Shawn L. Bird

Original poetry, commentary, and fiction. All copyrights reserved.

truth and memory December 27, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening,Mythology,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:40 am
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One of the values of learning another language, is the enlightenment it provides to your own language.  I have links to an article about this in a previous blog post.

While I’ve been working with Mnemosyne and Lethe this week, I’ve discovered an interesting thing.

In English, the opposite of memory is forgetfulness.  In Greek lethe (forgetfulness) is opposed with aletheia (prefix ‘a-‘ making some thing the opposite, remember). Aletheia doesn’t mean memory, it means truth.

I find that very profound.  It’s not the concept of a lie that is the opposite of truth in Greek, it’s forgetfulness.

It begs pondering.

I think I can do something with the concept

.  I’m not sure what, at this point, but it fits with Ben’s reality, doesn’t it?  Lethe has robbed Grace of memory, and it keeps her from knowing the truth.

I suppose this means I’m about to be introduced to the goddess Aletheia.  I wonder what she’ll be like?   Writing is fascinating business.

 

Mnemosyne & Ben December 26, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening,Mythology,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 2:59 pm
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Here is a snippet of ‘something yet to be.’ I think it will end up in Grace Awakening Myth, but it will tell me for certain in its own time. The author has very little say in these matters.  Characters have their own agendas.   Lethe is the river of forgetfulness from which humans drink before they pass into the underworld. The personification of the river is the goddess Lethe herself.  ‘She’  is Mnemosyne, goddess of memory.  ‘He’ is… uh…well.  Ben.  Sort of.

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She remembers all, of course. She must. It is her talent and her obligation. It is her blessing and her curse. Everything is in balance, an essential paradox poised on the point of a pin.

He doesn’t remember everything.  Whatever he sees in those longing backward glances, Mnemosyne knows the two sided blade. She has gifted him with the joy of them, but she has blessed him with Lethe’s touch as well. Of course, he has no memory of that.

He senses the tragedies though, despite the lack of memory.  He feels the ephemeral pain of loss, rejection, disdain and disgust.  He clings to the fear of them, to fuel his pursuit, but they threaten to overwhelm him at times.  It was doing so now.  She could feel the force of her presence stirring memories in him.

A faint hum stirred the air along with a cool, gentle scent.  Mnemosyne reached behind her to a goblet that had materialized there.  She touched his shoulder, “Here, son.  Drink.”

He smiled vaguely, sipping down the draught.  He nodded gratefully, and she felt the tension leave him  as he gazed beyond the room.  “I must go.”

She nodded.  “I will do what I can from here.”

“Thank you.”

As he turned into the ether, she smiled to herself.  “Thank you, Lethe,” she said to the empty room, and heard the distant  melodious chuckle in response.

Paradox indeed.

 

slow December 24, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 1:16 am
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What I’ve learned about the publishing industry:

It’s slow.

Everything about it moves like a comatose tortoise. True, like the tortoise, sure and steady gets there eventually, but it can be ridiculously frustrating watching from the sidelines.

If an agent or publisher says they’ll get back to you in a week, s/he means a month. If they say it’ll be a month, expect to hear around four months later. Four seems to be the number to multiply by.

Ironically, I was also told that from completion of novel to publication the average book takes 4.5 years. Coincidence?

Is patience a virtue?

Perhaps. Electronic publishing speeds up many aspects of the process, but the most important one, the editing and proof-reading will still take just as long as ever.

I’m counting the days until Grace Awakening Power gets back from the editor, I can make the required changes, and it can be released by Lintusen to the world!  I was expecting it initially in November, four months after it went to the editor.  If my multiplication scenario holds, I will see it in 16 months, or perhaps 4 months after November, which puts arrival in March.

Patience.

The watch-word for the author waiting for a book.

It’s a slow process.

 

Mnemosyne December 20, 2011

Filed under: Mythology — Shawn L. Bird @ 2:01 pm
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I’ve been thinking about memory.  That’s Mnemosyne’s area of responsibility.  My father is in hospital and when we visit, he is spending a lot of time with her.  Stories are told and re-told.  Stories of youth.  Of working days.  Of love.  Of betrayal.  It’s our stories that reveal what is important about us.

Mnemosyne saves the certain moments for us.  Why?  Do you sometimes savour a moment, specifically for the purpose of holding it?  Do you look at a gathering of loved ones, and feel yourself snapping a mental picture that you know will remain with you forever?  It becomes a picture that only you have.  It will alter, too.  You’ll colour it, crumple it, re-imagine it, until the image serves a purpose you want it for.

Is it a catalyst? A purpose?  A dream? An anchor?

Mnemosyne wraps us in the security of our past, and at her best she strengthens and guides us.

Memories can torture and claw though, as well.  They can hold us back in fear as much as push us forward.

We can mire in nostalgia and lose our present when Mnemosyne has too much power in our lives.

 

 

re-adjusting… December 8, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening,OUTLANDERishness,Pondering,Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 2:36 pm
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I was driving home while listening to the audio book of Diana Gabaldon’s Dragonfly in Amber. It’s a brisk December day, -3 Celsius.

At this point in the story, the narrator was discussing about how the day of the Battle of Culloden was bitterly cold. Immediately, in my mind, I envisioned a bitterly cold day. -20 or so. The next line was about how the bodies were stacked wet with blood and rain. Rain. Immediately, I adjusted my vision of the cold 21 degrees warmer…

Then I laughed. So much of the story is contained in the perspective of the reader. I know it intellectually, but it always seems to take me by surprise when I see it in action.

A couple of times I’ve had comments from readers of Grace Awakening that baffled me. Sometimes they’ve just misinterpreted something, or missed some detail, but often it is just that their life experience reveals a different view on the events. It’s interesting.

Bitter cold doesn’t need to be -20 of course. I spent a July in Vancouver one year, and the humidity of the city got into my bones and I was cold all the time. It was much worse than the -20 winter days! Living in the dry interior of BC, I don’t like humidity. Perhaps the weather at Culloden, not far from Inverness and the Channel, was that ‘get into your bones’ bitterness, even though it was above zero.

Adjust while reading.

Carry on.

 

make it work until it is November 28, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening,Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 6:21 pm
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In Becca Fitzpatrick’s Hush, Hush, protagonist Nora has the following conversation with her widowed mother:

“How did you know you were in love with Dad?” I asked, striving to sound casual.  There was  always the chance that discussing Dad would bring on a tearfest , something I hoped to avoid.

Mom settled into the sofa and propped her feet up on the coffee table.  “I didn’t.  Not until we’d been married about a year.”

It wasn’t the answer I expected.  “Then…why did you marry him?”

“Because I thought I was in love.  And when you think you’re in love, you’re willing to stick it out and make it work until it is love.”   (p. 188)

I like the sentiment expressed here.   Attraction may be there in the beginning of a relationship, or it may grow on you, as you learn to appreciate the source of your affection. Sometimes you need to be persuaded of them.  Sometimes they’re apparent to you immediately.  Sometimes the reasons you are initially attracted change with time, and you grow to love and appreciate completely different facets of your beloved’s character.

The key, of course, is focusing on the positive.  If in that first year, all you notice are the irritations, you’re going to be driven apart, rather than blossoming together in love.  A mutual commitment to the relationship is necessary, as well as a desire to develop a strong and loving relationship.  You have to make that choice, and do things to improve the relationship and the commitment.

Love may be powerful and visceral at times, but it is an emotion, and it is therefore volatile.  Sometimes you will be angry, and anger may completely overwhelm any feelings of love that you have.  Some days you will be frustrated, and frustration may completely destroy the respect and affection you feel for your partner.  What do you do then?  That’s when commitment comes in.  When you’re committed to the relationship, anger, frustration and other irritations lose power.  Commitment is the key to making a relationship grow, blossom, and allow it to seed joy, family, and support into your future.

When you give up love dies.   When you’re each committed to being the best for each other, your love is strong enough to transcend time.

Just ask Ben and Grace about that.

 

audio reading November 14, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening,OUTLANDERishness,Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 2:01 pm
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My father is legally blind, and as a result he has been receiving books on tape from the Canadian National Institute for the Blind and the regional library for several years.  I have really only listened previously to one audio book, a copy of The Golden Compass that we took out to listen to as a family on a long driving holiday.  I guess it’s because I read so quickly, or because you could only get them out from the library unless you were visually disabled, but I haven’t gotten onto the listening bandwagon.

Recently a friend suggested that I should listen to The Outlander series (even though I had just read the whole series) because narrator Davina Porter is so wonderful.  I bought a couple books, and have been listening, and I am enthralled with Porter’s melodious voice.  The Outlander series is full of long books- the first one is 33 hours and the second is 35 hours.  I think I saw one comes in at 55 hours (A Breath of Snow and Ashes is almost 1400 pages, I recall).  I’ve managed to knit much more efficiently while someone else reads to me, than when I was reading print and knitting simultaneously!

I made an audio recording of Grace Awakening the summer of 2009 for my dad.  I know how long it takes to do it, and how tricky it is to read expressively with slightly different voices for the various characters, etc.  Porter is amazing at that, with a breadth of accents, pacings, and intonations for the various characters.  I think I would listen to her read the phone book.

Here is an interesting pair of videos Porter and he husband did, wherein Davina Porter discusses her job as an audio reader.  Quite interesting, and you can enjoy her beautiful voice.

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PART ONE

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PART TWO

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music & time November 12, 2011

Filed under: Commentary,Grace Awakening — Shawn L. Bird @ 1:47 pm
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 “To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.”
-Aaron Copland

I feel like I should be overflowing with thoughts on this one, but it’s just sitting here, resonance humming in my head.

Yes,  Aaron.

 

do it! November 2, 2011

Filed under: anecdotes,Grace Awakening,Pondering — Shawn L. Bird @ 10:55 pm
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Today one of my students was singing show tunes to himself as he packed up at the end of class.  As I placed the musical, and we got talking, I told him this story.  It occurred to me that I haven’t shared this one with you all.

When I was about 8, my parents took me to the Banff School of Fine Art’s production of Fiddler on the Roof.  I remember the excitement of driving from Calgary to Banff, I remember falling asleep in the car on the drive home, and I remember loving the music.  We bought the album, and I sang those tunes constantly.  I particularly loved “Far From the Home I Love” which is sung by daughter Hodel as she goes to Siberia to join Perchik.

When I was in grade seven, our school mounted a production of Fiddler on the Roof.  Auditions were announced.  I wanted to be Hodel.  I went down to the drama room, heart pounding, and discovered that grade 9, Richie Eichler was going to play Tevye.  My heart stopped.

My little trio of friends called him the Maharaja, because he was always surrounded by a harem of girls.  He was funny, kind of goofy looking, and we couldn’t quite figure out what the attraction was, but we were in awe of it, nonetheless.  At least, I was.  I was petrified of auditioning in front of Richie Eichler.  He didn’t know me at all, of course.  There was absolutely no reason for my panic, but I was paralyzed.  I couldn’t do the audition.

A few months later, I sat in the audience and watched the girl playing Hodel butcher my song.  She couldn’t sing at all, and so she recited it like a poem.  It was a knife turning in my gut.  I could sing.  I could have brought the audience to tears with that song.  I sing it with tears pouring down my face even today.    It’s the kind of song that the audience is crushed by.  I felt guilty.  I was angry with myself for not having the courage to go through the audition, because I would have gotten the part, and I would have been good.  It was a painful lesson.  I decided the next opportunity, to act in Fiddler on the Roof, I would audition for Hodel.

You may be able to guess what happened.  I never found another production of it.  Now I could perhaps play Golde, but I will never be able to play young Hodel.  I had one chance, and I lost it.

Stupid.

I have won many other auditions over the years, and had the opportunity to sing other roles, but the role that sparked my star-struck dreams was never to be mine.

Damn Richie Eichler!   Damn my pointless fears!

Never let your imagined worries stop you from taking hold of your dreams.  You may not get a second chance.

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PS. As a matter of trivia for Grace Awakening fans- The real Lloyd played trumpet in the orchestra for this production.  I remembered him quite distinctly playing in the band for Fiddler, when we met officially for the first time a couple years later as teen volunteers at Kelowna General Hospital.

 

interviews October 19, 2011

Filed under: book reviews,Grace Awakening,Reading,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 7:10 pm
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I like interviews.  I enjoy meeting people, and I enjoy the fun of discovery that comes from questions.

Recently I was asked if Grace, Ben and Josh would consent to participate in an interview.  With some difficulty, the three of them were assembled in one place, and this is the result:

http://oneminutebooks.blogspot.com/2011/10/good-characters-make-you-feel-like-you.html