Old and New Favorites

Every now and again, I come across a gem of a classic children’s book and wonder how I have missed reading it all these years. In this case, the book is The Little White Horse, by Elizabeth Goudge. From the book cover, one can see that the horse of the title is not a little horse at all, but a unicorn, which is an instant hook for me. Slightly embarrassing, but true. The story is fresh, simple, and happy in the way that fairy tales should be. In fact, it is downright optimistic. (Could such a book even be written today?) In many ways it reminds me of The Ordinary Princess, which is another book I missed as a child. (Goodness, what was I doing all those years?)

A classic book I did read as a child, and again as an adult, and again…and this time as a read-aloud with my son, is The Hobbit. This follows hard on the heels of the How I Killed Pluto success. I have mentioned before that my son claims to not like reading, but he is following the adventures of Bilbo and the dwarves with satisfactory nightly interest. Which proves my claim that anyone who he says he doesn’t like reading just hasn’t found the right book.

Real Books

I’m still in the mode of pretending to be a good techie-of-a-certain-age. I love my Kindle, I really do. And I don’t know where I’d be without the wonders of Amazon (besides richer and with a much shorter to-read list, and of course feeling not-guilty about being one of the evil millions contributing to the demise of Borders bookstore). However, I must confess to some recent, very non-techie self-talk–no, not even talk, merely gut-level knowing.

It started out promising: doodling around on amazon.com, I discovered that there was a newish Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane novel by the bravely competent Jill Paton Walsh, who completed one of Dorothy L. Sayers’s manuscripts (Thrones, Dominations) and then followed up with a Wimsey/Vane novel of her own, A Presumption of Death. Determined fan that I am, I searched for the new novel on my Kindle, found that it cost $12.99, and decided to download a sample (as if I might not need to read the whole book). Meanwhile, I searched my local libraries (yes, online) and requested the new novel, The Attenbury Emeralds, through interlibrary loan. All was going well…I started reading the sample…and then caught myself thinking, “I can’t wait until the REAL BOOK comes.”

There you have it. Determined digital-age woman slips again. It’s not just about the $12.99. (I’m a sucker for $0.00 and $0.99 Kindle books, by the way.) It’s about savoring every page: the copyright page, the dedication, the dust-jacket blurbs. It’s about being able to flip back a few chapters to catch the clue I missed the first time (crucial in a mystery, no?). It’s about having to renew the darn thing if I take too long to read it, or having to pay the fine if I forget the renewal part. It’s about having smiling friends in high places (the library circulation desk). It’s about absolute certainty that printed books will not die anytime soon, and that technology is wonderfully useful.

p.s. disclosure: I’m headed to amazon.com right now to double-check the book titles and Kindle book price.

Cosmic Answers

This morning, I wrote in my journal, “Why?”

This afternoon, while sitting in the hot sun, reading Dodie Smith’s novel I Capture the Castle, I got an answer. This book is reminding me of the many functions of great literature; and today it gave me that thrill of self-recognition, the kind that makes me want to grab a pencil and start underlining paragraphs. (Couldn’t do it. It’s a library book.) Here is the passage I wanted to mark:

A year ago, I would have made a poem out of that idea. I tried to, yesterday, but it wasn’t any use. Oh, I could think of lines that rhymed and scanned but that is all they were. I know now that is all my poems ever were, yet I used to feel I could leap over the moon when I had made one up. I miss that rather.

I found the book in the usual roundabout way: having finished one book and getting a little tired of another, I watched a movie, learned it was a book, and hunted it down at my local library. For the moment, I am feeling all my joy in reading restored.

Avoidance and Discipline

You’d think, after having talked myself out of bed earlier than my body really wanted to agree to; after having poured the coffee (thank goodness and my mother-in-law for the programmable coffee maker) and filled the cat’s water dish; having sat down and woken the computer, I would be eager to write. This was the point, after all: a quiet house, Me Time.

The trouble, of course, is that creativity and plot solutions and crystal-clear scene envisioning and beautiful words aren’t as easy to flick on as the computer or the coffee maker. This morning, after squirming in my chair, staring out the window (look, a goldfinch!), and idly scrolling through the extant 15 pages of text (of which a solid 30% is notes to self or otherwise trashable), I thought, Well, darn it, the magical orb of inspiration is not glowing. I’m not going to write after all. Maybe I’ll just check my calendar. I’m sure there’s some event requiring me to drive a child somewhere that I’ve forgotten. Or maybe I’ll just draft that product description of that thing I’m going to sell on Etsy one of these days. Or maybe put down that line of a poem that popped into my head the other night (or was it while walking yesterday?).

Haha, Self! That would be writing. So instead of opening an entirely new, BLANK document when all you have is one lonely line of poetry, why not consider the plight of the heroine before your eyes? Just get her to the part where she sees…yeah. That’s all you have to do. Well, now that she’s there, you might as well let her…yeah. And remember how you were going to have her…? Why don’t you let her finish that up, and then she can…

Astronomical Observations

Halfway through Mike Brown’s How I Killed Pluto, my son is still enthralled by the story of discovery of Kuiper-belt objects. Kudos to Mr. Brown for his skill in making this astronomy accessible and interesting enough to hold the attention of a stubbornly non-book 11-year-old boy. And his mother. (Will you lose all respect for me, dear reader, if I admit I did not know what the Kuiper belt was until I read about it in this book? I even had to look it up so I could pronounce it correctly.)

Meanwhile, I am halfway through Edith Pargeter’s massive Brothers of Gwynedd. More than once, as the dramatic story thread has seemed to get lost in more prosaic history retelling (and hey, I’m a big fan of history), I have worried I might just put the book down. (Dear reader, I have done this many times before. My attention span is not what it once was.) But I haven’t! I feel compelled to keep turning the page (or in this case, pushing the “Next Page” button on my Kindle). I even know what will happen, having recently read Marc Morris’s biography of Edward I, and it isn’t nice. All this to say, I can’t give enough credit to Pargeter’s masterly writing style. She’s just that good.

A Rediscovered Country

It has been three years since I declared Two Swords “finished,” and several months since I shredded a banker’s box full of old notes, drafts and critiques. The characters I once knew so well have receded in my memory if not in my affections. So as I sat down to write the sequel-story that has been rattling in my brain for a long while, I was disturbed to find that the imaginary landscape I once knew in every detail had become fuzzy. As in, how far is it from one manor to the next, and how far is each from the border, and from the capital? If Character A is wandering through the forest in such and such a place, is she on her way home, or just out for a daily stroll?

Granted, these details are not critical in a first draft, but I did feel I needed to get my bearings. Hurray for a little foresight, or nostalgia, or whatever instinct caused me to save a couple of maps I once drew while working on TS. The former haunts of the imagination come back just as if I were looking at a photo of a place I actually lived years ago.

Even better, I suddenly feel that I’ve rediscovered a much broader land: the place where writing is an excitement and joy, something to do for my own pure pleasure. I was beginning to think I’d been shut out of that country for good.

Writing (again)

One week and counting since I’ve been back to a morning writing routine. To say it feels wonderful would be an understatement. I’m working on what I’m cautiously telling myself is a “short story.” It’s enough. I have no idea how long this will last, but am so incredibly grateful for the gift of wanting to write. Again.

Meanwhile, I passed a milestone in my e-book sales: I have now earned enough in royalties to be sent real money. And I have been book-living my favorite historical era through Edith Pargeter’s The Brothers of Gwynedd. As a counterpoint, I’m reading Mike Brown’s How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming with my son. A little 13th century, a little 21st century. That gives me an average of, um, Shakespeare?

Also the garden is looking good, the kids are healthy, and it’s officially summer. Life is good.

Shorts for Spring

I’ve been dipping into Mark Strand and Eavan Boland’s The Making of a Poem, and especially enjoyed the section on the pastoral. From the book:

“In a simplified definition, it is that mode of poetry that sought to imitate and celebrate the virtues of rural life.” (p. 207)

“…the contemporary poet remains haunted by that strange mix of sweet dream and rude awakening that the pastoral convention has always offered.” (p. 209)

* * *

Pastoral
(with help from Andrew Marvell)

Fair Quiet, have I found thee here?
And Innocence, thy sister dear?

Here’s birdsong mixed with mowers rough
And grumbling cycles loud enough
To cancel peaceful, tranquil spring—
Yet still the earth grows richly green.

* * *

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Christopher Marlowe

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair-lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber-studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

The Gentle Art of Self-Deception

I caught myself at it today.

Walking tends to put me in a contemplative mood, and as I strolled through the graveyard this morning I thought of my writing work, and how I am not (any longer) one of those writers who chains herself to the desk in search of inspiration. No, I wait for the lightning to strike, build up the electric charge deep within, and then…boom! So to speak. On the other hand, I am entirely aware of how I need to be in the storm (so to speak) of reading, connecting with other artistic people, and wanting to create, if I want to be struck by said lightning.

To that end, I have been working through Sage Cohen’s Writing the Life Poetic, once assiduously, now sporadically. (My attention span is, alas, shortish.) I have been doing her exercises in a handmade journal (smooth stardust paper, aquamarine fountain-pen ink), and while enjoying the tactile and industrious sensation, yet feeling less and less certain of the ultimate purpose.

Here’s the undeception: If I write by hand in a journal, I am making notes. I am playing around, no stakes, no commitment. I’ll get around to writing that poem…some day. Only when I sit at my desk and face that hard blank  computer screen does it become real work, requiring commitment, revision, sharing. Acceptance, rejection, complete indifference?

I do believe this is what I’m afraid of.

Why I Love the Internet

It all started with an innocent Facebook post by a friend: something about the upcoming Hobbit movie. Well, who is that playing Bilbo Baggins, I wondered. Click. So Bilbo is played by Martin Freeman, who was so wonderful in the BBC’s Sherlock series. And what is this? Richard Armitage to play Thorin Oakenshield? The same Richard Armitage whom I admired as John Thornton in the film version of Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South? What has he been up to (besides Robin Hood)? Click. Starring in MI-5! I watched a few episodes with Matthew Macfadyen (who was so charming as Mr. Darcy in the Keira Knightly Pride and Prejudice). I enjoyed that show. Click. Hey! Rupert Penry-Jones is also in MI-5? Loved him in Masterpiece’s Persuasion. Click. Nice. I can watch MI-5 on Netflix.

NOTE: Just in case anyone thinks this post is all about attractive British actors, I must point out that every title mentioned (ok, except MI-5) began life as a book. This blog is about literature. Truly.