What is the best that could happen?

Let's be honest. Right now, the world truly sucks. We are dealing with a global pandemic, the rise of fascism, and incompetent world leaders. We are anxious, exhausted, and consumed with fear. In order to find at least a tiny bit of cope, we must ask ourselves:

WHAT IS THE BEST THAT CAN HAPPEN?

"Covid-19 numbers infection rates go down."

"Nationwide, all police departments destroy the traces of white supremacy that foul the system."

Then, we ask:

HOW DO WE MAKE THAT HAPPEN?

"I can continue to wear a mask and social distance. It's really hard, but I've done hard things before."

"I will write and call and protest to the best of my ability. It is scary and feels small, but it is less scary than doing nothing."

We cannot make the best happen if we do not know what it is.

Greatest Hits

Jane with Heather Locklear.

Once again, it is time to get into the Way Back Machine and discover what exactly is hidden in my blog's archives.


Published January 7, 2010, here is a writing game courtesy of Jane Porter.

***

Several years ago, Jane Porter spoke at my local RWA chapter, the Rose City Romance Writers.

I'll be honest. Jane's blonde, gorgeous, petite, skinny, and looks about sixteen. I was consumed by envy. Then she gave a brilliantly inspirational speech about where your writing fits in the market.

I was expecting something very business-like, maybe a breakdown of the different publishers and what they tended towards.

Instead, she talked about the roots of your writing- the fables, myths, and fairy tales that consumed you as a child. What could you listen to over and over? What were those themes? What keeps coming up over and over for you?

The fairy tales didn't reveal that much about me, I thought. I picked.

1. The Seven Swans: I chose discipline, faithfulness, and sewing shirts out of flowers (transformation) as the themes I loved about this story.


2. Aladdin : Flying, courage, and risk.


3. Sleeping Beauty: Disguises, awakening to a new reality, and (what the hell) fairies with personalities.

I really flailed with these. No common themes seemed to emerge. Then we went to mythology. I chose:

1. Medea: Revenge, justifiable wrath, a woman who controls her life, a woman who kills, escape



2. The Golden Fleece: Powerful allies, justifiable wrath, travel



3. The Aenead: Rising from the ashes, travel, new starts

I suddenly realized why my attempts at light-hearted romantic comedy failed miserably. I had much darker stories inside of me.

I focused on the story that began, "She swam in an ocean of blood" instead of "Lola blinked." I'm pretty sure we can all tell which first sentence is far more attention grabbing. :)
(That's not the first sentence anymore, by the way ;).

Myths, fables, legends, and fairy tales are our playground. They provide the archetypes, the symbols, and the language for our lives.

Play the game with me. What are the stories that have haunted you? What themes do you carry inside of yourself?

Painful reality

My dear friend, Su Lute, is a gifted writer who is one of the co-authors of the witty and important blog, "See Jane Publish".

Today, she reminds all of us of a frightening reality of a woman's life. She shares the story of a fellow nurse and good friend who was killed this week by domestic violence.

What is there to say when this tragedy occurs?

I'm sure there are 'helpful' people who will scold Su for "not getting her friend out of there" or "not alerting the authorities".  To these people, I gently remind them - stopping domestic abuse is not as simple as riding in like the Lone Ranger and saving the day with a Grand Gesture.

For the rest of us, I say that that romance is important.  Abuse is one reason why. Women must have hope that they can survive an angry man. We must have hope that love will mitigate the violence that is rampant against women.

When we are fatigued and hopeless from the odds stacked against us, romance gives us a chance to restore our souls and refresh our bodies. Then, we can go back into the world and fight the good fight for our rights.

Fear can drag us down, convince us that we are trapped by a world that hates us, wants us to be silent, wants us to disappear, wants us to be available as sexual objects only, and that dismisses our intellect and our talents.

Anything that gives us hope, bandages up our courage, that helps us remember our fallen sisters, cannot be dismissed.

Booyah!

Yesterday was a power day - I not only made up the four pages from Thursday, I managed to get ahead a page. That's *17* pages in ONE day!

The best writing advice I've gotten

I've been fortunate enough to receive some brilliant advice from a wide variety of sources. I hope to explore some of these A-ha! moments in the upcoming days.

The most important words I have are:

DARE TO BE AVERAGE!

I found this in (where else?) Feeling Good by David Burns

.

Most people write (or want to write) are perfectionists. If we don't write perfectly, then we are failures. If we don't sell a million copies, we are failures. 

You might have noticed that this doesn't lead to happy writing.What the heck? What have you got to lose? Perfectionism doesn't work, so why not try something new? You might feel awkward at first, but the liberation will stun you.

To quote:

For any activity, instead of aiming for 100 percent, aim for 80 percent, 60 percent, or 40 percent. then see how much you enjoy the activity and how productive you become. Dare to aim at being average! It takes courage, but you may amaze yourself! (p. 356)

By taking off the pressure to a staggering super genius, you and I can write with our own clear voice. Ideas become fun, instead of sources of anxiety. Mistakes become a game, not the end of the world.

Try it for a day, or even a week. Tell me what happens when you dare to be average! Do you feel less anxious, more productive, or did you have to face the fears that fueled perfectionism? 

Story Basics Part IV: The Mentor Archetype

The name Mentor comes from a character in the Odyssey. Telemachus, Odysseus' son, goes on a quest to find his father. The goddess Athena takes the guise of Mentor (a human male) to give Telemachus advice, training, aid, or necessary gifts to finish the search.

The Mentor is a very rich archetype. Joseph Campbell named this role as The Wise Old Man or Woman. The Mentor's job is to represent our highest selves, the part of the heroine who is wise and far seeing.  A mentor decides if the heroine has earned gifts to help her, or can act as her conscience. The Mentor motivates and initiates the heroine, too.

Mentors can be kindly  parental figures or they can be dangerous, teaching the Heroine through hard knocks. A Dark Mentor is one who starts a character on a tragic arc, leading her into danger or destruction. Fallen Mentors have lost their own way, and part of the Hero's story is to make the Mentor pull herself together. There are often multiple Mentors in a story, as well.

After all, James Bond not only has M, he has Moneypenny and Q to help teach him what he needs. Arthur has Merlin, but also his brother Kaye, his father, and even his half-sister to teach him lessons.

Mentors can be funny, mystical, young, old, or even part of the Heroine's inner landscape as a memory or code of honor. They can show up in the beginning, middle, or end of the story. Don't get stuck thinking your Mentor has to be Obi Wan with a beard and a nifty sword. Anyone and anything can teach your Heroine what she needs to know.

Rejections and all that.

Dracula's Secret got rejected by Berkley yesterday.

In order to keep myself optimistic and encouraged, I frequently read this quote to myself:

 ###

Here's what I tell my students on the first day when I teach one of my creative writing courses:

You will be published if you possess three qualities- talent, passion, and discipline.

You will probably be published if you possess two of the three qualities in either combination - either talent and discipline, or passion and discipline.

You will likely be published if you possess neither talent nor passion but still have discipline. Just go to the bookstore and pick up a few "notable" titles and you'll see what I mean.

But if all you possess is talent or passion, if all you possess is talent and passion, you will not be published. The likelihood is you will never be published. And if by some miracle you are published, it will probably never happen again.

Quote from Write Away: One Novelist's Approach to Fiction and the Writing Life by Elizabeth George

Since I have both passion and discipline, I feel most optimistic. :) Talent? Time will tell that. :)

Quote-tastic for the Holiday, part II

"May your walls know joy; May every room hold laughter and every window open to great possibility."
Maryanne Radmacher-Hershey

"Every day is a god, each day is a god, and holiness holds forth in time. I worship each god, I praise each day splintered down, and wrapped in time like a husk, a husk of many colors spreading, at dawn fast over the mountain split."
-Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

A great deal of life consists of hurling ourselves into poorly-mapped abysses. That's how things get _done_. We can try to choose our abysses well, but there comes a time when we have to leap. Daily.
-- Patrick Nielsen Hayden

"anyone or anything that does not bring you alive is too small for you." david whyte

"Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic and I wish I could take it all back because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy. Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them. It is a ****load of work to be open-minded and generous and understanding and forgiving and accepting, but, Christ, that is what matters. What matters is saying yes."
-Dave Eggers in "The Harvard Advocate."

Don’t let fear decide how you live, what you wear, what you say, or what you do. Identify your fear, understand it and accept it, and move on.
--Coco Graham

A bad reputation can set you free. After all, if you've already declared yourself to be a pot-smoking, acid-addled slut, your opponents are forced to oppose your ideas on their merits, rather than strategically revealing your hidden depravities. Shame is no weapon against the shameless.
-- John Perry Barlow

(so when people get snippy about writing romance, just smile and agree. "Why, yes! I am shameless!")

Inspirational Quotes.

Every one has quotes they pin up on their wall by their desks. As we close in on American Thanksgiving, I want to highlight the most important gratitude of all - that of love.


For one human being to love another:
that is perhaps the most difficult of our tasks;
the ultimate, the last test and proof,
the work for which all other work is but preparation.
-Rainer Maria Rilke

"Some day after we have mastered the winds, the waves and gravity, we will harness for God the energies of love; and then for a second time in the history of the world, humans will have discovered fire."
-Teilhard de Chardin

The subject tonight is Love
And for tomorrow night as well.
As a matter of fact I know of no better topic
For us to discuss
Until we all
Die!
-Hafiz, translated by Daniel Ladinsky

"Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love."
-Leo Tolstoy

"Any thought that is not filled with love seems unholy."
-André Gide

"Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who treat you spitefully."
-Jesus Christ

"Right now, we are appearing as the very light of consciousness, alive as love, although we may require some training, like an artist would, to fully offer our self as love's gift."
-David Deida from "Waiting to Love"

"There is no remedy for love but to love more."
-Thoreau

"When I love, I love so much, it's dangerous."
-Nicole Kidman

"To love is to tilt with the lightning, two bodies routed by a single honey's
sweet."
-Pablo Neruda

When I think of you,
fireflies in the marsh rise
like the soul's jewels,
lost to eternal longing,
abandoning my body
-Izumi Shikibu

Pillowed on your thighs in a dream garden,
little flower with its perfumed stamen,
singing, sipping from the stream of you --
sunset, moonlight -- our song continues.

-Ikkyu Sojun

My body is a temple.

Picture from National Institute of Massotherapy

I'm giving myself the present of a massage and facial today.

What presents do you like to give yourself?

Bringing sexy back.

Time to get back to the naughty story!

Part One is here. Part Two, here.

Part three: Right here!


I’d normally roll my eyes at his juvenile taunt, but I’m halfway there already. The sheer naughtiness of our scenario has primped my pump, so to speak. I pinch my pleasure. The intense sensation makes me arch my neck against the cool mattress cover.

I open my eyes a fraction. He’s still out of his jeans, and he’s breathing hard. I shudder at the look on his face. I shove two fingers in me, and my pussy clenches them hard. It wants something else to hang onto. I’d gotten wet the minute he opened his apartment door for me and now I’m getting what I need. I pet my clit and grind against my fingers. Breath wheezes through my teeth.

"yeah, like that.” He leans over the bed, breathes me in. Bracing one hand beside me, he gives his penis a twisting caress. “Stroke your clit like a little cock for me. Jack it.”

I obey. My head rolls back and forth against the mattress, lost in the sensations. Clenching my jaw, I hold back a sound. It might have been a wail, or even a groan, but it doesn’t matter. Five days of tension, since his out-of-the-blue call, have me reaching my crest.

My hips come off the mattress as I dig my heels in, tucking them almost under me. I’m spread so wide my thighs tremble. Lights strobe under my eyelids.

After all these years, Mike’s looking at me again with his hot blue eyes. I haven’t felt this aroused in I don’t know how long. My mind screams. Give me what I need. My body rolls toward orgasm. I’m so close to my peak.

“Open wide, baby,” he whispers and strokes my chin. “Take me deep.”

But I can’t. The sandalwood scent of Mike’s crotch is my final trigger, and then I’m too far over the edge to relax my jaw.

“Oh, Jesus,” I moan. My body clenches in convulsions. My neck arches against the mattress as the orgasm sends hot electric shocks up and down my torso.

I pant as my vagina ripples, mostly sated, but still hungry, against my fingers.

Hands push my black halter top aside, clasp my breasts, and knead. Clever fingers twist my nipples.

Breathing takes all my concentration. I need to force my eyes open, though. Mike is waiting on me. I’m dying to know what my performance has done for him.

The gift of travel.

How does one go about telling others how life changing and awe-inspiring a trip to another continent is?

Do I give you a day to day tour diary, complete with entries such as, "Days One - Three: Amsterdam. Amsterdam is truly the Portland of Europe. Or perhaps Portland is the Amsterdam of the United States."?

And of course, go on from there with quirky, amazing pictures of this brilliant, moist, complicated city with its surprisingly logical yet beautiful architecture and the weight of Rembrant's and Van Gogh's legacies pressing against your skin?

(Total Liz Gilbert moment there, huh? *preens*)

Or do I share my deep emotional insights that the entirely different surroundings gave me? (the short answer - I'm not nearly as much of a screw up as I've always thought :)

In the end, the best I can do is find some wonderful pictures and talk a little about each one.

Indeed, Portland is the Amsterdam of the United States.

Ah, fresh air.

Amazing what a very brisk walk combined with a goodly amount of sit-ups will do for a writer. I just got a wonderful idea for some necessary back story for Book Two. Yay!

My favorite titles.

I wanted to talk about my favorite books on writing. Every author has her go-to's for inspiration and help, and here are mine.

How can one live without Joanna Russ's How to Suppress Women's Writing?

People love to denigrate our genre. This book gives an insightful and quirky look at how much and how little attitudes towards women's words have changed. It taught me just what kinds of horrible internalized sexism colored what I wrote, how I viewed other women, and worst of all, what I did to myself.



Making a Literary Life by Elizabeth See.
A far greater writer than I'll ever be says this:

If everyone who wants to be a writer would read this book there would be many more good writers, many more happy writers, and editors would be so overwhelmed by sweetness they would accept many more good books. So what are you waiting for? Read it! Ursula K. Le Guin

Write Away by Elizabeth George.
From Publisher's Weekly:

Here's a useful book for the novice writer battling the fears and insecurities that attend when she contemplates her first novel....George illustrates her points with passages from both her ownworks and those of numerous writers she admires (Martin Cruz Smith,Barbara Kingsolver, Louise Erdrich, Michael Dorris), this remains more of a how-I-do-it book than a how-to-do-it book. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Unlike PW, I'll say that this book is good even for experienced writers. I love her examples - they illustrate her points brilliantly.


I feel that the most important book on my shelf remains Against Our Will by Susan Brownmiller. I'm not going to kid you - this is a painful and devastating book, whether you have been a victim of sexual assault or not. But it endlessly reminds me of what I feel is the great gift that romance gives every reader: That her pleasure is central to life, that her consent should never dismissed or belittled, and that each of us deserves to be heard.

The upside. :)

Writing makes me happier than any other job I've ever had. Being self employed has lots of challenges, but the end, it's the best.

Here is one of the upsides. :)

Some days, I can work from my hammock. :)

The importance of friends.

Once upon a time, I wrote this poem:

Hit and Run Lover
I always thought Self Esteem
and I would meet
in a meadow full of
wild flowers,
run
into each other’s arms
(with, of course, the “Ode to Joy” in the background)
and then walk hand in hand
together for all time,
exchanging blissful, soulful looks.

Alas!

Self Esteem is that
inconstant lover who
throws me against an alley wall,
snakes a hand down my pants and
ravishes me until I’m senseless
with delight.
Then runs away, giggling,
while I lean against the wall,
gasping and limp, damp and
wailing
Wait!
Can’t I have just a little more of that?

I sent it to non-writing girlfriend who gave me very wise advise:

Maybe you should go a different route with the “bad lover”.  Perhaps that LOW self esteem is something like this: he’s a big bastard that you occasionally fall for, you know it’s wrong but it’s habitual.  Then suddenly he’s out of your life and you like AHHHH!!  I feel like ME again.  Hello HIGH self esteem.

It was a revelation, not just writing wise, but personally. Could I imagine that feeling good was the default state, instead of constantly doubting myself?

So I tried another poem.

The Seduction of Self-Denigration

Like a lover who sneers behind your back, it sneaks into
your life
wearing the mantle of virtue –
productivity
modesty
simplicity
humility.

It promises people will
like
admire
pet
praise
love
you.

It’s got all the right words, and all the right moves. This is everything
you ever wanted.

This one is smooth. Fine. And oh, so sweet.

Beware.

It’s sick sweet like cotton candy, like heroin, like a bitter
addiction with honey on its tongue.

As with every bad lover, you
discover it
lied
about itself and you.

All the things it promised
(love and delight and all the joy you can devour)
haven’t shown up.
They never will.

You feel sordid and dirty and
dissatisfied with the
arrangement.

Kick it out.
Promise yourself never to let it back in.
Bad lovers always knock again.

Feminism for the day!

May I recommend The Feminist Hulk? Smashing the patriarchy with purple shorts and class!

For example:

HULK POLITELY REQUEST CHANGING TABLE IN MEN’S ROOM. HULK CHOOSE NOT TO EMPLOY SMASH IN THIS MOMENT. MULTIPLE TOOLS FOR CHANGE.

More poetry

I was reading the Aeneid and I got to my least favorite part - Dido's death. So I wrote this as a retort to the unnecessary death of a brilliant female character.



Oh, Please, Aeneas

Dido, Queen of Carthage
Threw herself off a wall
For you?

Yeah, right, Son of Venus.
You and I know the truth.

You’re dick-sizing with Odysseus about the
women you both left behind.
He claims Calypso, the unflagging nymph, begged him to stay, but he tired of her, even after she promised him immortality.

I hear your juvenile response across the centuries.
Oh, yeah? Well, a QUEEN killed herself for love of ME and our lands became mortal enemies until my descendents destroyed her city and sowed it with salt.

Nauseating.
A queen is strong.
She keeps her wits.
Go ahead. Dump her, sail away like the
skulking coward you are.
She will rise, triumphant,
send her elephants trumpeting through your
backyard.
And not until Quintus Fabius will she be defeated,
only after
years of struggle and a waste of power.
You had nothing to do with that victory.

You are so not worthy of a queen’s pain.

You lied, Aeneas.
There was no funeral pyre. You know she
put on her jeweled sandals,
strode through the city she owned.
She wouldn’t let a panderer ruin her proud name.

Traveling!

I'm visiting my family this week! The plan is to jot as many notes as I can, write when I can, and smile a lot.

Feminism for the day!

A new blog, Contestations: Dialogues on Women's Empowerment, has a fabulous first issue about feminism and Islam. Rock on!!

Also dealing with feminism and Islam -a Saudi woman literally strikes back against the Hai'a, the virtue police. Time to remind Saudi Arabia that their limitations against women are unjust and against the basic Islamic tenets of mercy and justice.


Note: I have to mention that I'm not Muslim - just someone with a background in Middle Eastern history.