Category Archives: Writing

Commentary on Religion, Latin, Myth and Story, Our Land and Home, Translating Metamorphoses, Writing

A Solid Day

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Imbolc                                                                                 Bloodroot Moon

Missing in the a.m.  About 1/6th done.  As I read, it’s hard not to jump in, start line editing, but getting the story and the transitions and the big picture clear is necessary.  I have to reenter the story when I begin this 3rd rewrite, reenter the story in order to change it.  Only by having it again in mind will I be able to do that.  I can already see the value of this approach.

I have a list of characters, things and places that I’m writing down as I read.  The first time a character appears or a place gets mentioned or a thing like a particular sword gets used.  A long list and I’m only a little ways in.

Translating today went well, two sentences, about 6 verses.

The mechanical inspector came to examine our new furnace.  A cursory look.  “Fine.”  And he was on his way out.  To show though the things you do not know.  He stopped at Kate’s long arm quilter.  “My wife just died.  She was a quilter, left me with a lot of quilting things.”  Then, he buttoned up and left.

Still reading the competition.  Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

And, hey!  How about that Pope.  Argentina, eh?  But, from a good Italian family.  And a Jesuit?  Interesting though.  Look at a graphic  that shows Catholic strength by world region and you will see that it has bulged for some time in the Southern Hemisphere.  As the West has gotten more secular, Africa and Latin America have grown more Christian.  And more conservative.  It will be a while before we can see what this means.

Writing

Revising: A Process

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Imbolc                                                                  New (Bloodroot) Moon

All morning reading Missing.  I’ve taken the Finding Your Writer’s Voice advice and decided to read through the whole thing, not revising, just taking in the story, marking spots where the pace/action sags, taking notes on characters and places, but mostly getting the story firmly in mind before I begin revising.

As I read, I have the thoughts of my beta readers present to me and the ideas those thoughts have generated.  When I get to the end of the reading, it should be clear what I need to do for this third, and I hope final, revision.  Final before a line-editing one, I mean.

Reading my own work is peculiar.  Sort of like a mechanic working on a car she built.  At each point I think, gee, I could have designed that differently, better.  The desire to tinker can get in the way of reviewing the overall design.  Feels good to make progress.

Health, Writing

Low Grade Disharmony, Dis-Ease

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Imbolc                                                                         Valentine Moon

Looking back some low grade disharmony began to sneak up on me last Wednesday.  Feeling punk.  Over the weekend I laid low.  I find it a DIY MFA for writing a couple of days ago.   It had some interesting suggestions for reading as a writer and with a specific purpose, so I followed them while sleeping and resting.

That is, in this instance I read the competition.  Percy Jackson and the Olympians.  A middle-school Harry Potter-like story of a twelve year old who discovers he’s the son of Poseidon.  It’s fun, a bit, well, juvenile, yet captivating and the plot has a propulsive force.

The gods and demi-gods, monsters and other creatures of the sacred world abound.  I love this stuff, even in its middle-school form.  Once I’ve finished the third of the Percy Jackson books, I’m going to start on Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series.  Also on the list is re-reading Tolkein.  Of course, I read him and a long, long time ago.

There are three other lists on the reading with purpose idea: one is classics, another informative and the third is contemporary.

The same process asked for my 5 all-time favorite books.  This kind of list changes, but here is the one I wrote down on that day:  Steppenwolf, 100 Years of Solitude, Mists of Avalon, Metamorphoses, the Bible.

Now I’m feeling better, though not all the way there, and its time to get cracking on that revision.  Time’s, well, we all know what time is.  And we don’t get more.

Aging, Dreams, Family, Third Phase, Writing

Legacy

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Imbolc                                                            Valentine Moon

Writing.  Learning about the craft 20 years after devoting myself to it.  Yes, I admit it.  Kate was right.  Though I don’t recall, she says she urged me to go to the Loft way back, back in the days after I left the Presbytery.  Now I am.  To learn about publishing and about serious revision.  She’s often more clear about my vocation than I am.  Strange, but true.

The third phase continues to shimmer in front of me, a veiled space not yet known, the part of life that lies on boundary with the undiscovered country which doubles its resonance as if a great bronze tocsin tolls; though still faraway, its sound grows stronger with each passing day.

So. Legacy, then.  What will remain of mine when I cross the veil and enter that other world?  Of course there will be the vague collation of memories in children and grand-children, the sort of hazy recollection that fades with each passing generation.  Of course. There will be, too, the even gauzier remnants of actions taken:  those apartments and houses on the West Bank, a strengthened legislative program at the Sierra Club, work for non-profits and affordable housing through various groups, but in these my print lies barely visible, as it should be, but it means that connection will soon be lost.  If it has not been lost already.

Where I have most hope lies in the words I have written, like my father before me.  No wonder then that as the third phase beckons and the life of the past recedes writing becomes more important.  There is a sense in which legacy is a thing of vanity only and in that regard insignificant, after all most of us travel that last ancientrail unknown soon after we have set out.  There is, though, another sense in which legacy matters because it matters; that is, the legacy continues to entertain, to provoke, to evoke, to engage not in the world of the hereafter but in the world that is here after we are.

It is to this sort of legacy that I aspire and its persistence through time will depend on the quality of the work and thought I bring to it.  I know it seems perverse from some perspectives but I do not care about my legacy while I live.  Fame or money or recognition do not matter.  Only the work.  If any of them would come, I would choose money for the freedom it would give Kate and me to travel.  Recognition matters to me only as affirmation of labor’s worth.  But I value my work myself, so it is not needed.

 

Art and Culture, Cinema and Television, Family, Latin, Translating Metamorphoses, Writing

And Jazz Saxophone after it all

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Imbolc                                                              Valentine Moon

Here we go.  A perfect day.  Revising Missing before 11:00 am.  A sentence from Ovid before lunch.  Nap.  Working with pre-Raphaelites until 4:00.  Some chess until 5.  Workout.  A movie with Kate.  As I said.

GeekWorld, Writing

III

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Imbolc                                                              Valentine Moon

Considering a strategy for revision.  How do I utilize the comments, opinions, various thoughts from my beta readers?  Where do I begin?  Do I proceed from front to back or do I manage certain structural issues first?  How much time should I give myself to complete it?  May 1st seems good.  That would give me six weeks accounting for the D.C. trip and beginning work in the garden and with the bees.

OK.  May 1st.  Beltane.  Finish revision III in time for the growing season.  A good time to start full bore on writing Loki’s Children.  And getting that revision in the hands of an agent.  I have a March 30 class on publishing at the Loft, so that should work well with that timing.

Given the time frame, which if you notice I set as I wrote, I can reason backwards to plan.  Review all the comments.  Have done.  Note down all that needs to be done.  Their ideas, my impression of what they mean for Missing, and my ideas sparked by the reader’s impressions, then set to work.

(note, I revised my ideas on revision after I found this handy pyramid.  I’m gonna follow it.)

Make sense to me to deal with structural issues first.  Transitions, movement of the story as regards John and the unmaking–their relative weights and interleaving.  The POV issue is structural, too, in this case.  Finding those areas where the action flags and cutting them out.

After those I can attend to the character development/recognition matters and the map/diverse number of places, plus revamping the action in light of the cuts above.

Finished up my computer upgrade this morning by installing the speakers.  Now I have a Pandora station playing, Early Music.  Nice with the snow falling.

Latin, Minnesota, Translating Metamorphoses, Writing

GO D Park

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Imbolc                                                                       Valentine Moon

Saw the full Valentine Moon rising over Gold Medal Park near the Guthrie yesterday late afternoon.  Some clever vandal has knocked out the L on the large metal sign there so it reads GO D MEDAL PARK.  This is the park given by plutocrat and former CEO of UnitedHealth Partners, William McGuire.  Why both rich people and the public seem to think the wealthy have a fine aesthetic that should get public spaces for expression continues to be beyond me.  The saving grace here is that a well-known landscape architect designed the park, Tom Oslund.

Back to the Latin this morning, resuming my work on Ovid and about to start up on the novels again, reading the last of the Eddas today and tomorrow.  Still a good bit of reorganizing work to do, but the vast bulk of it in here (study) has been accomplished.

Art and Culture, Writing

Bibliomotion

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Imbolc                                                                  Valentine Moon

The move continues.  The garden study has begun to take on its new shape, a place for art making and art scholarship.  One bookshelf is almost full with reference works like the Grove Dictionary of Art, Oxford Dictionary of Art, four different art history texts, a reference work on materials and techniques as well as my collection of texts on Asian art.

The other emptied shelf has other books, all my pre-Raphaelite books, texts on contemporary art, books devoted to individual artists:  Malevich, Munch, Titian, Picasso, Caravaggio.  Soon all the art books will be out of the writing study and the freed up space will allow the books have piled up on the floor over the last couple of years to finally find shelf space.  Oh blessed day.

Don’t think I’m gonna get to the files today.  This involves moving all my art object files to the horizontal file folder in the garden study after I remove all the files related to my history of Lake Superior into banker’s boxes for temporary storage.  Then, in the file cabinet here in the writing room, I’ll put all the files related to short stories, novels, markets, Latin plus material on the Enlightenment, Modernism, Romanticism and world religions, especially of the ancient variety.  These are the subjects that have held my attention over the years.

I don’t like doing this.  But, I’ll like the finished result.  A lot.  So.  Carry on.

Art and Culture, Our Land and Home, Writing

Simplify, Declutter, Reorganize

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Imbolc                                                                   Valentine Day

If these impulses have begun, can spring be far behind?

A day, two in fact, devoted to finishing the reorganization of my writing room and the garden study.  The garden study will become the central location for all of my art related books, files and folders.  The writing room will have material supportive of novels, short stories, marketing.  I’ve drug my feet on getting this done, focusing on the more immediate Latin or writing tasks I’ve had, but I need to get this work finished so I can settle into a long bout of revising and writing.

The urge to get cracking on the actual writing of Loki’s Children has begun to build and I’ve got all the Missing feedback from beta readers save one.  That means revising Missing will occupy large parts of my working time as well.  Need a space arranged to make that easy, both from a retrieval of information perspective and a non-cluttered, beautiful space perspective as well.

The question of what do with my passion for art post-MIA still occupies me.  I’ve come up with a few ideas, but none of them really click.  The trick may be that I really want to deepen my engagement with particular artworks, artists, styles, periods, movements.  That is, stop researching objects just enough to get six talking points, but go into historical and formal analysis with pieces, spending more focused time on fewer works.  That sounds like what I really want to accomplish now.

In a small way perhaps become an expert on something, like Symbolists, or pre-Raphaelites or contemporary art theory or Kandinsky or Beckmann.  This does help me think it through actually.  I’m yearning for a richer experience, an experience grounded in significant time with the art and its analysis.  How to do that?  I don’t know quite yet.

Latin, Translating Metamorphoses, Writing

Oh, My

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Imbolc                                                                      Valentine Moon

Up at 7:00 am.  Crack of dawn at this time of year and a good hour before I normally unfurl myself.  So a little groggy.

Breakfast with Mark Odegard at Keys.  More feedback on Missing.  Very helpful stuff.  He’s doing some archival work as a volunteer at the American Refugee Committee.  Sounds like a really good fit for him.

Back home for Latin.  I’m getting called out less and less by Greg.  We translate at times as colleagues, at other times as teacher and student.  I’m getting better.