Writing.... Again

The rough draft of The Fish Hook's Daughter ended with, amongst other things, two of the main characters being carried off into the mountains by giant crows. Such is the power of fantasy. That rough draft will sit on it's... wherever rough drafts sit, until I'm ready to look at it. For now I am still amazed by the details that go into printing one's first novel. It seems like everyone has a book out, but if the truth must be known, out of all those everyones there's only one that I know, and I don't know her very well, and her publisher stiffed her. I know me, and for me this is long, difficult work. Here Jamnia sits, still not in book form, still not out for the world to see and I count that it's nearly a year since I first set out trying to publish it. This is standard time for all books, at least, but that doesn't make this one seem any shorter.

And this doesn't mean that I stop writing, or thinking. I began gazing over this next project. Imagine, actually trying to finish what I started. I did finish it, once. I even named it. The title was the The Low Countries and, as one might expect with such a ghastly double entente, the book was so bitter and sad that my computer rebelled and destroyed half of it. So I've been sitting around with half a good novel saying, "Finish me, finish me. And add a little sugar while you're at it."

I begin to peruse this tonight, and am surprised when I find myself grinning.

Pilgrim Talk

O thou that settest out upon The Path, false is the Phantom that thou seekest. When thou hast it thou shalt know all bitterness, thy teeth fixed in the Sodom-Apple. Thus hast thou been lured along That Path, whose terror else had driven thee far away. O thou that stridest upon the middle of The Path, no phantoms mock thee. For the stride's sake thou stridest. Thus art thou lured along That Path, whose fascination else had driven thee far away. O thou that drawest toward the End of The Path, effort is no more. Faster and faster dost thou fall; thy weariness is changed into Ineffable Rest. For there is not Thou upon That Path: thou hast become The Way.


--Aleister Crowley

Love

This morning I looked back and wondered what brought me through some of the bad times of the last three and a half years. Some of it was absolutely terrible, and I find myself pinching myself because things have changed.

I remember now, coming out of the monastery. It was early winter, and a desolate time. My two best friends came from college to visit me. They slept in my bed. I slept on the floor, and then one of us exchanged places at around six in the morning. I remember, one of them got sick on Kentucky Fried Chicken, and remember us eating a mince, not a mincemeat pie.

That was a time when I was enfolded by love. Love was very strong in the midst of darkness. The last few years and all of my life are filled with times. Love sustains me. Love upholds us.

What Matters

After so many days something should be written. And we are in the midst of Christmas. So much has happened, and so much more will be happening. I feel like I ought to write to writers, or write about writing. It's the holidays, and I've a chance to rest for the first time in a while, so I've been slow on the end of calling up Reflections and working on just how we want to publish this novel.

What is on my mind as I prepare to be a writer who has his works on paper where people can read them? As I enter this world? I'd be a fool not to consider what I am doing this for, or to whom I am writing. I think of this everyday. There are some people who write and write just to explore their feelings. They are their own audience and it is rather like talking to hear yourself talk. I do talk to hear myself talk. And I sculpt for the pleasure it gives me. Those things are mine. But writing is to be shared.

I think for everything I write, I scribble in the hope that it does someone good, someone I don't know. That is a matter of faith. My family will never read a thing I write. Or they won't understand it. My friends are no different from any other writer's friends. Most of them will never read me either. It must be that I am writing to someone I cannot see. Someone I trust is there.

I was riding the bus out of downtown, thinking of this the other day and stringing together events for a story. I thought, "That is it. Everything I tell is more or less true. In a way there isn't a thing I haven't written that has happened either to me or around me." But when I am telling a tale, I am never in it. It must be that to make an event relevant, at least as far as I am concerned, it must cease to be relevant only to me. And to a large degree removing myself from it, turning it into fiction, makes it true. And makes it matter.

Has It Really Been A Year?

I can hardly believe it, but we have been here a year now. I want to thank you. Friends, hard core readers, the folks who stop by now and again, inspirations. A year later, much to my surprise, the broomstick is still flying. I owe it to you, and I thank you. This year has been so full of adventures, twists and turns and you all have been there for me in them. May all of your Christmases be white-- unless you live in Australia-- and may all of us have more joy, more surprise, and more happiness than we've had in the year before!

Hell yeah, bitch!