Poison

A friend of mine put on an old Baleen album while I was closing the coffee shop the other day. As the Jeff Buckley-esc vocals crooned over a dream-pop, shoegaze background I told him I used to be poisoned toward music. I used to hang with people (person--it only takes one) who disliked hearing new bands, who found reasons to dislike things and spouted them, and these reasons seemed reasonable to me and I took on the habits of dislike.

Now that I'm older, now that I've played with more bands and listened to a wider rang of music I find I like most of it for one reason or another. I can be very specific when asked, but I'm never asked. When I dislike something, though, I tend to get skin-crawl when I hear it, and even if I can tell it's well written, I can't listen to it.

Sometimes I think about people who hear a song or a band and instantly say, "this sucks" or "they're copying that other band" in a dismissive way. It is a habit that could close you off to enjoying music. To having your mind blown by music.

I recently had my mind blown by this song:




It was the first time I'd heard the whole album and I just fell in love. But THIS SONG. . . oh man I wanted throw my bra on stage. But I was in my car so I just hit repeat until I got home.

It's different for everyone, that poison, or that mind-blowing. You can dislike a band, like I did Green Day for so long, just because your friends are stupid about them. You can like a band just because some cool kid liked them. Shonen Knife--while I like them a lot, I wouldn't have listened to them if they hadn't been vouched for by Kurt Cobain. 

This idea of poisoning your experiences with negativity could sound a little new-agey, but it can crop up in other instances. I've recently had to move back to Charlotte, NC, to work the same job I had before I left (forever) a year ago. My disappointment sometimes swells to bursting and I have to sit on the bathroom floor for a few minutes and silently weep. But when my pity party is over I find I can be quite positive about my situation. I don't have it as bad as I could, and being unhappy is something I have a lot of experience with, so I think I can take it. I plan on getting out soon. I just don't know how. Or when.

Meanwhile, little experiences like loving an album or hearing a song that makes you feel amazing are the stuff of life. I guess I don't know where this blog is going or what else I'm going to write about, but I think if I try to keep writing in it maybe it will do me some good. 

Wow, did I say CRAFTED?

 

Thank the writing gods that the first draft of my novel was too long. The above picture is how I feel about most of it.

Okay, I'll be nice, yes it's the best thing I've ever written <wince> but no, it's not the best thing I COULD have written. I went through and took out the questionable things first, the scenes that had no bearing on the plot, the ones I put in for kicks--the ones I added because I was afraid it would be too SHORT. Okay, that only took off 5,000 words, which is a good start. So I cracked my knuckles and dove in to see if I could say the same things more concisely.

The fact that I'm only in chapter 3 (of 17) and have already cut an additional 3,000 words tells me something. It tells me that this stage, this step, which I so joyously ignored when I felt I had 'finished' the book, is the most important step. <facepalm>

I had read authors saying things like, "oh now you have to edit? the easy part is OVER!" and thinking, surely constructing an entire world out of your frikkin head is hard? Isn't that the hard part?

HAHAHAHAHA noooooooo. . . . It also isn't the most bruising for the EGO. Let me talk about the process.

So I read a scene that I was previously really proud of (because at this stage, I am proud of most of it), then I ask questions. The first, obvious question is, do I need this scene? If I can't justify its existence through character or setting or plot development, then out it goes. Usually the answer is yes, because I already went through and cut 5,000 words of that crap already.

The next question is, what is the main point of the scene? It usually gives depth to something or someone. If it doesn't, it explains something or someone. The next question after that is, how can I get the main point across without ALL THESE GODDAMN WORDS????

Yeah. So I go paragraph by paragraph, and break down the main point of each, and slide phrases together and cut out repetitions and extra adjectives (also, ands and thens), and pick the most powerful or important image and stick to that instead of the flowery BULLSHIT I seem to have vomited up on my first draft.

And let me clarify: I'm calling it my first draft, but it really isn't <wince>. The very first draft is on notebook paper. Each chapter written out and typed separately, then edited when I was ready to type the next chapter. Then I went through the whole book and 'edited' it, which was obviously just lip service I was paying judging on what I'm working with now. And now here I am again. Editing. For real.

This time it's slow going, like using a very fine toothed comb to clean a shag carpet. And it is not fun. It is far more like finishing a research paper you're really trying to make an A on and not much like creative writing at all. But it has become embarrassingly clear to me that it is the most important step, that tightening up the writing, making choices, cutting out the admittedly beautiful imagery or symbolism that doesn't help the story is what separates amateur from professional.

 I don't know if I'm a professional, I'm certainly not paid for this pain (yet), but I will say that I feel much better about the whole thing now I've asked those questions. I kind of feel this contempt for my past self, who just threw images and words around like a carefree hippie throwing blossoms or frisbees. My present self just wants to scream at my past self, take this shit seriously you twerp!

The First Novel

I just spent four months writing a novel. I don't have a job or any hobbies, and during the winter here in Canada going outside is not for the faint of heart, so I just sat here at my desk writing. Making shit up.

The book itself is a story about someone trapped in a situation, specifically a magical spell, that they neither asked for nor can really get out of without help. It's the best thing I've ever written, which is to say I've learned more crafting this story and these characters than anything I've done previously, because I actually did craft this story.

When I started writing stories I was 13, a freshman in high school. I vomited words onto paper without much thought. I described my surroundings. I let the pen guide me into the dark recesses of my apparently rather disturbed mind. It was exhilarating and it was fun, and sometimes cathartic. But it was not craft.

I wrote stories about murderers and rapists, crazy pariahs trapped in webs of madness. These stories usually started from a place of pain inside me and rocketed through wild, bloody fantasies that bore me up on their fetid breath like a kite buffeted by foul winds. The stories do not develop a character or trace a history; they are not crafted.

For this story, my first novel, The Spell, I threw myself into WHY. Why does this character do what he does? Why would this other character act this way? Why is he here, not there; why does she think this, not that? Then I had to decide how much was important enough to mention to the reader.

I had a first draft to work with, which I finished in 2009, but it was written in the way I wrote everything back then: I just started writing whatever was there in my head. It was only 35,000 words long, 135 pages, and it stank. It was a self-serving mess of masturbatory metaphor built, top-heavy, upon a weak, ill-conceived plot.

I went back and threw myself into it. I admit freely this would not have happened if I'd never read the Wheel of Time books. They struck a chord with me like no fantasy novels I had read previously, and I thought, I am inspired. I want to write this fantasy story and really put some effort into it.

I added and added and added. I had back story for characters who were, themselves, back story. I added settings just for flavor, characters explaining things just to have them included. When I finished I went back through it and hacked at the bits, trying to fashion it into something that made sense, something that flowed well and was easy and interesting to read.

And now I realize it is too long. At 120,000 words, this novel is too long for a first-time novelist. Many agents would not even look at it.

I am not a writer who is attached to what I create. I have lost far too much writing in my life--to hard drive crashes and floppy disks being put through the laundry--to feel like I couldn't part with 20,000 words of this novel. It can be trimmed and the story will stay intact, I know this. I thought I was done, and that felt good, but I am not done, and now I have another daunting task. 

Now I get to learn how to edit, and edit ruthlessly, to chop flowers from the garden so that the edges of the beds will speak in cleaner, more drastic lines, uncluttered by prose, or by poetry. Now I get to go back and make the story the point of the novel, and not the writing.

Names

This blog is named after my two tattoos, which are on each side of my waist.

This is an ohmu (pronounced just 'ohm'). It is one of the main characters in one of my favourite childhood movies, "Valley of the Wind" which was later re-released (with MUCH better dubbing) as "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind." The movie depicts a future suffering from the effects of the nuclear wars that ravaged the land, polluted most of the drinking water and created what is referred to as 'the toxic jungle,' which is where these ohmu live. They are about the size of a double-decker bus.

This is an ancient horse, from the cave painting in Lascaux, France. The horse is depicted (it is believed) as pregnant, not just adorably pudgy with tiny legs. The original painting was crafted by someone's hand around 20,000 years ago.

Maybe it was silly to name my blog after my two tattoo buddies, but I was seriously at a loss. I have had many strange experiences with names in my life. They either matter a lot, or not at all. I vacillate between these two extremes.

For example. I was born to a loving mother and father who decided to name me Kate Marie. Marie was a popular middle name at that time, and many of my friends shared it with me. Kate, on the other hand, is short for Catherine. Now, Catherine is a fine name, and gives rise to all sorts of nick names, one of which is Kate, but that was not my name. My mother was afraid people would shorten it to Kathy--and she HATED the name Kathy. All my father wanted--and still wants--was to call his little girl Katie. So that was my name.

It's strange, looking back. I can't remember a time when I didn't use another name in play. There was literally NO game I played where anyone referred to me as Kate. Or Katie. I didn't dislike the name, I just didn't identify with it. This is a strange thing to explain to anyone who hasn't experienced it, so I won't try.

But whatever. When I had my own time to spend, I could choose my name. I usually hovered around Diana, because of the goddess. And the princess--my mother is English.

Then I was 13 I started high school, and, after getting over my brief touch of culture shock, was building my own identity in the way most 13 year olds do. At the time my friends and I enjoyed a cartoon called Animaniacs. The humour was very Marx Brothers, and also stupid, and full of movie references which I always love. One of my friends told me she was going to start calling me Slappy, after the cartoon squirrel in the show. I liked the character Slappy--she'd seen it all, and was still feisty enough at a ripe old age to give 'em what was comin' to 'em. Eh, somebody shoot me.

So I was Slappy. I still am, in fact. It's the one name I've identified with. It was like coming home. It also really caught on within my circle of friends. There were many who didn't know my 'real' name for quite some time. My family still called me Kate. I'm not sure why.

Skip forward into college, adulthood. I tell people my name is Kate. They call me Katie. I tell them, no, just Kate. They get offended and say, Fine, with a huff.

This may have been part of a broader picture of the people in my area being more easily offended than the rest of the planet, but this was difficult to make light of at the time. When people read my name, they read, 'Katie.' And that's also what they heard. And that's what they kept calling me. And it rankled, for some reason.

I think back now and it seems strange to split hairs like this, but I never even felt like KATE was my proper name, so to have it constantly changed to the diminutive felt patronizing. And, oh god, do I hate to be patronized! hee hee! Perhaps I had picked up the 'easily offended' vibe from my surroundings.

When I joined a band in my 20s, the music scene was the first time I remember no one batting a fucking eyelash at my name. Oh, hey Slappy, how's it going? It was wonderful. 

When I began to work at a coffee shop with a friend of mine who knew me as Slappy, all my coworkers had to get used to this silly name. But it was old hat at that point:
"Hi, I'm Slappy."
"Really? I . . . don't know if I can call you that."
"It's cool if you don't, but after this shift I promise it'll make more sense."

And by the end of the shift, usually between bouts of laughter, my coworkers accepted the name and didn't think twice about it again.

Now, I know my limits. I know that, professionally, an office assistant or a lab technician (in the off chance I land a job like that, which I never have, to date) can't very well be seen under such a silly moniker. Offices, after all, are meant to suck all creativity and individuality out of a person. And it was still rankling me that the older I got, the MORE people insisted on trying to call me Katie. So I legally changed my name.

When I got divorced, I didn't want to take my maiden name back for a few reasons--like, for example, not being a maiden. So I decided to do a fell-swoop name change and just pick a whole new one. It felt like choosing my own destiny. It felt like trying to match a name to a character already mostly written.

I chose my first name easily--my mother's mother's first name was Jessamine. So that was a given. I needed to have Kate still represented in the name because my family refuses to call me anything else. It's like they're stuck in 1989 and can't get out. So I chose for a middle name, Hekate, the goddess of the crossroads. This made the first two initials match my mother's. For my last name, I picked Thursday. The day I was born.

Maybe names aren't important. Maybe if Romeo had been named Darren everyone would go around calling amorous men 'Darrens.' I don't know. What I do know is that my name has been a strange snarl of confusion for most of my life, and now it isn't.

"Jess, not Jesse" is probably going to get old, though.

Moving in General

My father was in the military so as a child I moved a lot. My mother packed everything and then the movers came, and then there was always a period where we lived on base furniture loaned to us. Fake leather sofas with wooden arms from the 50s. The movers in Turkey insisted we provide beer, and the customs agents counted all our electronics to make sure we didn't leave any behind. When we arrived at our next destination, always ahead of our things, we usually took a rental property 'on the economy' until base housing could be arranged. So really, every time we moved, we moved twice.

Moving as an adult is different, for me, in many ways. I moved out of my parents' house at 24, and down the road 5 miles. Crammed my furniture into the tiniest room in the 3 bedroom condo my friends and I rented. After that I moved around my city 6 times. Paring down the books at one stop. Then adding to them at the next. Each move has taught me something about material possessions, but wasn't really a MOVE in the sense that I didn't say goodbye to anyone.

This move, to Montreal, is like the long exhalation after far too many years waiting. When I was a child I spent some time settling in and then some time waiting to move. Everywhere I was had a time limit on it. Everyone I met was just a temporary friend. Still, wondering where we would be next, who we would next meet, was exciting to think about. I got used to it. Then my father retired and we stayed in one place, and stayed and stayed. As a teenager, as a twentysomething, I just stayed. Waiting.

I grew to dislike the place I lived, Charlotte, North Carolina. U-S-fucking-A. I tread carefully because southerners are a touchy lot, and I hate offending people. Or, at least I did before I moved there. There were times when my very presence offended those I had to share an elevator with, or a supermarket. So fuck them.

I will leave off that topic for another blog post. One about southerners. Because there are--true of all demographics--good and bad in all, and in all, there are those who are good, and those who are bad.

Moving, I suppose, is a time for reflection and anticipation. My reflections will be upon the place I lived but never called home; the anticipation is in what I will find waiting for me in this new place. I am bringing my best friend, my dog, my guitars, my notebooks. . . and myself. Discovery awaits.

Moving to Montreal

The first seven or eight boxes my boyfriend and I have packed contain around one-hundred books. I know how many because we are moving across the border, and the Canadians want a list of every item we bring with us.

To accomplish this in a respectably efficient fashion, we have a google doc spreadsheet so we can pack our separate boxes (he's taken even numbers and I'm taking odds) and detail what's in them on our separate computers. I'm not sure how the listing of the computers will happen yet. . . I assume they will be in boxes. . .

Montreal is in Quebec, which is a special, special part of Canada. From what I gather the French culture that exists there does so in the face of the enormous non-opposition that may be normally found in Canada with regard to such matters. Oh, you're French? That's cool, eh. All the road signs must be bilingual, and all workers must be bilingual, and in order to go there you have to check with them before even thinking about asking the Canadian government about it. These are scant impressions, I assure you, but here is the process.

My boyfriend is accepted to a college in Montreal. Which is in Quebec. So before he gets his student visa from the Canadian government, he has to apply for something called a CAQ, which is a certificate detailing his acceptance into Quebec. So he has to send something like 30 pages of documents to the Quebec Immigration office (Immigration et Communautes Culturelles) and they will issue him this certificate, and then it will be okay for him to get his student visa from the Canadian government.

So my impressions of this part of Canada are already a little mixed. I happen to love the French language and culture, so I'm excited about living somewhere where I can experience it first hand. But there seems to be many well-thought-out barriers to moving to Quebec designed to send the impression that the region is more autonomous than other regions of Canada. I admit: this fascinates me.

(web)Logs

I stayed at a bed and breakfast once in Kernersville, an old house renovated many times over the last two centuries. The owner left a diary from the beginning of the 20th century on the coffee table for guests to peruse. The diary contained entries about the day-to-day life of a woman distantly related to the owner who had lived in the house when it was still a farm house. What beautiful handwriting she had!

The diary entries were usually very boring. When you live on a farm you do chores all day apparently. Then you write in your diary that you've finally finished all your chores. The woman longed to see her sweetheart, and wrote excitedly about the days set aside for visits when they could spend time together. After chores.

Now that I've decided to start a weblog I'm worried that it will turn out to be as quotidian as the diary described above. My own diaries from high school certainly are. But I suppose they encapsulate a time period, a person who lived in a specific world detailed in the private thoughts and feelings locked up in spiral bound notebooks which I still keep with me. So I've logged before, but I've never blogged before.

For the eighth time now I am packing those notebooks into boxes and taking them to a new home. Every time I do this I talk about throwing them away and I don't. This time my old journals and I will travel across the border to Canada. So I guess that after living in a town I didn't like for twenty years, I'm starting a blog because I feel like life may finally begin when I leave. Perhaps that's what I wish to document.

I have a dim view of the sea of weblogs available to readers on the internet. I enjoy reading (some) blogs, but I'm not sure others will enjoy reading mine. I have to hope that I can inject something into the entries slightly more interesting than the bare facts and events. I hope to learn to do that while writing this blog.