To See or Not to See

Good grief, has a week passed?! I wish I could say that it was because I was past the 25,000 word mark but alas this story isn’t working up as fast as last years. Although, I did add a hot dude – a tall dark, smart, handsome, come-to-your-rescue type of guy. A mysterious, tough, good hearted bad boy. Trust me ladies, you wouldn’t want to bring him home to mama, but you might consider chaining him to your bedpost. He dresses in tight black t-shirts and bulges in all the right places. He prevented the Federal Agents from arresting Mya for something she didn’t do by picking her up (literally and figuratively speaking) at Hell’s Run Station and smuggling her onto his ship right under their noses. They are now on his spaceship heading for Earth Sim II – a planet settled after the original Earth got a bit crowded. All the major cities have been reproduced – some of them replicas of their most popular years—Victorian London, Rome when it was still an Empire and Greece in its golden days and just for fun—New York City in 2052.

I’m not sure what they will do when they get there but I’m thinking that Mya’s old boyfriend back home might just show up, too. We’ll see…

A note about York Reynolds of the last post – I was going to post a picture of him. He was kind enough to let me take a few pictures of us sitting in Panera Bread last week but the ones I took of him were blank. The ones before were fine, the ones after were fine but his pictures were totally black. Hummm….

So on the subject of seeing things or not seeing things I will leave you with an excerpt from Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” 1955

He was dressed like a ragpicker. There were only a few faded hairs left on his bald skull and very few teeth in his mouth, and his pitiful condition of a drenched great-grandfather took away any sense of grandeur he might have had. His huge buzzard wings, dirty and half-plucked, were forever entangled in the mud. They looked at him so long and so closely that Pelayo and Elisenda very soon overcame their surprise and in the end found him familiar. Then they dared speak to him, and he answered in an incomprehensible dialect with a strong sailor's voice. That was how they skipped over the inconvenience of the wings and quite intelligently concluded that he was a lonely castaway from some foreign ship wrecked by the storm. And yet, they called in a neighbor woman who knew everything about life and death to see him, and all she needed was one look to show them their mistake.

"He's an angel," she told them.

I Hate My Novel

I’ve spent the last several days hating my novel. I hated the plot, or lack there of. I hated the heroine. I hated that it took place in space and I hated that it sucked.

Then I went to Panera Bread this morning to have breakfast with my daughter-in-law (really the daughter-of-my-heart) who is also a writer to commiserate about my plight. We got our coffee and bagels and settled into a corner table next to the window. On the other end of the blanket that bordered one side of the tables was sitting an African American male with a kind looking face some where between the father and grandfather age.

Both Tracy and I have lived in far more integrated neighborhoods then the ones we now live in and it is rare to see any ethnic diversity in our daily rounds so it made us smile to see him sitting there. And being that both Tracy and I will talk to anything that breathes and some things that do not—it was not long before we stuck up a conversation with him.

York Reynolds was born in Georgia in 1942. He had a loving childhood even if his father was undemonstrative and both of his parents were present in his young life. He’s living now in Hartford with his granddaughter, his wife having passed away. He likes to get out in the morning and go for a drive and find a place to have breakfast and sit and enjoy watching the people and the nature he writes about.

York is a poet and his filled three notebooks with his poems that he intends to leave for his children so that they will know who he is and how he feels about things—in a way he never got to know his father. I asked him if he liked Mary Oliver or Billy Collins (Poet Laureate of the US in 2001-2003) and he sadly shook his head. No, not them he said, Shelly and Keats were his wordsmiths. Shakespeare and the Elizabethans sang to his soul.

York was aware that his was the only black face in the restaurant and there had been a time that his mother, after the beginning of the civil rights movement when integration was new, was not comfortable sitting in a MacDonald’s with white people. Times they are a changing, he told her.

A few years ago he was back in Georgia visiting his mother; he was sitting on her porch swing looking across the street to the all black elementary school that he had gone to. When the bell rang for recess and the front door burst open and blond curly headed girl with a face as white as snow came running out followed by her more richly “colored” friends. York’s smile went from ear to ear, yes, he said, the times are changing.

We are so free with the word hate. I hate my novel, I hate my hair, I hate my neighbor. York knew something about that word first hand in a way I can never know. It brought me up short. Here was a man who loved words and in our almost three hour conversation he didn’t use the word once. And only if I can live up to that can I hope to help – the times they are a changing.

It's that time again! NaNo 2007

It’s that time of year again and I’m engaged in the month long word marathon called NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). It’s crazy, it’s time consuming and it’s fun! So much fun that I’m doing it again!

I tried in 2005 and didn’t make the 50,000 word bar but in 2006, I parked my inner editor and any idea of producing a finished product in the bottom draw of my dresser and taped it shut. Without the distraction of perfectionism I accomplished my goal and produced a story worthy of editing.

This year’s heroine is a tough wise-cracking space pilot whose side kick is a bio-computer that is fond of quoting dime store detective novels and doing Humphrey Bogart impersonations. When she finds her boss shot and her room on the space station blown up she figures it’s a good time to head out of town.

She escapes religious conversion when she inadvertently wanders into the no-fly zone of an Amway Pyramid Prayer Colony by claiming to be in a hurry to help her ailing grandmother. While the Praytons are considering what to do Mya (her name for now) pops the clutch on her warp drive and reappears on the dark side of the quadrants most dangerous space outpost Hell’s Run.

We find her in a Retro-MacDonald’s (the metallic robots at the counters are a tip off since no one has seen a metallic robot since 2020, they are all humanoid looking now) trying to find out what the hell is going on and why half the galaxy seems to be looking for her.

And that’s all in the first 4500 words.

So keep checking back and I’ll try to keep you updated on the story. Those of you that leave comments and kudos will get points redeemable in Black Mary’s Space Bar for Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters.

Ta ta da, ta ta da, ta da da da.

Ta ta da, ta ta da, ta da da da.

(Think horns at a race track announcing the beginning of the race.)

And we’re off!

I’ve been typing for two hours and I have a hefty 936 words. I actually had a few more this morning but I changed my story and started again. To tell the truth I have four story lines I could go with. Lots of creativity – little solid direction. Sounds like more than a few areas in my life. Starting things doesn’t seem to be a problem; it’s all those cardinal planets in my chart. But alas no earth signs to keep me on track.

At least, I was able to turn the TV off and present myself to the keyboard. Showing up at the canvas. That’s what Robert Glenn says in the painter’s keys twice weekly letter about creativity and painting. If you want to produce art, your job is to first show up at the canvas. Even if you can’t think of anything to paint, you need to be there, you need to make a tiny start. One line, one brush stroke, it all starts there. Matisse would only have been great in his own imagination if he didn’t show up to do the work everyday. It’s not easy, maybe it’s not even supposed to be easy, but it’s essential. There is no other way to get there.

I remember reading Twyla Tharp’s book on creativity where she tells about getting up at 5:30 am every morning, donning her cloths and getting into a taxi to go to her studio to work out. She never considered not going; she never even thought about it, she just went.

Nike built a billion dollar business around it. Just do it.

So is this story line the best one. I don’t know. But I have the feeling that it doesn’t matter. I need to show up at the keyboard. It isn’t going to happen in the shower or over coffee in Starbucks with friends or even dreaming up plots sitting on my beautiful back porch. The only way it will happen is if I show up at the keyboard.

Thanks for the pep talk, Cat. Now back to work…

Less than 2 hours to go!

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Only an hour and forty minutes left to go! I’m working on a plot outline. It’s a bit sparse at the moment.

“A reluctant hero sets out on a journey to save his friend and winds up saving the universe.”

I guess it will take some fleshing out but even Tolkien had to start somewhere.

We can work on the outline but can’t start the actual writing till midnight. I might manage a few words after 12:00 but writing will start in earnest in the morning. Until then I’m making tea and working on the outline.

Thanks for all the encouragement!

NaNoWriMo - 2006 - Here we go again!

NaNoWriMo - 2006 - Here we go again!

OK, its time again and here I am thinking what the hell am I doing? What am I talking about? NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month. 50,000 words in 30 days. What was I thinking?!

So here’s the deal. For the next month I will be attached to the keyboard pounding out a novel that probably has no hope of being published and might even bore me, not to mention you but there is a mission and it has grabbed me.

Ever say “someday I’m going to write a novel?” I have. Lots of times and (unfortunately) to lots of people. Probably, I even said it to you. So it’s time to pony up for another try. I didn’t finish last year but I wrote a lot more than I would have if I didn’t try. It’s a story that I am still working on.

This year I’m going in a different direction. I’m jumping into the middle of a kid’s story that has been running around in my brain for years. We’ll see where it goes.

Your part? Make coffee, deliver pizza, and massage my aching shoulders? All of those are good ideas (and I might take you up on it) but I what I really need is for you to ask me “how is the novel coming?” when you see me. It will keep me on track. It will remind me to focus. It will embarrass me if I haven’t been writing.

Can I do it? Maybe – if you help.

I’ll post this to my NaNo blog. I might even post a few excerpts. Write back, encourage me. I’m gonna need it.

Sisters in Time

Sisters in Time
Prologue
When they passed thought the archway of the thousand year old stone wall separating the town of San Gimignano from the surrounding country side there was no way they could tell what century they were in. No telephone or electric lines belied the date, no cars betrayed the decade—only farmers tending olive groves as theirs forefathers had done for centuries before them.
“What did Simon say to you in the gallery?” Alton asked. He has been keeping a running commentary about his city, his home for the last six years and where he had produced some of his best sculptures.
“He grabbed my wrist and told me that he knew I was psychic and that I should let the things I saw pass through me. I looked to see if you had put him up to it but you weren’t even in the shop. He didn’t know I was with you and how would he know that about me anyway.”
Alton shrugged. “How do you know what you know?”
Cat looked at the poppies on the hill side and then out beyond the Cyprus trees that divided the groves of olive trees and houses, framing the lighter green patchwork of farmland. She looked up at Alton. “I don’t know.”
Linda picked up a poppy and pressed it between the pages of her moleskin journal. “Come on, Boo,” and gestured ahead. Lin’s use of the endearment for the people that she loved made Cat smile. They had been like instant sisters when they met.
Yes, thought Cat, come on – lighten up. This is a trip of a lifetime, surrounded my friends, a beautiful day, what more could I ask for, there is no reason to feel uneasy.
“How old is the wall?” Aziz, ever this historian and a last minute addition to the trip Linda and Cat made from New York to Florence—and today here to visit Alton and see the city.
“I should imagine close to a thousand years. Etruscan around 300 BC but the wall was built after that – and the towers” Alton gestured back toward the city at the stone towers rising against the cloudless blue sky, “date between the 11th and 13th centuries. There is a Templar church not far from here, the oldest in Italy.”
Aziz’ eyes lit up. “I would like to see that I’ve read a good deal about them.” Heir to the throne of one of the larger record companies, Aziz, was, as one might expect expert in the field of music but his knowledge of art and history had been one of the unexpected treats on the trip.
Alton and Aziz continued on the path around the wall with Linda and me bringing up the rear looking for more perfect red poppies to press in the pages of our journals. The path wound upward and we kept pace until we approached another archway. A road came out of the archway like a black tongue and was soon a sliver of ribbon wound between the green of the countryside.
“It’s up here. “ Alton, pointed up across the street and up a slight rise. We could see the top of the small white church at a distance. Between it and ourselves were concrete blocks damning off the edge of the church yard, topped with bright yellow and orange plastic sheets with evenly space holes—twist tied to steel fence polls driven into the ground. “I think they are doing some sort of preservation-renovation work. We may not be able to get in.”
Aziz sized up the plastic barrier and found it wanting. “I didn’t come half way around the world to let a little fence stop me. I think I can hope that.”
Alton gave him a nod of assent and the two guys began to sprint across the street. Linda and I, both of tomboy misspent youth, were not about to be left behind sprinted after them.
Just as Cat began to run, she could hear the sounds of hoof beats behind me and looking over my shoulder expected to see mounted policemen racing up to stop us from violating the church yards plastic protection. She hopped up onto the first concrete block and Alton and Aziz held down there hands to give Linda and she a pull up and steady us for the climb over the barricade.
We sprinted the remaining yard to the crest of a slight rise and there on the other side and nestled in its own tiny valley was a perfect small white square of a church. We stood looking one the weathered wooden doors and white lintel incised with a Templar cross.
“Touch it. Tell us what you feel.” Linda urged.
“What is she going to do?” asked Aziz.
“Sometimes when I touch things I get an impression – or a vision – connected to the object. It’s like seeing a movie in you head that doesn’t belong to you.” Cat shrugged her shoulders, “Let’s see.”
Cat started down the gentle incline to the front of the church which sat three or four feet below and about twenty feet from where the three companions waited with expectation. She walked toward the church. As she reached up to lay her hands on the door, Alton called to her. “Not the door. The building, it’s older.” The door though old was wooden and would have been replaced several times from the churches beginning seven or eight hundred years ago.
Cat paused and then leaned her palms against the building.
Immediately she felt as if her hands were sucked into the stone itself. The ground below her began to rumble. The air crackled around her and she heard again the horses hooves and the cry “Artur, Artur” from behind her. Panic flooded over her as she tried to move her hands and reach for the door.
An arrow pierced her left thigh, the point lodging in the bone. The second hit her in the right shoulder and pushed her forward against the building. She threw her head back and scream issued from the depths of her soul. The sound came from out of her, surrounded her reached outward in time. Long and loud it shook the air until the last arrow pierced her heart and she felt the release of death.
Cat slumped against the building and looked back at her friends. Linda was between the two men – her arms up to hold them back. When there eyes met Linda knew Cat was back in this reality.
“Are you OK?
Cat nodded.
“We better get out of here. “ Alton’s head swiveled around, that … that scream is bound to attract attention.
Cat was almost up the hill, her voice was a horse whisper, “Can’t speak.”
“Come on,” Lin said we’ll go back to the plaza and get you a gelato to sooth your throat and you can tell us what happened. They crossed to the corner of the church yard and out through a break in the orange construction barrier and back into the streets of the town proper.
The found cast iron chairs to sit on close to the gelato stand. The cool felt good against Cat’s back.
“What kind do you want?” Lin looked at Cat, who mouthed the word fruit and nodded a thank you.
After the gelato had put cooled her throat and the look of concern abated from the group’s eyes, Aziz asked the question on everyone’s mind. “What happened back there?”
Cat’s voice was raspy and her throat was just beginning no un-constrict. “I thought I heard horses when we were crossing the street. The men on horseback were yelling Artur, Artur to me and I was running to reach the church. I knew that I was going to die. I knew we were all going to die, all of us inside the church but I just wanted to be there with them. To die with my brothers.”
“Was your family in the church?”
“No, I mean brothers like monks, but we weren’t dressed in those brown robes.”
“Go on. “ Lin urged.
“When I was running toward the doors, I was shot in leg with an arrow. I stumbled but kept going then I was hit in this shoulder,” Cat gestured toward her shoulder looking surprised that there was no arrow there. It pushed me against the wall and I knew I wasn’t going to make it inside. I started to scream.”
“Yes, that was freaky.” Alton’s eyes were big.
“You heard that?” Cat asked.
“Heard it? Half of Italy heard it!” Alton wrinkled his brow. “I don’t understand why people didn’t come running.”
Cat looked into the eyes of her friends.
“Hon that was the longest loudest scream I’ve ever heard in my life.” Lin rested her hand on Cat’s arm. Aziz nodded in agreement.
“I died. The third arrow went right into my heart. I felt the release of death. I don’t think I will ever be afraid on it in the same way again. The pain on knowing I wasn’t going to get through those doors was far worse than the pain caused by the arrows.”
They sat a moment in silence. Then Lin asked, “Oh my. Do you remember the dream you had last night?”
“No,” answered Cat. “Did I have a dream? Did I wake you?”
“Yes, you were calling out,” she paused. “You were calling out ‘the door, the door’.”
“Whoa.” Alton put up his hands. “We’re you calling ‘the door’ or ‘Artur’? Calling to someone named Artur?”
“I don’t think Artur is a name, more of a command maybe. I’m not sure. I don’t know. I can’t make any sense out of it, except that I wanted to get inside to die.”
“When was it?” Aziz asked. “What period of time?”
“1309.” Cat said without thinking, surprised to hear herself say it and at the same time sure it was true. “1309, in the fall, it was just turning cold.”
Aziz looked skyward considering. “That would make sense. That was the time period of the Knights Templar and this is one of their churches.”
The group rose as one. The energy that raised the hairs on the back of their necks had begun to dissipate.
“I see a butcher over there. I’m going to get some meat for lunch.” Aziz headed off across the square.
Alton started to protest that he would make something back at his apartment over the art gallery but Lin stopped him. Smiling she said, “Dead pig. He’s into pork. He doesn’t get a lot of it at home. He’s been eating sausage and ham and having a field day. We’ve watched him eat it three meals a day since we have been here.”
Alton grinned at her. “It goes well with the wine you guys (looking at Lin and Cat) have been tippling at all hours of the day and night…” His eyes twinkled.
“Ah yes, well, you’re right about that.” Cat admitted, chagrinned. She had drunk more wine in the past week than she had drunk in the past year at home. And she thought it wouldn’t change today.