Our Lady

I am the spire that stood for 850 years. A beacon of hope, a symbol of faith, a call to God. A steadfast, enduring testament to a greater, unconditional, universal love.

A billion lives have been lived around me. I am a marker from all sides, a destination for some, a sanctuary for others, never changing and ever present to all. I have survived rebellion, revolution, conquest and occupation. I have witnessed violence against the innocents and man’s inhumanity to man.

I bear my own scars, evidence of repair and recovery over decades of existence.

I am beautiful. Magical. Wondrous. Beloved. Admired. Appreciated for my age, my art, and the comfort in my presence. You may not share my faith, yet you’ve known me all your life. I have always been and always will be.

So you thought.

When the flames came too close, when the fire burned too hot, I was consumed. I toppled.

I fell through the roof and disappeared from sight.

Am I no more?

With love, with time, with compassion and support, with my gods’ help, I will stand once more.

Not as I was. I will be changed for the better. I will be stronger. Brighter. Built to code for a world bent on grinding me to dust.

My purpose remains though my remains be gone.

Avec plus d’amour,

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.

Terry Fox

Bup-buhda-bup, bup-buhda-bup, bup-buhda-bup.

This is the sound that meets you at the start of the Terry Fox exhibit I visited at the museum last week. It’s the audio on a video of a handsome boy with a grim demeanour and a ghastly prosthetic leg, running (can you even call it “running”? It was more of an awkward, clunking hop) along the serpentine Trans-Canada Highway, uphill and down, rain or shine, utterly alone with no sound but the rhythm of his gait.

Bup-buhda-bup, bup-buhda-bup, bup-buhda-bup.

I stood at the exhibit entrance and thought, I won’t make it through this.

Well, I did make it. The exhibit is not designed to wring a tear and make you reach for your wallet. It’s simply the story of how a kid from Port Coquitlam set out to make a difference and became an unintentional hero. More than that, he became a part of our national story.

I was nineteen years old when the Marathon of Hope began. Naturally, since it didn’t concern me personally, I was only dimly aware that a boy who’d lost a leg to cancer was trying to raise money for research by running from St John’s to Victoria during the summer of 1980. The awareness only came after his solitary run had started to gain momentum and he was suddenly featured on every nightly newscast.

Prior to that, he was running pretty much by himself, with a buddy in the van behind him and his brother along for moral support (and to act as referee when he and said buddy started scrapping on the road). The sheer magnitude of what he was trying to accomplish completely escaped me until it was over and schools were being named for him. I regretted not paying more attention at the time, but thanks to his family and a dedicated team, the details of his journey are available in ways they wouldn’t have been had he lived to reach his modest goal of raising a million dollars.

The exhibit chronicles the evolution of what became the Marathon of Hope, from the initial diagnosis of Terry’s cancer (his name wasn’t even mentioned in the doctor’s report; he was referred to as “the boy”) to the marathon’s premature end in Thunder Bay, where his health finally failed and he had to fly home for more treatment. Everyone knows how the story ended, of course. That’s part of the tragedy—yet, as is so often the case, some lights burn so brightly that their lives are destined to be short. Besides, if Terry Fox had successfully emptied his jar of Atlantic Ocean into the Pacific at Mile 0, the effect may not have been so enduring. He was a remarkable young man, as compassionate as he was determined, as courageous as he must have been frightened, yet he persevered because he had watched other people suffer in the cancer ward and decided that it had to stop.

Today is the annual Terry Fox run. It happens every September and has done so for years. It’s coordinated in countless communities all across Canada. People sign up for it who weren’t even born when Terry dipped his artificial foot in the ocean off Newfoundland. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been raised to fund cancer research and will continue to be raised because of his mission to make others’ lives better.

The weather report predicted rain for today—the first rain we’ve seen all summer. My first thought was of sympathy for all those people who’ve committed to participate in the run ... then I remembered the video at the opening of the museum display.

Bup-buhda-bup, bup-buhda-bup, bup-buhda-bup.

Ongoing “Hysteria”

“That’s Def Leppard? What happened???”

I’ll tell you what happened. Somewhere between 1984 and 1987, the scrawny lads with bad perms and fake leather trousers morphed into bona fide rock idols. Nowadays it’s hard to recall on demand what I felt about Rick Savage then, but the better part of three decades hasn’t dimmed the spark that jumps when I revisit the video for “Animal”. I’d also bet Ter can say the same about Joe Elliott, who went through a similar maturation phase in the same time. I’m unsure which of us experienced the thud and which of us felt the ripple when the Leppard returned from the grave more sinewy and sensuous than the half-grown cubs they had been in 1983. All I know for sure is that, two days after Joe’s twenty-eighth birthday in 1987, “Hysteria” was released (in more ways than one).

I’m reminiscing because the album turned twenty-nine a couple of weeks ago—alarmingly but not surprisingly, two days after Joe’s fifty-seventh birthday—and the anniversary got me thinking about what the album meant at the time, and what it still means today.

Professionally, it was a game-changer. They had no idea what they were unleashing; this record broke records all over the place, but in our house, it also started a love affair that inspired me to write a legend. Nobody saw that happening, but I’m grateful that it did. That connection makes this band more precious than almost anyone else in my music library—three guesses on the one that trumps them and the first two don’t count!

Hormones and creativity aside, “Hysteria” is still a kick-butt and glossy rock album. It spawned something like half a dozen singles and sent the lads on a two year world tour, throwing them into the spin cycle that regrettably cost one of them his life … though I suspect he was doomed anyway. This album is a testament to Steve Clark’s rock n’ roll prowess. He lived to play guitar, and the guitar on “Hysteria” is unlike the guitar on any other record by any other band. It’s a stand alone, a work that has kept him so vividly alive within the group’s legend that the fellow who took his place twentysome years ago is still considered “the new guy”.

It is not, however, my favourite Leppard album. That said, when the band played it live in its entirety for its twenty-fifth anniversary, they brought down the house. Ter and I watched the DVD in honour of the King’s birthday on August 1. It coincided with the Victoria’s annual “Symphony Splash”, and just as the Leppard concert ended in our living room, so did the orchestra’s in the harbour, and the fireworks exploded to finish both in appropriately grand style.

The band has been through a lot since that album was released. So have Ter and I. Our paths have crossed on occasion. Gone are the days when we’d leave the island to see them, but when they come to us, we’re there. I continually lament that the set list remains stuck in the 80s, and Joe continually insists that’s what the fans want to hear. When I read in the “Viva Hysteria” liner notes that they’d wondered how to play the same songs for ten nights in a row without losing their minds, I almost lost mine. Guys, I thought, you play the first side of “Hysteria” in every single frikkin’ gig you play!

But that’s nitpicking. Sort of. What matters is the legacy to Steve; the bar that was set for every rock album that followed; and the passion that burst in the hearts of two Canadian girls on that day in 1987, when Much Music premiered the new single and one of us blurted:

“That’s Def Leppard? What happened???”

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.

Bibliography XII

“James Bond Cars” – Frédéric Brun

And in the “Pretentious Coffee Table Book” department, a hardcover tome packed with photos, anecdotes and specifications associated with the vehicular co-stars in the 007 series from “Dr No” to “SPECTRE”, including the oddball entries like space buggies, tanks, and airplanes. Did I die and go to Heaven when I unwrapped this baby? Pretty much. Yeah, sure, there are photos of Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig sprinkled throughout, but … who cares?

Ter claims that I have an instinct for engineering and I have always had an eye for automobiles (I remember identifying a Dodge 500 by its rear lights when I was a little kid in Quebec), so my excitement here is far less surprising than the giver of the gift—my little tea fairy, Treena, who has no idea at all about cars beyond trying to avoid being hit by one in a crosswalk (so far, so good). Whenever I start rhapsodising about the Tesla in the parkade or the Maserati standing outside the coffee house, she glazes over. But, gods bless her, she thought of me when she saw this book and I will adore her forever because of it.

Page after page of glossy, glorious photos in black and white and in colour, of Aston Martins in various stages of assembly, blocks of text describing how the DB5 and beyond became part of the Bond mystique, stories from the drivers and technicians behind the stunts … and there, on page 81, is a full colour shot of the Mustang Mach 1 from “Diamonds Are Forever”. The car was a bit player in my favourite of the 007 films, but it stole the scene it was in by ripping it up during a chase in Las Vegas. Other Mustangs have appeared in Bond movies—Ford gave the producers a pre-production model for the scene in “Goldfinger” where gentleman spy is distracted by pretty girl in white convertible, and a million new cars were sold as a result.

I’ll expect nothing but pleasure when I pick up this book to kill the few minutes between dinner and dishes, but then again, who knows? Inspiration can hit when one isn’t looking, and a hot car often heralds the introduction of a new character with a story to tell …

Read = Write

The best gift for a writer—this writer, anyway—is always a book. It’s true that I am more inclined to write if I am reading at the same time. The more interesting the book, the more creative I tend to be. Books educate and inspire. They entertain. Sometimes they do all three at once.

Those are the best books.

I scored a bibliophilic hat trick this Christmas. Three of my dearest, most discerning friends each discovered the perfect tome to adorn my collection. Also included in the loot is a Game of Thrones colouring book—I may be scunnered at the TV show, but I remain loyal to the novels.

My annual relishing of The Night Circus ended on Christmas Eve. Perfect timing, even though it was unplanned. I started reading before vacation and found myself lost in that world once more, admiring the beauty in every scene, hanging on every word spoken by Celia and Marco in their moments together. A masterpiece of poetry in prose, of painting in words. A wonderful, magical, mystical tale that’s a good start to the holidays even though it’s not a holiday piece. If it pays homage to any occasion, it’s Hallowe’en.

Previously, I had been trying to get through a book that proved unable to engage me. The premise was a good one, but the narrative was mediocre and the characters were painful. A good book has me either reading it every night or carrying it around with me in the event of spontaneous tea breaks. With this one, days would pass between one chapter and the next; I almost had to discipline myself to pick it up of a night. Finally, with November on the horizon and no hope of finishing the sucker before my annual visit to The Night Circus, I called it quits.

Needless to say, I wrote nothing during my struggle to enjoy it. Perhaps my life was hectic enough to provide a weak excuse, but I firmly believe that whatever I am reading at any one time exerts some influence on my own production. My happy place is the space between the real and the surreal. I don’t read much non-fiction, and the autobiographies of icons are only engaging if they’re well-written. (An interesting life is not so interesting when penned by an inept hand.) My imagination can be triggered, however, by a random photo in a pretentious coffee table book—it’s true when they say a picture is worth a thousand words. Some are worth a thousand pages!

With that in mind, my next few posts are about the latest additions to my library and what I hope to achieve by reading them.

Enjoy (but not as much as I will!)

Everything Old is New Again

Is it cheating if a new story idea features familiar characters? It’s been a long time since I’ve written anyone new (or old, for that matter), but a few weeks ago, I started looping a song from the 70s and with it came a scene so powerful that I had to stop what I was doing and let it play out in my mind.

With the playing came the questions. Who, what, and why? “Where” was obvious from the song. “Why” became clear once “who” was answered, and if I bucked the characters’ identities at first, it’s only because I already know them.

The story appears to be a bridge in one of my ongoing vampire sagas, which is fine. At least it’s not a fourth variation on the vampire theme. I’m rather pleased that each of my three vampire worlds stands alone from the other two, but really. How many vampire societies can one author write before she begins to repeat herself?

My dilemma—if it even exists—is a growing concern that perhaps I am unable to write new characters. I don’t want to be the artist who paints the same tree for the rest of her life. I want to explore new worlds (and seek out new civilizations, ha ha), yet the comfort of a familiar voice, even a villain’s voice, is almost irresistible.

Like most writers, I get attached to my characters. When I want to go home, I return to Castasia, where the cast is so huge that I actually could spend the rest of my life writing about them. I still have plans to revamp (no pun intended) the Cassandra story from 2000, and a fourth Black story is presently incubating. I am not adverse to new characters by any means. I have a bunch of half-finished projects to prove it … so why is it that this latest nugget is about existing characters?

It probably doesn’t matter. Three vampire worlds and a mountain fantasy likely contain more characters than a lot of short fiction writers will conjure in a lifetime. The last thing I want is to be one of those folks who leaves the names blank and fill them in by global replacement after the story is finished. If I know the players so well, they know me as well, and that’s why they return.

There you go, Ru. No dilemma. Write on.

Def Leppard

Cool graphics, too!

Their thirteenth studio album is self-titled. Fitting, from a band who needs no introduction. Every track on the disc is undeniably Leppard—the quintessential 80’s rock band. Not metal and not pop, but a perfect blend of the two that no one else managed to achieve despite the multitude of those who tried. Listen to any other hair bands from the era and you’ll hear a plethora of Joe Elliott wannabes, wailing away at fever pitch yet never quite duplicating, and certainly not surpassing, the wildcat yowl that made him famous.

And that sounds better now than it did then.

Slang remains my favourite Leppard album. I like its darkness, and its maturity. By that point in their career, the boys had become men and were unafraid to show it. There is pain in that album. There is loss. There is anger and betrayal and bitterness and desire, all so powerfully portrayed that you almost don’t recognize the work as theirs.

Maybe that’s why it didn’t sell.

The band spent the years after Slang trying to recapture what some fans feared they had lost: their signature sound. Euphoria kinda worked because it was obvious. X was a semi-departure into pop that also kinda worked (and inspired me to write the first volumes of Fixed Fire). Yeah! was a 70s cover album that totally worked because they made every track their own (their version of Thin Lizzy’s “Don’t Believe Me” blew me away). Songs from the Sparkle Lounge veered a little further off the beaten path, but you know what? Every successful band has a signature sound no matter what they produce—anything the Leps record will sound like the Leps because that’s who they are. No one else can sound like them, hence no one else will sound like them, and now that we’ve reached this inevitable conclusion, let me introduce you to what might be the best Leppard album since Hysteria.

I’ve played it from end to end a couple of times and I can’t find a throwaway track. It’s all gold. Maybe “Dangerous” is a little cheesy, but the guitars still kick butt, and as mentioned at the beginning of the post, His Royal Leppardness has maintained a powerful set of pipes. Really. I heard him perform live in April. Screaming in tune in his twenties was one thing. He’s still doing it in his fifties. I’d pit him against any of the present day howlers and dare any of them to keep pace with him.

This is a fun album. Sure, some of the lyrics are mildly embarrassing when sung by a middle-aged man, but there are serious sentiments, too. The guitars are bright and sharp. The bass is bold and occasionally funky (Sav is clearly a Queen fan). The drums boom and Joe’s voice is magnificent. I don’t say any this through my hormones, either. Def Leppard is a genuine, rock solid performance that deserves two things:

Play it loud; and

Guys, play it live! PLEASE!

The Return of the Leppard King

I thought I’d fallen out of love with them. Last December, I heard that the former producer of the Q Morning Show had died in a car crash on snowy roads and I was looking up further info on the station’s website. I was so intent my mission that notice of the Leps’ concert date on the coming events list gleaned naught but a huh? Then my wee sister IM’d me: “Def Leppard is coming to town. Are you guys going?”

“I dunno,” I wrote back, feeling uncomfortably lukewarm about what had once sent my temperature to thermonuclear heights. Joe and the boys had fallen off my radar. The world he had inspired was in a holding pattern while my passion for vampires raged anew. Neither Ter nor I listened to their albums anymore; we didn’t follow them on F***book and hadn’t visited their website in years. In fact, we were living in fear of the band turning up to play the River Rock Casino or, worse, on PBS as part of the “Rock of 80s” nostalgia pledge drive package that you just know is coming down the road.

My email pinged. The Q Crew newsletter arrived in my inbox, letting me know that the Leps were coming and tix were going on sale that Friday. I flipped it to Ter with a feeble: “What do you think?”

My phone immediately rang. “Of course!” she practically yelled when I picked up. I hadn’t heard her so pumped about anything in a long while.

“Really? I didn’t think you’d want to go.”

“Why not?” she demanded. “He’s coming to me!” Which, roughly translated, means that she’s done with traveling to see the Leppard King, but if Victoria is on their itinerary, us going is a no-brainer.

Of the Joes we know, Elliott is to Ter what Perry is to me—that mysterious memory of a previous life where he played a role so important that the effect has lingered through dimensions. Crazy, yes. Improbable, maybe. Possible, definitely. Why not? No matter what you believe, something about his current incarnation sparked the birth of our mutual hero, Lucius Aurelius, and the world of Fixed Fire. For that, I am eternally grateful to him, to Ter, and to the band who played the soundtrack for Treason.

So, yeah, she’s right. Of course we must go to the gig. Of course we must pay homage. Of course he’s come for a particular reason at a particular time, and isn’t it funny that I’ve gone back to Castasia once more? His Royal Leppardness has no idea, but it truly is a homecoming for him.

Four of us are going—Ter, my wee sister, my boy sister, and me. The kids are fans for a different reason; they just like to rock, and if you wanna get rocked, then the Leps are DEFinitely the band for the job.

More to come …

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.

Thunder-struck

I’ve not been writing much of late. It’s typical at this time of year, when fiscal-year-end eclipses life outside the office. I’ve been reading instead, seeking inspiration to keep from freaking out that I’ve lost my gift. Honestly, it happens every spring, and every spring I must remind myself that this ain’t my first rodeo. After Easter, I’ll have time that I presently don’t have to create. In the meantime, read, read, read. I’m almost finished with Lestat and have borrowed Station Eleven from a friend after reading kudos for it from GRRM and Erin Morgenstern.

I’ve also scored a copy of She’s Got Soul—a compilation CD from the Starbucks collection that features Nina Simone, Amy Winehouse, Etta James, and a host of other soul sistahs. It’s squaring off against Diana Krall’s Wallflower for air time on my stereo. I’ve played around with opening scenes and story ideas on Tuesday nights, but have been totally disinclined to boot the writing rig on my days off. I did discover that I can stream whole episodes of X Company from cbc.ca, however, and I’ve baked a lot of muffins in that downtime. Ter and I were also supposed to travel to Vancouver for the Flyers/Canucks game on the 17^th, but the energy required to get there, plus the inconvenience of losing two workdays at this critical juncture, convinced us to stay home and watch the game on TV.

It’s the worst time to wrestle with my muse. I am easily frustrated by alluring fragments for new works and reminders of those that have stalled. I realize that I haven’t finished anything since January, when the speed picked up at work, and have recently (irrationally) wondered if I will ever finish anything that isn’t about vampires. This prompted me to consider, for the nth time, unraveling the novel to the first eight chapters and writing it in another direction though the only thing wrong with what I’ve written so far is me.

Ter and I saw Celtic Thunder perform on March 11. The lads came to Victoria on their “Best Of” tour, and with Damian McGinty returned to the fold, I was taken back in time to the early days of my Fixed Fire series. The first few volumes were driven by Def Leppard and Sarah McLachlan, but a good chunk of the next generation was fuelled by the Celtic boys and “Celtic Woman” before them. Hearing the songs that sparked so vibrantly in my imagining a handful of years ago was a welcome jolt to the system last week. At this point, I’m either winding down at work or completely desperate to escape it, because seeing the show brought back all the passion I felt for my Castasian characters and their wild green mountainous magical world. This past weekend, I dragged out the novel again, reconnected with the story, and have committed to finishing the f***er or die trying.

This is volume 7. I’ve got material for one more after this, and part of my motivation to finish Reijo’s story is so I can get to Aurelia’s. Make no mistake; I adore Reijo. He’s my white knight in dented armour and he deserves a happy ending. I’m just not very good at happy endings, so doing right by him has been a struggle. I need him now, though, to prove to myself that vampires are not my sole strength, to get me through year-end and give me a project for a much-needed writing holiday planned for some time in April.

Not Your Average Joe

the coveted Christmas prezzie

He’s on my radar once more—Aerosmith’s inimitable lead guitarist, known predominantly throughout the rock world as “Mister Joe Perry.” After 15 years of radio silence, I saw his autobiography on a shelf at the bookstore and stopped so abruptly that, had I been on the highway, I’d have caused a multi-vehicle pileup.

My heart did that crazy swoopy thing that hearts do when something too deep to reach is touched.

I dropped a five-ton hint on Ter, and if the book wasn’t beneath the tree on Christmas morning, I’d have gone out on Boxing Day to get it myself. (Sneaky Ter—she fooled my nosy fingers with a copy of Prince Lestat and disguised Rocks as a big square something wrapped in Nutcracker-themed paper. She knows.)

There was a time when I owned an extensive collection of Aerosmith albums. I even persuaded Ter to accompany me to a live show during the Get a Grip tour—the scariest crowd I’ve ever been a part of, but seeing the man himself made the risk worthwhile. He was in his prime at the time, when I believed that a man is at his best in his mid-to-late-30s. Mr. Perry was actually in his early 40s, challenging my parameters with flowing black hair and those long, smooth muscles. And he has aged in typically uncompromising style: he turned 64 on September 10 and still commands a third look.

So, what gives? I no longer have my Aerosmith albums, nor did I hang onto the band bio I devoured in the 1990s. I thought that he and I were done, that the affair was over. Gods are irreplaceable, of course, but even the vampire he sired has lain silent for almost two decades.

At one time, I considered him a strictly hormonal crush. Now I am unsure. Now I suspect a connection on some other level, a memory from another life in another world. It’s possible. It’s actually probable, given what I’m learning about how souls are but satellites of the mothership. I suppose it could be as simple as biological hardwiring, but if the appeal was purely physical, I doubt I’d care to do anything more than mate with him. This is not so. Not purely, anyway.

Rocks has jumped the queue to next in line after I finish my annual holiday wallow in The Night Circus. I am certain that it will be a fascinating read and reveal no common ground between him and me (except that we’re both Virgos). I am unlikely to buy any more Aerosmith albums, and when he played Victoria with his spinoff band a couple of years ago, I wasn’t the least bit tempted to get tickets … though I did get some cool pics of the tour bus.

What mystifies me is the crazy swoopy heart thing caused by someone I have not and will not meet. I may not know him, but I recognize him. Was he a lord in a previous life? Definitely. Was he my lord? I doubt it. All I can say is that he was on my radar before radar existed and he’s come around again.

It’s a deliciously, creatively compelling mystery, one that has borne fruit in the past and may signal something that I, as a writer, have been avoiding for more than a year. If Joe Perry is back, then Marcel de Chauvigny is sure to follow … and his is a story I don’t want to write.

Extraordinary Miracles III

“The Concert”

Gee, maybe I am a fan!

Ter and I missed my niece’s wedding reception because we had tickets with our good buddy Treena to see Sarah McLachlan the same night. I have never seen Sarah live, though I have every album except her greatest hits—which, if you want to be literal about it, means that I have her greatest hits, just not on a single disc. I didn’t even realize that I have all her discs. 

How can someone be a fan and not know it until the night before the show? Maybe because I had not been driven to see her live? Not until last spring, anyway, when Shine On was released and I got word of a tour starting in Victoria on October 18. The email notification came and I debated getting tickets. It’s no fun going alone, and Ter isn’t enough of a fan to make me make her go with me. Treena has some of her albums, though, so I thought I’d ask if she wanted to go. Then Ter said she’d come with us just for the joy in watching us see an icon perform live in our hometown. So I got the tickets and put them away until October.

In a day piled high with extraordinary miracles, the concert was the cherry on top. First, the seats turned out to be most excellent – the only three seats in the second row up in the bowl, just shy of right angles to the stage. The set was modeled after a living room, with cozy chairs, carpets, a couch, and hanging lamps reminiscent of Christmas ornaments. At 8:00, a woman who could have been my sister walked on stage and welcomed everyone to the show. She explained the format, the band came on behind her, and this normal, chatty individual instantly morphed into Sarah McLachlan performing Flesh and Blood off the new album. Even then, it didn’t really register that I was watching her play live until the second song, Buildinga Mystery, which is one of my favourite Sarah songs and numbers among her biggest hits. I think it won a Grammy; the album, Surfacing, certainly did. Her voice is so distinct, so unique, that it stands alone among the voices of her generation, but when she’s talking, she sounds like any other Canadian girl and you’d be hard-pressed to believe your eyes when they try to tell your brain that yep, she’s the real deal.

She doesn’t need a band. Her songs are poems set to music; she can sit at a piano and mesmerize you with a range of emotion that defies description. Treena put it best after the show: with almost every song, I thought, oh, my favourite! Until the next song started and I thought, No, this is my favourite! And so on, for almost two hours straight. She broke to invite a few fans on stage and answer questions submitted pre-show from the audience; I swear, it was like spending an evening with my sister. She was warm, funny, generous, honest, powerful and absolutely perfect.

Well, except that she sang one song in the wrong half of the show. She finished The Answer and launched straight into I  Will remember You, which confused her band though they let her go unsupported and joined when they were meant to. We only knew she’d goofed because she apologized to them.

Yep, every song was a gem. Every lyric a poem, every moment a precious reminder that this woman, this singer/songwriter with the angel’s voice, is actually more to me than a mere nice-to-have in my CD collection. She started to sing Fallen and I realized with a jolt that the Afterglow album was the soundtrack for Reijo’s failed first romance, one of the most powerfully painful stories I’ve ever written. The album Fumbling Toward Ecstasy fuelled the relationship between Lucius and his half-sister Fae, particularly the songs Possession, Fear, and the title track. And yes, she performed those songs on Saturday night. I couldn’t believe my luck. She cranked that voice up to an octave undocumented on Fear—the recording of it is unearthly and haunting beyond chills, yet live (and twenty years later), she nailed it. Effing nailed it! I wanted to scream with her, but burst into tears instead.

So embarrassing.

During the intermission, Treena and I decided we had to hit the swag table. This occasion could not pass without acquiring some memento to mark it. She was as blown away as I was and, in a day of mounting miracles, so was Ter. It’s relatively easy to satisfy a fan. To elevate your status in the eyes of a casual awareness takes some talent.

Will I see her again? Dunno. Am I playing her music as I write this? You bet. She is and always will be one of the strongest musical inspirations for my writing. If I had to see her live to realize this, then her work is done. I am a fan, but in this instance I’m a fan for different reasons. I listen to her for pleasure, but mostly, I listen to her music, her lyrics, and her voice, to write my tales of the human heart in all its conflict.

I am in awe. I am inspired. I am grateful.

Chin Up

I sat at the beach this morning and wondered why I felt so down. I watched the waves roll in, one after the other, noting how they hit the shore in increments, how they vary in strength. I thought about how far they come before they reach the shore, if they begin in Japan and cross the whole Pacific Ocean to land at my feet, or if they’ve just tripped up from Washington state. Either way, it shows marked perseverance on nature’s part, just as a crow pecking at the pebbles for its breakfast exemplified a focus I’ve lately been lacking.

On my way to the beach, a cyclist passed me coming the other way; as we came abreast of each other, he called, “Good morning!” I answered automatically and don’t remember if I smiled. I appreciated the greeting, though. He didn’t have to say anything, but he kindly acknowledged my existence and in so doing, reminded me that the world—that life—is wonderful. So I consciously called to mind my favourite Louis Armstrong song and made myself loop it until all the words fell into place:

I see trees of green, red roses too,

I see them bloom for me and you

And I think to myself

What a wonderful world …

It was a start. Hard work to keep it going, but a start nonetheless. Sitting quietly in the glow of the morning sun, I set aside the song for a minute and pondered the weight of my spirit during the past few days.

It’s been heavier than usual, no doubt about it.

I see skies of blue, clouds of white,

Bright blessed day and dark sacred night

And I think to myself

What a wonderful world …

Gratitude, I thought. To which I crossly replied, I’m always grateful. Every day, I am grateful. I say it, think it, believe it.

Yeah, Ru, but are you grateful enough?

Oh, s***, I am so not going there. I am not buying into the brownie point system I was taught in church. Grateful is grateful; there is no pro-rating. If I’m wrong, then the Zen Buddhist/metaphysical spirit stuff I’ve been absorbing these past years is as much a lie as the Christian orthodox crap I abandoned when I set myself free.

The colours of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky,

Smiles on the faces of people passing by …

It’s not a matter of how. It’s a matter of what. Agreed, you are grateful. Now, what are you grateful for? and be specific.

Coming up with a list was harder in my bleakened frame of mind, but once I started, it got easier. Then I realized that the past few weeks have been so distracting that I’ve let my practice slide. As summer months go, July sucked. I had more dental work done and spent a lot of time in pain or on painkillers. The suite downstairs came off the market and went up as a rental. People at work were going through their own stuff, which subliminally affected the whole team. The novel continued to frustrate me. By the end of the month, I had even lost interest in writing. That really depressed me.

I see friends shaking hands, saying how do you do

And really saying,

I love you …

It’s okay, Ru. Yup, life sucked and you lost your focus. You can get it back. Your teeth are fine, you’re off the drugs. You’ve met the folk who will be your downstairs neighbours. Work is work, but that won’t change. The novel will come back online. And you’re inspired to more than write again. You’re simply inspired.

I hear babies cry, watch them grow

They know much more than I’ll ever know

And I think to myself …

I flâneried around the point on my way back home. There’s a monument on the green that’s been in place for years but I’ve never paid it any attention. Today, I was prompted to look at it. It’s called “Millenium Peace” and was a gift to the city from a couple who wanted to honour Earth Day in 2000. The plaque quite plainly states that the piece is—and this is what really leaped out at me—“a touchstone of gratitude”.

There’s that word again. It’s not a matter of being grateful enough. It’s about gratitude for specifics. For the little things as well as the big things. For sun and sea; for love and hope; for my family and friends; especially for Ter; for my little bears and my favourite teacup and an extra day off this weekend. It’s even about the pain I endured during prep and installation of my dental bridge, when I was able to find moments of joy within moments of not. I am grateful for it all.

As I reached the corner of the street where I live, I met another random stroller who acknowledged my existence with a friendly “Good morning.”

“Hello,” I said back—and this time, I smiled.

What a wonderful world.

Desktop

I ask you, how can I be stuck with the novel when my hero looks like this? He’s been on my desktop (I wish) for years; as with all things taken for granted, eventually I stopped “seeing” him. I considered replacing him last week, then I took a moment to look at him with intent.

I couldn’t do it. Aside from having nothing and no one worthy to replace him, I realized that I don’t want to replace him, probably because doing so would also be admitting defeat. He is the sun around which my novel orbits. Taking him down would be like going dark.

My computer desktops have rarely featured cute animals or pretty flowers. My pics of natural beauty generally pack an alpha Y-chromosome—even the androgynous shot of Jonathan Rhys Meyers was savagely alluring—and almost always provide me with the blueprint for a hero, a villain, a lover, a poet, or sometimes all four. I like to have inspiration close by, especially at the office, where it’s easy to forget how to be creative except when interpreting financial policy. Sometimes I’ll shut down the myriad of windows and take a sec to renew acquaintance with my man o’ the month just to remember what I do for fun … or would do, given half a chance. Or will do, once he’s woven into the fabric of whatever tale one has to tell. Some writers veer away from likening a character to a living person, but come on. Everybody looks like somebody else, and if a man like Joe Elliott can spark a fictional hero like my Lucius, how is that an insult?

By the way, it’s Joe’s birthday today. Happy birthday, Leppard King!