One of the unique things about my situation as a blogger is that I can talk about my husband and I know he's never going to read this (although I rather wish he would, as it would mean we could talk about our problems in English). On the Internet we tend to only hear about people whose marriages are sickeningly perfect, or we hear about how horrible things were after people get divorced (this site is an exception). But the Internet is such an outlet in so many other ways that people will find ways to talk about what they want--which is why Facebook causes 1 in 5 divorces.
Ten years ago, I worked for Human Rights Without Frontiers in Brussels. I spent one afternoon interviewing a representative from the Unification Church (aka the Moonies). What I remember from this interview is the guy's pale-faced, triangular head, his red eyes, and his extraordinarily bad teeth. And that the theory behind the mass marriages Moon arranged between people who didn't know each other, matched up with differences of age/race/language etc., was that you could find God through working through the problems in your marriage. By using your partner as a reflection, you would learn to look beyond the trivial differences we identify with and see the other as spirit, the same as you; you would learn that everything you dislike about someone else indicates some unloved part of yourself that needs to be embraced.
I generally agree with this philosophy--except realistically this is too hard to work in most cases. So we might as well make things a little easier by choosing our own partners and making sure we have some minimum attraction and things in common. When I was at that meeting, I imagined, what if I had to marry this triangle-faced fellow, stare into his red eyes and run my tongue along the blackened, crooked ridges of his teeth? It would be fascinating in the same way I like horror movies--I actually don't, but I go to movie spoiler sites to read the synopses.
Still, in my own marriage to an attractive, sweet man who loves me and is a great dad, I think a lot about divorce. If it weren't for having kids and knowing how much divorce would hurt them, I'd have been long gone. Part of it is my issues with commitment--before I met him, I usually stayed with each boyfriend about six months and broke up with each about six times during the course of the relationship--and part of it is we're coming upon our "seven-year itch," when astrologically, Saturn squares the initial date of the marriage and many couples start finding their problems insurmountable. And then a large part of it is I have a lot of trouble seeing him as my reflection.
Intellectually it makes sense. He's a minor alcoholic and smoker; I have a sugar addiction. He watches TV as his main leisure activity; I'm always on the computer. He gets really angry sometimes; so do I. He's not an intellectual like I wish he would be...I hated how dumb I felt when I went to law school. He lies to make me feel better...I'm probably lying to myself about something although I don't know what. The point is, the things that bug me about him are things that bug me about myself. Okay, I get it, mentally... and I've learned that once you can see the pattern that's causing you to believe a certain way, that's when it starts to shift...but I still can't stand it when he does those things!
Anyhow, I am resolving to say several nice things to him today, even though I don't really feel like it.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Friday, November 25, 2011
I am an angry writer
Today I lost my temper and spent a little while screaming at the top of my lungs and beating the sofa. My husband is a typical Brazilian, meaning that he has the habit of saying what others want to hear instead of telling the truth--which to me constitutes "lying," but to him and his culture, as my fellow ex-pat Jennifer pointed out, is just "making you feel better." So every time I call him, he immediately says, "I'm coming home right now," even if I haven't asked, regardless of how many times I tell him that what matters isn't him being home all the time, but telling me when I'm going to have to spend more of my day taking care of the kids alone, and generally just meaning what he says. Today my chronic resentment bubbled over into rage.
Venting actually felt pretty good. The problem now is that my throat kind of hurts, and also I can't really think clearly enough to work on my novel. So I've been looking at the Scientology emotional tone scale, which is a graduated scale of the emotions a person can experience--from full vitality and consciousness, at 40, to the vibration of death at 0.
Anything above 2 tends more towards responsibility, cause, winning, perception, happiness, analysis, and survival. Those vibrating less than 2 go towards irresponsibility, effect, losing, reactivity, and death. One's "place" on the tone scale can be found by identifying what emotion she most commonly expresses. We will move up and down the scale depending on if our communication is received successfully by others, and we also will tend to "match" the tone of others we're living with.
Here's the tone list: (it actually goes from 0 to -40 as well, but I didn't include those here)
Venting actually felt pretty good. The problem now is that my throat kind of hurts, and also I can't really think clearly enough to work on my novel. So I've been looking at the Scientology emotional tone scale, which is a graduated scale of the emotions a person can experience--from full vitality and consciousness, at 40, to the vibration of death at 0.
Anything above 2 tends more towards responsibility, cause, winning, perception, happiness, analysis, and survival. Those vibrating less than 2 go towards irresponsibility, effect, losing, reactivity, and death. One's "place" on the tone scale can be found by identifying what emotion she most commonly expresses. We will move up and down the scale depending on if our communication is received successfully by others, and we also will tend to "match" the tone of others we're living with.
Here's the tone list: (it actually goes from 0 to -40 as well, but I didn't include those here)
40.0 Serenity of Beingness 30.0 Postulates 22.0 Games 20.0 Action 8.0 Exhilaration 6.0 Aesthetic 4.0 Enthusiasm 3.5 Cheerfulness 3.3 Strong Interest 3.0 Conservatism 2.9 Mild Interest 2.8 Contented 2.6 Disinterested 2.5 Boredom 2.4 Monotony 2.0 Antagonism 1.9 Hostility 1.8 Pain 1.5 Anger 1.4 Hate 1.3 Resentment 1.2 No sympathy 1.15 Unexpressed resentment 1.1 Covert hostility 1.02 Anxiety 1.0 Fear .98 Despair .96 Terror .94 Numb .9 Sympathy .8 Propitiation .5 Grief .375 Making amends .3 Undeserving .2 Self abasement .1 Victim .07 Hopeless .05 Apathy .03 Useless .01 Dying
0.0 Body death
So the reason why I felt better being at anger (1.5) was that before, my communication level with my husband was at resentment (1.3) or unexpressed resentment (1.15). When he came home I was at hostility (1.9) and right now have risen to antagonism (2.0) which means I should be all right for writing in another half hour or so, if I keep making progress and can get up to a 2.6 (disinterested), which is probably a step or two below my regular tone.
Review of UCLA Extension: Novel Writing III
I'm almost finished with my online class at UCLA Extension: Novel Writing III, Writing a Novel the Professional Way. It's for works-in-progress at least 50 pages long; it requires previous classes, but when I wrote in to ask if I could skip the prerequisites, I was given the okay. The class cost $529-579 depending on when you sign up, and my instructor was Caroline Leavitt.
The description is as follows:
For those with at least 50 pages of a novel-in-progress, this workshop guides you to generate at least 50 new pages as well as learn essential self-editing techniques, with the instructor and peers reviewing each participant's project in detail. Refinements of character, structure, emotional content, and the development of the writer's voice also are explored. The goal is to produce a substantial portion of a novel approaching professional caliber.
So the price of this workshop was a little higher than I was comfortable with; if I took one of these every semester, it could rapidly burn a hole in my pocket. However, a few months ago I was actually considering applying to a low-residency MFA program. In comparison to the $40K or so that would cost, it's not very expensive to do an online class here and there.
Was it worth it? I think so. I'll have completed about 40 new pages by the end of a 10-week class (it would be 46 but the first six I submitted were written prior to the class); on my own, I have been able to produce a lot more, but this class got me over a particularly bad block where I really was having trouble moving forward in the novel. Caroline is a smart and encouraging teacher--she was so positive I wasn't quite sure I believed the nice things she said in her critiques, but she was always quick to point out things that could be improved. I came away with three little "a-has" about working on my novel that are so simple, but will help me enormously:
- Get rid of all the adjectives I can. I'd already done this with adverbs, but doing it with adjectives forces me to further express the story in a way that makes the reader see the story and not the writer. This tip is going to make rewrites really easy, too.
- Change point of view. I don't know why I was totally stuck on writing only from my heroine's point of view. I may actually end up with only her pov, but writing from other characters' povs makes it much easier to fill in huge chunks of plot.
- Don't use the three-act structure. I'd been trying to arrange my scenes on an Excel spreadsheet according to this structure, and it was overwhelming and rather depressing.
The next class I'm going to try is Candace Havens "Fast Draft and Revision Hell."
Thursday, November 24, 2011
The power of storytelling
In Sheri Tepper's Grass, one of my all-time favorite books, Earth enforces a two-child policy, although contraception and abortions aren't allowed; third children are "illegals," and are shot as soon as they start to show a pregnancy.
It sounds pretty horrific, doesn't it? But something like this actually happens in reality. China has had a one-child policy since 1979, which has resulted in numerous cases of infanticide due to the preference for boys, and forced abortions and sterilizations even in the 8th and 9th month of pregnancies. The extended families of violators of the one-child policy are often fined, tortured, or jailed.
Science fiction's conclusion about population is often that it's not problem, because as we expand in number, technology will keep up so we can expand out and colonize space. Others believe that despoiling the planet's resources won't matter, because soon enough we'll be taken up in a great Rapture. 2012 is an earmark date for believers in negative and positive camps--some think that we'll enter a Golden Age into a fourth-density world, where technologies to clean up the world will circulate freely; others believe that massive catastrophe will destroy most life on Earth, perhaps bringing us to the 500 million number that figures in conspiracy theorist's calculations as the goal of the "global elite."
In the here and now, though, overpopulation does seem to be a worrisome problem. I think about it more in Brazil than I did in the US; most of my American friends have chosen not to have children, but I've yet to meet a Brazilian woman who's made that choice. My husband is the tenth of ten children, and although I'm glad his parents decided to have that many, I feel almost guilty by association when I go to enormous parties at his parents' house that consist solely of his relatives.
I often dwell on the negative stories, not out of "disaster voyeurism," but because I think that it's only by envisioning all the possibilities, resisting none of them and decharging all the fear and hope that clings to one or the other, that we can start to reinforce the ones we want to happen--by agreement and intent, then policies that gently support those intentions. We need to find a story that works.
But what happens if I can't think of a story where things end well? I guess all I can do is visualize how I would like to feel when the universe solves this problem in some ingenious way I never thought of. That's a story I could live with.
It sounds pretty horrific, doesn't it? But something like this actually happens in reality. China has had a one-child policy since 1979, which has resulted in numerous cases of infanticide due to the preference for boys, and forced abortions and sterilizations even in the 8th and 9th month of pregnancies. The extended families of violators of the one-child policy are often fined, tortured, or jailed.
Science fiction's conclusion about population is often that it's not problem, because as we expand in number, technology will keep up so we can expand out and colonize space. Others believe that despoiling the planet's resources won't matter, because soon enough we'll be taken up in a great Rapture. 2012 is an earmark date for believers in negative and positive camps--some think that we'll enter a Golden Age into a fourth-density world, where technologies to clean up the world will circulate freely; others believe that massive catastrophe will destroy most life on Earth, perhaps bringing us to the 500 million number that figures in conspiracy theorist's calculations as the goal of the "global elite."
In the here and now, though, overpopulation does seem to be a worrisome problem. I think about it more in Brazil than I did in the US; most of my American friends have chosen not to have children, but I've yet to meet a Brazilian woman who's made that choice. My husband is the tenth of ten children, and although I'm glad his parents decided to have that many, I feel almost guilty by association when I go to enormous parties at his parents' house that consist solely of his relatives.
I often dwell on the negative stories, not out of "disaster voyeurism," but because I think that it's only by envisioning all the possibilities, resisting none of them and decharging all the fear and hope that clings to one or the other, that we can start to reinforce the ones we want to happen--by agreement and intent, then policies that gently support those intentions. We need to find a story that works.
But what happens if I can't think of a story where things end well? I guess all I can do is visualize how I would like to feel when the universe solves this problem in some ingenious way I never thought of. That's a story I could live with.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
How diet can help you become a better writer
Fasting and a healthy diet may be the key to becoming a great writer. Where’s the connection? Well, creativity research shows that10,000 hours is needed to master any skill—which, if one writes three hours/day, would take ten years. Putting that formula together with longevity research that claims that reduced caloric intake + excellent nutrition + 2 days fasting/week could easily bring us to a 115-year lifespan, the sheer additional decades of mental sharpness should make a person a master many times over.
I started thinking about fasting and diet again lately because, upon eating large quantities of chocolate, I triggered a cold sore outbreak and pinkeye, all of which have had me skulking around my house unwilling to go out in public for several weeks. I’ve had plenty of time to research lots of natural methods for healing, and again and again I’ve run into the information that water fasting allows the digestive system to rest and divert energy for healing whatever the body needs. The body knows how to heal itself, if you just let it.
I ended up doing a 24-hour water fast, and buying this book: Can we live 150 years? by Mikhail Tombak. The additional 30-40 years of lifespan that Tombak says is possible over the 115 mentioned above can be attained with proper breathing and psychological health, and is based on the argument that the seven-year cycle of energy exchange in the body has the capacity to repeat 22 times in a lifetime, which means our lifespan energetically should be 150 years.
If I lived 150 years, at three hours/day of writing that would give me over 100,000 hours of writing! I’m thinking about two of my favorite authors, Sheri Tepper and Juliet Marillier, who both started writing in their 50s, and since then have both been quite prolific. I’ve noticed that the older the writer, the more layers and richness stories tend to have. My own writing is so much better than it was ten years ago and I can only imagine how good it would be if I were 110 and still sharp-minded and active.
Society structured as it is now wouldn’t benefit from everyone living that long, particularly if people still retired at age 65. But if we did extend the working life—work being something we love doing—the amount of genius that would have time to blossom could really benefit everyone. Elderly people would no longer suffer from such disrespect as they do in many cultures, as people of age 90 or 100 would still retain enough flexibility of mind and spirit to be great leaders.
Like legions of modern vampire fans, I have a fear of losing my ego-personality upon death. Reconciling myself with my fear of death is one of my major life goals and since I’m now 37 and not much closer to figuring things out than I was at age 14, when I entered my first existential crisis, I figure more time is a good idea. Fasting and low-cal-count isn’t a recipe for eternal youth, but it’s supposed to slow the aging process, with immediate benefits to mental clarity and physical flexibility.
So I’ve managed to convert myself enough to try it—a once-a-week 24-hour water fast, and in a few months I’ll switch to 36-hours. Reports to come later of my results.
DON'T EAT THIS STUFF!
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Rejection reactions
I received rejections for two stories today. One of them was a flash fiction contest and the other was a semi-pro zine. This is happening often enough these days that I'm beginning to recognize my own process for dealing with rejections--I feel almost an internal split going on, one part feeling invalidated and depressed, and the other part taking it in stride, looking at options for other zines to submit to, and even feeling a little glad because I know that when I revise the piece, it'll improve and will give me another of those little zings of happiness that I feel whenever I've finished something I like.
The second part isn't any more real than the first; it's formed of a reaction to an event and will subside, just like the other. But I'm glad it's there, and growing stronger; less often now do I experience the despair of ever becoming a writer, the feeling of wanting to throw it all in the trash and go back to a job that pays. More often now do I see how the negative feelings that arise from any event are fodder for creating something else--and they're better fodder than the positive feelings, honestly. For instance, if I'd gotten an acceptance, my blog entry for it would be just one line long.
When I went to the flash fiction competition website and read the blog entry announcing the winning story, I found two of the comments particularly striking as the commenters were obviously a little pissed--one of them asking if anyone who didn't belong to the site community was even considered in the contest, and another saying that the winning story was boring and predictable for being "chick lit" style when there were so many other creative ways to interpret the prompt. If I dwelt on trying to figure out the judges' thought process in this contest, I might have thought similar things. But I find that for me, the dwelling is the worst thing I can do.
Here's an example of unhealthy dwelling on rejection: Yesterday in the Telegraph online, there's an article entitled "Author sues reviewer over comments on Amazon." (neither the book nor the reviews are currently available on Amazon.co.uk last I checked) Apparently, British law lends credibility to libel claims such as these. Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware blogged a while back about the phenomenon of authors getting angry with reviewers, pointing to some of the better-known cases. Now these are examples of people who actually experienced acceptance before a member of the public judged and rejected them (the Amazon-suing fellow self-published, but that too could be considered acceptance by some). But the layers of possible judgment and rejection/acceptance don't ever end for a writer, no matter the level, because there'll always be people out there who will hate what you create..This is good. The more facets of perception and expression we rub up against, the more our self-expression refines itself and reflects back a shifting, evolving identity. Constant movement defines being alive, and awareness of one's own aliveness equals true embodiment.
Acceptance has as many layers as rejection. Yesterday I got my two copies of the Queer Fish anthology, with my story "The Zombissager." I wondered what I'd do with two copies, since there isn't a single other person in Lagoinha who can read English. But then I showed my husband my story, and he looked at the first page and said he might be able to understand it. He proclaimed that he would try to read it. It actually makes me cry thinking of this. He's never read anything I've written before, and only once or twice in six years has even asked what I'm writing about. I don't blame him as he doesn't even like reading in Portuguese let alone English. But even if he doesn't actually make it through the story, it's the kind of acceptance that has far more emotional impact on me than any of the little yeses or noes I've gotten in the last year.
The second part isn't any more real than the first; it's formed of a reaction to an event and will subside, just like the other. But I'm glad it's there, and growing stronger; less often now do I experience the despair of ever becoming a writer, the feeling of wanting to throw it all in the trash and go back to a job that pays. More often now do I see how the negative feelings that arise from any event are fodder for creating something else--and they're better fodder than the positive feelings, honestly. For instance, if I'd gotten an acceptance, my blog entry for it would be just one line long.
When I went to the flash fiction competition website and read the blog entry announcing the winning story, I found two of the comments particularly striking as the commenters were obviously a little pissed--one of them asking if anyone who didn't belong to the site community was even considered in the contest, and another saying that the winning story was boring and predictable for being "chick lit" style when there were so many other creative ways to interpret the prompt. If I dwelt on trying to figure out the judges' thought process in this contest, I might have thought similar things. But I find that for me, the dwelling is the worst thing I can do.
Here's an example of unhealthy dwelling on rejection: Yesterday in the Telegraph online, there's an article entitled "Author sues reviewer over comments on Amazon." (neither the book nor the reviews are currently available on Amazon.co.uk last I checked) Apparently, British law lends credibility to libel claims such as these. Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware blogged a while back about the phenomenon of authors getting angry with reviewers, pointing to some of the better-known cases. Now these are examples of people who actually experienced acceptance before a member of the public judged and rejected them (the Amazon-suing fellow self-published, but that too could be considered acceptance by some). But the layers of possible judgment and rejection/acceptance don't ever end for a writer, no matter the level, because there'll always be people out there who will hate what you create..This is good. The more facets of perception and expression we rub up against, the more our self-expression refines itself and reflects back a shifting, evolving identity. Constant movement defines being alive, and awareness of one's own aliveness equals true embodiment.
Acceptance has as many layers as rejection. Yesterday I got my two copies of the Queer Fish anthology, with my story "The Zombissager." I wondered what I'd do with two copies, since there isn't a single other person in Lagoinha who can read English. But then I showed my husband my story, and he looked at the first page and said he might be able to understand it. He proclaimed that he would try to read it. It actually makes me cry thinking of this. He's never read anything I've written before, and only once or twice in six years has even asked what I'm writing about. I don't blame him as he doesn't even like reading in Portuguese let alone English. But even if he doesn't actually make it through the story, it's the kind of acceptance that has far more emotional impact on me than any of the little yeses or noes I've gotten in the last year.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Writing burnout
So yet another doomsday hour has come and gone, with asteroid YU55's fly-by that some thought would actually be a collision. At least three other doomsdays have passed in 2011 alone that I know about--I'm sure there have been many more. Even though I'm pretty sure we're going to make it, I still get a little tense at the thought of these things people predict coming to pass--I do have an extremely active imagination, after all.
But doomsdays passing by are a good opportunity, like new moons, to take a breath and bring closure to old patterns and start new ones. Because there will be a collective sigh of relief made by people all over the globe, and we can tap into that group energy and use it to surf to a new goal.
That's why today is a good day to talk about healing writing burnout, and taking a breath in order to start again.
I did a couple of web searches to see what other writers do when they get burned out. Most of them said: take breaks, eat well, read, decompress, clean the desk.
So, what have I done to take a break from the writing?
- Rode my horse for the first time.
- Watched Star Trek (the 2009 one) three times (I normally watch no TV or movies at all). As you might guess, I am a big Trekkie--although I'm only a fan of the original series. Mr. Spock was my first fictional crush, and the first novels I ever planned were Star Trek fan fiction stories that usually had Vulcan romance themes.
- Gave my blog a makeover
- Made cookies for the horses (rolled oats, honey, raisins, banana, carrot, oil, water)
- Jumped rope and meditated outside (to get my daily Vitamin D and work on improving my eyesight at the same time as I de-stress or get exercise--I'm a big believer in multi-tasking!)
- Lay in bed longer than usual
- Spent more time with the kids instead of leaving them alone to play
- Pounced on a fun-sounding collection of fiction to read and review for Tangent Online
And now for the starting again...I'm going to write 1000 words on the WIP tonight and work a little on an assignment for the UCLA class. Tomorrow I'll either edit a flash fiction piece or draft a new one.
P.S. Vote for your favorite story in the Rule of 3 Blogfest here! Voting open till Friday.
P.S. Vote for your favorite story in the Rule of 3 Blogfest here! Voting open till Friday.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Rule of Three: Costs of Living
This is the consolidated four parts of a story that takes place in Renaissance, a world shared by bloggers in the Rule of 3 Blogfest. (home here, rules here)
I. Sacrifice
On my sixteenth birthday, I learned that a great honor was to be bestowed upon me.
I knew what that honor was, and I did not celebrate. I went outside. I should enjoy each of these breaths for the next two moons, I thought, but the air made me choke as if my lungs were already being punctured by invisible teeth, dissolving in the black acid of the demon Lagonha’s belly.
It was my duty to be sacrificed in order to save Renaissance. We prospered only on account of the goodwill of Lagonha, who had saved Renaissance from dust and despair and allowed the fortunes of its new settlers to grow. Lagonha asked very little in return—the life of one young female every twelve moons, given willingly, would ensure that no one in the town ever suffered lack.
I wanted to live. I could run away, but for certain one of my younger sisters would take my place.
There was someone I could ask for help, I thought.
Ursine was a witch who lived in the Culdees, the forest on the border of which we lived. I gathered supplies for a day’s walk and I went to her; she was at the door of her cottage, apparently waiting for me.
“I can help you,” she said. “I will make two copies of you, and you will give each copy just enough of you to animate them. There will be three of you. One for you, one for the demon, and one for me.”
“Why one for you?”
“When has anyone ever appreciated anything that’s free?”
I couldn’t answer that. What choice did I have? So I agreed.
Ursine bled me, and she mixed the blood with clay and herbs and molded two Melinda-shaped forms. I flickered in and out of consciousness during the ritual; it seemed I was in a nightmare where the demon was already eating me, and then I was climbing a tree in the forest, and then I was walking through the desert, parched and brown.
I awoke a little before dawn. Turning, I gasped. I could see two other Melindas asleep on the beds beside me, each like to me to the last eyelash.
What had she taken from me? I could feel nothing different—was this hollowness in my heart indicating something another Melinda now owned? Did I have memories missing—would I even know?
“You can’t go home, you know,” Ursine said from the doorway. She was holding a sack. “I recommend you go through the desert—there’s an outpost a few days’ walk through it, and perhaps you could get a ride from a caravan going to a larger city. I’ve prepared a few provisions for you.”
I hadn’t contemplated that upon leaving my home yesterday, I’d never go back. But as I saw the other Melindas stirring and beginning to wake, I suddenly did not want to meet them or face what I might have lost. I took the sack and departed, trying to hold back tears.
II. Partial Refund
I remember little of the months after the ritual in which I was split into three parts—one set free, and one sent to be sacrificed to retain the demon Lagonha’s goodwill towards my town of Renaissance. I remained with the witch Ursine in payment for saving our life—one of our lives, at least.
Ursine was kind to me, and my work was light. It had to be, as I found it difficult to concentrate, and my memory was poor. Many chores—picking and sorting herbs, stirring brews, painting charms for her to peddle in town—I would abandon halfway through, and Ursine would find me staring into space, my task forgotten.
One night Ursine drew a bath for me.
“A year I’ve prepared us,” she said afterwards as she combed my hair, almost caressing the tresses. “I’ve aligned our auras, our daily rhythms. Neither of us are happy with our half lives—myself, because I am old, and you, because you’ve been riven from your greater parts and are little better than an idiot. Tonight, the moon is full, and we will become whole, you and I.”
I furrowed my brow. Something about what she said worried me, but I couldn’t place what it was. No—it wasn’t what she said, but what I could feel from her—was she going to eat me? But she smiled, and that sense of her wanting to devour me eased.
It returned when she bade me lie down and tied my wrists and ankles, then slashed my palm and held it dripping over a cup. “No,” I said, and I remembered how to cry, but not how to resist. Ursine as shadow oozed into me, and I retreated before her, cowering into a corner of my mind; she saw me there and opened wide to consume me.
Then the door of the cottage flew open. I felt the shadow’s fear, and as I stared at a mirror image of myself approaching me, I felt my weakening identity solidify and once again fill my body. One of my Melinda-parts had returned. The shadow fled, and Ursine beside me drew in a ragged breath.
I could see now that the other Melinda was different from me. She was sun-browned and her eyes betrayed an indefinable hardening. She cut my bonds, striking Ursine when the witch tried to stop her.
“You have no right,” Ursine hissed. “I saved your life. This copy is mine. It is to be my new body; I deserve it, after all I’ve suffered.”
“The bargain is broken,” Melinda said. “I have seen Renaissance. The town is no longer favored; the sacrifice was not made, or was not acceptable. I know not which. You didn’t save my life—you destroyed it. So I’ll take back this part of me. Be grateful I leave you alive.”
I could already feel my mind strengthening, the presence of my other self anchoring fleeting bits of memory and a focus that had eluded me these months. When Melinda held out her hand, I took it.
We didn’t need to speak. Proximity completed us. I could feel her strength and how she’d grown these past months, living in the desert and learning to survive. I realized that I, too, had learned things—all I had observed of Ursine’s witch practices I could now remember.
As we left the Culdees and Renaissance came into view, I gasped. Drought, perhaps, or fire, or simply abject poverty had struck it, and the town looked a wasteland.
III. Payback
I hated those who had left me to die—the people of Renaissance, the witch Ursine, and most of all, two parts of myself who deemed themselves worthier of life. As the dregs of Melinda, I was cast to the demon.
A tongueless woman wearing a collar of copper and yellow crystal took me far north, to the so-called mythical mountains of Roundeli. There, we entered an enormous cavern, and I found myself momentarily blinded by walls encrusted with diamonds and yellow crystals. Lamps in sconces cast flickering lights across the gems, making them appear shifting and alive. Women were everywhere—diamond-collared beauties relaxing on divans or in great steaming pools, and others, crystal-collared, preparing food, cleaning, or servicing the diamond-bearers.
My guide clamped a collar of yellow crystal on my neck. I nearly doubled over from the weight of a soul-leeching oppressiveness that would have killed any joy, had I felt any. I could muster no will, and I discovered soon that I felt compelled to obey any command. I was stripped and bathed. Then I was led, naked, to an inner chamber, where a beautiful dark-haired man with eyes like stone reclined on a bed, propped on his elbows. His eyes raked down my body, and he smiled.
“Welcome,” he said. “I am Lagonha.”
“You’re not a demon.”
He laughed. “No. But I certainly have the power to do what the simple folk of Renaissance believe me capable of. I can give them prosperity. Or I can destroy them. Come here.”
“Magic?” I asked, going forward against my will.
Lagonha pulled me onto the bed, hands pinching and fondling, stone eyes kindling a passion, but not a kind one. “Your collar bears crystals that kill the will to live and to disobey. Please me, and I will give you one of diamonds—the same kind as my devices aimed at Renaissance bear. They create fortune and prosperity for the town. They would for you too. Serve me well, and I will serve you with bliss beyond your wildest dreams.”
His hand tightened in my hair. “If you do not please me, I will cut out your tongue, and you will continue to wear your collar of obedience. Or you will die.”
He was cruel, and he took pleasure from hurting me.
What he didn’t know was that I was a Melinda incomplete. My partial self contained little of what Ursine had considered worth saving; what formed me were the abilities to hate, hurt, and manipulate. I had little will to live beyond my desire for vengeance, and as I lay in Lagonha’s embrace, bruised and bloody, I knew that the collar could not control one such as I. I fought back its oppressiveness with a hatred that burned so hot I felt the collar singe my neck. Then, it died.
As dammed energy surged through me, I ripped my collar off.
I sliced the point of a yellow crystal across Lagonha’s neck, laughing as his blood bubbled free.
I made the caverns mine. I cut out the tongues of the pleasure-women and put the collars of obedience on them; all served me, willing or no.
I found the device that controlled the fortunes of Renaissance. I changed the diamonds for yellow crystals. Let them die as they left me to die.
I ruled there. But I dreamed of more vengeance. And one day, I knew I would have it, when I heard my own voice call my name from the entrance of the cave—“Melinda,” it said, and I turned to see two mirror images of myself.
IV. Striking Bargains
Three dark-haired young women, all named Melinda, conversed in a cavern in the Roundeli Mountains.
At a glance, they appeared to be exactly alike. On closer examination, however, the one who sat ramrod-straight on the divan had skin darkened by the sun, and several long scars down her neck that disappeared under her loose desert tunic. The one who sat by a steam-pool and trailed patterns in the water spoke little, and the rare times she lifted her eyes it was as if she gazed at another world. The third one, whose catlike pacing over the rocky floor suggested that the cavern was her domain, had eyes like dark oil, opaque and full of secrets.
“So you killed the demon,” desert-Melinda said. “And Renaissance suffers without his blessing. I stopped there only briefly; the townspeople live, but like animals and brigands. There must be something we can do to help them.”
“Perhaps,” said cave-Melinda. “The demon is dead, but the sacrifice to earn the town’s fortune was only a partial one. Are the two of you willing to sacrifice yourselves to save a town that abandoned you to die?”
“They knew no better,” said desert-Melinda. “I wasn’t ready before, but now, I would do so.”
The quiet one, forest-Melinda, looked straight at cave-Melinda. “You would kill us,” she said. “But you and I—our forms were made from clay. If you kill her, the original Melinda we are copied from, we’ll become clay once again.”
“Is that so?” snarled cave-Melinda. “Very well. You know the witch’s tricks and trade well enough. You will put my consciousness into the body of our friend here. Hers, you can put in the clay, and the clay will be sacrificed.”
Cave-Melinda ordered collars of yellow crystal bound about the necks of her other selves, and she watched avidly as their eyes dimmed and their breath grew shallow.
Compelled by the collar of obedience, forest-Melinda went to work. She requested materials that cave-Melinda’s servants provided, and soon she was ready to perform the ritual.
“Your collars must be removed,” forest-Melinda said.
“Fine,” said cave-Melinda, ripping off her own collar of diamonds, and signaling a servant to remove the yellow-crystal collar from desert-Melinda. Forest-Melinda took both collars, gazing at them, brow furrowed. Then, she spoke the words to perform the spell of transference.
The cavern began to rumble. Women everywhere screamed and ran as the walls shook, embedded crystals and diamonds shifting, flowing like living fire. Below, a single Melinda lay in a puddle of clay that dripped down the divan.
Struggling to her feet, Melinda ran for the entrance with the others. Once outside, the cavern collapsed. Melinda saw that the gemstones that flew out from the impact were neither crystal nor diamond, but a blend of both, with no power remaining that could help or harm. The collars of cave-Melinda’s servants were likewise neutralized.
“Go back to Renaissance,” Melinda told them. “Tell the town they can rebuild. Whatever they create will be on their own merits now—no easy outs, no undeserved punishments.”
She gazed at the women, half of whom no longer had tongues. “Those of you who can speak will have to do so for all,” she said. “I will return to the desert. I have done great evil, and I cannot live a normal life now.”
The women went south, and Melinda southwest; she walked with a heavy heart. But sometime during the evening, something shifted in her eyes—her pupils grew opaque, as if deluged with dark oil. She smiled, shook back her hair, and strode out with confidence.
I. Sacrifice
On my sixteenth birthday, I learned that a great honor was to be bestowed upon me.
I knew what that honor was, and I did not celebrate. I went outside. I should enjoy each of these breaths for the next two moons, I thought, but the air made me choke as if my lungs were already being punctured by invisible teeth, dissolving in the black acid of the demon Lagonha’s belly.
It was my duty to be sacrificed in order to save Renaissance. We prospered only on account of the goodwill of Lagonha, who had saved Renaissance from dust and despair and allowed the fortunes of its new settlers to grow. Lagonha asked very little in return—the life of one young female every twelve moons, given willingly, would ensure that no one in the town ever suffered lack.
I wanted to live. I could run away, but for certain one of my younger sisters would take my place.
There was someone I could ask for help, I thought.
Ursine was a witch who lived in the Culdees, the forest on the border of which we lived. I gathered supplies for a day’s walk and I went to her; she was at the door of her cottage, apparently waiting for me.
“I can help you,” she said. “I will make two copies of you, and you will give each copy just enough of you to animate them. There will be three of you. One for you, one for the demon, and one for me.”
“Why one for you?”
“When has anyone ever appreciated anything that’s free?”
I couldn’t answer that. What choice did I have? So I agreed.
Ursine bled me, and she mixed the blood with clay and herbs and molded two Melinda-shaped forms. I flickered in and out of consciousness during the ritual; it seemed I was in a nightmare where the demon was already eating me, and then I was climbing a tree in the forest, and then I was walking through the desert, parched and brown.
I awoke a little before dawn. Turning, I gasped. I could see two other Melindas asleep on the beds beside me, each like to me to the last eyelash.
What had she taken from me? I could feel nothing different—was this hollowness in my heart indicating something another Melinda now owned? Did I have memories missing—would I even know?
“You can’t go home, you know,” Ursine said from the doorway. She was holding a sack. “I recommend you go through the desert—there’s an outpost a few days’ walk through it, and perhaps you could get a ride from a caravan going to a larger city. I’ve prepared a few provisions for you.”
I hadn’t contemplated that upon leaving my home yesterday, I’d never go back. But as I saw the other Melindas stirring and beginning to wake, I suddenly did not want to meet them or face what I might have lost. I took the sack and departed, trying to hold back tears.
II. Partial Refund
I remember little of the months after the ritual in which I was split into three parts—one set free, and one sent to be sacrificed to retain the demon Lagonha’s goodwill towards my town of Renaissance. I remained with the witch Ursine in payment for saving our life—one of our lives, at least.
Ursine was kind to me, and my work was light. It had to be, as I found it difficult to concentrate, and my memory was poor. Many chores—picking and sorting herbs, stirring brews, painting charms for her to peddle in town—I would abandon halfway through, and Ursine would find me staring into space, my task forgotten.
One night Ursine drew a bath for me.
“A year I’ve prepared us,” she said afterwards as she combed my hair, almost caressing the tresses. “I’ve aligned our auras, our daily rhythms. Neither of us are happy with our half lives—myself, because I am old, and you, because you’ve been riven from your greater parts and are little better than an idiot. Tonight, the moon is full, and we will become whole, you and I.”
I furrowed my brow. Something about what she said worried me, but I couldn’t place what it was. No—it wasn’t what she said, but what I could feel from her—was she going to eat me? But she smiled, and that sense of her wanting to devour me eased.
It returned when she bade me lie down and tied my wrists and ankles, then slashed my palm and held it dripping over a cup. “No,” I said, and I remembered how to cry, but not how to resist. Ursine as shadow oozed into me, and I retreated before her, cowering into a corner of my mind; she saw me there and opened wide to consume me.
Then the door of the cottage flew open. I felt the shadow’s fear, and as I stared at a mirror image of myself approaching me, I felt my weakening identity solidify and once again fill my body. One of my Melinda-parts had returned. The shadow fled, and Ursine beside me drew in a ragged breath.
I could see now that the other Melinda was different from me. She was sun-browned and her eyes betrayed an indefinable hardening. She cut my bonds, striking Ursine when the witch tried to stop her.
“You have no right,” Ursine hissed. “I saved your life. This copy is mine. It is to be my new body; I deserve it, after all I’ve suffered.”
“The bargain is broken,” Melinda said. “I have seen Renaissance. The town is no longer favored; the sacrifice was not made, or was not acceptable. I know not which. You didn’t save my life—you destroyed it. So I’ll take back this part of me. Be grateful I leave you alive.”
I could already feel my mind strengthening, the presence of my other self anchoring fleeting bits of memory and a focus that had eluded me these months. When Melinda held out her hand, I took it.
We didn’t need to speak. Proximity completed us. I could feel her strength and how she’d grown these past months, living in the desert and learning to survive. I realized that I, too, had learned things—all I had observed of Ursine’s witch practices I could now remember.
As we left the Culdees and Renaissance came into view, I gasped. Drought, perhaps, or fire, or simply abject poverty had struck it, and the town looked a wasteland.
III. Payback
I hated those who had left me to die—the people of Renaissance, the witch Ursine, and most of all, two parts of myself who deemed themselves worthier of life. As the dregs of Melinda, I was cast to the demon.
A tongueless woman wearing a collar of copper and yellow crystal took me far north, to the so-called mythical mountains of Roundeli. There, we entered an enormous cavern, and I found myself momentarily blinded by walls encrusted with diamonds and yellow crystals. Lamps in sconces cast flickering lights across the gems, making them appear shifting and alive. Women were everywhere—diamond-collared beauties relaxing on divans or in great steaming pools, and others, crystal-collared, preparing food, cleaning, or servicing the diamond-bearers.
My guide clamped a collar of yellow crystal on my neck. I nearly doubled over from the weight of a soul-leeching oppressiveness that would have killed any joy, had I felt any. I could muster no will, and I discovered soon that I felt compelled to obey any command. I was stripped and bathed. Then I was led, naked, to an inner chamber, where a beautiful dark-haired man with eyes like stone reclined on a bed, propped on his elbows. His eyes raked down my body, and he smiled.
“Welcome,” he said. “I am Lagonha.”
“You’re not a demon.”
He laughed. “No. But I certainly have the power to do what the simple folk of Renaissance believe me capable of. I can give them prosperity. Or I can destroy them. Come here.”
“Magic?” I asked, going forward against my will.
Lagonha pulled me onto the bed, hands pinching and fondling, stone eyes kindling a passion, but not a kind one. “Your collar bears crystals that kill the will to live and to disobey. Please me, and I will give you one of diamonds—the same kind as my devices aimed at Renaissance bear. They create fortune and prosperity for the town. They would for you too. Serve me well, and I will serve you with bliss beyond your wildest dreams.”
His hand tightened in my hair. “If you do not please me, I will cut out your tongue, and you will continue to wear your collar of obedience. Or you will die.”
He was cruel, and he took pleasure from hurting me.
What he didn’t know was that I was a Melinda incomplete. My partial self contained little of what Ursine had considered worth saving; what formed me were the abilities to hate, hurt, and manipulate. I had little will to live beyond my desire for vengeance, and as I lay in Lagonha’s embrace, bruised and bloody, I knew that the collar could not control one such as I. I fought back its oppressiveness with a hatred that burned so hot I felt the collar singe my neck. Then, it died.
As dammed energy surged through me, I ripped my collar off.
I sliced the point of a yellow crystal across Lagonha’s neck, laughing as his blood bubbled free.
I made the caverns mine. I cut out the tongues of the pleasure-women and put the collars of obedience on them; all served me, willing or no.
I found the device that controlled the fortunes of Renaissance. I changed the diamonds for yellow crystals. Let them die as they left me to die.
I ruled there. But I dreamed of more vengeance. And one day, I knew I would have it, when I heard my own voice call my name from the entrance of the cave—“Melinda,” it said, and I turned to see two mirror images of myself.
IV. Striking Bargains
Three dark-haired young women, all named Melinda, conversed in a cavern in the Roundeli Mountains.
At a glance, they appeared to be exactly alike. On closer examination, however, the one who sat ramrod-straight on the divan had skin darkened by the sun, and several long scars down her neck that disappeared under her loose desert tunic. The one who sat by a steam-pool and trailed patterns in the water spoke little, and the rare times she lifted her eyes it was as if she gazed at another world. The third one, whose catlike pacing over the rocky floor suggested that the cavern was her domain, had eyes like dark oil, opaque and full of secrets.
“So you killed the demon,” desert-Melinda said. “And Renaissance suffers without his blessing. I stopped there only briefly; the townspeople live, but like animals and brigands. There must be something we can do to help them.”
“Perhaps,” said cave-Melinda. “The demon is dead, but the sacrifice to earn the town’s fortune was only a partial one. Are the two of you willing to sacrifice yourselves to save a town that abandoned you to die?”
“They knew no better,” said desert-Melinda. “I wasn’t ready before, but now, I would do so.”
The quiet one, forest-Melinda, looked straight at cave-Melinda. “You would kill us,” she said. “But you and I—our forms were made from clay. If you kill her, the original Melinda we are copied from, we’ll become clay once again.”
“Is that so?” snarled cave-Melinda. “Very well. You know the witch’s tricks and trade well enough. You will put my consciousness into the body of our friend here. Hers, you can put in the clay, and the clay will be sacrificed.”
Cave-Melinda ordered collars of yellow crystal bound about the necks of her other selves, and she watched avidly as their eyes dimmed and their breath grew shallow.
Compelled by the collar of obedience, forest-Melinda went to work. She requested materials that cave-Melinda’s servants provided, and soon she was ready to perform the ritual.
“Your collars must be removed,” forest-Melinda said.
“Fine,” said cave-Melinda, ripping off her own collar of diamonds, and signaling a servant to remove the yellow-crystal collar from desert-Melinda. Forest-Melinda took both collars, gazing at them, brow furrowed. Then, she spoke the words to perform the spell of transference.
The cavern began to rumble. Women everywhere screamed and ran as the walls shook, embedded crystals and diamonds shifting, flowing like living fire. Below, a single Melinda lay in a puddle of clay that dripped down the divan.
Struggling to her feet, Melinda ran for the entrance with the others. Once outside, the cavern collapsed. Melinda saw that the gemstones that flew out from the impact were neither crystal nor diamond, but a blend of both, with no power remaining that could help or harm. The collars of cave-Melinda’s servants were likewise neutralized.
“Go back to Renaissance,” Melinda told them. “Tell the town they can rebuild. Whatever they create will be on their own merits now—no easy outs, no undeserved punishments.”
She gazed at the women, half of whom no longer had tongues. “Those of you who can speak will have to do so for all,” she said. “I will return to the desert. I have done great evil, and I cannot live a normal life now.”
The women went south, and Melinda southwest; she walked with a heavy heart. But sometime during the evening, something shifted in her eyes—her pupils grew opaque, as if deluged with dark oil. She smiled, shook back her hair, and strode out with confidence.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
An Insecure Writer's post
I joined the Insecure Writers' Support Group and this is my first post as a part of it.
The first thing I'll talk about isn't strictly about my writing, but it's about the whole support system for my writing--the life I created and how I keep myself sane doing it.
I live in Brazil in the rural zone of a town of 5000 people, with my husband and two small children. My husband is very sweet but completely uninterested in my writing. Although I can see why I manifested this--it gives me a privacy of thought and no competition around the computer, having a husband whose favorite leisure activity is lying in front of the television--it compounds an isolation I already feel because of my location. I don't have any friends here, and this is partially because I'm shy and antisocial, and partially because of time constraints due to my having kids and constantly giving myself writing deadlines that I rarely fulfill.
Generally my isolation suits me because there's so much I want to do with my writing. It's been years of blocked flow that I've finally started to release in the past year, and I never have enough time to work on it now. And what also made it okay was that I had a very close friend who emailed me every day and who I emailed every day. I'll call her G...and she was my social outlet, the person I shared all the details of my day that my husband was uninterested in. There are other friends, but you know how it's always great to have someone you don't have to catch up with or explain things about your life...the conversation simply continues. She was that for me.
Unfortunately, G. is a sensitive soul, with some trauma in her past. So for the second time, she's cut me off after going into a psychosis. The first time it happened it wrecked me for weeks. This time, although it happened just as unexpectedly, I didn't react so badly--but I've found myself all of a sudden completely alone.
Combined with some other factors, it sent me into a depression the last few days the likes of which I haven't felt in 17 years. It was sinking lower and lower...but then I was lying in bed cuddling with my toddler and thinking that these sad thoughts I was having didn't quite seem warranted by the circumstances of my life. Then I remembered something...something about the last time this happened, and advice another friend of mine, Beth, gave me.
"You're merging with her. Find five physical differences," she told me.
And as I remembered what Beth had told me, I thought about what G. was probably experiencing--sadness, isolation, inability to reach out to others because she's consumed by an inner torment. And as I thought that, my tears stopped, and I remembered something I really ought to know--that I'm a really strong clairsentient. Meaning I've always been able to feel others' emotions when I'm focused on them, and my inability to distinguish between their and my own emotions has created a lot of turmoil in my life.
So now I am seeing the story I created to justify the sadness, when the sadness wasn't even mine. Now that it's subsided, I just hope she is all right.
The next topic is a big one: REJECTION. This last month I participated in a challenge to write a flash fiction story a day. I really loved this exercise--I was incredibly productive. But then...I couldn't stop myself from submitting pieces...even knowing that the rate at which I was submitting, I was setting myself up for getting avalanched with rejections.
My skin is a lot thicker these days with rejections, but I can't say they don't get me a little down. And when I receive, say, four in two days, then it kind of snowballs before I get the chance to decompress and bounce back from it. I realize that that feeling of rejection is related to some deeper core picture of rejection--maybe even a rejection I experienced in the womb or at birth...and so the trauma I experience is simply held emotions associated with some frozen belief system. And, crappily enough, these stinkin' rejections trigger that story/picture/engram/belief. So I've had that feeling triggered a bunch lately. I am hoping that as it continues, I'll keep peeling off layers of that emotion until I simply don't mind any longer. I guess I picked a good career aspiration for that.
Kazka Press October Flash Winners Up for Voting!
My story, "Red Vacuum," was a winner in Kazka Press' first flash fiction contest last month. The prompt was "What is the origin of UVB-76′s preternatural signal?" I never would have touched this topic with a ten-foot pole if I hadn't been doing a challenge with my flash fiction group to write a story a day in October. As it was, as I struggled for ideas of stories to write, I did a little research and made up a lot of stuff and my story was the result.
There are five winners, and voting and comments are open for each. They'll influence which of the stories gets into the anthology.
The stories are here.
There are five winners, and voting and comments are open for each. They'll influence which of the stories gets into the anthology.
The stories are here.
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