Lori J. Fitzgerald's Blog, page 4

Behind the Curtain: The Puppet Princess


[image error]from annabrahms.com via pinterest         
        
          The pageant wagon creaked into town on a gust of red-brown crisped leaves.  Renato, the carpenter’s son who was commissioned to fix its warped beams, became as enraptured by the puppet play as the children sitting in front of the stage.  A princess outsmarted a troll on a bridge, released a magic sword from a stone, and tamed a dragon whose open mouth unfurled a red velvet tongue, thus saving the village. 

            When the play ended Renato followed Guiseppe, the puppet master, into the cluttered workshop behind the stage.  Renato was drawn to the doll-like princess puppet which Guiseppe placed reverently on a stand: an exquisitely carved face, painted soft blue eyes and delicate pink lips. 
            “Do you remember my daughter Guilietta?” Guiseppe asked.
            Renato, fingers slipping through the puppet’s silken blond hair, remembered playing hide-and-seek with a girl through the grove where his father cut wood, remembered more the deep thrum of his heart she evoked, as no other had since.
            “She died of sickness years ago.  I carved this puppet to represent the woman she could have been.” The old man hesitated. “That is her hair.”
            Renato snapped his hand away, knocking a tangle of broken puppets from a shelf.
            “You must understand, she was all I had left… I could not bear to live without my child…”
            Renato, struck by the old grief still sharp in the master’s tears, collected the broken puppets, all princes.  “Can I fix these for you?” he asked kindly.
            Guiseppe smiled sadly. “I wanted to find true love for her.  I carved them but would find them broken by nightfall.  So I wrote plays that made her the hero. My strong, wise daughter.”
            Impulsively Renato said, “Let me try.”
            The next morning he found a perfect branch in the grove.  He carved all day in Guiseppe’s workshop with the princess next to him, and then dug for an outfit in the fabric pile.  Once finished, he lightly touched Guilietta’s hair again, whispering, “I think I lost my true love.” He snipped some of his hair and attached it to the prince puppet’s head.
            Guiseppe returned at nightfall to find the prince holding his daughter’s hand.  “Guilietta,” he exclaimed, “you have found him! I will write a new play!”  He leaped over the sprawled body on the floor as he gathered up parchment, ink, and quills.  “I will write you both your happily-ever-after!”

(400 words)
                                                          ***
This is my first-ever piece of flash fiction. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!
Special thanks to Anna Meade (@ruanna3) for running this contest from her fantastical blog, Yearning for Wonderland.  Both her and Sophie Moss (@SMossWrites) have written amazing flash fiction that electrified my interest in this literary form.  Also thanks once again to Diane Reed (@DianeJReed), who does not even know that she sprinkled fairy dust yet again into my computer via her tweets.  I first saw this contest through one of her re-tweets, and then she described me, along with several of my writer friends, as "Keepers of Fairy Tales" with the picture below.  That phrase opened the gate (or should we say, raised the curtain) to this story.

Enter this gate if you dare (by scrolling below it) to see the rules for the contest and the links to the other writers and their entries. All the world's a stage...and these stories have memorable players! Make sure you read them...with the lights on.  Happy Autumn, Happy All Hallow's Eve!

[image error]           from blue-dreams-revisted.tumblr.com via pinterest


 

Selkie Magic...Two Book Reviews

      Through Twitter I have discovered the magical writer Sophie Moss (@SMossWrites), an indie author who not only has a lovely personality but also has written two fantastic books centering around the Irish legend of the selkies, seals in the sea who can take the form of people on land. I thought I'd share my reviews of the first two books in Sophie's Seal Island trilogy:     




        Come sink into the depths of The Selkie Spell, a spellbinding contemporary fantasy/romance by Sophie Moss! The beautiful imagery in this novel transported me to the lush landscape of the Irish islands, where I could smell the sea salt and the heady perfume of roses in the air through the power of Sophie Moss's writing.  I was drawn down into the magic in the "shipwrecked blackness" of the selkie ghost's eyes. The modern conflict of the protagonist, Tara, confronting her dark past and finding love is woven seamlessly into the magical story of her selkie ancestor whose pelt was stolen. Tara is an empathetic character whose plight and longing for love touched my heart, and I was at the edge of my seat during the suspenseful moments of her impending peril.  The Selkie Spell is a captivating, atmospheric read for the beach or for just curling up with at home. It will wrap itself around you like the thatch of creeping roses around Tara's seaside cottage!
   
     The meaning behind a single white rose, whose petals freeze and fall, will draw you into the next book in the Seal Island trilogy, The Selkie Enchantress, which is even more enthralling than the first. This book follows the love story of Irish folklore professor Liam, who is the brother of Tara’s husband, Dominic, and Caitlin, Tara and Dominic’s friend.  The plot is full of action and magic, as Nuala, the white selkie in human form, tries to tear Liam and Caitlin asunder for her own purposes.  Plot twists and surprises abound as we find out the story behind the white selkie and her son, Owen.  The setting and images are just as lush and magical as in the first book, and the emotions of the characters are rendered poignantly.  The ending will surprise you and leave you yearning for the final book in the trilogy!

I have reviewed the final book in the Seal Island Trilogy, The Selkie Sorceress, in a separate post (yes, it's that good).  Find all books in the trilogy in paperback and e-book form on Amazon.

The Enchanting Gift of Twixt by Diane J. Reed: An Analysis and Reflection

                What an enchanting novel  Twixt is, a treasure like the hidden fairy gifts that you will read about in Diane J. Reed's first book.  Of course the author, who I am convinced is a Fairy Queen in disguise, provided me with the pivotal transformative moment from which grew this blog.  But her book itself also was a gift to me in a myriad of ways.

                Twixtis the perfect blend of contemporary fantasy fiction and romance.  The protagonist, Rose, returns to her hometown after a failed marriage with a drug dealer husband who eventually dies of an overdose.  That same night her spunky 4 year old daughter, Crystal,  nearly drowns and is left with terrrible neurological  problems.  As Rose tries to start over by renovating her father's gold-panning business, she is jeopardized by a dark curse which has followed her through past lives.  Her only "chance"  is Chance Murphy, a soul guardian who comes to her in the form of a raven. He leads her through her dreams to a magical Irish island between the worlds where her daughter's mind resides and is whole.  Together with the spirit of her ancestor, they attempt to get Rose to see the magic around and within her so that she can break the curse, banish the evil spirit ("sumaire," or leech) that threatens her family, and heal her present life.
                Diane writes with a captivating richness of detail, whether she is describing the fairy realm that spills over into the modern world or the protagonist's struggle to break out of a negative cycle in her life and reconnect with her family and ultimately herself.  The fairies are colors that "hovered at first, rising and falling as if engaged in a dance, then gradually they swirled with translucent abalone hues." (p.360) And a lovely tingle you will get from the romantic descriptions: "His settled his gaze on the bonfire and watched the flames rise high into the night, snapping gold and crimson, as bright as passion itself.  In that moment, he knew as sure as his own heartbeat why he had always guarded the O'Dannan woman so fiercely.  It was the oldest song on earth, the same one his soul  had been singing throughout the ages. And every note called out her name - " (p. 110) There is nothing better than to be immersed so deeply in an author's world that you lose perception of yourself as a separate entity from the book. It is evident how carefully Diane crafted her sentences and images, so that each one is saturated with meaning and a delight to read, the literary equivalent of biting into the fairy cakes that Rose bakes! Just the sheer pleasure of experiencing this brilliant tapestry of Diane's words inspired me to set pencil to paper again.

 
                I read the descriptions of beautiful blond-headed Crystal, and I saw in my mind's eye my own blond daughter: "As the wind tousled her hair, she raised her arms and began to spin." (p.216)  My seven-year-old daughter has Sensory Processing Disorder, and is sensory-seeking in vestibular processing, which means she craves more movement than your average child.  SPD is complicated, can involve one or several senses, and comes in many forms; some children need more stimulation from various senses and some actually feel physical pain from what to them is sensory overload.  Crystal appears to have neurological issues caused by lack of oxygen to the brain in her near-drowning; she rocks, spins, shrieks, draws repetitive images, is non-communicative and appears to be locked inside her own mind.  At Crystal's age, my daughter would rock, spin, bang her head on her pillow repeatedly during the night, and run around the dining room table for fifteen minutes straight.  She could not sit in school and would crawl under the tables and refuse to come out. Many autistic children show these same symptoms, especially the lack of communication and response.  Most autistic children have some form of SPD, although sensory issues can also stand alone, as in my daughter's case.  I was deeply touched by the portrayal of Rose's relationship with her daughter Crystal, her love for her and her distress over her condition.  "Rose lightly touched her belly, remembering the way Crystal shifted inside while she was pregnant, her tiny feet fluttering as if she were swimming.  She wished she could join Crystal in her private sanctuary, and she imagined the two of them submerged in water, their thoughts transcending the currents like dolphin songs.  Rose ached inside, wondering if they would ever communicate again, ever share the delight of sound and recognition."(p.30)  Several years of occupational therapy have worked wonders, and my daughter can now sit still at her desk in school and has more control over her  frustration outbursts.  She still loves to run, and soccer is her favorite sport, but she dances more than spins now.  She still rocks when she is buckled in on long car rides.  She has a vividly rich imagination and often lives in her own mind with the characters that she reads about in books and ones she creates; plenty of times you have to call her name repeatedly for her to hear you because she is quite literally in her own world.  This reminded me so much of Crystal truly living on the dream island.  I empathized  almost painfully with Rose's emotions, the sadness and loneliness and frustration of having a child with unique challenges.  But this is the moment that struck me most powerfully:
                "Stop being afraid, Rose," he insisted, his voice deep and threaded with challenge. "Love her for who she is now, not for who you need her to be."
                With that, he turned to the bedpost and removed the photo of Crystal that Rose had tacked up - the one of her daughter's perfect smile on her fourth birthday. Holding it at eye level, he boldly ripped it in half -
                Rose gasped as if she'd been slapped.  Ignoring her, he brazenly tore the halves into pieces and scattered them to the floor.
                Quickly, Rose bent down to scoop them up, her fingers working in a frenzy as though she might somehow put her daughter back together, when his forceful hand stopped her.  Chance grabbed the pieces from her palm and threw them aside like confetti.  Then he pointed his long arm to a stack of papers on the kitchen table -
                "And for God's sake," he commanded, "burn those damn progress sheets." (p.262)
We worry through pregnancy and then love them achingly inside and out when they are born.  We count ten little fingers and ten little toes and plant a kiss on a perfect little nose and breathe relief in the cold hospital air.  It is only much later that we have the shock that not all is as perfect as it seems on the outside.  I remember my mother saying with grandmotherly pride, "Wait till the nursery teachers see her in those pigtails."  The teachers saw her indeed; they recognized what I, blinded fiercely by love as a first-time mother, could not.  How difficult it is to look at your beloved child and ignore the shadow of the ghost child behind them, the child that he or she could have been if not for the disorder or problem.  Honestly, and ashamedly, I admit I struggled with this for a time when my daughter was first diagnosed.  I learned the best thing I could do for her as her mom is to accept and understand her for who she truly is, good qualities and faults, as with any child.  My daughter has SPD, but it doesn't define her; it just means her brain is wired differently.  It is part of what makes her unique.  She is gifted and curious, reads two grade levels above her own and writes stories, dances and sings "rock operas" (stories sung to music) around the house, loves to play with her friends, and cracks herself (and her parents) up to no end.  Right now she has two gaps where she has lost teeth.  One minute she will be fighting with her younger brother and the next she will be creating a game with him, like all siblings.  Yes, she has her moments.  She still has difficulty with transitions and is very strong-willed, but her persistence can serve her well as an adult.  And with all of this, I would not change any of her qualities one bit, not even when she's being extremely difficult about something simple in our everyday routine.  I am proud of my girl, who she is and the strides she has made. So when Rose finally made that connection with Crystal by entering and accepting the magical world of her child's mind, I both cried and cheered.  Because, in my own way, I've been on that road she had to travel to get there.                                              My fairy girl spinning in the park when she was five

                "Where's your mother?" he asked. "Does she know you're here?"
                The girl lifted her hand to show him a crystal bracelet on her wrist.  She studied the fractured colors that lit up in the firelight.
                "Mommy's lost," she replied.  "She can't find me."
                Then the girl walked over to a stone well near the cottage.  Grasping a teacup on the ledge, she dipped it in the water and stepped over to the potato beds to sprinkle the plants.  Returning to the well, she leaned her hands against the stones.
                "Mommy can't see me," she said, peering inside,  "She can't hear me either."  Holding up her bracelet again, she twisted her wrist to make the prismatic hues scatter in the firelight.  "She's broken inside, like the colors-"
                With that, the girl held out her arms and began to spin, humming.... (p.106)
A moment of self-discovery, of healing what has been cracked in the soul, often involves a physical movement symbolic of change, both in literature and in life.  Rose is caught in the negative cycle of an abusive, draining relationship repeated life after life.  Besides being disconnected from her daughter, she also has a strained relationship with her domineering older half-sister, Laurel.  Rose doesn't fully understand why she is so bound in misery.  As steps in breaking the hold of the "sumaire" over her and repairing her relationships with Crystal and Laurel, Rose performs two transformative acts of movement.  First she takes the symbolic leap of faith by believing in magic and jumping into the fairy ring.  This reunites her emotionally with her family. However, Rose becomes fully whole again through the healing power of true love with Chance.  Her daughter instructs Rose to dance while imagining that she is with Chance, who Rose thinks has been killed.  Although she is awkward at first, as she continues to move Rose lets go of her inhibitions and truly believes that Chance can be with her, dancing with her, and that she is deserving of such a pure love of a soulmate.  The fact that Rose had to believe in herself and find the magic inside her spoke volumes to my own situation.  My own transformative moment was the flash of creative fire, a physical heat sensation of a phoenix rising that pulsed throughout my being.  I swear it's the only moment in my life that I could actually feel the presence of my soul.  Before that, I felt a numbness that pervaded my days which saddened me, and I could not figure out its source.  The theme of self-discovery and its symbolic movements in Twixt were a beautiful reaffirmation to me that I was headed in the right direction finally, as was Rose.

 
                Twixtis available on Amazon Kindle and in paperback from Amazon and on Nook and paperback in Barnes & Nobles.  I bought the paperback version, and I'm so glad I did!  I like e-books for ease and space, but some books you just want to feel the pages turning beneath your fingertips, and Twixtcertainly is one of them!  It has an adored place on my bookshelf with my contemporary fantasy fiction novels by Charles DeLint, one of my favorite authors.  Diane Reed drew a fairy ring with her book Twixt, and it was a "fairy blessing" for me to jump right into it! 
Thank you Diane, for the magic that your words brought back to me. I will be ever grateful. 
Follow Diane on Twitter @DianeJReed and check out her lovely website Bandits Ranch for more information on Diane, her craft, and her inspirational musings. Diane has also written her second novel, Robin in the Hood, a young adult magical romance about a girl-turned-bandit which warmed my heart. Get thee to the bookstore today! Diane's books are must-reads to infuse magic into your day. If you are a Oncer (you know who you are) Diane conducts spectacular cast interviews for Once Upon a Fan. Also find her colorful, inspiring boards on Pinterest.  She is a true gem of a writer and a wise soul.
 







               
               

There and Back Again: A Writer's Rediscovery

 "We shall not cease from exploration
  And the end of all our exploring
 Will be to arrive where we started
 And know the place for the first time."
      T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"

 "Why don't you write anymore?" asked Denise.
 "I don't have the time," answered Lori.
   Countless post-college conversations

My dearest friend Denise,

          Yes, this is my blog.  I will grant you a moment to collect yourself and mop up that spilled coffee.
          My first entry is a long-overdue letter to you, my oldest and closest friend. I watch my handwriting form my thoughts and flow over lines again for the first time in 15 years and my mind rewinds to our college days, when the patterns of our lives were shaped by words.
           **Cloistered in the third floor of the library with smuggled cups of tea, pulling words out of stacks of research books and reforming them in notebook pages to create reams of English, History, and education reports, academia laced with laughter and the neverending drama of young adults.
           **Sprawled in your basement apartment, a writer's collective (Temi, you, me, your future husband, your brother the Bard), creating stories together on paper but living stories as well.  We had a novel friendship as bound together as the books we discussed.  And, oh, the colorful language we hurled at each other during those ruthless card games!  Drinking coffee (sometimes more potent concoctions), and singing along to Fleetwood Mac's The Dance, always.  I will never forgot those times with kindred spirits.
           I'm drafting this letter in the old journal I used to carry to your home; my part of the story we were writing together is still in the front.  There is no difference between my handwriting then and now, except for time. 
           Time.  I have decided to write again.  A simple yet profound statement (with my ever-present leaning toward the dramatic), as you who understand me all too well know.  I don't remember ever deciding to stop, just as I don't remember deciding to begin when I was a child and I wrote my first unicorn poem, as little girls are wont to do.  I just wasa writer.  And I carried that being in me through the ensuing years, filling binders with poems and stories, ideas and dreams, even sketches and maps of the lands of my mind.  I can only suppose that once we emerged from that college cocoon I focused more on the landscape of outside life rather than inward.  I started teaching, focusing on perhaps the more practical career of a steady income, but also getting fulfillment from the service to young people, the enrichment of their minds and selves and inspiring them to love and understand literature as I did.  And the more I focused on bettering the world through my students, the more I left the worlds that existed in my imagination.  And that seemed okay at that time. I was happy, and even happier to become a wife and then a stay-at-home mom involved in my children's school.  But over the course of these years an ink blot has seeped into my being, spreading until I have finally taken note of it, finally realized there is an emptiness that is staining my reactions.  And it's really just because I stopped writing; I stopped being fully me.
           Now you want to say to me, my sarcastically astute friend, "You are going through one hell of a mid-life crisis, aren't you, Lor?"  Yes, yes I am. After all, I am turning 40 this year (as are you, dearie). Perhaps it's simply the shock of reaching this magic number, but I have finally accepted a certain truth that you have been gently trying to impart to me for a long time:  one must be selfish in the nourishment of one's soul every now and again, in order to be selfless to others with fullness and grace.  I have been teacher, wife, and mother all encompassing and with much love, but I have neglected the writer who was at the core of my being. I have been false to the medieval concept of "trouthe" (integrity, being true to one's self) that spoke so strongly to me long ago that I devoted a section of my thesis to it. Dee, I'm so tired of feeling like the impotent Fisher King. I can't go on like this, with this nothingness that bleeds into everything, draining my energy and joy.  "I sat upon the shore/ Fishing, with the arid plain behind me/ Shall I at least set my lands in order?" (T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land)
          Synchronicity prompted this.  I know it seems silly, but the catalyst really was that show. Once Upon a Time is the only TV show to enthrall me like my favorite books have and inspire me to analysis and discussion.  In my quest to connect with people who shared my obsession (haha), I joined Twitter and the Once Upon a Fan website (www.onceuponatimefans.co.uk).  Upon reading a fabulous cast member interview by one of the website's team, I tweeted the interviewer, Diane J. Reed, who is a published "indie" author of the novel Twixt.  As I read interviews in which she described her writing process and then I tore through the fan fiction on the website          So, here it is Dee.  I'm going to make the time again, for me, for the words, for the imaginary lands that I left for too long and the characters that are huffing in exasperation at me. When I'm done with this epistle I'm pulling out the dusty plastic box wherein lies all my old writing: here be dragons.  Most likely I'll first write a review of Twixt, which was a blessing to me in a myriad of ways. Maybe I'll eventually write a story for my bookworm daughter, who carries stacks of paperbacks from her bedroom to the basement playroom, a gift of my being to her so that she can know who her mother truly is. I don't know how this is going to turn out, or where exactly I'm going with this blog.  But it exists now.  Time to arrive where I started and start writing again.

Love you,
there and back again,
Lori

 
                                   


           

Especially influential were "The Price" by Woodrow and "Belle's Diary" by Jennifer BrouillardKall, Rachel.  "Fairy Tales & Fairy Cakes: Meet Diane Reed."  www.rachellkall.blogspot.com. June1-2, 2012.