WHEN CHARACTERS TEACH

 

Another writer, lamenting the steep odds to traditional publishing, told me she doesn’t need to write and will cease writing fiction if her journey doesn’t make an upward turn in the near future.

 

I was surprised. This writer is gifted, exceptionally so. She spends many hours at her craft. I assumed she, like me, writes for herself first. I told her that the writing process is a way of clarifying thoughts, and I couldn’t imagine not doing it regardless of what markets open (or don’t) for my stories.

 

She responded that Journaling, (=keeping a diary) serves that purpose for her. Fiction is a craft that is firstly labor, not a gift to self.

 

It’s different for me. Because, and this is a confession that could put me in the loony-bin in some folks’ eyes, my characters always surprise me with their insights. They say things I never knew, or never knew I knew. I grow and learn a lot from them.

 

Another way of putting it is the unconscious mind needed the conscious self to open a narrow portal and allow insights to slither out into the space that words inhabit.

 

 

Journaling has never served this for me, and I stopped keeping a diary many years ago. For me, the entries consisted of emotions of the moment that overwhelmed any chance for deep reflection.

 

In this blog I write of what I already know or hope to learn. In fiction, I learn what I didn’t know I knew.

 

So, to each their own. I am grateful for all that my fictional characters taught me, and while I’d love to share them with you, I will not abandon them regardless of who else chooses not to make their acquaintance.

Literally Literary

I have a constitutional aversion to literalness.

In my teens, I discovered  the awesome power and wisdom of scriptures. I could only do that when I rejected the reading ways of those who interpret them literally. The same vertical growth happened, for me, as I began to understand words as allusion to the wordless.

This is why I would not become a lawyer, as my mother thought I was suited to be, but a writer, as my father encouraged.

The tools of storytellers are metaphors, similes, and language using words as building blocks to send the listeners minds out of their earthly sounds and onto places both wider, higher and deeper all at once.

But lest the above high falutin’ speechy paragraph makes me seem as one who thinkest herself above the rest, let me assure you I have cracks in my anti-literalism.
I was thinking the other day how literally I act on what should be a metaphor.

“Touch wood”— as in may-it-not-befall-us: I literally look for anything that could pass for wood and touch it.

“Stop and smell the roses”— as in take-a-moment-to-appreciate-the-moment: I try to never take a walk without stopping and smelling an actual rose.

“Piece of cake”—as in easy: you betcha!

REJECTION?

We’re in good company J

There are articles on the process of digesting rejection, that badge of participation in the walk we walk.
Speaking for myself, I can only say that few of them affect me. The form rejections say nothing, (other than “not for us”) and the others are often too cryptic or contradictory of one another to be of help. The only personal rejections that still sting are those that follow an enthusiastic full manuscript request or a Revise & Resubmit request, (R&R) and giving feedback indicating a fatal flaw that resonates.

{I do, however, choose to take acceptances very personally. Thank you, you know who you are!}

But the point is that even the greatest greats have gotten rejections, and in hindsight, the specific reasons given suggest the flaw may lie with the rejecter, not the rejected. This article has been around for some years for a reason. It’s a compilation of just such.

Only here’s a new one for you, fellow veterans of the rejection battles. After seventy-three years, on February 7th 2019, the British Council issued an apology to the no-longer-able-to-receive-it George Orwell, regarding a rejection of a commissioned article.
I post the original rejection letter below. Keep in mind that, at the time, Mr. Orwell was already regarded as one of England’s greatest living men of letter.

Mr. Orwell didn’t live to get the apology. Not that we are owed a thing, but let’s not hold our breaths for any.
Instead---
Do your best work. Make it better.

Keep trucking. 

Heroes— Faux or Fearless

“Courage is not the towering oak 
that sees storms come and go;

It is the fragile blossom 
that opens in the snow.”

― Alice Mackenzie Swaim

Not only the news, but also all fiction (save some literary strains) focuses on active heroism. Rescue someone from a fire, face a serial killer, stand up to a bully and punch ‘em back, and a story worth the readers’ time is also deemed worth telling.

Thus, we lose the heroes of everyday that are all around us. Those who carry on while others give them nary a glance, those who continue to think independently in times and places where pressure to conform is overwhelming. As they remain authentic, they do not convert this independence to a ruckus riot.

And most of all, those who retain their creativity and humanity while humbly considering others’ feedback, but not breaking under the weight of negation.

So many of the people in my life are heroes. I salute them. Maybe we should write more stories about them. The quiet blossoms in the snow.

Greeting a NEW YEAR

To the purely rational mind, January first is just another day. This year it is a Tuesday. Another Tuesday.

But the change of a digit on the year-counter has an almost magical effect on the parts of us that are not purely rational.

A new year, and a parade of new hopes and dreams.

Some take stock in the year that just ended, achievements and regrets. I find myself doing that on the Jewish New Year, (Rosh Hashanah) as the ten days that follow it are meant to be days of reflection culminating in atonement. The secular New Year (Gregorian counter) is a time for renewed oomph and hope. No resolutions, just a vow to march on with stars in my eyes.

On January first, the verses of Thomas Hardy’s (1840-1928) Song of Hope are singing in my ears:

O sweet To-morrow! - 
After to-day 
There will away 
This sense of sorrow. 
Then let us borrow 
Hope, for a gleaming 
Soon will be streaming, 
Dimmed by no gray - 
No gray! 

While the winds wing us 
Sighs from The Gone, 
Nearer to dawn 
Minute-beats bring us; 
When there will sing us 
Larks of a glory 
Waiting our story 
Further anon - 
Anon! 

Doff the black token, 
Don the red shoon, 
Right and retune 
Viol-strings broken; 
Null the words spoken 
In speeches of rueing, 
The night cloud is hueing, 
To-morrow shines soon - 
Shines soon!

Happy New Year!

Remember to BRE---ATHE~~~

When I was a wee one, one of my teachers used to say, and often, “Remember to breathe.”

This struck me as funny. Who forgets to breathe?

I grew up, and with more breathing lessons under my belt, I understood better what she meant.

Many eastern meditation techniques involve focus on one’s breath. But this expression in western context means do something that takes you off the treadmill and allows your mind to clear before you get on again.

Feeling creatively stuck?

Breathe.

Got bad news?

Breathe.

A dear one is in crisis?

Breathe. Help them. Then breathe again.

For some, to breathe means eating chocolate or sipping a glass of Merlot. (And I do mean sipping, not to be confused with gulping.) For others, to breathe means making contact with a close friend and talking.

For me, it has come to mean go for a walk. Not just a leisurely stroll, but one that involves some hill climbing, which necessitates deep breathing. Yup.

The air quality where I live has been seriously unhealthy for almost two weeks. Devastating fires burning almost two hundred miles away have ushered a layer of dense smoke that wouldn’t quit.

Folks are warned to stay indoors and whatever they do, not do anything that requires physical exertion. In other words: Do Not Breathe.

Under such cautions, I re-discovered my childhood “breathing” activity. I didn’t even know back then that it was a form of breathing.

I lie down and read a great book.

I’m getting some fantastic reading done, and my soul is full of oxygen. On this Thanksgiving week, I am thankful for all the wonderful writers who ever lived and the publishing professionals who had the insight to usher their works into the world so we can breathe.

Remember to breathe, everyone.