I Hoard Words

When I’m unwell, when the darkness descends and I can’t reach my characters anymore, I lock my voice in a musty mental trunk, piling distractions on the lid. I talk only about the most mundane and shallow topics. I write only grocery lists and technical documentation for my day job. I'm a makeshift Pandora, barricaded in the dark with magazines and Netflix binges, because chancing the loss of the light is unfathomable.

He notices. Of course he notices. Sometimes his comments are gentle nudges; sometimes he braves bloody retribution with bald reminders that I’m crabby when I’m not writing, and please go kill something on paper so I feel better.

My writing group listens and commiserates, setting word counts and editing goals for the next meeting.

But my words are hoarded. I am Gollum guarding my Precious, and woe to anyone who forces the lid open before I’m ready.

Woe to the characters locked away; it gets crowded in there.

A polite knock from inside the trunk prompts a gentle conversational poke from my conscience about books requiring attention. It’s irritating. I ignore them both and watch cat videos on YouTube.

A more insistent pounding jiggles the trunk’s lid. My writing group gives me a deadline for pieces they can critique. It’s grating. I finally read a non-fiction book I’d promised to review six months a year ago.

The trunk’s inhabitants lose patience; a small army of angry dwarves with pickaxes strikes constant blows from beneath the lid. My head is full and I’m cranky.

He gives me the LOOK with a heavy knowing sigh, and reminds me that I NEED to write to be well, because stewing is somewhere less than awesome for ALL of us. It’s infuriating, and I watch terrible horror movies instead. Piece spoken, he knows the inevitable pattern and lets me be.

Eventually, no matter how far I withdraw from the world and myself, I return. I find a smidgen of energy. I shut off the TV. I set the junk food books aside. My stubborn streak subsides enough to let sense take over, and I hear my tribe’s commentary, inside and out. 
I open the box, careful not to damage the lock. I’ll need it later.

The fetid pool of emotional sludge must be drained in order to let characters out. I write for my own escape, for that painful release that only comes with a pressure valve’s opening. In a tirade of furious handwriting in a half-full journal, words gallop out of their prison on illegible ink. Pages fill with garbage that’s been swirling inside for weeks, and I sigh when my hand is cramping around the pen: the constant buzzing finally goes quiet in my head.

Writing is the way I become well, and remain myself, under the onslaught of random plots announcing themselves at inopportune moments. Notebooks fill with the new inspirations and I have enough to stay busy until the next bout of darkness.

Some people worry their secret lives will come to light after their death. Pacts are made; promises to delete, burn, or otherwise eradicate anything a loved one might find distressful. My fear is anyone reading my journals without knowing my writing cycle would assume I’m constantly miserable. 
The truth is, notebooks and journals carry the regular catharsis that unlocks the trunk of the clamor of tales pushing impatiently for THEIR turn. Universes wait inside me, but I have to clear the path before I can wallow in the lives of imaginary people doing imaginary deeds in imaginary worlds.

Mythic Monday: Bucephalus

I've been completely enamored with horses since (literally) before I could walk. It's probably not a terrible surprise, then, that one of my favorite ancient legends is the tale of how Alexander the Great came to win a horse so great his name is still remembered in some circles nearly 2,500 years later.

Walter Farley based The Black Stallion on his story. The horse that conquered the world.

Bucephalus as depicted in Greek history. Photo courtesy of Bing.

So, the quick version of Alexander's story (because really, one post would never cover the legend, myth, and reality of Alexander). Alexander of Macedonia, son of King Phillip II, was (of course) a remarkable child born in 358BCE or so. Over the course of his relatively short life, Alexander conquered all of Greece, Egypt, and the Persian Empire (including pretty much everything below Russia and China between the Mediterranean and India). By all historical and legendary accounts, Alexander was an intelligent, precocious, and extremely talented child. The story of how he wins his mount only adds to the legend.

In 346 BCE, a horse trader, Philonecius of Thessaly, brought an untamable beast to the amphitheater for Phillip, thinking the stallion's imposing stature and tough reputation would make him an excellent warhorse. The price of this giant black beast was three times the normal cost. This is a time when warhorses are supremely prized and very expensive. Xenophon wrote his treatise on horsemanship not long before Alexander was born, and horses were extremely valuable in war tactics. (Xenophon's rules on horsemanship, warhorses, and the relationship between rider and horse are part of what developed eventually into modern day Dressage...although today it's in a MUCH diluted form). So...what I'm saying here is that Philonecious was trying to sell Philip a Bugatti Veyron.

Anyway, Phillip after seeing the completely crazy, dangerous behavior of this unruly horse, refused the offer and ordered the stud led away.

Alexander, apparently a rather entitled smartass even at 12, heckled his father from the crowd, calling the King of Macedonia a coward. The crowd was shocked, I'm sure, but Philip mocked his son in return, offering to buy the boy the Bugatti Veyron (yes, that is the equivalent. A multi-million dollar supercar)...IF Alexander had the balls (at 12) to prove his own courage by taming a horse that required multiple handlers to control. Philip didn't think the kid would take him up on the offer.

Alexander, though, had been watching while everyone else laughed at him. This giant, muscular monster who endangered everyone around him in the ring only shied and ran when confronted by shadows. Specifically, by his OWN shadow. No one else saw it. Alexander ordered the ropes removed and the handlers back, then he quietly approached Bucephalus and spoke his name, catching his attention. Carefully and quietly, Alexander turned the horse until he faced the sun, rescuing him from the terror.

The laughter of the crowd turned to raucous cheers when the boy mounted the untamable badass horse and rode him around, then out of the arena. Bucephalus and Alexander were utterly inseparable from that moment. No one else could ride the stud, and Alexander's enemies were pounded into red mud under Bucephalus' hooves. Oh, incidentally, Bucephalus's name literally means "Head like an ox." He reportedly had a huge, thick head. Believe me, the physical descriptions are fascinating to a person who's written articles on the history of (now extinct) Medieval warhorses. In every way, this horse was an intimidating terror to everyone except Alexander.

After the battle of Gaugamela (in modern day Iraq, north of Kirkuk), Bucephalus was kidnapped (um...ok, horsenapped) by the Persians. Alexander promised to cut down every tree, burn every crop, kill every living thing in the region until he was returned. Nobody fucked with his horse, seriously. Bucephalus was returned with a plea for mercy by his captors.

Bucephalus carried his master from Greece to India, where he died in 326 BCE. The manner of his death is disputed: some historians say it was due to wounds after battle. Some say it was simply old age (after all, he would've been over twenty by then, and that's getting fairly elderly in horse years). Either way, Alexander mourned Bucephalus so strongly he named a city after his longtime companion. Alexandria Bucephala was somewhere (historians don't know exactly where) near the border of what is now Pakistan and India, on one of the Indus tributaries.  It's a little hard to tell: Alexander named THOUSANDS of cities some form of "Alexandria" all over his empire. Some of them still survive today. Unfortunately, not Bucephala.

Where is the line between myth and reality? It's impossible to tell, particularly since Alexander himself is surround by myth and legend. That horse is so famous the name of random horse trader who sold him is still known. Walter Farley even told the story of Bucephalus in the beginning of The Black Stallion, before essentially modernizing the tale for the 1940's.

You can still, to this day, buy statues of Bucephalus...I know. I have one.

And he's goddamned legendary.

My Bucephalus. Photo courtesy of Bing.

I'm Stuck in Post-Vacation, Post-New-Book Blahs...

You know that feeling? The one where you FINALLY get the second book in a series you like so much you'll ignore everything to read it (everything = eating, sex, feeding the dogs, showering, sleeping, working, oh shit was that a husband who just walked by? I'm not sure...I'm utterly lost in a different world)?

Yeah.

So I have a few post-vacation pics and stories to share, but I'm still a little trapped in Anne Bishop's world full of The Others in the Courtyard.

I waited a LONG time for book two, and of course I read it in a day. Dammit. DAMMIT! Of course there's no word on the next book, since she's still working on the promotion and (hopefully) enjoying the success of the current new release.

As a writer who has yet to finish book one of the series in my head, I totally get it. I must wait. As a voracious reader of her work, I'm an impatient woman.

If you haven't read Anne Bishop and you enjoy dark fantasy, do so. Immediately.

You may begin with The Black Jewels Trilogy, omnibus edition, of course: witches, demons, and undead...they're the good guys.

Or The Tir Alainn trilogy: Fae, witches, and inquisitors.

Or Sebastian, first of the Ephemera novels: a broken world, a powerful woman, and an incubus. It's not what you think.

Or if you'd like to join me in my newest OBSESSION: The Others. Written in Red is the beginning (humans versus nature in a most unexpectedly excellently dark way). Murder of Crows is book two. I finished it in a day...and I'll read it again this week, because I can't quite let go of that universe yet.

Beware: getting lost in her worlds is a significant, terrible and wonderful danger.

Flash Fiction Project (No, it's not porn)

I had this idea the other day to combine writing exercises with blog posts, but only one series (to keep from boring the crap out of anyone). I have this flash fiction* piece that was a finalist in a Women On Writing  contest a couple of years ago. I found it the other day and thought it'd be a neat beginning to a "seven deadlies" short story series. I'm doing a bit of light editing before posting it (likely tonight), and will follow up with the other six as they're finished.

Feel free to read and comment or, if short dark fiction doesn't tickle your bones, ignore. Feedback on a piece is always cool though: sometimes what makes total sense in my brainpan doesn't fit in everyone else's.

Ok...let's be honest here...USUALLY what makes sense to me confuses the shit out of everyone else. I'm ok with that, but I'd like my fiction to be mildly better than my mental state.

*Flash Fiction does not equal x-rated (flash-your-boobies-for-beads!), in case you're wondering. It's generally defined as a short-short story: usually 500 words or less (sometimes 750). I highly encourage any writers out there to give it a shot: it's a great writing exercise: the goal is to remove all unnecessary words (if the word isn't moving the story along, cut it), and being Chatty McChattypants I have a hard time with it.