B Minor Blues

Given that I’ve been silent for 7 days, I do feel an intense pressure behind my eyes (wait, maybe that’s sinus?) to write. Since I do have 2, 3 or even as many as 5 of you that check in regularly to see my white bread good catholic girl attempts to shock and amaze you, for you dear, dear friends, I will write something. I suppose as much as anything it is me writing about not writing.

The thing of it is. Writing is energy. And, as a writer, if I were a star (like a real gas ball in the night sky) I would not be a Yellow G (like our Sun) or a White Dwarf (I wish) or a Red Giant (though I often feel like one), maybe a Binary Pulsar or, let’s face it even a whole nebula – Orion I think – its shape reminds me of me dancing in my youth. Nebula, yah that's it a big amorphous cloud of cosmic dust with a few wanna be stars staggering around inside - that sounds like me. The whole point of that little wander into the cosmos is that I’m not a steady source of heat and light. God knows I try to be. It’s been drummed into my head since birth that that is the preferred way to be.

When I have the B Minor Blues or the Mean Reds as Holly Golightly so accurately described them. I need to contract my Wah. And I know I should define “Wah” for you but I am too tired – go read an Eric Van Lustbader novel and find out. Survival demands that whatever words I can generate in a day must go to the service of the paycheck. And so they do. No apology, just the way it is. A blip to be sure because my life is fracking fabulous in all dimensions and I will get it together soon and get back to the 14 hour days of joyful writing. But not today, today I wish I had a boyfriend or a pet or even a teddy bear to curl up on the couch with and snuggle. Hah! I can’t believe I actually typed the word snuggle with reference to myself! Nope. Today will go to bed early, repeat my positive thinking mantra three times, blow my nose and lights out. My life rocks, I just need a little quiet time to catch the beat again.

Oh yah, why B minor – because that is the chord that is the current bane of my existence, the Great Wall of China, the Maginot Line, the Rubicon. Well, I’ll try it again tomorrow, since tomorrow is after all, another day.

Courage and Alan Ball back on the bus

Courage. Not what I would consider my strong point really. Courage to overcome adversity, insult, being dumped by your fiancé for someone stupider, shorter, less attractive and less educated (whoops! Where’d that little toad come from?) Of course she did not have my scintillating intellect which the vast majority of men are really not interested in waking up to day after day, year after year. That's what I tell myself people, gotta find some way to sleep at night. But I digress. Because this is my blog and I can so – Phhhthttt!

Anyhooo – what I am trying to do is work up to a retraction without it being an outright apology. Wish me luck with that. This all to do with my previous comments about the TV show True Blood and Alan Ball (exec prod) being off my bus based on a rather difficult episode of said TV show. Now I did not abandon, boycott or in any other way abandon my viewing of the show, this despite my previous assertion that I was going to give all future episodes a pass in support of my Line. Fortunately for me, I draw my line in the sand, which as we all know is a very mutable substance subject to the vagaries of whatever wind is blowing.

I have watched and enjoyed fully the two episodes following the one in question and fully enjoyed them. My writer’s mind supplying the reasoning is that is because they were both far superior to the icky episode in question. My scientist’s mind laughing all the while into my hand with a little cough, “Rat ionization! Rationalization!”

It is an admission I make with a touch of chagrin that I love Vampire Lore and I read it all and watch most of it too. Finally I am beginning to foment my own take on the mythology so look the hell out people, something wicked is definitely this way coming.

But I digress again. Okay fine. I’m sorry Alan Ball and the writer/producers of True Blood, though I still think you crossed the line with that episode I can now appreciate where you were going and choke on my early censure. Sort of. Cause taken in isolation I still don’t think I was wrong. It was over the line. But I respect that you’ve got to flirt with your line the same way that I’ve got to flirt with mine. And while I suppose in the scheme of the universe it matters little as I am to you-no-one and nothing;I do hope you appreciate how much even this half assed apology cost me. I hate being even a little wrong. Because I am never wrong. Well. About men maybe. Stories, never.

Writing & Screenwriting books

Making a Good Script Great - Seger The Artist's Way - Cameron Successful Television Writing - Goldberg & Rabkin Hello, He Lied - Obst Adventures in the Screen Trade - Goldman Brokeback Mountain: Story to Screenplay - Proulx, McMurtry, Ossana On Story: A Memoir of the Craft - King check back for frequent updates! all books are applicable to all areas of the biz - Hello he lied and Adventures are MUST reads for all.

Two Hands Dancing

I’m very fascinated by hands lately. My hands in particular. My fingers spinning out words that are my Voice in the universe. That kind of big picture existential crap but also just how wonderful they are in and of themselves. The fascination partly stems from the boxer’s fracture to the 3rd metacarpal (now mostly healed) that I incurred this spring. Partly, too, I just spent 40 blissful minutes at guitar practice grooving on the recently discovered mind-body connection that playing guitar is really just my two hands, dancing. Why that is so powerful to me is at least two fold (maybe even more by rant's end); that it is through the brilliance of my mind expressed through the skill of my fingers I have found my Voice in this world as a writer, and I have always loved to dance above all things. Those of you who are only recently acquainted with me may find that surprising. But my sisters are nodding - they know. The story of me as a dancer is long and perhaps at some point deserves to be told, but not really into long regurgitations of the past today. I will say this, more than love more than youth, more than money, children, career or fame, the loss and erosion of my physical ability to dance is the single greatest tragedy of my life. Time will tell of course, but it could be that discovering the guitar could be that life's greatest renaissance.

My father always complimented my hands. He thought they were my single most beautiful feature. And the thing that a little girl’s Dad values about her is a weighty and mythic thing indeed. If you just look at them you will likely shake your head and perhaps even think – “They look pretty ordinary to me”. Because it is true – in repose they are nice, but not mythic not special. The fingers are not particularly long or delicate, the palms square, the index fingers a bit too bent. But, there is just something about the way they are attached to the rest of me – how they move – their strength and lightness of being that is some how singular. I could just be making this all up, but I have proof of a higher sort. Dame Margot Fontaine once adjudicated my ballet exam and it was the single phrase she uttered in my direction “Lovely arms”. She should know.

All this to say that daily practice of the guitar has brought the joy of dance back into my life. Daily guitar practice too has taught me some new things about writing that, while I may have acknowledged them intellectually hitherto, are now seeping in down to the bone. Keep at it. Each perfect chord is preceded by hundreds of failures. Trust, be gentle with yourself, keep pushing forward. While you can, will and must judge your writing by the standards of others, keep the faith. Never be so despairing of your own ineptitude or lack of discipline that you stop. Five minutes here, ten minutes there, a good joke included in an email – copied and saved for later Above all, remember that just as you have your favorite music and singers and writers, that everyone else does too. Don’t fret if someone you value is lukewarm in their praise, there are others, total strangers even who will hear your writer’s voice as if angels were singing.

Virgina Wolfe used to despair after reading Marcel Proust that she would never be as good a writer, so perhaps she should cease the effort. She found a perfection in his prose that gave her both joy and pain. I’ve wandered down that mental path a time or two after reading Oscar Wilde – oh, I think – I’ll never be that good, so is it worth the effort? God knows I’ll never play guitar like Segovia, or Jesse Cook, or Charo or even my own real life examples, Candice, Remigio and David the V. But I will play like Carolynne. I will write like Carolynne and who am I or you or anyone to say that I won’t be someone else’s Proust or Segovia or Oscar Wilde?

All about me. No. Really

Look it me! Almost famous. Almost a working writer.

http://shar.es/9zMX

Oh. No.

Advisory: The following is included for educational purposes. It is a bit scary for those of you unused to contact with the insane. And in case you think the following is just a free association exercise. No. It isn't. It is the use of language and drive to organize as story as bastion against the head spinning around and exploding.

I just had another Butterfly Question today. You know the butterfly who flaps its wings and sets into motion a tsunami half a world away. That little bastard. With me it always seems to start with someone asking me a question. Always a completely innocuous question. Sometimes even that most ubiquitous and innocuous question that we constantly ask each other often with a complete lack of sincerity “How are you?” To be precise the exact question, which in this case was asked in all sincerity by The Producer, whose good opinion I am just as sincerely committed to keeping, was “How are things otherwise?” ARRRGGGGH!

It turned out to be a Butterfly Question and now I am pounding the key board after two hours sleep and the inside of my skull is a themepark midway where they’ve cranked up all the rides to max speed to test the load tolerances. Good thing no one is allowed on the rides when they do that cause the mess from the decapitated heads and limbs would take days to clean up. Ow. It is actually the worst Butterfly Question that I’ve had in years in that I’m trying to ride the curl without benefit of drugs. Maybe that isn’t such a good idea. Perhaps a large glass of red wine will calm the neuro-transmitters down enough that the back of my head will stop expanding exponentially. Think there is a point after which geometric progression in brain activity leads to catatonia – and no, that isn’t a province of Spain. Hmmm, Spanish tapas, those crispy spicy potatoes. I have friends in Spain right now and Lil Dude has a friend in Spain right now too. I should get my friend and Lil’ dude’s friend to hook up and have Tapas in Barcelona. See good. That thought almost made sense. Like trying to catch clouds with fingers, snowflakes with hot pincers, raindrops with a sieve. And yet in this capacious and untenable sieve still I pour in the waters of my love and lack not to lose still. Back in the closet Bill. You are not. Coming out. To play tonight. My music book is in my old Two Gentlemen of Verona binder. It is green. And shiny. Shiny but not sparkly. Ow. Pretty sure there isn’t enough tryptophan in a glass of milk to help this but I need to try something. Did you know you can’t drink a gallon of milk in one hour and keep it down? Fortunately for me I don’t have a gallon on hand. Do have four bottles of red wine. Not lets try the glass of milk.

I’m flashing on that scene in Constantine where the alcoholic psychic priest drinks himself to death in the space of minutes trying to drown out the demon in his head. Nuts? You bet and I have the aluminum foil taped on my skylight to block out messages from aliens to prove it. See people this is where we get the stereotype of the artist as hermit. Trying to stop the noise. The back of my skull has now melted and the dura is exposed to the collective unconscious. Oh shit here we go. Gotta pay my cell phone bill. Collect mail from mail box tomorrow. Write grad student invite email AR changes to the Dean. Get up at seven turn on coffee maker. Beans ground ready. Organic free trade grown in the shade salt spring island but not on the island there really are salt springs there it gets into the grass and the sheep eat it and that is why the lamb from there tastes so good. But the springs smell bad that rotten egg sulphur thing. Like hell is supposed to. I know that I’ll be all right cause all I smell now is canned fruit cocktail. This new skin care is supposed to be chemical preservative free but it all smells like maraschino cherries – the shampoo is the worst so I smell like canned fruit cocktail. But it was expensive so I will use it up but I miss my Italian Love shampoo made from pistachios and arugula I know I must be getting that wrong it is the conditioner that is made from arugula. Milk is organic too which is kinda funny as I’m at a stage of life where I could probably use some extra hormones. Specially since my life is so completely devoid of men right now. Not many in my workplace and I’m not in my workplace I'm in my apartment because of the huge asthma flare up from the dust of the renovations at the office. Even fewer male hormones in the air. Lots of freaking fruit cocktail though. Say I have a sample of Hugo boss cologne somewhere, maybe that will help. No because that brings me full circle to thinking about The Producer and his question. Ow. And he wants photos of me. Several so they can chose which to use with my interview. Why? Not one want to look at me. Didn’t I become a writer because I’m a failed beauty. Pretty sure it was in the brochure that I get to use a twenty year old head shot on the book jacket man. Who cares what a writer looks like. I want to cut the index finger off my rubber gloves, draw a face on it, tape the cotton ball from my vitamin bottle to the top with a duct tape kerchief and take a picture of that. Or better yet borrow my nieces stuffed bunny rabbit and dig out my nephews old tonka dump truck, once again the duct tape to affix two mag lites for headlites and video a little 30 second short of the bunny caught in the headlights then run down by the tonka truck cause that is how I feel about my image captured in a photo right about now.

So many stories to write. Some many people to love and give attention to. Must remember to restock peppermint tea and some rescue remedy and something strongly lavender- that might be a factor as I always use organic lavendar hand soap and body wash and I ran out a couple weeks back. Sometimes strong herbal scents will snap me out of one of these weird fugues. The back of my skull is reforming. It is still soft as bread dough but it might be okay if I lie on my side. So tired. Yoga breathing. Water. Nasal strip. Sleep CD. Going to look for some delta waves now. Wish me luck. Made it with just a small glass of 1% organic milk. Shhhhh. Whisper please. Please no more thoughts for a little while. Need to clean my glasses. Shhhhh. File. Save. Apple. Shut down. Click.

It’s my Duty

So I am writing this today not because it is my art or my passion or my craft practice or for any other reason than it is my duty. Duty and honour. Things that, according to many men to whom I’ve put the question (usually, but not always after plying them with alcohol), two concepts which most women of their acquaintance cannot grasp. Now mind you most men think that I think like a man, and, not entirely sure, but they intend it as a compliment ladies. However, as I am decidedly not a man, they also get very confused and then can’t decide whether to take what I just said as coming from a buddy or from a woman. Of course I revel in their confusion, in fact, it is on such things that my entire mystique is founded.

Not that they are correct, women deeply understand both the concepts of duty and honour but generally from the lens of love and family first. Strangely, it is the extremes of the human condition, status and survival around which women are most finely tuned. For example, a woman has a hard time understanding a spouse who puts himself in harms way for a buddy who, let’s face it, is an alcoholic wife-abusing asshole. She cannot understand that he owes that buddy a debt, and that the fact the she and the three kids currently rely on him for support should trump some past experience in which she had no part. In truth, he knows at a level deep and true, that she, as his wife, and they as his kids, will not only go on without him, but will grow and thrive. And so he must – honour and duty.

Man, the places that your head goes when you are tired.

So I wasn’t going to write. I am tired and cranky and feeling a bit unappreciated. And I had this idea that this Blog would be all sunshiny and happy and positive go-fight-win! Rah! About writing. But, since the reason that I am tired and cranky is that I have been fulfilling my duty and honour as a writer, I thought, “Hey, better share that”. Funny that I should give a rat’s ass about presenting a balanced account of a writer’s life – because who the hell am I to judge Balance! Hah!

And so, I have been kicking it hard all weekend on the PhD handbook, and I am very cognizant of having every UBC thing in the very best shape possible before I depart for my week of C and W (cruising and writing). But my brain is a bit adrift. Making a hundred decisions a minute can do that to you.

There are so very many things in this life that I am not good at; I am not the person to call when your cat is sick, grammar is really not my thing, I am not the person to send your kid’s book manuscript to if all you want is a “It’s brilliant”. I am not the person to call when moving house or landscaping the backyard (unless you want me to be the one to bring snacks). While I am an amazing lover, I suck wildly at being the traditional girlfriend. I am better at spending money than saving it, and during every single housekeeping task I mourn for the books that I am not reading, the stories I’m not writing and the guitar I’m not playing, not to mention the handsome young men I am not kissing.

But as a Writer do I give value for money. You bet your rat’s ass I do. I have neither beauty nor riches nor love – but I have my work ethic God Damn It. So there, you have all been warned. Cast aspersions on my ethic at your peril. Ole’ Bill says that hell “hath no fury like a woman scorned”. Honey, I will forgive you a dozen slights and hundreds of lovers-but never, never imply by word or deed that I don’t earn my $1.50. For you see, I have nothing else. Nothing. Who I am as a writer, a valued and loyal employee, is everything. I am nothing else. Lover, dancer, friend, daughter, sister, aunt, actor, athlete, Francophile, chef, musician, painter, baseball fan, intellectual, philanthropist, beloved. These are aspirations, people, not facts. But what is, what is ever and always true, is that I’m a great writer and a loyal employee. Wow, that sounds weak when I type it out. But in truth, I have nothing else. Not even a gold fish. Christ, the orchids are even on borrowed time.

And so, I am, tired, cranky as hell and lucky as all get out. I have an awesome job situation, superlative friends, supportive family, intriguing and challenging colleagues. And now, most precious of all, time – time to re-coop, eat Whole Foods take out with Tuscan bread and New Zealand wine, play my guitar and watch back episodes of Hung before playing on-line poker and saying “lights out!” before 10 p. m.

The Line.

The Line.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the line. You know, The Line, the one that we individually and collectively should never cross. It is tough being an artist in that you are always flirting with The Line. Sometimes you cross it. Sometimes you respect it. Sometimes crossing can lead to ruin. Sometimes crossing can lead to riches.

I have before stated and will state here again for the record that I have no morals, only ethics. In the Cocoverse, morals are sets of rules and strictures placed upon you by others, while ethics are the rules and parameters that you develop for yourself, reasoned and rationale choices made after analysis and reflection. Additionally, the philosophy dominant in the Cocoverse is neo-pagan in its insistence that one is responsible for ones own actions and if it harm none, do what though wilt, and it harm some, do what thou ought.

That brings us to the place where I announce that I am boycotting a TV show that was previously a favorite. True Blood and its producers are off my bus. This pretty much goes against everything that I have hitherto been about. Free speech and all that. And those of you that know, know that I have been a nearly life long connoisseur of vampire and horror fiction. Not slasher flicks though, which in general are devoid of artistry. I never like being hit in the head repeatedly with a shovel, and the movie fan corollary to that is that I don’t like everything graphically laid out every second in the same way that I hate reading scripts where all the characters say exactly everything they mean all the time. Cause people don’t, almost never. Even a conversation in the elevator about the weather is colored with what people were thinking about before they go into the elevator and by their thoughts of what they are about to do after the elevator. That’s why good acting teachers insist that you, as an actor better know the before and after of the scene – otherwise the scene is YAWN inducing. As a writer, you better know even better!

I can deal with the graphic sex and a certain amount of gore, but this most recent episode had a pair of vampires having sex in a bloody bed while a human victim bled to death beside them – with blood pumping from her ripped out throat. A her I’d like to point out. The far less attractive husband had been neatly dispatched with a broken neck. It was ugly ugly ugly and revolting and disgusting. It crossed my way out there Line and became pornography, poorly written, poorly made up and poorly shot pornography I might add. And while if taken in isolation I may have put it down to poor choices by the episode director however, coupled with –and the word coupled is a deliberate choice – the town wide orgy scene later in the episode… I turned off the TV and I thought about it for a few days. Talked with some of my friends about it and realized with some surprise that this group of TV writers, producers and directors had finally helped me find my Line. Further, despite my ambitions related to writing in the field, I felt strongly that I had to speak up. Alan Ball, this was not okay, nor was it good. The only remotely interesting character interaction was Jason and Sarah getting it on in the choir loft because Sarah convinced him it was God’s will. The rest was getting hit in the head with a shovel, which I just realize is kinda an unfortunate image choice given your fabulous work on Six Feet Under, but there it is. So, thank you Mr. Ball, I will no longer be joining you on that side of The Line, you and your TV show True Blood are off my bus.