I just found out that my story, THE SPIRIT THAT REMEMBERS, is featured on TPP this month! This was a very special piece for me in several ways. First, it was my opportunity to explore the whole subject of memory---how what we remember makes us who we are and how memory preserves the past (and how Snape's memories informed who he was and could make a difference in his personal legacy). It also gave me the opportunity to use some poetry I have always loved and to discover more.
It was also the work that made me realize I could write something longer. I began writing original fiction and have been fortunate enough to have my work published, as well as getting to know other SSHG writers who have done the same. I publish under my real name, Wendy Worthington. I have most recently had a murder mystery appear in DEATH AND A CUP OF TEA, published by Elm Books, and will have two more stories in IMMANENCE, a collection about demons manifest in the world, which will be published later this year by Story Spring Publishing.
So thank you, TPP, for all your help in launching my writing career. I couldn't have done it without you!
I am home for the holidays, trying (and not completely succeeding) to balance the desire to stay at my brother's (lovely place in the woods, lots of places to walk to, comfortable and easy) with the obligation to also spend as much time as possible at my mother's (40 minutes away by the car I don't have here, nobody else but her, not lots of places to walk to, large but still a little claustrophobic, at least psychologically, and can't easily get between them without bringing her along, which crowds my brother, SIL, and niece, who would rather keep the distance most of the time). And trying to keep from being a pain or a mooch anywhere. Tricky. Dealing with the guilties, which may be as much my own projections as anything, though that doesn't make them any less real. Just two more days, then back home on Friday (I do miss my kitties! hope they will still speak to me!).
John Scalzi writes on his blog today, "It's all beautiful, and nothing lasts." He surrounds it with assurances that this does not spring from any great, impending tragedy, but instead from the recognition that everything is fleeting and that recognizing the beauty in that impermanence is important. And this resonates with me today, in the cool, fall morning, sitting with a lapful of purring cat, and catching my breath for the first time in a week.
I haven't been posting mainly because my tablet, the device I use when I am out and about, inserts carriage returns after every two letters (on posts only, not on comments), and that is frustrating enough not to bother writing to you at all from the outside world. But I am home now on the big computer, and the new day is beautiful, and nothing lasts, so let me tell you, while technology cooperates, how much I appreciate all the slices of lives well lived that LJ affords me glimpses of. I think of each of my flisters warmly and revel in your triumphs, laugh at your wit, empathize with your frustrations, and thoroughly enjoy all the accounts of your ongoing adventures Out There. I comment when I have something to say, but I read as much as I can.
My own adventures continue--auditions and performances and writing and routines, moments of Almost and Oh-By-the-Way, frustrations and little victories and the continuing battles that sometimes feel pointless and occasionally reward, but that most often have to be measured in increments: checking off one more item on the to-do list and finding satisfaction in that. Some days, that is quite enough. Some days, it has to be.
But it is all beautiful, indeed, and none of it lasts. There is comfort in both parts of that concept.
I have to stop typing now and hug the cat while she is still purring and wanting to be hugged. At the moment, she is my surrogate for all of you.
I was reading an article today in the LA Times about the "crisis" in television comedies (i.e., there aren't very many of them that are succeeding right now). The author made reference to "the so-called 'single-camera' comedies." They are "so-called" because are shot with a single camera instead of with multiple cameras.
And it got me thinking about that phrase, "so-called." Is that really the correct way to use this? Having just talked about multiple-camera comedies shot in front of live studio audences, shouldn't the next paragraph's discussion of single-camera comedies have made the use of that phrase self-explanatory? And in that context is "so-called" really called for? Doesn't it imply that the term "single-camera comedies" is jargon and needs to be acknowledged as such? Or am I just being picky?
And, incidentally, couldn't the writer have then explained the economic or even the stylistic differences between the genres, aside from just noting that single-camera shows are generally shot "on location" (not always true, actually) and give the shows "a more cinematic feel" (also not always true, but not a bad shorthand description)?
(Interview me, dear writer, and find out why I want the multiple-camera shows to have a comeback!)
I am in rehearsal for a site-specific show that takes place in a mortuary (an actual, working mortuary---gardens, halls, a chapel, a two-story mural hallway, offices, a gallery, and, across the street, a large cemetary). The audience gathers to participate in a framing show that sets this up as taking place on a night when the dead can commune with the living, then gets separated into three groups to be led around the grounds to experience three different short plays. This means that I get to perform my piece three times a night, and that the whole event has to be coordinated so groups don't cross paths and so that the screaming from the graveyard doesn't interfere too much with the shrieking in the garden and the moaning in the mural hall.
Yesterday was what they call the "orchestration rehearsal," when all three pieces get done three times in order to work out timing and kinks and overlap. It was held during the day, as the lighting and special effects and sound (and, thankfully, costumes and gory effects) haven't been folded in yet.
And it was 104 degrees outside.
Thank god for icewater, and sunglasses. and sunblock, and whatever bits of shade we could find along the way, because it was pretty brutal. No one passed out, but I am VERY glad that I am not in one of the fight scenes, don't have to dance or run, and wasn't in costume (a full nun's habit---which they tell me I will be very grateful for later in the run when the nights start getting cold).
The one good thing about a long return journey is the way it mitigates the sadness of parting and the feeling that time together with kindred spirits, working in a convivial and inspiring atmosphere simply flies by. Our time in the same rooms is too short, but it is, alas, what we can all spare, and so it has to do.
This week, I suspended work on the novel I have been puttering away at steadily for these many months to focus on some other projects. I have been finding some success with various short stories (three have now been published, and a fourth is slotted for the fall), so I decided to spend this week focusing on the backlog of first drafts and fragments of new stories that have been sitting in my hard drive, to see what I have amassed and what I might do with them. I polished two into better shape and got some excellent feedback on the one that is slated to be part of a larger collection. (Most of the feedback was consistent, and what was not was interesting in its divergence. I shall ponder it all and then return to this one shortly.) The second story I decided was ready to send out into the world, and so I submitted it electronically to an established magazine and will see what happens. I intend it to be the first of many to send to these sources.
I also worked on two stories I had begun quite awhile ago. One of them seems to be turning in a straightforward little murder mystery, but the other has the potential to become something else. There is an anthology in early discussion that it might become right for. I will keep playing with it and see where it goes. And there is another anthology that is seeking entries that I may develop one of the other pieces for (or possibly come up with something new to submit).
I also reestablished contact with my literary agent and will be continuing to renew that connection in the next few months.
At the start of the week, we each talked about our journeys over the last year, many filled with challenges and stresses and demands on our time and attention, as well as some of the joys and successes each of us has met along the way. It reminded me that I need to spell out as many of my accomplishments as possible for myself, because it is too easy to feel that there haven't been many. I spent this morning compiling my own annual report of what I have actually achieved over the past year in my ongoing quests, and it is a strong reminder that I have, in fact, made significant headway on many fronts. I keep a brief record of some of these accomplishments (principally my daily writing and my auditions and bookings), but I need to be more thorough in order to recognize how much I really have been able to do. The end results are important, but the work getting there matters as well, and I intend to make a much better effort at tracking and acknowledging ALL the work, not simply what ends up being published, broadcast, or shared with wider audiences in other ways.
I stated at the start of this week that I primarily wanted to use it to recharge my creative batteries and find renewed inspiration, and I have certainly accomplished that. I salute all my fellow brilliant travelers. Our time together is too brief, but it flows from a deep wellspring that we have managed to establish together, and it is fed by so many others on my flist. I am grateful to have all of you in my life and to be reminded of how many truly marvelous, talented, gracious people I am fortunate enough to know. Bless you all.
(For those of you in the USA. International Flisters, ignore, please.) If you're home this coming Monday night, look for the cranky lady in the diner on "2 Broke Girls" at 8:30pm on CBS. http://www.cbs.com/shows/2_broke_g… She might look a little familiar....
frustrated