The Feminine in the Sky

A smart and talented woman I know wrote this book: The Coming of the Feminine Christ. (Which due to some technical difficulties, I’ve had to unlink to.)

at a church in London

This is not a review; I haven’t read the book yet. And this is not about your religion; I don’t need to know (and let’s not ruin a lovely relationship).

When I was a kid, my mother had a black tee-shirt that read in white script, “God is coming, and she is pissed.” My mother wore this in the 70s in our small hometown.

If she got any grief for it, she never said. (She was used to grief from people anyway.)

But my eight-year-old mind was stunned by that pronoun. She.

Not long after that I found a button in the bowling alley parking lot. It had been run over, but I could still read it. “A woman’s place is every place.” I pinned that button to my purse–my purse that held red rocks and barbies.

Sometimes I ask writing students to imagine how their lives would be different if they’d been born the opposite sex. My female students rarely have trouble with this. <My male students generally look horrified, make a joke about not being gay, and write either they'd go shopping and get married or that their lives wouldn't be different at all.

Sometimes I ask writing students to imagine a favorite character in fiction–and switch that character's gender. What if Harry Potter were Harriet? What if Batman were a woman–and I don't mean Batgirl. What if in Titanic you gave Leo Kate’s role and gave Kate Leo’s? What if James Bond were a woman?

(I’ve also asked them to change a famous character’s race or religion. Once I asked the students to imagine Edward from Twilight as Muslim…oh the expressions.)

Niamh Clune‘s book is not a game or a simple writing exercise. The book expresses a profound belief and way of seeing the world.

What are books about but seeing the world in a new way? (My mother used to say, “If you’re strong in your beliefs, you can always handle encountering someone else’s.”)

I’m looking forward to reading Niamh’s book. Maybe you would too.

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And for folks on Facebook, there is this.

Fandom

Unfortunately because of the lighting, you can’t read the sign on the door–but if you know the TARDIS, you know what it says. My friend is edited out since I’m posting this late at night and can’t seem to wait to get her permission to use her image on my blog.

Are you a true fan of anything? Ever written fanfic? Worn a costume of a favorite character? Waited in line for hours to meet a singer, writer, actor you love? Or have you ever wanted to but didn’t because you were afraid of the looks you’d get?

In time for our housewarming party, I turned the door in my office into a TARDIS from the long-running British sci-fi show Doctor Who. I have friends who are also fans, and they loved posing in front of the TARDIS. Other friends don’t know anything about sci-fi, and maybe they were baffled, but they were polite and appreciated my enthusiasm.

What is it like to create a story that people love enough to dress at the characters, to bake cupcakes based on heaven-knows-what from your book, to write fanfic, to make jewelry, to start a band, all from something that came out of your head?

Sure, we are subjected to marketing ploys, stories are created around toys, and conglomerates wait for us to spend our money on key chains, tee-shirts, and other nonsense. But not every story is like that.

In 1963 the BBC came up with the idea of a Time Lord traveling all of time and space in a blue box. In 2012 a woman in Texas spends hours of her life copying that blue box in her home. I doubt the BBC of 1963 dreamed of such a thing.

Then again, creating a story that people love deeply–too deeply? Is that possible?–can end up like this.

The Scariest Part

So it begins.

I’ll edit my novel. My novel will go out into the world.

I’ve worked many years for this.

Today I told my dad that my book will be published. I never talk to him about my writing. Once, years ago, I told him I’d written a book. His only reaction was to say, “Oh. It must be about something.”

“Yes.”

He changed the subject.

I imagine he’s worried I’ve written about him. My dad doesn’t appear in any of my novels. Not knowingly anyway.

He doesn’t read, so I can’t picture him reading my novel.

But other people will read it. Even if the only people who read are my friends, people will read it. Finally.

And some of them will like it.
Some won’t.

We all know–pick any book in the world and there will be people who hate it. Who gets through life being loved by everybody?

But it will be strange to hand my book to people who know me, who’ve been waiting for this moment too, who’ve been supporting me…

Like any good adventure, this is scary and exciting.

Navigating New Seas

part of a commissioned piece

In case you have somehow escaped me telling you, I have found a publisher.

This press is small and new and in the UK. Since it was a UK literary journal that published my first short story and the BBC is my favorite channel, a British publisher makes sense really. Don’t you think?

The name of the press is Plum Tree Books.

And no, they aren’t one of the Big Six, but I was never going to find a home with them. This press has enthusiasm and vision for my writing, and I feel as if I will be taken care of, not forgotten and sent straight to remainders.

But this is a new world–being able to say I’ve a publisher. Feels impossible to say.

So, I’ve started a facebook author page, and am figuring out what’s next–oh, yeah. EDITS.

I don’t know what will happen (who does), but I’m glad to travel different waters. Thank you to everyone who’s still with me.

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P.S. On a side note, I’ve started an online series–The Princess Detective. (For the reader who likes stories of princesses pursuing danger.)

The Butterfly Effect and Dreams

At 17 I put away my dream to be an artist. Art turned from dream to hobby. Sometimes people mistook me for an artist–usually because I wore a scarf or long earrings or too many bracelets. I don’t know. What do people mean when they say, “You look like an artist.”

rabbit on the moon

I figured they meant, “You look weird,” but “artist” was more polite.

But I also wanted to be a writer and was happy enough to pursue that dream instead.

When I was 39, the barista in charge of scheduling art for my favorite coffee shop asked me if I wanted to hang my art on their walls. She was scheduling a year out and she had a spot. She’d only once seen a few sketches I’d done, and an art show…? Since when I had ever thought of having an art show?

But she and a friend talked me into it.

The idea was crazy. I’d never had a show. I wasn’t an artist. Although I was terrified. Well, I reasoned, have the show and move on with life.

But someone came to the show asked me to apply to the fine art festival. I couldn’t do that! I wasn’t a real artist. I let my husband talk me into it.

Art City Austin

Someone from the festival introduced me to a shop owner. The shop owner asked if she could sell my art. Well…okay.

A musician saw my art online and asked me to design his CD cover.

Someone else commissioned me to do art for an anniversary gift.

I sold quite a lot of art–and much of it not to friends and family, but people who’d never met me.

And now I’ve met Niamh Clune, the founder of Plum Tree Books. Plum Tree is her vision, her dream, and she’s invited me to be part of that. I would never have met her if it hadn’t been for that barista. She was my butterfly.

That barista moved on to another city a while ago. She doesn’t know how she changed my life. I doubt a butterfly knows it wings are rumored to cause hurricanes. What a butterfly that would be if it knew.

Maybe you’ve changed someone’s life, and you don’t even know.

So, Niamh and The Plum Tree have published an anthology–The Butterfly Effect. Who knows what might happen if you took a look?

The Butterfly Effect

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Other participants in The Butterfly Effect are C.C.Cole

De Ann Townes

Niamh Clune, and

Nicole Smith. More to come.

Keep your mouth shut.

Do you argue with people online who you’ve never met? If you do, are those arguments mud-fests with names flying? If not, why not?

Most people I know who are on facebook have at least one I-shouldn’t-have-made-that-comment experience. If not that, then a I-can’t-believe-X-left that-comment experience. Haven’t you?

If you decide to pick a fight or take the bait for one, why? What triggers your I’ll-show-’em response?

Maybe you’ve never given in to the impulse–but haven’t you wanted to? Don’t some people deserve a good telling off?

I’m a diplomat by nature. Confrontation makes me tremble, literally. Nonetheless, every once in a while, I argue. Is that always wrong?

Just yesterday I ended up in a shouting match of sorts on Facebook on a friend’s thread. Part of me says that’s like going to a friend’s house and picking a fight with a fellow party guest. Rude. Unnecessary.

But another part of me–the part that won out in this case–thought that certain people will keep making sexist remarks if no one ever calls them on it. I decided to call him on it. I might not have said anything, but my fb friend had told him to “shut up” and he still made another comment. So. I told him he was being sexist.

He told me I had no sense of humor.

I told him that was the defense of a bully.

Now, maybe I don’t have a sense of humor. Maybe I’m the most unfunny woman on the planet. But I know that you-don’t-have-sense-of-humor is what people say when they make an unfunny, hurtful, or rude remark. Throw the blame on someone. I didn’t say anything wrong. You just don’t get it. As if the person’s unhappy response can be explained only in this way.

I explained clearly why I thought his comment was sexist. He said nothing about any of the points I made. Not one thing. He said he bet that I get called a shrew and a b*tch a lot.

I think it has been 20 years since anyone has called me a b*tch. No one has ever before called me a shrew. Not so as I heard anyway.

I told him that name-calling wasn’t much of a defense.

Someone else on the thread said that this guy wasn’t really that bad. He just said crazy things when he was bored.

Then I sent a message to my fb friend apologizing for the scene in her thread. She told me he’d been asked many times not to say certain rude things, but he always just replied that she didn’t have a sense of humor. She couldn’t unfriend him because he was the husband of a good friend. She understood how I felt, but I was wasting my time.

She deleted the post, which was probably for the best.

I’m sure I didn’t get this guy to change his mind. So why bother to say anything?

But why not call him out? Why not let him know that not everyone thinks he’s funny. If the other women in the post had stood up to him, maybe at the very least he’d have slunk away.

People have the right to say obnoxious things. Other people have the right to say, Hey, what you said was obnoxious.

The gist of his comment that irritated me had to do with women needing Oprah to tell them what to read while men could make decisions for themselves. And the original facebook post my friend made was about a mutual friend getting her novel chosen for Oprah’s book list. (That’s another post.)

So, do you argue or do you let things go?

Writing for Art–It’s a Win, Win, Win

I’ve moved. I’ve organized (sort of). I’ve got art.

Art needs a home.

my art

Over at my art blog, I’ve started a contest. You write something inspired by my art, and maybe you just win the piece that inspired you. Well?

So, go to Words Are Art because, hey, they are.

What a tender world that would be.

In the BBC’s Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes does have a heart to burn. Though you couldn’t blame most people from thinking otherwise.

But the episode A Scandal in Belgravia has a moment–a slight moment–of tenderness.

Sherlock

Sherlock comes home to 221B Baker Street to find Mrs. Hudson held by hired thugs. It’s obvious she’s been dragged and hit. Sherlock looks at her bruise wrist, the tear in her sweater, and cut on her cheek. He quickly outsmarts the bad guys and gets his revenge, but the scene is beautifully played. It isn’t a wild fist fight. That Sherlock is upset over the treatment of Mrs. Hudson is obvious but not mentioned.

I thought it a moment of perfect storytelling.

You should watch it if you haven’t yet.

Just Give Me My Poisoned Apple Already

I wouldn’t literally eat a poisoned apple, but metaphorically I think I already have.

The evil queen in disguise is my own psyche, and the apple is seeds of doubt fleshed out with insecurity, neurosis, and fear. Hard to believe anyone takes a bite of that.

How long has it been since an agent asked me to write a book jacket synopsis?

Feels like a hundred years. Unfortunately time hasn’t cleared my head or given me any good ideas. To explore another fairy tale, it’s more like the brambles around my thinking have grown thicker and stronger, and I’m going to need a helluva sword to cut through it all.

In this scenario, I’ve got to be my own prince. Good heavens, what part of my personality is that?

Throwing away an opportunity to get an agent because I can’t get myself to write that book jacket copy is about as dumb and passive as any Disney princess has ever been. I’ve written thousands upon thousands of words, and yet these few feel impossible. I start and start and start, and I get angrier and angrier with myself. Don’t I know better?

Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
who’s the best writer of them all?

The one who writes instead of worries.

What is my novel about?

A girl. And her best friend. One has been hurt and everyone knows. Well, almost everyone. The other has been hurt, but it’s a secret. …

That’s rubbish.

She accepts a ride from her best friend’s brother. She refuses to talk about what happened, but she’ll try anything to forget. …

No, no, no.

Two girls go into the woods at midnight for magic and revenge. …

Well, that’s silly.

Maybe this means my novel should be shut away in a drawer and forgotten.

Do I really want my dream to die because I can’t write one page of explaining my own novel? What is the worst thing that could happen if my writing fails? Well, whatever it is, worse things have happened. Life doesn’t depend on publication. I can keep writing anyway. That’s the main thing.

I look though at published novels and then I look at my own unpublished work… I’m reminded of a professor I had in grad school who said my work lacked a certain…coherence. Now, this was the head of the department who had also called me–in front of an entire class–an idiot, but this professor told me he liked my writing. He said it was original. I had unique ideas. That I looked at things from interesting angles. Honestly, I don’t know what he meant. But he also said that I seemed incapable of putting my work together in a sensible form. That my work suffered from incoherence.

Writing this synopsis/book jacket shouldn’t be this hard.

Now. Where’s my apple?