Shawn L. Bird

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

reminding yourself of who you are November 25, 2011

Filed under: Commentary,Reading,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 2:13 pm
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“You can spend a bit of yourself when you give yourself to a character. At the end of a job, you have to remind yourself who and what you are.”

Richard Armitage.

When I’ve been involved in musical productions, it’s always been depressing the first day after the show closes to find yourself again. Those with romantic roles tend to find themselves a little in love with their show paramour for awhile. The rest of the cast tends to wander about dazedly wondering what they’re going to do to fill their days now.

I’ve written previously about this feeling when emerging out of a particularly in depth literary immersion.  I think this is true when you are a writer, as well. When you are wrapped up tightly in your in your alternate world, it can be a difficult transition to return to the mundane realities.

What power has the imagination to fuel such alternate visions, and to put them all into our heads.  We carry our own ‘holodecks’ of possibility.  We can create our own world of romance, joy, and comedy.  We can create our own horror drama.  How important it is to make the best choice, to make our lives the best we can imagine them to be!  If reality doesn’t suit, we can imagine a better life.

 

Echoes November 24, 2011

Filed under: book reviews,Commentary,OUTLANDERishness — Shawn L. Bird @ 6:21 pm
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In my on-going delight over having discovered and devoured Diana Gabaldon last month, I have read the last book in the Outlander series twice this month (I read through most of the series twice since I discovered them. Just because.

I had a bunch of ponderings about Echo in the Bone, and was hoping to spend some quality time on the Outlander Book Club forum. Unfortunately, having Americans involved, they have closed the forum for the Thanksgiving holiday (imagine! shutting down the internet for a holiday!) NOT being an American, I’m not very impressed. I did a search for other discussions and came across this amusing review.  I thought you might be entertained by it as much as I was.

Having shared that, and not being able to play on the forum, I shall have to listen to Voyager and cut out that linen tunic, I guess.

 

lonnnnnnnnng walk November 17, 2011

Filed under: book reviews — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:16 am
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I’m reading The Long Walk for my book club.

I’ve decided I don’t like expository biographies that don’t use dialogue or skillfully develop suspense or tension.

I suspect the movie is actually going to be better than the book.

That’s saying something, but it’d be hard to be worse.

 

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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falling through holes in history November 7, 2011

Filed under: OUTLANDERishness,Reading,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 8:33 pm
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Well, novelists are a conscienceless lot. Those of us who deal with history tend to be fairly respectful of such facts as are recorded (always bearing in mind the proviso that just because it’s in print, it isn’t necessarily true). But give us a hole to slide through, an omission in the historic record, one of those mysterious lacunae that occur in even the best documented life…

 (Diana Gabaldon in the Author’s Notes of An Echo in the Bone  p. 1103-4)

I have taken a break from working on Grace Beguiling in order to focus on Grace Awakening Myth, but when I read this remark in the notes, it made me laugh.  I have enjoyed hunting through historical records, and finding just enough holes to fall through.  Those hollows are the where the most interesting parts of the story breathe their own lives.  I am looking forward to getting back to the 14th century and exploring  beguilement.

I have to make it through the myth first, though.

 

world is yours November 5, 2011

Filed under: Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 6:49 pm

 “The world was hers for the reading.”
-Betty Smith

and so it is yours as well.  Open the pages, fall into the world.

 

that bloody Scot November 4, 2011

Filed under: Commentary,OUTLANDERishness,Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 2:08 pm
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I’ve been reading through the Outlander books in the last month or so. As a result, I’ve been exploring fan sites and such, pondering the romantic attraction of Jamie Fraser, since he does seem to have a lot of ladies all over the world in quite a tizzy.

I’ve written some ideas down already, but another one just occured to me. Here is a rare man- a manly man of the purest order, a man with so much testosterone that he is noticed everywhere he goes, is bitterly hated, lusted after. etc, but when he comes home to his woman, wounded from the fight and sorrowful over the hard responsibilities of having to kill or maim to keep his people safe, he talks about his feelings.

Oh yes. Women aren’t impressed so much by all that killing and cunning stuff, but they adore a man who can talk about his feelings.  Jamie is astute, he knows about his own feelings, he understands Claire’s feelings, and when he doesn’t, he asks her about them, and he listens.  He talks about the mushy stuff, he isn’t afraid to admit his weaknesses, he listens and he understands.  Wow.  Now THAT’s a man.  He doesn’t sound much like an 18th century man, does he?  or a 21st century one, either for that matter.  Women can only dream of finding a man like that.

Particularly one wearing a kilt.

 

go North wee fools! October 30, 2011

Filed under: OUTLANDERishness,Pondering,Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 8:53 pm
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I’m reading Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series these days. At the moment I’m reading book 6,  A Breath of Snow and Ashes, in which Claire (time traveller from 1968 this time) and her Highlander love Jamie, are settled in North Carolina amid the stressful period leading up to the American Revolution.

Considering all that Claire and her daughter and son-in-law knew, I keep pondering why on earth they’d want to live through another miserable war? Why didn’t they high tail it to the safety of what became Canada? Nova Scotia would have been an extremely logical place to settle, or perhaps Lower Canada. We know there were Frasers active with the North West Company within 40 years of 1776. Ian could have found Micmac brothers. It would definitely been a much less stressful book (I’m getting worn out from the heart-thumping, page turning!) It just doesn’t seem logical. Surely Claire and Jamie have some common sense? If they knew what was coming, and they did, they should have gone to Canada.

I can’t help being quite disgusted with them for not doing so!

Oh- and knowing about the burning- why haven’t they built an escape tunnel under their house?!  I am so frustrated!

 

Fictional voices October 26, 2011

Filed under: Poetry,Reading,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 11:02 am
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Fictional voices

I understand the call of the other world
The voices beckoning
“Stay!”
Sometimes it’s hard to leave them,
To return to a world of responsibility
Of real hurt
Of real anguish
Of real love.
The world between the pages
Invades dreams
Fills days,
Creates a longing
That is only fulfilled
By words.

26.10.2011

 

what is vs what could be October 20, 2011

Filed under: OUTLANDERishness,Reading,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 7:26 pm
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In the acknowledgements at the beginning of Drums of Autumn, Diana Gabaldon observes that her husband says, “I don’t know how you keep getting away with this.  You don’t know anything about men.”  That made me laugh out loud.

Gabaldon might not really know men (though I think she captures them very well, myself), but she definitely understands what women WANT their men to be!  Strong and tender, proud and humble, wounded and capable, physically arresting and self-effacing, full of  desire and faithfully devoted, a gentleman and a serf.  Her main character, Jamie Fraser, may not actually exist, but he is the complex bundle of contradictions that women desire.

This should be a consolation to the men: Jamie’s weaknesses are at the root of his strengths, and he is adored for them.