Kristin Cashore's Blog, page 40

A Day in the Life

Today, codenames: Isis and Phoenix (age 3) asked me if I have any scary dreams. I told them (a modified version of) a scary dream I had recently. Isis patted me sympathetically on the arm and said, "Don't worry, we'll help you. We jump on people and scare away their bad dreams." The dream removal process commenced immediately without warning and was enthusiastic and heartfelt, if rather painful. It'll sure be nice not to have any more scary dreams.

***

I played a game with a bewildering series of changing rules, involving throwing a ball, singing "Pump Up the Jam" (?), and drawing exactly what I was instructed to draw on successively smaller pieces of paper, the final one of which was the size of a coconut flake and which Isis produced from her mouth. When I protested that I could not draw a scene of a cat and the Easter Bunny on an infinitesimal and soggy piece of paper, Isis declared me the winner of the game and promised me two pieces of chocolate, which no one has delivered to me yet.

***

Today a little girl came looking for me in a dark room, wearing a tutu around her neck like the ruff of a frilled dragon. A moment before, I'd noticed Phoenix wearing her tutu that way, but this looked like Isis – though there wasn't much light – so I said, "Sweetheart, I can't see you. Are you Isis?" (They're identical twins.) "No," she said. "I'm Phoenix." I opened my mouth to apologize – how awful of me to misrecognize my own niece – then got a funny feeling and decided to turn on the light before saying anything. The child was lying to me. She was totally Isis. This is probably the fifth time one of them has tried to pull this trick on me. So far I've always known I'm being tricked – they just don't look the same to me, these girls – but I must say, their technique – and their acting – is becoming more sophisticated. I am in trouble.

***

Phoenix was climbing a high rock wall today and got scared. It was my dear privilege as an aunt to be able to say probably one of the best things anyone ever gets to say: "I will not let you fall."

Happiness is being an aunt. Also, a book recommendation

I am getting some much-needed rest and rejuvenation with the help of some little girls in Florida. Recent conversations:

Codename Isis (aged 3) (in the living room, building a puzzle): Where is the other puzzle piece?
Codename Phoenix (aged 3) (thoughtfully): Science will solve this mystery.

Isis (in the park): How will we get these ants off the tree stump?
Phoenix (thoughtfully): A woodpecker will solve this mystery.

Isis and Phoenix (in my bed this morning): Kristin, Kristin, can we help you put your tooth protector in its case? (That's the mouthguard I wear when I'm sleeping, being a tooth grinder. For some reason, of all my possessions, this is their favorite. It has fascinated them for years.)
Me: Of course!
Phoenix: It doesn't fit on our teeth.
Isis: It only fits on big people teeth.
Me: Actually, the dentist made it so that it only fits on my teeth! It doesn't fit on anyone else's teeth in the world.
Isis (extremely grave): That's sad.

***

Last night at the University of North Florida, Will Ludwigsen read stories from his new short story collection, In Search Of. From the cover copy: "A house inches eight hundred miles to confess its horrible crime. The last resident of a mental institution discovers he's not alone. A middle-schooler performs an experiment to determine how much time we fit dreams." I have never read a story by Will Ludwigsen that I didn't love. Check out his new collection. Sorry for the lack of links – I'm writing this on my phone and it's not cooperating!

Happy Spring

Sure is spring-like around here.
This No Blogging thing is intensely peaceful, but I thought I'd break in with a few things that've been piling up.

First, the Horn Book Magazine asked me what's the strangest children's book I've ever read... so I wrote them a little piece about Moomins. If you can't get your hands on the current (March/April 2013) issue but want to read my words, follow the link.

Next, the recent This American Life episode "Reruns" -- about people stuck in a particular moment -- was all-around great, but I especially adored the final act, in which Sarah Vowell discusses people who inappropriately equate themselves with Rosa Parks. Vowell is so dry and funny and CORRECT. Follow the link to listen.

Finally, underwater photojournalist Brian Skerry's TED talk contains some spectacular photos, and also some hope for our oceans.  Press play.

"God have mercy on the [domestic longhair] who doubts what [s]he's sure of"

I've been listening to one of the best Springsteen albums ever, Tunnel of Love. When we were kids, my sister (codename: Cordelia) and I came up with a theory, convincingly backed up by textual evidence, that the song "Brilliant Disguise" was about our cat Sugar, a beautiful and secretive creature one was likely to cross paths with "out on the edge of town." The person "call[ing] her name from underneath our willow" was, of course, Mom (who went outside every night to call her in), and the thing Sugar had "tucked in shame underneath [her] pillow" was, as I recall, a hairball.

It made sense at the time.

This is the album with "Tougher Than the Rest," "Spare Parts," "Cautious Man," "Tunnel of Love," "One Step Up," etc., plus, Bruce Springsteen wearing a bolo tie. If someone said to me, "For a period of one month, your half of every conversation about anything that matters must be conducted solely in lyrics from this album," I would say, "That is not a problem. Where did I put that harmonica?"

This is actually the nail polish post I mentioned a few posts ago, but I'm getting there in a roundabout way. It has to do with Springsteen's Bill Horton, the "cautious man of the road." Do you know about Billy's tattoos? "On his right hand Billy tattooed the word 'love' and on his left hand was the word 'fear.'" I've been feeling a kind of camaraderie with Billy lately when I paint my nails, because while I don't know that I've ever been moved to paint my nails in "love" and "fear" colors, the colors/arrangements I choose always have significance to me. I love that Billy knows what matters to him and has the urge to be representational about it on his own body. I love being thoughtful about the way I decorate my body, which is, after all, the container of my life.

Some recent expressions:

Also, you should read that story in the background.
"A Rose for Ecclesiastes," by Roger Zelazny -- so good.


On my left hand, little suns rising...
... and on my right -- this was really hard to photograph, so it might
be hard to parse, but those are little moons in a dark sky over water.
If you look closely you'll see the moons are crossing the sky nail to
nail. It's time-lapse nail polish :)

Maybe clearer here?
Or here. If you're curious about what I was
reading when I snapped these pics, it's the story
"Judith" by C.E. Montague.
By the way, I've blogged before about how important it is to make messes when you're writing. I also recommend it when self-decorating.

Left hand in progress.
Almost done with the left hand.
Wait for it to dry...
...so you can use that hand to paint a mess on the right :)
***

Final note: I am planning a small blog break, starting now, during which I intend to contemplate my bloggy equilibrium. Be well, readers, and see you on the flip side.

Birth

That bud on the upper left has been
curled tight for two and a half months.
Look what it did today.

Here Lies Kristin. She Paid Attention

I wouldn't mind if that's what it said on my tombstone.

So, recently, I got into a bit of a plotting pickle with this thing I'm writing. I just couldn't figure out a particular aspect of the story. In my usual fashion, I threw myself at it, then threw myself at it again, and again, hoping that my self-propulsion would manage to bash me through it, because sometimes, it does. This time, it didn't. Realizing that what I needed was a break, I put my notebook away. For several days, I did other things, anything, provided that it was neither writing nor thinking about writing. From time to time, the writing tried to lure me back. It has a whole bag of tricks it likes to use on these occasions: it tried to make me feel guilty; it tried scaring me into believing my book was in peril if I didn't get back to work; it tried presenting me with a nice, tempting, challenging wall to throw myself at. Every time, just like with a meditation practice, I smiled, noticed what the writing was trying to do, and said, "No. I can't figure you out today. Go away. I'll come back to you later." And it did go away, and I had my break, and when my instincts told me I was ready to try again, I got back to work. And wouldn't you know it, something had untangled itself while I was gone, and I could see the problem -- and begin to see the solutions -- from all kinds of new angles I hadn't even realized existed before. The solution, in fact, involved letting go of a number of basic assumptions I'd had about the structure of the book.

What my book most needed when it -- and I -- got all tangled up in each other was for me to let it go.

Writing is my practice. The recognition of this need for time away from writing and the wherewithal to follow through with it is a writing skill it's taken me many years of practice to hone. I spent a lot of time in the past trying to push through blocks and burnout, too afraid that taking a break was equivalent to giving up. Eventually, with curiosity, experimentation, and practice, I learned to recognize the part of my writing nature that will gnaw at a bone until the bone is gone, then gnaw my own teeth down to my gums, and I've learned to recognize that it's a potentially harmful writing tendency that I need to monitor and keep in balance. My tendency as a writer is to overwork? Okay then. That leaves me with the (truly pleasurable) responsibility of making sure I pay attention to the need for breaks. I've learned that writing improves with breaks; that breaks show you the errors in what you thought you knew. I've also learned to trust myself not to give up while I'm away, and to trust the book not to give up on me. Through practice, I've found my faith as a writer.

Now I'm trying to learn how to live the way I write. What do I mean by that? Life is full of questions that have no answers, or questions that we -- I -- don't have enough information to answer reliably. I watch myself throwing myself at those questions, over and over and over, and I know there's no answer to be reached, but still I can't stop throwing myself at them. So, what if I apply the skills I've learned from writing, and give myself a break? What if I pay attention to the things I do know, to who I am and what actually is, and learn to say to the unanswerable questions, "No. I can't figure out the answer to you today. Go away. I am okay with knowing merely what I know, not knowing what's coming, and still being open to this life."

The other day, as codename: Apocalyptica the Flimflammer and I unpacked some groceries, she said something about how she was striving to be more equanimous in life. "Equanimity!" I exclaimed.

"You say that as if it's something you just found in a bag," she said.

It was more that I'd found the word for the thing I was also trying to achieve. I think equanimity is like a person comfortably at rest on a tightrope. Not really at rest, because the balancing requires a keen awareness and an active openness to factors outside your control. A poise. But not in motion, either. Balanced and safe, but prepared to move in any direction, should motion become necessary. Balanced and safe, but with no idea, until the rope tells you, what form that motion will need to take, or which way it will send you, or when it will happen. Maybe there are other people on the same tightrope with you. Well then – letting go of your assumptions about the things you think you know about other people, and what they'll do. Waiting, instead, ready, with openness and curiosity, to find out who other people are, who you are, what does happen, and how you will choose to react to it.

This requires an enormous faith in yourself, and a practiced comfort with the unknown.

And so I'm practicing.

Novel Snowstorm

Me in an email: Guys, it is snowing like the dickens.

Rebecca in response: It is snowing like the Dickens, the Austen, and the Brontë.

It'll Probably Pass

As I take breaks from writing yesterday and this morning, I'm getting a lot of joy out of the song "Orpheo Looks Back" by Andrew Bird. It makes me feel brave. I'm listening to the album version (from Break It Yourself), but the link takes you to a review of the song and vid of a live performance, in case you're curious. It's on iTunes etc.

I'm slowly compiling a post about how I'm trying to use the tools I've learned from writing to make me better at life. Also an important post about nail polish. But these things have minds of their own and today it's sunny and soon I need to catch a train. So. Happy weekend everyone :)

Rumi Strikes Again

Does sunset sometimes look like the sun is coming up?
Do you know what a faithful love is like?

You're crying; you say you've burned yourself.
But can you think of anyone who's not
hazy with smoke?

- Rumi

Sleep, Pretty Darling, Do Not Cry... and Other Thursday Randutiae

Happy Pan-Universal Be Who You Are Day! Someone who uses voice recognition software and draws should start a VRS comic strip. The objects that appear suddenly in my scenes because my VRS has misunderstood me are visually amusing. I just dictated the line, "'I will,' she said with a sob," and my VRS typed, "'I will,' she said with a saw." I feel like a spontaneous saw could really add something to a conversation.Gentlemen of Cambridge: to the man, when faced with a long, narrow corridor of sidewalk between snowbanks, you have waited at your end and let me pass first. This has literally happened to me twelve times since the storm (which I know because at a certain point I started counting). In this northeast USA city (meaning, a city where strangers tend not to pay much attention to each other and rudeness is not particularly unusual), I am startled and touched by this thoughtfulness, then startled that I am touched. Thank you for your gentlemanly behavior.Have you seen the video and (even better, IMO) photo of extreme surfer Garrett McNamara riding a 100-foot wave in Nazare, Portugal?My Word Roundup last week led to some great conversations with friends. A couple things to share: here's Andrew's recent blog post about what is and what isn't a skeuomorph. Andrew is a designer and knows of which he speaks :). (Thanks, Anindita!) And -- AND -- a conversation with JD about writing backwards etc. led to this video. I know you're all busy, folks, but I strongly recommend you take the 7 minutes to watch this Mobius Story, by mathematician and artist Vi Hart. It is super. Thanks JD! 
Housekeeping: in an attempt to get more organized on the blog -- and less self-promotey in my blog posts -- I've started posting book news behind my News link again.I just can't take Captain America seriously. He has a big A on his head. It stands for America. And in the end... some of you will have recognized my subject line today. I can't stop listening to the back half of Abbey Road, the medley that starts with "You Never Give Me Your Money" and goes through to "The End." So much oddness and wisdom in that 16 minutes. Abbey Road is one of about five albums I grew up with from the time I was a baby, pretty much imprinted into my DNA. Listening to it is (almost) a way to get back home.