Words, Words, Words

 

My parents always had a stack of books on the hob. One of my earliest birthday presents (my fifth or sixth, I think) was a hard cover book, the first in a series aimed at kids that I collected avidly over the next few years. School libraries kept me entertained with the “Henry and Beezus” novels by Beverly Cleary and horse stories galore by Marguerite Henry and Walter Farley. I was so obsessed with horses, in fact, that my first crack at writing a novel myself (at age twelve) was about a girl and a wild horse. Not surprisingly, it was never finished.

I read a bunch of other things at the same time – “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Exorcist” spring to mind (where were Mum and Dad??) – then I tripped into my teens and discovered historical fiction. As my genre identity developed, bodice rippers shared shelf space with classic tales of kings and queens. A copy of Kathleen Winsor’s “Forever Amber” yet resides in my home library, along with Jean Plaidy’s Charles II trilogy and Dorothy Dunnett’s six-volume “Lymond Chronicle”. Lymond in particular was a coup for sixteen-year-old me, given the thickness of each volume and the tiny print on every page. But, man, it was a compelling ride from my perennial place on the sofa. It’s definitely a repeat read.

Reading it then probably saved my sanity in the daily struggle with my bones.

Sometimes I overreached. As a teenager in the 1970s, I wasn’t sophisticated enough to know that an author named Taylor Caldwell was actually a woman, but because “The Arm and the Darkness” had musketeers on the cover, I bought it in paperback and sat down to read.

I started but didn’t finish it. I’m not sure why; I think the subject was heavier than expected for the space I was in at the time. When I evolved to where I might have been able to sift the story from the excessive wordage, my focus had shifted from swashbucklers to night crawlers thanks to my older sister’s copy of “Interview with the Vampire”. From there, science fiction and fantasy pretty well owned me, though I maintain a deep and abiding love for the seventeenth century.

Yep, I’ve read a lot of books in my life. Lately, though, I’ve made a conscious effort to try new things, and I have discovered jewels in Indigenous and mainstream literature. Conversely, I’m equally inclined to revisit old favourites. Amazon may be an evil entity trying to swallow the world, but it’s also provided a means by which I can explore other worlds without leaving the house. In a COVID environment, it’s a handy tool. Handier still is the Kindle that allows me to read in bed without concussing myself when the book falls forward. Anyway, one night while pondering where to search next, I wondered if Taylor Caldwell was still in print. I remembered the book I couldn’t finish and wondered if I could grasp the story now. I did the search, and darned if “The Arm and the Darkness” isn’t available in a Kindle edition.

So I bought it. Downloaded it. Whatever.

It’s still a wordy read. It’s written in the style of the old masters—Dumas and Cervantes and their contemporaries—so I have to wade through a ton of narrative to find the plot itself, but at least I’m old enough to understand what’s happening and why. A lot of it escaped me the first time. Truth, the style is too cumbersome, though I see now how it might have influenced my own tendency to overwrite—a tendency, might I add, that I’ve tried to change over the years. I also must have read more of it than I thought the first time; a lot of it is familiar though the nuances are definitely easier to espy. I have just reached the point where memory fails and am moving into deeper water. The adventure I had anticipated as a teenager appears to be more of a cerebral treatise on religion and the social hierarchy—but I am finally old enough to get the point.

Took me a while, eh?

This Radiant World

 

I read “Station Eleven” again this past spring. Given current circumstances, it seemed even more relevant than it did when I read it the first two times. Before I began this post, I revisited Bibliography 7 to remind myself of my initial impression of the book and was struck by my closing thought:

Will we create something better the next time? Or will we just want to go home?

Having lived with the threat of COVID-19 for the past six months, I’m afraid I have my answer.

Granted, watching the news is not the best way to feel good about human nature. Too many stories involve vandalized cars bearing out-of-province plates, or claims that mandatory wearing of masks on the bus is a human rights violation, or crowds of young ’uns flagrantly defying the rules meant to keep everyone safe. Fear-and-anger-mongering keeps the media solvent, after all. There is no money in keeping people calm unless you’re in the pharmaceutical industry.

I’m not afraid of the virus, myself. I follow the guidelines and respect the rules, but I’ll tell you, after six months, I’ve had enough. I am done with novelty face masks and working from home. I hate online shopping. I miss bacon cheeseburgers and Vietnamese noodles. I want to expand my bubble and get to know my neighbours. I want to browse in a bookstore. I want to explore my neighbourhood, to become a regular at Guido’s café and share a bench at the park. I want to have a conversation while standing in line. I want to see James Bond at the theatre in November. I want hockey in winter.

Bugger a brave new world. It appears that I want to go home.

But it ain’t over yet. And until it is, there is a line in the novel that resonates each time I read it, a line that encompasses everything about this life and the stage on which it is played. I have carried it with me since the very first reading, and though it hasn’t become a meme (gods forbid it ever does), it surfaces in singular moments.

One morning of late, I stepped onto the balcony after the sprinklers had stopped watering the lawn. It’s a lovely stretch of grass flanked by cedar hedges and dotted with magnolia and apple trees, with flowerbeds and a birdbath where the crows tend to bully the songbirds on a hot day. I’ve seen a raccoon stretching up for a drink, a deer resting in the shade, a squirrel cleaning its fur by wriggling in the dirt. Each of those occasions was a gift, but on this particular morning, the lawn was empty. I stood barefoot in a patch of sun, the floor warm beneath my feet, and I noticed that the tree by the birdbath was glistening. The water from the sprinklers lay thick on the leaves, sparkling like diamonds scattered over the green. It was so beautiful that I fetched the Canon with no hope of capturing the true glory of the shot. I initially called it “jewel tree”, until the line from “Station Eleven” reminded me of the tiny miracles in everyday life if I open my eyes to see them:

This radiant world.

Bibliography 15

 “Diary of a Bookseller” – Shaun Bythell

It seems I’ve read a ton of autobiographies this summer: Elton John’s Me, Tina Turner’s My Love Story, Stewart Copeland’s Strange Things Happen. I also read a bio of Freddie Mercury and Chris Heath’s fly-on-the-wall account of life with Robbie Williams. If you see a theme here, you’re right on the mark—the rock stars who have provided the soundtrack to my life are telling their stories and I’m devouring them. Each of the aforementioned is a worthy read. As laugh out loud funny as Copeland’s brash American POV is, Dame Elton’s voice is particularly enjoyable for its honesty and humour; the British tendency toward self-deprecation is as hilarious as it is harrowing ... which leads me to the subject of this post.

Shaun Bythell is a fellow from Scotland who returned to his hometown in 2001 and somehow ended up buying a used bookshop. At one point, given the daily dramas encountered with quirky staff and regular customers, not to mention the antics of rogue patrons as observed from behind the counter, he decided to keep a diary, the end result of which was first published in 2017 as Diary of a Bookseller.

It may be a keeper. The copy I read was loaned to me by a friend and I’m unsure if I will purchase my own, though after reading Shaun’s experience with online selling and the insatiable monster that is Amazon, I feel somewhat compelled to support the bookselling industry by amassing as many hard copies as possible, even if I don’t have room for more than a hundred volumes in my reduced living space. That’s one reason why I have a Kindle—I’ve been seduced into the space-saving advantage of e-books even though the original hype of “books at lower cost” is no longer true. These days a new release download costs the same as the paperback edition; the primary bonus to the buyer is the convenience of an entire library contained on a device the size of a drugstore pocket book. Only thinner.

I digress.

This is a great book for those moments “in between”: when waiting for tea to steep, my hair to dry, or Ter to get her shoes on. If I had a half-hour to spare, I’d pick it up and read a few entries. Some are longer than others, as is the way of diaries. Some days are busier than others. If nothing else, the overall glimpse into the world of used bookselling, particularly in a small town, gave me a greater appreciation for the stalwart souls determined to endure in a world of on demand print, cutthroat competition and online conglomerates. Or impossible customers, come to that. I try to be pleasant with store clerks, recognizing that dealing with random members of the public is hard work. Not everyone shares my perspective. The beauty of this book is that the author, who could easily swing from objective to objectionable, simply notes the customer’s tone and general mien during any exchange. Rarely does he descend to disparaging criticism of any individual, no matter how appalling the individual’s attitude. The echo of his inside voice is tempered by diplomacy for the PG-13 audience while being, in my opinion, completely justified. Oh, some incidents are hysterical.

The funniest observations, however, are of his staff, particularly his regular (opposed to seasonal) employee, who gives as good as she gets both to her boss and to the customers. It’s a slice-of-life-in-a-small-town story as much as a view from behind the counter. My overall impression is that bookselling is not to be undertaken lightly. It takes a special breed to take up the profession ... but if you’re not worried about making ends meet and have the people skills to manage characters too colourful to be invented, then selling used books might be the job for you.

Bibliography XIV

“The Starless Sea” – Erin Morgenstern

Beautiful imagery, enchanting vignettes, compelling story, too many twists and turns. I got lost three-quarters in and felt vaguely cheated at the end. Maybe I missed something. Maybe I expected too much—and yet the writing itself did not disappoint.

I confess, I was in a scattered state of mind when I read the book. In that respect, I disappointed myself. Still, the main storyline intercut with seemingly unrelated stories would have confused me anyway. Just as I fell into the rhythm of the protagonist’s tale, the momentum was interrupted with a story from another realm. Sensing that these unrelated fairy tales were relevant to the main theme, I trusted all would be revealed as I read deeper into the book. But in the end, I missed the point.

Don’t get me wrong. The writing is beautiful, as magical as in “The Night Circus”, but depending on the passage, there is either too much unnecessary information or not enough where necessary. I admire the author’s ability to put me in a scene where I can hear the merest whisper and smell the faintest trace of cinnamon, so I appreciated the experience of being there. I just don’t know why I was there in the first place.

Yes, I do. This is Erin Morgenstern’s second novel, and I loved her first so much that I’ve read it every Christmas since 2012. Eight years later, I still look forward to the annual delight. Expectations were high on this one; perhaps she felt the pressure and overcompensated. There is a lot of writing in this book. I think it could have been shorter and thus made more sense ... but perhaps, as I say, my expectations were too high. I just don’t know.

I will read a good book more than once. Sometimes it’s simply because I enjoyed it so much the first time. More often, it’s to get a better grip on the story itself. As with a movie, the first round is spent getting familiar with the characters, following the action and trying to predict the outcome rather than noticing nuances. Knowing how “The Starless Sea” ends (sort of), it may make more sense to me the second time.

Am I trying to avoid disliking a book I was so eager to read?

Maybe. I was so confused at the end that I couldn’t tell whether or not I liked it at all.

At least I’m willing to give it another try.

The Horror of Romance (or the Romance of Horror)

I want to write a romance.

There. I said it.

Not one of those formula romances, of course. That’s not my style. Besides, I tried it once, and I couldn’t keep the characters in line. You’d think two-dimensional people would be easy to manage, but my people were, ironically, too-dimensional. She was too independent and he was too conflicted, so I decided to write a vampire story instead.

That story turned out to be a romance. Well, romantic. She was independent and he was conflicted, but somehow the love affair worked. Too bad it ended tragically. When one party is immortal and the other one isn’t, it’s kinda doomed from the start. Mine worked without a happy ending because, quite frankly, paranormal romance is a genre unto itself and I can’t stick to that formula, either. I have utmost respect for authors who can follow those rules. Trust me, it’s harder than it looks.

You know who wrote great “outside the box” paranormal romance? Anne Rice. She set a new standard for Gothic horror with a romantic slant—or was it Gothic romance with a horrific slant? In any case, her work with vampires and witches was phenomenally fabulous, crazy romantic, deeply, sensuously, gorgeously written, and it gave me permission to blow off the doors when developing my own style. She was my example, my mentor, my yardstick, and my escape. I learned from her while reading everything she wrote.

So why was she not included in the top 100 of PBS’s Great American Read? Anyone? Anyone?

Naturally, I couldn’t resist tuning in to find out how many authors I recognized and which books I’d read (more than I thought and not as many as I’d hoped). After the show, I came away with a lengthy reading list ... and some big-time bitterness on discovering the literary Queen of the Damned’s legendary Vampire Chronicles did not make the top 100 while Stephenie Meyer’s horrific-for-all-the-wrong-reasons Twilight series did.

Weeks later, I’m still not over it. In truth, I may never be over it. Twilight led to the Fifty Shades of Grey debacle (which also made the list, gods help us) so I guess it gets points for inspiring a new voice, but I believe it’s also responsible for destroying an eternal genre and lowering the bar for writing in general.

I know I sound hysterical. I could be overreacting, I suppose, since vampires are rarely out of fashion for long, but comparing Interview with the Vampire to Twilight is like comparing cream to dishwater. I also understand that lists are completely ego-based and of no value in the grand scheme, yet it truly pains me that the writer whose work first obsessed me then compelled me to become the writer I am (undiscovered and pretty darned good) was sacrificed in favour of a writer far less deserving of the placement.

So, in dark and stormy tribute to the incomparable Anne Rice, I am setting out to write that romance.

Grrrrr.

Bookish

After he helped Ter and me move by hauling countless boxes of books up the stairs to our suite, my then thirteen-year-old nephew declared, somewhat belligerently, “I’m getting you guys an e-reader for Christmas.”

I have one, but it’s safe to say it won’t replace hard copy books in my life. There’s nothing quite so relaxing as a rainy day, a pot of tea, and a fat, luxuriously-written novel. I must confess to being more discriminating in my book selection these days; space is at a premium at home, not to mention the scarcity of reading time after a day at the office relegates my mental capacity to something akin to a squashed apricot. Still, I love to read. I love books, real books; magical, wonderful, lavishly written books about characters who compel me to think, feel and live their lives with them. Books inspire me. They take me to faraway places. They introduce me to new friends and villainous enemies. They teach me things. They stretch my imagination. It’s true what’s been said about reading: “One who reads lives a thousand lives. One who doesn’t read lives only one.”

I’ve read bodice rippers and murder mysteries, high fantasy and pulp fiction, biographies of mediocre people brilliantly written and autobiographies by brilliant people who couldn’t write worth a darn. I’ve even dipped a toe into poetry and, under duress, tackled the occasional non-fiction tome. But the point of this post stems from a curious dawning about the last few books I’ve bought:

They’re about books.

Ray Bradbury’s Farenheit 451 is a one-off with a specific message (I’ve only just started it, so I can’t pontificate on that message - yet). Genevieve Cogman’s The Invisible Library is a steampunky/alternate fantasy series that revolves around a place where important fiction from multiple worlds is collected and stored in order to keep those worlds connected and balanced (easier said than done, of course). It’s rollicking good fun in four volumes so far; as usual, I discovered the fourth first and had to rewind to get the background.

What gives? Why am I suddenly discovering books about the importance of books? Farenheit 451 is older than I am, but The Invisible Library was published in 2015. Have books always been in danger? Maybe so. Every time technology advances, the fear of books losing their worth seems to rear its head. Radio, TV, the internet, smartphones, you name it – each one of them has been perceived as a threat to literacy and books in general.

Literacy is definitely under fire, but books? Paperback or hardcover, the printed word doesn’t seem to be going the way of the dinosaurs anytime soon. While touted as the solution to packing Thomas Hardy around in your backpack, e-readers have hardly replaced those weighty beauties of old. Yes, they’re convenient in transit, and mine sure came in handy at the hair salon yesterday, but overall, I still see tattered pocketbooks in play at Starbucks. What a relief. As a writer, I needn’t fear imminent extinction. Technology has provided a vehicle as portable as those beat-up paperbacks, but some things can’t be replaced. Books are important. Books are a comfort; a tangible, sensual means of taking a trip without leaving your comfy chair. And browsing through amazon’s Kindle store is not nearly as pleasurable as browsing the shelves at your local (emphasis on “local”) bookstore.

Find the perfect escape, make that purchase and carry it home. Brew that tea and curl up on that couch, lift the cover, smell the paper, run your fingers over that title, turn the page … and disappear into another life.

Reading Material

I’m one-third of the way through my annual visit to The Night Circus and it’s as magical as ever despite its familiarity. There are no throwaway scenes, no skip-over passages; in fact, there are scenes where I wriggle with delight at what I know is to come. Everything is so beautifully executed. It’s a joy to read.

The best book this year was ML Rio’s debut novel If We Were Villains, and unexpected feast that I was compelled to pick up and subsequently read twice in a row. I finished the last page, then flipped immediately to the first and started over again—in the same sitting! A book that good is always a treasure, probably because they’re so rare. Villains was favourably likened to Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, so I proceeded to read that as well.

It wasn’t the same at all. None of the characters was remotely likable, and the tragic secret that bound them was something I’d have done just because the guy was so insufferably irritating. Nor did I find the professor who supposedly seduced his idiot students into committing the original, accidental, crime particularly charismatic. The whole story left me utterly cold.

But the most disappointing read of 2017 had to be Juliet’s Nurse. The premise was certainly intriguing, especially to a Shakespeare fan who has three different versions of Romeo and Juliet on DVD (and Tybalt steals the show in every one), but the execution fell far short of the expectation. It’s hardly the author’s fault that I’d hoped for a new twist on the tragedy and she gave me more of the nurse’s background than I anticipated. The kids weren’t even born at the beginning of this story. Once I realized that we weren’t starting with the Montague/Capulet conflict in full swing, it was quite engaging, and it was a bonus to meet Tybalt as a child, even if it was never entirely clear why he grew up with such a hate-on for the Montagues. The so-called blood feud was barely explained let alone investigated, but what really bugged me was the portrayal of Juliet as a sweet young thing and Romeo as an awkward stripling suddenly turned conniving traitor to the precious girl’s tender (ha!) heart.

I’m sorry but, hello? Has the author even read the play? Seen the movie? Romeo as a double-crossing womanizer? Seriously? I have never seen him as anything other than a poet with heroic intentions too easily foiled by fate and his own romantic nature. Juliet, on the other hand, is a pampered, impetuous firebrand whose willful passion drives the whole story.

So, toward the end of the novel, I was reading to get it over with, caring nothing for any of the players and bitter that the news of Tybalt’s death was given tabloid drama status and the reason for it never fully defined—except, of course, for that amoral scoundrel being solely responsible. Honestly, when I wasn’t impatient with the nurse’s histrionics, I was snickering at the play by play. I was saved by my library card on this one—I borrowed rather than bought the book, which had been haunting me for some while. In the end, the story I told myself about the story was far better than the story I was told!

It’s good to be reading again, though. Of late, I haven’t been as immersed in words as much as behooves my creativity; I can’t write if I don’t read, as it seems I need the work of other writers to inspire me. I have learned how to write (and how not to write!) through their efforts, for all of which I am grateful whether or not I actually enjoyed the experience. I think now, with few weeks of vacation ahead and my mind turning from mere survival to more pleasurable pursuits, it might be time to renew my passion for my craft and see where it takes me.

I Wish I Wrote That!

books that deserve to be read

The Night Circus

Station Eleven

If We Were Villains

Each of these novels had me rending my garment on first read, they were so astoundingly, beautifully written. I’ve read the first four times in four years (with the fifth scheduled for this Christmas). I’ve read the second twice, with the third time pending. I’ve just finished racing through the third, and fully intend to read it again, slowly, to savour the details missed in my zeal to see what happens next. Magical tales in their own right, the language and style of the authors (all women—coincidence?) is pure art. Villains was partly written by Shakespeare, as it features hefty chunks culled from his plays, but he also inspired the “pidgin Bard” bandied so easily between the characters. Geez, it was an astonishingly gorgeous read; I fell so deeply into the story that it became real at the expense of my reality—and it urged me to improve my own craft.

I love English. I treasure grammar as much as I do the imagery conjured by the words. Prose can be poetry, after all, and after relishing novels like these three (among others), I long to be a poet myself.

I have had no problem with purple hyperbole in the past, but the glory in these novels lies in the simple beauty of language. A few well-chosen words can ignite brighter joy and sharper horror than a rampant stream of syllables. This trio of young women has created a wonderland in words, and though I may be similarly gifted, I am always in awe when a story excites my imagination and no scene is filler.

I love to write. I love to read. I can’t do one without doing the other (I must read more!), and why would I want to, when inspiration and aspiration are stimulated as one?

While I’m raving, I must include Z in the list of books I wish I’d written. It’s a completely different story in a completely different style, yet executed with the same respect for the written word and the talent to portray raw emotion as airbrushed fancy. Strong characters will always drive a story, of course, but set design and stage direction are important, too. Keeping it simple is the hard part. I struggle with it every time I put pen to paper. Books like those at the top of this post do more than entertain me. They teach me, absorb me, frustrate me, excite me, and inspire me.

They also exhaust me—and that’s the most fun of all!

A Fine Romance

Passion is a double-edged sword. As deeply and wholly as someone can love another, equally deeply and wholly can that someone come to hate the other. Either way, when two souls are inextricably linked, what is it that holds them together? Love? Hate? Or passion?

I’ve just finished reading Therese Anne Fowler’s most excellent novel Z: a Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. Aside from being a deliciously descriptive dip into the literary world of the Jazz Age, it’s the story of Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald as told by Zelda herself. And, boy, fictionalized or no, their relationship from first encounter to last vestiges was a wild, crazy, roller coaster ride through a rainbow of emotion that should have blown them apart—and almost did, except for one thing: as written by Fowler, they were utterly and completely devoted to each other. Despite the booze and excess, the flings and flops, despite her struggle to maintain a balance and his fight to remain famous at any cost, they stayed together for more than twenty years.

They never really stopped loving each other.

Nowadays, I suppose a divorce would be inevitable since it’s so easy. Back then, not so much. Zelda’s attempt to live her own life was thwarted by the laws of the time—if she left the marriage, she forfeited everything, including her daughter. So she stayed and lost herself instead, ending up in a series of sanitaria where most of the doctors declared the cure lay in devoting herself entirely to her domestic duties of wife and mother—“the centre of a woman’s happiness”. Forget that she was a creative soul in her own right, since everything she accomplished was perceived as an extension of or due to her husband’s influence.

Of course she resented it. She even resented him (with good reason, might I add), but she understood him, too. And she loved him, knowing that he loved her as well. It was a beautiful train wreck. The insanity of excess and the bittersweet ending, however, hardly detract from the romance. Something between them endured the chaotic run through two decades. It made the book’s ending so poignant that I needed time to process it.

Romance (and I may have said this before, so bear with me) might begin with chemistry and that giddy, unbridled riot in the heart. It’s brave and bold and daring—and it can, but often doesn’t, have a happy ending. True romance stays the course through rough waters and prevails against the darkest odds. It survives birth, death, and drama. It lasts beyond the final exhausted surrender. It’s the last man standing. Not a happy ending, perhaps, but a triumphant one if the pair involved can regard each other through jaded eyes and recognize the magic that drew them together in the first place.

Scott and Zelda had a great one.

King of Kings

It’s been years since I read a novel by Stephen King. His On Writing is a staple on my bookshelf, but despite his name perennially displayed in the New Releases section at the local bookstore, the last novel I read was Gerald’s Game in 1993, and even then, I did not finish it. Too scary.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I still believe The Stand is his best work. Cal Leandros even gives it an honourable mention in Roadkill!

The man doesn’t need a book release to get my attention, however. I have long admired him for his honesty and, in particular, his sense of humour. The guy’s a hoot.

Little did I know that he and George R.R. Martin have been friends for decades, since before GRRM struck gold with A Game of Thrones (the book, not the TV series). So imagine my delight on finding a video of the two old pals having an onstage conversation when Steve’s recent book tour brought him to New Mexico. The bulk of the talk was stuff I already knew, but I always appreciate hearing how the professionals operate. One of King’s genre policies is this: “Aim for terror. If you can’t reach terror, aim for horror. If horror eludes you, settle for the gross-out.”

The other thing he said that had me rolling on the floor was during an elaboration of a storyline. He mentioned a villain’s recent diagnosis of pancreatic cancer as motivation for a diabolical act and the audience gasped as one. He looked at them and scolded, “It’s written on page nine, for Chrissakes! Spoilers? Spoilers? There’s no such thing as a spoiler. You can’t ‘spoil’ a book; people read books to have an experience, so who cares?”

Or words to that effect.

He’s right. If he was wrong, I’d only read a book once. How else can I explain my passion for revisiting The Night Circus or GRRM’s series, or Station Eleven or the Cal Leandros novels; or for multiple viewings of Orphan Black or The Newsroom, for that matter? Knowing what happens ahead of time is clearly no deterrent. It’s the joy of reconnecting with beloved characters that brings me back time and again.

I recognize that some folks prefer the slow reveal. I admit, I prefer it myself, but knowing before I saw The Empire Strikes Back that Luke Skywalker’s dad was Darth Vader did not prevent me from paying to see the movie. If you really care, you won’t care. Stephen King certainly doesn’t.

Long live the King.

GRRM

I’m a third of the way through A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. This means I’ve read the first of the three stories about Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire, Egg, and am about to embark on the second tale of their adventures—but first, I had to run for The World of Ice and Fire to read up on the politics of the time. The Targaryen kings still ruled Westeros and since a bunch of royals showed up at the tourney in The Hedge Knight, I was compelled to study up and get the names straight.

It’s hard to keep track of so many similarly sounding names (Aemon, Aegon, Aerion, Daemon, Daeron, etc.), hence my determination to get the characters straight. GRRM has said that he’d been told writers should not use names that begin with the same letter more than once in a story, which he felt restricted any cast of characters to a maximum of twenty-six. He added something along the lines of his readers being smart enough to tell their Targaryens apart. Not to mention English royal history, where Williams, Edwards, Richards and Henrys appear in nearly every generation. So he cheerfully uses names more than once, and mixes it up with derivatives of those names until you practically need a map to tell who’s who.

I’m having a ball.

Not only are the Dunk and Egg stories built on solid ground, they flow from one scene to the next, they carry the reader with ease, the imagery is bright and the voices clearly heard, and best of all, they stay with you when you’re not reading. That’s why I consulted the Westerosi Bible to get a better grip on the historic players—book in hand or book elsewhere, in some part of my psyche, I am there.

What a joy to be reminded of why I am a fan. Twenty years ago, the cover art on a paperback copy of A Game of Thrones caught my eye. I fell into the first pages while standing in the bookshop. I devoured the book itself, reading faster and faster, revelling in the writing as much as in the plot. Glorious, glorious, every page was thick and juicy and alive with colour and sound and texture. Sure, I thought it would look fab on film … but just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Season Five has taught me so. Unfortunately, I let my dismay with the TV series weaken my perception of the creator.

Dunk and Egg have reminded me of something vitally important.

GRRM is a masterful writer.

A Song of Ice and Fire was as inspiring to me as The Vampire Chronicles. Even as I read the first volume all those years ago, I was thinking, Could I write something like this? Did I dare to try?

You bet I did.

It started with a book. The written word. One writer speaking to one reader, one page at a time. And that is how I mean for it to stay.

Seriously

Too seriously. Seriously.

Taking creativity seriously is like using salt in the kitchen: it’s a necessary ingredient, but too much will ruin the dish. I realized yesterday that the sodium content in my attitude is toxic and may be why I’ve been unable to write much of anything for months.

A fun fact: no one is going to die if I don’t write. Not even I will die. I’ll be unhappy, but Ter will tell you that she won’t notice any difference because I’ve been a misery when I am writing.

I’ve been moaning about how hard it is; apprehensive about how much I’ll get done in a session; anxious about the value of what I’ll get done; and downright negative about what I do get done. It’s gotten so bad that I actually admitted to myself on the weekend that I don’t want to do it anymore. I heard the words, clear as day, in my head:

“I don’t want to write.”

Huh?

Wait a minute, kiddo. How can someone who insists that she’s a writer, who proclaims that she’d rather quit breathing than quit writing, who took four frigging weeks of vacation in order TO BE a writer not want to write????

Hm. Okay. Bits and bobs and the Sunday “cold start” could be the problem. I’m out of shape, my creative muscle gone to flab with too infrequent use, so obviously, I must dedicate myself to it.

In other words, get serious.

Hit the computer at 9:00 a.m. and keep office hours each day. Approach it like it’s my job and I’ll have to get somewhere, right?

Each morning last week, I’d tell Ter, “I’m off to work,” and I’d disappear into my room. I wrote for three solid days, started to get some momentum, struck a patch of  “uh oh, what’s happening now?” then the week was over and life got in the way.

Life does that. Life is far more demanding than the Muse because life is about survival and in the big picture, creativity isn’t. It’s nice if you can combine the two. I’m not there yet, but I had the fourth week set aside specifically to indulge inspiration. Yesterday was my first serious crack at it. Despite the weekend revelation that I don’t want to do it anymore, I decided that poor self-discipline was the problem and if I just show up, the Muse will oblige.

Well, kudos to the Muse. Who wants to work with a crabby, cynical, frustrated colleague?

I packed it in, considered slashing my wrists, and opted for some yoga stretches instead. Following that, my little voice suggested continuing with Liz Gilbert’s Big Magic, and the section I happened upon was a timely wakeup call about attitude. Approach creativity like it’s the prize at the end of the Green Mile and every step will be shackled to a concrete block. 

In other words, good luck getting anywhere.

I was reminded that my creativity is a gift. Take it seriously by viewing it with gratitude, respect and humility, but remember that it’s also supposed to be fun. It’s not work. It’s play. It’s free-flowing and experimental, and it’s safe. No one will die if it doesn’t get done.

So I’m changing my attitude.

No more “going to work.”

I am going to play.

A Virtuous Life (Part I)

Tolstoy wrote a short story called The Death of Ivan Ilyich. I haven’t read it, but I know the premise. On his deathbed, the protagonist laments, “What if my whole life has been wrong?”

That’s a scary thought, especially when one considers that Jacob Marley, in A Christmas Carol and also on his deathbed, knew that his life had been wrong.

Only it hadn’t been. Neither had Ivan’s. Neither is mine. Nor is yours.

Nobody’s life is ever “wrong”. We may regret, at the end, how we chose to live it, but life is meant to teach us by letting us make mistakes. Even poor choices are merely choices, decisions made whether or not we are aware of making them.

The saddest choice a person can make is to give up too soon. Children are shaped by external influences: parents, siblings, friends, peers, media, religion, etc. The first thirty years of my life (this time) were spent in pursuit of someone else’s idea of happiness. During those years, I believed my primary purpose was to marry and have children, be a support to hubby and a pillar in my community. Failing that (which I did), I was expected to get a secure job and settle into the role of small spanner in the larger works.

Writing was a nice-to-have.

It still is.

I had my midlife crisis at thirty. By religious standards, I was past my best-before date and other women my age were married and bearing children. What was wrong with me that I wasn’t able to do the same?

Only upon closer inspection did I discover that—gasp!—I was happy with my life. Oh, it was a little rough, being gainfully unemployed and still on the marriage market, but Ter and I were making ends meet and having a ball wherever possible. I was writing, she was drawing, we were young, optimistic, and I still had my Mustang. We regularly tripped to Vancouver for rock concerts and went to the movies a lot; even after we landed those secure jobs and became pension prisoners, we spent our cruise/golfing vacation money on Def Leppard and Duran Duran tickets—more than once!

After I turned forty, I started thinking more deeply about life’s meaning. More importantly, about my life’s meaning. I’ve heard that we spend most of our lives trying to become who we were when we started in those magical, new-penny moments after we were born. Everyone comes to this world with a plan and pure intent. The first half of our life messes us up, and we spend the rest of it (hopefully) getting back to ourselves.

This involves unlearning what loving but fallible folks have taught us from day one, and unlistening to the know-it-all ego that has its own motivation for holding us back. It’s a process that requires daily recalibration and ongoing forgiveness of ourselves and others. Most of us will depart this estate with a greater understanding than we had when we arrived. Some of us won’t—but guess what? They get to repeat Grade Three! 

… to be continued

Bibliography VIII

“Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore” – Robin Sloan

It’s not often that I laugh out loud while reading a book. Humour is brutally hard to write, yet the narrator in this whimsical offering is naturally funny. And endearing. And determined. Clay Jannon is an unemployed twentysomething geek who, out of sheer desperation, takes a job as the night clerk at Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. With hours to kill and only a few regular customers, he notices something a little odd about the set up and sets out to solve the puzzle. His curiosity takes him and his friends on a quest to discover the secret of immortality.

But is it a mystery? A comedy? A fairy tale? An adventure story?

My impression is that it’s all of the above, with maybe a couple of other items thrown in to make it … well, it can’t get much more interesting. While it’s not exactly an edge-of-your-seat suspense novel, it’s most certainly an engaging read. Clay is a wonderful character, and his world is a beautifully rendered blend of modern day technology and the old-fashioned (dare I say) values of friendship, loyalty and generosity. His narrative is smooth and easy to read, his humour is genuinely amusing, and his friends, just like everybody else, are products of their age. The girl of his dreams works at Google. His roommate is a model builder at Industrial Light and Magic. His best friend from childhood started a computer digital imaging company out of college and has already made his first million.

And then there’s Penumbra, the elderly keeper of the bookstore and member of an ancient fellowship called the Unbroken Spine. This group has spent years searching for the secret of immortality that is supposedly buried in the 15^th century memoir of their founder, but until Clay comes to work for Mr. Penumbra, they’ve been doing it the hard way:

Without technology.

Clay and his buddies get on the trail and stick with it until they reach the logical end … and while the trip itself is a veritable hoot, the treasure that waits at the logical end is purely magical.

It’s a statement of the author’s talent that I haven’t even mentioned his name or given him credit for spinning this sparkling story. Congrats to Robin Sloan for creating such vivid characters and letting them loose in this truly absorbing story. For all the reasons stated above, I absolutely loved his book and will keep it around for a second run at some point in the future. It’s a real gem that’s worth more than one round.

Bibliography VII

“Station Eleven” – Emily St. John Mandel

Once in a while a story comes along that alters my perception of the world. This is such a story.

Written in a similar-but-not-really style as The Night Circus, it, too, is a glass box of jewels. In this instance, however, the box is tinted. The jewels within are as luminous, as colourful, as rich and multi-faceted, but seen through darkened glass, the overall effect is somber. Glorious. Terrifying. Romantic. Despairing. Panicky. Violent. Tranquil. Remorseful. Wistful. Hopeful.

Brilliant.

Those who must label everything call it a sci-fi novel, but it’s really about people: people at the end of the world, people surviving the end of the world, people creating a new world. Humans are nothing if not resilient. We’re also fairly flexible; as one of the main characters observes, we can adapt to anything.

I admit, I resisted this one at first. A friend requested it for Christmas, and when I read the dust jacket I thought, oh, cheerful. A global pandemic takes out ninety-nine percent of the earth’s population practically overnight and the remaining one percent must figure out how to continue in a world where everything and everyone they’ve known no longer exists. It’s told in such a way that the horror is broken up by vignettes culled from the characters’ lives, both before and after the flu. One twist is a main character dying of a heart attack in the opening scene, yet through flashbacks and flash forwards, his life and the people in it become integral to the proceedings. In this way, the reader is spared the stress of a chronological buildup, given a breather from the spreading panic of passengers diverted to and eventually stranded at an airport, or a freaked-out city dweller hauling grocery carts of supplies through a snowstorm to his brother’s apartment. The world after the flu features a band of travelling players moving from settlement to settlement, performing Shakespeare for the locals “because survival is insufficient”. Incredibly, Ms. Mandel manages to tie all these threads together around the central theme and paints both worlds with a stark and desperate beauty.

Why did I pick it up at last? GRRM recommended it. Erin Morgenstern wrote a blurb for it. My waiting-for-the-end-of-the-world buddy loved it, though I’m unsure why at this point. I must discuss with her when I return her copy. She loaned it to me but, again like The Night Circus, I intend to read and re-read Station Eleven, ergo a copy of my own is imminent.

On the day I finished reading, I took a long walk through the neighbourhood and paid specific attention to the things around me: careless cars speeding along the road, the infernal joggers plugged into their iPods, gaggles of tourists juggling cameras and Starbucks cups. The convenience of my cell phone, of electric light and running water. Of lawn mowers and float planes and freighters loaded with shipping containers from across the Pacific Ocean. Then I looked at the gardens and imagined them overgrown, the flowers a haphazard tangle of colour instead of neatly trimmed and deliberately placed. Butterflies and hummingbirds flitting from bloom to bloom, crows pecking idly at the grass between the rocks. The wind whispering in my ear. I know this will end someday. Whether I end before, with or after it, I don’t know. Some things will endure. Natural things. The bugs and critters and plants and sky will continue as if we were never here. So will those of us who are left.

Will we create something better the next time? Or will we just want to go home?

Bibliography VI

“Blood Canticle”—Anne Rice

I love Lestat. I love Anne Rice. I’m not too crazy about the Mayfair witches, especially Rowan and Mona, so having them show up in this volume of The Vampire Chronicles was going to be a challenge, but I was willing to give it a whirl.

Parts of it were dazzling. She will never lose her ability to mesmerize with written imagery. I think I even got the point of the story—Lestat longs to be a saint; he wants to do good though he believes he is eternally damned, so he sets out to solve a mystery for a pair of mortal witches—but the end result was more crazy quilt than polished brocade.

It helps to like the characters, and I don’t like the two Mayfairs who showed up here. I don’t get why Lestat insists on making a vampire of everyone he loves when a) he always ends up alone and b) their mortality is what attracts him in the first place. He does it over and over, and it always backfires on him. He’s young in vampire years, but really? I’m way younger than he is and I’ve figured it out. But why he felt so passionately for one mortal in this story absolutely escapes me, as I saw nothing remotely lovable about her and he didn’t explain it. He was simply, suddenly, obsessed and in love. That relationship didn’t fit within the story, either; it was more of a distraction, an annoying buzz that popped up during a lull in the action, and culminating in a final chapter that meant pretty well nothing so far as I could tell.

Then there’s the haunting—he’s plagued by the Mayfair patriarch’s ghost, who resents Lestat stealing the favoured daughter from the light, but again, that relationship didn’t work for me. It made too little sense. I couldn’t figure out how he appeased the spirit enough to make him go away, so it either wasn’t explained very well or I didn’t care enough to carry it with me when I wasn’t actually reading.

I like a story that stays with me between bouts.

It’s painful to admit. I didn’t get it, so I didn’t feel it, and that made me an indifferent reader. Whether a book is good or bad is completely subjective, that’s why I place little value on critical reviews. I will rave about a book that inspires me, however, and adhere—or try—to the adage about saying nothing if you can’t say something positive. I’ll wear the fact that I missed the author’s vision in this instance, but the greater angst lies in my having once understood and adored her work. Honestly, her earlier novels are magical. Her later ones harbour diamonds in the prose, but the stories are less coherent, more chaotic and peopled with characters in relationships that I find hard to swallow. Blood Canticle, unfortunately, almost choked me.

Michael, My Michael

He turned 73 on March 27. My first screen love. My only love, really. I’ve had brief infatuations and short term affairs over the past forty years, but he has been my one and only movie star, my enduring romance, my sentimental favourite.

Who knows why? Because I was fourteen when he played D’Artagnan. Because I was newly in pain and looking to escape. Because I loved a good story and he was the passionate if inept hero of a dandy. I wanted to write my own swashbuckler and The Four Musketeers got me started—but he’s played more than one character. He was busy in the 70s, too, playing everything from Shakespeare to science fiction, sometimes a bit of a miscast and other times a perfect fit, but always blond, handsome, and gifted with that golden syrup voice.

I could listen to him speak forever.

It was during something like the sixth or seventh viewing, in the scene where D’Artagnan finds Constance dead and sets out to avenge her, when all the requisite factors combined to awaken the giant. He was the catalyst that kicked my imagination into gear and started me writing in earnest. I wrote about heroes who looked just like him, but I started reading, too. Dumas and the Bard, and George Clayton Johnson—if his film was based on a book, I read the book as well. I saw every movie, staying up late on weekends to catch his earlier work in The Strange Affair and Something for Everyone on TV (the days before video tapes and DVDs). I went to the university for the Franco Zeffirelli double-header of The Taming of the Shrew with Romeo and Juliet. I kept a scrapbook of promo pics and articles and “seen around Hollywood” snapshots. I guess I was a little obsessed with him, with the movies, with the stories, with the fantasies of all three combining to ignite my true passion for the written word.

It was a magical time of intense contrast. Every day was a fight to get mobile, of physio treatments and medical appointments, but every day was also a revelation of new ideas, of literary discovery and expanding imagination. It was truly the best of times and the worst of times, and Michael York was in the middle of it.

I did all the stupid teenaged stuff, but four decades later, despite the aforementioned flings and affairs and rock stars notwithstanding, my heart yet leaps when I hear his voice or see his face. It’s more than the remnant of a schoolgirl crush. It is a comfy blend of respect, admiration and gratitude.

It is also—definitely—love.

Bibliography V

“Prince Lestat”— Anne Rice

Loved it! But, of course, I love Lestat. The self-proclaimed James Bond of vampires, he is likely more celebrated than Dracula … though he hasn’t had the same amount of screen time. Something to do with copyright law, no doubt. And just as well. What screen versions I’ve seen have fallen far short of my imagination. Some things are better left on the page. One might also suspect the author, in this case, of falling back on her most famous hero to resurrect a flagging career, but I tend to think that the character simply had something more to say. The scribe merely answered the call.

That is, after all, what we writers do.

For the longest time, I revered the way Anne Rice did it, too. Her style was my blueprint. I aspired to write those deeply lush and sensual descriptions myself. I perceived her work as the most meticulously cut-and-polished jewels: richly-hued, multi-faceted, artfully displayed, and absolutely bedazzling to the mind’s eye. I swore to write as well as Anne Rice or die trying.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I began this read in luscious anticipation and discovered myself editing the copy as I went along! Make no mistake: the story is riveting, the possibilities purely believable, the characters drawn in lovingly minute detail, the scenery meticulously described … but the writing itself runs rough, seeming more like an initial draft than a satiny smooth final version. I found myself making mental corrections when I should have been slipping into a world I remember as flawlessly buffed and burnished. I emerged thinking—arrogantly, perhaps?—that I could have done a better job with this absolutely wonderful story!

Which begs the question: which is more important, the story or the telling? Does a good writer make a half-baked story work? Or does a good story make a half-baked writer look competent? I guess either option is true, depending as much on the reader as any plot portent or turn with a phrase. I consider myself—arrogantly, perhaps?—to be a fairly high level reader, which is why I’m resisting the reading assignment from hell (blog post TBD), and because I love wordplay as much as I do a vivid character or an intriguing storyline, I demand a lot from my authors. Chuck Wendig advises all writers to read good books and bad books, one to inspire humility and the other to inspire confidence. Prince Lestat is a damned good story. The writing may even meet today’s appalling standard. It’s just not up to my memory of Anne Rice’s standard, and that makes it a little disappointing.

To assure myself that I have not misremembered her earlier skill, I am revisiting The Tale of the Body Thief, which also happens to be my favourite of the Lestat stories. And, no, I have not misremembered. I am sitting with him at the café, I am laughing out loud at his ongoing angst with Louis, I am seeing the sights and smelling the scents and shivering in the snow with no internal editor to distract me from the magic of the tale. So what gives? Did the author get lazy? Did she become too famous to require an editor? Is the editor intimidated by her fame? A fan will pick up the book no matter what the critics say, which is as it should be, and a fan will make up his/her own mind as to whether or not the money/time was wasted. For myself, it absolutely was not. I learned a lot from this book, even more than the future of the Rice vampires or the fate of their prince. I learned a little more about myself, about my craft, and about how important it is for a writer to keep reading.

Now, about that assignment from hell …