Chewelah in the Spring: Earth and Inspiration

I took a walk through town today.  May is probably my favorite month out of the whole year.  I love watching the colors suddenly explode.  There is a wind blowing today, and you can smell all the flowering trees at once wherever you go.  Our garden is getting better by degrees each year, and the berry bushes are thriving.  We take Ferdy out in the grass sometimes and let him run around.  He likes to snuffle about for a while, then always ends up nosing around in our clothing.

I've had a writing surge lately, and am hoping to finish my first draft of Violet Shadows by early June.  Then comes the rewriting and editing process.  I'm hoping to publish in the autumn again, around October sometime if all goes well and my characters don't decide to do something outlandish out of the blue.  On Saturday I'm taking part in a book fair with the Libraries of Stevens County.  It's being held at the golf course.  A good venue, but it does feel a little strange after last summer to be going up there in a capacity that doesn't involve serving beer.

Blood, Sweat, and Tears: A Panegyric

This post is dedicated to some of the hardest-working people I know and some of my dearest friends: my fellow dancers.  Yes, we are amateurs, but we are also passionate about ballet, and particularly during rehearsal season it often feels as if we live at the studio.  From the days when you feel light as a feather, to the evenings you can hardly move, to the nights when you've danced so long that your brain starts bouncing around like a drunken circus clown...you spend it all with the same people, and in the end they come to know you in a way few other people can.  There is a bond which grows when you've sweated and laughed and cried and bled side by side with someone.  For me, I always feel that with those people I hold no secrets.  I mean, there may be details about events in my life they don't know about, but of myself, my intrinsic me-ness, there is nothing hidden.  They've seen me at my worst and at my best.  My friend Jocelyn and I used to say that you had to be yourself in class because it is impossible to hide anything under those clothes.  I believe that statement began in a physical sense, in reference to some people's use of padding on certain parts of the anatomy, but it works in the psychological sense as well. :-)


Martha Graham said that "movement never lies" and I've found that to be true.  You can lie to yourself and others, but it is your body that gives you away.  Everybody can feel this, in a blush, in goosebumps, in hands that shake when the mind is gripped by fear.  In a dancer this is magnified.  You cannot sit on your hands to hide the shaking.  You must use your hands, your arms, your legs, every part of you, and in doing so you bare your soul to the audience. If you try to hide it, half your energy will be spent in the hiding and much of the beauty will be lost.


After a time you just love it.  Sometimes you can't remember why, but you don't want to be anywhere else.  And there is always that moment.  The dance is finished, your heart is racing, you've completed the last step, and there is a moment of silence before the audience begins to applaud.  All the best parts of living are contained in that moment.  You've fought, you've sacrificed, and now you've won.


So I would like to raise a glass to some amazing fellow dancers, past and present, and to our incredible (and incredibly demanding) teacher, Ann Marie Benedict.  Here's to another year of striving for an unachievable perfection; another year of blood, sweat, and tears; another year of camaraderie and laughter.  Here's to life, and dance.

IWU Cookbook

Apparently I am making up for my recent spell of silence on this blog.  I suppose it is a good thing...the making up, not the silence.  I didn't have room in my somewhat lengthy post yesterday to inform the world at large (or rather the world at small, since seventeen followers can hardly be called "large") about a project I've recently become involved with through an awesome group of people known as Indie Writers Unite.  The founder of this mutual encouragement society, Cheryl Bradshaw, has been putting together a cookbook, featuring a number of members, their books, and tasty recipes.  It should be available later this month on Kindle and in paperback form, and it features my recipe for Lemon Syllabub with Raspberries.


The usual question people will ask themselves between these two paragraphs is, "What on earth is Syllabub?"  To them I say, "Syllabub is heaven in a parfait glass" and then I smile mischievously and tell them to buy the cookbook.  As an added bonus, half the proceeds go to UNICEF, so in buying it you're supporting children in need and filling your bellies besides.  And that is my sales pitch.

A Question of Intent

First of all, Ashford is free on Kindle today.  Happy Friday the thirteenth!


Lately I have started writing study guides for a curriculum program.  It's a great side job, as I get to reread some of my favorite children's classics (and young adult) and write about them.  The study guides focus on story structure, character, theme, literary devices, etc...


One thing that constantly comes up is the question of symbolism, and for every children's classic written there are hundreds of people willing to tell you all about what the author intended in that department.  My most recent experience was with The Velveteen Rabbit, and I heard so many different ideas concerning the possibly symbolic nature of certain passages (even one claiming that the fact that Skin Horse and the Rabbit are made Real but the mechanical toys are not is symbolic of salvation not being for everyone) that it boggled the mind.


In study guides, certainly, the question is always, "what did the author intend?" and you go from there.  And that brings me to Tolkien.


I must confess, I am a Tolkien nerd.  Always have been, since I was old enough to read the books the first time, and always will be, until I'm blind and senile.  Twice in the last year I have been present at writing-related seminars or workshops where statements were made, as fact, concerning Tolkien's supposed intent of comparing Sauron to Hitler, Mordor to Nazi Germany, etc...  Both were phrased as, "Tolkien created Mordor to represent..."  This bothers me extremely, because Tolkien stated very clearly in his lifetime that he intended no such comparison.  In the preface to the (I believe second) edition of The Fellowship of the Ring, he says:

"As for any inner meaning or "message", it has in the intention of the author none.  It is neither allegorical nor topical.  As the story grew it put down roots (into the past) and threw out unexpected branches; but its main theme was settled from the outset by the inevitable choice of the Ring as the link between it and The Hobbit.  The crucial chapter, "The Shadow of the Past", is one of the oldest parts of the tale.  It was written long before the foreshadow of 1939 had yet become a threat of inevitable disaster, and from that point the story would have developed along essentially the same lines, if that disaster had been averted.  Its sources are things long before in mind, or in some cases already written, and little or nothing in it was modified by the war that began in 1939 or its sequels.

"The real war does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its conclusion.  If it had inspired or directed the development of the legend, then certainly the Ring would have been seized and used against Sauron; he would not have been annihilated but enslaved, and Barad-dur would not have been destroyed but occupied.  Saruman, failing to get possession of the Ring, would in the confusion and treacheries of the time have found in Mordor the missing links in his own researches into Ring-lore, and before long he would have made a Great Ring of his own with which to challenge the self-styled Ruler of Middle-earth.  In that conflict both sides would have held hobbits in hatred and contempt: they would not long have survived even as slaves.

"Other arrangements could be devised according to the tastes or views of those who like allegory or topical reference.  But I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence.  I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers.  I think that many confuse "applicability" with "allegory"; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author."

That seems fairly definite.


Of course, a good, well-concieved and well-written book will present different ideas to each person who reads it.  Some will agree with the author and some won't.  That is how it should be, and I'm thoroughly honored by anyone who sees my work as relevant to their life in a particular way.  Just don't say I wrote it to say exactly that...because I probably didn't.  Thus the "applicability" vs. "allegory" reasoning.  Thank you Tolkien.

Pet Peeves

Everyone has pet peeves, those little things that make them want to scream, grind their teeth, and get out the throwing knives.  I don't think I'm unusual in this respect, only perhaps in the individual peeves themselves.  Some are writing related.  Some are not, but this is officially a hodge-podge blog, so you get them all.


1.  "So, which character are you?"  This question pertaining to a memoir is one thing, but if you're writing fiction this is one of the most annoying questions you can be asked.  For me, there is a little bit of me in every single character that I write, but every character is also a mix of many different traits, characteristics, and physical attributes, some from people of my acquaintance, some from strangers, others purely imaginary.  The process is much like cooking. You keep throwing in different things and sampling until it tastes right.  You use imagination and personal experience in about equal measure, and the insight that comes from personal experience is generally used in reference to something completely alien to the experience that produced it in you.  We've all experienced the gag reflex.  Just because your trigger is blood sausage doesn't mean your character can't experience it in relation to asparagus.  Otherwise, we would all write memoirs.  The idea that one character is "you" and the rest are "other people" is very limiting, not to mention unimaginative.  I have quite a bit in common with Anna, but there are ways in which we are entirely dissimilar, and it is the same in varying degrees with my other characters.


2. "Hubby" and related terms of endearment.  The sound of this word makes me bristle, much like Ferdy when he is startled.  I can feel the quills rise.  Luckily, my husband shares this particular peeve.  We are not terms of endearment people.  As anyone who has read last year's Valentine's Day post may recall, I also have a special aversion to being called anything food-related (cupcake, muffin, sugar, etc.) because I am not edible, except to cannibals, and even to them I'm sure I wouldn't taste like any of those things.  Maybe chicken.


3.  Misplaced apostrophes.  They are everywhere.  It's an epidemic, but the worst was in an article I read recently about "the problems with indie authors".  They listed all the usual issues, all the things that nearly kept me from going indie, such as poor editing, lack of gatekeepers, etc...  They are all viable arguments.  I've seen some dreadful indie books.  I've also seen some exceptionally good ones.  So what nettled me about the article was not their reasoning, though they had a clear bias, but the fact that they misplaced an apostrophe in the article.  There they were, going on righteously about poor editing and lack of gatekeepers...and then they referred to self-published authors as "the last of the starving artist's."  Groan!  An article which has clearly been professionally edited, particularly an article criticizing anyone for a lack of editorial diligence, should not provide a loophole in its own theory.


4.  Jumpsuits and rompers.  Why are they coming back in?  They don't look attractive on anyone.  I am particularly amused by the clothing catalogues which attempt to portray tight at the ankle, baggy in the butt jumpsuits as "sexy".  My dad's grease-stained coveralls would be sexier on a woman than that.


And while we're on the clothing topic:


5.  Some people's hangups about male ballet dancers' costumes.  They wear tights because they need full range of motion so they can do amazing things like, oh, splits in the air!  It's not their fault that that's where some people's eyes go.  The thing I find especially odd is that many of the same people who have issues with male ballet dancers will watch wrestling without complaint.  Wrestlers wear spandex onesies and roll about on the ground groping each other.  I have no problem with wrestlers, I am merely pointing out the contradiction.  In my mind the ability to carry a woman over your head on one hand and make it look effortless wins out as a display of strength.


There are more, certainly, but I can't gripe all day and I think I'm done now.  No offense intended to anyone.

Another Interview

I am one of the featured authors this week on Amy Manemann's site.  Check it out if you're interested and let me know what you think.  It's always a privilege to be interviewed by other authors.  Thank you Amy!


This weekend was exceptionally chaotic.  Really, it hardly felt like a weekend at all.  My husband played a show Friday night, my sister was visiting from Portland, my friend Lexie was home from college and her younger sister was competing for Chewelah's Junior Miss competition (though apparently they call it Distinguished Young Women now, though it's the same thing) on Saturday.  She won, by the way, as she should.  Then Sunday I drove my sister to the airport.  We left early and stopped to meet a friend for coffee, then, when we were ready to leave again, Gerry refused to start.  He had been running beautifully all the way there.  Of course, it wasn't a dead battery or anything simple, and even my dad's mechanic friend who came to our rescue couldn't find the problem then and there but had to tow it away to his house so he could examine it more closely.  But of course we still had to get my sister to the airport, so Aaron had to drive down in his car and we managed to get her there in time for her to catch the last flight of the day.  So, success in the end, but all factors combined to make the weekend rather exhausting.  And now Gerry is gone, hopefully to be reborn from the ashes soon like a black, worn, and dented phoenix.

A Mishmash of News

I am just home from spending the weekend in Portland.  The daffodils were blooming, and the flowering trees.  Two days of gloriously sunny spring weather, and two days of rainy spring weather.  Balance.  Balance is good.  Yesterday, my first day home, we had a blizzard.


I left my characters in a rather uncomfortable position when I went to Portland, and now I have to jerk myself back out of vacation mode and write them out of it.  I know where I need them to go, but I got out of the right mindset and must work my way back into it with the aid of coffee and solitude.  The poor things need to be rescued.


I made the move recently and joined KDP Select, so Ashford is available now for Amazon Prime members through the Kindle Lending Library, and I will have periodic free promotion days, of which today is the first.  So far today I've given away over five hundred copies for the promotion and Ashford is #7 in free historical fiction.  I'm just pleased that it's getting out to so many people.


We're starting rehearsals next week for our June show, and I've been commissioned to create several costumes for it.  I also have to finish choreographing my solo.  It's the first dance I've choreographed for a show, so I'm rather excited and nervous about that.  Of course, Ann is helping me polish it up.  I wouldn't dream of just throwing it on stage without the sort of polishing only Ann can give.  We'll see how that goes.


I'm planning a summer book promotion to coincide with my ten-year celebration of being cancer-free.  The plan is to donate all proceeds from Kindle sales for a certain time range to the Union for International Cancer Control, http://www.uicc.org/ and then finish it off with a head-shaving party.  I'll post updates on here and on Facebook once I know more details, and I may be asking for help spreading the word, if anyone's interested.


And now...back to the novel!