Little Things

Going from writing novels to writing a collection of flash fiction and micro-essays is a bit of a transition, but I have to say, it's one I'm thoroughly enjoying.  Don't get me wrong, I'm still stewing on The Man in Question.  I have little bits of ideas floating around in my brain for it and every now and then one of them gets dressed up enough to be tangible and gets written down.  But it's fun to work on little things for a change, to pare everything down to its bones – because they're still stories, complete little microcosms...they just deal a lot less in the exact dimensions of things and what people eat for breakfast.  And writing them makes you think very hard about what is important (as in, absolutely indispensable) about the story you're telling, as well as about how to make people see things without necessarily talking about them.  It's also scary, because it's much harder to hide incompetence when you only have a line or a paragraph to do it in.  If you flub one line in every twenty pages of a three hundred page novel, most people will forgive you, but if you flub one word in a flash fiction story it's like getting a giant zit on your face on the day of a photo shoot.  So it's a challenge, which makes it scary and stressful...but it also makes it fun.

It also feels much more like a collaboration, between me and the illustrator, of course (more about her later, because she's awesome!) but also between me and the reader.  One of the greatest beauties of creative work, in my opinion, whether it's written or painted or danced or played, is the power it has to call up different images, different emotions, depending on who the audience is, what time of life they are in, what their mood is at that moment.  Books that meant one thing to me as a child mean an entirely different thing now.  I sympathize with different characters, or I understand things at a different level, or in a different way.  I'm not the first person to point this out, but in that way a story is never really finished until it has been read, and as a writer you have to learn to relinquish control at a certain point, you have to realize that nobody is going to see exactly what you see, and that that's okay, that it's even beautiful.  Writing flash fiction, I feel that loss of control is expanded as the word count shrinks, and the stories start to work merely as little triggers to the imagination, or at least I hope they do.

Among the little things I'm including a smattering of fairy tales of sorts.  In my mind I think of them as little episodes of Fairy Tale Characters Thinking Outside the Box, which, now that I think about it, would make a great television series (I see it as a weird sort of unreality show, but with the surreality and humor of the fantastic Gaiman/McKean/Henson collaborative film Mirrormask – "I shall slip unnoticed through the darkness... like a dark, unnoticeable slippy thing.")...  Anyway, I get to play with aspects of classic fairy tales that always bothered me, which is fun, and I have to do it in very few words, which is hard.

I also get to work with the ridiculously talented Traci Manley, who is doing the illustrations.  When I decided to do a book I thought of Traci's style was the only thing I could see to go with it.  I'm so glad she's agreed.  I've only seen a couple sketches so far, but I eagerly anticipate the rest.

***

Once, on a chilly night, a poor boy rubbed a magic lamp – and out popped a Jinn.

“You must be cold without a shirt,” said the boy, and he gave the Jinn his ragged jacket.

Now they travel the world together, granting wishes and telling stories.

The World Spins Madly On

Yes, I'm still here.  You were wondering, weren't you?  I'm also still writing, though you couldn't tell by looking on this blog.  Currently I have two projects in the works: a novel, still in the very early stages, tentatively titled The Man in Question, and a collection of very short things (some flash fiction, micro-essays, etc) that I'm calling A Phantasmagoria, partly just because I like that word, and partly because its definition (a sequence of brief, dreamlike images) is particularly apt.  

Writing with a toddler is weird.  All those who have done it successfully have my unwavering and eternal respect.  I mostly write while Griffin naps, which is more conducive to short pieces than the long arc of a novel (thus, the Phantasmagoria) but is infinitely better than nothing.  However, I am occasionally able as he gets older to write while he's awake.  For instance, this evening I am updating this blog while we watch Chicken Run.  He likes chickens, and airplanes.  I write well with white noise.  We get a companionable evening.  Everyone wins!

While it may not exactly qualify as writing, I did recently revamp all my covers, and have officially switched to using my full name (it's now Melanie Rose Huff, thank you very much). This was for multiple reasons.  Anyway, the books with the new covers can be found here, and the website has been updated...at least mostly.

I also opened a cultural center in my hometown last year in memory of my husband, fulfilling a dream we had together of opening a quality facility for arts instruction and performance.  The Aaron Huff Memorial Cultural Center (or the Cult, as I usually shorten it...Aaron would have approved) is on Main Street in Chewelah.  I rent the space to dance and music teachers, and have events there periodically, the most recent being the local farmers' market's Christmas Faire.  During the week there are lessons in ballet, piano, Irish dance, voice, clogging, yoga, and more.  I take class there myself three days a week.  There's still more I want to do, but it's coming along.

So that's the last two years in, if not a nutshell, possibly a banana peel.  I still miss Aaron so much.  I miss our weird little inside jokes.  I wish I could see the look on his face as he watches his son.  Yet I am fortunate, and Griffin is fortunate, that we have his music.  Griffin will grow up knowing the sound of his daddy's voice, and I'm learning what a blessing that is.  And Griffin is more like Aaron every day.

And things go on.  I try not to be too much of a hermit crab, and Griffin helps a lot with that, as he's a pretty social midget.  He also has good taste in literature, but that's a post for another day.

There are long icicles hanging from the vines outside my windows.  The moon is just past full, and very bright.  Outside it is extremely cold, but inside it is warm and cozy and the lights on my Christmas tree are bright spots of color twinkling at me from the corner.  Chicken Run has been done for some time and Griffin is asleep upstairs. Our dog is asleep on his blanket in the corner.  I should not be awake right now, but it's quiet and peaceful.  I have hope for tomorrow.  One thing I've learned: optimism is incurable.

This has gotten far too long and rambling, so I'll leave it here, with a bonus in the form of one of my favorite bits of poetry for this time of year, by Susan Cooper:

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!