The Current State Appraised

The rain is back, and January is starting to feel like it!

Good time to be inside doing creative stuff.

 The Icon of the Worldly King has just undergone formal appraisal, courtesy of Sovereign Gallery! This wild piece was a lot of fun, inspired by pieces from a Charlemagne relic to illuminated manuscripts --- yet I had no basis for pricing it in a gallery-type setting, except what I felt it was worth. Art is vague that way, unless taking into account the sheer amount of work involved. Work is work, undeniable in both the skill and tedium required.
 At any rate, the piece was begun several years ago and is still unfinished, with the remainder of work being the addition of gemstones. I felt it to be worth a lot, but was still surprised to hear that its worth is about what I'd hope to get reasonably for it.
 A lot.

 Excited more than ever about Edge, work on which continued until 3:00 am last night!
 The scene being snipped, diced, ironed and fitted was one I wanted to get right (write!) --- one that can get very long-winded with thick, juicy slabs of paragraph unless one is careful! It's the main character's primer on the basics of magick, after all. My thinking being: Hey --- if you know something about real magick, flaunt it. Teach people. Just maybe, it will change the way someone looks at the world . . . especially a kid.
 But it's an art, writing such a scene. Too much thinking, not enough crackling dialogue, and you lose people. People are l-a-a-z-y. Most of America today, in my opinion, does not think. They do not know how to think. One of the purposes of my book will be to get them thinking. How do you do it? Trick the idiots! Throw in enough fun and romance and angst to keep them reading, then sneak the juicy archetypal bits in there like morsels of superfood.
 And yet, I am resigned to the fact that no matter what, there will be people I lose  . . . because I am not the lowest common denominator. And I don't write for the lowest common denominator. I have a conscience, see --- I hate to waste trees on crappy writing, when there are already so many folks (you know who you are) who do write crappily. I want to help people learn things that move their spirits and minds, not just their nether regions. But that's okay. For all those folks, there's the smut shelf, the tabloid rack.
 My quote for lately has been:
 Those who can write, do. Those who can write more . . . teach.
 If you want empty pleasures, and do not want to risk learning anything, then my advice is this: Do not pick up Edge.

 "Trust? I was under the impression my chosen profession was politics!"    ---from Lincoln

 This morning was a discussion of Lincoln at Trinity Episcopal. I feel embarrassed I have not investigated more into the life of this amazing man --- but it's never too late to begin. The rich discussions of politics, spirituality, religion, conflict and the condition of being human were as soul-food to me, and I enjoyed it deeply. I and a few others were so stimulated by the talk as to "linger" afterward, well into the church service.
 I also felt it added a lot of fuel to my own creative engine, which is churning already with lots of serious, and utterly ambiguous, themes --- Edge is full of them. Isaac --- with a politician for an uncle, family relations that could get him killed, and a magickal gift that comes at a dreadful price --- dwells in a world where many avoid speaking truth out loud . . . whether out of concern for his safety and happiness, or more sinister motives. He dwells in ambiguity. I am even more "amped" about exploring such complicated themes as we discussed today about Lincoln in my own work, and in this story, which takes two trodden-to-death archetypes and pumps new life into them
 . . . takes them to the Edge.

 What else is going in the brew?
 No doubt the recent scandal with Lance Armstrong and his doped-up career. Doping and cheating is a long-standing matter in sports going back to ancient Greece and, no doubt, before. Humans are survivalists, and given the chance, many will cheat.
 In a world where the source of your magickal power and biological health comes from certain substances, when potions of all sorts are being made and drunk and swapped and some are necessary for life, where do you draw the line between "enhanced performance" and an athlete's regular programme? It's a question our world has to deal with, and so too shall the young competitors in Edge --- especially when the desire to discredit a rising upstart from an outcast tradition is strong.

 Time to get off . . . work to be done!

Mis(fits)rule: Illustrating in angst and whimsy

A fragment of one of the illustrations for Edge: A shapshot of misfit protagonist Isaac at home in one of few places he feels qualifies as "home", the forest, with his usual prop of a book. His actual house qualifies less as home, though he does try to make it his. Aside from magic powers and brains, he's a pretty typical dark-culture teen. And, more and more typically, he's also bicultural.

Isaac and his verbophilic friend Ellie, both darkly-cute creatures saturated in wry humor, made the flyer for IPRC's Text Ball (in black and white for cheap printing). Not many went out, but it's on file for the future, as well as a good prototype for others . . .

Coldreaders, start your engines...

Since last post, the holidays have hit. And passed.
They were sweet this year, with lots of chats and cookies and fudge and community events. I enjoyed it. Dad found a present for free. It's worth more than all the ones I got for him put together. Dumpster diving rules!
Now 2013 is upon us. All you witches out there may share my viewpoint . . . lucky 13!
Certain things, like the concert I attended with Dad and my Lopez "family", were so lovely I felt it a shame to leave them behind in 2012, and I hope to find ways to get more of them.
Other things, I won't say what seeing as I don't feel they deserve it, are good and gone, oh, so gone. (Some were so, like, yesterday even years ago.)
And still other things, like gymnastics and editing, have either resumed . . . or just go on! And on, and I either don't mind, or am glad.

I'm ironing out the last nitpicky plot bits in Edge (it always takes longer than expected, but because of the extra time, you get increased richness) and, surprisingly, liking it. Feeling good about it, such that I can't wait to send it out to all you readers for feedback! I'm shooting for the Full Moon for completion, at least "completed enough" since that's how it is in the early stages of testing!
If I miss the Moon, well. I'll keep going and still hit a star.

Rereading L'Engle's Many Waters. It's not a new book, and yet . . .
Fragments! Lots of fragments! Yay! Fragments are okay!
It's not fine to have fragments in the writing of a newspaper, but it's fine in a book. Gives you an edge. Pure ideas. Straight to the brain. Fun, too --- a kind of crackle to it. Fragments help convey the feeling or action of a situation without making the reader plod through a grammatically perfect sentence, although I still believe it's a good thing to know how to craft one. Even some books today have reached a level of structure and quality, or lack thereof, that makes my gut literally heave from word to word. Uuegh.

Illustrations continue on Edge . . . maybe some of you readers will get treated to a few in the "cold copy"! That's about it. Except, everything I do would be easier if my apartment wasn't 35 degrees F. But then again, if it's cold, it's clear; and then we get some sun. . . .

Hallow's Eve Retrospective

What is better on Halloween than early morning in a spooky graveyard?

This year was a new event for me --- joining the MAC Early Birds group from my workplace for a 5:00 am walk to Lone Fir Cemetery! It was not only a chance to be at that place at that time, when the still-black night is every so slowly and reluctantly fading to gray at about 7:00 am, but was an opportunity to meet and chat with some MAC members.

Glowsticks lined the walkway in the black. Ahead was a lit tent where there was coffee, juice, water and hot tea, along with candy and cookies. We toured a couple of the graves, including the large MacLeah monument. Other MAC groups came and went --- witch hats, rocker wigs, matching princess pumpkin hats. I couldn't bear to leave so soon, so I parted ways with the groups and took a slow wander (in my nice black wool cloak) through the graveyard, surprisingly able to see in the half-light. It was beautiful, and nicely sublime, especially after re-reading The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (A Newberry Award).

At thirty and with a dead parent under my belt, some things are less scary than when I was a kid. Other things, like popular magazines, are even more terrifying. But there were a couple of spooky moments. One was a gravestone sporting a carved relief of marble, its details washed from above but shadowed by age and grime below, so that the people in elegant, antiquated dress with drooping faces resembled skeletons at first in the half-light, with dark, hollow eyes. To see it up close dissolved that illusion but replaced it with an equally eerie one, that of time and failing flesh --- the inscription on the back was beautiful, however, about "returning to the elements of which we were made" or something of the like, and quite quantum-Universal for the turn of the century!

Another scary moment occurred when simply walking between graves under the trees. In that kind of low light, the eye must be discerning when it comes to distance, paying attention to small details as best it can. My eye focused on something in the foreground, and I slowed to a crawl. Hanging erratically from a nearby tree was a very long, very thin branch, thinner and hanging lower than all the other limbs, with no side branches --- very easy to miss. It dangled down from the tree trunk at least ten feet away to near where I stood, and on its tip was a hard, sharp bud --- next year's bloom, no doubt. I moved forward carefully just to see, and yep --- the bud's pointed tip was, and I mean exactly, level with my eye.
 Scary, indeed!

I grinned. "You stinker, you!"

Other Halloween events included an all-night party with friends, food, drumming, and a satisfying Osiris transformation ritual. On the Day of the Dead, Nov. 1, there was another ritual with a much larger group and a wonderfully colorful altar-of-the-dead.

Gymnastics continues, these days with steady landing of front flips and springs.

One Novel Hence . . .

No posts lately?
No problem, we're keeping busy in other ways.

This was my first year doing National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and aside from writing a novel, I had little idea what the whole thing was about. I have a pretty good idea now, though I still didn't utilize all the cute features the site offers. Having written Edge of Darkness at home alone night after night, I am used to such masochism, so I didn't get into "writing buddies" or "Upload and track your word count every day!" (AppleWorks does it for me instantly.)

No, I am first someone who likes to write, to type words into a computer. This is a mere extension, I realize, of my youth, when I was always scribbling on bits of paper or banging on a typewriter (even in high school!). It wasn't much of a stretch to put Edge's infinite editing and illustrations on hold to dive headfirst into another project!

As of now, the newborn novel bears the name Neon Cupcakes, but this isn't final. Rather than Edge of Darkness, which enters deliciously disturbed young adult territory, the latest creation is more a book for children --- though it touches on adult themes to some degree as does Madeline L'Engle's Many Waters and other books. A science-fiction fantasy, it recounts the adventures of two mismatched children living in troubled times on a divided planet. It takes readers into new territories of imagination by means of playing with science the way some books play with magic, asking: What would it be like to be made of flame? How about to drink nitrogen, to swim in ozone?

Lyra is passionate and inquisitive, wanting nothing more than to escape her mountain home and explore the world. Zyzyx (sorry, using these letters rocks!) is a calm and ambitious boy for whom Testing Day is everything: A career-making, life-determining SATs-times-ten. These two kids have everything that ordinary kids have in common --- family, friends, games, lessons --- except three hundred degrees. When a secret door allows a slip to occur between their worlds, Lyra and Zyzyx form an odd and forbidden friendship. The pair run a risk merely meeting to talk, let alone when they brave the touch of each other's hands. But the friendship may be all that can turn the looming threat of off-planet exploitation from a force that worsens the division of their home planet to one that unites it.

Neon Cupcakes poured out of me in a remarkable smooth tide, and has been a great deal of fun to write. Best of all, it provides a mirror and working companion to Edge for things that can be improved. It revives the "fire and ice" fantasy worlds I invented at age 16, but with a fresh perspective aimed at youth, rather than adults like regular sci-fi --- the formidable Issa, for years nothing less than a god, is allowed to be his godlike self at more of a distance instead of being the protagonist, while Flamboura (f. Flambeau) gets to be spunky Lyra's mom. Old favorite gizmo-warrior Zhizz is back, and so is mad scientist Xixizzi (his stuffy companion is a poke at Professor Snape), but almost every one else is a new ingredient in the brew! Talk of alloys and forging is a tribute to Dad, while the skating comes of my love for that sport.

Best of all, after seven years off-ice, I decided I really, really need to go skating again.

Edge of Justice

Friday, October 19: A dark and thrilling ride from back-row center, Portland Center Stage!

This was the last weekend for a live production of Sweeney Todd, so I took advantage of Portland's Arts-for-All program and entered on a discount.
 I've seen Tim Burton's movie version, which I enjoyed, but never a live theatre showing. It was dark and gritty and purely sumptuous! I was surprised at how much it resembled the movie, but there were differences as well. For example, with the judge shirtless and whipping himself in punishment, I got a taste of his character I didn't quite get in the movie.
 The settings were well done, as were the costumes, and the acting I felt was great all around. Such powerful voices. And yes, a spray of fake blood accompanied several of those graceful swipes -- just enough to fit a tale so gruesome, yet not excessive in my opinion. What was (and is) always a masterpiece was the musical score, which frolicks and flashes, growls and shrills. The high-pitched, dissonant scream of a whistle made the sudden presence of death that much more realistic and terrible.

I beg your indulgence, Antony,
But my mind is far from easy... 

 No mere thriller, Sweeney Todd speaks also of a world where corrupt systems drive people to take extreme measures. These systems are at fault as much as any one person. Then, add a specific case of acute personal suffering to the pressures from an already volatile economy, and a recipe for disaster is brewing...
 I got to appreciate the lyrics of the musical far more this time around. Next day, I looked them up. What wit! What delightful commentary, on the darkest aspects of human reality! There are horrors in this world, after all. If we cannot laugh at them, we will surely go insane. If we're not already, that is! I've always liked the musical quality of words, so I found it both a treat and very instructive to read the lyrics after hearing them on stage. They inspire my own writing.

Razor! Razor! cut cut cut 

 Deny it though we may try, we humans are a cannibalistic species, in thought if not in action. Just look at the economics magazines for business techniques! Even the vast majority of people who don't indulge in such things are fascinated by the few examples who do -- by that dark "edge" of our being.
 I'm enjoying an exploration of this in my writing. Isaac is more like Edward Scissorhands, in his more benign yet still dangerous nature, than the purposefully murderous Sweeney. But the question remains: What do we do with a person who "cuts"? And depending on how that person behaves and why, if we kill them, has justice been done -- or are we in fact worse than they are?

 It's all great fun to think about. And write about, and paint, too.

10-11-12: Going nuts

 This month has seen a record-setting period of sunshine for the Northwest. But at last we had rain in the forecast, beginning Friday. There's a lovely nature reserve in east Portland, known as Powell Butte, and I realized I hadn't been out there in a couple years. I wanted to visit before the gray weather set in... as it invariably does.

 I took my bike. Needless to say, after pushing that old rig 140-plus streets and then (on foot) up a long hill, I was tired. I was even more tired when I got back home several hours later, having hiked all over the butte and then pedaled back home that same 140-plus blocks. My muscles felt like sponges filled with warm honey. It was wonderful.

 I was very glad I had gone. Every so often it feels great to push one's body very hard. And the butte was so beautiful, with sunlight streaming through the forest on the west side, and that bright green of those miraculous, deciduous solar panels --- maple, poplar, birch --- vivid against the clear blue of the sky, on the verge of turning autumnal colors but yet to explode into full palette.
 On the east side the butte is largely bare, and this time of year covered in waving golden grasses, dried stems of herbs, the occasional crabapple tree laden with tiny sour fruits. It was on this half of the butte that I spent most of my time, basking in both the last "summery" day of the year (though it is technically autumn) and the beauty of the land, with its fields and woods, rolling foothills and valleys, and Mt. Hood veiled by a pinkish haze hovering in the languid air, fragrant with that essence only a well-ripened season can have.
 Powell Butte is old, as a place people have loved. On its bare crest is a large orchard, with other trees scattered here and there. On visiting this orchard before, I gave my attention mostly to the few apple and pear trees on the fringe: The main orchard was all some kind of tree with weird fruit, or no fruit at all, and a young person tends to stick to what they know and can get good things from. But today I thought, These trees were planted for a purpose. I looked up, then down at the ground, and the purpose was clear ... if only because I'd recently picked more of these same "fruits" from another tree in the Northeast District.
 Walnuts!
 How wonderful it was to break open a nut I'd picked myself, and taste the meat of it, as sweet as any nut I'd purchased in the supermarket! Sweeter, at that. The instinct to gather when autumn comes is millions of years old, and it hasn't been bred out of us humans ... even us city-dwellers. Then again, I grew up in a rural area, so I may be closer to the land than most.
 I spent at least an hour wandering the entire orchard for the first time, among the patient trees that spent their days in this sweet golden light (and all other weathers), now gnarled in their venerable age and no longer tended by human hands, except for those of the odd hiker or kid. I filled my paper bag with walnuts, to the point where I knew I'd have to rig up a sling for it with my sweater on the bike ride back home, or rii-i-i-i-i-iip!
 I wonder if the trees had any sense of the creature that spent time in their company, sharing --- if briefly --- in their peace, grateful for their bounty? Did they know me by vibrations, or by my chemical scent, as I know them by sight? Another one of those two-legged, fast-moving things. And this one knows what we are, has an armload of our little ones. My years, few as they are, are but a blink of time in the lives of these beings.
 I knew only that I was so full of peace, and so glad to be there, in that moment, that a couple of times, I cried. I felt something incredible.
 There were other trees --- a grove of poplars in the southeast corner, surrounded by their many gangly offspring --- with whom I spent time, now finished gathering and wanting only to prolong this delicious treat of a day as long as possible. The sun was swinging very low indeed as I started back through the woods, arm heavy with walnuts, and the light gilded the top of the canopy and bathed the forest vale in pure liquid life, a glow of pleasure to celebrate the end of a well-lived day and season ... a glow that settled around my heart.
 It sounds "aw", but that's actually how it felt. Really.

 Days like that one in the walnut orchard ... I have to be honest here.
 They can be better than sex.
 I think it's because it's not body-sex I'm working with, here. It's more like body and soul-sex, which not only feels good but kind of fills up your empty tanks and, instead of leaving you on some bashed-up high or just wanting more --- or worse, wallowing in filthy sheets of regret --- leaves you replete with good feeling that never fades. I mean, it's awesome.
 Don't get me wrong, I like a good hit now and then. But I also think, if you can't appreciate small things like I did that day, take pleasure in them, what is life?! I feel I add a lot to my life, and my writing and art, by soaking up stuff like that, rolling around in it.
 These days, the 50 Shades erotic series is all the rage. I'm usually willing to give things a glance, so I sniffed out some excerpts and quotes. And thought, wow. This is pretty sad. Easy read is one thing. Nothing wrong with that. I sometimes take note of easy-reads, to learn to simplify my language. For you lowest-common-denominator-crowd folks. Ouch! Now I'm just being cruel ...
  But there's the quality factor, the taste factor. BDSM flavors done well, versus served up a la stale-marshmallow-peeps. Mind, I'm not above creativity, in sex and other pursuits. After all, I'M the freaky chick whose characters have blades in their tongues. Right? That gets rather tweaky at times, mm-hmm. But when you can only get off if your life is one endless stream of full-stimulus machine-gun OMG, and that's all it is, and you essentially have the mental and bodily IQ of a wet vibrator ...
 ... well, oh my. Let me relate a tale ...
 At age 23 or so, I wrote a graphic novel about an electric superhero. Cute guy, if bald (electric, after all). He had a nice, macho-electric-boy nickname, Juice, but he had a bit of taste in his sugar-water as well. In one of the many episodes of Juice's college/superhero life, he had a spell of naughty with an electric supervillainess ... then he went back to his white-bread, non-suped-up girlfriend. Why? Not just because she was a nice, cool chick. He liked the subtlety. He could feel every nuance and flicker of her electric field, and it so, like, totally turned him on --- as opposed to a repetitive, mindless wash of 5000 Kilovolts that smothered any finer sensations. lame lame lame lame lame lame lame OMG!!!!!!!!!!
 Juice's feelings are mine, here.
 I dig the subtlety. Heck, I can get off on a beam of sunlight in a frigging walnut orchard.
 And, my English is a bit thick and meaty compared to today's norm, I noticed.
 And, even my bloodsucking playboy characters can dissect and ant and name all its segments before they do you (and then wipe your memory, if they simply must).
 In some ways, I'm very easily satisfied.
 In other ways, I'm not.
 The final point here, though, is that people are talking. Get people talking about something, and they'll get into it --- that's what defines popular. And it doesn't have to have anything to do with quality ... McDonalds and Britney Spears are proof of that. Sometimes, it just has to be easy and quick to swallow, especially for those who have lost their sense of taste.
 Sadly, that number is probably growing. This is the OMG age we live in.
 It is interesting to ponder, though. Personally, I'm not sure I could write like that --- maybe if I really tried. Put that in italics: really tried. But by and large ... read my stuff, strap that leather on your mind as well, and get ready to hang by those Jungian archetypal handcuffs, babes. Is it above your average American mommy? We have yet to see. If so ... tough.
 Maybe I'm just a throwback.
 Maybe I'm just nuts.
  heeee heehee hehehehe heheheee.