#writing #amwriting #writinglife #opportunity

Bullwinkle J. Moose Reads the TAROT

/ admin

 

I have an author friend with a creative muse named “Boris.” When brainstorming together we often invoke the WWBD question. She is a talented author and a good friend, so the existence of Boris is an accepted given in our interactions.

 

 

What she doesn’t know (shh, don’t tell her) is that every time she mentions Boris, all I can picture is this:

 

 

 

An image I don’t find conducive to creative writing. Not even a little bit.

 

I’d love to have a writing muse. Imagine sitting at your keyboard banging away at the keys and having a wise, free-spirited, ethereal “artiste” whispering story ideas into your ear. Plot holes would be filled, word choices sorted, and your story would flow like a happy little Bob Ross river from your fingertips to the best-seller lists. I want one of those.

Do you find the muse or does the muse find you? While pondering this very question, I decided since Boris was busy musing my friend, I’d settle for Bullwinkle J. Moose. In my mind, WWBD quickly became, “What Would Bullwinkle Do?”

Recalling that I had one of those bendy-rubbery figures of Bullwinkle somewhere in my box of old memories, lost dreams, and sentimental tchotchke, I desperately sought him out. If nothing else, I’d sit him by my keyboard just in case he’d taken up a second career as a muse. When I finally found him, his wiry arms were wrapped around a deck of tarot cards that I forgot I owned.

WWBD indeed? I sat both items by my keyboard and stared into Bullwinkle’s crookedly painted on eyes for inspiration. Nothing. Not one to give up so easily I pried the tarot deck from his hands (hooves?) and gave them a good shuffle. Of course I felt ridiculous, I hadn’t touched those cards since my old existentialism phase.

Swallowing down my embarrassment along with a gulp of cheap wine (Moscato) I laid out a straight three-card spread. I got The World, The Hermit, and the Ten of Pentacles. I had no idea what the cards were supposed to mean. After another gulp of wine (wine, I have decided, is the fuel for mooses and muses), I fired up my Google machine and sought out answers.

There’s a dancing figure on my World card and it turns out it is dancing to the rhythm of life. As a former belly-dancer, I feel connected to this card already. The World card symbolizes a moment of nirvana when “self” and “other” become one linking you will all humanity, environment, and the animal kingdom.

The Hermit card seems to taunt me. Writing is a solitary endeavor; maybe I’m meant to go it alone without a muse. The good news is that The Hermit is associated with wisdom & power. The Hermit must disconnect themselves from the noise created by others to seek the answers within.

The Ten of Pentacles is a busy card; there’s an old man in a colorful robe, dogs, a child, some other people (related?), a peek at a large building in the distance, and a clutter of ten pentacle stars. Something about this card bothers me. It’s chaotic and it’s meaning isn’t as straight-forward as the first two. Apparently, it is supposed to symbolize a life-long journey where everything turns out in the end even though the path was long and bumpy.

Now what? Bullwinkle, stupid smile never slipping, offers no guidance whatsoever. I open the document with my latest work in progress and stare at the blinking cursor. But then my mind starts to wander…damn it, it’s working.

I decide to make the hero of my story hermit-like. He hides from people avoiding all their noise and drama. He walks around at night where he’s sure to be alone with his thoughts. Suddenly I have him on a long, bumpy journey to his happily-ever-after with a heroine who side-steps and sways her way through the rhythm of her life. I’m calling it ABOUT AN EARL. Here’s the buy link if you’re interested:

Maybe Bullwinkle really is my muse. Please don’t mention it to Boris. If you study tarot, I’d appreciate another view on my cards. If you have a creative muse, I’d love to hear about it.

Rollercoaster

/ diana-lloyd

Ever heard the advice “write what you know?”

Yeah, that’s garbage advice. Write what you want to know.

There’s a famously often misquoted bit of wisdom from Mark Twain that goes like this:

“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn’t”

How it’s misquoted: Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense.

rollercoaster

This picture represents real life. At least it represents my life. Let me fill you in:

Around July (my birthday) I started looking into getting a dog. I work from home, I have a fenced yard, my kids are older, and I really wanted a buddy for walkies and couch cuddles. I didn’t care much about the dog’s sex, size, age — I just wanted a good fit. I also wanted a rescue dog.

If you’ve ever tried to adopt a dog from a rescue agency, let me tell you those people don’t mess around. I had to fill out a ten-page questionnaire, list all pets I’d had since the beginning of time, give them the name & number of any vet I’d ever used, provide phone numbers for three references not related to me, and plop down a deposit. When I finally qualified as a prospective pet owner, I was informed that the agency would choose the best pet for me based on my profile.

Okay, I’m paying $250 for a dog I don’t get to pick out myself. Um. After choosing my dog, the agency would send someone out for a home visit to see if they approved of my living situation. Seems like a bit of power went to someone’s head but, okay, I’m still on board because I want a rescue dog. Finally, several weeks after I first applied, I was approved for a dog named “Russell,” a male dog of unknown mixed breeds. Super. By the time I worked out a good time for a home visit, Russell was gone. What?

Nevermind, the agency said, they had another dog that might be a good fit, a corgi mix named “Flash.” Cool, cool. I called the agency three times over the next week trying to schedule the required home visit for this dog. They never answered the phone (I left messages) and they never returned my calls. Weird.

Now I’m ready to kick ass and take names and send a “dude, what’s up?” email to which I get no reply. Hm.

And now the roller coaster of my life reaches the top of the incline heading into the first drop. Hubs informs me that we need to MOVE. SOON. His father is in failing health and we need to move next door to him (his dad owns that house too) so we can help out. Still cool, cool, right? Oh, dad doesn’t want any animals in the house. I put the dog on hold (they weren’t responding to my calls & emails anyway), put up my hands and ride the rails down into household moving logistics mode.

We decide to rent out our current home (which is paid for) to our son and his friend and move just before Christmas. We buy furniture, curtains, kitchen stuff (because we’re generous parents and are leaving our old stuff for our son & his roommate to use), and start fixing up the house (hadn’t been lived in for years) so we could make the big move.

And then black mold happened. Yup. Entire upstairs bathroom of the house we’re supposed to move in to is moldy & it has to go. We call contractors and bathroom remodel specialists (yes, there is such a thing). First estimate comes in at $16,000. We can’t afford that and it isn’t even our house so father-in-law agrees to pay. Cool, cool. Except, he can’t agree on a contractor no matter how many we call. Bathroom remodel is stalled and I don’t want to live in a black mold swamp.

At family Christmas, it is confirmed that he wants us to move next door and he will pay for new bathroom. Excellent. Ten days later, he changed his mind. The move is now all off. Hubs and I’m now scrambling in damage control to find son and roommate a new place to live that they can afford and trying to figure out what to do with an entire new living room ensemble that doesn’t fit in our current house.

We work this out in a few days. Then my rollercoaster has one of those loop-the-loop features. Son #2 informs us that possible roommate got mad and moved in with someone else–and it is ALL our fault that he can’t afford to move out now. While hanging upside down on the first loop, Son #1 comes home and announces he’ll be moving back home (for reasons).

If I wrote this in a book you wouldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t either.

This life is what I know and I sure as hell don’t want to write a novel about it. I’m going to write what I WANT to know which is lovely gowns, gallant lords, and beautiful estates with no roller coasters.

rollercoaster crash

Talent is Tin, Opportunity is Gold

/ diana-lloyd

When people hear that I’m a writer, they all ask the same question. A variation of why/how do you write? I will answer, “I write because I have to,” and “One word at a time.” Those answers are the simplest form of the truth and yet still meaningless to someone who’s never felt the urge to fill a blank page with words.

My writing comes from a desire to create, live in, and enjoy a world outside the realm of the limited opportunities of my existence. Writing is my way of working around the old conundrum that while talent is tin, opportunity is gold. Writing creates opportunity. Opportunity to discover, learn, research and investigate things that were otherwise beyond my reach both physically and economically.

Reading is essential to writing. Reading is mining tin and storing up the raw material to later make art. I started as a reader. And I read everything; cookbooks, dictionaries, instruction manuals. I consumed words as if I had a literary tape worm. Somewhere between my Anne Rice phase and my all things Stephen King phase, I started reading biographies. I borrowed them from the library or bought them for a quarter at rummage sales and read them to learn about other lives, other ways of being.

Biographies led me to history and history led me down the path to historical romance. I can hear people sputtering now, but… but… Romance? Historical romance, to me, represents the triumph of heroines over biased social constructs, economic restrictions, and stifling patriarchy. Writing of these victories, one story at a time, is a balm to my own struggles with independence and authority.

Like so many others, I had to find the magic alchemy that would turn what little tin I had into gold. I was born into the sort of large, poor, small town family that rarely gets noticed for anything other than their run-down house or shabby clothes. Like my siblings, I started working while still in high school. I typed up forms at one job before walking down the road to flip burgers at the other job. I cleaned bathrooms, filed thousands of pieces of paper, and answered phones. Still, I had not saved enough to attend even the local community college.

So out I went into the world to greedily collect experiences while reading about lives much more glamorous than mine. The more I worked the less I had time to write but the love of reading never left me. Going to college got pushed further and further out of reach as marriage and then children took up my time. Until one day, a small notice in one of those shopper’s circulars that usually gets thrown in the trash after the good coupons are clipped out, a notice about the meeting of a local writer’s group caught my attention.

I didn’t know anyone there, I had never before been to the place where they met.  I remember sitting in the parking lot staring at the building, watching the other women walk in the doors and wondering if they’d think me odd and untalented. I went in anyway. At the end of the meeting they sat around the table, each reading a page or two of their current work. When my turn came I took the folded sheets from my purse, the scraps from where I pulled them out of the spiral notebook littered the table like confetti as I read. They hated it and told me so.

And yet I went back the next month. Because, while they hadn’t liked it, they had taken it seriously enough to discuss it. That crumb of encouragement was all I needed. Writing was no longer just the secret project hiding in a box under the bed, it was real. Turned out that little group of like-minded women were a chapter of the Romance Writers of America. Joining that group made all the difference in how much opportunity gold I was exposed to.

My reading tastes have changed over the years but historical romance will always hold a place in my heart. Stories of women with little autonomy, straining against rules put in place to keep them firmly within their social class and butting their heads against barriers constructed to keep them low and small, will always call to me. The characters in these books have to be quick and clever to overcome and survive. I read those stories for the triumph and satisfaction of the happy ending.

And that’s exactly why I write them.

I still belong to RWA and still see many of the women from that first table reading. The writing community is like the ocean in that you never want to turn your back on it for too long. RWA, however, will always welcome you home and toast your successes with you.