Sounds of the Seasons

Are there songs or albums you can only listen to at certain times of the year?

I'm not talking "Silver Bells" at Christmas or "Monster Mash" at Halloween here. The weather's gone all summer-like in Minneapolis and I'm suddenly itching for tunes that match the heat of the day. Why are certain sounds tied to seasons?

I always want to listen to Beck's Guero in the summer. And it feels wrong to listen to Bjork's Vespertine if there isn't at least frost on the ground.

I've written in the past about the diverse places from which my stories derive, but I've yet to mention the preeminence of music in my writing.

My books all have soundtracks - not just playlists, but actual soundtracks for the scenes that occurs. My characters also have what I'd dub "theme songs" that reflect their major traits and/or life situation.

One of the things I love most about music is the way a song can catapult me into a scene I've been writing or conjure up an entirely new scene or character.

Or sometimes, an entire book.

Like today, when I was driving home, windows down enjoying the gorgeous, sun-drenched afternoon when "Fresh Blood" from the Eels forthcoming album Hombre Lobo (June 2) came on the radio.

And I was immediately in the sequel to my novel. I've never heard this song before this afternoon and yet it encapsulates the spirit of the book and I was thrilled.

On a related note, sometimes I imagine how lovely it would be to have a book with a cover. Here are a couple dreamings of that ilk.

Sky Watcher

Driving across the city this afternoon, I was mired in bumper-to-bumper traffic. I didn't mind because of the clouds.

Spring's first thunderstorm rolled through today. Sporadic booms and lightning flashes peppered the afternoon. Globular missiles of rain pelted the ground. I find it intriguing that raindrops have diverse sizes.

I anticipate thunderstorms, even long for them. Unlike many people I know, I've never been frightened by them.

While I sat with an idling engine, I watched a jet liner climb into the sky heading straight for a massive, steel-grey nimbus cloudbank. It was like seeing a sparrow fly into a dragon's gaping maw.

I actually enjoy flying through storms, despite the discomfort of turbulence. I've wished for a long time for some means by which I could make the clouds my home. I love the shape of clouds, their constant fluidity and movement, the endless varieties in which they manifest. I feel a new story coming on.

My brother and I have shared many conversations about the different forms of flying dreams we have. Mine always require that I have a running start for take off. Sometimes in the dreams I'm me, human yet capable of flight, at others I'm a bird. Once I was a swan, in another dream a seagull.

Flying dreams have been among my most profound and I leave them waking into a state of bemused contentment, as if through the dream I've touched something profound.

What do dreams do for you?

The Derby

I was a girl who dreamt of horses.
Every Christmas and birthday that came around would find me leaving a carefully-folded sheaf of paper (or two) atop my parents' pillows. (Yes, I was destined to be a writer, without doubt.)


I held my breath and waited for them to find the letter that oh-so-pleadingly detailed the reasons I needed a horse of my own.

My parents never caved.

The gods smiled on me though and I ended up working summers on a ranch from age ten through high school. For someone who never had her own horse, I've spent more time riding than most.

I don't ride much anymore, and I always feel a bit of a loss because of it. I usually can tell when I've gone too long without spending time around horses because the dreams come back. They are always the same. I'm back at the ranch, helping saddle and bridle horses, prepping for a trek out into the forest, but obstacle after obstacle arises - each delaying our departure - and inevitably I don't ever get to ride.

On this day, each year without fail, horses fill my mind.

It's Derby Day.

That young girl who loved horses, loved everything about them. I followed the two-year-old racing circuit closely, awaiting its culmination on the first Saturday in May. And I was convinced that some divine symbol rested in the fact that the last Triple Crown Winner appeared in the year I was born. On the list I kept of things I wanted to do in life, a trip to the Kentucky Derby numbered among them.

I made it to the Derby - twice. It was not what I expected.

I'd always thought of the Kentucky Derby as something of a horse lover's Holy Grail. It's not.

The first trip I made was with a friend from Louisville. We were in our early twenties, and she took me to the infield.













For anyone not indoctrinated into the revelries associated with the Derby, the infield is something of a gathering point for the common folk. A heavily-inebriated crowd partakes in what resembles a mixture of Mardi Gras and spring break. My maiden voyage to Churchill Downs presented me with more flashed breasts than thoroughbreds.

Having recently gone through college life, I took it in stride. But the tiny horse-obsessed girl inside of me felt as though the inner sanctum of horse heaven had been violated.

The second trip I made to the Derby happened the following year. The corporate honchos I worked for had two extra tickets to the Grand Stand, and offered them to me. And I thought my redemptive Derby trip had arrived.

But lo, disappointment once again.

Instead of a drunken, hot press of half-naked bodies in the infield, I was surrounded by a drunken, hot press of starched-linen bodies topped with silly hats. And still no horses.


(I present "Kentucky Derby Barbie," and yeah, it really was kinda like that...sigh)





You wouldn't believe how hard it is to actually watch the race if you attend the Kentucky Derby.

But I did it. I made my long-envisioned pilgrimage to the Kentucky Derby, twice. Neither experience lived up to the sacred horse-worshipping experience that I had wanted to partake in.

It made me wonder about the way we create ideals as children, pin our hopes on far-reaching expeditions that will somehow make us the human beings we long to be. How often does the reality bear pale resemblance to the beauty of our dreams?

Turning Days

May 1.

It's interesting that a single day can hold significance for so many different groups, in diverse ways. It's Beltane, May Day, Lei Day (Hawa'ii), and National Love Day (Czech Republic).

I love the month of May, for some reason I tend to become very hopeful in May. The weather is perfect, not too hot, but no longer cold. Leaves begin to unravel and flowers bloom.

When I'm full of goodwill I find it easier to speak more honestly about life's challenges. A number of my favorite blogs have recently discussed the struggles that writers face in life. I'm particularly indebted to their posts.

As someone who struggles with severe, chronic depression it helps to speak with others who face similar challenges, and that this particular malady plagues those of the writing kind all too often.
It's vital to know that others understand your own pain, and that you needn't "suffer for art."

One of my favorite books on writing is Betsy's Lerner's The Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice to Writers. This text addresses not the nitty-gritty of technical aspects of writing, but instead the life and spirit of those who write. The chapter "Touching Fire" struck a nerve as Lerner speaks to the ways in which so many writers are lost to depression and substance abuse. Nathan Bransford recently raised the subject of sacrifice and self-abuse for writers, and I think the topic deserves reflection.

While it can be wonderful to lose oneself in writing, it's too easy to also lose one's self entirely. I'm fortunate to have a wonderful husband, family, and friends who help keep me anchored, but at times I still find myself staring into the abyss.

The blogging community of writers offers yet another space in which to ground ideas and experiences and make me feel less like I'm stranded on a desert island. Thank you to all beacons of hope out there. You know who you are.

Sister Christian

I'm going to branch out from a lovely blog tree-trunk that's been growing today; that is, what is writing to you?

Fantastic topic, so to push it a bit further I want to know what moves you into a writing mindset?

For me, it's a challenge to ever turn off the writing mindset. One of my favorite tales of the writer's life is from James Thurber:

I never quite know when I'm not writing. Sometimes my wife comes up to me at a party and says, "Damnit, Thurber, stop writing." She usually catches me in the middle of a paragraph. Or my daughter will look up from the dinner table and ask, "Is he sick?" "No," my wife says, "he's writing something."
(Interview with George Plimpton and Max Steele. Paris Review, Fall 1955)

The first time I came across this story I blinked and reread it, all the while thinking "Hey, that's me!" (And my husband rolls his eyes and nods).

I am always writing, it takes very little to push me into story-crafting, imagined dialogues, and scene painting. Tearing myself out of the writing world is much, much harder and quite painful.

This process (lifestyle?) came to mind when I arrived at Target yesterday. I passed through the sliding doors at precisely the same moment as an elderly nun.

Now, as the daughter of a Protestant minister I haven't had a lot of quality nun time in my life.



(Looks like I might have missed out on all the fun)

These days most nuns have eschewed the traditional habit, so they move through the world garbed like the rest of us civilians. Invisible saints.

But this nun was fully bedecked in meditative black and long wimple. I'd guess she was in her eighties. I immediately began to muse about her life and the reason for her visit to Target.

After gathering my Target goods and heading to the check out. I was rather startled when the nun turned up in line right behind me. Her shopping cart contained just a few items...three or four packages. All clothing for an infant.

Moments like these bulldoze me into a writing mindset, as if the universe is channeling a story my way. I've never believed in coincidences.

Questions ballooned in my mind. Why would a nun buy baby clothes and only baby clothes? Orphanage? Relief work? Grand nieces or nephews? Her own grandchildren from a life prior to getting to a nunnery?

The entire scenario struck me as incredibly bizarre.

Stories manifest all around me; from snippets of conversation I overhear, to the way shadows wrap around a tree, to nuns at Target.

Where do your stories come from? How do they evolve?

Research Tactics

One of the things I've discovered through writing are the myriad ways in which my interests in history tie into the novels I create. In the many blogs I read, writers bemoan the frequency with which their creative efforts aren't recognized as "work" by non-writers, but are instead dismissed as a "hobby."

I empathize with this frustration, though I'm fortunate to have family and friends who understand the blood, sweat, and tears that go into writing. Part of the heavy lifting that happens as I write is the research involved in constructing a living, breathing world. To have a well-crafted tale requires significant investment of time and detective work well beyond one's own writing. Each writer creates his or her own methods to get from blank page to finished manuscript.

I began to mull over this process when I read Neil Gaiman's blog entry yesterday. When queried about his research for The Graveyard Book, he mentioned Carlo Ginzburg's The Night Battles. Upon reading this citation I hooted in triumph - I teach this text in my upper level history courses when discussing the intersection of religion and the occult in early modern societies. But I also began to wonder about the whys and wherefores of research for novels - and even more than the whys, the whens.

When and how do you research?

My novels evolve from characters and scenes that seize me, and when I say "seize" I'm not exaggerating. I spend a lot of time daydreaming and often a new character will appear in my mind, demanding all of my attention, with whatever thought, feeling, or problem he or she is facing and the threads of a book begin to weave a pattern in my mind. The novel is the finished tapestry woven from those first threads.

In my writing research adds fine detail to the tapestry and assists my characters in their movement through the plot. My characters hand me research questions to answer, I have yet to encounter a writing project where the birth of a novel was predicated on research. In my current project, the protagonist struggles with her rigidly-structured life, which sent me hunting for philosophies of governance and the natural world. At the end of the day Thomas Hobbes became a major figure in my writing, but he wasn't there at the beginning of the story.

Research gives flesh to the bones, but the essence of the story existed first.

Bumper Sticker Dialogues

While my own car doesn't sport any, I like to have imaginary conversations with bumper stickers. Pasted images and taglines on the backs of cars reveal a lot about the state of the world. This afternoon I pulled up abruptly in a parking lot to read this:

"Your body is a temple. Mine is an amusement park."

This line propelled me into a mental conversation that was a more of a confession about my own penchant for clandestine reading of romance novels. As a Ph.D. and P.K. (pastor's kid), such an activity is frowned upon by both academic and spiritual camps. My acts of contrition go like this: if I read three "lit" books I get to read one "romance," much in the way of if I go for that jog I can eat all these french fries. And lo, the guilty self-abuse cycle goes on. But I've decided it's time to come clean and break free. The lovely ladies at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books make the process a little less painful.

Face it. Romance novels are fabulous. It's a great genre, an audacious fearless genre, and it holds the highest market share of the publishing world. Snap.

When I was a little girl I hid romance novels under my bed so I could consume them without discovery (sorry mom). I think the secretive ritual made reading the books all the better. Maybe now that I've written this post my romance novel cravings will drop. But I don't think so. Why? Because those romances that are truly well executed demonstrate the master craft of sustaining tension. The taut emotion and pacing of this genre are what draw such massive readerships.

So I was more than little surprised when in the midst of my last indulgence I slammed up against a tension-ruining wall. It came in the form of a single word.

Pulchritude.

I kid you not.

Pulchritude.

Dear author, I appreciate that you're writing a historical romance that takes place in the early nineteenth century and focuses on the lives of the oh-so-proper British upper crust. But please, please do not believe you sustain my rapture if you force me to swallow a word like PULCHRITUDE as a descriptor. To refer back to my previous post about words I can't handle, let's add pulchritude to that list. Stat.

For me pulchritude does not evoke "beauty which pleases the eye," it brings to mind "one who is adept at projectile vomiting."

In the midst of satin stays, heaving bosoms, and sultry gazes I cannot stomach pulchritude. Not for the sliver of an instant. And yet, much to my dismay the word appears not once but a few dozen times in the narrative.

I've somehow found myself in a romance novel that rides like bumper cars.
Hmmmm, this?





























Or....this:





















Maybe a body like an amusement park isn't the best idea after all. When it comes to the land of love I'd rather be worshiped than jerked around.

Pulchritude?...nuh-uh. It is no good. No good.