Farewell, Old Friend

It’s time to admit that Comfortable Rebellion’s time has passed. This blog began in 2013 as an exercise to stretch my creativity and share some personal philosophies as well as the occasional anecdote from my past, present and … well, obviously not my future. No one could have predicted how the world, and my world within it, would change.

But change it did – and drastically. So much so that I couldn’t keep up, thus what had once been regular, then semi-regular, then occasional posts dwindled to a handful whenever I felt strong enough to try again.

Turns out I’ve changed as well. For one thing, I’m older. An elder, since my parents have passed on, though I’m still blessed with four loved and loving siblings. I’m retired from thirty-plus years in the BC public service, a career that no one expected I’d be able to have when my arthritis was diagnosed at the age of fourteen. Life is good – especially as things seem to have settled in the wake of seven years’ WTF?

What hasn’t changed is my passion. I am still creating. Writing, dreaming, philosophizing … and trying to be a positive force in this increasingly negative world. Rebooting the Rebellion seemed like a natural step in continuing to serve that passion.

Alas, though I enjoyed writing for it, the blog itself has lost its enthusiasm. I regret nothing posted here and have no intention of deleting any of it, but it’s tired. Attempting to reboot yet again can only result in another false start because the Rebellion is done.

Sometimes you have to let go of something old to make room for something new. An updated version is in development and coming soon to a URL near you.

Call it “Comfortable Rebellion 2.0”.

I hope to see you in the next round.

With love,

Random Italics

I believe a good story can be made better if it’s well-written. On the flip side, a good story that’s badly written may still be good, but it certainly isn’t helped. And the tools in an author’s box of same can either add to a good story’s elevation or contribute to its mediocrity.

Case in point: my current bedtime read. It features an interesting premise, likeable (if not memorable) characters, and a standard storyline with a curious twist folded into the well-worn theme of religious nuts purifying the earth by killing off the monsters who are, in fact, less monstrous than the men who are killing them. The book is the first in a series I might consider in its entirety except for one truly annoying thing: overuse of italics.

As a rule, I have no problem with italics. I use them myself, to emphasize a point or single out the title of someone else’s work, but if italics are meant to stress certain words while preserving the rhythm of a sentence, then English can’t be this author’s first language. She has sprinkled italicized words with gay abandon and apparently no thought to where they may land, and this practice consistently messes with the read. Worse, when I read a line a second time and ignore the italics, the sentence runs more smoothly. So why bother with the italics in the first place?

I know I’m not without sin. I have a debilitating fondness for the semi-colon*, but I have never encountered such flagrant use of “CTL+I” in my entire reading life. Which would be okay if it made sense or added to the mood of the scene.

But it doesn’t. It just creates a hiccup in the action; (*see?) a mental “huh?” that disrupts the cadence of the prose. Disappointing. Truly. And yet I must also wonder where the copy editor’s head was when reviewing the manuscript.

After all, genius doesn’t always extend to formatting and grammar.

Pick a Favourite

“Which writing project are you the most proud of?”

This question was posed as a creative exercise. Once I got over it ending with a proposition, I thought it was a bit like asking a parent which child she loves best. I also realized that I have a more extensive catalogue than one might assume, given my constant whining about writer’s block and lack of time/inspiration/talent. Picking one was suddenly a daunting prospect.

My initial thought was “Fixed Fire”. Writing five novels in four years and self-publishing two of them was no mean feat. What started as a one-off about a disillusioned warrior in denial of his magical powers quickly evolved into a saga set in a world beyond the mountains. The landscape was rich, the romance was blistering, the characters were vivid, and the family dynamic was utterly—sometimes hilariously—dysfunctional. It was a blast to write ... until it was not. Stalled at volume 7 since 2011, I’ve written novellas about some of the lesser players in the greater tale and each of them is captivating in its own way. But to pick the one that does me most proud? Errrr ... Next!

How about the vampires? I am secretly impressed with myself for writing three different versions of the genre starring three different incarnations of the iconic immortal: the romantic Julian Scott-Tyler, the power-hungry Darius Wolfe, and the outlaw Ariel Black. Perhaps I love my vampires a little more than I do the “Fixed Fire” crew (it truly depends on the day), but which of the trio does me the most proud? It’s really too close to call.

Then I considered the list of short stories spanning a decade from “Four Legs and a Tale” to “Ruby Red”. I’ve written about centaurs and witches and princes and waiters and angels; how can one stand out above the others when they’re literary apples and oranges?

Oh, and let’s not forget the blog. I’ve posted some dandy diatribes and yes, I have favourites among them, mostly among the fictional pieces but including a few of the philosophical. Winnowing out a singular post for personal pride is impossible.

Finally, I realized something that maybe should have been obvious from the get-go. I love them all, every one of them, and always will. However, given the folder of half-started stories on my hard drive, and the difficulties I encounter in actually completing something, I’ve decided that the project I am most proud of will always be the one I’ve just finished.

Return to Comfortable Rebellion

Somewhere along the line, I lost my focus. This blog started in 2013 as a creative outlet, though it ended up following my life path and personal development as much as it did my literary (let’s call it what it is) frustration. It was great fun to write about the ride until the ride veered off the tracks and threw me against the wall a couple of years ago. Now, in 2020, nothing is the same. My home, my job, my neighbourhood—even I, myself—have changed.

For the better, one hopes. One must always hope, else there’s no point.

Earlier this year, I decided to reboot the Rebellion. Since that decision, Covid 19 has swept around the world and is threatening my own community. Life is so far from normal I can’t envision what the end result will be. I don’t know what the rebooted Rebellion will look like down the road, but I didn’t know it the first time, either. In truth, with everything around me so strange and unfamiliar, I don’t know anything more than that I want to write again. I really, really, want to write again, and for the first time in ages, I feel like I can actually accomplish something. I have a room, a rig, and my wonderful Ter to support me as I go. Anyone who wants to come along is welcome, of course. I’m happy enough on my own, but it’s nice to have company besides the voices in my head. You needn’t introduce yourself. I don’t have to know you’re there ... but if you’re up for a story or a spontaneous Philosophy Quest, pull up a chair and I’ll put the kettle on for tea.

With love,

Pay No Mind

As I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, I am not making the same one again this year. I am not promising to write more. I do not resolve to clear my mind and let the Muse do her thing; I will not try harder to be creative and I do not promise to finish any of the projects that have sat half done for the past xxx years.

Xxx years? Really? Augh. And I call myself a writer?

Well, yeah. I do. I just don’t call myself a prolific one.

In keeping with my ritual of non-resolution, I don’t plan to change my status and become more prolific. I haven’t spent any time perusing incomplete stories with an eye to changing their status, either. Yet one has begun to resume forward motion. I had stalled, as usual, when my head got, well, ahead of me ... and the quote above this post came at the best possible time.

Now I have something new to practice: cultivating no mind. Thinking is okay, but doing too much of it is not my friend. It’s not conducive to art of any ilk. Or to life, when it comes to that. How often do you change your mind before choosing something at random off a menu? How many playlists do you agonize over before picking one just to make it stop? Do you ever wear what you planned to wear? I admit to a perverse pleasure in anticipating my drink for Thursday cafe with wee sis and boy sister, but even then, I’ve been known to toss my plan out the window when I get to the counter. (Okay, that’s mostly to throw the barista, who prides himself on knowing his customers’ “usual”.)

One week into the new year and my non-resolution is already in danger of being broken. The story I mentioned is almost done. Once I gave it some serious attention (not thought), it started to write itself and now I know how it ends. I just have to write myself there.

Never mind.

“Two Protons”

How did Shakespeare do it? He wrote an entire play (maybe more than one) in iambic pentameter – defined as a poem featuring five feet (or “iambs”) per line. An iamb is two or three syllables with emphasis on the second or third syllable, i.e., “two households, both alike in dignity.” A two-syllable word can be a single iamb, i.e. “alike”, because the emphasis is on syllable number two.

I know. If you’re not a poetry geek – and I’m not – who cares? I am, however, a Shakespeare fan and enough of a word geek to look at Will’s genius and see it as something within my ability to emulate. I mean, five beats per line. How hard can it be?

Harder than it looks, that’s for sure! I wasn’t aiming for a full-length play, either; just a poem. A simple verse that doesn’t even rhyme! My natural rhythm is four iambs per line. Creating space for that fifth beat just about did me in. In fact, this grandiose notion occurred almost a year ago. It slipped off my radar when it proved more difficult than I’d expected and less complex things distracted me from the challenge. It resurfaced last week, when I decided to resume drafting blog posts during my lunch break. I blew the dust off my office “blog log”, took it to my not-normal café, ordered a chocolate chai with extra foam, opened the journal’s cover, and a piece of paper – well-scribbled upon – fell onto the table. Oh, ye gods, I thought, my nod to Shakespeare!

Upon revisiting my effort, I decided it wasn’t that bad. It was, in fact, pretty good, and so my chocolate chai sat cooling by my elbow as I spent the next half-hour counting syllables and rearranging iambs into something loosely resembling a Shakespearean-style verse.

And so, with apologies to the Bard and no further ado, I humbly present my minuscule ode to soul sistah Ter, who is always my better half.

Enjoy!

* * *

Two protons, mirrored in identity,

being sprung from a singular atom, when split and parted

do remain connected as if by a force unseen,

unknown yet known by far better than each knows itself.

For home and home exist with these particles.

’Cross stars and space, identical response is prov’n.

Though dust and dark matter conspire to confound, the bond

Ne’er breaks nor weakens. Twin parts of one whole, space is

an illusion, and real for one is as much for the other.

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.

Five Long Years

Comfortable Rebellion started on March 23, 2013, with a post entitled “Why Not?” There was no topical photo to accompany the text on that introductory blurb; there was just a big idea, a little preface, and (thanks to Nicole) a poem.

That was five years ago. A lot has happened in those five years, yet not a lot has happened. Time is so fluid, so subjective, that it’s hard to reconcile exactly how much has occurred since I took the plunge 755 posts ago. I’ve strayed a bit from my original intention, which was to write write write then post post post about the literary passion that has driven me from the time I wrote my first unfinished novel at the age of twelve.

There have been a lot of unfinished novels. I have also finished a few, and continue to wrestle with the latest, now almost six years in the birthing and still an obsession because it’s a darned good story and has been from the beginning. Have I ever said, “I want to write a romance”? Not aloud, surely. Romance is not my thing, at least not in the conventional sense. I like that my romances tend to go sideways, but the hero in this one deserves a true love story with a happily-ever-after ending and I’m simply not that skilled at making those happen. In the long run, the characters are responsible for achieving the desired outcome, but I’m still the one directing traffic. If only they weren’t so ... so human.

That’s another area where the Rebellion has slipped slightly off the rails. I’ve become more aware of what it is to be human in the past few years. Ironically, I did not see it coming, and I’ve written a lot more than I meant to about my experience. Personal non-fiction is not my literary preference, but it is writing, so I can’t say I’ve lost the CR plot entirely. It’s about stories, right? My story, which is your story and everyone else’s story throughout history; anyone who has been human, anyway, who has lived a life unique unto him/herself but who shares so much in common with me just by nature of his/her humanity. We are all connected, after all. If I didn’t feel it five years ago, I certainly feel it now. So I write about it, and post about it, and hope that the ether has been brightened somewhat by my contribution to it. I may never know.

Have I gone wrong? Maybe not. Maybe the blog has evolved as it was supposed to, even if it doesn’t look the way I imagined it would in the spring of 2013. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what it would look like or what I thought I was doing before I did it, but on that Friday five years ago, I asked myself why should I do it and the answer came pretty quickly:

Why not?

Here’s to another five years.

Wordplay

Boy Sister does double duty as my wee sister’s elf. She’s not a particularly harsh master, which means he can get a bit uppity. One day at the Wall, he acted up to the point when she finally demanded to know what was wrong with him. He shrugged and tried to look innocent.

“He’s just being obstreperous,” I said.

“What does ‘obstreperous’ mean?” she asked.

“Difficult,” I said.

She gave me a Why didn’t you just say that? look. Aloud, she muttered, “Writers.”

“Sorry ’bout that, kid.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I just prefer words with four letters or less. It’s quicker.”

Not to mention more effective.

But it got me thinking. I tend to throw big words into a conversation, mostly to keep it interesting rather than show off, and a recent metaphor likening employee service seniority to divorced parents switching out the kids at Christmas got big laughs at a staff meeting. “I vote for ‘the divorced parents’ model,” one of my more comical colleagues remarked to me the next day. (I’m lucky she thinks I’m hilarious, as she gives me good reviews when new people join the office.)

I don’t restrict myself to conversations in company, either. The title of a favourite CD gave me something to think about while I was waking up one morning. It’s called “Nightbound” (an instrumental collection by David Lindsay now in heavy rotation), and while the train tracks on the cover photo suggest a traveller heading toward night, it occurred to me that the word “nightbound” could also mean one being tied to – or bound by – the night. Or shade or shadow or the Dark Side, or any of the other synonyms for “not day”.

Which gives me an idea for a story ...

I know, I know ... Writers.

The Frankincense Incident

Ter called it “a room interrupted”. Despite rearranging the furniture to open up the feng shui, I remained so reluctant to go into my writing room that I began to wonder if it wasn’t me so much as it was the room itself. Sure, my writing had been stalled for some time, but on any other day I was eager to revisit my half-finished projects and maybe start something new ... but whenever I went into my room, I couldn’t settle. I couldn’t lose myself in the flow. I dotted around from piece to piece, getting nowhere but frustrated and quitting well before tea time. Eventually, excuses not to write became conscious decisions not to write. “Nope, not today,” I would say, and eventually I had to ask myself why not. And I had to be honest with the answer.

I think I always knew, but it seemed so silly and implausible that I was embarrassed to say it aloud. It couldn’t be right. It had to be something wrong with me, with my conviction, my commitment, my whatever. It couldn’t be what immediately came each time I asked the question.

Finally, I bounced it off my cool inspector. She would tell me if I was losing it or making (more) excuses. She would also tell me if I was on to something. So I said to her one day, “I don’t want to go into my writing room.”

“Why not?” she asked. “Don’t you want to write today?”

“I think it’s the room, Ter. It doesn’t feel right.”

She gave it a little thought before she answered. “That’s no surprise. It’s a room interrupted.”

She went on the remind me of its history. It began as her bedroom, but she had to give it up because she couldn’t sleep with the neighbour noise downstairs. Her armoire and all her clothes are still in the room, and so, perhaps, is the residual energy of that frustrating time. Then there’s the bathroom upstairs where, as she so eloquently put it, “people shit on that room every day. That can’t be good for anyone’s creativity!” She thought a little bit more, then suggested we do a space clearing. She pulled out one of our trippy hippy guru books and flipped to the applicable page. “Frankincense will do it.”

Not a lot of people have a bottle of frankincense on hand. Naturally, we do. “How much?” I asked, pulling it and the diffuser from the cupboard.

“Eight drops,” Ter replied.

“Does it say that in the book?”

“No, it’s just my sense.”

After thirty-plus years together, I no longer question Ter’s sense.

We set the diffuser on a shelf in my room, cracked open the window to let the negative energy out, and went about our regular business.

I cannot explain how, but it worked. Almost immediately, the room felt better, as if the energy vibration had lifted to a cleaner, more positive level. Since then, I’ve been happy to come in and write. I’ve been comfortable, motivated and able to go with the flow. Whatever magical properties were in that oil, the end result was success!

I suppose I could try to explain. It’s probably better that I don’t. Maybe it won’t work for someone who doesn’t believe it will. So many of our perceptions are based on what we believe. Physical laws always apply, of course. An apple won’t fall up just because I believe it will—but because I believe in a friendly, loving and generous Universe, my reality reflects this belief. I understand and accept contrast (another pesky physical law), but on the whole, my life is charmed in ways I would not change for anything. I know people who fear everything. Their Universe is cold, harsh and frightening—and so the energy of their belief creates a life riddled with things to fear. It’s simple and it’s complicated and I think I just tried to explain the Frankincense Incident, didn’t I?

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.

Christmas Tree Lights

I love this quote from Maya Angelou. I don’t travel enough to have lost any luggage, but I live in a rainforest and at tree-trimming time each year, I am reminded of the best opening line to a story I have yet to write:

“They found the body in dumpster, a string of Christmas tree lights wrapped tight around its neck.”

I’ve not determined whether the body is male or female, but there have been years when it’s been blonde and of Scottish/Finnish heritage. The time it takes to wire 400 twinkle lights in place is the perennial test of patience, Ter because she’s the one wiring them, me because I’m the one trailing behind her, doling out the string bulb by bulb, and intermittently declaring, “Hey, this one’s dead!” to which she traditionally replies, “How the h*** did that happen? They were fine when we tested them!”

In the Rockland days, she fussed more about getting the lights “just right” and I thought more about strangling her with them. I occasionally consider hanging myself with them when half the cursed bulbs burn out, but remember the 60s and 70s, when one dead bulb killed the entire string? I bet my mother does, as she’s the one who strung the lights before we kids put up the ornaments.

We bought a string of LEDs for the bears’ tree one year. Duly christened “the jellybean lights”, the wires were so thick and horrible to work with that they didn’t make it onto the tree at all. We remain fans of the old school fairy lights. In fact, we’re almost hoarding them for fear of losing the option in years to come, due to some silly government regulation about fire safety.

One of our oldest and dearest ornaments is Tigger in his Christmas sock. It’s an “ornamotion”, one of those fun decorations plugged into an empty bulb socket to make it move. Unfortunately, Tigger is so old that his plug is no longer compatible with the light sockets. Let’s face it, twinkle lights are not made to last forever, and the Noma strings we’ve preserved specifically for Tigger have all shorted out, never to be heard from again. Ever hopeful, we will always try the plug in a new string, but even present day Nomas no longer comply. So, for the past couple of years, Tigger has peered over the top of his sock, but not popped in and out of it.

Some traditions are forced into retirement.

This year, the lights were untangled on a rainy day—addressing two of Maya’s three checkboxes. We got a late start and at the time of this writing, the tree is still in pieces let alone strung with those rackinfrackin fairy lights, but somehow or other we’ll get ʼer done. No one will die and the end result will be fabulous as always.

That holiday murder mystery won’t be written this year … I don’t think …

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!

Seen Through a Coffee Shop Window

not my view, but a reasonable facsimile

I took myself down to the local coffee shop one workday last week, fully intending on drafting this weekend’s blog post. I had no idea what my subject would be. Life of late has been more about living and less about musing—you might say I’m gathering material for future posts—but I reckoned that, surely, inspiration would strike once I assumed the position.

Armed with a Mumbai chai, I took a seat in the window, opened my book, uncapped my coloured Sharpie ... and nothing came. Nada. Zip, zero, zilch. The blank page leered up at me, daring me to mar its pristine whiteness with my purple genius. I stared back, immobilized, though not with fear. My mind was merely as blank as the page in front of me.

My Zen homework has taught me not to panic at a writer’s block. Sometimes it’s just not meant to happen. On another day, my genius will blaze brighter than the halogen high beams on an Audi. Just not today.

Sigh.

Rather than forcing the matter, I decided simply to enjoy my tea and watch the street action through the window. I kept the book open, though the cap went back on my pen. My cup was almost empty when I noticed something so typically incongruous of a First World society that I had to write it down: a white Porsche Cayenne pausing at a crosswalk while a homeless man pushed a shopping cart laden with all his worldly goods in front of it. Wealth and poverty in a single, poignant image. I wished I’d had my camera with me.

Then I realized I’d had a ton of impressions in the past half hour; seen countless vignettes worthy of note (to me, anyway):

A lapdog wearing a raincoat.

Tourists carrying shopping bags.

An older couple strolling arm in arm.

A sleek and shiny Tesla—twice!

The bus ballet (they really do a dance, merging around and into traffic from the stop outside 

the window).

A quartet of orange umbrellas bobbing in a cluster along the far sidewalk. They stood out so bright and cheerful in the grey drizzle, I christened them “orange blossoms”.

The faces on passersby: grim, worried, anxious, vacant, lots of frowns and not many smiles. Sad.

A toddler pushing a stroller while his mother steered him from behind, and the tiny hand lolling from the stroller itself as the occupant enjoyed the ride.

A hipster girl wearing a backpack as big as she was, pausing to read the “we’re hiring” sign in the coffee shop window.

Soft jazz on the shop’s sound system, followed by a cool cover of Roxy’s “Love Is The Drug”, then something by Florence and the Machine (her voice is so distinctive).

The store manager came by to tidy the tables behind me. “On your own today?”

“Just hanging out,” I replied.

“Killing time?”

“Nah, I was doing that in the office.”

He laughed. I said I’d see him tomorrow, then I packed up my stuff and went back to work.

It might not be genius, but I got my post after all.

Vampire Rain

The rain/snow/sleet/hail pings on the window pane behind me. The morning dawned grey and cold in the raw, rainforest winter way that makes your finger bones ache within minutes of stepping outside. It’s my day off, so no worry of having to venture into the unfriendly weather, but my plan to work with Caius and Aurelia is hijacked by my desire to write a vampire story.

I tend to write vampires in winter. Not so much in summer. No idea why.

*wink*

Anyway, last year, I began a vampire story that remains unfinished. It might get done this year. This winter, in fact, if I can keep my mojo going; it took a while, but I have reacquainted myself with the story so far and gained a little traction in getting it where it has to go.

I already know the ending. It’s the centrepiece in a trio of tales, the first of which, titled “Reunion”, was written in 2013. I’ve been sitting on the first line of the third part since then, with a relatively clear idea of how the trilogy will end—only in 2013 I had no idea that it was a trilogy. All I knew—all I still know—is that I am in no hurry to write what is now the third story.

Simply put, someone is going to die.

In avoiding what I thought was the sequel to “Reunion”, it came to me that a significant part of the greater story was missing, so a duo became a trio. I started writing the bridge last summer. It’s unusual for me to start a vampire story in August, but since this one takes place in Morocco, it was helpful to be sweltering while writing about the heat. Revisiting it now is part of my non-NY resolution to finish something in 2017, especially if it was started in a previous year.

Am I having fun with it? Actually, I am. I’m familiar with the characters and understand their MOs, and one of them wants the story finished almost as much as I do. He’s hardly impatient, but I sense that he’s getting tired. I also sense that my reluctance to complete the trilogy doesn’t make a darned bit of difference to him—and suddenly, I let go on a strangely comforting revelation.

He will tell me when it’s time to write that third story.

The Sunday Post

How’s 2017 treating you so far? I’m still dealing with a relapse of my arthritis, but every day and in every way, I’m getting better and better. My attention has been diverted from pretty much everything except surviving, though— and my writing has suffered as a result.

Imagine my dismay on reviewing last year’s creative files and noting that nothing in my “finished” folder was dated 2016! I wrote all right, but everything I worked on remains unfinished. My bones can only be responsible for the latter part of the year. What the heck happened in the first three quarters to prevent me from completing a single project?

There’s no point in rehashing time already lost. As Ragnar Lothbrok would say, “Don’t look behind you; that’s not where you are going.”

Going forward, however, I’ve given up the idea of writing on weekday evenings. It just doesn’t happen. That leaves a precious few hours over a “sometimes two, sometimes three” day weekend in which to slough off the workaday energy and get back in touch with my Muse. Sometimes she cooperates, sometimes not. Genius cannot be predicted.

All I can do is make a writing plan for the future. I can commit to this much:

First priority: whatever project I am working on (currently the tale of Caius and Aurelia, which continues to beguile).

Second priority: Comfortable Rebellion. Ter has suggested that I limit myself to one post per week. Keeping up with more than that has proven a challenge for both me, the writer, and her, the reader. (Okay, one of my readers, but she has a point when she says she gets boggled when she does check in and finds half a dozen pieces awaiting her equally precious downtime.) so we came up with the idea of “The Sunday Post”, a commitment I can keep—I think—by scheduling my writing hours accordingly.

Third priority: writing exercises. I’m not done with “Diva”, and I’ve collected a few photographs that inspired me to ask the question, “What, who, where, when and why?” (or is that five questions?) It’s encouraging to feel that spark of curiosity again, and my fourth priority falls in line with the third:

Make time for the Muse on a workday. I may not manage a full blown “artist date”, but surely I  can devote one lunchbreak per week to tea and a half-hour of scribbling. Whether a two-bite piece of fiction or next Sunday’s post emerges in that time makes no difference; I just want to reconnect with my imagination, to gain a little momentum for the weekend, and to remind myself of what’s really real ... ’cause a lot in my life of late isn’t.

With love,

The Next Two Weeks

This is my life for the next two weeks. With breaks for the new Star Wars film and hosting a visit with my wee and boy sisters on New Year’s Eve, the bulk of my remaining fortnight’s vacation will be spent writing. Yup, a typewriter and a coffee cup (actually a computer and a tea tumbler) are my constant companions as I devote myself to reconnecting with the Muse.

My primary project is the story of Caius and Aurelia. I won’t get it finished—there’s too much to tell—but now that I feel more like myself again, I’m eager to resume the writing of it. While I was doing the dishes the other night, the opening lines of Aurelia’s POV drifted in on the winter wind, soon followed by a third character stepping up to tell his version of the tale. I was so excited I forgot about the dishes and stood with my hands in the hot water, watching the pictures in my mind’s eye. With that much meat on the bone, I’ll be feasting well into 2017!

Reconnecting means more than with the Muse, however. I lost some serious touch with my daily practice after accidentally igniting an auto-immune reaction to a homeopathic flu preparation in November. A natural alternative to an annual flu shot, which I have never had, I decided to get back with the program after some years of going without—and I wish I had gone without it this year, too. Within 48 hours of the first dose, joints were flaring all over the place; and while there is no definitive proof that the medicine was the culprit, the timing is too suspicious to discount it. Over the five week course, my arthritis progressively worsened, started to recover, then worsened again. Three health practitioners had three different theories. None of the treatments made it better. One or two made it worse. I decided to finish the flu program rather than quit halfway through—it may or may not have been a good idea, but four weeks after my final dose and my body appears to be recalibrating. Oh, my joints still hurt like tiny star flares, but the frequency, location and intensity are diminishing and, as I say, I am beginning to look outward with more interest in things than I was through the past couple of months.

During those interminable weeks, it was all I could do to get out of bed, get to work and hang on until fatigue sent me to a premature bedtime. Christmas only happened with the help of tea fairy Treena and my angels—thanks to them, I was able to pull off the coup of Christmas prezzies for my beloved Ter, who was my stalwart rock the whole time—but anything else requiring energy or focus fell by the wayside. Weekly yoga sessions, daily meditations, attention to detail at the office (I’m sure my mistakes will show up later in January), and writing anything other than my name were sacrificed in the name of survival.

Though I did finish my annual reading of The Night Circus. And the Christmas cards got done. Priorities, you know.

So, my fiendish plan for the rest of my vacation also includes reconnecting with Ru. Gradually, gently, I mean to reinstate my twice weekly yoga sessions and practice more frequent meditations. Ter has wryly warned against “over meditating”—she has as many gurus as I have doctors, and in helping to make her point with me, she realized that she has a similar proclivity to spiritual maintenance as I have to physical. And it’s true: too much of a good thing can be as harmful as too much of a bad one. The pendulum on maintenance (physical for me, spiritual for her) swung a bit too far and messed us up in 2016. Between us, we intend on simplifying our practices as we move into the new year, aiming for balance in all things.

With love,

Gone Fiction

Almost halfway through November and this is my third post? One might think disaster has struck! A computer malfunction, perhaps? Global catastrophe? Plague? In some measure, all of the above may apply. My computer is fine—gods know, it hasn’t been overworked of late. The global catastrophe was the outcome of the US election. Plague-wise, Ter has been checked by her first cold in years (that’s what we get for starting the homeopathic flu program last week). She’s a fighter, though. She hasn’t missed a beat despite ongoing congestion and coughing fits, but in truth, none of the above explains why the Rebellion has been silent.

Truth is, I’ve started a new story. If I treat it like dessert and write my veggies first, I won’t get it done before my appetite is gone; not that blogging is a chore, but it can interfere with the fiction flow, and after so many months of struggle with a novel that won’t cooperate and a bunch of beginnings that won’t move past the halfway point, this one has gained some serious momentum and I intend to roll with it.

It’s liberating to drop the gloves and go for something just because I want to do it. As I have mentioned in previous posts, I tend to write in chronological order, a practice that served me well enough during the Fixed Fire storm. Blogging and short stories have shown me the joy of bouncing around from one idea to another rather than the next in line. It’s also messed with me a bit. One day a few weeks ago, after a futile stab at forcing my muse, I asked myself what I wanted to write rather than what I felt I should write, and the answer came so quickly that I knew it was for real.

So I’ve leapfrogged over a couple of FF volumes and tackled the story of Book 9: the reunion of the brother and sister who were separated at the end of Treason. I’m working specifically with him right now, wanting to get his story out before switching to another’s angle; it’s a novel-sized project with a few points of view, but again, breaking new writing ground, I’m focusing on one character at a time and planning to weave the threads together once they’re all done.

My journey continues to inspire the usual mélange of philosophy, comedy, drama, hockey woes and food porn. Life is a curious mix of black and white and fifty shades of  ... well, you get it. And, fascinating as everything is right now, I am more fascinated by someone else’s story.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

With love,

Return to Castasia

“Enjoy your book,” Ter says, leaving the room to let me read a bit before I go to sleep.

What’s so strange about this, you ask?

I am reading my own book.

Re-reading, actually. I was inspired to revisit The Healing after a work colleague asked if I would take a look at the first few chapters of a fantasy novel she’s writing. I have great respect for this person, not only because she rocks at her finance desk job, but because she has published a bunch of books through real contracts with established publishers. She already identifies me as a capable employee. To have her recognize me as a fellow wordsmith—or at least someone who knows something about writing—was pretty darned cool.

You don’t entrust your fledgling child to just anyone.

After I sent her my review, she dropped by my office for our first real writer-to-writer conversation. We’ve scratched the subject on occasion, but because I respect her practice of keeping her writer’s life separate from her work life, we had never gotten into the meat of it. My effort with her manuscript proved more than she had hoped for—not knowing what I was doing, I did a complete line edit rather than a general overview—and our relationship seems to have shifted in a more comfortable direction as a result.

At the same time, I decided to take another look at The Healing, if for nothing else but to remind myself of how my own fantasy story started. Of course I’d write it differently now … but not by much. My style has evolved in the decade-plus since I finished the first draft. The story itself is good. The characters are complex and colourful. The magic is present but not overpowering—I recall GRRM saying that magic is like anchovies on a pizza: too much and the whole pie is ruined. Best of all, elements are present in The Healing that remained consistent and actually propelled the series forward in subsequent novels. I should be proud of that sucker; it’s a pretty good read, if not a little fatty in places. It’s actually fun to see that I could have cut a line or a paragraph, or even a scene, to make the flow move faster—then again, I always write what I want to read. In 2003, it seems I wanted to read something thick and sticky with detail. Nowadays, not so much.

And that’s okay. Like Treason before it, The Healing deserves better than two of five, so I’ll give it …