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Found: one editor, refurbished and ready to use

I have a shady literary past. No, no, I don't mean the erotica. I mean Fan Fiction. You know some writers will go to any lengths not to write? Well, lots find their way into Fan Fiction and write stories using other people's characters. My taste was for the Harry Potter universe.

A-aaaanyway. This is where I met my editor, Raven, in about 2003, I think. She waded tirelessly through debates about Severus Snape and Sirius Black (let's not go there now, it's before the watershed).

She has an English degree. What I do with her comments is my own fault, and she can't be blamed for what I didn't listen to. She also insists she's just a proof reader, but she makes suggestions above and beyond this.

What would we do without the loved ones who donate their time and expertise to our ambitions?

Oh. Haha. That's what Dedications and Acknowledgements are for ...

Annie's Top 10 Soundtrack

In the absence of my Muse tonight - my failure to write anything coherent enough on the subject of "who we are when we write" - instead I offer the soundtrack to "Annie, the Doll, its Thief and Her Lover".

These are not the songs I would include in the soundtrack if I were to have any say on its serialisation on TV. Nope, these delights are what I was listening to when I wrote it.

It is a very diverse list.

10. Incubus "Love Hurts". Because duh.
9. Elvis "The Wonder of You". You know who you are.
8. Brenda Lee "Will You Love Me Tomorrow". Uh huh.
7. Levellers "15 Years". Oh yeah.
6. Alice in Chains "Man in the Box". Awesome.
5. Carol King "It's Too Late". Also, the Quartz version.
4. Lo Fidelity All Stars "Battleflag". Wide grin, hip jut, finger raises.
3. The Cure "A Night Like This" Perfect Smith.
2. Calexico "Black Heart". Because one man's righteousness is another man's
long haul.
1. Neil Diamond "Cracklin Rose". She's a store bought woman, and so f'n what?

Feel free to pimp your own writing playlists.

ETA: right click and Open in New Window ... then you can read "Annie" while you listen ...

What "Life gets in the way of Art" really means

One of my most recent Tweets whined about how Life was getting in the way of Writing.

In mitigation, I was hormonal and I've had a really horrible week, punctuated by other people's stupidity. Actually, for "week", read "month".

However, let's examine what my whine actually says and means. Why do I feel life gets in the way of art? Is my life not reflected in my art? Is that not what my words are all about?

I think part of the problem of getting on with the nitty gritty of my novel - ie, finishing that Aiming at Amazon book and consulting the editing notes that my lovely friend 'Raven' sent me for the first three chapters, and .. just bloody doing it.

I have had some fairly meaty Life Experience recently, and I am concerned it might cast light onto my novel that reveals it to be a shabby, shallow, immature or dishonest work.

Now, the questions are these:

1. are my feelings a way of avoiding the hard work? Is this another attempt by my fragile and lazy ego to scupper my success (see Jenny's Natural Write blogpost on the Mocca Latte)?

2. what should the extent of the editing process be, in this case? There are two options here - lengthy, in depth, breaking bones and resetting them kind of way; or a healthy exfoliation.

I think I know the answer to number one *grumbles*

The second one bothers me the most. A work of art is like a living thing while we are forming it. But then we complete it, perhaps reshape it a little, powder its nose, comb its hair, pat its bum and send it out into the world to be mauled and adored - is it then unable to grow further for us?

How far should we alter it, in the face of life experience? If we write from the heart, then suddenly our heart sees a different view, should we rewrite to reflect what we now know, or preserve the naivety, innocence and purity of the original?

I am thinking that I need to take a look at the work itself, especially as I now seem to have an editor (Raven); but I am thinking, the purity of the original story should be preserved, whatever I think I know now, in retrospect.

Maybe, like John Fowles' Magus, I will have the guts to rewrite it one day; for now I will have the guts to let it be what it was born as, and watch as it lives in the minds of those who read it, use it, love it, hate it.

When I have checked my spelling, grammar and other bits again, naturally.

Walk with my dog in the fog; or the glory of nature in her various moods

See what I did there? Aside from the crude rhyme. Personification. I gave nature a gender, made her female (as is usual) and made her instantaneously at the whim of her hormones. Three hits in such a short sentence. The fourth is that I am pagan, so naturally I do believe that these things can be personified.

This morning was utterly gorgeous, a gift. Those of you who like the outdoors will know its "various moods" and this month, as the tilt of the world dips our summer into the blazing hues of autumn, there's a lingering sense of seeing things for the last time, albeit for a while.

Each morning I say goodbye to the small beauties I see: the red and orange berries, the green-to-golden leaves, the mists that hug the valley's dips and nooks and scars.

I stood in the centre of the playing fields this morning with my dog and laughed at the way she frowned at the dawn fog. She couldn't understand why her vision was restricted, but she got over it.

She was another glory of my morning - watching her dark, athletic form take the pearlescent field with the grace and poise of a six-foot-stride. She abandoned her toy to snuffle the badger scents across the dewy grass and as she raised her head to scan the blind horizon again, her jowls dripped diamonds.

On our way back she took me on a detour and make the muscles in my legs work harder through the uneven undergrowth as I went to retrieve the again-abandoned toy.

When I looked down into the grass I thought I was seeing miniature pockets of fog - but actually there were hundreds, thousands, of grass-spider webs, nestled in the hollows of the wet grass.

Nature had played a little trick, breathed on them and made a secret visible, just for this morning. I may not see a sight like that again until next year, and even then it would have to be the right morning, at the right time of year, even the right hour of the day.

The dog ran on, I stumbled after her, a little overwhelmed and slightly giddy at what I had seen. Suddenly they were everywhere, too: hanging from the fence, captured in the dry stone wall, laced across my neighbour's hedge.

Just, wow.

Looking back to the tale about spiders that I blogged last month, I am now considering the notion that nature, too, with her beauty and her changing moods, has
breathed on me too. And if this story isn't evidence enough of that, then I need to let her breathe on me some more.

Tolkien and the seven veils

My hands are naked for the first time in 25 years.

I bought my first ring when I was 15. I was a goth and it was a silver skull, and I called it Robert after Robert Smith of the Cure (the irony of a chubby-cheeked boy ... yeah you get it).

I like rings. Until few months ago I wore several at a time, including my engagement and wedding rings. Slowly they have all peeled off. Last weekend the wedding rings were removed. It was like a Tolkienesque dance of the seven veils.

Nude, naked, unadorned. Unweighted, flexible, unmasked. Unpossessed.

Have caught myself several times studying the slight depression on my digit and wondering whether collagen would improve the nasty impression worn into my flesh over the last 8 years.

Or, is it like furniture marks in carpet - will an ice cube make a difference?

:P

How emotion & the inner us affects vocabulary

Over the past few days I've been watching a spider.

This one has been spinning a web between the wing of my car and the mirror. She's been to work and back with me several times, and here and there, you know.

I've pondered on her persistence, her toil, her unfailing ability to pick herself up dust herself off and start all over again. She's a worker, she does what she needs to survive, and she does it under less than ideal conditions.

I have been understanding the nature of toil lately. In the writing of my novel, in the other secret things I've alluded to from my life. Hard work, persistence, patience. My watchwords.

Today I was smiling as I glanced from her to the road ahead. I sped up, knowing she
could cope with speed, even on a windy day. Her web was strong. As I turned at the junction, a sudden gust rocked the car, and I lost her.

Writing this, I'm aware how cringeworthy my abandonment issues look in this context. Let's read that last paragraph again with a new ending:

Today I was smiling as I glanced from her to the road ahead. I sped up, knowing she
could cope with speed, even on a windy day. Her web was strong. As I turned at the junction, a sudden gust rocked the car, and the wind stole her.

Haha. That's no better.