Blog, shmog. I have to WRITE! I have a 20-40,000 word novella that I MUST finish by December 31st. I started it about a week or two ago and I've become OBSESSED. On Thursday I posted that I had completed 7000 words. Today I'm up to 15000 in spite of all the holiday activities because one of my friends from my writer's group gave me a lead about someone looking for novellas. The title of the collection has something to do with alchemy. Guess what my novella is about?
Serendipitous.
This is so beshert.
Love you,
M
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Thursday, November 27, 2008
The Alchemy of Writing and Turkey
The "little" short story I decided to write to keep the juices flowing until I go to Ireland has taken on a life of it's own! It's 7000+ words and I've gotten wrapped up in a complex business involving lock picking, alchemy and William Butler Yeats! I haven't forgotten about Brandy by any means, I've just left her at JFK, waiting for me to join her in December where we will have the adventures and experiences necessary to finish her story in Dublin.
As I already mentioned, the jaunt to Ireland now serves two purposes - seeking Brandy's banshees and learning more about W.B Yeats. I read his life story awhile back but I want VISUALS! I want to see the letters and the first editions. Last week I read Rosa Alchemica and I must say - it is no wonder that man had several nervous breakdowns! If that story was not inspired by massive quantities of hallucinogens then Timothy Leary is indeed dead. And, although I hate to admit it, I have a great deal of difficulty following the convoluted phrasing and complex sentence structure. Listen, I will admit to being able to drag out a sentence with the best of them but reading a sentence THREE TIMES just to get the meaning leaves me with the desire to take a ride to the GWB and throw my Mensa pin in the Hudson River!
It's THANKSGIVING DAY and I am most grateful for one thing - my writing. After all those years in a band, singing, songwriting, acting, doing voiceovers in Manhattan (Hungarian poodles for dog food commercials!) - after poverty, single motherhood, abandonment and drama - after Thailand and California and France, Italy, Monaco, Spain and the Caribbean - I have finally returned full circle to the place I began. When I was a naive teen, slobbering over a broken heart and writing poetry, seeing a therapist because of abuse and setting myself up for abuse-yet-to-come because I just wasn't getting it, something inside told me "You ain't seen nothin' yet, kid!". I knew if I wanted to be a writer I had to LIVE first, to have memories, knowledge and experience to draw from that would put the early pain into perspective and, more importantly, carve new depths. Well, life carved so deep I had to crawl out with Prozac but now the worst is long behind me and the best is yet to come. And THE BEST THING - the sense of humor that carried me through all the tough times has not only stayed with me, it's made it's way INTO MY WRITING.
BRANDY KICKS ASS!
As I already mentioned, the jaunt to Ireland now serves two purposes - seeking Brandy's banshees and learning more about W.B Yeats. I read his life story awhile back but I want VISUALS! I want to see the letters and the first editions. Last week I read Rosa Alchemica and I must say - it is no wonder that man had several nervous breakdowns! If that story was not inspired by massive quantities of hallucinogens then Timothy Leary is indeed dead. And, although I hate to admit it, I have a great deal of difficulty following the convoluted phrasing and complex sentence structure. Listen, I will admit to being able to drag out a sentence with the best of them but reading a sentence THREE TIMES just to get the meaning leaves me with the desire to take a ride to the GWB and throw my Mensa pin in the Hudson River!
It's THANKSGIVING DAY and I am most grateful for one thing - my writing. After all those years in a band, singing, songwriting, acting, doing voiceovers in Manhattan (Hungarian poodles for dog food commercials!) - after poverty, single motherhood, abandonment and drama - after Thailand and California and France, Italy, Monaco, Spain and the Caribbean - I have finally returned full circle to the place I began. When I was a naive teen, slobbering over a broken heart and writing poetry, seeing a therapist because of abuse and setting myself up for abuse-yet-to-come because I just wasn't getting it, something inside told me "You ain't seen nothin' yet, kid!". I knew if I wanted to be a writer I had to LIVE first, to have memories, knowledge and experience to draw from that would put the early pain into perspective and, more importantly, carve new depths. Well, life carved so deep I had to crawl out with Prozac but now the worst is long behind me and the best is yet to come. And THE BEST THING - the sense of humor that carried me through all the tough times has not only stayed with me, it's made it's way INTO MY WRITING.
BRANDY KICKS ASS!
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Current Writing Projects
Ah yes...a good day is a day when you stay home and write. Still waiting to finish Brandy's banshee book but the trip to Ireland will bring both of us through the adventures needed to sew up that package. While I'm there, I'm going to visit the National Library of Ireland's exhibit on William Butler Yeats. Some of his work with mythology, alchemy and the occult are already firing up a new idea. So here's the tally:
One book nearly completed with a sequel laid out and the idea for the final book of the trilogy.
Brandy's book (working title White Noise) - six chapters completed. All the rest waiting for details that I will acquire in Ireland. This will be completed quickly once I get back, perhaps even in Ireland where I should have many evenings to write since I will be alone and I don't drink beer!
The Darkest Book On the Shelf. Short story status thus far. I don't want to work on this much now but it keeps calling me and, today, I answered.
So...that's the tally. The house looks like a war zone but I have decided that my two greatest priorities are eating (my job) and getting out of my job and find a way to eat that makes me happy (writing).
One book nearly completed with a sequel laid out and the idea for the final book of the trilogy.
Brandy's book (working title White Noise) - six chapters completed. All the rest waiting for details that I will acquire in Ireland. This will be completed quickly once I get back, perhaps even in Ireland where I should have many evenings to write since I will be alone and I don't drink beer!
The Darkest Book On the Shelf. Short story status thus far. I don't want to work on this much now but it keeps calling me and, today, I answered.
So...that's the tally. The house looks like a war zone but I have decided that my two greatest priorities are eating (my job) and getting out of my job and find a way to eat that makes me happy (writing).
Monday, November 24, 2008
Musings, dreams, nightmares, fantasies
And a dash of reality.
First, let's get the dash of reality out of the way......
I went to the SFWA reception tonight. It was an excellent exercise for ocular muscles. All the name tags were color coded. Everyone who passed through the room glanced first at your face then immediately down to your name tag and then, all too often for those of us wearing author red, away. Are you my new agent, blue? Can you help me publish my book, purple? Maybe you can do my cover, green? Awww...you're red like me.
The predominance of red did not work for some I spoke with ("I haven't spoken with one agent tonight!") but I felt the energy of being with writers exhilarating. Isn't this my future? Isn't this where I belong? I could be at my grad class instead of trashing my average with this ONE more absence. (Oh! You wicked, wicked girl!) But I'd rather be in a room full of writers.
Actually, what I'd really rather be doing is writing so that the next time I'm in a room full of writers someone will want to look back at my face after they read my name.
On to nightmares, etc.
I feel the pain of the dog's weight pinning me flat on my back. His huge black paws press into the tender depressions over my breasts, just below my collarbones. Teeth bared over my face, hot saliva in my eyes.
Mermaids flash irridescent tails; their cupped hands offer pink lotus, plait my hair with pearls and seaweed. I swim with Blue Tang and Emperor fish. A flash of gold, a shoal of silver with yellow tails.
I'm on the top floor of a dingy white clapboard house. The wall of the room I am standing in crumbles, falls away like dust to reveal the night sky, jagged rocks along a distant shore. White waves scrape the moon, rush toward the empty, broken room, engulf me.
I wake in the sand at the edge of the ocean. Another wall of water roars towards the shore. Everyone is running but I am naked and wounded.
Where are the dreams of flying?
First, let's get the dash of reality out of the way......
I went to the SFWA reception tonight. It was an excellent exercise for ocular muscles. All the name tags were color coded. Everyone who passed through the room glanced first at your face then immediately down to your name tag and then, all too often for those of us wearing author red, away. Are you my new agent, blue? Can you help me publish my book, purple? Maybe you can do my cover, green? Awww...you're red like me.
The predominance of red did not work for some I spoke with ("I haven't spoken with one agent tonight!") but I felt the energy of being with writers exhilarating. Isn't this my future? Isn't this where I belong? I could be at my grad class instead of trashing my average with this ONE more absence. (Oh! You wicked, wicked girl!) But I'd rather be in a room full of writers.
Actually, what I'd really rather be doing is writing so that the next time I'm in a room full of writers someone will want to look back at my face after they read my name.
On to nightmares, etc.
I feel the pain of the dog's weight pinning me flat on my back. His huge black paws press into the tender depressions over my breasts, just below my collarbones. Teeth bared over my face, hot saliva in my eyes.
Mermaids flash irridescent tails; their cupped hands offer pink lotus, plait my hair with pearls and seaweed. I swim with Blue Tang and Emperor fish. A flash of gold, a shoal of silver with yellow tails.
I'm on the top floor of a dingy white clapboard house. The wall of the room I am standing in crumbles, falls away like dust to reveal the night sky, jagged rocks along a distant shore. White waves scrape the moon, rush toward the empty, broken room, engulf me.
I wake in the sand at the edge of the ocean. Another wall of water roars towards the shore. Everyone is running but I am naked and wounded.
Where are the dreams of flying?
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