A Returned Sense of Purpose

Returning to real life after the PNWA Conference is always a bit squiffy for me. (Yes, I am aware that "squiffy" is not a word.  But it should be.)  Four days of concentrated writing, the society of other writers, writing workshops, featured speakers on writing...it's lovely.  Writers are their own kind of weird, and I think that's the thing that helps me the most every year.  It's a companionable weirdness, a solidarity, and it encourages me that I'm not alone in this obsession with words and stories.  Writers may be famously introverted and depressed, but those things considered they are very encouraging people.  I never feel any sense of competition.  Everybody wants everybody else to succeed, because if they succeed it means you can too.  Also, it's one of very few places where you can mention having arguments with your characters or reading the dictionary for fun without being branded a psycho.


So once again I've returned to the real world, but I hope I've carried a piece of that atmosphere back with me, and through contact with writer friends met there I will keep hold of it throughout the year to come.  The biggest thing I came away with this year was a new sense of determination and discipline in my writing.  This is what I've wanted since I was a little girl.  Only I can make it happen.  Also, in going through old manuscripts the other day I realized that I am currently working on my sixth novel.  What matter that the first four I wouldn't dream of showing to anyone?  Those were practice, and I never have to write that terrible "first novel" again.  Hurrah!

Alice and Humpty Dumpty

As I was packing for the conference this morning, the following segment from Alice Through the Looking Glass popped into my head.  It's always been one of my favorite passages.

*****

'You seem very clever at explaining words, Sir,' said Alice. 'Would you kindly tell me the meaning of the poem called "Jabberwocky"?'

'Let's hear it,' said Humpty Dumpty. 'I can explain all the poems that ever were invented — and a good many that haven't been invented just yet.'

This sounded very hopeful, so Alice repeated the first verse:

''Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
   Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
   And the mome raths outgrabe.'

'That's enough to begin with,' Humpty Dumpty interrupted: 'there are plenty of hard words there. "Brillig" means four o'clock in the afternoon — the time when you begin broiling things for dinner.'

'That'll do very well,' said Alice: 'and "slithy"?'

'Well, "slithy" means "lithe and slimy". "Lithe" is the same as "active". You see it's like a portmanteau — there are two meanings packed up into one word.'

'I see it now,' Alice remarked thoughtfully: 'and what are "toves"?'

'Well, "toves" are something like badgers — they're something like lizards — and they're something like corkscrews.'

'They must be very curious-looking creatures.'

'They are that,' said Humpty Dumpty; 'also they make their nests under sun-dials — also they live on cheese.'

'And what's to "gyre" and to "gimble"?'

'To "gyre" is to go round and round like a gyroscope. To "gimble" is to make holes like a gimlet.'

'And "the wabe" is the grass-plot round a sun-dial, I suppose?' said Alice, surprised at her own ingenuity.

'Of course it is. It's called "wabe" you know, because it goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it —'

'And a long way beyond it on each side,' Alice added.

'Exactly so. Well then, "mimsy" is "flimsy and miserable" (there's another portmanteau for you). And a "borogove" is a thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round — something like a live mop.'

'And then "mome raths"?' said Alice. 'I'm afraid I'm giving you a great deal of trouble.'

'Well, a "rath" is a sort of green pig: but "mome" I'm not certain about. I think it's short for "from home" — meaning that they'd lost their way, you know.'

'And what does "outgrabe" mean?'

'Well, "outgribing" is something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle: however, you'll hear it done, maybe — down in the wood yonder — and, when you've once heard it, you'll be quite content."

Release, Richard, Rants, and a Feral Ballerina

The album release party was a success.  Everyone enjoyed the music, and we sold a number of cds, perhaps not so many as we hoped, but not so few as we feared either.

As a follow-up to a recent post, I must say that Richard III was quite good, the setting in the 1930s done very well, and Ian McKellen simply perfection as Richard, slimy and charming, wily and paranoid, all at once.  So the woman at the junk store was once again proved wrong, not that I ever listened to her recommendations much anyway.

I leave Thursday morning for my annual writers' conference, and find myself in a state of mingled excitement and worry, as usual.  Excitement because of the cathartic experience of spending four days in the company of fellow writers, concentrating on writing, writing as life rather than an accessory to life.  Worry, because of meeting editors and agents and exposing my writing (and through it, myself) to the scrutiny of others.  These things will always be harrowing experiences I think, no matter how my writing eventually fares, or how much confidence I gain.

The four days of the conference serve another useful (at this point indispensable) purpose as well.  They shall offer me a brief respite from work.  In general it hasn't been too bad.  I've met some lovely people, found an endless new supply of character ideas, and the tips aren't so bad either.  The last two days, however, have worn me down into a fine paste.  There are always days like that, there always will be, at any job.  At the coffeehouse there was the man who invited me out to his "ranch", the one who always asked you to stir his coffee with your little finger "to sweeten it up", the woman who went on a tirade when you ran out of her favorite salad dressing.  At the golf course there is the man who offered to be my sugar daddy, or the one who mocked me as I split up his tab, or the woman who insisted I stop and take her party's order as I was on my way to the kitchen with three water glasses in each hand, menus under one arm, and the ketchup and mustard carousel dangling from my little finger.  Not that my days are made up entirely of these occurrences.  Hardly.  There are generally plenty of good things to balance out the bad.  I don't mind cleaning up after people, really, and I actually quite like waiting on tables.  What I don't like, what makes me see red, is the air of entitlement which so often comes with the aforementioned actions, the attitude that the fact that you are waiting tables and they are not gives them the right to treat you in any way they see fit, to mock, harangue, or hit on you without compunction.  Meanwhile, they expect speed, efficiency, serenity, and grace from you.  Generally I can manage the speed and serenity, if not always the other two.  The last two days I've been slipping.  Four days of rejuvenating literary immersion should be just what I need.

Rant over.  By next Monday morning I will love customer service again, or at least see the amusing side again and dislike it a little less fiercely.

I must conclude this post with a photo of my alter-ego, the Feral Ballerina, from Stephen Pastis' comic strip Pearls Before Swine.

Work, Storms, Lettuce...tra la la!

Just home from the busiest Monday of work since the 4th of July.  Don't know why.  There wasn't anything special on.  Apparently everyone just decided to golf all at once, and then to eat breakfast all at once, and then to drink all at once, and then to lunch all at once.  I am now thoroughly exhausted in mind and body...but I did make good tips.

***

I wrote the above several hours ago, when the weather, which had been suffering from a severe personality disorder most of the day, decided to turn thunderous.  Stormy weather effects me in strange ways, and warm stormy weather always makes me want to caper about out of doors, which I am fully aware is not the wisest course of action when the storm is breaking over your head.  It also brings odd looks from the neighbors.  On this occasion, however, though I restrained the urge for an outdoor caper, the storm did a splendid job of restoring my post-work wilted lettuce person to something more closely resembling a crisp new leaf.  That and a visit from my Portland-based sister combined to make the latter part of the day quite splendid.


The album release is set for this coming Saturday at 7pm, as part of an all-day block party.  Looking forward to it.  I've been asked to bring some of my clothes to show as well.

The Next Step

My rewrite is finished, and two copies of the manuscript have been printed and given to two new readers.  One step closer.  Now I have to start working up my nerve for the really difficult part: the selling.  I like doing signings.  You don't have to talk much, besides smiling and saying "thank you" or "what name should I put on it?".  When my mom and I were actively working at selling An Amazing Alphabetic Anthology, we went several times to speak to a second grade class in Spokane.  The teacher had discovered our book herself and loved it.  She had several copies in her classroom and three years running she had us come in and talk to her class.  That was lovely, but it was especially nice because it wasn't just me alone.  Also, the kids were fantastic.  The first time we did it we didn't really know what to expect, and the two other authors who were there had perfectly planned presentations worked up.  We started out just talking about the book, but the kids had so many questions (really intelligent questions too) about it that we just turned it into a Q & A session, and they loved it.  Then another year the teacher had the second-graders pair up with the fifth-graders and each took a letter of the alphabet and made up their own stories.  The Chewelah elementary schools did something very similar.  I have four books, put together by the kids with their own illustrations, inspired by our book.  I've seldom felt so proud, or so honored.  Now, if I could get into doing things like that for my novel, I would be so pleased.


On another note, my ballet teacher has been working on choreography for a new piece (one that we're all very excited about) and has asked me to design costumes for it.  Talking to her about the music and the particular feel of the piece, it sounds as though we have a very similar vision for it, which is splendid.  It's amazing how well the process flows when you're in tune in that way and you're not just trying to match your design to someone else's vision.  I can't wait to start working on them.

Carbon Leaf - grey sky eyes

This is a beautiful song that I've been obsessing over lately. Yes, the autumn leaf pictures are a little premature, but we do have cloudy skies today, possibly preliminary to a summer storm. Fingers crossed.

Summer, Ashford, and Sewing

Summer has finally arrived, though it took its time about getting here.  My roses are starting to bloom, and the raspberries (which we just planted this spring) have little green berries.  The plum tree has its usual horde of tiny purple plums, which are rather hard to see because the leaves on the plum tree are purple as well, so you have to hunt for the plums.


The Ashford rewrite is coming along steadily.  I've committed myself to a chapter or two a day, but no more, even if it's going well.  If I do more I find I start scanning instead of reading carefully, and then I miss things.  I'm approximately half-way through, and hoping to be done by the end of July, assuming I don't have to do anything too drastic, like delete whole characters or add six new scenes.  Then I have to get it out to a few people, preferably people who have never read it before, to make sure it all works and catch anything horrid I've missed.  After that, if all goes well...we'll see.  I have ideas.


For the sewing, I've sold a jacket and a skirt in the past month.  Yes, they were to personal friends, but a sale is a sale, right?  Besides, though a little extra income is always nice, the main reason I'm trying to sell them is to give myself some excuse for something I would be doing anyway.  I enjoy making things, particularly out of other people's old clothes and curtains and table-cloths, and it's more fun if I'm not the only one enjoying them.