Castles, pt 1

London is my favorite international city. I love to stand in its midst and breathe it in.

So the itinerary for my recent visit to the UK was, I admit, odd. I bought a Britrail London Plus pass and took day trips OUT of the city for half of my time in England.

Why?

Castles.

#1 Tower of London
(okay, technically in London)

#2 Windsor Castle

#3 Hampton Court

#4 Dover Castle

#5 Leeds Castle

#6 Arundel Castle

As these pictures attest, my first interest was in the exterior structure and architecture of the buildings: the gate houses and barbican towers, crenelations on the battlements, foundations, moating, windows, and stone work.

Confession: The long distance photo of Leeds Castle was taken when, upon leaving, I accidentally followed some locals down a path which was not on our map. They had snuck in for the day and were walking back to town the long way round. It was an adventure finding my way back to the castle grounds -- in time to catch my 4:45 shuttle to the train station.

Library: Sorted

It seems that I always find cleaning projects to do when I am trying to avoid other work, like correcting a stack of papers or actually putting my new story into words.

A few weeks ago, this happened.

And now my library is lighter by four grocery bags and a box full of books. The young reader books have been alphabetized for the first time. The old printer is gone. Stephen King's work is not only arranged by publication date but also fits well in its designated space. All the pretentious books I thought I would read (but never will) are gone. The graphic novel section has expanded. There is space on the "display shelf" for something new. And anything I want to read has been moved to the entry shelf unit.

I just looked to my left to find a sticky note, and I remembered that I also reorganized the "office" area of my bookshelves.

It was a delight to see supplies so neatly arranged.

I have no more excuses.

Poetic Forms

As someone who didn't appreciate poetry until my 40s, I've never wanted to be a writer of poems.

I have a sense of creativity, but my soul doesn't cry out in words.

However, given an assigned topic and form constraints, I usually have a lot of fun building words into something one would recognize as a poem.

Each form is like a fun puzzle. A problem to solve. And that's also how I would describe the writing of my novels so far.

In SPOTD, I had to plan out a month of varied superpowers, sprinkling stupid ones amongst the useful, balancing heroic days with anticlimactic ones, and making sure to avoid time travel anomalies. Super fun puzzle.

I especially enjoyed the rereading and editing process, when I felt challenged to make each word the exact right word, each sentence the exact right sentence.

So...

After a solid month and a half of cleaning up my spaces while world building in my head, I am finally ready to find the exact words for my new story.

Step one is to reread what I already have.

Done.

And I like what I have.

I remember enjoying the writing process last February and March. Here's my guess as to why:

For this new story, at least so far, I constrained each chapter to one page of single spaced 12 pt font. I used 3rd person POV, switching the limited perspective with each chapter. And so far, each POV switch moved from the central character of the chapter to another character who was present during that chapter, like a relay runner passing the baton. Time jumped. Locations changed.

These constraints gave form to my storytelling the same way an expected rhyme scheme or particular rhythm gives poetic forms their shape.

The question is, should I stick to the strict format I established?

We'll see.

Comicon 2015

Hear ye, hear ye. Let it be recorded.

Saturday, May 16th, my nephew and I attended our first comicon, the Midwest Comic Book Association MSP ComicCON at the Minnesota state fair grounds in St. Paul.

We arrived early, despite a drive that looked like this:

We donated food to save money on our wristbands:

Gathered our free swag:

And took it all in:

A month later, I'm still thinking about it. 

In a way, the artists and fans at a comicon are "my people." I didn't have to go out to buy an outfit for the day, I already had one. I've published books where a character has superpowers. I haven't read comics widely, but I knew who to write on a raffle ticket that asked for my favorite artists (Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess).

But I have other people. Theater people. Teachers. Cardinals, Cobbers, and Thunder Hawks. Campers. Readers. Wachtlers. Minnesotans. Put me in a group of them, and I'm at home. 

New Printer

Well, even with convenient online renewal, all books must eventually be returned to the library.

Before I parted with the most detailed, inspirational of the castle and knight books, I scanned a few pages for later reference.

I LOVE MY NEW PRINTER!

This half-price beauty, initiated with my 2014 tax forms, has a touch screen interface, a large enough platen for oversized books, a scanner that actually works, and the ability to communicate well with my Mac. Unlike the appreciated but no longer functioning hp it replaces.

Summer Travel to Jolly Old

I'm headed to England to see Benedict Cumberbatch play Hamlet because it's possible.

I bought a flight from Icelandair because they have good deals on flights.

I've booked a lovely, semi-expensive flat because the last time I stayed in London, there was significant disappointment in the hotel accommodations*.

I haven't planned more than that.

Getting there.
Knowing where I'll stay.
One thing I'll do.

That seems like enough to begin an adventure.




*One semi-working toilet for the entire floor in a room with no curtains; only one plug in, so we needed to charge our phones in the hallway where they could've been stolen; a hotel owner/manager who clearly treated the staff poorly...

Like-Minded Folk

I admit I own a lovely expensive camera, one that shoots not only pictures but serious video. When I bought it, I also grabbed a tripod. Somewhere in the back of my mind was a subconscious desire to become a video blogger. A vlogger.

Why?

Well, I watch a few vlogs from time to time, and VidCon just looks like so much fun. I know, I know. You don't have to BE a vlogger to go to VidCon. You just need to be like-minded folk.

The vlog thing never happened, probably because I'd have to rearrange the books on my library shelves (to be the background). And that would take effort. And mess up the alphebetizing. And, you know, because double chin.

So when I saw that the same people behind VidCon are planning a new con, centered on stories and storytelling, to be hosted in my own backyard of Minneapolis, I immediately bought a ticket. I consider this the first "open door" opportunity created by passing the directing baton.

Nerdcon: Stories. 

As they say...
3,000 people who love the institution of the story and want to spend some time celebrating with like-minded folk.



I am 100% like-minded folk.

More Fun Facts from Days of Old

Hey! It's medieval trivia time.

1. What do you do with the cauldron water once you've finished boiling your bacon-in-a-bag?

2. Lots of ladies wrapped their heads and topped off their look with a hat. How did they "do" their hair underneath it all?

3. What religious reasons were given for insisting that medieval women (who generally worked as hard as men when it came to menial labor) should do what they were told?

4. And why should they (medieval women) be silent?

5. How is the word "wardrobe" related to toilets?

6. What do you call the dude who empties the castle cesspit -- bucket by bucket -- to which the garderobe emptied?

Answers:
1. Use it to wash up, of course. (Yuck.)
2. Princess Leia braids swirled around their ears. Princess Leia braids!
3. Well, since Eve succumbed to temptation first, she, and all women by association, was considered evil. Thus, women were incapable of making sound choices on their own.
4. Since the four times the Virgin Mary's words are recorded in the New Testament were the ONLY four times she ever spoke, in her entire life, women who aspired to be like her would rarely speak. Obviously.
5. In a castle the toilet room was called a garderobe, since you could hang your best clothes in it and the smell would keep away moths. (Garderobe is the French version of wardrobe.)
6. A gong farmer. (Because when you have "to go", you visit the privy/garderobe.)

Not a land, a castle!

The littlest one (bottom right) turned out to be surprisingly well researched. Go figure.

Last week I took advantage of my local library and sheepishly checked out half a shelf worth of children's books on castles, medieval times, and knights. I've been reading serious scholarship on the topics of late, but I needed visual reference. Books with plots, plans, diagrams, arrows, maps, and PICTURES. You see...

I have written myself into a few corners with this story.

First, the captain of the castle guard ended up in the Castle Aco prison for no apparent reason, and I didn't know why he would deign to do so. I wasn't even sure what a castle prison should look like. Or if castles had prisons at all. Or guard captains. I knew that the idea of prisons for long-term punishment was not medieval, but the "dungeon" was. I needed help.

Second, Lamb was locked out of the Castle Aco kitchen, I and didn't know how to get her back inside.

It was fun to figure out these puzzles. Just like solving "problems" when directing a play, the search for my solutions required creative thinking, and the results ended up being much more interesting than they would have been without the struggle.

It turns out it's not a land I need to draw, it's Castle Aco. 

Working on the Lenovo

So far I am writing Lio and Lamb on my Lenovo Yoga laptop.

And, surprise to me, I am enjoying it. I purchased the Yoga in 2013, but it sat around unused and uncharged for most of 2014. This revelation, that I don't hate the machine, has me perplexed.

Graciously so.

The biggest difference, which I have mentioned in earlier posts, is moving the cursor around. On Apple keyboards, moving to the end of a line is a simple command+arrow. I have that shortcut fused into my subconscious memory. I think of moving to the end of the line and barely register hitting the keys to get there.

It doesn't work so easily on a windows based keyboard. Instead, to move to the end or start of a line, I need to hit the devoted "end" or "home" key, which are both easy to hit, but they require moving my hands away from the touch typing position. And I'm just not used to it.

Also, the PC delete/backspace key is slightly to the right of the Apple one, so my touch typing is a little off sometimes. I end up with ////// or  ====== where I meant to delete the word broken, for instance. And if I overcompensate, I end up at "home" and the cursor moves to South Dakota for a few minutes -- until I realize what I've done and find it. Then it's undo undo undo undo undo until I fix the mess I've made in the interim. I should call this move the South Dakota shuffle.

I will admit the Lenovo's touch screen is convenient at times. To move the page up or down, I just swipe it, like on my phone. I'm even faster with the magic mouse on my Mac, though. All in all, using the Lenovo's page up and page down keys is actually more efficient than swiping. Here's why: moving the page up and down with swipes means that the cursor ends up in odd spots.

And we're back to doing the South Dakota shuffle.

A Created Land

I'm thinking about drawing a map of the "land" in Lio and Lamb. 

That's usually one of my favorite parts of vaguely medieval fantasy. Tolkein's Middle Earth. Le Guin's Earthsea. Martin's Westeros (et al). I prefer the maps to be part of the books' pages, not just printed on end flaps. And I usually turn to them often enough to break my bindings there. 

Here's a picture of one of my favorite created worlds. This poster of Tolkein's Hobbiton hangs in my piano room. I bought it the last time I was in London, at my fourth favorite tourist spot there, the British Library. 

Tolkein painted this himself.

Do you want to guess my three favorite tourist spots?

Castle Aco

My characters have names. 

I searched through lists and lists of medieval names online (the internet was PERFECT for this task) and found one I liked for my main female character. She is Alamanda, but everyone will call her Lamb. And what name for the brother of a lamb? A lion, of course. He is Lionet, or Lio. 

And so, for now at least, the story is Lio and Lamb.

Those lists of names were brilliant. In fact, I pillaged them for names beyond those of characters. The main setting's castle (Aco) and money unit (Brand), for instance.

Lio and Lamb live in a roughly medieval, created world. And so it has been my pleasure these past few weeks to dig into the nonfiction side of my library, where Frances and Joseph Gies' Life in a Medieval Castle and Life in a Medival Village were just sitting around, unread. 

A few fun facts:

* When farmers (male and female) headed out to the fields for a morning of work, it was not uncommon to leave their babies at home. Unsupervised. Sometimes they would tie the babies into their cribs so they wouldn't wander off.

* Pretty much every household was a brewery / tavern. No licenses needed, just brew up a batch and hang out a sign, and there you go. Better brew it up strong, though. What revenues the lord of the manor missed out on by not licensing the brewing industry he collected in fines for weak ale. Cool fact: This was one area where women were quite industrious.

* Speaking of ale, a primary source of calories, it seems the typical consumption was a gallon a day. When serfs worked a day for their lords, food and a gallon of ale were provided.

* Rural marriage? A kiss and a promise.

* And wedding rings went about the fourth finger of the left hand because a vein there led straight to the heart of a woman, ensuring unity and love.

Children's vs. YA vs. Fantasy

Where do I want to go next?

YA?
I thought so. I thought I was ready for it.
There is a definite shimmer of temptation inherent in YA. I have so many favorite YA authors. I dream of sitting at a table of colleagues among those very authors. I know YA concerns and have an abundance of in-my-face models to use as character inspiration. Marketing is possible. Get one teen talking and let her spread the word. But I'm not sure my heart is in it.

Children's literature?
It's a genre that requires tight plotting and lean prose beautifully rendered. Like poetry, its main challenge is finding the perfect phrase. And that's my favorite part of writing. 

Fantasy? (Or at least fantastical.)
I am eager to build a world. It would entertain my little brother, at least. Something with castles and brigands, grit and hunks of bread. With an unlikely hero (of course) who saves the day. 

How to decide?

Well, inspiration has hit on several levels.

1. I heard a speaker challenge his audience members to take a close look at their lives and see where time is lost, to claim that time, and to compound it in order to achieve their destiny. I admit, it's a rather cheesy message. But it strikes home. The most productive month of my life was the February I shut off my television and got serious about publishing SPOTD. Now it is a new February. A month with little (or at least less) television would not be easy for me, as addicted as I am to characters of various shows. But I'm ready for a challenge. 

2. A new character has been born in my mind. I thought the story belonged to his sister, but it doesn't. At the very least, it is a shared story. 

3. This line from the musical Matilda: "All escapes start with the click of a lock." 

4. Finally, I am heeding the call of Neil Gaiman's words (posted in my last entry): "Try to make your time matter: minutes and hours and days and weeks can blow away like dead leaves, with nothing to show but time you spent not quite ever doing things, or time you spent waiting to begin."

And so, I'm beginning. 

New Year's Wishes

Each New Year's Eve, I like to post lovely words from Neil Gaiman's various New Year's Eve toasts on my Facebook page. I neglected my ritual this year, an oversight I mean to rectify today.

Please enjoy Gaiman's lovely words for 2015: 

Be kind to yourself in the year ahead. 

Remember to forgive yourself, and to forgive others. It's too easy to be outraged these days, so much harder to change things, to reach out, to understand.

Try to make your time matter: minutes and hours and days and weeks can blow away like dead leaves, with nothing to show but time you spent not quite ever doing things, or time you spent waiting to begin.

Meet new people and talk to them. Make new things and show them to people who might enjoy them. 

Hug too much. Smile too much. And, when you can, love.

Kate DiCamillo Marathon

The "you have eight books to pick up" from the local library message on my answering machine made me laugh. As if I'd have time for the luxury of reading eight books on a whim the same week that semester one grades were due. But when the eight books turn out to be, as expected, as delightful as Ms. DiCamillo's are, I'll make time for the distraction.

I was particularly enchanted by Gollie and Bink.

Here's what I love about DiCamillo's work:

     1. Little details that repeat meaningfully.
     2. Musical language that rarely speaks down to younger readers.
     3. Characters that aren't explained; they just are.
     4. Visuals.

Although the characters in my next project won't be modern gal pals (see above), nor a chicken who adventures around the world (Louise), nor a pig who eats buttered toast (Mercy Watson), I plan to write with meaningful details, musical language, and characters that need no explanation.

And someday, Publishing Gods willing, my next story may include visuals, like those in Gaiman's Fortunately, the Milk or Patrick Rothfuss' The Slow Regard of Silent Things. I just love the back and white sketches in such novels, how they add a layer to the enchantment and accessibility of the stories. Even as an adult reader, the thoughtful design of such visual pages draws me in.

July to January

Longest all-star break in history, eh?

My blog post title sounds like the name of a new indie duo. Or a Taylor Swift album. Or a short story collection short-listed for the National Book Award. Or names from a Larry McMurtry epic. All much more romantic ideas than the truth: my day job has been overwhelming and exhausting this year. Teaching a new class, assembling a huge cast and crew for a blow-out of a fall play, etc., has left little time for writing.

I suppose there are sneaky minutes here and there, even blocks of time when a novel could have been assembled between last summer and this midwinter. But I'm not a William Kent Krueger stalwart who can wake up early and plug away a little each day. I excel at working hard with focus on one project at a time, and I'm even better at collapsing into the evening or weekend, spent and gladly cocooning.

On my nightstand at the moment.

From time to time, I admit, new project ideas slide themselves into my thoughts. My little iPhone is filled with random notes on this or that. I imagine it'll be summer again before they are considered and shuffled to stories where they belong.

Next fall will see a schedule of classes I've taught before (because I've taught pretty much everything we offer at this point), a new fall play director, and (hopefully) time of my own to devote to a new project. In passing the directing baton especially, I'm opening space for a new adventure, whatever that might be. I'm unbolting the door. We'll see what walks through.

In the meantime, I'm rethinking SPOTD's next move and reconsidering my jump into YA fiction. I suspect my heart may still lie with the little ones.