Kamanthian Characters: Obsession's Cold Comfort -- Larina

The Kamanthian characters have long-standing passions central to their  life-quests, and what they face in the Lair of Beasts impacts each of them at a deep, personal level as well as Kamanthia as a whole. 

But first things first.  Catalystica brings them together and into the Lair. Transformations of heart are possible but choices in the Lair aren't always what the characters expect. 

Larina:

Feed it or let it starve. 

That's what my father told the Kasana priestess when he and mother surrendered me to the orphanage.  They wanted a boy-child, but I was a girl.

When I was old enough, they had to fulfill the obligation of surrendering parents. They took me to Academy and apprenticed me to the sword instructor, Manion.

Teach her so she doesn't cut off her own feet.

They didn't look back as they left.

But I know how to win their love. I've excelled with the sword beyond anything they could imagine, and Sunsheen is the perfect blade. I only need to find and kill a dragon, just like the hero in Chants of Charred Bones. 

Mighty the valor, mighty the sword

Great the renown, great the reward

to one who brings the dragon down ...

I'll prove I wasn't a waste of birthing sheets.

I'll prove I'm worthy of their approval, worthy of their love.

If not love, then fear.

 

                 

Kamanthian Characters: The Man with Anger Issues -- Ratchen

Back in April, the MC of The Kamanthian Chronicles: Catalystica was included in the Character Tour hosted by Ralene Burke  http://www.raleneburke.com/2013/04/character-tour-the-kamanthian-chronicle/

Although this was supposedly a one-time thing, the more I thought about it, the more it seemed right to give each of the Kamanthians a chance to have his/her say.  So, beginning with a repeat of Ratchen's "voice", the next few posts will feature the characters of Kamanthia, the wild and strange world where the Lair of Beasts is hidden in the canyon complex of the Kahall.

Ratchen:

"Prove to me, Ratchen. Bring me the horn of a unicorn so I know your love is true."

                                     

Kor, how I loved Anina. And how I loved our son, Scayne, who'd taken his first tottering steps only days before she kissed me and spoke those words. We'd been wed for just over a year, but neither of us had reached our second decade. Why did she do it? Why would she betray me?

"Bring me the horn of a unicorn..."

I was young and I believed such a beast roamed the forests of the northern Kamanthian ranges. She told me she'd spotted one just beyond the traveler's bell at Yerrick Pass . She lied.

A Regent patrol captured me, and they laughed as they shackled me. They said she'd reported I was poaching the dun fell deer.

Numbers matter in prison. Five years for poaching. Five years of hard labor in the Provincial quarry. Five years of springvine floggings. And when I protested innocence, when I defended myself from other prisoners, when the warder had a liomm headache, or when the prison consul wasn't  happy with his whore—then a three-day or week in solitary. In a rock cell— two paces from side to side, from front to back. Utter blackness but for a slot uncovered daily for food and water. Stifling. Cold. A living burial. I could scarcely breathe, but I could scream. I thought I would die. I didn't, but love did.

"Bring me the horn of a unicorn..."

I've hunted the width and breadth of Kamanthia for the last ten years. From the inland sea in the northeast, to the grasslands, to the Beacons of the western coast, to the deserts and deltas of the south. I worked on cargo ships for passage to the minor continent and along the island chains. Along the way, I earned a reputation: violent, amoral, black-hearted, unpredictable, mad. Maybe I deserved the epithets and curses aimed at me, but nothing, nothing was getting in the way of what I sought.

Then, in the great slash of canyons called the Kahall, I found the fabled Lair of Beasts.

Once I learn how to enter the Lair, I'll kill a unicorn. I'll bring Anina the horn she wanted badly enough to destroy our life together, to take my son from me as well as my freedom.

And I'll spear it through her treacherous heart.

Booting out the Children of My Mind

The Kamanthian Chronicles: Catalystica, published by The Cross and the Cosmos, is available  atSmashwords (released there in Feb) and its several outlets. There were formatting glitches, so although it released on CreateSpace and Amazon this month, it had to be pulled for repairs.   Once fixed, there will be a re-release.

Under Every Moon is available on Smashwords.  I saw it listed at Barnes & Noble  in the Nook store – cool!  I shouldn't have been surprised—SW does distribute there for Nook books. Although this e-version was self-published, an indie publisher has already expressed interest in producing a print version, possibly an illustrated one.
 
A reprint of "Ley of the Minstrel" and its sequel "Spider Dance" is also available on Smashword.  The anthology they were in has become available on Amazon. The Cross and the Cosmos Anthology Year 1, published by  Marcher Lord Press, contains all the first year's  Cross & Cosmos ezine stories plus sequels/additional stories by the authors (four stories by me). There are links to both MLP and Amazon where the anthology print edition can be ordered, and I'm hoping that by releasing Ley and Spider alone, there'll be renewed interest in the print anthology.

The Book of Sylvari, coming from Port Yonder Press, contains stories by me. It's release is still in to be announced status.

Other stories are making the rounds through submissions.  And more are in work. As nice as it is to see those finished stories available, the call of writing more stories is too insistent to ignore.  Regarding the children of my mind, I'm probably a bad mom. I can't  spend a lot of time cooing over them.  When I finish with one, I make sure it's dressed, shoes shined, and teeth brushed, then I boot it out into the wider world.  I nit-pick at it when it comes home, then boot it out again so I can spend time with the next mind-child(ren). Because...  

Because the  story volcano between my ears is  still erupting.  Publication hasn't cooled it in the least.

For a writer, that's as it should be.

To find any of the books released thus far, the links are as follows:

The Kamanthian Chronicles is at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/286124
 Under Every Moon is at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/314490

Ley of the Minstrel is at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/317978

The Cross and the Cosmos Anthology  is at either http://www.amazon.com/Cross-Cosmos-Anthology-Year/dp/1935929712

or

http://www.marcherlordpress.com/bookstore/fantasy/the-cross-and-the-cosmos-anthology-year-1/

Prelude to a Poetry Collection

Why do readers so often cringe at the word "poetry"?

I have two not-always-so-humble opinions.

The first is that, at some point during education, too much analysis destroyed the enjoyment.  Some teacher made poetry harder than it needed to be. What is the poet saying?  What symbols did the poet employ? What is the deeeeeeep meaning of this poem? What form, what techniques did the poet use?  

Or the psycho-lit question: what meaning does this have for you, the reader?

(This one also requires self-analysis—possibly for people too cheap or too broke to afford a shrink.)

I like the snapshot story of words and its afterimages. I like the way the arrangement rolls off my tongue or the beat I can't quite shake after reading it. It says something to me personally, lifts my spirits, or leaves a sense of wonder (or delicious chill) with the final lines. Maybe it lingers for reflection when I do some other terminally boring activity.  And/or maybe I enjoy it enough to memorize so I can revisit at will, any time I can't have a book or e-reader in hand.     

                                                                                                                                    

Opinion #2 is that lot of poetry either doesn't make sense at all or it's the sense of the troubled poet psychoanalyzing him/herself.  A confession (heh-heh): most confessional writing, including poems, bores the snot out of me.  By the time I've wandered through someone's self-absorption or self-flagellation, I no longer care whether the teakettle was copper (sorry, "cupric"), the pencil was a 2B stub, and the booze spilled on the floor. I'm glad I only had to plod/slog/trudge through 24 lines of it. (Terribly unsophisticated of me, I know.)  

So, I write the  kind of poetry I like.  I like the challenge, the discipline of writing form poems, rhymed and unrhymed, and doing them well.  I like the liberty of free verse,  of exploring new ways to express a moment or idea cleanly, crisply, creatively.  And since I like poems that also tellor hint a micro-story, my poems lean toward my favorite genres: fantasy and science fiction.

Within the next few days/weeks, my poetry collection, Under Every Moon, will be available, first in an e-version, later in an illustrated print edition.  This collection explores edges where the mundane and uncanny parallel or converge, where ordinary and extraordinary intersect, and where reality and fantasy sometimes collide. In it is the voice of sand, of birds, of the tarot's charioteer, of the crone who spins and weaves dreams and nightmares.  In it is the talismanic beat of a drum, heart, or hoof, and the clatter of dice; there's discovery of a name,  dancing ghosts, and secrets of the sea.  

"Will you join in the rollin' of the bones?"

  

The Kamanthian Chronicles: Catalystica

The Kamanthian Chronicles: Catalystica by G.L. Francis (that's me) is scheduled for release from The Cross and the Cosmos in February.     

"Kamanthia --
where the fabled Lair of Beasts is hidden

Ratchen wants only two things: find his son and avenge a betrayal. He needs a unicorn's horn to deliver vengeance for the treachery, and the end of his long search is close. He's found the Lair of Beasts where a unicorn surely dwells.
But he has to enter the Gateway, which can't be done alone.

Kamanthia --
where creatures of myth are real and choices are timeless."

                  

And some images based on parts of the book...



                Bring me the horn of a unicorn so I know your love is true.

                                  

  Beware the eye, for a basilisk hath a thousand hells in a glance.

                              Kamanthian proverb

                                     

                       

                 To power the pattern-winds:
                  feathers and talons of the dual monarch,

                  king of beasts and king of birds ... 

                                  from The Journal of Pattern Cyphers

                                 

                       Mighty the valor, mighty the sword

                      Great the renown, great the reward
                       to one who brings the dragon down ...

                                 from "Chants of Charred Bones"

                                     

Bulldozer Restoration

The gutter needs fixed and there are new places to patch on the roof before winter.  I'm itching to paint bright colors on the walls — soooooo tired of off-white, eggshell, and linen blah—but can't do that until sheetrock repairs are done.  Oh, yeah, and there's some carpet I'd love to send on a permanent camp-out at the landfill.

Time doesn't agree with me. Time makes sure lessons of patience are thoroughly understood. So, I inch along such renovations rather than bulldoze through them.  I'd rather bulldoze even if it looks messier for a while.  But bulldozing usually illuminates some part of a project I didn't consider or didn't know was a problem until sub-surfaces revealed their not-so-shiny faces.   

A particular writing project — chronicles set on a world called Kamanthia — seemed an excellent candidate for  bulldozer editing.  I love the story, the concept, the characters; but I followed some less than good advice. It turned into a thinly disguised sermon rather than a story.  And though there were aspects of it I thought might be enjoyable for a Christian-only audience, those aspects diminished the impact and explorations of the core story.  Those aspects might later wind up in a parallel side-story, but it'll be  a separate project. Not this one.  

Restoration time.  Easy peasy, sure.  Just remove the POV sequences of the Christian character (I'll call her S— for now) and bring the story back to the POVs of the original characters living on Kamanthia.  Bulldozing went fine for the first four chapters as I simply lifted out S—'s chapters. 

I hit the first boulder.

A scene vital to the story is told through S—'s POV.  **deep breath**  Most of it was dialog — not too hard to shift the POV to R—, the original main character.

The next boulder was bigger.

Again, a scene vital to the story, but this time descriptions and perceptions  as well as dialog were in S—'s POV.  Major rewrite.

And, scrolling ahead through chapters, I find more scenes like that.  Eeek!

The easiest solution would've been to simply pull up an archived file with the original story in it.  Except for the fact that it's not possible. The original version is forever buried in a computer that died sadly and badly before I could move all its files to a newer computer.

I've learned a lot since the story's original version. I'm reasonably certain this restoration will result in a much better, more intense story.  But it would've been nice to have the original for reference rather than relying on my own occasionally glitchy memory.

  

Parking the bulldozer.  Inching my way through the landscape of Kamanthia.

Behind "Tools of the Trade"

One of my steampunk stories, titled "Tools of the Trade", will be in the upcoming anthology of elf stories, The Book of Sylvari, from Port Yonder Press.

Notes coming back from the beta-readers looking over the anthology had comments and questions about "Tools..."  Since I don't know who the beta-readers are, I'm answering a few of the questions here, not really in any particular order.

"Tools of the Trade" is set in 1899 Kansas City, MO.  When I created the story, I wanted to make it as historically accurate as possible to make the Russian elf battling demons more believable.  Research was inevitable.

Fiction: Sophie (the MC) and her brother Bruce were adopted as children.

Fact:  The Orphan Trains from the east coast carried hundreds of orphaned, abandoned, and parent-surrendered children west to be adopted.  Some of their stories turned out well — the children were cherished and cared for by their adopted parents. Others didn't fare so well — they were treated as little more than extra farm hands and servants. 

Some of them processed through a church orphanage called "The Little Sisters of Mercy Asylum" in New York City.  Nowadays, we think of the word "asylum" in terms of mental institutions, but the broader meaning is a place of refuge, a shelter, a haven.    

Fiction:  One of the minor characters is taken to St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City, while another is taken to a children's clinic.

Fact:  This hospital did indeed exist back then but at that point it was called All Saints Hospital (est. 1885).  It didn't actually change names to St. Luke's Hospital until 1903, four years after this story takes place, but the shift of time is creative license.
The other clinic mentioned was founded by one of two sisters (Dr.  Alice Berry Graham and Dr.  Katharine Berry Richardson) who set it up to help children of those too poor to afford medical treatment.  At the time, women doctors weren't common and there was some (a lot!) bias about hiring them to work in hospitals — another reason for founding their own.  That clinic a few years later became Children's Mercy Hospital.

Fiction: The elf cauterizes a wound with an "untinned" brazing bit.
Fact: "Untinned" means that it hadn't been covered with the solder mixture of tin and lead which helps transfer the bit's heat so the solder will flow properly to make a good joint.  Essentially, the elf is using the equivalent of a bare-metal branding iron to cauterize the wound.

Fiction: The elf has an instrument called a dioptra in his toolbox.
Fact:  A dioptra is an astronomical as well as a surveying instrument.  Its earliest use dates back to about the 3^rd century B.C. for astronomy, but the armillary later became the more favored instrument — greater accuracy, more detail.  For surveying, the dioptra was later replaced by the theodolite.   Because the elf in the story has a traceable lineage going back several centuries, he's also inherited tools &  instruments (even obsolete ones) from his ancestors.

Fiction:  Sophie thinks "Wake up, prince" as she kisses the elf to disrupt a demon's hold over him.

Fact: The elf character isn't a prince, nor is Sophie particularly infatuated with him at this point in the story. But published fairy tales had been around for quite a while, so Sophie would've been familiar with them. The Brothers Grimm published their first volume of collected fairy tales in 1812 and a second volume in 1815.         

Fiction: Sophie, Bruce, and Kazimir set out from the Kansas City Yacht Club building to battle the water demons.
Fact: This one surprised me!  As I was researching the railroads running through KC, I happened upon a sketch showing a building with the sign Kansas City Yacht Club.  After some archive digging, I found it really did exist and had a lively membership among the local boaters.  They held regattas and fish fries, and they even bottled their own beer. There were a number of smaller clubs in and around the city, but the KCYC seemed to be the largest.

Too cool not to include in the story!

Behind "Ley of the Minstrel: Spider Dance"

"Ley of the Minstrel" appeared in the second issue of The Cross and the Cosmos (aka TC2) ezine.  It was a fun, swashbuckling story that let me use my love of ships and sailing as I wrote.   

But a new challenge came not long after "Ley..." was published.  A sequel.

"Ley of the Minstrel: Spider Dance" wasn't the story I set out to write when I decided to follow Nerelos into the lands of the Spider Lords. I had a vague idea of a bunch of evil spiders similar to Tolkein's Shelob or Ungoliant. It was very, very vague.

The setting material for Dias Domhan (provided by TC2's editors) reads as follows: "...Within these lands live various magical creatures, the worst of which are the Spider Lords...large intellect spiders who have created web cities and hate humans..."

Spiders.  Hmm.  Things I know about spiders: they spin webs and they eat other bugs. They have lots of eyes and legs. They can move fast and some of the stubby ones jump. A spider frightened Little Miss Muffet. An itsy-bitsy one climbed up a waterspout. I played with daddy-long-legs when I was a kid; and I still capture the occasional wolf spider in the house to set it free in the garden so it can eat other pestiferous bugs that annoy me.

Not enough to fill a story. 

The trouble with research is that sometimes you find yourself fascinated by the subject totally aside from finding what you need to write a story.

My foray into arachnology left me amazed and humbled by the little creatures that inhabit our world. Did I think I had imagination? Hah — what a puny joke! One look at the anatomy of a spider, at the microscopic photographs of the tiniest hairs or the fangs on them boggled my mind. A table of spider silk's tensile strength compared with other materials (such as rope, nylon, or steel) blew my feeble creativity away.

Things I now know about spiders:

Their blood is somewhat clear and faintly blue-tinted because it contains copper rather than iron as ours does.

They can regenerate body parts, even vital organs under some circumstances, during subsequent moultings.

Some spiders can rearrange their retinas as they look at different things.

Some have more intelligence than others. The little jumping spiders can change strategy when they are hunting according to what the prey is doing; sometimes they watch us, seemingly with interest.

There are pirate spiders that prey on other spiders by mimicking web-touching rituals of courtship or prey.

Some spiders fast for incredibly long periods prior to moulting.

Clean cobwebs can be used for impromptu bandages for cuts.

Spiders hear by interpreting air movement touching the complex hairs on their legs. 

In some parts of the world, spiders are kept for the sport of spider fights. 

The list goes on.

I discovered respect for these tiny creatures that made it difficult for me to present them as nothing more than spawns of hell. Their complex nature and amazing structure revealed one small glimpse of God's artistry and creativity. Think of it — real creatures stranger and more astounding than any fictional alien. We usually only notice them when they startle us or when we clean their abandoned webs from corners. I found myself reluctant to vilify them. So, the spiders of my story are not the worst of the magical creatures; and Arctos represents a potential new chapter in the spirits of the Dias Domhan spiders in which they, too, might sing of Dé-Fär. 

Two final notes:

"Ley of the Minstrel" and "Ley of the Minstrel: Spider Dance" will be appearing in TC2's  upcoming anthology from Marcher Lord Press later this year.  Stay tuned for the announcement when the anthology is released.

And, in spite of all I learned, I'm not rushing out to purchase a pet tarantula any time soon. Probably not ever.

The Lowly Pencil

There's something enthralling about the humble pencil.

The wood settles into the permanent concavity on the side of my middle finger as I poise the point above paper. The graphite encased in the wood varies in hardness and darkness, from the very faint 7H to the ultra-dark 9B. Or maybe I've got a carbon pencil in hand; it produces lines only slightly different from charcoal.  Or on black paper, the white charcoal and the soapstone pencils are just plain fun.  

Some stroke the paper with a gritty, scritchy sound and feel, but my favorites glide smoothly, effortlessly, as I write or draw.  And if I want to change a spelling, a line, a shadow,  the pencil strokes are not so permanent that an application of eraser can't lighten or remove what I've done.

I won't place writing I've done in pencil here.  The keyboard does a more efficient  job for blog purposes.  But writing isn't my only passion.  So, below -- something else I do as I  journey.



Jasper



Echo

Detour into the Past

I keep a hand-written journal.

 

I love the feel and subtle scent of the paper and the color of whatever pen I happen to grab or carefully select; there's an intimacy with using them that I don't find with a computer. I slow down for a little while. Handwriting is necessarily slower than using a keyboard.  If the mood strikes, I can doodle alongside the writing or within the writing, turning letters or words into flowers, animals, or knotwork.   I like the tactile variety of bindings and covers available for blank books.    

Once in a while, it's good to go back through retired journals. Sometimes, it's for no more reason than to check whether what I'm remembering at the moment is the same as what I wrote when it actually happened, either an incident or bit of dialog. Sometimes, it's for seeing whether or how much I've grown or changed in my thinking, where I might still be stuck and where I've moved on.  

Because...because on a daily basis, I often don't have enough time for introspection.  The journal enforces as well as records it.

My faith has grown and my confidence has grown.   So has my ability to accept that I'm not perfect and won't be this side of heaven. I'm less of an extrovert than I'd like to be, and there are areas where I'm not as sensible as I should be by now. My hackles still go spiky at the words It can't be done. I laugh at myself more easily and more frequently than I could at any decade younger.   

On the occasional excursions into past years, the events, transformations and illuminations leap into clarity. 

·  Idolatry for my job came crashing down. An injury ended my ability to make a living with the job that was everything to me. Epitaph: Here lies a toppled god -- its fall rocked my world.

·  I ranted about my dogs locking me out of the house an hour before I had to get ready for work. Note to self: never, ever step out the door without a key.   

·  I articulated why I have difficulty getting attached to places.  Thirty moves in about a fifteen-year span makes for shallow roots.

·  My latent tendency to be a smart aleck first blossomed. I told my sister an excavation site for a building was an open pit dirt mine.  Ten minutes later, she smacked me.    

·  A co worker said I reminded him of three people: Mother Theresa, Red Skelton, and Attila the Hun.  I spent four entries trying to figure that out — three entries less than when another coworker told me I was too weird for words.  Guilty as charged that time.

·  I realized I could choose to be content, happy, joyful no matter what circumstances I faced.  Oddly, I didn't note what was happening at the time, what had prompted that entry.  But it was a very good choice.   

And weaving around and through trials and triumphs, questions and revelations,  the condition of my soul or my hangnail, there are snippets of story ideas, characters, and phrases uniquely mine.  Themes and motifs dominant in my writing show up clearly with hindsight.

Hindsight is always 20/20.         

Christening Ships that Never Were

Once upon a time, there was a girl who lived inland.  She loved the feel of the earth under her feet when she went hiking. She loved the muffled thud of horse hooves on soft soil and their gritty clatter on rocky trails.  She loved the smell of dusty country roads, of rain on hot pavement, of autumn leaves.

Then one day, she spent an afternoon on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico. The limitless horizon, the sense of unbound freedom, captivated her.  Later, she took sailing classes and sailed on the Pacific. When she couldn't rent a boat, she spent as much time as she could on the beach, watching the waves, inhaling briny winds, dreaming of one day living aboard a boat of her own.  She loved the sea.     

She moved inland once more, and though she rediscovered her love of land, the sea never left her heart.

What does a writer do with a yearning that can't be fulfilled?  Use imagination.

I don't have even a rowboat to take on a pond,  but ships fill my imagination.  Oh, and the vessels there are wonderful.  I christen each one with the launch of a story.  Aboard them, I travel seas and skies and space.  

Fast and sleek, the Minstrel is a harp-ship piloted by music; her great deck-harp sounds the ocean depths for the navigator playing the ship. The Sea Nymph tries to elude sirens who would destroy her on reefs.  The galleon Mer l'Etoile ferries elven ambassadors from Africa while the tramp steamer MereleCroix carries her passengers on Atlantic lanes. In the skies, pale sails of the airships Mind theTrees and Sunbeam billow under stars as their crews, on a rescue mission, battle elements and enemies.

And in space, ships steered by cybernetic navigators carry colonists as they flee a world under a dying sun:  Inspiratum, Astra Ventus, Cantus Lumen, and others.      

So, why settle for a canoe when I have fleets? Today, Tuscan Red launches to pick up a baby dragon for delivery to a new home.   

The only thing missing is the bottle of champagne to smash on Tuscan Red's hull as I christen her.

The Ultimate Carnival Ride

Carousel?  Maybe.

Ferris wheel? Rarely that slow & gentle.

Rollercoaster?  Tilt-a-whirl?  Hammer?  Yeah, that's more like it. 

No, I haven't been going to amusement parks and carnivals.  These are metaphors of a busy life, the essence of multitasking in a world where challenges come from every direction, from the purely physical to the mental, intellectual and spiritual compass points.  Just when the climbs & plunges of the rollercoaster slow, just when it looks like I can step off the train, it morphs into a Tilt-a-whirl car spinning chaotically or a Hammer  plastering me to the back of the cage or  (if the carney has trickster hands on the controls) stopping up-side-down.  Kinetic force reasserts and...

Yikes! Toboggan splash, then I'm back on a spiraling coaster.

 God promises that we're never given anything beyond what we can endure.  I amble wobbly-legged down the midway and into the funhouse.  Check my short/tall/thin/fat/wavering reflections.  I'm not sweating blood like Jesus did in the garden of Gethsemane.  None of this is stress, then. It's only challenges, it's only annoyances, it's only a high rate of interest and event.  I grin and amble back to the ride.   It strains the limits of my inner gyroscope but God makes sure it's never tested to destruction.

 

And I haven't barfed.          

Wardrobe of Conference

Resuming my neglected blog. 

An uh-oh moment, not quite panic but definitely not serenity, seized me.  What do you wear to a  Christian writing conference? 

Was this some hidden aspect of vanity?  Probably not.  It's a practical quasi-panic.  I looked at online pictures from other conferences.  The people are decked out as if they're going to a wedding, to a New Year's Eve party, to the Oscars.  Yikes! 

The conference is the Heart of America Christian Writers Network Fall Conference, November  10-12, held in Overland Park, Kansas.  I'm not just attending.  I'm teaching in three workshops.  At one time, just the thought of public speaking would've been enough to make me physically ill; but that was decades ago.  I know the material well—it's part of my writing passion.  I've worked on the job with the public long enough that speaking in front of strangers isn't the terror it once was.  That plus age has produced plenty of confidence so I won't wad up like a roly-poly bug.

"Office attire" several websites advise.  My office attire is veterinary scrubs.  On any given day, when I'm not answering the phone or checking patients in/out, my attire may acquire additional decorations of blood, cat urine, doggy diarrhea (few experiences quite like a puppy loosing its bowels in your shirt pocket), and the occasional splatter of ferret barf.  No, this is not suitable for a conference.

But before working in a vet office, I worked in electronics and in machining.  Electronics was clean, but t-shirts/sweat-shirts and jeans were perfectly acceptable.  Same for machining, although my last machining job was in a shop that worked a lot of cast iron — dirty machining, you couldn't touch a surface anywhere without picking up smears of greasy, black dust.  Most of my clothes from those days had interesting scorches & burn holes from glowing hot metal chips, frays from abrasives and compressed air blasts,  and an overall aroma of industrial cleaners & coolants no amount of laundry time could banish.  Nope — not conference attire.

Hence, an email to the conference coordinator.  A nice guy — and a quick reply.

"Casual."

Sweet!  Slacks & sweater will work.  I won't have to worry about falling off high heels (which I've only worn twice in my life).  I can concentrate on the workshop topics. Poetry.  Experimental Fiction, Science Fiction and Fantasy: Fiction Outside the Boxes.  Symbolism:  Understanding and Using It for Christian Writers.

Looking forward to this conference! 

And totally aside, I glanced at my first blog entry on that hot August day.  I was ready for fall then— and so thankful it's here now.   Love the colorful leaves, cool winds, and crisp days.  Love October!

Interlude for a Review: On Being a Rat And Other Observations by Chila Woychik

The book is propped next to my computer.  A charming rat peers over the rumpled paper sign it holds bearing the book's title: On Being A Rat And Other Observations.  In the lower corner, the author's name, Chila Woychik, is in red against a cheese yellow background. 

Inside the cover, my name is listed with others for editorial assistance as well as for the illustrations; and it's mentioned in the dedication.  This particular book has a brief, handwritten note to me from Chila. When she wrote it, she had no way of knowing she dated it on my parent's wedding anniversary.  This very special book became unintentionally but personally, poignantly special.

I posted this review elsewhere:

 I have to admit I was dubious when asked to edit On Being a Rat. I don’t usually read autobiographical works, creative or otherwise.  But the first section I saw (and each one thereafter)—WOW! Just WOW! What a rare gem!

One of the things that captivated me most about On Being a Rat was Chila's willingness to bare her soul, to be utterly transparent and vulnerable in her honesty. Honesty is a rare commodity in this present age; truth and honesty don’t always mean the same thing. Too often, all you see is the public mask— in …Rat, it’s totally “mask off”. 

Another thing is the sheer beauty and creativity in the language Chila uses. Nothing obscure or convoluted, nothing so lofty that a reader can’t follow, but nonetheless powerful and thought-provoking even in the flashes of humor. Stark and lovely!

 Her imagery is solid and logical even when she makes unexpected comparisons and observations. If one of her poems or lyrical passages were a photograph, the angle may be unusual, the focal point uncommon (or even bizarre); but the image is sharp enough that no one can say, “Well, there’s something on photo paper but I sure can’t tell what it is.” She writes with a razor.

She takes an uncommon genre, the lyric essay, to a new level that's fierce and friendly, thoughtful and profoundly creative.  On Being a Rat is a wonderful treasure to be read and reread with fresh discoveries awaiting the reader each time.  A unique masterpiece!

I wanted to add a bit more about what's been called the Rat book or OBAR.   For one thing, it's shown me that creative nonfiction, the lyrical essay, is not dull autobiography or self-indulgent whining about life.  It's an art form with foundations in essay, memoir, and poetry. Content and structure combine with poetic flow of words and sentences and with a masterly use of metaphors.  And I, fiction writer that I am, can't help but feel the prickle of challenge — could I write this personally this well?  I don't know; but I have doubts — I like the buffer zone of fictional characters and I'm not certain I could override my reluctance to be so vulnerable on the page.  But should  I ever decide to expand my own writing horizons, OBAR is a masterpiece on multiple levels, worth learning from, worth studying.

  

One other especially delightful thing about OBAR:  After the initial straight-through reading, I found I can open it at any section without becoming a context castaway.  Treasures abound even on a single page — a unique phrasing, a pinpoint metaphor, an illuminating observation.  Some pages are chatty,  as though Chila's sitting across a café table from me.  With each chapter I read, I come away thinking This one's my favorite chapter —until I pick the Rat book up again and read something that challenges how I think about writing or nature or...  Then I think This one — more favorite than my last favorite.  Or reading in a different mood This one's my favorite today. 

Awww, what the heck — I love the whole book!

Thanks, Chila,  for writing On Being a Rat!