Reading For Writing

I am no poet, and likely never will be. Still, yesterday I went along to the second of the workshops offered this year; this one was with Joanna Preston. I'd been a bit dubious about going right from the beginning because...well, I'm no poet. Teen Angst Drivel is still about my limit, and I haven't been able to use that excuse for nigh on ten years now. But on Friday night I went to the poetry reading and...I thought I'd made a good call. And after spending four or so hours in her company on Sunday along with a few hardy souls, I thought the whole experience well worth it.

Of course, I did come a bit unstuck when we actually got around to writing poetry. Another reason I went is because I thought it would mainly be close reading, which we did for the first half; I still rather treasure the moment I realised just what the first poem we read was about. That experience summed up rather neatly my problem with poetry, actually; I tend to read literary poems, find they sail over my head, and get frustrated and give up. For some reason T.S. Eliot got under my skin and wouldn't let me give up, but generally speaking...yeah. But this poem? Imperial, Don Paterson. Didn't want a bar of it the first read-through. Or the second. Or the third. In fact, I lost count of how many times I wrote that bastard off. Then...well, Joanna pointed us in a direction AND LO THERE WAS LIGHT AND IT WAS GOOD IN MY EYES. That's exactly what I wanted to happen when I went to the workshop -- to take pleasure in poetry. So, even though writing some later was like wringing blood from a stone, it was well worth the price of admission.

I also acquired Joanna's book The Summer King, although I'd decided I was going to buy it about ten seconds after she started reading her first poem on Friday night. I haven't started reading any more of them yet, partially because I am still reading those Jacqueline Carey novels, but it's also because Joanna pointed out to us that reading poetry fast and furious? Is like bolting a Michelin star meal. It's a waste, and you miss the craftsmanship that makes it so special. So, yeah, I'm saving it. I might actually take it with me on my little soujourn to the Millbrook later in the month. Reading poetry after a massage amongst the mountains...it's got to be relaxing, yeah?

Still, speaking of bolting food and Jacqueline Carey, I continue to stuff my face while reading and therefore have a bit of a sour taste in my mouth when it comes to Carey. It's not her fault, of course, but still. I should stop reading and start writing. I did find it amusing to discuss with Morag after the workshop, though, one thing I found very curious about Kushiel's Dart and my reading of it. I actually got into Carey through a short story in an anthology I'd bought specifically for a Diana Gabaldon short. I wasn't particularly enamoured of the latter and went sifting through the book for another story, and vaguely recalled having heard Carey's name somewhere down the fantasy line. The story in question -- You, and You Alone -- is bittersweet and lovely, told from the POV of Anafiel Delaunay. I fell in love with him then and there, let me tell you.

Anafiel is a poet. You'd think this would have been an impediment, but...I still loved him anyway. But the Anafiel in Kushiel's Dart doesn't write poetry -- that we know of. This is because his poetry was declared anaethema, but still...I ended up thinking "He's a poet with no poetry!" and I wanted to see it as it was such a fundamental part of his character. Which brings up the interesting question of how a novelist imbues a character with talents that they themselves do not have. Perhaps it's a mercy that Carey didn't attempt to give us much of Anafiel's poetry beyond a few couplets -- certainly I personally wish Anne Rice hadn't tried to go all Guns n' Roses in The Vampire Lestat as even my angsty teen ear smacked that shite down -- but...I don't know. I suppose I can but hope that I stick to my mathematicians and musicians, and pray that I never have to write a poet of my own.

...of course, saying that only encourages them. And Joanna didn't help; she was talking about how poetry is a powerful cultural force. It's the poems that we turn to in times of happiness or grief, and it's one of our oldest art forms. They still use poetic forms in Wales that began there three thousand years ago. Even I have the urge to read epic Norse poetry because something about it just sings to my mind. So, naturally, my personal insane "bard" archetype, one Aidan Jannock, is sneakily suggesting he tip his hand to poetry. He's usually more into talkative prose, if his entries in the Menhir journal throughout the latter third of The Juniper Bones are anything to go by, but Aidan's Aidan.

I'm in trouble.

It doesn't even help, when I try to tell him about something else Joanna said that stuck in my head -- apparently, when the revolutions come? The first artists they shoot are the poets.

In retrospect, I should probably just stick to being a novelist.

^_~

Writing Different Worlds

So,  today I took advantage of the wonderful local arts festival and its wonderful Readers and Writers Alive! programme, and went to a workshop based around speculative fiction. I'm pretty sure I've said before that I don't really know what genre my writing properly falls into, but considering my tendencies towards the weird and the wacky, spec fic is definitely a place where my mind is at home. So, I was quite excited about this one (although to be honest, I've been excited about all the workshops I've ever been to through Dan Davin; the ones with Owen Marshall and Gavin Bishop particularly stand out as wonderful in my memory, and I still kick myself for not going to Helen Lowe's).

Anyway, today's workshop was with Tim Jones, who was a Southland local for a while there but now lives in Wellington; I can hardly hold it against him, mind you, considering the fact that I myself am a bit of a Wellingtonian at heart. (Although how anyone could hold anything against a place that produces things like this, I don't know. I myself have a vague dream of living one day in Paekakariki, at least partly because saying it is hilarious...whether it's proper or Paekok. Ha!) We spent the workshop chatting about speculative fiction, did a couple of little exercises, and then ended with a discussion about publishing. That's definitely something I need to start focusing on, although then again I need to start finishing things first! Although with that said, Tim said that Young Adult is the genre most likely to be published by New Zealand houses, so I suppose I should really look again at the draft of The Neverboy. It's been sitting around long enough now that I can look at it semi-sensibly, so...

In the meantime, there's always Hibernaculum and The Juniper Bones to finish, and then consider trying for an agent either in Australia, the States or the UK. And I suppose there's always For What We Drown, too, but that manuscript has a gaping hole in it at the moment. The first half of the book, I think, is fine; it just needs a futher round of edits to make it tighter. The second half is a mess. I basically chopped the first three chapters to pieces and started putting it back together, and then gave up. It also requires major editing throughout because I confused myself so much in terms of the world-building of Julia's home, and...yeah. It lost momentum and cohesion fairly early on. I still think it's an interesting story and in theory it ought to be salvagable, but...yeah. It depends on my mood, somewhat. I suppose, too, it's more likely to be picked up in New Zealand than anywhere else being that its first half is set primarily in Te Anau, but we'll see.

I really enjoyed the workshop, though. It had probably the best turnout I've seen for any workshop here in good ol' Invervegas, and the people were fun. I really hope a couple of them will come to the Chapter I meeting tomorrow night. I need to make some cupcakes for that, actually. Ah, cupcakes, my old foe...

But back to the workshop -- the two writing exercises were interesting, both in the writing and then in hearing what other people did. The first was just a warm-up from a prompt, and I rather liked what I came up with in the fifteen minutes or so. Strangely, for me, it was basically a finished piece. I have no idea how many words it was, but anything less than five thousand words is a miracle on my part. I think I will have to type it out and play with it, keep it for some future submission or endeavour or whatever. The second was a bit less successful; we were just writing to show how the world was different in the story. I ended up writing something from the point of view of one of the handmaidens of the Queen of Nylurea, but I actually started, info-dumped, and then started again. That do-over, though, was quite useful for me in that it did help me examine what I was doing and how it didn't work that first time around. I would like to finish it at some point, mostly because it gives me an insight into the Nylurean culture. I'm far more familiar with Sarinian culture, as it's primarily Sarinese characters that I write, but of course there are Nylureans present in most of the stories. And I'm still fascinated by Jeramie and his love for the once-queen Kiriana, so understanding more about how she grew up...is always useful.

I never did finish those short stories for submission this month, though. I was inspired during one of my walks today, however; I think I'll try for next month's Wily Writers submission, which is to do with post-apocalyptic worlds. I've got the song Pretend The World Has Ended stuck in my head, and there's definitely a story there. I'm just not sure which world it's set in. I think it's an entirely new one, to be honest; that's a little terrifying. Maybe it's the crimson moon? Certainly thanks to Henryk Górecki and Lamb the once-opal moon has a terrible and tragic history. It seems maybe the crimson does, too.

In the meantime, I think I shall try and stop eating this evening -- I'm in the midst of a food binge, unfortunately -- and write instead. I think The Juniper Bones might be calling my name; Morgan seems to be having a temper tantrum about something. Or maybe I am just thinking ahead to the poetry workshop tomorrow. The section of TJB that I am working on now is named the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew, and opens with a nice little extract from Ash Wednesday. It's the bit with the juniper tree and its bones, even! But even then, maybe that's not it; I was thinking at the workshop today that I need to go back to the CompuServe forum and spend more time there, and I was reminded of how I had shared some little bits of this novel with them and received such support. There's little bits of poetry scattered throughout my prose, given the way I write, and especially when Eliot is thinking of Lavinia...oh, yes. So I suppose we'll end with a little of that, shall we?

The warmth of her had become as familiar as the sound of the sea, as the rhythm of the waves against the stone waterways of the city from whence he had come. Though he had never been a creature of the water, in that place it had become the touchstone of this life. Yet, in the city of marble and light, he found his rest and his sanctuary instead in the nearness of her flesh, the openness of her heart, the touch of her spirit against his. It did not matter, that he had not been born here, that this was her city. By his very nature, he should never have a home – and then the sacrifice of the widow had rendered her as homeless as he, save for the asylum of one another.

It was enough.

With the careful hand of a musician, he traced a line from the curve of her jaw down to the hollow at the base of her throat, coming to rest upon the delicate collarbone above the beat of her heart. No, this place had never been his home, and now it would never be hers again. Yet she never showed him that she mourned the loss of her human life, and for all she sometimes worried aloud about when this life was done how they should meet again in the next, he knew that she did not regret it any more than he ever could. Of course she missed the widow, worried for her peace and her soul – but Vincenzio had leaned over the other woman’s body and seen at last the peace on her face as she died for the final time. In a strange way, for a moment he had almost envied her. Then he had turned to find Lavinia standing there, his bride and his wife, and he had felt no more regrets.

Still, he thought of the place he had rested for so long, in that world now denied him. Despite being aligned with the watchtowers of the south, with the element of fire, he had been most easily summoned in an unremarkable grove of trees deep in the northern mountains. Even in his new life, he could not explain why.  There had been other ways, other places where his spirit could be invoked. But he had liked those trees. He mourned still the loss of the star-lake, the heavy scent of the silver leaves, and the silent watchfulness of the Menhir to the distant centre of the world.

“What are you thinking of?”

Startled, he looked upward to meet the sleepy gaze of her blue eyes. He had not noticed her awakening. “The place from whence I came,” he murmured, and leaned forward to press a kiss to the skin where his fingers had lingered. Already her eyes flared, dark with desire, though she had barely escaped from her dreams.

“Do you miss it?” she asked, gentle as the memory of the sea. He sighed.

“In a way.”

“Will you ever see it again, do you think?”

“Perhaps.” He did not think so, for he remembered well the dark day of the Ending, when he and all of his kin had either been sent from the world, or enslaved to those it had been given to. Though those gods had by rumour lost that influence long since, he still did not think his own kind would ever have what had been theirs once more. He could not bring himself to say her name, to bring her into their marriage bed, but he suspected that had been the reason why the widow had no longer wished to live. Their purpose had been taken from them, and filled with so little in return. But he had found a new purpose, and he leaned close to again press his lips against the rhythmic centre of her eternal life.

“It was a strange world,” he said finally, and then looked up at her with gentle trust. “But that world is gone. And here I am.”

“And I am glad for it.” Her voice was suffused with rich pleasure as she tilted her head upward, brushed her lips over the brief stubble upon his chin. “But…could we go there?”

“I do not know.” His brow creased; he had not expected her to ever want such a thing. “Do you wish it?”

“Only if you do.”

The memory of trees was like a brand upon his mind. It was true – he did want it. Though the world had changed, had gone on without him, he could not help but wonder if those trees still reached for the sky in the shadow of the great Kaverlen mountains that had sulked upon the horizon since time immemorial. It would have been years since their Ending, but the trees had been touched by his own immortality. And even should they have at last curled in upon themselves, helpless before the grinding mill of time itself, their children would have sprung from their gravewood and reached for the same stars that had once been the jewels in their parents’ silver crowns.

“Shall I take you?” he asked, and touched a chaste kiss upon her forehead. But when he rose above her again, her grin had become wicked, a promise of a world in which no sin existed, save for the denial of love and the beauty it wrought deep in the fabric of their very beings.

“Take me, husband,” she whispered, and reached for him.

He started – but a smile swiftly followed on its heels. As he leaned forward into her touch, he thought ruefully upon her capacity to surprise him still. But then, it was only ever in all the best ways.

Poetry In Motion

Like a lot of other people, I suppose tonight I'm sitting here with the royal wedding on in the background. I'm not terribly interested in it, as such, but I used it as an excuse to make and eat date scones (this is not a good thing). It also serves to remind me that when I write royalty I never get it right -- I tend to make them too isolated, in terms of how they live their day to day lives -- but oh, well, I like pretty things. And London. I really should pick up and move to London...

All that aside, though, I spent some time earlier today at something a little bit unusual for me: a poetry reading. I always claim to have never been a fan of poetry, but when I consider it...I must have always have had something of a soft spot for it. Which is just because I'll say "I hated studying poetry in high school!" but then I will admit to loving Sassoon and Owen, and there will always be a part of me that cries to hear Sara Teasdale's There Will Come Soft Rains, thanks to Ray Bradbury. I think my attitude actually changed, though, when I took a Modernism paper my first year at university. It's entirely the fault of that paper that the first time I saw the second Spider-Man movie I burst out laughing at Alfred Molina's deadpan delivery of the line: I finally got lucky in love when I met Rosie here. She was discussing T.S. Eliot, and I was discussing... I still don't know what she was talking about!

But yes, the myseries of Eliot are still strongly influencing my own work; I also developed a fondness for Browning and Yeats, which was fairly unexpected. But even though I didn't much care to read poetry, I did attempt to write it. Naturally, being that I was an emo kid, it was angsty teenaged drivel best never considered again. But I suppose I ought to dig some out for posterity?

Change In Shadows

Where do you lie,

Oh fallen Angel?

You have walked in darkness

And now you lie in shadow

Swiftly fallen, angel,

Where do you lie?

You lie to me,

Oh fallen Angel?

With a raven life in shades

Of grey and charcoal burnt black?

Swiftly fallen, angel,

To whom do you lie?

Still do you lie,

Oh fallen Angel?

An honest sun shone on you

Yet you cast no true shadow

Swiftly fallen, angel,

Why did you lie?

I'm fairly certain that was written about Zurin, one of the characters I've been writing about in Hibernaculum the last week or so. Although he's changed a bit recently; my talking heads thing from the other day has led me to believe that Zurin also needs to sort his shit out and do something useful in order to justify his existence, as well as his behaviour. Poor thing, it's not like I haven't screwed him up completely to begin with...

But yes, that is evidence of the reasons why I stopped writing poetry. But the thing is, listening to the four poets tonight reading their work? Reminded me of how I love imagery in my own writing. I have been told by numerous people I have a poetic sense in my prose. Certainly I am mildly infamous for my mental metaphors (I love metaphors -- the more unusual, the better). Which is why I am glad that this weekend, I signed up for both workshops. I was just going to do the speculative writing one tomorrow, but I decided to do the poetry one too.

...I suppose it helps, that listening to Joanna Preston gave me chills. And a girl-crush. Ha. Seriously, the way she read her work? Was magical. I should lay my hands on a copy of The Summer King. In the meantime, I should do some Zumba to undo a little of the damage of these scones, have a shower, and get to bed. And also I need to stop giggling at the Archbishop of London, because a) he looks like Santa and b) any time anyone says "marriage" at this ceremony all I can think of is The Impressive Clergyman.

I am a Bad Person.