Sunday, 31 March 2013

Season Three




There’s something magical and terrifying about the third of anything. The third book in a series. The third movie in a sequence. The third goal in a hockey game. The third album from a musician. The third can make or break a writer, producer, hockey team, singer, you name it. The first is an introduction. The second is laying more groundwork. The third is where lines are drawn, favourites are named and fates are decided.

Today begins season 3 of HBO’s Game of Thrones. This is the season the producers envisioned when they pitched the show to the network. Much of the content has been culled from the third book in A Song of Ice and Fire (by my hero George R.R. Martin), which in my mind was the book that made the series of novels. Inside, I am running around screaming. This is the season where the story really starts. I’ve been watching trailers for weeks, pouncing on every new link that pops up online. This is the season where my heart will be in my mouth the whole time even though I know what’s coming – or maybe because I know what’s coming. And by the gods, the producers had better not pull a Downton Abbey with the finale or I may just lose my mind.

Somehow, I doubt they will.

Saturday, 30 March 2013

Fruit Loops

 
 


Since my last post, I’ve been observing Right Brain’s effort to reclaim supremacy over Left Brain, and it’s been interesting. At home on Thursday night, my mind was wired and tired and racing madly on the hamster wheel until I decided to go to bed uber-early and reboot in the morning. As I tend to wake up in right brain, it seemed the practical thing to do. But, like a vengeful toddler banished too early to her room, Lefty lay in wait yesterday morning while I watched the sun rise and had tea with Ter. I was still buzzy from year end, but starting to loosen up. A walk through the ’hood was next – watch the water, ponder blog entries etc. … then it happened. Whitney Houston began crooning in the back of my mind:
 
“and i-I-i will al-ways love yoooOOOuu … ”

Oh, no.

Three blocks later, the croon had swollen to a full-blown bellow:

“AND I-I-I-I-I WILL AL-WAYS LOVE YOOOOOOOOOOWAAAAAHHHH-I-I-I WILL ALWAYS LOOOVE YOU …”

No more idle meandering, no more contemplation of beauty or potential storytelling, just a frantic need to escape the torment of a 1000 decibel loop inexorably stuck in my head. I wanted to yank my brain out through my ears. I was only halfway home when Whitney dissolved into the hypnotic yet furiously annoying beat of the iPhone commercial that got more airtime in 30 minutes than the TV show I was watching the night before. Augh! Kill me now! Please!

Then I realized something. Music is a creativity enhancer. Music opens up your mind to an outside source, to art and emotion and love and joy and the all-encompassing sense of fulfillment that Left Brain simply cannot abide. Music is Right Brain domain. Lefty, however, is a survivor, and survival often means playing dirty. Lefty has figured out that music can be twisted to block the road to creativity. Oh, Lefty is clever. Lefty is slick enough and conniving enough to be in politics.

Lefty is no match for Ru.

Soon as I got home, I put on the stereo. Sarah Brightman, to be precise. Sarah is an artiste in every sense of the word. She’s dramatic, she’s theatrical, she’s artistic, she sings like an angel and best of all, Left Brain can’t keep up with her, let alone override her. The loop snapped within seconds of music being played in the here and now. So bear it in mind. Right Brain will never torture you with neverending French nursery songs or fast food jingles. As soon as the theme for My Three Sons takes root in your mind, break the cycle. Throw on a disc or plug in the iPod. Play music in the moment and your sanity is saved.

Assuming, of course, that you’re not already loopy.

Thursday, 28 March 2013

Happy New Year ... Seriously



Writing does not pay my bills. I have a “real job” that keeps me in the lifestyle to which I’ve become accustomed, and I’m okay with that ... most of the time. Since part of my job includes crunching numbers, Left Brain and Right Brain are constantly embroiled in a battle for supremacy over each other. By the middle of a given workweek, Left Brain is firmly in despotic control.

It’s an ongoing struggle made more hopeless by fiscal year end. This is when my world is ruled by numbers, formulas, tax codes and deadlines, a world in which Left Brain flourishes and Right Brain ... well, let’s just say it’s the worst time of year for anything creative to be accomplished outside of last minute accounting.

Today is the last day of the fiscal year. A new year begins on April 1, but I’ll worry about that later. Right now, Right Brain is clinging to the wispy hope of recompense over the Easter weekend. Left Brain doubtless will put up a valiant fight (I can feel her gathering resources as I defiantly splash my intention onto the screen) so tomorrow may be a write off, no pun intended. Perhaps I will give my whole brain the day off to help Lefty wind down and start Righty on the path to regaining her position. Sleep in, catch the sunrise, have tea with Ter, stroll along the waterfront, maybe go out for lunch, find something to read or scribble in my blog log ... just breathe and be.

It’ll drive Lefty nuts, but Righty will prevail. If I wasn’t so mentally exhausted, I’d feel her smiling now.

Wednesday, 27 March 2013

Write No Wrong


During tea with a friend the other day, I was asked if I’ve ever considered writing something from the villain’s point of view. It’s a fair question. The villain is always more fun to play, to watch, to fantasize about (okay, that might be too much information), and can be more fun to write. After all, he always thinks he’s the hero. Even if he knows he’s doing wrong, he thinks he does it for the right reasons. It’s in the eye of the beholder, right?

I love my bad guys. They’ve been pretty tame compared to the psychopathic serial killers and die hard terrorists currently fashionable in Hollywood, but they were definitely fun to write. Mind you, my heroes tend toward a little darkness as well. Gosh darn it, even the white knight starring in my current project has a few dents in his armour and I thought he was absolutely pure. I’m hardly disappointed in him, since I know what made the dents, but boy, he’s being more difficult than I thought he’d be and that’s been frustrating.

Anyway, I was reminded of the brouhaha that blew up when Bret Easton Ellis wrote American Psycho back in the 1980s. I didn’t read the book, since I wasn’t at all interested in the workings of a serial killer’s mind, but the controversy made me think about censorship and the right to write. It also shot the book into the media spotlight and made Ellis more famous than he might have been without the fuss, but that’s an ironic aside. More power to him, in fact.

After some deliberation, I concluded that he had done what most writers are driven do: he told the character’s story as the character wanted it told. I suppose he could have refused to tell it, but if he had refused, chances are that someone else would have taken it on and the same uproar would have happened at a later date. Worse, Ellis might have regretted saying ‘No’. Censoring yourself is part of the drill, but when a character is adamant, there’s really no choice but to spin the tale to its finale.

Sting tells the story of a song called “Tomorrow We’ll See”. He had the music all figured out and was waiting for the lyric to come. When it came, it came with a character who happened to be a male transsexual prostitute. Sting fought it, the character fought back, and in the end, won her case by accusing him of judging her harshly based on her circumstance. So he wrote the song. I’m glad he told the story of its genesis—not only is it a favourite of mine for the musical style, but the writer in me completely related to the conflict he faced in finding the words.

My poet friend Nicole has lately begun experimenting with short fiction and was hailed by a character who turned out to be a gigolo. She, like Sting, initially fought it but the man wouldn’t leave her alone. In the end, she produced a piece that revealed the potential for more layers than a mille fois in a guy whom she wasn’t even sure she liked. She’s now considering working more with him down the road … assuming she ever gets through the waitlist of characters lined up behind him.

I guess my point isn’t about censorship so much as it is about the writer’s responsibility to honour the characters who present themselves as they are, not as what may be socially acceptable or politically correct. Truly, I don’t know where they come from. Few of mine reveal themselves in their entirety; I have to work with them before the colour of their hat comes clear. I have, on occasion, declared aloud, “I need a bad guy,” and one graciously appears. They’re imperative in plot development, after all. But sometimes a name will drift past my ear or a face will catch my inner eye and I’ll be curious enough to follow the thread …

Tuesday, 26 March 2013

Why Not?


“Writing is easy. You just stare at a blank screen until blood forms on your forehead.”

I don’t recall who said this and I’m paraphrasing anyway, but the point is that whatever else I may be—daughter, sister, friend, co-worker, fragment of universal flotsam—I am, in the very core of my being, a writer.

My forte is fiction, my preference fantasy. I write novels and short fiction and silly poems for homemade greeting cards. I collect quotes and follow my heroes. Most importantly, I find inspiration everywhere, usually when I least expect it.

That’s what this blog is intended to be: a cornucopia of literary bits and bites, sometimes fictional, sometimes philosophical, sometimes plain old ramblin’ Ru. And what better way to begin than with The Poem That Started It All, courtesy of my sister in propinquity, Nicole D. Myers. Years ago, she honoured me with this amazingly insightful poem. How she managed to capture my hidden essence so quickly still amazes me. Welcome to Comfortable Rebellion.

I`ll brew the tea. You pull up a chair, and together we`ll sit and sip and wait for the blood to form on our foreheads.

With love,

Ru


Sitting on a Shady Veranda with Ruthie Wordsmyth

 “You are the Saint of Storytelling.”

I tell her while sharing bits of
smooth candy and cups of green tea
sitting on a shady veranda under a Vienna sky.

“The Zeitgeist of Paragraph! 
Mistress of Manuscript Extravaganza!”

I tell her this because it is the truth
my friend, the writer, word-spinner
is the main character of a poetic prophecy
rising with an exquisite voice
an Enchanted Empress baring her
woven soul into spirals of fiction
into epiphanies of elemental editing.

My literary gentlewoman friend
the Storyteller, Princess of Plentitude
is the keynote speaker at a symposium
for the Gorgeous Struggle
offering simple directions to the center
of the universe and sundry side-streets of Sublime.

Her biography will soon be available in trade paperback
autographed copies of Comfortable Rebellion
will grace the bookshelves of admiring fans
but will pale in comparison to my first edition hardcover
inscribed with her permanent wisdom.

Inside will the near-art experience booklovers have longed for a fort-night
inside there will be polaroid pictures, convictions and conversations
dreams and disappointments though her tears will be absent
saved in a mason jar on the edge of her prolific writing table.

“You are the Operatic Melody of my heart!”

I tell her while brewing a fresh pot of green tea.

“A Victorious Virago!”

I tell her this because it is true.

“What would I do without you?”  I ask her.

She just smiles, shrugs her shoulders
and tells me another story.