Kate Larking's Blog: Anxiety Ink, page 37

A Fascination with Doubles

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As far as writing, writers, and the idea of doubles go, my fascination is hardly new or innovative in the creative sphere. But that doesn’t seem to lessen my interest. It only increases it.

Months upon months ago, the definition of doppelganger hit my inbox and resulted in the explosion of a story idea –one that will come to fruition at some point because my subconscious won’t stop solidifying it.

doppelgänger    \DAH-pul-gang-er\

noun

1 :

a ghostly counterpart of a living person

2

a :

a person who closely resembles another living person

b :

the opposite side of a personality : alter ego

c :

a person who has the same name as another

Did You Know?

According to age-old German folklore, all living creatures have a spirit double who is invisible but identical to the living individual. These second selves are perceived as being distinct from ghosts (which appear only after death), and sometimes they are described as the spiritual opposite or negative of their human counterparts. In 1796, German writer Johann Paul Richter, who wrote under the pseudonym Jean Paul, coined the word Doppelgänger (from doppel-, meaning “double,” and -gänger, meaning “goer”) to refer to such specters.

Thank you Merriam-Webster Word of the Day!

I’ve read Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, plus more Victorian tales devoted to the idea than I can remember at this time. I’ve thought deeply about my inner and outer selves –the me(s) I show to the world and the me I am when I’m by myself. Even the me I am as Writer, versus the me I am when I’m doing the actual writing*, though that is a new thought to be completely honest.

The most extreme cases I can think of in the case of doubles involves people like Ted Bundy who led two vastly different lives with the only real connection between the divergent lines the physical man himself –well, monster, really.

Even in my current read there is a play on doubles; I’m not very far into Gone with the Wind, but I can see that the doubling of character nature is going to be a major theme. Rhett Butler is a master at playing the doubles game: gentleman/rascal whenever it suits him. So is Scarlett, who moves between Southern lady/Impudent dame, the tension of which is made obvious as she’s constantly speaking to her desire to act the way she truly feels instead of the way her mother raised her to behave.

All of this leads me to a number of questions: what is humanity’s fascination with doubles? Why do we look so hard for doubles? Why do we work so hard to create doubles? Where does this need stem from?

I’m sure there are excellent psychoanalytical answers out there. I’m going to posit that it mostly stems from a need for acceptance by our peers and the need for an entity to shift the blame on should that acceptance be in danger (for instance: I don’t know what possessed me to do such and such, it was like I wasn’t myself).

The notion of doubles in fiction, and across different medias, is likely popular and prevalent because it doesn’t have a clear answer. I know that I myself use it quite a lot in my writing though it never really looks the same across stories. The best use of alter egos does arise when there is a vast network of social structures around characters that they like to buck, in my opinion.

I definitely don’t have a crystal clear answer when it comes to doubles, all I can say with any surety is that I have a great time looking for one.

*Inspired by Negotiating with the Dead, Chapter 2: “Duplicity”, by Margaret Atwood.

Featured image source.

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Thankfulness

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I realize it isn’t thanksgiving—either the Canadian one or the American one or any other one. But something that has been on my mind lately is writers in my life, both professional and amateur, that I am thankful for and have helped me continue as a writer.

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So, this doesn’t only apply to writers. I have my wife who supports me, a family. Friends who don’t write. But this post is a shout out for the writers.

ARWA gals Jillian Long and Victoria Smith (among the many others that are part of ARWA) – Both of these lovely ladies fight battles similar to me, striving at the early stages of their writing careers and balancing the full-time load of work and life. I respect both of them immensely and hope to keep journeying with them as writers and women.
Laura Anne Gilman and C. E. Murphy – These authors have continued to encourage me while simultaneously kicking my ass to get my writing in gear.
April Steenburgh – April has invited me to be a part of two projects, helping me get my writing legs under me even when I didn’t believe in myself. She showed me that a little bit of passion can go a long way to tying people together and making remarkable things happen.
Sirens Conference and all the wonderful people therein – I can’t even begin to outline the impact this conference has had on my confidence in writing stories from my heart and not compromising what I believe in. Beyond that, this conference has taught me so much and opened up so many avenues for me to understand how intersectional feminism is and can be. I am looking forward to wrangling an anthology with these lovely people.
Crystal Hale – She has been writing with me since…we began, really. And it’s beed a hard road for both of us. I am thankful she has been in my life and continues to cheer me on and that I have the pleasure to cheer her on.
DC Menard & Eric Andrew Satchwill – These two have characters that are extremely lively, twisting and turning dialogue into perfect banter. Their passion for each others’ works is incredible.
Amanda Sun – I have only met Amanda a handful of times, but I am constantly reminded about how amazing she is. She pushed forward despite her vulnerabilities and doubts and strives to tell stories that are true to her heart.
Brandy Ackerley – She is far more disciplined with her writing than I have ever been and I respect the hell out of that. She also has an unabashed love for her stories and the cultures she bases them on.
Glynn Stewart – Glynn has taken life by the horns and has carved his indie publishing career out of the Amazon—and other platform–charts with a dedication I can only aspire to.
Clare C Marshall – Clare was one of the first people who I contacted when I got serious about self-publishing. She has been a mentor and guide, an editor and a boss. There is no value I can place on all the things she has helped me with.
Ellie Zygmunt – One of my best friends, we constantly deal with physical distance between us as Ellie migrates across Canada. Her love for the literary and genre alike will be a wonderful fixture in the future of Canadian fiction.
Jessica Corra – Another of my best friends who came into my life only recently. We write together, fight demons together, and drown in cats together. She has taught me about passion, resilience, and listening to my heart when writing.
Last by not least, my fellow Inkettes. E V O’Day and M J King have been cataloguing their struggles and triumphs with me for the past two and a half years. And I could not be more grateful to have such stellar, honest women by my side with Anxiety Ink.

I am so lucky to have people like this in my life and so many other authors like them in my network of friends.

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Travel Notes: Learning and Relearning

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I always learn things when I travel. Sometimes I relearn them.

Travel is exhausting. Am I driving 5+ hours? Then I won’t get much of any meaningful writing done. Expecting anything else of myself is ridiculous.
If visiting family, writing will not happen unless I carve out time for it. Visiting my sister? Much as I love her, I can’t even count on carving out time. Unless she’s asleep, I can’t count on uninterrupted focus.
If I don’t have writing materials set out and/or readily available, the chances of writing happening significantly decrease. This is worse during the revision stage due to the addition of the manuscript. It is bigger and bulkier than my notebook, making it inconvenient to carry around and inconvenient to wrangle into the dimensions of an airline tray table.
My stories like it when I travel. They talk to me. They talk a lot. Noisy buggers. In the past week, at least thirteen individual stories threw out new details and ideas.
Travel provides story fodder. So. Much. Story. Fodder.
Adjusting – readjusting – to the world takes time. I have to be kind to myself and let that time happen. Writing takes a hell of a lot of energy, however sedentary it may be.
Planning a two trips back to back without even a day of rest in between was not the smartest decision I’ve ever made. Note to self: don’t do it again.

So not a lot of revision happened. Not nearly so much writing as I would have liked. Another week of vacation to stay home and do all the things that couldn’t be done while traveling and visiting family would be perfect.

In short: travel is great for writing. As in filling the well. Travel is terrible for writing, in terms of actual production. And yet somehow I always expect more.

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A Legacy of Female Artists

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I promised that I would return to Negotiating with the Dead, didn’t I? It has thoroughly attached itself to my brain and I couldn’t be more pleased as I continue to read. Halfway through, one aspect that the text is not explicitly devoted to, though it permeates the pages and is signalled to by the author and her body of work, is the question of the female artist.

Today I am tackling the legacy of female artists. Though an important topic, my reference text is very much focused on white female artists, much to my chagrin. Hence it’s a narrow discussion, but I think significant in the greater conversation of trodden artists. So it’s a legacy, as my title indicates.

I have to start my post by quoting yet another personal anecdote by Atwood that so carefully alludes to the three subtopics I’ve chosen to analyze:

“One of my mother’s friends was more cheerful [than my parents when I said I wanted to be a writer]. ‘That’s nice, dear,’ she said, ‘because at least you’ll be able to do it at home.’ (She assumed that, like all the right-thinking girls, I would eventually have a home. She wasn’t up on the current dirt about female writers, and did not know that these stern and dedicated creatures were supposed to forgo all of that, in favor of warped virginity or seedy loose living, or suicide – suffering of one kind or another.)” (Atwood, Margaret. Negotiating with the Dead. Anchor Canada Edition. 2003.15)

It is important to remember the time period in which Atwood was born and raised. In the American 1950s women were being told that the only real vocation they should devote themselves to was that of housewife, and much of this spilled over the border. Note that the woman believes that writing will merely be a hobby for Atwood, and our author doesn’t have the heart to tell her the truth: that she aimed to be a serious female artist, though they were only afforded three alternate paths in life as far as society was concerned.

The Female Artist of the Past

How did these three choices come about? We can thank the Romantic Era (1785-1832) and the cult of the artist (cough male artist cough) that sprung up just after the first wave of the women’s movement got rolling (I always like to credit Mary Wollstonecraft’s 1792 text A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and John Stuart Mill’s 1869 essay The Subjection of Women as the two foundational texts of the first wave of feminism). Across history there have always been women of genius who proved themselves despite their sex, but as the Victorian Period commenced, then got well under way, there were women who realized that all women, when given opportunity, could be something more than what (the men of) society claimed.

Yes, I very much simplified women’s’ history there and gave a lot of credit to the Victorian Age for brevity’s sake.

In any case, as more women artists cropped up, the double standard of the female artist began to rear its head:

Source.

“If sacrifice was demanded of the male artist, how much more so of the women? What leads us to suspect that the fancifully embroidered scarlet letter on the breast of the punished and reviled Hester Prynne, in Hawthorne’s novel of the same name, stands not only for Adulteress, but for Artist, or even Author? A man playing the role of Great Artist was expected to Live Life – this chore was part of his consecration to his art – and Living Life meant, among other things wine, women, and song. But if a female writer tried the wine and the men, she was likely to be considered a slut and a drunk, so she was stuck with the song; and

better still if it was a swan song. Ordinary women were supposed to get married, but not women artists. A male artist could have marriage and children on the side, as long as he didn’t let them get in the way … but for women, such things were supposed to be the way. And so this particular way must be renounced altogether by the female artist, in order to clear the way for that other way – the way of Art.” (83-84).

And if you think this is an antiquated notion, that women must pick either a family or career but cannot hope to have both, and not be judged when they make their choice, I have to say you’re wrong in part. I was recently watching Beat Bobby Flay on the Food Network, and a female chef, who had to be just over thirty, said that the reason she wanted to beat Bobby was because she wanted to prove to everyone that she hadn’t made the wrong choice in deciding to become a chef even though she didn’t have a husband or kids. My heart crumpled for her.

The Latent Powers of Those Mythologies

But back to the Romantics and their double standard. Using The Picture of Dorian Gray as an example, Atwood proves that the female artists who chose Art were doomed in all ways. Though none more so than the women dissatisfied with the swan song. By trying the men, and inevitably falling for the men, they were choosing men over Art. And by devoting themselves to men they automatically forfeited Art. In the story, the actress Sibyl Vane falls in love with Dorian, but her passion for him subsumes her passion for her Art, to the point that she is no longer as fantastic an actress as she was before loving him. He loved her for her talent, without that talent she is nothing to him, so he deserts her. The only option left to her is suicide, since she doesn’t have the man or the Art any longer.

Note that no male artist, no matter how he dallied with women, ever had this happen to him. Take Byron, for instance. Male artists were lauded as the veritable priests of Art, shepherding the ignorant masses while being able to do anything and everything. The female artists were expected to sacrifice their very lives for their Art, for nothing less proved their devotion.

The female artists wouldn’t just lay down and die without a fight though, right? Atwood continues with:

“Love and marriage pulled one way, Art another, and Art was a kind of demonic possession. Art would dance you to death. … But you didn’t have to be a nun of the imagination or nothing. The feminine priest is not only nun but priestess, so you had a choice, and there was a difference. … Both the nun of the imagination and the priestess of the imagination may finish up in a non-living condition at the foot of Art’s altar, but the difference is the priestess takes someone else with her when she goes.” (85 & 88).

Source.

The prime example of such priestesses is the infamous Salomé, who used art to lure and destroy men. Because obviously, if women are good at Art it must be destructive to the male Art, right? Hardly. Unfortunately, these ridiculous beliefs so permeated society that many women fell into the mythology instead of trying to break away from it. Faced with no real choices, for none of the choices listed is a real choice, many succumbed to the pressures of the cult of Art.

The doomed female artist is an old trope, but it was a pervasive one –we only need to turn to Sylvia Plath to see it close to our time.

The Psyche of the Female Artist

Though our current artistic era is still rife with wisps of the Romantics, I like to think that we have come a long way. Though equality is far from near, female artists are no longer forced to choose between their art and family (for the most part). There is variation between those two extremes.

This doesn’t mean female artists shouldn’t be diligent in fighting for what they want. Atwood states, “The mythology still has power, because such mythologies about women still have power” (90). For every step forward women everywhere take, there is always someone waiting in the wings to push us back. Just look at the recent conversations about abortion rights in the United States, its like Roe v. Wade never happened.

Still, I’m holding on to the hope that despite the mythologies dumped on female artists for ages now is our time. Atwood brings up the current fashion of artistic self-loathing of certain male artists and their inability to live up to their own genius ideal –

“This psychic wound appears to be suffered largely by men. Women writers weren’t included in the Romantic roll-call, and never had a lot of Genius medals stuck onto them; in fact, the word “genius” and the word “woman” just don’t really fit together in our language, because the kind of eccentricity expected of male “geniuses” would simply result in the label “crazy,” should it be practiced by a woman. “Talented,” “great,” even – these words have been applied. But even when they really did affect their own societies, female artists have not often confessed to the ambition to do so. Consequently those of the present day don’t feel a slippage in their power or a demotion in their place on the world’s stage, and they may suspect that they’re doing better today than previously, so they don’t feel too puny by comparison with a horde of illustrious female ancestors.” (100-101).

As a female artist, it is fascinating to look at the legacy in these terms. I am relieved to live in the age I do because I neither want to be a hobbyist housewife nor a doomed nun or priestess –nor simply doomed. Female artists still have a long way to go, women in every vocation do, but to see how far we’ve come is inspiring.

As a third wave feminist I can’t help but think of female artists of colour who still have so many more hurdles to climb than I do. The latent powers of mythology, we need to focus on that one and we need to be dogged in our fight for diversity across all mediums. I guess what I’m saying is now that female artists are on the stage, we need to make sure we’re not keeping others off the stage as the many male artists did their best to do.

Salome (1890) by Ella Ferris Pell (1846-1922) Source.

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Writer Overwhelm and Breaking Things Down

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My plate is full.

I have a lot of projects that will keep me extremely busy until the end of October. Things I’ve gotten myself involved in?

Not one, not two, but THREE conferences. One of which I am on the board for creating.
2-4 publications including comic chapters and nonfiction print editions.
An award nomination I need to campaign for.
An benefit anthology I co-created for Sirens Conference.
A huge dose of personal life stuff.
Oh, and my full-time job with overtime events.

I’m getting dangerously close to the mindset where I am absolutely paralyzed by anxiety, to the point I am completely inactive. It’s simply writer overwhelm.

So I am pivoting and trying to move forward in a different direction. I am taking each task and breaking it down. Each task is getting it’s own bullet and I am making it into several small pieces. Each piece, I’m taking that down further so that if I do something–anything–toward making that goal a reality, I have some to-do list box to check off.

Source

Every little box, breaking it down, makes it into something innumerable, yes. But it also makes it into something where I can see my progress moving forward. No bit of work is going unregistered.

One thing I use is Habitica and it helps me to see the lists get smaller and smaller. We fight boss battles and it is a huge accomplishment to take something large off the list and deal a solid blow to a party boss. While I wish that the app worked a little better, I am using this to keep moving forward. My current goal is to get all the pets/mounts

And, you know, the side benefit of accomplishing my goals. From book formatting (my idea of drudgery) and conference prep, to page edits and chapters written, it helps me keep moving.

How much do you break down goals to keep you moving toward them?

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Focus: The Write-Life Balance

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Dear Brain: stop it. Focus. Why do you insist on working ways that don’t, you know, work for us?

I function best when I focus on one thing at a time. Sit down, complete the draft of one story, then move on to the next. The more fractured that focus becomes, the more fractured my writing becomes.

Source

Lately, it feels like every time I turn around, a different story is tugging at me. “Write me! Write me!” I’ll see or hear something that will click with a story – any story, and often not the one I intend to be working on – and that’s what my brain latches on to. Two minutes later, it hops to something else. Meanwhile, none of these stories actually progresses.

Bouncing from story to story, I lose track of details of settings, characters, plots. Worse, I lose track of voice and atmosphere – the entire tone of the story – until each sounds the same. A generic neutral.

Despite my earlier question, I do know why I have such difficulty with focus right now. It’s because of work. The day job. My focus at work is constantly getting pulled away and interrupted. Then there’s the time factor.

Once upon a time, I was unemployed for several months and had the opportunity to make writing my full time job. I discovered I could complete a draft of a novel in about three months. Then I worked part-time for a few years and that time frame jumped to six months. After landing a full-time job, it became nine months. But stress is cumulative, and that nine months has steadily crept closer and closer to a full year.

And the longer it takes, the harder it becomes to maintain that focus, energy, and motivation.

All the plans and discipline in the world will still fail me if my brain doesn’t cooperate, but for now they’re all I have. So if you have any favorite strategies to help you focus, please share in the comments!

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Writing for the Market

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When this quote and Goodreads anecdote hit my inbox on Friday, April 1, a post was instantly born:

What are men to rocks and mountains? – Jane Austen

April 1, 1816: The Prince Regent enjoyed Jane Austen’s novels, but he requested that she try her hand at a historical romance with less satirical and humorous elements. Austen was not amused. On this day, she wrote to the Prince Regent, “I could not sit down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life.”

After my initial reaction of “Yeah, Jane!” I immediately thought: I could never write for the market either. I’m not knocking writers who do practice their hand at writing for the market, I’m just not one of them. I can’t be one of them.

Sure, throughout school I excelled at producing exactly what I was asked to produce with minimal creative input from myself aside from my points of argument. I’m not in school anymore, and I don’t take joy in writing what I don’t want to write. Creation is torturous enough.

Yes, I do eventually want to make money with my writing, but I’m not willing to pander to the supply and demand model that some authors thrive in. I’m too much of an Artiste, I guess. I want to write what I want to write and see that get me where I want to go. Yep, I’m hoping lightning strikes and my writing and the market collide right under that bolt.

I’m betting my way will not have the money rolling in any time soon. And that’s ok with me. I do have to nod my head at the writers I know who study the market, write pieces to fill it, and excel at making a living at it. I applaud them because the thought fills me with panic. The word “market” alone makes me want to run for the hills.

Everyone’s niche is different. I’m going to stick with Austen’s club and marvel at those who don’t. My days of writing what others want me to write, or think I should write, are behind me.

So, if you’re a reader and the next time you finish the latest popular book, don’t tell the writer(s) in your life that they should write the next _____ blockbuster. We’re under enough pressure. And if you’re a writer, keep on writing!

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Prix Aurora Award Finalist

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So, if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you may already know. But Crash and Burn: Prologue is a nominated finalist for the Prix Aurora Awards under Best English Graphic Novel published in Canada for 2015.

Anxiety Ink.

Writing Dates: A Wonderful Habit to Start

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The concept of a writing date is not universally known. But it should be.

I think my circle of writer friends coined it in college. Sometimes, we got together and wrote. Sometimes we discussed writing or bounced ideas, or shared work – either as show-and-tell or a request fro help.

Writing dates aren’t NaNo-style write-ins, or a writing salon full of discussion, or a critique group, but a mutable, malleable amalgam of all three. Whatever is most needed in the moment.

What makes it a date? We get out. Break up the routine. Go to a coffee shop or restaurant. Or go to a museum, or zoo, or park – make it a fill-the-well kind of writing date. Sometimes I need to do these things alone, but sometimes I need to make myself accountable to someone outside myself.

And sometimes when I need to fill the well or do location research, having more perspectives and more sets of eyes can only help.

I’ve had too few writing dates since moving back to Maine. (Has it really been almost six years?) Schedules and distance have been a major factor. Needing to make new writer-firends who don’t live hundreds or thousands of miles away have been another.

Recently, I tossed the idea out on Facebook and it received a pretty great response. So I created a group – an informal thing to make forming a writing date easier. Rather than getting held up by logistics in planning a date, we can post with where we’ll be, when, and everyone else can let us know if they’ll make it or not.

The goal is to take the hard part – getting started – out of the equation. I’ve wanted to do this for years. Here’s hoping it works!

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What Makes a Writer?

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I am currently on page 72 of Margaret Atwood’s Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing, and have two things to impart so far. One, I feel an incredible kinship with this book. Two, prepare for many posts that reference it.

So, as I sit here on Wednesday night, two days before my post is due and having set my last idea back day after day after day to the point that it’s two days before my post is due and I only have the semblance of an idea, I decided to share one of many favourite phrases from Atwood’s piece even though I’m not done the whole.

The context of the following excerpt is pretty basic: Atwood is wondering what goes into the making of a writer. Is there some special formula rooted in childhood that produces the writer? Is there some defining moment? What makes one choose the torture?

“The childhoods of writers are thought to have something to do with their vocation, but when you look at these childhoods they are in fact very different. What they often contain, however, are books and solitude, and my own childhood was right on track. … Because none of my relatives were people I could actually see, my own grandmothers were no more and no less mythological than Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother, and perhaps this had something to do with my eventual writing life – the inability to distinguish between the real and the imagined, or rather the attitude that what we consider real is also imagined: every life lived is also an inner life, a life created.” (Atwood, Margaret. “Who do you think you are?”. Negotiating with the Dead. Anchor Canada Edition. 2003. 7.)

The part after the ellipses is the idea I identify with greatly. Most of my childhood involved a lot of deceased or estranged relatives only brought to life through stories. And on more than one occasion a new relative popped out of the woodwork for one reason or another –I’ll utter war child once and only once.

Many of the people I came to meet I had already formed an image of and a backstory for. I had already decided who they were and how I felt about them long before I had my first face to face with them. And no, that is not an ideal practice.

My brother and I also spent ages outdoors, on our own, coming up with fantastic stories for the make believe games we’d play. Of course, when I wasn’t doing that I either had my nose in a book or sketch pad or a journal with a cat or two curled in my lap. Toss in my vivid imagination (that got me into more trouble than I care to think about), and I totally understand this existence Atwood describes.

To this day I get lost in the veil of reality-unreality and make up stories in my head constantly. I do it as a defense mechanism, I do it as relaxation, I do it because it’s second nature and sometimes I simply slip into my head unintentionally and have to jar myself back into the real world. The many lives I’ve lived, I tell you…

No, I don’t think any of these habits or pieces of upbringing are what make a writer a writer. They’re only one foundation, though they seem to be a popular one.

I guess my favourite aspect of this topic is thinking back and looking at my life and attempting to pinpoint that moment that has led me here, as the writer typing away at my keys. I’m sure there’s more than one moment though the navigating is tough.

I’m head over heels for this book. Especially because Atwood does more than speculate. Here’s an answer to the question What Makes a Writer a Writer? stripped of all romance:

“When I published my first real collection of poetry…my brother wrote to me, ‘Congratulations on publishing your first book of poetry. I used to do that kind of thing myself when I was younger.’ And perhaps that is the clue. We shared many of the same childhood pursuits, but he gave them up and turned to other forms of amusement, and I did not.” (16)

Sheer doggedness is likely the answer, a refusal to relinquish the pen. Though some romance would be nice.

What are your thoughts on this?

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