here in the comments. I’ll go first in the comments.

Ahem. My greatest strength, I think, is characterization. I immerse myself totally in my characters, know them backwards, forwards, sideways, upside down, right side up, and crammed into small trunks. Um, so to speak.

Therein also lies one of my greatest weaknesses. Because I know them so well and have developed gobs and tons of gobs and more gobs about their backstory I seem compelled to put in all on the page in my zero drafts. I do weed through this nonsense in the first drafts and get rid of much of it (though my betas can scarce believe that), but I’m often left with a panicked sense of “What if I leave out something important??” Often my poor suffering betas have to kick me hard and tell me to cut some more. I can and do cut quite a lot by the final draft, but it’s often painful.

Therein lies another fault: a tendency not to trust the reader enough to get the characters and subtext and stuff without putting gobs of tons on the page.

I think my sense of humor translates onto the page pretty well, but it isn’t to everyone’s taste. I trust the reader enough to determine that for him or herself. I also trust them to be intelligent and perception people. I don’t write down to them.

I think I have fairly original ideas, except for the ones that have been done to death. I always try to find an oblique angle for the familiar, but that doesn’t often pay off in synopses where you have to reduce ideas ad absurdum.

Did I mention I was not good at reducing things, ad absurdum or just in general?

I do a decent job with the image making, I think.

Except for those times when the scenery takes over the story.

I could go on making lists, as I am an obsessive list maker and an obsessive self-critic, but then I’d be getting into trouble about reducing things again. I’d rather not go there yet again. This post is already, I’m afraid, proof of a sorry theme in my life. as I am an obsessive list maker and an obsessive self-critic, but then I’d be getting into trouble about reducing things again. I’d rather not go there yet again.

The WIP in rewrites was at first losing words at a good rate, and I was pleased about that. Getting rid of excess, making things clean. I actually like rewrites, perverse creature that I am. Structural problems, however, made it necessary for me to add new material and so I’ve written three new scenes and I will be adding more. Deleting and rearranging more, too, but the word count is currently larger than when I started. Not as large as the first bloated draft, but growing. I am not too worried about this. I have to get the structure, story, and character stuff right first, then I can worry about slimming. There will be at least one more draft for hammering that out.

I’m only on chapter 8, though I’ve been at it a month. It’s taking forever because my writing time is so limited these days. The only block of time I can count on is my lunch hour at work Monday through Friday. Weekends are completely absorbed with errands and chores and by evening I’m so trashed all I can do is sit it the chair, drool, and try not to fall asleep. Weeknights are often the same. I feel like I’m having to steal time for the creativity, and I’m hoping that when things regularize, my creative time-space will expand again.

At least I still have words. I was worried for a time that I’d used them all up. Things aren’t as fecund as they used to be, but I still have something.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve told myself bedtime stories: little storylets to help me drift into sleep; sometimes multi-pronged epics that I’ve been telling myself for years, often too silly to actually commit to the page, but fun and comforting all the same. These days, I fall into bed and I’m either immediately asleep or my mind is full of things to do, or worries, or…anything but stories. I can think of only one other period in my life when I didn’t tell myself bedtime stories. It was during that four or five year-long writers’ block I had. As soon as the bedtime stories started again, I began writing again, so there is something fundamental about my process involved in those dreamy tales.

I still have words. I still have words. I must remember that. Some day I may have time again, and I may have hypnogogic yarns to lull me into dreams, and oh yes, I may have dreams again, even dreams that are fit to put on the page.