The Swan (Part I)

“Omigawd, thankyousomuch. Iamsoexcitedtohaveyouasmymentor. Youhavenoidea. Youaremyheroandiwouldgiveanythingtobejustlikeyou. Likemyobsessionisreal. Crazysilenceofthelambslevelreal. Iwouldwearyourskin.”

“Breathe… what’s your name again?”

“Um, Connie.”

“Ew.”

“I know. But you can’t, like, help who your parents are.”

“That is the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.”

Connie was in awe. Grace Cygnet had cursed at her. Grace Cygnet said curse words! Fuck… did this mean she, Constance Smith, should also be cursing?

Grace Cygnet also didn’t pause for response, although, due to her fangirling, Connie’s mind processed everything on a delay. “You’re a performer. Stage names are fairly common, and in your case, recommended.

“I also think maybe we should set expectations.” Grace paused, showing all of her teeth to the waitress delivering life sustenance in the form of coffee.

“Wow, such great advice! So true! Oh em gee, what should I call myself?”

Grace sighed, took a delicate sip of her hot beverage, and after carefully placing the mug back on the table, said, “See, this is what I’m talking about. You do realize this mentoring position is an assigned requirement for my coursework, right?”

Connie’s mouth dropped open, but she was unable to think of a response quickly enough.

Grace sighed. “No offense. I’m sure you’re very nice. But being volun-told to be your mentor does not mean we’re BFFs.”

“Oh yeah… of course,” Connie said, unconvincingly feigning being blasé.

“You’re a shit actor,” Grace said. “Let’s get our nails done.”

“Aren’t you supposed to, like, answer my questions and guide me?” Connie asked.

“Yes,” Grace replied. “But you’ve already proven your questions today will be stupid…”

“Hey!” Connie said, not quite so starstruck that she didn’t take offense, particularly as she had grown up with the message that there was no such thing as a stupid question.

“…and your nails are offending me. Besides, I get to charge buddying activities through the mentoring budget. If I have to do this…” she motioned between herself and Connie. “I may as well take full advantage and get us pampered.”

*. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *

Part I of Response to Swan Writing Prompt

Do you vote in political elections?

Yes. There is no point in having a democracy, and it will not remain one, if the right to vote is not used. The right to vote is the shared power to make decisions in how your country is run. To refuse to exercise that right is to signal that you do not think the method of making decisions is effective, and if enough people act in such a manner, the right will then be taken away. So if you currently live in and enjoy the privilege of living in a democracy, you have to identify that this method of government is meaningful to you via vote. Not voting (barring roadblocks that disallow your vote, because that definitely happens sometimes) is taking a stance against democracy. The choices may be shitty, but I prefer to take a stance and help make the decision by reflecting my opinion of which option is preferable than staying silent because I don’t particularly care about the alternatives being proffered and thereby devolving willingly into fascism.

Writing Prompt: The Swan

Took this picture in the English Gardens today, and I love the juxtaposition of the grace and beauty with the reality of the mean spirit and ready willingness to attack (this guy had just yelled at some ducks for sitting in his space and his head was moving back and forth in vigilance as he dared anyone else to approach him).

Your prompt, if you choose to accept, is to write a thing (short story, flash fiction, poem, etc.) featuring a swan. This can mean whatever your writerly pen desires, from a modern fairy tale or re-telling to a contemporary romance where Joseph Swan is a down-on-his-luck, misunderstood genius to anything your imagination can come up with.

Please link back to this post if you choose to do the prompt, so I can read what you have done.

I look forward to reading!

Warning: Shoplifters may be killed

In the sleepy English town of Kingsleigh, the Costsave supermarket is preparing for a visit from the king himself! Bea and the gang are back, hanging out, selling cheap groceries, and solving mysteries. Don’t know who Bea and the gang are? Honestly, it’s fine. Just jump in to this 4th book in the series, & you’ll be able to follow just fine. (Trust me, it’s what I did.)

Mystery #1: Where the heck did the store’s red carpet go?

Mystery #2: Who murdered the shoplifter? (& is going to provide better training – it’s prosecute shoplifters, Evan, not execute. Luckily, you’re hot and women want to believe/save you.)

Mystery #3: Exactly how old is Bea? She reads like a middle-aged to older woman, but the other characters all think she’s sex on legs, so she’s probably supposed to be younger. Or just, like, a super hawt not-young lady.

Mystery #4: Who will Bea end up dating? (Refer to #3)

I liked this book. It had that cozy mystery feel. Mostly likeable characters with questionable detective skills engaging in hijinks and bringing the reader along for the ride. I found this book fun, and recommend it to anyone looking for a cozy.

Mystery #5: Are you going to read it?

Grow

Describe a decision you made in the past that helped you learn or grow.

I argue that it is not the decisions you make that help you learn and grow, but rather the subsequent reflection on those decisions and the impacts. Life occurs and you will age regardless of what decisions you make or don’t make, but growth only occurs with thought.

Link to Great Storytelling

I spied a copy of White Cat, Black Dog, by Kelly Link, on a bookshelf the other day & grabbed it. She is one of those authors beloved by another author I admire, and has been filed away as someone to check out. It was not disappointing.

Quite the opposite. Link’s collection of fairy tale re-telling is poignant and otherworldly with a tinge of familiarity that made this book a genuine pleasure to read.

I also found it very inspiring. I have turned my hand to fairy tale re-telling (see Exhibit 1 & Exhibit 2, if interested), and reading these stories inspired me to write again. Reminded me of the pleasure of a well-turned phrase, and that originality is more than a completely brand-new idea.

Fascinating, in a way, that a Pulitzer-prize finalist novel could make writing feel accessible and achievable… but it does, at least for me.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Have you read it? And do you have any writing inspiring novels you can recommend?

Knowledge Prevents Stoicism

Fandango story starter #144; thanks for the prompt!

When the song started playing on the radio, Vince stopped what he was doing and began to cry.

He wanted to be tougher, stoic in a way that would make his father proud. But the tears rolled down his face in spite of this desire. Possibly at least partially because his father was recently dead.

His mother inspired similar thoughts, feelings and emotions for similar reasons.

The song was so beautiful; if he hadn’t known its source, he would have listened with his entire being, mesmerised, too distracted to notice his impending fate. Instead, he felt every excruciating second of death’s scythe, aware and expecting it was coming, just as it had so recently come for his parents.

Knowledge can be a dangerous thing; death was neither pleasant nor quick.

Reading of Restful Rambling

I’m not ordinarily a fan of epistolary novels, but Scarlett Thomas’ The Sleepwalkers is a rare exception.

Good writing is good writing, and The Sleepwalkers… is good writing.

In the style of fragmented pseudo-memoir in the form of a supposed letter that it seems unlikely will be read, The Sleepwalkers follows Evelyn and Richard, a recently married couple who are on their honeymoon. What should be an extravagant present from Richard’s mother, a vacation in Greece, is instead a mysterious, menacing experience. Or maybe it’s not, maybe it’s all in one of the character’s heads. Or maybe it is, and one of the characers is being obtuse. Also, key bits of the narrative are missing, akin to the fragmented scraps of the written work from the Classical era in Greece that is fascinating and full of gaps because it’s hella old.

Exactly.

So what’s really going on during this vacation/honeymoon from the underworld? I have my interpretation, but I suppose that’s a decision that every reader needs to discern for him/her/themselves. Suffice to say, there are two sides that are presented, they do not fully align, and as personal narratives, the degree of honesty you think each person has in their narrative is at least questionable.

Regardless of which side you take, the story escalates in a weird, dramatic story that would have Homer salivating.

This novel is literary and not easy, but well worth the effort.

How about you – any Classically influenced (i.e., Classical Greek & Roman) novels/short stories that crept underneath your skin and lived there like a serial killer? If so, please let me know. My TBR is too long, but I will happily and willingly add to it, nonetheless.

Murder on the Mediocre Express

Grateful to have received an Advanced Reader Copy of Jaclyn Goldis’ The Main Character; unfortunately, I didn’t much like it. It’s not bad so much as not good, relying on a heteronormative, suburban white mindset to foster feelings for the characters and their dramas instead of character development. Even the references to my alma mater and college hometown of Ann Arbor didn’t engender feelings of tender affection. I was invested enough to finish the novel, though towards the end, I don’t think it mattered how the novel ended, I was reading more for a thrill akin to watching a Hallmark channel movie.

It’s not good… but it is mildly entertaining.

Aspiring to allude to Agatha Christie, the novel features an ensemble of characters, all of whom have their own secrets to hide, and a traumatic past event that weaves in to the current mystery. Famed mystery author Ginevra Ex has used her enormous wealth to bring Rory, her brother, and two of their close friends/love interests on the Orient Express. As a mystery author, Ginevra is a Christie fangirl, and as the novel progresses, it is clear that she is an awful person with something dark and sordid in her past. Because she is not imaginative enough to come up with fully fleshed characters out of the ether, nor had enough therapy to write about her own experiences, Ginevra writes novels featuring her interpretation and weaving of events and personalities of other, real people she has met. Rory and her friends are the latest.

Unfortunately, Rory and her friends fall a bit flat on the page. They’re young, they’re judgemental, they’re dramatic, they’re self-centered and presumably have experienced success because they think too much of themselves and overconfident medicority tends to fail upwards.

I kept reading partially because I felt obligated to complete something written by a former U of M graduate, partially to see if the plot and characterization got better (… not really), and partially because once I start something I have trouble not finishing. Unless, of course, it’s a novel that I’m trying to write rather than read, but… that’s another story, and we don’t need to dwell on that for now.

This is a novel that doesn’t make the reader interested enough in the mystery, replete with characters the reader doesn’t care about, occurring in multiple time periods in a way that fails to hold the little interest that was initially there (as, let’s face it, the reader starts with a neutral/medium level of interest, from which the words within the novel can elevate or devolve). I liked the synopsis, just, unfortunately, not the novel.

On Writing

How has technology changed your job?

I’m going to ignore my day job. Let’s talk, instead, of how technology has changed the job/hobby of writing.

You’re probably on this platform right now because you like to write, as well as consume/read writing. The blog as a method of communication did not exist until relatively recently. In terms of technology, it’s lasted more than a decade, which probably makes it an octagenarien. In terms of methods of communication, everything you use a computer for is akin to a very precocious toddler.

Books have been around in various forms for milennia, but until fairly recently, they had to be written by hand. The typewriter and word processor were helpful to many in increasing the speed at which written works could be compiled (depending on your writing style, as some need quite a bit of time to think (I’m one of them – trying to get back to a novel now, which is extremely difficult for me).

The internet has made research faster and probably more reliable, as you can vet through various sources to fact check with a speed the encyclopedia couldn’t even comprehend (if it was sentient and had a brain, which it does not, causing further difficulty in its’ understanding). With grammar and spell check, nerd flex on these topics feels completely unnecessary. And with AI, it is possible the job of writer is about to morph into excellent prompter and content editor.

Yet one of the things I find most fascinating about technology’s impact on writing is the pull away from many aspects of it. We all know how easy it is to get pulled down a rabbit hole, to open a file to work on your novel and get sucked into email, clickbait articles hastily put together with no real purpose other than ad revenue, etc. In response to the seductive call of the internet’s distractions, there are also various ways that writers work to put up boundaries, to make the writing space and time sacred, ranging from distraction-free websites to the Freewrite you have probably found yourself eyeing and only purchased if you wanted to “invest” in yourself and your writing (good on you, if you have one; I still think it’s a scam).

I think most people recognize that technology today allows us to do and know an amazing amount of things. Yet we also recognize it is easy to foster an unhealthy relationship with technology. How much time, how much technology and how much to spend on that technology are all important questions that we need to answer for ourself. Without putting time and deliberate thought into your technology usage, you’re probably spending too much time on it and not enough time in nature and with yourself/your loved ones.

You can be a writer with just a pen and a pad of paper. To be an author, I don’t think it’s possible any longer without at least a smidge of technology.

Thoughts?