Who am I 

that you know my name?

What am I 

that you know my being?

What causes you,

ineffable giver of life,

to cast your eyes on a filthy clod

of dirt, breathing dirt,

like me--

and raise me up

and cry 

to turn me from mud

to clay

to pristine vase?

I fear the fire

I fear the molding,

I fear the forming of my soul.

But I know--

deep inside I know--

the joy of the potter's own.

I have seen, I have envied,

I have not dared to grasp.

But I don't need to.

You grasp.

I need only to be pliant

and to know that you are God.

Song of the Hermit

“Come home, come home!”
They call to me.
But I have wandered far too long
To give up being free.
“Return, O child,
And sit at home!
Return to the arms
Of our glad company!”
But I am used to being alone
And find I’m sufficient for me.
What need have I of mortal men
When I have found the mystic glen?
Why venture where the mad crowds dwell
When I have found the hidden dell?
“Return! Come home!”
They call to me,
But their voices grow so dim.
I do not heed, for I wander on,
Far from the haunts of men.

I would say this is the lazy way to post

but this blog post by another young lady (total stranger, sadly) was far too good not to share. I know some who stop by this blog (if they haven't given it up as defunct!) aren't on Facebook, which is where I found the post.

http://gracefortheroad.com/2012/02/03/idontwait/

Random writing

Someday, I might actually write this into a story properly. But for now, it's just a random scene that popped into my head.


Haylan swam slowly out to meet them, his dark eyes flickering from Lotan to Harod.
    “Did we scare you so much?” Lotan chuckled. “Did you think we were spirits?”
    Haylan reddened. “Of course not.”
    “But you were scared,” Harod said. “Because we’re humans?”
    “There’s nothing frightening about humans,” Haylan said scornfully. “No, for a moment, I thought instead…”
    They waited a moment for him to continue, before Lotan prompted, “Thought what?”
    Haylan’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I thought you were water women.”
    In chorus, they asked, “Water women?”
    “You don’t know what they are?” They shook their heads. Haylan stared at them incredulously, and then turned and swam back to the bank.
    “Well, what are they?” Lotan demanded.
    Haylan caught at a bush and dragged himself onto the grass. “River demons.” Harod shivered in the water, and splashed to shore. Haylan made room for him on the bank and then continued mysteriously, “They appear as the most beautiful sylphs a man can imagine, with voices sweeter than harps and eyes like the moon on a fair night. And they sing. Whatever it is your heart dreams about, they sing. To a miser, they sing of gold; to a soldier, of fame and glory; to a lonely soul, of everlasting love.”
    “Demons indeed,” Lotan grinned. “I’d give a fair price to have a beautiful woman sing to me of my dreams.”
    “But they’re demons all the same,” Haylan whispered. “No faery dares approach the river when the water women sing.”
    Fascinated, Harod dropped his voice also. “Why not?”
    Haylan smiled grimly. “Because they’ll drag you under the waters and eat you.”

I've discovered Joseph Conrad.

He's most famous for his work "Heart of Darkness", which was an excellent look at the darkness in the human soul. But he captured me before I read that novella, with his short autobiographical story "Youth". The first two sentences did the trick:

"This could have occurred nowhere but in England, where men and sea interpenetrate, so to speak--the sea entering into the life of most men, and the men knowing something or everything about the sea, in the way of amusement, of travel, or of breadwinning.
    We were sitting around a mahogany table that reflected the bottle, the claret-glasses, and our faces as we leaned on our elbows."

Awright, let's have a little fun with words and look at the first sentence. It's a quintessential example of the way they wrote at the turn of the century--a long sentence that at once sets the scene and the time. It's also a masterly opening: "This could have occurred". That raises the prompt question "What?" Conrad doesn't answer the question till the following page, but you don't mind the wait. The scene: the broad, broad ocean and the English sailors upon her. The time: back when the ocean was England's great thoroughfare. Conrad makes reference to steamers as well as sailing ships, so the turn of the century is a safe guess for time. But we don't need an exact year; with Conrad, the general time is enough.

The second sentence is my personal favorite. It's such a well-crafted scene, with such economy of words and such a vivid picture. With that one sentence, we know they must be in a well-to-do setting--mahogany and claret are not for the lower classes! And it's well-kept, for the table is polished brightly enough to serve as a mirror. And that is also why I love this sentence: simply by mentioning the reflection, Conrad tells us what's on the table, what's going on, and who is around the table. He is non-specific as yet, and still clear enough that we understand.

The mention of the claret glasses and the men leaning on their elbows--it must be after dinner, and these men are meeting together to talk, either to discuss business or to visit. Visiting seems more likely, given the casual pose of leaning on the table, and further in the paragraph, we learn we're right. They're visiting with each other, and one man has a particular story to tell of an incident in his youth. But for now, they are meeting. That's all we need to know.

The rest of the story is interesting: a coal barque's trials in attempting to get the cargo to Bangkok, and the disaster that ultimately befalls the ill-fated ship. But those first two sentences--those are genius.

A metaphor

I stood on the bank of a river,

stuck in a toe and felt

invigorated, refreshed, yet chilled to the bone.

And looking over the waves, I perceived

swimmers in the torrent.

Some struggled, nearly sinking,

others floated, eyes glowing,

buoyed up by the icy flow.

I had thought I could swim;

now, I do not know.

But I long, I long

to the core of my soul,

to join those who float,

to float to the sea,

and see what becomes of me.

I have come up with a magic formula:

ADDS--Action, Dialogue, Description equal Story.

Well, I say come up with; I should say recognized. All the stories I like most have something happening in them, to people who must talk to each other, in a land that is described. It's a ridiculously basic formula, but I like it.

I tried another bit of blank verse today.

It was more stream-of-consciousness than my poetry usually is, so I think it's bad. I don't know. I should leave blank verse alone.

I keep daydreaming about going to Ireland. I've worked out some of the logistics, but I really need to bounce the idea off my boss before I start making any concrete plans. My sister has made plans based on my idea. Not just concrete plans, I swear she's building a house. I really should work out these plans.

I spent yesterday feeling like playing hooky. This resulted in skipping my improving book at lunchtime in favor of finishing a poem and writing a synopsis for an ongoing idea. Then it resulted in staying up until one o'clock in the morning, eating kettle corn and watching TV shows on Hulu. But my Facebook friends told me there's nothing wrong with nutty stuff like that, as long as I enjoyed it. Apparently, kettle corn is a popular thing.

I am so stuck on the Bard story, it isn't even funny. But, since the dear sweet kids in Sunday school are curious, I promised I'd read them the original draft. I figure, hey, eight-year-olds aren't going to notice bad writing. We'll see how far that idea takes me.

I listened to Mumford and Sons earlier today. Now I have one of their songs stuck in my head. But since I play it more as background music than as sing-along music, I have no idea of which song it was. Ah well, it makes nice mental background music too.

I'm also working through Antony and Cleopatra for the second time. For some reason, the first time I read it I thought of it as comical. I have no idea why. Because it isn't. She's concerned about his faithfulness, since he left his wife for her and then remarried for political reasons when his first wife died. He's torn between his love for her, his duty to Rome, and his growing uneasiness about Caesar Octavius. Octavius would really like it if Antony would settle down and help crush Pompey's rebellion. And that's just Acts One and Two, folks. Good old Shakespeare, packing a million events into a tiny booklet. I still want to see this play performed. I should get Julius Caesar, too, and finish watching that.

This is the sort of random trivia that I subject my dear father to on my way to work. Since he's not home and I'm bored, I am now inflicting the random trivia on the internet. Shazam.

My mother is a brilliant woman.

She's brilliant in many, many ways (her spiritual walk and her cooking both spring immediately to mind), but what I'm thinking of today is her clever take on literary education.

Step one: she got her children addicted to reading. By addicted, I mean we are those curious, anti-social creatures that read at all meals (except mandatory family meals), read at the beach, the putt-putt golf course (actually not recommended if you want to be somewhere above last), and, on house-cleaning days, read in the bathroom.

Step two: she removed all books that were not classic literature. (Should've put this sooner: warning, this post may contain exaggerations.) This forced us to rely on books such as The Chronicles of Narnia, the Lord of the Rings, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and history books for entertainment.

Step three: she turned us loose at the library. Having had our reading tastes shaped by her clever ways, we immediately headed for the classics. Some of us discovered classics like Shakespeare.

The end result of our literary education is that not all of us know how to connect to our peers.

Me: Hi! Read any good books lately?

Other Teen: Yeah, I just discovered the Twilight series. Ever read those?

Me: No...

Other Teen: Well, what do you like to read?

Me: Ooh, I just read a great Shakespeare play! Ever read Julius Caesar?

Ah well, at least I can quote the Bard with reasonable accuracy.

Ever reread something you wrote and wonder

what on the green earth you were thinking? Yeah. I actually deleted a poem last night, something I pretty much swore I'd never do. But it was that bad. I'm also thinking of my "void" tic that I tried out at the start of the blog. Cutesy is not my style. The world will be glad to know that I do not intend to do that again.

And then there are the things you write that aren't necessarily poorly written...but you kind of wonder how on earth you wound up going there. How did my comic caper novel wind up veering into a drama? Wait, my princess story has dwarves now? (That actually worked really, really well. Dwarf as a dentist? Don't think it's been done!) That scene with the guy talking to the girl that somehow became incredibly awkward? Yeah. Some days, the story just waltzes away from you.

And some day, the story doesn't waltz, it stomps away and sulks in the corner. That's where I am right now. I've been struggling to get more than three words written on this story. Per day. Possibly per week. And the really sad thing is that the kids I teach in my Sunday school are adorably faithful about asking me, "What comes next? Have you written any more?" They get disjointed synopses. They get bare snippets. And they keep asking for more. I think it's partly because I have promised, on my word as a Sunday school teacher, that I will let them read it. If it's ever finished.

I really like this story. I'm working on my second draft, seeking to expand, to better characterize, to remove plot holes. I have the plot worked out; I have the filling material for the holes on my mental shelf; I have a more-or-less idea of how characterization will improve. (Yeah, it's a little more hit and miss...) And somehow, I get far more stuck on this draft than I did on the first! Right now, I am trying to write a ballad for the Bard to recite. I have a verse and a half. I need at least three. And it doesn't help that I gave myself a kooky rhyming meter to work within. It's got to tell a story, and it's got to be a halfway decent poem, and it's got to fit the Bard's personality.

I must be out of my mind.

I am determined

to write more. And if my stories are going nowhere--which, to a page, they are--I shall write on my blog! This, at least, requires little coherence.

I like my stories. I really, really do. I like spinning them. I like inventing characters for them. I like trying to challenge myself to write different characters. There's one, who is mostly just chilling in my mind, but spilling over a little bit to my computer, who is as nearly silent as I can possibly make him. First time I've ever deliberately made a character who did not talk his head off. Usually, I have a fair idea of where a story starts, what'll happen in the middle (a vaguer idea there, admittedly) and every once in a while, a good idea of how it will end. The people are easy. The story line isn't too difficult. It's the individual scenes that have me wandering in circles, muttering "And then she says...what? He says, 'oh yeah?' and then she says....what?" (Yes, that is how the creative process goes. In circles, muttering. Yes, it resembles insanity. No, they're not always the same thing.)

I find my favorite story ideas are the ones that stick with me, long after I've abandoned the original writing project, long after I've told myself there's no story there. The characters stay, for years and years, changing, growing, meeting new people, rewriting endings, discarding and acquiring characteristics. All in my head. Sometimes this leads to staring vacantly into the distance, but not always.

I have many favorites. One of my old favorites is the cop story I've had bouncing around for....two years? Three? I'm bad with dates. Another is the war story that is definitely shelved, but has remained comfortably on a mental shelf for four years. And once in a while, I dredge up the truly ancient stories, the ones from six and seven years ago, the ones that, were they to take human form, would be doddering simpletons. But they had some nice things. Like names. I tend to be consistent about the names I like.

Archie Devereaux is a name I used quite a while ago. That one needs to make a reappearance. And though it is imbued, for me, with the character of its original owner (with the character of its character), Michael Holbeton. I still like that one.

I have written.

Saturdays in Rhode Island

I’d get up
between 6 and 7:30--
early enough to hear
the echoes of the crack of dawn--
bolt downstairs in my
green sweatpants that were
what all true adventurers wore that year,
and devour my breakfast of champions:
milk and sugary cereal, guaranteed
to fuel my deeds for the day.
And then I’d beg,
“May I go ride my bike now?”
The other kids would be out,
dashing up and down the streets in friendly packs.
And my parents would ask that question,
“How’s your room look?”
And that question usually sent me
back up the stairs, a little sheepish.
And then I’d rush back down,
“Now may I go ride my bike?”
“The dishwasher,”
they’d say,
“you still have to finish your chores.”
Amazing, how quickly I could work
when I ached to be outside.
And then they’d let me go,
with smiles on their faces,
watch me fly to my bike and join the crowd.
We would go all over the neighborhood:
play cops-and-robbers,
go to the local playground
race each other up and down the streets.
One family had
an enormous oak tree that
spread hugely across their yard.
And if you knew where to step,
where to put hands and feet,
you could
climb up into it,
and sit where two gigantic branches spread
away from the trunk,
or climb into the branches to
make room for others.
There was a man who had a dog,
a Golden Retriever named Ranger.
That dog was my hero, for,
at a word from his master,
he would leap up the oak tree, jump
through the cleft at the trunk where the
branches spread,
and jump down on the other side.
It always took me a minute to climb up,
but Ranger leaped like a squirrel.
And finally, we would go home,
when the world got dusky
and the street lights
were coming on,
calling our goodbyes,
challenging each other to
another game of cops-and-robbers,
and I had decided I’d be a cop next time,
because the robbers
always got caught.
And we’d head in to our dinners,
and say hi to our parents, who must
have noticed that we smelled like dogs
because we’d been playing so hard.
but they never really mentioned it. It
was just part of Saturdays.

"Tough love" doesn't feel very loving, Void.

I suppose that's why the adjective is "tough." And a master of tough love--and, really, Christian loving in general--is indubitably my older brother.

Like any good brother who works at a gym, he pointed out to me that I am woefully out of shape. "I am not!" I protested. "I'm skinny! I...move around a lot!" But lifting household groceries does not really mean that I am in shape, and he pointed that out to me. "I don't intend to lift anything heavier," I said. That did not fly.
Having guilted me into realizing that I am a lazy, obese schlub on the inside, however model-esque my exterior may be, he moved to step 2 of tough love: addressing the problem. I now have a gym membership. I haven't used it yet; I only just got it. But come Monday, I expect I shall be melting into a little puddle of sweat and whine at his feet, while he bellows at me, in his finest imitation of a drill sergeant, "ON YOUR FEET AND LIFT THOSE WEIGHTS, YOU WHINGING* LITTLE BRAT!" *whinging: British: to complain fretfully, to whine. Courtesy of Merriam-Webster.com

Well, that's still to come. But he gave me a foretaste today, by telling me that most people cannot hold the "plank position", the "up" point of pushups, for two minutes. I gave it a shot. The first time, I lasted for about fifty-four seconds before plopping into a sore, sorry bundle. The second time, I managed to hold for an entire minute. After I had done that, he cheerfully informed me that I had better not do any more, because I'll be sore tomorrow!
What? Holding still for two minutes (less six seconds) and I'll be sore? What sort of fiendish trick is this?! Tough love, he tells me cheerfully. And then, to drive home how out of shape I am, he then proceeded to hold the plank position for three minutes and one second.

Well. The showoff. But I'll show him! Monday, I shall go to the gym and work out! Ha! That'll show him, all right!

...right up until I collapse whimpering.

I'm going to tell you about a story, Void.

About the evolution of a story. It started when I was sixteen. I had been reading about the Roman emperors: Octavian, Caesar Augustus, and all the fellows who followed. And I came across an unusual name: Flavian. The Flavian emperors, who ruled Rome for a time. For a while, I stared unseeingly at my history book and revolved the name around in my head. Flavia...like the lady in The Prisoner of Zenda. It continued revolving, and then formed into Favian. Simple enough, just take out the el, not a bad name. But it was a little more than a name. It was a seed.

Over the next several days, I evolved more names and a story, which turned into the tale of Favian Windlow, a half-elf who learns he is the heir to a duchy in the Faery Realm.

It was dreadful. In a whole lot of ways.

I had two villains. One was a psychopathic megalomaniac and one was a shambling lout whose chief distinction was his deep and sadistic hatred of Favian, his cousin. I had a comic relief duo, I had stuffy older elves, I had a dashing captain of the guards. And, of course, I had a beautiful lady love, with whom both Favian and the shambling lout fell in love. I wrote a good sixty pages and went nowhere. And I plagiarized about half the names from Tolkien, with the innocent assumption that he wouldn't care, since he is dead.

Well. It petered out, as I said. And for a year, perhaps two, it sat there: a behemoth gathering figurative dust.

I think it was two years later when my late epic began nudging me in the back of my mind. Favian Windlow. Really not such a bad name. And the core idea: a half-breed faery struggling to fit into an upper-class society, woo a lady, battle his uncle? Not bad at all! I listened dutifully and decided to try to resuscitate the story.

I changed some stuff; Favian turned from a pitiful orphan being raised by his hateful uncle to a young man in the army. The plucky comic relief stayed, in a sort-of subdued way. (They were kind of necessary to the story.) The dashing captain stayed, and acquired a sidekick. The stuffy older elf became somewhat cooler. And the villains evolved into interesting people.

The psychopath, Favian's uncle, remained his uncle, but he turned into an elf with a genius for administration, who tries to take over the throne with the belief that he would be a better ruler than his brother--a coup more in the interests of the people than of the love of power. The hulking cousin quit being a cousin and became the uncle's loyal companion and the captain's nemesis. And then I hit a new problem. I fell in love with my villains.

So now my story of Favian Windlow has become the story of Valtimer, devoted servant and surrogate son to Felsar Windlow, the exiled duke. Maybe there's still hope for Favian's tale: the half-breed trying to fit into a strange society. But probably not as long as Valtimer is around.

And the dragon. Valtimer has a dragon.