Rain Trueax's Blog, page 47

Junot Diaz

This was a fascinating video about writing and literature, great ideas if you follow it all the way. Whatever type of book one is trying to write, it's interesting to learn how other writers think-- especially those who have gotten literary awards like the Pulitzer Prize.

Diaz's thoughts on America and our political process, our need for a real conservative party, are equally fascinating. Well worth your hour as a lot of topics are covered as Bill Moyers plumbs the mind of a great thinker.


Junot Díaz on Moyers & Company


Finley -- January 11, 2012

Dreams mingled with reality

At this time of the year, I look for snow globes. We get very little snow where I live and on a practical level, I like it that way as snow gets in the way, means a need for more hay bales, frozen waterers, difficulty in getting to town, power outages, and potential floods when it melts.

That doesn't mean I don't see the romance of such a setting with the snow gently falling-- especially on a cabin where it's cozy inside. Some years back I found a site that would put the snow to your own image. Here are two digital paintings of my dream cabin, the one I have stored in my heart for a someday lifetime which isn't likely to happen in this one.

Make custom Glitter Graphics


It was thirteen years ago when I was reading one of those self-help books that used to appeal to me back then. It suggested a technique for getting what you want to become reality in your life. The idea was you write your ideal day from waking to sleeping. It could be one day on a perfect vacation, a dream home, whatever it took to make that day ideal. I did it. All these years later, it still sounds good to me.

Today, some of it is in my life, or has been, but that's not the important part for what I wrote as this is more about energy. It is recognizing the energy you want to be part of your life and when you do that, you can move on getting it. That might come in ways you didn't expect because often we get caught up in details and miss the bigger picture of what we are really seeking.

The following was the gist of what I wrote January 17, 2000. In January 2007, I expanded it a bit and created a lot of digital paintings to illustrate parts of it. So here it is (including one of those paintings) as maybe inspiration for how you might write about your own perfect day.

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 I wake with the light and lie in bed a few moments as I remember my dream. It was vivid, full of color and life. I was loving a man, feeling his touch, his embrace, his kiss. The dream and reality blend together. Has my lover been with me before in a Western time when he was on the run, and we were having to stay apart because of the danger to both himself and me? Cannot know. I think of whether this could make a book and before I forget, jot down notes for later consideration.

 Rising, I dress in jeans and flannel shirt, thick socks and boots and pull on a winter coat to go outside for a few moments to embrace the morning. The air is crisp and clear. I see my breath in front of my face as I walk down to the barns. They are below the log home and there are two horses inside waiting for flakes of hay. I know the man has been here, but I like to go also.

Stretching my legs, I take off with a quick stride as I walk a couple of miles for exercise. My thoughts are full of plans but also enjoying the quiet of the morning. It feels good to walk along this dirt road, to hear the vast silence, see a little snow on the hills above me, a hawk soaring in the distance against a crystal blue sky.

Back in the house, I make fresh coffee, fix breakfast, click on the computer in the kitchen as I glance at the news, and decide on which of my projects to work. Possibilities are a sculpture, painting and book that is just being etched out. The painting or sculpture would head to a small gallery a few hundred miles away, and the book for a publisher. The work provides enough income to live simply.

This time, I choose the soul painting because my passion is high. I need time with color, light and motion. The dream is still restless within me. I am eager to see my painting take life, to watch it fill the canvas and become a statement about all I am experiencing as I learn more and more about Spirit and how it can fill my days and me with love.


The man returns. He is cold and fills the room with the smell of early morning, of juniper and grass. When he kisses me, I melt into him, feel the oneness I had never known until he came into my life. He sips his coffee, talking as I paint. He doesn’t need to see my work and is full of his own plans. We separate as he goes off for his day and I continue in mine.

A woman, who lives half a mile down the road, drops by and we drink tea and spend an hour discussing the latest problems in the gallery we both use and her own book. Later one of my kids calls and we talk about what is going on with their life. They are doing well and although we don’t live close, we exchange energy, and the love is always there as we give each other the freedom to live our own paths.

 By evening I am ready to start dinner. I cook light Italian, happy to think the man will be back to enjoy it. I pour a small glass of wine and sip as I chop vegetables and saute the chicken. I think how blessed I am to have this life, to be living the dream I only imagined for so many years.

When he returns, we have dinner by candlelight. The house is not large, only two bedrooms and the furniture not fancy but rustic, but the feeling is full of warmth and music. A fire is in the small fireplace and candles light the table. He tells me of what he did during the day, and we talk about the latest political situations. In the evening we sit and listen to music, cuddled in front of the fireplace. That doesn't last long as we stoke fires within ourselves and make love in front of the fire. This man is my soul mate.. He is the one I dreamed of and for this moment I have him with me... If only for the day... 

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It's not hard to see how my writing is influenced by not only my life but my dreams. I don't dream big dreams; but small or large, dreams aren't always attainable other than in dreams.  And dreams really are what often give us the energy we need for our daily lives. Some of my dreams come from things I see, books I read. Some out of the ether of life and who knows their source. It is what I am satisfied to call the mystery of life.

Creating a brand

Last year I know I wrote about this because it's what I was told was important to a writer. Create a brand.  If someone writes eleven books as I have (and that doesn't include the five historicals that I am putting off publishing-- nor the ideas for future contemporaries), and if they are not in a series, aren't typical for the romance genre, how do you establish a brand? I recognize one when I see it-- the series all written in a small town named say Adeline (made that one up) or the name Louis L'Amour. 
 digital painting
If your books are in paper, out from a publishing house, they send you around to bookstores or events that relate. You sign books, give talks, and you become the brand to those who will now look for your next book because they know the kind of thing you are going to have in it-- even if it's not set in Adeline. If they liked what you say, they will buy your philosophy for those books, the influences that have inspired the writing.

For me, as an indie writer, who likes being an indie writer, how to do this has been an ongoing question. I guess I should say an off and on question as I tend to forget about it and then go -- uh oh I better do something. I do have a philosophy to my books, but I suspect they disappoint the most avid of romance readers as I'm not into producing angst nor flowery language. They also are not going to be found by the readers of pop fiction who might read many types of novels but gag at the thought of a romance.

That's why I do need to be the brand. I write these books with a knowledge of the life where they are placed. Always it's into some arena where I have experience. I place them in settings where I live or have spent a lot of time. I do know the type of people even if they aren't friends. Some of the books link together but even then they stand alone as something that could be read without the others.

When I looked around GoodReads, I saw where they have a place for videos. I suppose they expect them to all be from the books but would they really want eleven of them (which I do have on YouTube)? So instead I created something new about my last year and some of the influences in my life, some that became part of a book and some inspired the energy that I believe is at the heart of my books-- all of them.

With 2013, I might try to come up with other ways to brand-- short of the cowboy method, of course.

Photography

 Old Tucson, Arizona
Because I came across a discussion elsewhere and posted a comment regarding it, I thought I'd expand on it here. It's regarding photography and the use of someone else's images. I've been reading some people who are unhappy that their images have been taken without recompense.

I get how they feel, but the truth is if I go searching on Google for a photo of a certain subject, I will sometimes come across mine. The fact that I put my photos onto my blog means they can be taken by someone else who is ignorant of the copyright I put on the original page where it appeared.

This is a major issue for the Internet as bloggers who use someone else's image without permission can be sued-- and have been. Sometimes the fees can be high enough to shock. [a warning regarding use of images]

When I have seen images I want from a Google search, I have contacted the photographer and sometimes found they don't even own the image. It belongs to a newspaper. The people who might use my images with permission/or without have those images showing up as theirs unless they give credit (and those who ask permission always say they will do that).

A few times I have wanted to use something I owned, but the artwork and words were not mine. Tarot cards are one example. The fact that I owned the cards did not mean I owned the right to reproduce them elsewhere. I contacted the person who created them, explained how I wanted to use my scans and received permission. If they had asked a fee, I'd have not done it; but in that case I wasn't using them in a commercial way. If I had wanted to use one on say a book cover, I'd expect to pay something for the right.

Basically the safest thing to do is never use anybody else's image without permission and be sure whoever has it has that right.  I have been asked by the way about using mine and given permission almost always when it's a blog that I think is in sync with mine.

If you are though the photographer, and you put your images out on your blog, you are at risk because they will show up not just there. The answer is put them out small enough that they cannot be enlarged sufficiently to be used and put a watermark into them. That's no guarantee but it makes it a lot harder. If you reduce their size, they don't have the value allowing someone else to reproduce.

The truth is though that everything we put online-- words and photos-- can be taken and not always by someone who means ill by it. They may have just come across it on a Google search and thought it was fair game. Google has a notation alongside that it's not but how many read that?

And if you take photos certain places, it's not automatic that you can use them professionally. For instance when we visited the movie studio and tourist attraction Old Tucson, we asked if we could use the photos we took. They said yes. There are places we have been where the site itself is considered a creation of the owner and you cannot use the photos for business which means sell them or use them as I might on a book cover.

Same is true of images of people which is why it's safest to buy them from somewhere like CanStock where there is an agreement to protect you. Crowd scenes might work and not get you in trouble but a specific photo of someone, you better have it in writing that they allow you to use it. CanStock sells images royalty free and that's the ideal if you are wanting them for a book cover or any commercial use.

Three Weeks in December

Always I like to share with others the many ways that Tucson inspires me. It's nearly impossible as there are so many aspects to this diverse river valley-- that no longer has a flowing river (except after big storms and below the waste water treatment facility) but the riparian zone is still there as a reminder.  Washes come down out of the mountains with no water-- except after those storms.

Tucson is ringed by mountains. In the Catalinas, Mt. Lemmon is 9,157 feet with snow in winter and even skiing now and again. We had no time for it this time; but when you drive up there you travel through every climate zone from the desert to Canada with the appropriate trees. One time we drove down the backside (not the typical route down) and it was quite an experience on a winding, gravel road where we passed nobody on the whole drive down-- fortunately as it was narrow with steep sides.


Tucson is an incredibly creative area with tempting landscapes everywhere you look, the rich browns, olive greens, ochres, reds, purples, oranges, and golds. In the winter, the low lighting shadows everything richly, making it a photographer's dream. It has been interpreted by many artists through  brushes, canvas, cloth, paint, clay, and even etched into rock.

Arizona Historical Museum had a quilt show of totally gorgeous works depicting the desert and it's environs to tell Tucson's story.
It's also rich for an historian with the ancient peoples who left behind ruins and petroglyphs and then later comers with diverse Native American tribes, prospectors, miners, priests, ranchers and all those ready to make a profit without working for it. Indian wars, outlaws, corruption, heroics, even a big earthquake that redecorated one of Tucson's favorite little canyons.


With my visit to Old Tucson for photos of today's attempt to recreate the Old West for tourists and movie sets, then the Arizona Historical Museum full of old photos, stories, and information, I left the state happy with the photos and information I had gleaned for the book I am working on-- an 1886-87 historical romance sharing some characters with an earlier historical romance (not yet out).


I had a thought also on the drive back from Tucson that what I like better, as a description of what I write, would be to call them emotional adventures. On all levels they are about the adventure of life that centers around the emotional and sexual connection between two people. More on that at a future time.

For now, I created a video that attempts to capture a little of the Tucson mood and of what I experienced three weeks in December.

on the road

On the road and nothing ever goes as expected-- other than it's a miserable drive for the cats and hard on us too. There can however be unexpected pleasures along the way-- not for the cats, of course.

One was this first sunrise of 2013 at 6:46am on the freeway between Needles and Barstow, California. This really is one of those stretches of highway that seem to go on forever as nothing much is happening alongside the road. For about a half an hour there was. That sunrise seemed to stretch across the whole horizon, not quite to alpenglow level but close.


In Tucson, the day before we drove out, we made a stop at Bookmans a favorite of ours since it opened in 1976. I'm guessing we were among its first customers. At first it was a small store off Campbell. We returned on all our following trips, which often were only a year apart. It moved and then expanded into new locations but didn't lose its energy.

In Tucson, Bookmans is the to-go place for used books, DVDs, CDs, and this time what I wanted-- audio books. We had learned on previous trips that audio books help pass the miles-- other than in heavy traffic.

We chose three from successful authors-- a western, a romance, and a novel I find hard to categorize. When we went to pay, the cashier rang it up and then looked at us with surprise. He said our whole order was free due to one of the things Bookmans does-- random free purchases. This one paid off for us with over $40 worth. It was like winning the lottery-- well a small lottery and one you didn't know you had entered as we hadn't known it was one of the store policies.

Anyway when driving a lot of miles such books do help to pass the time, and I will write more about these three and my feelings about them in another blog when I'm not typing on a laptop in a motel room.

a new year

Generally I love this time of the year when I rethink the year that passed and what I realistically (and sometimes unrealistically) want in the one to come. It's generally been a quiet time for me with Christmas past and lambing yet ahead. This year it's been anything but quiet as we've been in Tucson to do the necessary repairs on the house, clean, spruce, replace, and then do whatever hiking we can mix in with getting photos for future projects.

For the photos, it has been one of the most productive times I could imagine. The lighting has been perfect on the days I needed it and more blah on the work days. I might put together a slide show of some of the best shots as it truly was a lush time with the perfect angle of the sun and some magnificent sunsets.

My time here though has not done much for any planning I might make for the new year other than we will be driving north then, hoping the traffic, ice and snow won't be a problem (weather forecasts seem to change hourly). My thinking on last year and what will be in 2013 definitely has been on hold until I get back to the ranch where I think things will slow down for me at least.

To do any serious thinking, about how I've been doing with my previous year's plans, takes quiet time. While in Tucson, I have had more of my thinking wrapped around characters and plots with me not in the picture. January I hope to do some of both.

To be or not to be

When I am writing a story, going through this preliminary phase of creating in my head, one thing that always stops me for awhile is when I am considering adding a spiritual/paranormal element. When I wrote Sky Daughter it was one of the aspects with which I wrestled. Should the spiritual element be real or imaginary? Either are possible in such stories.

I woke up thinking about this problem because some aspect of it is going to be in the Tucson historical romance. Tucson, Arizona and the valley in which it sets is a place with a tremendous number of spiritual elements all coming together in what at one time was a flowing river and its surrounding riparian zone. It inspires the possibility of real spiritual power-- of positive and negative sorts.

Picture RocksTucson is a good place to find love but also violence. The events that have happened, keep happening, have created an atmosphere of conflict and resolution, beauty and danger. If you are sensitive, you will feel it in the air and come across the evidence that others have felt it with their petroglyphs, the shrines, the churches.  It's a good place to be when wondering about spiritual traditions, mysteries, and the source of life.

 San Xavier, the White Dove of the Desert
Friday morning I awoke thinking about all this in terms of the story, which I had laid aside to write the Christmas novella. The one thing I knew is that this story will have a spiritual element with a heroine who is curious about the psychic world, a Yaqui sidekick for the hero, the setting in Tucson, but how far did I want to take that?


I know a lot of the plot, the dilemmas the couple will face and feel I know these people but what about the part I don't know? How much of that shall I put into it? There will be some spiritual searching but how about the paranormal itself? I find it fascinating and have done a lot of research over the years, but how far do I want to go in this book?

While I’ve been in Tucson, I’ve gone to some of my favorite petroglyph sites, which show at the least an attempt to understand the Cosmos, possibly tell their stories, but were they placed where they are with a feeling these were sacred sites or are they all that is left? They do feel like sacred space which is to be respected in the same way a church does. Is there real energy of some sort and it's why they exist where they are? The site for San Xavier was a holy site to the Tohono O'odham before the Spanish priests came and erected a church there.

Shrine in downtown Tucson
There are many sacred sites around the United States and, of course, the world. Do they hold some kind of power as some believe of the Sedona vortexes? Or Stonehenge in England? Is there some kind of reality to the paranormal, that which we might experience but cannot explain? Could there be power from a physical source like say ions in the air which is why the energy is good around a waterfall?

For the book I am soon to start writing, my big question is not whether the questing will be there. It will be part of the underlying theme. The question is how real do I make it?

Once in awhile I have wrestled with that for a story as I am not traditionally religious and am more of an agnostic than an atheist. I don't write sci fi or fantasy where you can let fly with what you might imagine. Romances can have all of that, but mine have not. They have been grounded in the 'real' world as much as I know of it. It would be possible to put the spiritual elements in the story and have the characters recognize it as a false quest or equally it would be possible to have them touch the unknown, to come out of their experiences with a greater understanding of the unexplainable, the mystery of life. That's the quandary of a writer.
 
 el Tiradito
Humans really do want to believe there is magic and you see the evidence of it everywhere. Should this book be a place to find some of that magic or is it better to be 'realistic' about what is true...  if we know what that is.

Bringing it together

While it's been a busy time while in Tucson, that doesn't mean writing isn't on my mind. I keep looking (fruitlessly) for a quote I saw when the Portland Art Museum had a Claude Monet show. The gist was that a neighbor saw Monet sitting in a lawn chair and said-- I see you're not working today. Monet said, no, he was very much working. Later when the neighbor observed him painting, he said, now you are working. Monet said, no, now I'm not.

And that's how a lot of writing is-- the ideas germinate and grow until they are ready to be put down on paper or a computer. I take an idea, in my head, so far down that road and then think, nah, doesn't work because of this or that. I go back to the start, in my head, and try a new direction. Ideas I might try come from many sources-- on the wind, from other people, something in the paper, a discussion,  a walk, and maybe the muse standing by wondering how long it'll take to get through to me where I really need to go with this.


For me, as a story comes, it will be in stages. I cannot describe how someone who writes a mystery, sci-fi, or fantasy would progress, but I can give an idea of how my romances do.

Some examples of ideas that I might use would be from the newspaper like the recent tragedy of firefighters being lured to a fire as an ambush, the embassy attack in Libya, a tsunami, big forest fire, political intrigue, etc. There are some stories I wouldn't touch because they hit too close to home, have too much emotional angst attached for me personally like school shootings.  When I do find an event intriguing, it won't be it exactly but more the energy of what happened set into some other place and time.

Where it comes to writing romances, the lovers are at the core, the center, the heart. And it's not just one of them but both. Who are they? What are their problems? Why would they be attracted? What keeps them apart? And those obstacles, do they seem believable that they can be overcome-- and if so, how would that happen?

Writing a full length book takes months-- even years. To spend that long, even with fictional characters, I have to like them-- both of them. If I find either weak, mean, detestable, stupid, ridiculous, what are the odds readers will see it otherwise?  I have to believe these characters feel real, could exist somewhere-- although none of my hero or heroines have ever been written using people I knew personally.


There are a ton of ideas (ideas are never in short supply) which will be discarded during this ruminating period. They might seem unrealistic or go nowhere. Maybe they never give me a theme. I like to write books that have an underlying structure and theme that goes somewhere. The novella had less responsibility that way as it was more of slice of life. Novels though are stories with meaning. It's not just interesting events that seem unconnected but that in the end, they will be connected-- that's the nirvana of writing.

I've had a lot of dreams that are full movie version, plots, characters, the works but they aren't in an historic period that I want to research, or I just cannot see where they could develop beyond what I saw. I always write those kinds of dreams down in a journal as you never when maybe sometime.

When I start, it's generally with a few thousand words just to see if it has the feel of something I could take all the way. Then I think more on what I have and where it's going. Perhaps an idea requires more research like say a mystical element where I need to know more about how such a thing has impacted others. Once in awhile I have thrown in a mystical element that I don't explain or try to make logical. For those bothered by such, I just want to say-- life does that all the time.

Right now with the business of getting this house ready for the vacation renters, my free-time thinking has been aimed at my second Arizona historical which had been what I thought I'd totally write while here and instead the energy went into A Montana Christmas, the novella that followed up on From Here to There.

The historical western though has not been forgotten as I do some further research and get more ideas from hikes around the valley. Its theme is coming clear to me. I was happy to find a topographical map of this region from 1904 which isn't quite what I wanted with my story set in 1886 but probably not wildly off. Understanding roads is always important in historical books as what we can do today isn't always what was possible back then.

Photos: Harris' hawks at Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum where they do raptor shows twice a day as viewers watch, learn more about the birds and habitat they require. Quail in our backyard here (a hawk's idea of a great lunch). Finally one of Tucson's wonderful December sunsets.

Leaving our stories behind

When we write a story, draw a picture, create a sculpture, we are creating something for others, hopefully leaving something of ourselves, of how we see the world. It will be our interpretation of an event, a spiritual truth, life, nature, the cosmos, but whether the 'others' will see what we intended, who ever knows.

When in Tucson, I always like to visit petroglyph sites. Well actually I like them anywhere I go but here there are quite a few with easy access. One on my someday list is harder to reach, much longer hike, and I wasn't in shape this trip nor had I gotten the necessary permits ahead of time-- someday though.

Because I am starting on another Arizona historical novel, one or more of these sites will be worked into the story, and I might use one of the photos in its trailer. They are a good example of how when you are writing something, being there can add to your ideas for the events. This western always was planned to have some mystical elements, Yaqui and others, and so these sites work into that theme.

Regardless of whether I am writing or not, visiting such places is always important to me. To be there always feels infused with energy which maybe explains why they are where they are... or maybe these are just the places the elements didn't wipe out the etchings into the rocks.

As for their original story or purpose, it's all guesswork. They could be stories of life, sites for sacred work, but whatever the artist intended, visiting them always seems good to me and I've had that pleasure on many sites across the West.

The following petroglyphs are all Hohokam, probably over a thousand years old and in the Tucson area-- Signal Hill, Painted Rock, and Honeybee Canyon.