Fairy Revel

I finally found a WordPress theme I can live with until I have time to really sit down and create my own. I may even tinker with this one when the time comes. I like the clean, “literary” feel of this one.

After a long break and some contemplation, I’ve decided to keep this blog a blog, maybe leaning toward the artistic journal sort of thing. I’ve refined my goals, and I’m going to make this journal part of my plan to reach them. I’ll be writing more essays about what I’m reading, and fantastic literature in general, and talking more about my other interests as well, because those are things that energize me and fuel my writing creativity.

One thing I’ve definitely decided is not to write anymore posts like this one. I intend to write more actual content, instead of just general, oops-I-haven’t-posted-in-forever updates.

With Gingko, my current work-in-progress, I think I’ve finally figured out my writing process. The novel survived the detailed outline stage, which I think may be a first. I’ll do a more detailed post on my process (as it stands so far) some time next week, but for now I’ll just say that it feels so good to have a process that actually gets me somewhere. It still remains to be seen whether I can get a finished, revisable novel out of what I have so far, but the outlook is good.

I’ve also been reading Booklife by Jeff Vandermeer, which couldn’t have arrived in my own booklife at a better time. It’s inspired me to look closely at how I balance online activities with the creative process, and is in part responsible for my decision to continue the blog. I look forward to sharing more about what Jeff Vandermeer has to say in his book and my thoughts on it in the near future.

A quick note on my current reading: Pathfinder by Orson Scott Card, the first book I’ve really read of his (Hart’s Hope did not go so well for me), which is keeping me as glued to the page as I can be with the holiday get-togethers and such going on this time of year. Japanese Tales, translated by Royall Tyler, a collection of Nara-era fairy tales (slowly getting through the very interesting intro). Booklife by Jeff Vandermeer. The Complete Sherlock Holmes, as always. Waiting for The Bards of Bone Plain by Patricia A. McKillip (come on, FedEx!)

I’m hoping for a lot of time to read this Winter, and a lot of good snow-storms to read by.

“God gave us our memories so that we might have roses in December.” – J. M. Barrie

Well, well. What have we here? According to Amazon, Patricia A. McKillip’s next book, The Bards of Bone Plain, will be out on December 7th of next this year! As if McKillip’s writing alone isn’t reason enough for me to buy it, the word “bards” in the title seals the deal. There is nothing I love more than bards. Unless it’s elvish bards.

I hope Kinuko Y. Craft will be creating the cover art for this one. It’s always an exciting part of the wait for any new McKillip novel.

It’s time for . . . Weekly Geeks! This week’s topic:

“There seems to be a bit of a theme going around the bookish blogopshere this past little while. Have you noticed many posts and lists and ponderings about books from our past? To go along with this trend, for this Weekly Geek installment, I’m asking you to think back to the moment when you realized “I am a reader!” The moment you felt that desire to read everything! The moment you knew you were different than most of those around you and that this reading thing was for real.”

I can’t point to a specific moment or book that made me realize I was a reader. I started out as a reader when I was four, and I can still remember many of the books I read as a child. Thinking of them brings back the sense of excitement and wonder I felt back then. My first real fantasy book was a chapbook illustrated with those odd ’70s-style Art Nouveau drawings so popular at the time, a retelling of the Welsh legend of Elidor, called Elidor and the Golden Ball, by Georgess McHargue. Though I forgot the title and author, I always remembered the lady dressed in green with apple-blossoms in her hair, the golden ball Elidor chased, and the snake that curled mysteriously in some of the pictures. Those images would sometimes resurface in my consciousness like a fish barely visible in a deep pool. Looking back, I see that book was my first experience of elves.

(By searching Loganberry Books’ Solved Mysteries, I was able to find a copy of this book a few years ago, and now it’s back in my collection. This is probably the only children’s book I will never let go.)

As a teenager I found less time for reading, but my interest in books was rekindled somewhat by the discovery of romance novels. I read mostly Jude Deveraux, Julie Garwood and Lavyrle Spencer, and I still appreciate those books. But eventually, I knew something was missing from my reading that I needed. I think it was magic, and a sense of something deeper, something beyond the the edge of this world . . .

I rediscovered fantasy literature as an adult, with Patricia A. McKillip. I’d always thought fantasy books for grown-ups looked a bit weird, with glowing muscley dudes on the covers with sword in hand, dragons holding crystal balls, that sort of thing. But I loved The Lord of the Rings, C.S. Lewis, and I loved the idea of fantasy. I just needed to discover the right author, and thankfully, I did. I think maybe this is why I always push McKillip on people and why she had such an influence on me; she was the first adult fantasy author I read seriously, and she helped me to see that everything I loved about it as a child was still there. I read somewhere—I wish I could remember where—that there are books you read in which you identify with the characters, and books you read and identify with the author; I think Winter Rose was the first book I felt that way about, and so in a very real way, Patricia McKillip gave me the first clue that I wanted to write. She writes books I want to read, and I want to read more of them. But just a little more like this, or more like that . . . you know?

But . . . as I learned to write, one thing I realized about myself is that although I’d always considered myself a reader, I really didn’t read that much. Life constantly got in the way, and if I was lucky and got to bed before 4 AM (long story I don’t want to go into), I might get to read for five minutes before falling asleep. Reading was not a priority. “I want to read more,” I said. “I want to read that book. I want to try that author. I just don’t have time.”

I think it’s only recently that I’ve decided I will be a reader. I’m not a particularly slow reader (which I used to think was the case), but I still find it hard to make time for reading. I’m easily distracted by the outdoors, and interruptions are many. My current goal is to read at least an hour a day, not at bedtime (bedtime reading energizes me and wakes me up, and if it doesn’t, then I can’t remember what I read the next day). I’m actively working towards a goal of at least a book a week (I know for some people that’s nothing, but for me it’s huge), I’m trying to discover new authors in my genre, and I’m trying to read some of the “Great Books” I missed out on as a wayward, free-spirited youth, hehe.

Now when the more “responsible” side of me says, “I don’t have time to read, it’s a luxury, it’s lazy,” I try to remember what Stephen King said in his book On Writing: “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”

“This week’s theme is: fun facts about authors.”

Which gives me an opportunity to pimp my absolute favorite author, Patricia A. McKillip. Yes, I will keep on singing her praises, because she is a genius. Multiple-award winning fantasy author Patricia A. McKillip:

1. Was born on on Leap Year, February 29th, 1948.
2. Has won prestigious awards, including the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement.
3. She lives in Oregon.
4. For awhile she thought she’d be a concert pianist, and she still plays the piano for pleasure.
5. She started writing at age 14—”In a fit of boredom one day when she was fourteen, she sat down in front of a window overlooking a stately medieval church and its graveyard and produced a thirty-page fairy tale.”
6. When she received the 1975 World Fantasy Award (which looks like the head of H.P. Lovecraft), her reaction was, “What the #@*!!$ is this?”
7. She enjoys and is knowledgeable about cooking.

(The above trivia was all uncovered at this Patricia A. McKillip fan page.)

Some of my favorite McKillip covers:

In Patricia A. McKillip’s The Bell at Sealey Head, two worlds are connected by the ringing of the sunrise bell. In Sealey Head where Judd Cauley runs his inn and an old noblewoman lays dying at ancient Aislinn House, the townsfolk go about their business in a “polite society” evocative of the 18th century, enjoying balls and tea time and the spray of the salt sea air, barely aware of the single toll that sounds at the precise moment of sundown. In another Aislinn House, knights and ladies wend their way through an elaborate set of rituals centered around the daily tolling of the bell, rituals they dare not shirk even to smile or to wonder “why?”

In all of McKillip’s works, the emotion of the story and the evocative language carry the reader along through a tapestry of dreams. Her characterization is both rich and archetypal, and there are funny moments as well as a sense of deep magic always flowing in the background. McKillip never neglects story, but in The Bell at Sealey Head, the story moves more to the fore than in some of her other novels. Lady Eglantyne is aged and bedridden, barely hanging onto life in her chambers in Aislinn House, an old house overlooking the port town of Sealey Head. While the townsfolk wonder what the new heir is like, Emma, a maid in Aislinn House, is able to open doors onto another Aislinn House, where Princess Ysabo moves through a series of daily rituals that she must perform without question, lest she face punishment. Ysabo walks daily up and down the stairs accomplishing seemingly meaningless tasks, feeding the crows last night’s leavings each morning, lighting candles, turning the blank pages of a book. The question “why” is rewarded with a slap to the face from a man whose name she doesn’t even know. Meanwhile, in Sealey Head, a mysterious guest has arrived at Judd Cauley’s inn, and everyone wonders who Ridley Dow is and why he is so curious about the daily tolling of the bell.

Reading The Bell at Sealey Head, there was a moment when I finally understood what novels are for. I can’t recall exactly which moment it was, but reading Judd Cauley’s thoughts, experiencing what he experienced, made me certain that the purpose of reading fiction is to know others intimately, to get inside the heart and soul of another and know them as we can know few others in this life. Someone said McKillip writes the same characters over and over, but the human spirit is endlessly faceted, and exploring those facets, over and over, can be rewarding in a way that coming up with new quirks and unique backstory isn’t. Her characters are archetypes, yes, but it’s not because she can’t think of anything new to say; rather it’s that she never runs out of things to say about people, and certain types draw her back over and over with the questions and puzzles they present. I think this is where movies fail and books succeed: there is no other media in which language can be used so precisely to explore the inner landscape of another person, as well as the external events that effect that landscape. It’s like living another life, for a few hours or days.

While the townsfolk of Sealey Head plan parties and make matches, the rituals in that other Aislinn House go on and on, and it serves as the inner landscape to the story itself. If Sealey Head is the story’s body, Ysabo’s world is its mind. It would be easy to say that the rituals Ysabo moves through in a neverending cycle are a commentary by the author on the vanity of meaningless religious practice, imposed upon us by men and tradition, and perhaps that’s so. But I kept thinking of the way we sometimes accept meaningless ritual in our everyday lives, how we wake up to an alarm, shower, convey ourselves to our destinations, then sit in our cubicles or classrooms busying ourselves with pointless tasks for reasons we don’t fully understand, made use of by a system set into place long ago. I think many people’s lives are not that different from Ysabo’s, and that our rituals can be similarly imposed upon us by a mysterious source or mindless acceptance that “it must be good because everyone says so” or “it’s always been this way”.

Of course, narcissists, control-freaks and powers-that-be sometimes use ritual to mind-numbing effect upon others. Often the ritual in The Bell at Sealey Head reminded me of the controlling spouse who demands all labels in the kitchen cupboards face forward, or that the floor behind the refrigerator not harbour a speck of dust. Such arbitrary, whimsical rules are a prison for the person who must perform the rituals day after day, until their own thoughts are bound by this control mechanism. The constant cycling of Ysabo’s ritual, going up and down winding stairs, feeding the crows, lighting a candle, locking a door, echoes the misery of a mind locked in its own meaningless rituals, trapped in the prison of obsessive compulsive disorder, in which the rituals must be performed over and over again without question lest evil befall the individual. The “body” that is the town of Sealey Head goes about its business, unaware of the cycling torment of its inner world, as the individual may go about their business giving no indication of their own inner turmoil.

But The Bell at Sealey Head is not a heavy book. It’s more story-driven than McKillip’s books usually are, but the writing is still beautiful, the characters still rich and the magic still deep. The plot of this book is fun and the relationships are charming; The Bell at Sealey Head has a light tone that makes for a slightly different sort of read than McKillip’s other works, though her signature use of repeated motifs is still present. Mostly though, the characters and McKillip’s humor—more apparent in this book than some of her others—really drew me in. Highly recommended.