Not Serving Any Whine: Thank You for Your Kind Birthday Wishes!

Because I’ve taught most of my life, I’ve been a public person. It’s nice that I did that in the quilt world. The quilt world is a tiny and lovely frog pond for a public frog. No one troubles you at the grocery store, or if you’re in your yard. I was noticed when I went to Trinity College in Dublin. Someone did indeed say, “Hey, that’s Ellen Anne Eddy,” and came over to me to chat. Being the quilt world, it was pleasant if bizarre. I was famous without really being famous.

Being retired means that kind of scrutiny and interest has gone away. I have been accused of being a princess. I used to not know what people meant. I think I get it now. I was terribly guilty of grabbing the center of attention. For those who are annoyed with me, I apologize. I’m trying to do better.

My married life with Don is based on such different goals. I’ve never been a “we” before. But Don is a gracious soul who has taught me so much about love. Not about romance. But the desire for a beloved person’s good. One of the things he helped set for me was the goal of having my knees fixed. He is an astonishment.

I’ve made a point of not talking about whiny things. I  fail from time to time.  Pain, lack of patience, fear, make poor companions. Generally, I think it stimulates a headset for myself that I believe is unhelpful. For those of you who didn’t know, I was in a wheelchair for 6 months two years ago. This three years has been a path back to my mobility and back to my physical self.

My second knee got fixed this January. I had no desire to share those moments when pain pills aren’t enough or you try to walk across the room and fail. I’m now in a water Range of Motion class and celebrating the ability to climb steps. I’m sure there’s alway a bump later, but I feel like I’m past the whine. And I will try desperately, to serve no whine.

So this, and your incredibly kind birthday wishes accompanies my 66th birthdate. That and meeting 90-year-old ladies who look like they’re my age only in better shape in the water class. Talk about what you want to be when you grow up!

My presents included a copy of Grandville’s Los Animals, an Ipad, and some books on Technicolor. I’m over the moon.

Mostly, I’ve been given hope. And possibilities. And change as a good thing. I thank you all, from the bottom of my heart.

 

Sometimes a Great Notion: The Rewritten Story

Would you help me please? I‘ve been preparing the last batch of stories for The World in Reflection, the third book of the Sight Unseen series, and I was delighted when I reread A Strange Smell in the Sewer. But I had this silly great notion. I decided it needed a Greek Chorus. And since the speaker was an Allegator God, what other kind of Greek Chorus could you use? 

Of course, by this time, I’m bug-eyed.

I can’t tell if this is funny or tasteless. Would you kindly read through the two sections and tell me what you think.

The full new version of A Strange Smell in the Sewer is on the site, ready for your reading pleasure. But here are the segments with the two versions. Would you be kind enough to let me know what you think?

The old version

Will went down before me. When he reached the first step that was in the water, he stopped and leaned over to see what was there. We were assaulted by the gurgle. And the burp and the voice. And that animal musk smell.

“Good,” said the voice, “I’m no longer reduced to communicating with females. It is better that she covered her hair. She should be under your direction. Can’t you control her?”The wowillrds flowed out of the dark with a deep growling.

“Not exactly. tried to explain. “Times have changed.”

“For me, they are not. Ah, no. I am ageless!”

Will trotted out his best charm. He had either taken it as a joke or he’d become an instant believer. “I see. How can I help you?”

The gargling sound again. On Will’s right side I saw a floating log. It opened one golden eye.

“John, easy. Back up a step” I warned him.

“Why? As he turned to face me.

And that was when the alligator swam in a circle at his feet. Its coral pink mouth was open in expectation. Presumably of lunch.

I yanked John up the steps just in time. The alligator wasn’t able to navigate the steps while floating.

It spoke in booming displeasure. ‘”No respect for the high and holy! Where is Ethan?”

It thrashed its tail in rage.

“Will you talk to it. It doesn’t like girls.”

“It likes me way too much.” Will did have a point.

“Ethan isn’t in right now. I explained one more time. “Can we help you?”

“So hasty. No manners at all.” The alligator clicked his teeth together in irritation.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to offend, sir. How do we address you?” John wasn’t ever a believer, but he had a talking alligator floating in the basement. This was a foxhole moment for him.

“Atoshka. Ra amunana Atoshka.Sebot. Bow to my magnificence! I am the honored companion of the goat footed god. I am summoned in the name of the righteous “C”. Ethan called us both here. Pan will surely come soon. But the altar Ethan built me is under water.”

“Ethan isn’t in. You’ll have to talk to him about that. We’re trying to reach him.”

“Bring me offerings.” Sebot swam closer to the step. “The girl will do.”

“The girl won’t do at all”, I answered back.

“A woman that disagreeable would be bad tasting anyway,” Sebok acknowledged. “Have you some opium you could use on her? She would be more docile.” The alligator had way too much information about humans and drug reactions.

Will said, “Um, we’re fresh out of opium.”

“I still require sacrifices. I am a god of great appetites! In the old days they lay virgins on my altar to appease me.” The alligator mouth opened wider, as if to receive the offering requested.

“We’re fresh out of virgins too”, I said, whether we were or not. “Will anything else work?”

“Meat. Lots and lots of meat.” The alligator opened his mouth and snapped it closed, as if in memory of past sacrifices. “These are evil times. I remember eating the most delicious chicken when we ran out of virgins. And rats. Even rats are tasty. But that seems like a lifetime ago. I also remember eating dogs and cats. You wouldn’t happen to have a nice cat, would you?”

“No, not here. Would chicken work?” I asked.

“A chicken. A chicken would be an excellent sacrifice.” I could see saliva dripping from Sebot’s mouth.

We both backed up the steps and closed the door gently. The gurgling roar still went on below.

New Version

Will went down before me. When he reached the first step under water, he stopped and leaned over to see what was there. We were assaulted by the gurgle, the burp and the voice. And that animal musk smell.

“Good,” said the voice, “I’m no longer reduced to communicating with females. It is better that she’s covered her hair. She should be under your direction. Can’t you control her?” The words flowed out of the dark with a deep growling. In the background I saw a circle of rats surrounding him in the water. They squeaked together as an echo. “Can’t you control her?”

“Not exactly,” Will tried to explain. “Times have changed. I work for her.”

“For me, they have not. Ah, no. I am ageless!”

The rats spoke in chorus again. “Ageless, Ageless Ageless.

Will trotted out his best charm. He had either taken it as a joke or he’d become an instant believer. “I see. How can I help you?”

The gargling sound again. On Will’s right side I saw a floating log. It opened one golden eye.

“Will, easy. Back up a step” I warned him.

“Why?” He turned to face me.

And that was when the alligator swam in a circle at his feet. Its coral pink mouth was open in expectation. Presumably of lunch.

I yanked Will up the steps just in time. The alligator wasn’t able to navigate the steps while floating.

It spoke in booming displeasure. ‘“No respect for the high and holy! Where is Ethan?”
It thrashed its tail in rage. The rats sang an echo again. “No respect! No respect. Respect the high and holy!”

“Will, you talk to it. It doesn’t like girls.”

“It likes me way too much.” Will did have a point.

“Ethan isn’t in right now,” I explained one more time. “Can we help you?”

“So hasty. No manners at all.” The alligator clicked his teeth together in irritation. The rats clicked their teeth in imitation.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to offend, sir. How do we address you?” Will wasn’t ever a believer, but he had a talking alligator floating in the basement. This was a foxhole moment for him.

“Atoshka. Ra amunana Atoshka.Sebot. Bow to my magnificence! I am the honored companion of the goat-footed god. I am summoned in the name of the righteous “C”. Ethan called us both here. Pan will surely come soon. But the altar Ethan built me is under water.”

The rats were now doing a strange water ballet around Sebot. “Bow, bow to the magnificent god!” they chanted.

“Ethan isn’t in. You’ll have to talk to him about that. We’re trying to reach him.”

“Bring me offerings.” Sebot swam closer to the step. “The girl will do.”

The rats focused on me. Swam towards my feet. “The girl will do!” they echoed.

“The girl won’t do at all,” I answered back.

“A woman that disagreeable taste bad anyway,” Sebot acknowledged. “Have you some opium you could use on her? She would be more docile.” The alligator had way too much information about humans and drug reactions.

Will said, “Um, we’re fresh out of opium.”

“I still require sacrifices. I am a god of great appetites! In the old days, they lay virgins on my altar to appease me.” The alligator mouth opened wider as if to receive the offering requested.

“We’re fresh out of virgins too”, I said, whether we were or not. “Will anything else work?”

“Meat. Lots and lots of meat.” The alligator opened his mouth and snapped it closed, as if in memory of past sacrifices. “These are evil times. I remember eating the most delicious chicken when we ran out of virgins. And rats. Even rats are tasty. But these rats are my worshippers.” He snapped teeth on one anyway.”

One of the rats screamed, “That was Skitters!”

Another rat whispered, “Shush. You don’t want to be next, do you?”

Sebot went on with his reflection. “It seems like a lifetime ago, I also remember eating dogs and cats. You wouldn’t happen to have a nice cat, would you?”

“No, not here. Would chicken work?” I asked.

“A chicken. A chicken would be an excellent sacrifice. Although scant. Many chickens!” I could see saliva dripping from Sebot’s mouth.

I heard the rats chant, “Chicken, chicken, chicken.” One of them whispered, “Please!”

We both backed up the steps and closed the door gently. The gurgling roar still went on below. Will brushed the back of his suit, in case it had picked up dust or cobwebs.

The Secret Stories: Revealing What Could Not Be Told

One of the things I enjoy most about storytelling is that it almost always contains a secret. While there are those that say a lie is a proper response to inappropriate curiosity, I’m fascinated by the secret whys and hows, the reasons that we can’t quite share in public.

Twelve Step programs have made it popular to say we are as sick as our secrets. I’ve done a fair amount of Twelve Step (OA) and have deep respect for the program in all it’s forms. But they create a safe space for a secret shared.

So in this world of Facebook, where we all see pictures of what our friends are eating, what thing their cat did this afternoon, and where they’re currently buying underwear, perhaps we need less information, rather than more.

But I still want to know the secret reasons behind things. So I’ll share my current one with you. I’ve been out of writing while I recovered from knee surgery.

Is that secret? Good God no. I simply have a do not whine policy for myself online if I can help it. Whining is not a secret, it’s a public temper tantrum. I have them, But I try to keep them to a minimum. And in the end of it all, I will be able to walk for the first time in over seven years in minimal pain. YEA!

But it’s left me not wanting to share the whiny parts about surgery. Want to see my scar? I didn’t think so.

The secrets left in old stories are different. They’re kept perhaps for safety, perhaps for dignity, perhaps because they simply couldn’t be told, no matter what. Those interest me most because they are a measure of social change. No one is shocked anymore by a child out of wedlock, or a secret love. But those were deep secrets that had to be kept at the time, for everyone’s world to work.

I’m most interested by the secrets of history. The Russian revolution only makes sense if you know there was a fatally ill male child in line for the succession. The image of Thomas Jefferson is vastly changed by the story of Sallie Hemmings. These things make history real.

So when I wrote The Storyteller, I wrote about women with a story they could not tell at the time, a thing kept secret and yet preserved in story. Are they healed in the remembrance? I hope so. I hope we all are. It’s a measure of history that it is a story you could tell now. But it’s a sorrowful shame that it happens still. You can read The Storyteller online now for free, or in Book Two of Sight Unseen, The Inverted Cup

 

More of Sight Unseen! Marlene’s continued journey as a psychic in The Inverted Cup!

The Inverted Cup, Book of Two of the Sight Unseen Series is available on Amazon, both in print and on Kindle.

I’ve loved the process of crafting the journey in this series. It’s at a time when I’ve explored my own past, my own journey.

Storytelling is one of the many ways we have of retelling our stories. I believe that is the beginning of all healing, We see ourselves in a different light and recognize that a story ends and begins not on a linear point, but when and where we tell it from. Is our childhood hopelessly grim? Did we fail? Did we succeed? Did we win? What did we lose? What did we let loose? All of that changes as we look at time elastically, as a flexible tool, and not some restraint. The failures, pains, and stupidities of my youth are very different as they’ve formed me at another age.

So I offer these stories, not as a biography or as a memoir, but as a springboard for your journey. Perhaps they will inspire to tell your story in your own heroism or bravery, from the point of view of your older braver wiser self.

Read The Inverted Cup, available at Amazon now!

 

It’s Here! A Collection of Collage: A new art form for me

Remember all those odd collages I’ve been posting? They’re now part of an eye-candy book, One More Once Upon a Time, published on Amazon.

People wonder what happens to artists when they stop doing their art. The truth is that they don’t really. Sometimes your life is your art. Sometimes your art is the whole of your life. Except that that becomes exhausting. There’s a day when you’ve said what you needed to say and you’re done. You sweep up the mess if you have any strength left, and you recline in a chair until moving is possible.

I’ve walked away from doing fiber art for a while. But I got involved with these odd and wonderful collage images, sort of as a do it myself coloring book gone mad. It started as coloring in images from the 1800-1900 children’s book illustrations. But since I was working with Photoshop, it became a descent into layers of background and brush strokes. It was Pat Baxter who suggested that each one needed a caption to connect them to a whole different story than they originally were meant

to illustrate.

 

Here’s my explanation from the book:

So I invite you into exploring this new media for me, a form of collage and coloration. One More Once Upon a Time is available now on Amazon.

If you would like a signed copy, it’s also available at my Etsy store. It will take a couple of days to get my order in from the printer, but I can send you your book signed with a bookmark. Follow the link.

Finally, if you like this book, please let people know. There’s nothing nicer you can do for an author than to write a review. Amazon has an easy place you can do that.

This is not a book about breathless deathless art. But it is a book where I had an immense amount of fun making eye candy. Come join me in a One More Once Upon A Time!

Character Building: Answering the What Ifs…

The fun thing about building characters is that you get to put them through all kinds of hell. Oh no, not another learning experience! We do learn and grow through the things life throws at us. So why shouldn’t our characters?

It’s one of the delights of writing. Your characters demand to grow into themselves. They begin to have voices of their own, and desires, designs, plans, needs and wishes that don’t make sense necessarily to you as the writer. But for that character, they do.

Madam Marie is one of my favorite characters in Sight Unseen, because she’s so very richly complex. She’s a voodoo practitioner, but that neither means that she is evil, capricious or wrong. She’s a strong woman in a place of power in her community, who has that place because she has served her community. She’s a hoot to write about because she takes charge of what she does in my head as I’m writing.

So, what if the mostly-in-charge Madam Marie finds herself in a position where she’s in danger, at risk and out of control? What if’s are wonderful questions because they are learning experiences in your face. They make us who we are.

Lost and Found started as the What-if the very capable Madam Marie was in danger and at risk. The most fun about this story was Maggie’s response. ” I won’t look, but I can clean.,,,” Maggie also is a strong character in power in her community. Her community and Madam Marie’s don’t really intersect. But they know how to back each other, in spite of their metaphysical differences.

Read Lost and Found up on the Story Page, and see what happens. Not familiar with Maggie or Madam Marie? Start with Voodoo You, also up on the site.

Evil Choices: Allowing Characters to be Bad.

What happens when your character wades in the weeds? Chooses something stupid. Wrong! The urge to keep your beloved character safe is as strong as a mother’s in rush hour traffic.

I belong to a wonderful writing group called W.H.I.R.L.E.Y., bravely led by Chuck Ott and Kathie Huddleston who have given me fabulous help, support, and direction. We had a discussion over allowing bad things to happen.

I forget who said that if bad things don’t happen, you have a sketch, not a story. A story needs conflict. If nothing bad happens, you don’t have a story at all.

The other discussion was about villains. A villain is not simply a person who does evil. All of us do. Nor is it a person who sees themselves as evil. Almost no one does that. It’s a person who can’t learn from the consequences. of what they see and do or just do it anyway for their own reasons. If you make a villain who doesn’t have the dimension to be good, then it’s likely you’ve disrespected him. And there’s no sense having a hero with no one to fight.

The Sparrow, is a story about trying to help someone. In one way, I so believe in helping people. I also know how very easy it is for that to go to a place that is not only unfortunate, but evil. What we wish, what we mean, what we hope for so often fall flat in our efforts to reach someone. And more often than not, in our execution. Help can be more than ineffective or offensive. It can be a push the wrong direction, that heads someone over the cliff.

You’ll notice that the villains in The Sparrow are both Christian and Pagan. Marlene doesn’t do so well herself at this either. It’s not about labels. It’s about results. And in the end, someone else’s legitimate choice.

The Sparrow explores the effort and need to help, and the harm it can do. You’ll find it on the story page of this site or in Book Two Sight Unseen, The Inverted Cup, coming soon.

Mind Mapping: What Does Go on in that Place in the Dark?

Why is it so much more fun to play with computer toys than real objects? I haven’t played an actual game of solitaire since I was a child. I probably log on around 15 hours of computer solitaire per week, at least 5-7 kinds of games. For some reason, it’s just more fun on a screen.

The same is true of collage. I’m not the girl you let run with scissors, and I have been known to run with scissors and an open rubber cement jar, and that was after I graduated from college. Yet here I am playing endless games with photoshop collage. All you need is a pile of images and Photoshop. I can’t help myself.

So it really shouldn’t surprise me that rather than take a piece of paper (an object bound to be crumpled up under my chair only to be peed upon by one cat or another) I found myself playing with a mind mapping program the last time I got a story idea.  I went online, looked at several online mind mappers and found Mind Map Maker which offered me several ways to map, and a way to save it as a regular png. Twenty minutes later I had a worldview, several characters, a crisis, a beginning of a plot. Wowser! I’m not that good. But this thing was. You could just let it grow wild like weeds.

Is it any good? Damned if I know! But it let me try it out in my head over a period of twenty minutes without any cleanup. In a week or two, I may see if it noodles into something.

That may be the whole of the attraction, There may be a time when you need to clean up the pile of files on your laptop, but there’s no real clean up on aisle 15. Just ideas gone amuck in a place you can find them later. My head is mostly a place in the dark, but at least this closet had a pull light and a virtual shelf.

For all the writing I did as a quilter, there is no plot to a how-to, other than finish the job with the needle not in your finger. This makes it much easier. It could be addictive. I might even get some writing done.

Stories Told by Spaces

There are places that demand you tell stories about them. Who can resist a story about the Kremlin? Or a haunted church? Or a fairy mound?

The Irish fairy mound stories usually talk about a hill where people are met and entertained by fairies ( no, not the nice ones. The ones that really mess you up.) You may eat their food, listen to their music, and their stories. But when you leave, time has rushed by, everyone you know is dead, and you are in a wholly different world than the one you left.

Dogtown really exists. It’s now a city park. When I was there it was a ruined village site, mostly holes in the ground with strange carved stones littered along the path that read like a garden of protestant virtues: “Be on time”, “Help your Mother.” I got massively lost and the clocks didn’t make sense when we found our way back to the car. Of course, it makes a story essential.

About Time is about being trapped in one time or another. And the sacrifices that force from people.

I enjoy Eric as a character, because he’s Marlene’s opposite. He’s a hard-boiled FBI man, who doesn’t believe in the psychic world, but he’s not so stupid as to ignore what he sees. He often feels Marlene is lying to him, when she’s just telling him what she sees. He can’t understand that the limits of her sight are real. If he can believe she sees things, he can’t believe she doesn’t see everything.

All or nothing thinking is a childish thought form. But this is Eric’s passage from childhood. He has to figure this out to grow out of the space in time he is trapped in.

Read About Time, up now on the site. Soon to appear in Book Two of Sight Unseen, The Inverted Cup.

 

 

The Silly Hat Parade: Wearing the Many Hats of a Writer/Publisher

Someone on facebook was posting a comment about writers to the effect that if you couldn’t spell or punctuate, how could you possibly write.

Now I’m a big time dyslexic. I grew up in a time and space where people just said your writing and spelling skills were lazy. No one wanted to fight my school teacher mother over it, so we all ignored the fact that I couldn’t spell or write. I was in grad school learning about dyslexia when I realized I had it too.

Not that it’s stopped me. I’ve come to see dyslexia as a fine and lovely gift. Mostly it’s the ability to see the world differently. What often causes dyslexia is a difference in which hand, eye and foot you lead with. Most people either lead left or right. If you lead with mixed sides, it changes your perception massively.  It does wreak havoc on spelling, and math skills. I can’t read a map to save myself. And I need help putting things in order.

But it does give me a different perception of the world I chemyrish. I still believe I can tell a fine story. I’m just really grateful the lady who believes in spelling and punctuation wasn’t there to stop me with what I can only describe as the limits of her imagination.

Blissfully I am blessed with kind and talented friends. Chuck Ott and Donna Hinman and other people from W.H.I.R.L.Y , a Chicago writing group who regularly go through and find my punctuation malfunctions and spelling disasters. I hope I give as much I get. They know I can’t. They believe in me anyway.

My point is, we’re only defined by what we can’t do to a certain point. If we can do part of the job well enough, then we can ask for help and offer others what we can do. There’s a lot of hats to be worn in the writing and publishing of books. No one has a head where all of them fit.

I’ve done two books through a publishing house. Thread Magic and Thread Magic Garden were all mine in terms of text and images. But the editing staff were like the fairies who clean the houses of the rich and famous. You didn’t see them. They cleaned up all the messes before you knew they were there. You also got on average a dollar per book. You also had to convince them to publish your book, and you had to write the book they wanted you to publish. Everything is a negotiation, after all.

My husband, Don Bowers, simply just lets me do his covers. He’s happier, I’m happier. Otherwise, he tends to put our pet’s on the cover of the books, whether it’s about them or not. He tells me when my stories aren’t in order (again, another needful thing).

This week I ended up helping someone with a book cover. He’s a great writer, and he’s prolific. He’s also color blind. He had a novel about Nazis with a cover that had a rose pink gradient. He now has a gradient on the front that’s a nicely Nazi red, no bones about it.

So I have several things to say about the many hats a publisher wears, and the ones that fit very badly.

• Wear the ones that fit. Hire, beg or trade for help when you need it.
• Don’t let the thing you can’t do stop you from the things you are great at.
• Ask for help and offer help. Regularly.
• Don’t worry about perfect. Do your best and learn to do better. Perfect happens somewhere else.
• Breathe. You’re doing it.

Perhaps in the world of self publishing, we’re best to find a conglomerate of talent we share and utilize to maximize what we have, to handle the tasks we really don’t have the skills for. Will we see a day when everyone tells the stories they need to tell? I hope so.

You’ll find Chuck Ott’s latest work, Something Made of Vacuum on Amazon, in print and for Kindle.

You’ll find Don Bowers work, With Patience Wait, and Conformed to the Image, also on Amazon