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Daily Hotsheet: |
May 25, 1999May 24, 1999
Happy birthday, Vera! Belated happy birthday to Chiara!On the homefront ....
It's going to be a difficult day. While Ron just got his baby home, my Julia is leaving for 6 days in Knoxville, TN. I just got email from her at school (she ducked into the library to use web mail), saying she'd forgotten a couple of things. She took her luggage to school this morning, and is leaving directly from there with her OM team. I'll meet her at the airport to say good-bye and deliver the forgotten articles.
Congratulations to:
- To romance troll Hannah Rowan for her first novel sale, a contemporary paranormal romance to Starlight Writers Publications!
- To romance troll Joanne Barnes, who will see her name in print for the first time with her YA novel The Mystery Of The Swamp Lights! If you're in Dallas, be sure to look for her upcoming interview in the Dallas Morning News.
- To Lisa on her Treason And Treachery sale!
- To Al on his sale to Mind's Eye!
- To Kurt on finishing and mailing Turn!
- To John Sullivan for his mystery sale!
- To Jon Hansen on his sale to Dark Regions!
- To James Hartley on his sale to On Spec!
- To Mary Soon Lee on her reprint sale to Gigamesh!
- To my own Julia, whose profile of the teen band Fishers Of Men appeared in the May 24, 1999 Spokesman-Review. Read the article in the on-line edition of the paper.
- To my sweet growing-up-too-fast Meredith, who graduated from the Central Valley Able-Learners gifted program yesterday, attending the ceremony in spite of ear, throat and eye infections.
We were met there by A'isha Azar, our local teacher, who had flown in earlier in the day. After hitting the hotel long enough to shower and reload on caffeine, we attended the Friday evening International Dance Showcase. Along with Nadia, the show featured exquisite Irish step dancing (both hard and soft) as well as tango, Scottish folk, African and several other international styles. The Saturday night show would be strictly bellydance, with samplings of the various American styles--American, veil, Fantasy Tribal, troupe--as well as Nadia, who did both sharki and a beautiful folkloric number, and one other Egyptian style dancer, Tina Sergeant from Seattle. (note: I do Egyptian style, not American.) My only disappointment was the lack of attendance from the local community.
Saturday morning, we were in workout clothes and at the gym by 10 am. There was a stage in place for Nadia to teach from, but she would have nothing to do with it. She wanted to be in the middle of the crowd, within touching distance, not removed from it. She only used the stage once, after much pleading from some students in the back who wished to see her better. After that, she began rotating the class, moving those in the back row forward--2 repetitions of each phrase for each of the 3 groups--so that she could see and personally teach every single student. No one was overlooked, not even the 6 yr. old "tiny dancer" (pictured above) who'd attended with her mother.
I was stunned by the amount of individual attention
I received from her (was I so bad that I stood out in my badness and it
killed her to not correct it? 
) There was one move--a twisting hip movement hit hard on both the
upswing and rotation--that I was struggling with on my turn in the front
row. She took my hands and placed them on her hips. "Make going
UP like Nadia," she said, and demonstrated. I could feel the accents
I couldn't see; feel where they were generated from. We danced together
that way for several measures, then she put her hands on my hips.
"You make for Nadia now." I did. She bounced up and down, clapping
her small hands and glowing like I'd given her a gift. "You make
beautiful, my sister," she said, and kissed me on both cheeks. Then
she laughed again and patted my behind, which I consciously try to keep
from jiggling. "Use, not hide! Woman is beautiful, my sister.
Never doubt."
Nadia is a powerful, high-energy dancer; she does not occupy space as much as electrify it. There are no pauses or rests in her dance--just non-stop Nadia. By 1:00 I wanted a peek at her back to see where she puts the batteries, and by 3:45 when the class ended, I was collapsed on the floor sucking on my inhaler, convinced that my idol was not even human. She was still going. Four hours later she was back on stage, dancing her heart out as if she'd spent the day relaxing at the pool instead of spending that 5.5 hours working 3 times as hard as any of the 60 students in the class. Sunday morning she would be back up in front to teach another 5 hour workshop on cane dance.
I was surprised by how good her English was, and how she only needed A'isha to translate questions a couple of times. Even in those cases, it wasn't the words so much as American dance concepts which had no counterpart in Egyptian thought. An example: she was asked what her hip and thigh muscles were doing to add the visual snap to a shoulder movement, and she was honestly puzzled at the American need to analyze. "Make move like Nadia," she replied. "It happen. Now make for me, my sister. You learn, and Nadia make new for you!"
Nadia is always wanting to "make new." New movement, new energy, new insight, forever drawn forward into the depths of the dance. Each phrase was important because it launched the following section of music, and she lives for the music. Music is why the dance exists.
That, my friends, is Nadia Hamdi.
May 19, 1999The good news just keeps pouring in! Congratulations to Manny on her first rejection! Kiddo, I understand completely and it IS worth celebrating!
And to my partner-in-creative-madness, Kurt (Mystery Man) Roth -- WOO-HOO! The cat anthology will now feature not one, but TWO Roth-capades. Eight is the latest addition to the volume, taking its well deserved place with Revealing Russian Blue. Congratulations!!
Al, thanks for the heads-up on the situation at Hard Shell. I've pointed a friend who is in the same situation to your page.
Star Wars is out! I haven't seen it, but Kerwin did. Check out his review! Then step up a level and check out his woodturning gallery.
May 18, 1999
Congratulations to Trish Jensen on the sale of her single title contemporary romance to Leisure!
Douglas Shumaker has introduced a great topic on professional jealousy. In the last eight years, I've been through contests, book sales and awards (both won and lost) with close friends as well as casual acquaintances, and lived to tell about it. In all honesty, it hasn't been an issue for me in writing.
That's not to say I'm not an extremely competitive person. I am. Too much so, at times. Like a couple of years ago when I ended up in the emergency clinic with four broken bones in my hand and a brace on my leg because I refused to admit that with a blown knee I didn't have the mobility to play shortstop anymore.
I learned early on to restrict my competitiveness to the sports page. Basketball, baseball, tennis, football, volleyball -- anything that involved sweat -- was my life back then. Formal team play or a neighborhood pick-up game, it didn't make any difference to me. I wasn't blessed with an abundance of talent, but I compensated for my size by working harder and longer and more aggressively than my opponents, most of whom were 12 inches, 50+ lbs and a dose of testosterone up on me. (No, that's not sexism -- just the gender make up of my neighborhood.)
It never occurred to me to be jealous of my teammates skills; my opponents, either. The better they were, the better I played, and the longer the game lasted. We played with the passion of youth, for the sheer love of the game. Forget that PC crap about not keeping score. Of course we did.
But win or lose, we were in it together. We didn't set traditional time limits; we played until we literally couldn't get up off the ground. Going head to head for 3 hours on a basketball court burns out any spark of resentment right along with every drop of energy. Afterwards we'd collapse on the asphalt, staring at the sky while trading insults/compliments on Danny's hot jumper or Chris's baseline hook, then bribe the Chosen into teaching us all the technique, then getting practice in how to outmanuever it.
The best example I can think of comes from baseball. One summer I taught Randy how to throw a curve ball, knowing full well that at any given time we'd be on opposite teams, and in the process I got plenty of practice in hitting them.
My experience is writing has been much the same. I'm no Pollyanna (those of you who really know me are probably laughing off pieces of your anatomy at that sweet little image!), but I can honestly say I have never felt jealous of my friends' successes. Maybe I'm protecting myself with a odd type of egotism; thinking my writing is special and unique, that I'm saying things only I can say, and therefore has nothing to do with the special and unique things my friends have to say in their writing. Maybe I'm too dumb to know when I'm "losing?" Could be. But I don't think so. Because my close friends, intelligent and talented folks that they are, see it the same way.
We're sharing a gym and working out side by side, pushing each other just as hard and as far as we can. Because more than the score, it's the sweat that matters. The effort. The passion. The satisfaction of ringing every last drop out of an idea, and those rare perfect moments when it all comes together in a flash of crystal insight and it doesn't matter who verbalized it.
How can anything compete with that?
(stay tuned tomorrow for Terry's take on the dangers of self-competition)
May 16, 1999
From the soap box ....
John Savage put forth a fascinating opinion on blue collar rock-n-roll in his May 15 entry. While I see his point, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree. (Nothing personal here, John - you're just my launching point.) Indeed, John Mellancamp does express the rural/small town life and the sweat-in-your-eyes, dirt-under-your-fingernails, work-til-you-die experience. And why shouldn't he? It's his roots as well as the daily existence of a fair percentage of the country. It's certainly my background, and that of a high percentage of my friends.IMHO, what drives Mellancamp and those of his/my world is that they've had a bellyful of the same "you ain't sh*t unless you ..." that John Savage mentions. Except in our case it's different deck of insults, completing the phrase with: a) have a college degree b) have seen the world c) lived the city streets and been jaded by it all.
It's an entirely different world. While New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and other metropolitan centers spent the 50's and 60's breeding a resentment toward the anonymity of suburbs and commuter trains, a sizable chunk of Rural America was still struggling to self-finance electric co-operatives so they could have household heat and running water, and dreaming of the day they might have telephone service. This, all the while supplying the wheat to be made into the Wonder Bread, pasteurized homogenized milk, fresh meat and canned vegetables that the urban centers took for granted, and rebelled against. Things the farmers themselves couldn't afford to buy.
It reminds me of the old joke about the farmer who won the lottery. A reporter asked him if he would now retire and move to town. "Nope," the farmer said. "I figure I'll just keep on farming til the money's gone." Funny, yes. And also tragic. Because it's true.
That's the world of Mellancamp's Scarecrow album. Is there rage in it? Hell, yes. How could there not be? As for the music being anti-intellectual and blame shifting: one of the things I like most about Mellancamp is his use of sarcasm and self-mockery, ie Rumbleseat, The Authority Song, and yes, even Jack And Diane.
Is that reality any less valid than The Who's British urban industrial disaffected youth perspective (My Generation, Tommy) or Bob Dylan's persecuted intellectual pacifist expressions (Tangled Up In Blue, Blowin' In The Wind)? Or for that matter, the oppressed nationalistic fervor of Smetana, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak and Rachmaninov? I don't think it's an "if you're not with us you're against us" proposition. Art is personal by its very nature; it must be, in order to exist. I embrace all these forms, and love them for what--other people's realities--without damning them for what they aren't. My experiences.
If there's a lack of "art" in popular fiction--and I don't concede that there is--I think it would come from a denial of personal experience, whatever that may be.
May 14, 1999
Mailbox report: query reply from Prism Magazine, Arachnophobia still under consideration.
Around the NAW circle: Ron, I want to be John Mellancamp when I grow up. It's funny that you should bring it up today, because it's been much on my mind. And I just wore out my 3rd cassette tape of Scarecrow.
On the joys of learning to hear....
As I get ready to write this morning, Raks Abdo is playing in the background. Having been classically trained in western music (not to mention that Iowa is not a hot-bed of cross-cultural exchange), it took me awhile to connect with Middle Eastern music in general and Egyptian classical in particular. While it doesn't have the semitone "alienness" (to me) of Far Eastern music, it's different enough that it took months of subliminal absorption for its beauty to begin to register in my mind. Slowly the subtle distinctions sorted themselves out and I finally identified the core difference.Egyptian music lacks adjectives. Harmony. Instead, its complexity comes from intricacies of melody and rhythm; nouns and verbs. It took a long time for me to move from listening to it to truly hearing it. It's the same way for me with writing.
Western music is much like Steve Leigh's entry on the change in his writing style. From the middle of the Classical Age on, western music became more and more dense; adjective loaded, if you will. From the complex, sometimes confusing, polyphony of the Baroque, the Classical Era, beginning with Bach, evolved into a block style of classical harmony that we know was chordal structure, which is our basic definition of western music today. (Through sheer strength of the delete key, I'll do my best to skip the socio-political and cultural reasons for this.
The Classical Era celebrated melodic purity, underpinned by blocks of sound as an accompaniment. By Beethoven's time, composers were becoming bored with this. The structure was rigid, with hundreds of rules for acceptable harmonic progressions and resolutions. But unwilling to abandon the beauty and precision of the structure, they sought to expand it. Thus the Romantic Era was born. Chords grew from triads with the occasional 7th to deep rich tapestries of sound. As each growth became accepted, the next generation pushed the definitions of harmony further: 9ths, diminished, augmented, etc. chords appeared until the climax of the Romantic Era: Wagner. A cacophony of blocks of sound, the romantic concept expanded to its utterly logical (and for me, unlistenable) conclusion.
Where can you go from there? Back to the basics.
Our learning-to-write process is like that. In the beginning, we capture a story with straightforward (occasionally awkward) prose. A melody. As we develop, we start adding harmonies; all the beautiful blocks of images and descriptions. Until the day we realize we've taken that to its logical endgame and come to Steve's realization of Less Is More. Then we start refining, tossing out adjectives and adverbs while relying on stronger nouns and verbs. We reach the point beyond listening to what we're saying -- we actually hear it.
Just as I've finally done with Middle Eastern music, and am struggling to do with writing.
Some of us are "Egyptian", and others more Western. One isn't necessarily better than the other, but they're very different. And as GI Joe says, "knowing is half the battle."
May 10, 1999
Long time no update. Sorry about that, folks! Between kids, a chest cold and cruise planning, I'm so behind that even my shadow is in front of me these days. Work continues on A Kiss Of Salt. It's slow going but thanks to some great suggestions from Kurt Roth, I'm very pleased with what's hitting the paper.While talking about the story, Kurt said something that turned on lights for me, something I knew in my gut to be true but hadn't verbalized. Reality is whatever the character thinks it is. You don't have to explain everything and make it logical. To pull an example out of my hat, if the protag thinks she's having a conversation with the Loch Ness Monster, for all intents and purposes, she is. She will think, speak and react to the Loch Ness Monster. For me, this means forgetting about Labels and concentrating on her emotional truth. It could be that I'm slow to catch on, or maybe I wasn't ready to make the mental leap before this, but until that moment I was feeling back-to-the-wall to decide the "true" nature of a secondary character in the story. In my mind, that would determine the genre label of the piece. To me, that meant "what rules do I apply?" and "how do I write this genre?" Instead of letting the story speak for itself, I wanted to interpret it--hang a sign of explanation on the door--and do half the reader's job for him/her.
This question of genre has been a constant source of frustration for me for the last year, since I decided to venture out from writing romance. In romance, I constantly struggled to make it romance, even when it ran counter to my vision of the story. When I finished my last romance novel, it was 440 pages. The outtakes file was 250 pages. The effort and constant "failure" exhausted me, and in the end nearly killed my love of writing. I knew I had to find a different outlet for the people and stories in my head. So what did I do? I tried to learn another genre--sf/f--and started the same frustrating process all over again.
The outcome of all this is that I realized I can't find my own place if I'm busy trying to shoehorn myself into a Label. So I'm resolving to let the stories out just the way they are, uncensored by self-imposed labels which control the process. Thanks, Kurt.
On a related note:
I used to think that the faster a story came to me, the better it was; that something created in a flood of inspiration and breathless typing must be truer and more original. Now, at least for me, I don't think so. Sure, gift stories are a blessing, but how often do they happen? And in the end, can the reader tell the difference? It doesn't seem to be that way for me. Six months later, I can't tell the difference between the ones I pulled out one word at a time, and the ones that flew from my fingers. Friends who've read my stories can't, either. That's why I'm still working--one word at a time--on A Kiss Of Salt. It's hard work, but it's worth it to me.Hmmm... did I mention cruise planning among my distractions? More on that tomorrow.
May 2, 1999 Bloomsday
Today is the great annual 12K road race across Spokane. First run in 1977, Bloomsday draws runners from as far away (in distance) as Ethiopia and (in culture) as New York. I'm told it figures in the top 5 for competitive runners. It's Spokane's big event, and the city spends months preparing for the 50,000 entrants. Those running are called (at least privately) Blooming Idiots.What's in a name?
Eastern Washington now has a new power company. Or rather, our old power company has a new name. What was once Washington Water Power is now Avista. To quote their public statement:
"We've changed our company's name to create a cohesive identity that
supports our corporate initiatives. As we continue to forge ahead with
strong growth in local, regional and national energy markets, the Avista
name positions us as a diversified North American energy company
operating under one common brand. The Avista name provides flexibility
beyond our historical utility identity and geographic location. The
pronunciation of the name suggests speed and momentum. Avista is a
nimble company that acts rather than reacts to market opportunities."The other reason, NOT stated in corporate publicity, is more straight forward. To banish the acronym WWPS. Aka, Woops.
Woops achieved notoriety (and tell-tale nickname) in 1983 by defaulting on $2.25 billion in municipal bonds, the largest municipal bond failure in U.S. history. People tend to remember things like that, even 16 years later. The solution? Change the name, and remove the stigma while keeping the same product.
The publishing industry is trying to do the same thing. In the last year, several of my mid-list friends and acquaintances have been presented with the devil's choice: take a pseudonym, or retire. With previous sales information now available not only to the publisher but to the distributor, lacklusters sales on even one book can be enough to change an author's designation from asset to liability. There are few second chances.
Can an author be reinvented so easily? I don't think so. Unlike the utility game, competition exists on the shelves, and name recognition counts, but not just with the computerized buying systems. With the readers. There are sadly a multitude of reasons that books "fail" and produce bad numbers; 99.9% of them have nothing to do with author default. A homeowner has no choice about which company supplies his electricity, but a reader does have choice about who supplies his entertainment. Will it be someone they know, or a stranger?
The computer ordering programs only know numbers. They don't know style, or story, or insight. To the program, an unknown with no track record is less of a risk than a known product that didn't meet expectations on the last time out. But I don't think readers see it that way. I know I don't.
Do I have any answers? Hell no. But I do know that mandated name changes aren't it.
Past months: April, 1999 March, 1999
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