Kip Manley's Blog, page 42

Things to keep in mind (The secret of longing)

The 12th century was the age of courtly love: songs of courtship and admiration, tales of daring knights and worthy ladies. The courtly love tradition is thought of as quintessentially heterosexual, and yet a few works survive in which a woman addresses her sentiments to another woman, such as the lone surviving lyric of Bieiris de Romans. And during that era, in a convent somewhere in the vicinity of Tegernsee in Bavaria (Germany), a cloistered woman longed to be reunited with a dear friend. She poured her heart out in a passionate poem, written in Latin and, by some quirk of fate, copied into a collection of writings that survived the ages. Her name is unknown—she identifies herself simply as “A” and her love only as “G”, whom she addresses as “my only/singular rose.”

To her, G’s absence is “like someone who has lost a hand or a foot” and she laments, “I want to die because I cannot see you. What can I—so wretched—do? Where can I—so miserable—turn?” Her thoughts turn to past delights: “I recall the kisses you gave me, and how with tender words you caressed my little breasts.” And yet perhaps there was more to their story. “Come home, sweet love!” she concludes. “Prolong your trip no longer. Know that I can bear your absence no longer… remember me.” Shall we not imagine that G returned to the woman who found her “so lovely and full of grace [and] who… with such deep affection loves me”?

—Heather Rose Jones

No. 29: shiver & headache (Closing)

the Hat in his Hand

No. 29: shiver & headache (Act IV)

Gloved in pinkened Mail – a Kept eye – Asymmetry –

No. 29: shiver & headache (Act III)

“Take care” – the Safety of the Space – this is Their plan –

No. 29: shiver & headache (Act II)

Hand in Hand – two Storeys, or three – how it Works – Commitment – the What of the Bandit –

No. 29: shiver & headache (Act I)

bright white Lines – Machismo – “Darling Mr. Davies” – What’s at Stake – a Blessing, and a Curse –

No. 29: shiver & headache (Opening)

the Photographs on the Table –

No. 29: “ – shiver & headache – ”

The King holds an audience, the Queen grants an interview, and lovers leave space for one another. “It has all grown one way.” 36 pages with color cover. $3.00 plus shipping and handling.

the Photographs on the Table – bright white Lines – Machismo – “Darling Mr. Davies” – What’s at Stake – a Blessing, and a Curse – Hand in Hand – two Storeys, or three – how it Works – Commitment – the What of the Bandit – “Take care” – the Safety of the Space – this is Their plan – Gloved in pinkened Mail – a Kept eye – Asymmetry – the Hat in his Hand

Fall down seven

So the first draft of no. 29 clocks in at 19,167 words, which I think is the longest first draft I’ve done (for as long as statistics have been kept, at any rate). And only a couple days past two weeks late on the initial deadline! —But there’s one scene that doesn’t exist yet, really, and one that needs to be radically uprooted and then maybe replanted upside-down, and there’s the one I decided to leave in its current form until I had a better idea of just how much off the leash I could let it get, which at least I think I might have now, but the overall point is this is also perhaps the messiest draft I’ve ever sat back and said okay, it’s done, let’s revise, but here we are.

The thing about this one is it’s the seventh of the volume, the seventh of the season, and like the first seventh it comes after an overture, an opening, a statement and initial elaboration of a theme, and so one might play a little, mess with structure, ring some changes, take a chance or two as one steps aside and contemplates for a moment where we’ve gotten and where we’re going. And it just so happened that iTunes decided to play a song from Merrily We Roll Along as I was sketching the initial outline, and, well, so.

(One might also note the seventh card of the Major Arcana is the Lovers, but I honestly have no idea why we keep bringing this up.)

—I wrote the draft from end to beginning, is the thing, and now I will revise it from beginning to end, and not having done it this way before I’m not sure what to expect, but at least it helps to explain the shagginess of the current circumstances. Let’s tentatively suggest that I might be done in January, with Patreons to receive copies at that point, and it might then appear here in February, but don’t let’s take that too seriously just yet?

Portrait

Now, I’m not insisting this is what the official portrait of Jo Maguire, Duchess of Southeast, Queen’s Favorite and King’s Huntsman, Widow of the Hawk and First of that Name, would look like…

—Sharnee Gates, styled by Dogukan Nesanir, photographed by Ronan Mckenzie