Theodora Goss's Blog, page 68

Go Tonight

I asked Terri Windling if I could write about a poem she had written called "The Night Journey," and she very kindly told me that I could. It's one of my favorite poems. She gave me permission not only to quote from it, but to reprint it here, so after my analysis you'll find the whole poem reprinted below.

It begins,

"Go by coombe, by candle light,

by moonlight, starlight, stepping stone,

and step o'er bracken, branches, briars,

and go tonight, and go alone . . ."

A coombe is a kind of deep, narrow valley, says the dictionary. So follow the valley, whether by candle light, moonlight, or starlight (meaning, whether or not you have a candle I suppose, but whatever you have, you must follow). It's going to be a wild sort of valley, with bracken and branches to step over, even briars that might tear your dress. And go tonight, not another night. And go alone, because this sort of journey can only be taken alone.

" . . . go by water, go by willow,

go by ivy, oak and ash,

and rowan berries red as blood,

and breadcrumbs, stones, to mark the path;

find the way by water's whisper,

water rising from a womb

of granite, peat, of summer heat,

to slake your thirst and fill the coombe

and tumble over moss and stone

and feed the roots of ancient trees

and call to you: go, now, tonight,

by water, earth, phyllomancy . . ."

Phyllomancy is a means of divination using leaves. So what are you following on your journey? You have particular markers: water, trees, berries. Breadcrumbs and stones also mark the path, which means that others travelers have followed that path before. Drink from the water that seems to spring up from the earth and then runs along the bottom of the coombe. The water is calling to you, but I suspect that more than the water is calling – everything is calling, the trees, the stones. You can see what is written in the leaves, you have already left your home and been granted certain powers. You are already a seer.

" . . . by candle flame, by spirit-name,

by spells, by portents, myth and song,

by drum beat, heart beat, earth pulsing

beneath your feet, calling you home,

calling you back, calling you through

the water, wood, the waste, the wild,

the hills where Dartmoor ponies pass,

and black-faced sheep, a spectral child,

a fox with pale unnatural eyes,

an owl, a badger, ghostly deer

with horns of star light, candle light

to guide the way, to lead you here . . ."

You are following the breadcrumbs, but also the stories – the portents, the myths, the songs, all the things you have been told all your life that are telling you where to go. The spirit-name: is that yours? The spells: are they spells you have woven? The heartbeat. I am certain it is yours, that you are following the beating of your own heart. But there is also a drumbeat, a pulsing that comes from somewhere – or someone? And from the earth itself, whose heart is pulsing with yours? Until earth and heart and drum are simply one pulse, one beat.

And they are calling you home, back to the home you left so long ago, but where you have realized you belong after all. It's not where you expected, is it? It's in the wood, the waste, the wild. Where the dead walk, where the animals are ready to speak with you and to lead you as well, animals that are not simply animals but also your kith and kin and kind.

" . . . to lead you to the one who waits,

who sits and waits upon the tor,

he waits and watches, wondering

if you're the one he's waiting for . . ."

Are you? Do you think you are? You're the one who heard and answered the call, so that must mean something. You're the one who came, who wants to be worthy. A tor, by the way, is a high hill or pile of stones. And now you're standing in front of him, because you've heard the call and you want to be the one. And you're waiting. Hoping you are the one he's been calling, because this is a call you've heard all your life. And tonight you decided to answer it.

" . . . he waits by dawn, by dusk, by dark,

by sun, by rain, by day, by night,

his hair as black as ravens' wings,

his eyes of amber, skin milk white,

his skin tattooed with spiral lines

beneath a mask of wood and leaves

and polished stone and sun-bleached bone,

beneath a shirt of spiders' weave,

his wrists weighted with silver bands

and copper braids tarnished to green,

he waits for you, unknown and yet

familiar from forgotten dreams . . ."

Who is he? I think he is an image of the one who is always calling. Several years ago, I wrote a book about three women poets, and I noticed that all of them had a poem about the call – a stranger came and called, or there was a call from some unspecified source. And they had to follow, whatever the price. (It was usually an ordinary woman's life. Comfort, a home. But they always followed the call.) It is a very old call. It has been calling for a very long time, as long as there have been singers and storytellers and painters on cavern walls.

" . . . you dream and stir upon your bed

and toss and turn among the sheets,

the wind taps at the window glass

and water tumbles through the leat

and through the garden, through the wood,

and over moss and over stone

and tells you: go, by candle light,

and go tonight, and go alone . . ."

Wait, weren't you on the hillside? No, you're still in bed, still not risen. Dreaming about the call. You haven't yet made the decision to go out into the darkness.

" . . . he's sent you dreams, he's left you signs,

he's left you feathers, beads and runes,

so go, tonight, by candle light,

by ash and oak, by wood, by coombe."

But he's calling you to whatever it is you're supposed to do, whatever it is you're supposed to be. It's your choice now. Are you going to rise in your nightdress, not even stopping to change? Are you going to take the candle and go? Are you going to follow the narrow valley, drink from the spring that runs through it, use all the powers you have ever had, all the training you have ever received, to read the signs and follow?

Or are you going to turn over, fall into a deeper sleep?

No, I didn't think so.

I have no idea if this is how Terri would read her own poem, but it's what the poem means to me. Here it is in its entirety: (Read it again. What does it mean to you?)

The Night Journey

by Terri Windling

Go by coombe, by candle light,

by moonlight, starlight, stepping stone,

and step o'er bracken, branches, briars,

and go tonight, and go alone,

go by water, go by willow,

go by ivy, oak and ash,

and rowan berries red as blood,

and breadcrumbs, stones, to mark the path;

find the way by water's whisper,

water rising from a womb

of granite, peat, of summer heat,

to slake your thirst and fill the coombe

and tumble over moss and stone

and feed the roots of ancient trees

and call to you: go, now, tonight,

by water, earth, phyllomancy,

by candle flame, by spirit-name,

by spells, by portents, myth and song,

by drum beat, heart beat, earth pulsing

beneath your feet, calling you home,

calling you back, calling you through

the water, wood, the waste, the wild,

the hills where Dartmoor ponies pass,

and black-faced sheep, a spectral child,

a fox with pale unnatural eyes,

an owl, a badger, ghostly deer

with horns of star light, candle light

to guide the way, to lead you here,

to lead you to the one who waits,

who sits and waits upon the tor,

he waits and watches, wondering

if you're the one he's waiting for;

he waits by dawn, by dusk, by dark,

by sun, by rain, by day, by night,

his hair as black as ravens' wings,

his eyes of amber, skin milk white,

his skin tattooed with spiral lines

beneath a mask of wood and leaves

and polished stone and sun-bleached bone,

beneath a shirt of spiders' weave,

his wrists weighted with silver bands

and copper braids tarnished to green,

he waits for you, unknown and yet

familiar from forgotten dreams;

you dream and stir upon your bed

and toss and turn among the sheets,

the wind taps at the window glass

and water tumbles through the leat

and through the garden, through the wood,

and over moss and over stone

and tells you: go, by candle light,

and go tonight, and go alone;

he's sent you dreams, he's left you signs,

he's left you feathers, beads and runes,

so go, tonight, by candle light,

by ash and oak, by wood, by coombe.

This poem is reprinted, with Terri's kind permission, from The Journal of Mythic Arts.

Writing Tired

What is it with this week?

I was so tired earlier in the week, and now I'm most definitely sick. But it's a sort of low-level sickness, a sense that things aren't right with me: tiredness, achiness, my head not quite clear.

Yesterday I came home from the university, lay down to rest for a few minutes, and woke up three hours later. And then I could not get to sleep again until very late, and tossed and turned all night.

I did not write my blog post.

(You know that I've committed to writing a blog post a day. So when I woke up this morning, an hour earlier than I usually do, I made myself breakfast and decided to write yesterday's post. Here I am, with oatmeal and orange juice, doing just that.)

My blog post today is about the difficulty of writing when you're tired. I have two examples for you. Take a look at my blog post "The School Itself." That's writing while tired. It's rambling and, to be perfectly honest, I'm not being particularly original, am I? I mean, there I am, trying to describe a witch's school, and I'm not coming up with interesting imagery. If it were a story and I had time to revise, I would have revised almost completely. Made things a lot more interesting. But that day, I just couldn't come up with anything.

My second example is "The Haul." I was tired that day too, and all I could do was give you photographs.

The question is, what do you do on days like those? The answer, for me, is not to take a break from writing. I suppose for many people it would be, and perhaps it ought to be for me as well. But then, on top of not feeling physically well, I would have the not-well feeling of not having written. So instead, I write tired. I'm tired, I go ahead and write. And whatever comes out, comes out.

(Can you see the effect in this post? My sentences are shorter, the transitions between them more choppy. It's as though my brain is having difficulty seeing connections, knowing where I should go.)

On a blog, there is no chance to go back and revise, so what comes out is what you get. And in a way that may be unfair, because you're not exactly getting the best of me. On the other hand, you are getting an accurate representation of who I am as a writer. There are days when I'm writing tired, and that's the best I can do. If there were time to revise, I would.

Today is going to be a long day for me. I have conferences all day long, and then I have work to do after I come home. I think that's why I'm sick, to be honest: it's a combination of stress, too much work, and the fact that I have fifty-six students this semester. When they get sick, I get sick.

So I will get through the day, come home, and probably fall asleep again as I did yesterday. And maybe wake up and write my blog post. I have a whole list of blog posts that I've been wanting to write, but I've been too tired to write them. I'll give you some of the titles:

"Go Tonight" about one of my favorite poems by Terri Windling,

"A Thousand Words" about writing a thousand words a day,

"Swan" about a story for a silent movie or comic book,

"The Romantic Underground" about a literary non-movement,

"Care for Yourself" about taking care of yourself as a writer,

"The Writer's Cat" about Cordelia, plague of my life and paper-eater.

I hope I get to them . . .

Time to go start my day. It's going to be a long one.

Value Yourself

Once, I had a student who started the semester by telling me that she was a terrible writer, that she had a great deal of trouble writing. Of course I believed her, and I planned on giving her extra help – until I actually saw her papers, which were perfectly normal undergraduate papers. What I learned, during our conferences, is that she had a tendency to use what I call the "preemptive put-down." She would put herself down first, as though expecting me to put her down. As though putting herself down would somehow head off a put-down by me, or someone else, I don't know whom.

I understand the preemptive put-down because I've certainly done it myself. I'm sure you have as well. "This dress is so ugly, but it's the only thing that wasn't in the laundry basket." "It's a first draft, and it's awful – seriously. You shouldn't even look at it." "I'm terrible at public speaking," or "dancing," or "throwing knives at people blindfolded." Whatever.

The preemptive put-down is a way of putting yourself down before anyone else can. It's a way of not being hurt, only it doesn't work, does it? For two reasons. First, because you feel as bad about yourself, having just put yourself down, as you would have felt if someone else had done it. And second, because when you put yourself down, other people tend to look at you strangely, to start wondering if in fact the dress is ugly, the story is awful, you're terrible at public speaking (in which case why are you on the panel anyway?).

So much of what we think of as reality is perception. There's real reality – like rocks, and if you don't think rocks are real, try kicking one. Then there's perception – Google stock is worth buying, that woman is beautiful, that speaker sounds smart. And perception can be influenced (unlike rocks).

Motivational speakers know this, and it's part of how they make their living: people tend to take you at your own valuation. If you ask for things and believe you deserve them, you get them with surprising frequency.

So you must, must, must value yourself.

But we don't, do we? There are several reasons, but perhaps the most frequent one is that we were taught not to as children. Because no one wants children to be "spoiled." That was a kind of mantra when I was growing up – that my brother and I were spoiled American children. We didn't know what it had been like, how difficult it had been, in Hungary under the communists. And of course we didn't. We were just trying to get on with our American lives. I've seen that attitude in a variety of settings, and I think it's partly cultural. Once, at a playground, I saw an older woman who was obviously Eastern European lean over and say, to an American mother who was playing with her daughter, "She's a little spoiled, isn't she?" As though it were the most natural thing in the world. In the South, there's a saying: you're not supposed to get above your raisin'. (Which makes me wonder, is this an aspect of cultures for which defeat still rankles? This concerted attempt to keep its children down?)

I think this sort of message has a terrible effect. I did not receive it as strongly as many others do, but I remember times in my life when I did not try something because I simply assumed that I would not be good enough, that I did not deserve whatever it was – the scholarship, the prize.

Here's why I bring all this up. If you're going to be a writer, you absolutely have to learn to value yourself, because writing is hard enough without the preemptive put-down. There are plenty of people out there who will put you down. Your job is to build yourself up, however many times you need to. And to get better, and better, and better through all the rejections.

Because you know what? Putting yourself down is a profoundly unattractive habit. People start to wonder if you really are as awful as you say, or if you're just asking for compliments. (If you need compliments, I recommend the following method: "I so need a compliment right now. Can you compliment me? Any kind of compliment will do." If you are with a reasonably decent person, you will get a compliment. As I mentioned, people tend to give you what you ask for.) And putting yourself down is cowardly. It's a way of making yourself safe, of hurting yourself before anyone else hurts you. Although, again as I mentioned, it doesn't actually work, does it? It doesn't make you feel safe, just sort of sad.

So how do you value yourself? It's difficult to change your mental state, but it's easy to change your actions. And changing your actions changes your mental state. So you must act as though you are valuable. You must act as though you are the best friend you've known and loved since childhood. When your best friend is sad, what do you do? Tell her how wonderful she is. When your best friend is sick, you bring her soup. You listen to her, you care about her, you buy her presents on her birthday. You draw her bubble baths. (All right, maybe not. Think of yourself as a friend even better than your best friend. After all, you were there when you were born, you will be there when you die. Who is closer to you than you are?)

If anyone insults her, you stand up for her.  You never put her down or allow anyone else to do so.  If she puts herself down, you tell her to stop.  You tell her you won't tolerate such behavior.

And you would be honest with your best friend. If the dress really was ugly, you would tell her, you wouldn't let her wear it, you would take her shopping for another. You would certainly not stand there and insult her! You would tell her the truth and help her become the person she wants and deserves to be.

The more you learn to value yourself, the better your life will become. The more you will have the courage to change it, to make it the life you want. Valuing yourself doesn't make life easier – life is always going to be life, you know? But it allows you to participate and compete. It is your "yes" to life, your "I'm going to give speeches and dance and throws knives at people blindfolded." (After knife-throwing classes, of course.)

This is as close as I'll ever come to a rant, but I really care about this.  When you're around me, don't give me the preemptive put-down, because I'll call you on it.  As your friend.

Listen to Me

I was listening to a video made by some friends of mine, and I started wondering what my voice would sound like recorded. And of course since it's late and I'm tired and I have a lot of work to do, I immediately started playing around and created an MP3. And then I figured out how to upload an audio file on WordPress, which required paying $19.99 for 5 GB of space, which seemed like a pretty good deal. And then I uploaded the audio file.

Here it is, an audio file of me reading the blog post I uploaded earlier today, "Thoughts on Love":

Thoughts on Love Audio

It's only my first attempt, and I made some mistakes. For example, the first time I tried to record something, I did not use a mic, so there was a lot of background static. I erased that recording, but the second time, when I did use a mic, I adjusted my voice based on the first recording. So I think that in the second recording, which is the one above, there is too much emphasis. In places, I don't sound quite natural.

The next time I do this, and I'm sure there will be a next time now that I've learned how, I'll read more naturally, with less emphasis. But honestly, I'm fairly pleased with the recording. I think I sound all right. It's obvious that I've been trained to read out loud – and that's true, I have been. In high school, I participated in speech competitions, was the captain of the debate team, and hung out with the drama crowd. I was the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland. In college, I was president of the Washington Literary Society and Debating Union. It's also obvious that I don't have a  trained voice. A professional actor would do much better, I'm sure. But I like my voice well enough, I'm comfortable enough with how the recording came out, that I'll certainly post more.

I do notice one thing that is interesting to me – and rather strange. I recognize my cadences. They are the cadences of an Episcopal minister speaking from the pulpit. I haven't been to that many church services, although when I used to go it was always to the Episcopal church. (Although I'm a devout pantheist by nature.) But somehow I must have internalized those cadences. Somehow they must have crept into my reading voice and made themselves at home there.

What will you think of this recording? I have no idea, but feel free to tell me of course.

Next stop, music videos. (All right, maybe not. I'm not Loreena McKennitt. Although I'm having so much fun that I'm sure I'll think of something else to do.)

Anyway, I hope you like the recording. This is what I sound like. Really!

Thoughts on Love

I think there are two kinds of romantic love. (I'm not talking about love in general, love for country, love for a child. Romantic love specifically.) One kind is for writing about. The other kind is the one you actually want.

The kind for writing about is the Tristan and Isolde love. It's immediate, passionate, intense. It breaks you apart and remakes you, so that you're a different person, no longer the person you were. It demands everything from you: your time, sometimes your life. It's the best thing you could ever possibly experience, until it's the worst thing you could ever possibly experience and you want to die.

That kind of love makes for fabulous stories. You can write all the intense and passionate parts, and then you can write all the painful parts. You can torture your characters all you want.

The other kind of love does not make for interesting stories. You probably have an idea of what I'm going to describe, but that idea is wrong. I don't mean the sort of domestic love that endures for years. I don't mean that at all, and I don't think that's romantic love but something else. The Tristan and Isolde love does not fade into domestic love. If it does, it wasn't the Tristan and Isolde love, which either endures or destroys itself. It can turn into hatred more easily than it can become domesticated, settle down into an ordinary life.

No, the other kind of love I'm talking about is described by Viktor Frankl, who writes,

"Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true."

I suppose what I'm really describing are three types of love: romantic love (passionate, intense), domestic love (comfortable, a safe haven in a stormy world – Tristan and Isolde were never safe havens for each other), and this other thing for which I have no name.

Romantic love makes you feel bound to the other person. Domestic love makes you feel safe with the other person. This third thing makes you feel free and not at all safe, because it means that you are seen, truly seen, by another person. Seen not just as who you are, but as who you could be. And so this love says to you, become who you could be – I will help you, I will be there for you as you do that, but I will demand that of you, that you become the self you were meant to be.

But it also leaves you perfectly free. It's not a love that says, love me back. It's not a love that says, do your duty. It's not a love that restrains you in any way, except by asking you to become yourself.

And it's a love that sees you, not as a reflection of the one who sees, but as who you actually are.

It's a light in the darkness, by which you are seen and enabled to see.

I think I'll call it perfect love, and it's what I think we are all striving for. Romantic love feels wonderful, until it doesn't. And domestic love makes us contented, until we realized one day that we want more, that we are not being our fullest, truest selves. That we were not meant to be contented, but to be discontented, to be forever searching and striving for more. That the search and the striving make us most human. What we want is the love that calls us on through the darkness. That offers a partnership deeper and stronger than either of the others. (If Tristan and Isolde had lived, would they have found it? Would he have helped her become a poet, would she have sent him on his quests with her blessing and a kiss?)

But that sort of love doesn't make for very good stories, does it? (Although it might, just might, make for good art.)

The School Itself

Tonight I am so tired that I can't write. So I'm going to let Thea write for me. She's been visiting for a while, and we've been having long conversations about all sorts of things. She's been telling me about her adventures, which are much more amusing than mine. Tonight I asked her for some information on Miss Lavender's School. And she told me – well, I'll just let her write it herself. While I have some dinner . . .

All right then. You wanted to know what it was like to go to Miss Lavender's School? I'll describe it for you. And you have to remember that, all the time Matilda, Emma, Mouse, and I were sneaking out at night, sneaking out during the day, traveling through time, all that – we were still going to classes, still doing our homework. That first semester, I got all Bs. But at least they weren't Cs, you know?

If you were going to Miss Lavender's, you would start at the Boston Common. One of the streets along the Common, and no, I'm not going to tell you which, has a small wrought iron gate. It's between two houses, and if you can't find it, you have to ask the cats. There are always one or two cats hanging around there. But they'll only tell you the way if you're the right person, the one who was admitted, who has an invitation, a reason to be there.

Open the gate and go down the lane that runs between the houses. (All the houses around the common are old brownstones. The lane is narrow, nothing but brick walls on both sides, with strips of some plant that lives in shade on both sides of the lane – liatris, someone once told me. And ivy growing up the walls.) It's called Hecate Lane, and once you get to the end of it, you get a surprise, because what you see there couldn't possibly exist. It's almost like a park, with a large stone house in the center. That's Miss Lavender's. It occupies more space than you would think existed there. Miss Gray explained how it worked to me once, but I've forgotten.

"It's magic, right?" I asked her.

"It's physics, and when will I get it through you girls' heads that magic is simply another word for science? That's why we call them the Magical Sciences."

That's what she says, but I still don't get it. And yet there it is, a park with a stone house in the middle, and gardens with paths, and playing fields. And a pond where we used to go sailing.

The school itself is two hundred years old – I mean this particular building, of course. Miss Lavender's has existed for who knows how many years. Thousands, I think. So don't expect modern comforts. The sinks are old and porcelain, the bathtubs are old and porcelain and take forever to fill, although they're great for reading once you've gotten in them, and the water is blazing hot. There are not enough showers, not for almost a hundred girls. We all eat together in the dining room, with the old school silver. The food isn't bad, lots of stews and the sorts of dishes that aren't too difficult to make, that girls will eat. We used to complain about it of course, claim that it was stewed cat. As though any cat at Miss Lavender's would allow itself to be made into stew! Most of them are too snobby to even talk to us. Most of them have already chosen their witches, and they spend most of their time with the juniors and seniors, doing whatever it is they do. By that point they can do all sorts of things we can't, or couldn't at the time I'm writing about. Teleport, travel through time, go to the Other Country whenever they wanted.

We were still taking our elementary classes. There are the regular teachers who are there all the time, or almost all the time, because you know Miss Gray travels around. Mrs. Moth, Miss Gray, Hyacinth. Miss Lavender teaches classes too, although she runs the school, which takes a lot of her time. And then each semester we would have visiting teachers. The Gentleman was there one semester – he was the best fencing coach we ever had. Morgan was there teaching Spellcasting. Merlin came once, not while we were there, but before. That was not such a great idea. I mean, almost a hundred teenage girls – and Merlin. Some of them had pictures of him up on their walls. And famous alumna would come to give lectures. Once, Athena Mandragora talked about advising the president on magical affairs.

So what would you do on a typical day at Miss Lavender's? Well, you'd get up at seven, when the bell rang. You'd get ready for the day, fighting for sink or shower space with the other girls. Breakfast in the dining room (oatmeal, pancakes, whatever the cooks had prepared that day). Morning class, Elementary Teleportation with Miss Gray for example, with fifteen other girls all trying to move oranges with their minds. She would show us how she could move just the orange seeds out of the oranges. Show-off. Then lunch, and some time to study or wander around the grounds. Or sit in the library, toward the back between the shelves, talking with Matilda, Emma, and Mouse about how we were going to sneak out and talk to Anatolia Mandragora. Then afternoon class, probably Magical History with Hyacinth. "Which witch was Queen Elizabeth's personal adviser during the second half of her reign?" she would ask. Of course only Emma knew the answer.

Then study time, when we actually had to study, because Magical History had made us realize that we were all a chapter behind. "How could you get behind? Honestly," said Emma. "Didn't you look at the syllabus?  Do I have to explain the whole Tudor succession to you?"  We solemnly assured her that yes, she did. Then dinner, some more time to plot and plan our sneak-out-ery, and bed.

"Tomorrow," I said. "It's Saturday, and if we go in the middle of the archery match, we won't be missed."

Four girls, four wooden beds that had probably stood in that room for a hundred years, pictures we had put up on the walls. Four desks with chairs, with names like Zephirine and Amalia carved into them with penknives. I suppose Miss Lavender's was like any other boarding school, really. Well, except for the flying, and the cats, and the saving the world.

Being Real

Once upon a time, I read the newspaper a lot more than I do now. I read it online, because it was free and convenient. What I mostly read was the New York Times. I still read the New York Times, at least selectively – the articles I'm really interested in. But I find that what I read, more and more often, are my friends' blogs. When I'm on my computer, to the left of my screen I have a list of my favorite blogs, and when I want to know what's going on, I check them. Or I check facebook. Or twitter. It's almost as though I've constructed a newspaper of my own, the sort of newspaper that used to exist in a small town, filled with local events and personalities. I live in an online community, and I check the news for that community. I'm still connected to the larger world, but in addition to hearing about what's happening in that world, I'm hearing who finished a story, who sold one, who has a novel deal. I like that a lot. It makes me feel as though I actually were living in a small town, where the local events matter. It makes me feel comfortable. In a way, it makes the larger world a bit less overwhelming.

I write all this to explain why I was reading a blog post by Neil Gaiman called Now We are TEN, about the fact that his blog is ten years old. (Only ten? Goodness. I think of it as having been around forever. In a way, my own blog has been around for almost as long. I uploaded my first website, and a fairly rudimentary website it was, back in 2001, when I was at the Clarion Writing Workshop. I still remember the first few emails I received – my first contact with readers! Including a soldier who was overseas, and who liked what I had uploaded. Shortly after that I started an online journal – back then, all hand coded in HTML, with no commenting, no RSS feed. But even then, a number of people would come and visit regularly.

What I noticed in particular about Neil Gaiman's post is that he included a picture of himself in pajamas, before he had showered and shaved.

And I thought, what an interesting choice. Why would he do that? Because we're all vain creatures, we all want to present ourselves to the world in a certain way. And there are plenty of pictures of him online that present him as a sort of literary rock star: the dark, brooding, handsome type. It's fun to have pictures like that taken of you. It's fun to play with your image, especially to present yourself as the glamorous author. And if you can, why not? We should be able to play with our images, to invent and reinvent ourselves.

I think the pajama picture comes from a different impulse, an impulse to be real. Because there is a point at which, as a writer, you become not quite real to people. We see this in the dead and famous: we know that Virginia Woolf was real, an actual person. And yet she is not real to us anymore, she is Woolf. They are Hemingway and Faulkner and Joyce, not people who ate breakfast and couldn't get songs out of their heads and had colds. That's all right, with the dead.

But at some point, living writers become unreal as well. To me, the writers I read as a teenager, and who affected me at that time in my life, will always be more than themselves, slightly mythological. I will never be able to look at Tanith Lee or Ursula Le Guin or Terri Windling or Patricia McKillip or Robin McKinley or Ellen Datlow or Jane Yolen as just people. Even though I've actually met some of them, and know a few of them well. They became important figures for me at a particular time in my life, and they still retain that magical aura.

Once, I almost met Ursula Le Guin. It was at Wiscon. I was standing in the women's bathroom, washing my hands in the sink, when I suddenly became aware that at the sink next to me was Ursula Le Guin. Did I introduce myself, say "I grew up on your books, they made me what I am? They made me a writer?" Of course not. Can you imagine Ursula Le Guin remembering you as the person who accosted her in the women's bathroom at Wiscon? And so I have never met her. Friends of mine know her well and have studied with her, and when they talk about her, it's as though they're talking about a real person. And intellectually, I recognize that she is. But my instincts tell me otherwise.

And I've noticed, and this is in the smallest possible way, that sometimes, when I meet someone who has read my stories but does not know me personally, I'm not entirely real either. I still remember the strangeness, one day, of being in the Boston University Barnes and Noble and having someone say, "Excuse me, are you Theodora Goss?" Someone who knew me only from my writing, who had seen my picture online. (This is the only time such a thing has happened to me, and I don't expect it to happen again anytime soon.)  And it's still strange to hear myself referred to, not as Dora, but as Goss.

So I think we have an impulse, as writers, to insist on our own reality, to resist the mythologizing that does happen. We do that, in this technological age, by reaching out, by writing blogs, putting our selves (as real as we can make them) out there. A writer like Neil Gaiman gets mythologized more than most. I think the pajama picture represents an impulse toward the real, toward that sort of connection.

When I saw it, I thought, all right. I'm going to take a picture of myself, in my pajamas, before I've showered. The way I read emails first thing in the morning. Here it is:

For vanity's sake, I'm also going to include a picture of me several hours later, looking considerably more composed, as he does. Here I am answering emails:

It's a strange thing, this being not quite real.  I think all writers have to deal with it. I see my friends dealing with it, since many of them are in the process of becoming known, becoming personalities. It's wonderful in a way, because it means that people are thinking of you as a writer, appreciating your work. But it's also a thing to manage, a thing that can make you feel quite strange about yourself, as though you're not really you. Which you are – at least first thing in the morning, in pajamas.

Leonora Grimsby

(Just a note before I begin. I was so tired today! All day long it was twenty degrees or below, and there were problems with the commute, and when I finally got home, I didn't even feel like writing. But then I saw how many people had come to this website, and suddenly I felt better and as though it was all worthwhile, because I was writing essays or stories and you were reading them. And you know, for me that's the whole point. So thank you. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming. But I just wanted you to know that . . .)

The next morning, our conversation went something like this.

Emma: I still think we should tell Mrs. Moth.

Matilda: No. Aunt Matilda is my aunt, and she's a nasty old witch, but we're still going to rescue her. Without getting kicked out of school.

Thea: You wouldn't use the word "witch" in that way if you'd grown up with witches.

Matilda: Well, I didn't. All right?

Mouse: I think we have a couple of clues. We should look at the clues.

Thea: I agree. Let's focus on the clues. What clues are you talking about?

Emma: Miss Lavender's. That woman said they went to school together, and that Mrs. Tillinghast did something to her. With her friends.

We were sitting in our room, before classes. Your first year at Miss Lavender's, you pretty much all take the same classes. That morning we had Elementary Teleportation with Miss Gray. Then lunch, then Spells and Incantations with Hyacinth, then a Magical History study session in the library.

"The Yearbooks," I said. "We need to look at the Yearbooks."

The Yearbooks were on shelves in the hallway by Mrs. Moth's office. There were years and years of them, all the way back to when books were first produced, I guess. And even before, because the earliest ones were just scrolls with names on them. They took up the entire hallway, all the way down to the teachers' parlor.

"We have half an hour before class," said Emma. "Let's go look! I'm so curious."

But when we got there, to the hallway with those long shelves, we looked at one another with dismay.

"Where do we start?" asked Matilda. "I mean, there have to be a thousand books here."

"Several thousand," said Mrs. Moth. We all turned around, startled. She was standing behind us. Where had she come from?

"Oh, we're just looking for the book with Matilda's aunt in it, Mrs. Moth," said Emma. The useful thing about Emma is that she always sounds so respectful and polite. She never sounds as though she could be doing anything dangerous or forbidden.

"That's this one right here," said Mrs. Moth, pulling out a dusty old volume. It was bound in leather, and had gilding on the spine. It said, Miss Lavender's School 1963.

"Would you mind if we borrowed it for a while?" asked Emma.

"Not at all, girls," said Mrs. Moth. "I'm glad to see that you're interested in school history."

Which sounded all right. I mean, it sounded as though she believed us. But as we were going back toward the students' parlor, I looked back at her. There was an expression on her face – but maybe I was misinterpreting it, I don't know.

Anyway, there was no one in the students' parlor (all the other girls were either still at breakfast or up in their rooms), so we sat on the rug by the fireplace. There was a fire going, because even though it was only September, the mornings were already chilly. We flipped through the Yearbook.

"Can you believe anyone ever did their hair like that?" said Emma.

"Our uniforms look exactly the same," said Mouse. And they were: the purple skirts, white blouses, and purple jackets or cardigans with Miss Lavender's School embroidered on a front pocket. It didn't allow for a lot of individuality.

"Look, there!" said Matilda. And there she was, Matilda Tillinghast. Captain of the Flying Club, on the Magical Sciences team, and a Junior Pattern-Keeper.

"No, look there," said Mouse. "That's her." Each of the girls had two pages of their own, with their photographs, activities, sayings they had chosen (and pretty sappy some of them were, I thought). Mouse was pointing to a photograph of four girls together, all in their sports clothes, all holding broomsticks. Underneath, the caption read, "Me, Em, Leo, Tollie. The best roommates ever!"

"That's her," said Mouse again. "Leo. Who do you think she is?"

Quickly, because we only had ten minutes before class, I flipped through the pages. "There she is again. Leonora Grimsby. What about the other two?"

"Well, I can tell you who one of them is," said Emma.  We all looked at her.  How did she know?  "It's just – the one called Em? That's Mom."

"What, your Mom?" said Matilda. "Seriously?"

"Yes, seriously. Her name is Emmaline, like me. She was Matilda's roommate here at Miss Lavender's. They used to get together once every couple of months, with the other one – Tollie. Anatolia. She's one of the Mandragoras."

"So, let me get this straight," I said. "There were four roommates, just like us: Matilda Tillinghast, Emmaline Gaunt, Anatolia Mandragora, and the one we saw at Tillinghast House – Leonora Grimsby. And the other three did something to her. Emma, why didn't you tell us that your Mom was Aunt Matilda's roommate?"

"Well, I didn't want you all going and talking to her. And I didn't think it was that important. I mean, that woman – Lenora – she just said friends. She didn't say roommates."

"It was Sitgreaves who said friends," said Thea. At the mention of his name, Mouse flinched.

"Mom told me that something had happened at school," said Emma. "But she never told me what, and I never connected it with any of this stuff. Until now."

"What did she tell you?" asked Matilda.

"Just that a friend of hers had done something and gotten expelled, that's all. She told me that if I ever got into trouble at Miss Lavender's, she was going to – well, she never said what, exactly. But I bet it would be horrible. You don't know Mom when she's angry! Thea, don't look at me like that. I was the one who said that we should tell Mrs. Moth. But we're not talking to Mom."

"Well, we're going to have to talk to someone," said Mouse. "We know her name – Leonora Grimsby – but we still don't know what happened, or why she's so angry at the other girls. How do we find that out? Could we do some sort of spell?"

"I think we should just ask," said Matilda.

"No!" said Emma. "I told you, we're not talking to Mom."

"No, I think Matilda means the other one," said Thea. "Anatolia Mandragora. Where is she now?"

"Here in Boston," said Emma. "All right, we can talk to her. I don't think she would tell Mom – I don't think she would even remember or think it was important. She's kind of strange, thought."

"Strange how?" asked Matilda.

"I can't describe it," said Emma. "You'll see."

I've decided that every Friday, I'm going to write part of the Shadowlands serial. If you want to read parts that I've already written, go to Serial. There, you can read all about Thea Graves, Matilda Tillinghast, Emma Gaunt, and Mouse, from the beginning.

Convention Schedule

Here is my convention schedule for the next two months.

February 18th-20th, Boskone

I will be at Boskone from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. Here are the panels and reading I will be doing:

Friday, 8 p.m., Welcome to Lovecraft's World

Theodora Goss

Jack M. Haringa

John Langan (M)

Charles Stross

Considering the worldview of New England's master of weirdness H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937), fantasy writer Theodora Goss observes: "Lovecraft's universe has turned out to be the place we actually inhabit. He tells us that our world operates by laws we do not understand. That the universe is larger than we know, and older, and that it does not care about us. He tells us that we can lose our humanity more easily than we imagine." Discuss. (Cthulhu visual aids are optional.)

Saturday, 1 p.m., The Writer's Child

Katherine Crighton

Theodora Goss

Jo Walton (M)

Jane Yolen

What's it like for a writer to raise a kid? Our panel includes both writers and people who were (and are) writers' children. Are the writer's child-rearing methods, biases, or hopes different from those of other parents? How is a writer's child different from a reader's child? Stories will be told.

Saturday, 2 p.m., Writer vs. Copyeditor – Lovefest or Deathmatch?

Theodora Goss

Teresa Nielsen Hayden (M)

Jo Walton

Let's discuss process and roles, how copyeditors can help, when they can go too far, points of contention, and more. Red pens may be flourished, but let's hope not blood-red . . .

(Notice, by the way, that these first three panels are related to blog posts I wrote! I'm incredibly flattered to have given the Boskone scheduling folks some ideas.)

Saturday, 4 p.m., Fairy Tales into Fantasy

Greer Gilman

Theodora Goss (M)

Jack M. Haringa

Jane Yolen

A whole branch of fantasy literature is based on re-examining the assumptions of well-known fairy tales. Panelists discuss some of the best examples.

Sunday, 11 a.m., Mythpunk

Debra Doyle

Gregory Feeley

Greer Gilman

Theodora Goss

Michael Swanwick

Wikipedia says, "Described as a subgenre of mythic fiction, Catherynne M. Valente uses the term "mythpunk" to define a brand of speculative fiction which starts in folklore and myth and adds elements of postmodern fantastic techniques: urban fantasy, confessional poetry, nonlinear storytelling, linguistic calisthenics, worldbuilding, and academic fantasy. Writers whose works would fall under the mythpunk label are Valente, Ekaterina Sedia, Theodora Goss, and Sonya Taaffe." And what do WE say?

(Well, I've already said quite a lot about this one, I think. And hey, who's the moderator?)

Sunday, 1 p.m., A Child's Garden of Dystopias – the Boom in Nasty Worlds for Children

Bruce Coville

Theodora Goss

Jack M. Haringa (M)

Kelly Link

Why do dystopias and YA literature seem to go together? Are YA dystopias more common now than previously? Are there differences between YA and adult dystopias – perhaps a different ratio of cynicism to hope? How does "if this goes on" fit in?

Sunday, 2:30 p.m., Reading: Theodora Goss (0.5 hrs)

Theodora Goss

(This is late in the day on Sunday, and I'm not sure anyone's going to come. So come to my reading? And what would you like me to read? Any ideas?)

March 17th-19th, International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

I believe I'm reading at this time:

Friday, March 18, 8:30‐10:00 a.m.

With the wonderful James Patrick Kelly and Rachel Swirsky.

(I had to ask for a last-minute change because of my flight schedule, but I think that's the right time. Again, what should I read? I think that for the academics, I should read something from "Pug." If I can't read them a Jane Austen time travel story, who can I read it to?)

I'm particularly looking forward to ICFA because it's going to be in Orlando, Florida, and I've already bought summer dresses to bring with me. And a swimsuit.

I know, I know, I'm supposed to be totally focused on professional networking and development. But it was below freezing here in Boston today. If I network, it's going to be at the poolside bar. If there's a poolside bar. All I can say is, there had better be.

(And there had better be umbrellas in the drinks, too. How can you have an academic conference without them?)

Researching Fairies

What was wrong with me yesterday?

Whatever it was, I'm clearly not right yet. I'm still completely exhausted.

The problem with writing is that, like any other intense activity, it requires focus, concentration. And I just don't seem to have that right now. And my throat hurts. I think I'm sick, honestly.

I woke up this morning and, although I knew it was going to be below freezing today, I just couldn't face wearing the same old jeans or corduroys again. So I wore one of the skirts I wrote about yesterday, which looked like this:

At the university, I went to the library and picked up two books on fairies, The Fairies in Tradition and Literature and An Encyclopedia of Fairies by Katherine Briggs. I read the first one and took notes, then taught my classes, then came home and read the first one again, taking notes until I fell asleep. Not actually on top of the book, but pretty close.

When I woke up, I sat down to write this post. But my head doesn't feel particularly clear, and as I said, my throat hurts. I think the season of being sick is upon us.

This is the place in my research process where I just read for a while, where I start to get a feel for my subject. What I'm looking for at this point is some way of approaching it, some point of view. Also some way of dividing it up. Do I write about fairies by looking at them historically: folklore fairies, literary fairies in their various centuries? Do I write about the characteristics of fairies, their interactions with humans, fairy poetry, fairy paintings? I'm still trying to decide.

What I do know, already, is that there's an awful lot of information out there.

One thing that surprises me is how many people claim to have seen fairies in one form or another. Add that to the people who claim to have seen ghosts, or to have had other sorts of supernatural experiences, and what do you get? I mean, it's so easy to discount things like that, to say there's no scientific validity to them. But what are they really? Our brains tricking us? Or something genuinely strange about our world that we're interpreting in the ways we know how, as ghosts or fairies? What shape is reality, I guess is what I'm asking. And I ask this as a fantasy writer, meaning that I need to know reality in order to bend it, or break it, or otherwise shape it anew.

I did read something in one of Briggs' books that started me thinking about story ideas. It was an excerpt from Ancient Legends of Ireland by Lady Wilde, Oscar's mother, about the Banshee:

"But only certain families of historic lineage, or persons gifted with music and song, are attended by this spirit; for music and poetry are fairy gifts, and the possessors of them show kinship to the spirit race – therefore they are watched over by the spirit of life, which is prophesy and inspiration; and by the spirit of doom, which is the revealer of the secrets of death.

"Sometimes the Banshee assumes the form of some sweet singing virgin of the family who died young, and has been given the mission by the invisible powers to become the harbinger of coming doom to her mortal kindred. Or she may be seen as a shrouded woman, crouched beneath the trees, lamenting with a veiled face; or flying past in the moonlight, crying bitterly; and the cry of this spirit is mournful beyond all other sounds on earth, and betokens certain death to some member of the family wherever it is heard in the silence of the night."

For some reason, it reminds me of a story by H.H. Munro called "The Wolves of Cernogratz." A wealthy family has moved into the von Cernogratz castle. They are told that if someone dies in the castle, the wolves will howl for them, and the Baroness says that is not true, a relative died in the castle recently and no wolves howled. The faded old governess speaks up and says that the wolves will not howl for just anyone, only for a member of the von Cernogratz family. She says that she herself is one of the von Cernogratz. She is not believed, is thought to be claiming an ancestry that does not belong to her. But several weeks later she becomes sick, begins dying. And the wolves begin howling.

"Not for much money would I have such death-music," says the Baroness.

"That music is not to be bought for any amount of money," says one of her relatives.

The governess dies, listening to the howling of the wolves.

My story would not be like that. I would focus on "persons gifted with music and song," because I'm interested not in hereditary aristocracy, but in the aristocracy of creators, of people who are gifted with artistic talent and use it. But it would be about who the Banshee wails for, who deserves to have that sort of warning.

I have other work to do tonight, this being February as I said some time ago – the difficult month. But writing my Folkroots column teaches me so much. If you're going to be a writer, I highly recommend writing non-ficton – in some form.