Naomi Stone's Blog, page 3

You know it don’t come easy

“They had it too easy.” The old pro said to me, regarding former critique partners who found publishers right away, and a certain amount of fame. That was nice to hear at the time. I’d have loved to have had it ‘too easy’ and found some recognition and immediate gratification for my work, but since it took me a lot longer to reach my goal, it was nice to think there was some virtue in this.

I’d written three full-length novels, only one of which I thought worth shopping around – and an agent did, too – but it met with nothing but rejection. After twenty years, I finally started writing again. I wrote another novel, rewrote it, over and again, with feedback from critique partners, polishing my craft until I had something I thought truly worth reading.

I joined MFW, the local chapter of Romance Writers of America, and met dozens of women who told of writing for years, of putting projects on hold while raising children, of writing and rewriting, having work judged through contests, going to conferences to meet agents, dealing with rejection after rejection… And I witnessed many of these women finally meet their goals, connecting at last with publishers who wanted their work, some doing better sales-wise than others, but all happy to have some vindication for their efforts. At least half a dozen of the writers who’d been unpublished when I joined MFW are published authors today – including me. I have two novels, three novellas and a couple collections of short stories out at this point.

To tell you the truth, I’d have been thrilled to sell that long ago novel right off the bat. I’d be doubly thrilled to have earned some money from it. And also true: my later work is something I’m much more proud of than I was of that generic earlier novel.

At that time nobody had heard of cross-over romances with science-fictional and fantasy elements. I had always loved f/sf, and writing a romance that ignored my own proclivity produced something much less than it could have been – a nice story, but lacking the enthusiasm I later brought to the table when writing stories including the magic of fairy godmothers or powerful djinn, superheroes and world-spanning challenges. I brought more of myself to my later work. I brought my sense of magic, my sense of wonder and my passion for big ideas. I brought a new determination and the quiet, persistent power that comes from persevering through setback after setback and picking oneself up from one failure or rejection after another to stay the course.

The characters in my stories benefit (and suffer) from my experience. It’s all well and fine to start out with blithe characters of good heart, but I want them to grow in the course of a story, and having been through the process myself, I can do better with taking them through it.

One of my first short stories placed in a contest early in my career, one of the first stories I’d ever submitted anywhere – which made it all the harder for me when that first novel met with nothing but rejection. I’d gotten an inflated idea of my abilities, and when it was punctured, I went decades before taking up my pen again in any serious way. I’d taken the failure too much too heart. I started writing again at last because it was something I wanted to do for my own amusement and fulfillment. It wasn’t until I’d established myself in the practice that I made a goal again of bringing my work to publication.

I don’t know in any ultimate sense whether my one-time critique partners really had it too easy at the start of their careers. Life puts us all through trials of one sort or another. Where one aspect of life comes easy, others may come very hard indeed. If one success comes too easy, it makes it all the harder to face rejections later on. If their first publications in fact came too easy, I’ve no doubt that time corrected any issues that may have engendered. And, at this point, I don’t need comfort for having taken a longer road.

One True Love

‘One True Love’ is an interesting concept. So is ‘Destiny.’

The idea of ‘One True Love’ may be self-fulfilling in a way. I don’t believe we’re necessarily limited to one in a lifetime. I have no idea how many pairings may be potentially happy for an individual – but when people experience a true love, they tend to stick with it, and life being short, may not have time for more, so this one becomes ‘The One.’

No doubt many people get together because of proximity and the human need for bonding and warmth and family and intimacy – but not all those bonds are of the same quality. Lots of people marry for convenience, or for the money, or because someone got pregnant, or even for friendship or love that may not be as whole-hearted as the kind romantics distinguish as ‘true.’

Defining terms, when I think of ‘true love’ I think of an innate affinity that goes beyond circumstantial proximity. Person A, being exactly hirself and person B being exactly hirself, experience a particular chemistry that embraces one another in toto (warts and all, body, mind and soul.

More terms. ‘Soul’ is important. I’m using the word to mean something specific but difficult to define.

I have a weird sense of time. Imagine a perspective from which one could ‘see’ an entire lifetime at once.



I did a very crude and simplistic illustration that gives a rough idea what I mean. We could also imagine this perspective as being like a library in which each life lived is a book including all one’s days in one package you could flip through, revisiting any scene at will. In practice it’s more complicated. We’re writing our books as we go, our lives touch and some shoot off from others and some intertwine.

I use ‘soul’ as the word to denote a person’s identity across time, from birth to death, inter-connected with all the other lives s/he touches.

I think some souls have a special affinity for each other, and Time being the mystery (and wibbly wobbly) it is, I can’t preclude the notion of Destiny. We choose our own paths through life, but having chosen, there’s that potential perspective from which it might have been seen from the beginning.

People may and probably often do choose paths that keep them from meeting or hooking up with someone with whom they may have that special affinity I’m calling true love. But that doesn’t mean the potential isn’t there or isn’t worth finding, or that a soul might desire it and find some satisfaction in reading (or insert alternate media) fantasies of its fulfillment.

Free Idea for Site Developers!

What we need in this culture is the equivalent of a Caring Bridge site for sufferers of poverty. Venting Bridge? Caring Ears?

Seriously. Poverty is in so many ways like a disease: sapping energy, debilitating capacity, preoccupying one’s attention and yet hard to discuss in polite company without feeling awkward or guilty of imposing TMI on an unwilling audience.

At least when a person confides a diagnosis of cancer to friends and family, they don’t have to worry that those friends will feel they are expected to come up with a cure for a disease that expert doctors find baffling. They don’t have to feel they’re being put on the spot in that way.

No, a cure would be welcome of course, but it’s not expected – and often what’s needed most, with both disease and poverty, is a sympathetic ear and the knowledge of being recognized, loved and accepted even in difficult circumstances.

My friends and family may feel that they’ve heard too much about my lack of income, but in fact I keep most of the details to myself.

For instance, when I have to bow out of social events because I lack the funds to participate I don’t generally go on to explain that I’m down to less than $10 in liquid funds and have to conserve my bus fare – so while I might be able to join family at White Castle or McDonald’s, the restaurant they’ve chosen is truly beyond my means. And ‘beyond my means’ is literally, all the money I have would not stretch to cover the expense, not just that it would eat into funds ear-marked for more sensible things like rent and utilities and groceries, let alone more desirable things like a first-run movie I’ve been dying to see. I can and have chosen to spend the last two dollars in my possession on a cup of tea so I could join friends for social events. I would certainly spend my last $5 for a meal at Wendy’s for the sake of seeing a sister passing through town – but when I said I couldn’t afford to join the family for a meal at Applebee’s I was being as literal as one can possibly be.

The lack of discussion around poverty means that people who have not themselves experienced this sort of constriction of means really do not understand the distinction above – between literal and figurative lack of means. They do not understand the kinds of choices and limitations their poverty-stricken connection may be laboring under. They may take offense that so-and-so did not attend their party or send a gift or attend their child’s play – without any idea that doing any of these things may have presented insurmountable obstacles to the offensive poor person.

Attending events requires transportation which may not be available. Sending gifts requires postage even if one is capable of hand-crafting desirable gift items (I mean actually desirable, even after everyone in the family already has one of Aunt Matilda’s hand-knit thingies). It is a real shame when those obstacles give others the impression that ‘she just doesn’t care to be involved’ or ‘she’s not interested in us, with her glamorous writer’s life-style.’

If poverty were treated more as a debilitating disease, it would be easier to see the effects of the stigma. Nobody says, ‘the cancer would go away if she were trying harder.’

With a Hearing Bridge site for the poverty-stricken, sufferers could make posts on their current status and their efforts toward finding a cure. “Couldn’t afford to list my books on RWA’s new app. Sigh. That might have really helped my career. Sent out an application for a day job I’d really love to get. Wish me luck!”

And loved ones could post notes of encouragement and understanding. That second-cousin might comment, ‘how brave you are; our hopes are with you.’ And best of all, they’d understand why you couldn’t make it to the family gathering or send a present for the new grand-baby. It’s a difficult time for you and you’re doing your best to cope with it and everyone is rooting for you.

I know a great many artists, musicians, writers and performers who live with poverty on a continuing or recurring basis and might find such a site a great benefit in keeping loved ones cognizant of their situations. If you have the coding skills and free time to make such a site a reality, please go for it.

Still Crazy After All These Years

Oh no! I’m late! I feel like the white rabbit with his pocket-watch, rushing from one thing to another, and can only ask myself how I can be so busy and still so short in funds.

The short answer is that I’m busy with much work entailing only delayed rewards, and much on-spec work, like books I can’t sell until they are written, and currently a Kickstarter project for a new card game, Buzz.* Wearing my artist-hat, I put in many hours’ work creating the cards and readying them for print (and a download version), and will only be paid for that time if the Kickstarter succeeds. This is the first time I’ve tried running this sort of fund-raiser and I can tell you it’s raising more anxiety than funds.

The anxiety, like many unpleasant sensations, at least counts as fodder for the writer’s mill. It leads me to examine my underlying feelings: am I even worthy of success? Maybe all I deserve is to eke out my existence like a dog under the table at the feast of love everyone else in the world enjoys. Can I only be successful if enough people like me? Why don’t people like me?

I’m not claiming that these feelings are based on anything realistic – indeed, I’m warmed to the point of getting misty-eyed by how supportive some of my friends have been – that doesn’t mean the anxieties won’t go ahead and creep in, twisting the view to show off all the worst angles.

Why doesn’t everyone like me? Why am I not the sole and central focus of everyone’s lives? Didn’t it used to be that way once? (Obviously a first-born child). Don’t I deserve to be as celebrated as anyone else in the world (more than any Kardassian at least) or anyone who’s accomplished as much as I have? Why can’t all the authors be best-selling authors? (Again, no claims for logic or consistency here.)

Okay, having taken due note of my rich crop of anxieties, like a good writer, I can scramble into a position of some perspective. Hey, look at that: feelings of inferiority and superiority all mixed up together with helplessness, and fear, and longing, and an egocentricity capable of overlooking billions of others who have suffered and struggled, feared and longed throughout human history. Amazing really.

I can’t say gaining some perspective has solved any of my problems, but I do feel better armed to write believably about characters going through any similar circumstance – and hey, when I’m writing it, I can give it the happy ending I can never be sure of for myself.

* Fun for the whole family! Deets here: http://kck.st/1oF3yRs

WisCon considerations

Over the Memorial Day weekend, I attended Wiscon, the world’s leading feminist science fiction convention. The Apex Magazine party on Friday night featured a game called ‘Conversational Roulette’ in which the game master gives each contestant three minutes to tell an impromptu story based on a given theme. When I played, the theme was ‘running away to the circus’ and I confessed my preschool ambition to become a trapeze artist and wear a black sequined leotard, with black lipstick and nail polish (this was in the early 60′s long before Goth anything) and do stunts in midair, high above the crowd. I did not win my round, but got one vote.

I sat nearby when the game master started another round with a new set of three players and the theme ‘the most formative movie of your life.’ The winner of the round cited ‘The Princess Bride’ but dissed Princess Buttercup for not doing anything to rescue herself. (Isn’t it hard enough just being the Most Beautiful Woman in the World?)

A travesty that he should win (sorry, Nolan) – but the mention and my later conversation with Nolan Belk on the subject, got me to thinking about why I like that movie so much and what it has in common with some of my other favorite movies, shows and stories. For instance, ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer,’ and the Rocky & Bullwinkle Show, and even Jane Austen’s works.

Princess stands out for great dialog that reveals a great cast of characters, each one, from heroes to villains to bit players, drawn with a loving eye to their unique, relatable human foibles.

Whedon’s BTVS strikes me as having that same virtue of great dialog deftly revealing great, relatable characters. Whedon and Goldman both create characters I care about, people who I want to accompany on their journeys.

Just as importantly, both shows are written with a sense of humor that tells me the writer is not taking himself or the material too seriously.

Saturday night I attended a banquet and awards ceremony for the Science Fiction Research Association, which brings critical and serious literary attention the genre of F/SF – and I’m all for it. The genre is my first love when it comes to reading material, from fairy tales to hard scientific extrapolations based on the expanding frontier of human knowledge. I love stories that help me to look at the world, humanity and the whole universe beyond us from new perspectives. I’m pleased to see my favorite genre grow in literary merit in the eyes of a broader readership…

At the same time, I’m concerned about losing some of the pleasure I find in that genre. I’m afraid the quest for serious literary standing will lead to the pitfall of stories that take themselves too seriously, that lose their sense of humor and the ability to make a little bit of fun at themselves along the way.

I was somewhat reassured that one of the award winning papers of the evening was in praise of ‘Buckaroo Banzai.’ Clearly a movie I must now see.

Grist for the Mill

My new dentist is a fast-worker compared to my old one. I used to get my dental care at the University of Minnesota’s school of dentistry. They did good work: every step was overseen and double-checked by a teacher. But every step was overseen and double-checked by a teacher and that took some time. My new dentist gets three times the work done in a fraction of the time. This adds up to a huge reduction in my stress. As well the less time with sharp, noisy instruments in my mouth, the happier I am. I still lie in place with my hands clasped tightly together across my midriff and softly croon show tunes*to myself until the ordeal is over, but it’s over all the sooner.

 All this is by way of explaining why I am now sitting in the lobby waiting area of the dental offices, with half an hour’s wait before I need to head out for the bus stop. There’s no bench at the stop and I do have one here, and a nice view out glass-walled sliding doors onto a parking area beneath a lovely sky of robin’s egg blue swathed in milky streaks of cloud. There’s sunshine on the pavement and parked cars. There are finally buds emerging on the bare limbs of the few trees before me – small enough to be fruit trees. I can imagine them in flower by the time I return for my next appointment in a week. Clumps of dried dead grasses surround them now. Perhaps there will be green blades, maybe flowers by then.

 Despite the fair appearance of the day, the temperatures are still in the forties to low cifties and there’s a strong cold breeze. Hence my preference for waiting in a sheltered area rather than out in the sunshine. Still, the sun is good to see and the budding tre3es and greening grass. And maybe I need a little time to adjust to a world no longer cloaked and caked and layered with ice and snow.

 It’s a whole new world now. The rules are different. It may be a bit too cool yet, but it won’t kill me to go too long without a coat. I can still trip over my own feet, but I don’t have to worry they’ll slip out from under me. It all makes the world seem a much friendlier place. Winter will come again, but that’s long ages away. I can begin to look forward to swimming outdoors under an open sky, to walking out casually, without having to don layers upon layers of protective clothing. Living in Minnesota in the winter strikes me as good training for those who might contemplate colonizing an alien planet.

 What does any of this have to do with writing? What doesn’t have to with writing? Every experience, every sight and sensation and observation on life is fodder for the writer’s pen. While many, if not most things will be irrelevant to the story or subject at hand, anything and everything is part of the whole tapestry of life from which we build. Dismiss nothing as worthless.

 * or x-mas carols, for which I apologize to my dentist and assistant, given how they are subjected to repetitive repetitions of a limited repertoire of same via their sound system during the holiday season, and having endured that, they now deserve the rest of their year free of the stale aural fare.)

Power

Human beings are often helpless in the face of overwhelming events and circumstances.

At least as individuals, but often on a larger scale as well. Earthquakes, tidal waves and hurricanes make no distinction between the worthy and the unworthy. If you are caught in the path of one of nature’s juggernauts, you are toast.

Or not. Sometimes one person is swept to safety while another goes under. A child finds a safe pocket in the rubble while a strong man is felled. A tornado shears off half a house, but misses the bedrooms where the family is sleeping. Controlling outcomes in such situations is simply beyond us.

We can take all manner of precautions, and some people will live longer than others, but in the end, none of us can expect to live forever, however careful we may be.

In the face of our essential helplessness before the caprices of fate, it’s no wonder that people seek out such areas of control as we can find. For some, religion and the propitiation of higher powers fill a need. For others it’s money or political power, enabling them to build enclaves that set them apart from the general run of humanity – for a time.

And humanity has done very well in using our intelligence to gain some foothold in controlling our environment – in part. We’ve invented agriculture to secure a food supply, we have invented technologies and medicines and worked wonders of engineering to provide ourselves with shelter, transportation, energy and communications beyond the dreams of our ancestors. But our own works have side-effects we didn’t anticipate. Advances in agriculture have created mono-cultures vulnerable to widespread devastation, chemical threats to the honeybees that help a myriad other species to propagate, and threats to the clean water and air on which we all rely. Our industries are having adverse affects on the climate. Our very success at survival creates new problems as populations grow and clash. All our efforts at control act like pinching off part of a balloon, leaving the rest to pop up elsewhere, bigger than ever.

What’s the point of this reflection on mortality and doom? Just that there are ways -and there are other ways – of dealing with our helplessness. A robot is perfectly controlled, but could it dance as gracefully as any of us who hear the music and feel its influence, and give way to that influence and allow ourselves to move freely, guided by the pulse and the pace of it? Giving up a little control gains something in effect.

Similarly, the world of imagination offers a vast potential for power. We can imagine anything we choose. I couldn’t count the number of times I’ve imagined winning the lottery, or being with the man of my dreams, or winning the acclaim of all the people whose opinions matter to me. These are idle imaginings that do little more than lull me in the face of my real life problems.

On the other hand, when I start with the world I know, where I am often overwhelmed by my problems, by fears and needs and personal failings, and I imagine facing those – or greater – problems and dealing with plausible consequences, then I can bring in all kinds of strange and magical elements to the story, and it’s much more interesting and engaging than simple wish fulfillment could be. Accepting the things I can’t control into the fantasy world turns fantasy into a dance. The power of imagination is not in making a wish list, but in envisioning more satisfying ways of facing the realities, the problems and dangers we know.

 

The Velveteen Rabbit Effect

Having my computer face the window of my office is a mixed blessing. I can see the sunshine on a winter’s day, and the bare limbs of a tree stark against the snow – but that same sunshine glares in my eyes as I look at the computer screen. My solution was to get a cheap sun visor at a dollar store. The visor was a poor fit. It had a hard plastic band sized for someone with a smaller hat size, and pinched the sides of my head if I snugged it down, so I generally wore it perched on top of my head with the visor tilted down to shield my eyes as best it could.

This week that hard plastic band broke. Without it, the visor lacked the structure to hold it to my head at all. When I broke a piece out of the middle and put the two side-ends back in their casing, I could make it fit at last. But now, the broken ends of that band poked at my brow. Today I got out needle and thread and a length of thick brocade ribbon, thinking to sew it across the break and cushion those broken ends.

As I sewed, my visor’s transformation from cheap mass-produced item to unique, custom-fit accessory reminded me of the tale of the Velveteen Rabbit. The toy becomes real because of how thoroughly it is loved and used, although it grows worn and threadbare in the process. The damages are what make it distinguishable from every other toy rabbit on the toy store shelf. The same adventures that damage it give it character.

Broken and mended as it is, my visor now has character. Character is an issue familiar to all writers. Our characters seem real to the extent that they have unique experiences that have touched them and changed them, from which they’ve learned and grown and become someone distinguishable from anyone else in the world.

I came to appreciate this principle first through visual arts. Especially the functional-art bookmarks I’ve been making for years now. Because of the bookmarks, I had the ribbon on hand that I needed in order to adapt my visor to my needs.

There are a vast array of colors, patterns and styles of ribbons, from narrow satin to wide brocade, to printed cottons and wire-edged organzas. There are beads in as many sizes and colors, from tiny glass seed beads, to large rough-cut shells, or many sizes of pearls, to shiny metal icons, to natural stones from quartz to jasper to opal and ruby, rough nuggets or precisely cut shapes. The potential variations I could create with my bookmarks seem truly endless. Each combination acquires a unique character.

Why settle for stereotypes in writing characters when the potential combinations of human qualities and experiences must be at least as variable as with beads and ribbons? People come in all sizes and shapes, from families rich, poor, and everywhere in between, with backgrounds touching every sort of work and industry, political belief, educational training and interconnections within their communities. Every person embodies a small world of unique characteristics at birth, and our experiences in life only add to the depth of that identity. We each become more real as we love and explore our lives. I, for one, want to remember that if my characters ever seem shallow, it’s because I haven’t looked at them deeply enough and found the experiences that make them real.

Unpacking

Cross-posted to The Writers’ Vineyard

Three months after moving house, I’m still unpacking. I’m down to far fewer boxes, but far fewer places to put things once they’re unpacked.

I’m now using one of the emptied boxes to collect things I feel I can do without.
Reluctantly, I’m forced to admit to myself that I’ll probably never open that mind-soul-healing book again – not with several others in a similar vein already on the shelves. Amazingly, now that I have two novels, two novellas and two collections of short stories published, I can do without the book telling me how to get published. How many instruction books do I need for a musical instrument I seldom play? Or for software no longer installed on my computer? It’s time to go through my shelves and make some decisions. Will I ever read this again, or that to begin with? Which of the non-fiction books are outdated? Which will actually be useful?

Why do I keep those I keep? With many of my fiction books, I keep them as reminders of the adventures I experienced and the people I’ve come to know and care about between their pages. A book on a shelf is like a photo in a family album.

Picking up a book, one can open the pages at any time and slip back into its world of people and adventures once again. That world is always there in potential, and I find it reassuring to see all those potential worlds racked on the shelves around me. I love my Nook – mostly because I can have my books and lift them, too – but the presence of a solid book is a magical thing.

Still, when I have to pile some books in front of others, it takes away the virtue of being able to see those reminders arrayed before me.

A book on a shelf is like a photo in a family album. A person doesn’t get rid of any of the photos of people and times that are truly meaningful. Every single shot holds a precious memory. But, say you only have room to keep one or two photo albums out for display. You can look through all the photos from a special event and keep one or two that are representative, and file the rest in a box (neatly labeled of course, to make future access easy) and store the box away.

Maybe I need every single volume of the Harry Potter series available – I may well want to read them again – but I might keep only the first volume of another series handy, if I knew where to find the rest when I needed them. Maybe I only need the first volume in hard copy if I have the others on my Nook… And maybe there are some stories that don’t mean as much to me as others, which may yet be enjoyable enough to make it worth sharing them with other readers by donating to a library, prison reading program, or even selling off to a used book store. Let the sorting begin!

Below Zero

The expected high temperature for today, here in Minnesota, is ten degrees below zero, Fahrenheit. This is not a weather report; this is something between bragging and complaining.

Over the next few days we’ll see temperatures such as might be encountered on the surface of the planet Mars. The wind chills can reach forty below zero and worse. This is the kind of weather that will inflict frostbite on exposed skin within fifteen minutes, the kind that brings serious risk of losing one’s ‘bits’ on prolonged exposure and brings death to those who can find no refuge.

I’m just as glad to be living in a part of the country where hurricanes, tidal waves and earthquakes are not a concern, but we have the extremes of winter and we’ve learned to handle them. (Canadians may scoff, but no one else). Those of us who grew up here learned early how to dress in layers, to value our mittens, gloves, knitted caps and scarves. And we are sincere in our gratitude for warm homes and caring community, as these are all that stand between us and the frigid night.

At the same time, we are human. People get on each others’ nerves; we can get cabin fever when pent up in closed spaces for long periods, as happens for those whose employment does not demand a commute and are not inclined to brave the elements to participate in winter sports. (Myself, I’m more into archery and fencing than skiing, snow-mobiles or ice-fishing.)

When even taking a casual walk becomes a trial of endurance, it’s well to look with renewed appreciation on the merits of civility and on indoor activities. Civility enables us to exist together in peace. The internet, games, music, story-telling, books and other media give us distractions and entertainment during periods of confinement; arts and handicrafts (from cooking to app designing) give us preoccupation. It’s in the face of winter that these fruits of civilization prove their true worth.

Jean Briggs’ ‘Never in Anger’ is assigned reading in many a college anthropology course. In this exploration of Inuit culture, the author emphasizes the strong value the Inuit family placed on controlling anger in favor of preserving the social bonds on which survival in the arctic environment depended. The Inuits necessarily spent long periods confined together indoors and spent much of that time in story-telling and game playing.

It’s the tension between the demands of civility and the frustrations of interpersonal conflict that inspired my middle-grade reader story, ‘The Winter Knife’ (as yet unpublished). Winter is such a major element of the story that it is practically a character in itself. Old north woods’ logger lore tells of a creature that travels under the snow to stalk its prey. The fourteen-year-old heroine of the story befriends such a creature when it’s a pup. The conflict comes to a crisis during the worst winter in Minnesota history, when extreme temperatures drive the creature to join her in the city, where their emotional bond leads it to see her ‘enemies’ as its prey.

What does a young girl do when her anger threatens the survival of everyone important to her? How does she save her wild creature friend from her community, and her community from the wild creature?