A Whole Lotta Plethora

Mercury is out of retrograde, but I'm still struggling with what to do about Plethora. I think it's supposed to be a fictionalized memoir, but I'm still not sure i should do it that way. The problem I'm having, is how to interweave plot in a work like that. I think I'm going to try to merge it with Operation: Utopia, to give it fuel and mobility.

Right now it's a sort of amalgam of Sex & The City, Bridget Jones's Diary, and something else, for which i have no analogy. Its primary focus is on the angst ridden milieu of cyberdating. The subject-matter, then, is timely and modern. But do people really want to read about someone's dating misadventures? As i read it, i think that it is interesting, and that there's a readership for this sort of work, yet i don't want it to become meandering and self-serving--although everything a writer writes is essentially self-serving--and most obviously when it falls into any realm of MEMOIR, no matter how fictionalized that may be....

Ultimately, i must choose to write what needs to be written, regardless of whether or not there is a market for it. Otherwise, i am just flirting with literary prostitution.

A Whole Lotta Plethora

Lies from the Publishing SINdustry

When an author submits work to a publisher, there are guidelines that must be followed, and they will always be very clear about what those guidelines are. Some of them are industry-wide. Some of them are also without merit and bordering on either absurdity or outright lies.

One demand that publishers seem to spew with regularity is that all manuscripts must be in a certain font; what is called a serif font. Serif fonts have those little tiny flourishes or extras on the letters. The most common one is Times New Roman. The number one argument is it's easier to read. When publishers say Times New Roman is easier to read, what they really mean to say is, Times New Roman is what we have always used. (this is because that's what the industry started with when typesetting involved little blocks in a frame which would stamp one page at a time--it was too hard to make another set of blocks). But we're in the digital age now and typesetting is easy and a variety of options are now available. Another reason is that Times New Roman is the only typeface available in the third world where they send these manuscripts to be typeset and printed. Cheap labor, cheap supplies. Another example of American Outsourcing.*

Moving on to word count. In recent years, the criteria for word count has increased. A standard novel was often around 60,000 words. Now publishers almost across the board demand 80,000 to 120,000 words in order for your book to even get a glance. My problem with this one does not stem from laziness or an inability to write that many words; it stems from the concept of being true to a story. Sometimes a story is best told in fewer words. I think a book should only be long enough to tell the story, and to impose a higher word count as a matter of course is a total dismissal of the art of storytelling. Even the most popular fiction writers have had to pad out their stories to meet this word count, and I don't know about you, but I can tell. Who wants to read a three page description of a freakin' sunset? Also, it makes sense that it would be cheaper for the publisher if the book was smaller. And aren't people busier than ever? who has time to read these long ass books? I don't, and I write books myself and read quite a lot. My best friend, who's also an author, believes it's inherently psychological. Readers think they are getting more value for their money if the book is bigger. What they're getting is unneeded exposition that doesn't move the story, and often serves to bore the reader. Again, padding. I maintain that a story is as long as it needs to be. If a writer is thus shackled by a word count, aren't we just screwing around with the literary arts? That's like telling an artist he didn't use enough paint to create his picture, and should use a different color, or should perhaps paint on something other than canvas. Who are they to tell the creative artist how to interpret or impart their muse?

I get so disgusted with this whole thing that I swear I'll self-publish for the rest of my life. Then I can write what I want to write, how I want to write it, tell the story that needs to be told in the space it needs to do so, and I'll use the typeface that my research tells me is most legible and easy on the eyes, and I'll buck convention and write sarcastic and funny things within the copyright page because I bloody well want to, and not because some big brother publishing establishment tells me otherwise.

There.
I have vented.
I feel better.
But only a little.
-----------------
*since this writing, i have begun to use Palatino Linotype across the board. It's a compromise. I'm not completely stone-headed.

Lies from the Publishing SINdustry

Used by the Muse

image Clowns With Ice Cream (C)KJB

Used by the Muse

aren't we vessels, after all?
don't we pretend to be God-you're-Talented
when really we are only functional?

The harsh truth is:
our best work is the work of another-
perhaps another greater consciousness, yes
but of another

and credit is left
flapping in the creative wind
on the bulletin board
of universal notoriety

and we are only functional

dammit.

Creative people understand that there is a source of creativity that does not seem to reside within us, but is rather originating from a place other than self. We are responsible for what we do with that idea, how we allow it to manifest, but not the idea itself. To fully comprehend this concept we must sidestep the ego. This is often the biggest challenge we face as humans. It's very much like seeing the result of something without considering the cause. If I have an interesting idea, and I write a story centered on that idea, and I receive compliments on that story, I must remain aware that even though the idea seemed to originate within some machination of my own mind, it's AUTHENTIC origination is from somewhere else. My higher consciousness? the universal consciousness? When I recognize it was actually given in some way, then I can't honestly accept all the credit. But that's what we usually understand about the process. I created it, therefore, I am worthy of the credit.
Many people throughout history have had the same idea without ever having known each other, nor had access to that idea beforehand. Is is because similar organs produce similar results? If one brain thinks of it, can another brain think of it simply by virtue of physiology? OR is there a deeper truth to be had, here? If we accept the postulate that we are all conduits for some other greater source, then we must also accept that we are part of that greater whole. We are each a smithereen in the great explosion of Oneness. We're all little "onenessess." (forgive me. Had to.)
In that sense, then, we only have control over the way in which we allow what we're given to manifest. That's the point at which the individual credit resides. I can create something ugly from that idea, or something beautiful. I can share it, or keep it to myself. This is my contribution, then. This is what makes me and everyone else unique: how we choose to manifest what we are given.
Choose wisely, friends.

Used by the Muse

My Friend, the Synesthete

[this article was sold recently]

My best friend is also an author, but she has unusual abilities that not only make her an anomaly among writers, but an anomaly among humans.

First, she is a synesthete. Synesthesia is an involuntary joining in which the real information of one sense is accompanied by a perception in another sense. Some synesthetes will "taste" a sound. Some can "see" a sound. Others "taste" a word, or "smell" a word. A synesthete might also see certain shapes and objects and colors whenever they hear music. Various forms of Synesthesia have been known to occur in some individuals who have had seizures.

For those Synesthetes who receive visual images from touch, could this explain psychokinetic and/or clairvoyant skills? For those who see visual representations of sounds and words, could this explain uniquely vivid artistic renderings? Was Salvador Dali a Synesthete? Vincent Van Gogh?
These questions might never be answered, because it seems common that Synesthetes remain unaware that the way they process sensory input is any different than the average person; they are only aware of this unique brain condition when they actually have a conversation wherein they compare notes with others, or when they stumble across descriptions of the condition, and recognize themselves.

Synesthesia is not new; seemingly not a product of positive ions, artificial sweeteners or a depleted ozone layer. The scientific community has been aware of it for around 300 years. After a renewed interest in the mysteries of the human brain, Synesthesia has again become a topic of interest among neurobiologists, psychologists, and the scientific community, et al.

My best friend's Synesthesia manifests in a way that I feel is even unusual among other Synesthetes. At least, I've never heard of any of them who experience things the way she does. When she writes a novel, she is not writing out of her imagination, per se, but literally transcribing an ongoing "film" that plays in her field of vision. This visual representation exists a short distance in front of her, and is much like those Plexiglas strategy boards common on Navy submarines. The film "plays" there, but is transparent enough, that she can see through it to the other things that might be in her environment on the other side.

When she gets an idea for a novel, it appears in full cinematic form. This film is a complete production, start to finish, and she has to find a way to transcribe what she sees and hears and smells and feels onto the page. This is not a visualization in the standard sense. This film appears involuntarily. It's as if she puts a DVD in a player, watches it, and then writes about what is happening. It makes me wonder if there are any famous and respected movie directors who might be Synesthetes, after I am floored by their ability to visualize an entire film pre-production, and manifest that film into the final form for the rest of us to enjoy.

But this ability is often frustrating to my friend on many levels. She can pause this film, rewind it, fast forward. (I don't have this ability, so when I get phone calls during a writing session, even from HER, I lose my flow). A character walks into her "movie" and she instantly knows everything about them as if she's read their bio before the movie began. I've seen her do it. She can stand there and get an idea and then describe the entire book to me, verbally. She can do that because it plays in front of her and she merely describes what's going on.

The first pitfall for her though, is it's distracting when she is "transcribing" this film. Perhaps she is describing John Doe, talking on the phone, and some other character in the room is dropping a pencil and eating cake. She then has to ask herself, "Should I put that in the text? Is that part of the story?"

Another frustration is that since her novels are already in screenplay form and she knows what is going to happen in every detail, it feels as if she's already written it, and that sucks a lot of the joy out of the writing process.
I am an organic writer-I love to be just as surprised as a reader about the story the characters begin to tell and where it all goes. . .but I'm still making it up.

My Synesthete author friend can also turn the volume down on the "film" or mentally press pause, when she has to answer her own phone. Just as if it's on TV. Sometimes she'll have a character (say, "Doreen") from another book, walk into the scene and say, "Why are you giving that to her? I wanted that." -and then she'll feel guilty that she's hurt Doreen's feelings.

Her Synesthesia also manifests during conversations with others. When she is having a debate or exchange of ideas, she sees a chess board, suspended a few feet in front of her, and as the conversation progresses, so do the men on the chessboard, according to who is saying what, and how that might translate into a chess game.

There are still other abilities that I feel are directly related to her Synesthesia. She has an almost photographic memory. She can recall conversations, verbatim; she can bring up an image of how a place looked she's seen only once, many years ago. She recalls even the smells that were in that room. She is also dyslexic, and has some pretty impressive intuitive skills that border on psychic.

Once, I played a tape recording of a live songwriter's performance I was part of. Although she had never been to that venue, nor even to the state or city in which it was located, when she heard the tape, she was able to describe the room in which it took place with frightening detail. It struck me as a gift not unlike Remote Viewing. The only error in her description was that the "floorplan" she described was inverted. What she described on the left, was on the right, and vice versa. But it was an accurate mirror image of the location. Could this have merely been her dyslexia interfering? She has joked to me before that when she is making a repeat journey somewhere and has to decide whether she is supposed to turn left or right to reach her destination again, she doubts her first instinct, because she's afraid her dyslexia is giving her the opposite information.

My friend also has lucid dreams. Lucid dreamers can "Come awake" in their dreams, and are aware that they are dreaming, while they are in the dream. But she can control her dreams. Sometimes not the outcome, but she can control the players, time of day, what she's wearing. She can pause her dream, get up and go to bathroom and then go back to it.

My only claim to fame in this arena, is that I have been the one to point out that Synesthesia existed as a unique condition in two different friends of mine. They have always been this way, and both were unaware that they were unusual in the way their senses intertwined. Through conversations with them, and through independent research, I discovered that most other Synesthetes aren't aware they are different, either, until a certain conversation arises and it becomes clear that most other people don't have these abilities.

I can't imagine having these gifts. It must be exhilarating in some ways, but my friend sees it as both blessing and curse. She struggles with the sensation that her writing is not really her own, since it is created in some mysterious place in her Synesthete brain before it actually appears. This strikes me as a potent example of the muse that artists speak of; information and creations channeled to them from some other place in the collective consciousness. What if the "muse" artists refer to is merely something that exists in each human brain, but is not always available to each of us, unless genetics or brain injury releases it?

There have, indeed, been cases of brain injury causing changes in brain functioning; sometimes even savantism; and autism are conditions that commonly cause unique abilities in those who have it, usually in the area of memory and visualization.

There is still much to be learned about how the cerebral cortex, neurons, synapses and other mechanisms really function, and the many ways in which it can perform feats of extraordinary skill. But whether blessing or curse, Synesthesia is not just an oddity, but a distinctive and fascinating peek inside the human brain.

My Friend, the Synesthete

House of Escher

(from Brainmatter: Essays, Narrative & Short Fiction by Kelli Jae Baeli)

"Where are the stairs?"
She made a derisive sound.
"Oh, you don't want to take the stairs."

I woke in a strange bed, in a strange room, the previous night of drinking leaving me with a tongue that felt swollen, and an overwhelming need for a drink of water.

My friends had obviously carried me from the car to this bed sometime in the night. I sat up, my head swimming. Where am I? The last thing I remembered was sitting in the back seat of Casey's old Bonneville, with my head in Mindy's lap. Franklin was in the passenger seat. He was the newest member of the circle of friends—an unassuming boy-next-door type. He said he wasn’t gay, but it was hard to tell. It was odd that he'd hang out with a bunch of lesbians. General consensus was that he was in the closet. He did seem a little overly sensitive. At any rate, he had impeccable manners and seemed totally comfortable around us. So we included him in our little road trips. Like a mascot.

I had had a hard day at school, cramming for finals, and indulged a bit too much in the Schnapps, finally passing out in Mindy's lap.
So now, here I was in this room with a small bunk and cinder block walls, and not much of anything else. I had to find a bathroom first, and then I had to find my friends. I stood up and that's when I became aware that I was wearing a set of green scrubs, I must have gotten sick on my other clothes. So they had also changed my clothes at some point too. Great. I really like the idea of that. I haven’t shaved my legs in over a week.

I found Franklin coming out of the bathroom down the hall. “Hey, Franklin, where is everyone?”
“They had to go to a lecture.”

“A lecture?”

He swept a hand around. “You’re in the dorm.”

“Oh. Wow. I should stay away from liquor.”

“There’s coffee in here, in the break room. Want some?”

“Sure.” I followed him into the kitchenette and lounging area, taking the Styrofoam cup he offered, and drinking with zeal, burning my tongue.

He plopped on the sofa across the room and I followed, seating myself next to him. He watched me thumb through a Psychology Today magazine, and eventually, his attention was unnerving. “Why are you staring at me, Franklin?”

He released an obviously pent-up breath. “I was just thinking about how I’d like to do things to you.”

Confused by his uncharacteristic boldness, and his apparent voyage from gayness to straightness, I frowned at him. “What? Are you trying to be funny?”

“No I’m not. Lean back here and be quiet.”

I started to protest, considered even smacking him in the mouth, but then I saw the ice pick he held in his hand. “Are you out of your mind?”

“No. You are. Now lean back like I told you.”

I obeyed, telling myself it was merely a stall until I could figure out how to handle this.

He pressed into me, his breath tickling my face, and touched my ear with the ice pick. “You know, if I jabbed this ice pick into your ear, you wouldn’t be able to hear yourself screaming.”

Okay. Not funny. Scary, now. He was a psycho. It was clear to me that the unassuming, slightly effeminate Franklin I knew last night had become a very dangerous and twisted individual of the serial killer variety. As he held the ice pick under my chin, its point almost piercing me, he ran a hand up my thigh and began to massage my crotch. His intentions were probably rape, torture and murder, in no particular order.

At first, of course, I was terrified. About then, I realized the only way out was to outsmart him. So I said, "Okay, I have a confession. . .you don't have to force yourself on me, because I've had a crush on you since the first day we met. I've always wanted you, I just never thought you'd want me. I couldn't tell my friends because we're all gay and of course, they wouldn't understand . . . sometimes things go beyond gender Franklin, and we have a special connection."

He was taken aback, and stricken a bit speechless. Then he warmed to the idea and reached for me. I said, "Wait. . .I want this to be special. And I also want them all to know. I don't want to hide. We've got to tell them, and then you and I have to go away some-where alone so we can be together properly. . ." I leaned up and kissed his cheek and touched his hair. "It's too special to do it here, like this." I took him by the hand and led him out of that remote room and down the hallway, telling him we had to find our friends and get this over with.

Finally, I found them. They were in this classroom, in the middle of a lecture, just as he had said. I stood at the door with him, still holding his hand, and got their attention. They saw how odd it was that we were holding hands and standing so intimately close. I tried to catch several of them in the eyes and make urgent faces, to let them know something was amiss, but they didn’t seem to notice, and he watched me too much. Through sign language, they indicated that they could not get out of the lecture just yet. It began to sink in, then, that they would never believe what I was eventually going to tell them. . .that he was not who they thought he was, that he was very very sick, and very very dangerous. They all loved him. And then the jig would be up and he would know I knew, and he would play it off and act innocent, and then it would only be a matter of time before he hunted me down.

No, I couldn't tell them. I had to find a way to show them.

My thoughts were interrupted by his anxious whisper. "Let's tell them later, and just go."

I hesitated, but then said, "Okay. . .I guess that's okay. . .we'll tell them when we get back. I know of a great cabin we can go to in the mountains… why don't you go get your car and pull around front, and I'm going to visit the ladies room right quick. I don't want to have to worry with that later, you know. . ." I wiggled my eyebrows suggestively.

He nodded his understanding and I swear, almost blushed. "I'll meet you out front." I leaned up and kissed him again, for effect, on the lips this time. He seemed a bit confused, but then smiled and seemed happy. He headed for the door, already digging in his pocket for his car keys. I knew he would look back at me, so I made a production of looking at the wall marquee directory for the location of the restroom. When I heard the door open and close, I turned and saw he was gone.

Breaking into a sprint, I headed for the elevators. My attention at the directory marquee had been about finding the location of the elevators, not the restroom.

The elevator had small silver doors, like the kind in old buildings and colleges. I saw it at the end of the corridor. A bunch of people were in there, and the doors were slowly closing, and I was running down the hall, trying to get there, and watching them all ignore me. . . they wouldn't hold the door. A rotund black woman standing with them, elbowed them aside and hit the door open button and got out, grumbling, "I hate that shit. People are so rude."

"Thank you," I said. "But now, you've lost your ride."

She shrugged. "Why would I want to ride up in an elevator with people like that?"

We exchanged a meaningful glance, and I slipped back into my anxiety, wondering if Franklin was at his car yet, if he was waiting in the front, wondering where I was. I punched the button again and we both looked up at the lighted numbers. It was on the fourth floor and holding.
"Sometimes it takes a while," she muttered.

I looked at the stagnant number four as she offered, "It looks like that damn thing is stuck again. And the other one broke down this morning. . ."

"Where are the stairs?"

She made a derisive sound. "Oh, you don't want to take the stairs."

"Why?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you. But you don’t want to take the stairs."

Still, there was this ticking clock in my brain and I caught myself watching the exit door for Sweet Mr. Serial Killer. "I'll take my chances, where are they?"

She shrugged her resignation. "Okay. Down there, turn left, turn right, and then left again. Look for the green door. You can't miss it."

"Thanks"

I ran. Images of Franklin appeared in front of me, behind me, a twisted, betrayed expression on his features, his hands itching to close around my neck for playing his emotions, his ice pick plunging into my ear as he laughed. Unable to hear myself scream.

I turned left. Right. Left again.

The green door.

I grabbed the knob and pulled it hard, and took a step inside, almost losing my balance. I had to grab the door jamb to keep from falling. There was no first step. The steps began a few feet down, and there was a gaping hole in between. A hole that seemed to lead down into an abyss of darkness. "Holy shit!" I jumped, and as my feet landed on the top step, I heard the echo of the elevator woman’s voice "I told you!"

I turned to look back up at the door, half expecting to see her standing there. No time to consider the oddity, I had to get out of there, Find help. Lose the psycho mascot.

I turned back and took one step down, but halted when I realized that the single stairway had somehow multiplied; Now, there was a collection of morphed stairways, some moving in a sideways pattern and disappearing into the walls, some tiny and leading steeply upward into the ceiling, some leading down and then back up again, and all the steps were now brightly colored in differing pastel shades. I closed my eyes, swallowing, and then looked again. They were still there. I was standing in the middle of a Dali painting, an Escher drawing, a room for traveling clowns with no destination. Is this what the elevator girl meant? Was this some sort of optical illusion perpetrated by bored geniuses at the college?

Shaking off the anxiety now simmering in my gut, I searched for an outlet; some stairway that led to a door. I followed the path of a spiral staircase that rose up over my head and around a corner. That must be it. I hopped over to that bottom step and ascended quickly, turning the corner and smacking into a wall that stood just out of sight. Touching the bruise on my cheek, I shook my head clear and turned around, and—

All the stairs were gone. I was on a step, hanging over the black hole again. I took some deep breaths and tried to calm myself. This prank was not engendering humor in me. I felt I was about to snap, fling myself into the void. But no, I was a survivor and I would find a way out of this circus.

I rubbed my eyes and took another cleansing breath. Lifting my eyelids again, I saw the pole. Like the kind in fire stations. It was only a few feet out. Swallowing any preemptive thoughts, I lunged for it, wrapped myself around it and slid down into the darkness.

My feet met floor only one story down. This had to be the second floor. That meant I might have to maneuver my way through another stairwell with God knew what sort of multi-leveled gaming. I expected a Pacman to come floating through the air: wokka wokka wokka. . .but there was a door on the other side of the room.

Carefully ensuring the floor was still there, I traversed the distance to the door, this time painted bright blue, and pulled it open, stepping out onto the landing. It was the back entrance. I now remember it was the same one I had used when I had entered the building with my friends. But that had been on the ground level, and I knew I had only slid one story. In front of me, and spanning around the building, was the same chain link fence, the same chain link gate, through which we had accessed this back door.

Beyond the chain link, I could see the tiny hardware store we had passed coming in. I remembered it because it looked like something out of the past. It was the kind of hardware store found in remote Southern areas; the kind that carried chicken wire and saddles and hunting rifles, and run by a guy wearing overalls. I tried to recall where I was, and how I could get out of here, out of this city and back to the place I called home, a small but cozy apartment in a quaint tourist village a few counties away.

I checked the perimeter for Sweet Mr. Serial Killer, and hurried to the chain link gate, lifting the metal latch and slipping through. Up the concrete steps into the hardware store, I approached the counter, dodging a wooden barrel of leaf rakes that tried to snag my hair. "Excuse me—"

The man in overalls turned from his stocking, a box of .38 shells in his hand. "Oh, I didn't hear you come in. The clapper on that door bell is broken—how can I help you?"

"Um. . ." I gathered my thoughts. "I'm. . .lost. Can you tell me where I am?"

"You're at the corner of 7th and main."

"No I mean. . .where. . .what city is this?"

"You don't know what city you're in?"

"Well, I rode here in a friend's car and fell asleep, and they. . .took off and left me, and now I'm not sure where I am."

He nodded, a nostalgic smile creasing his wrinkled face, obviously satisfied by my explanation. "Well now, young lady, you're in the fine city of Whitehall."

That didn't help me much because I didn't recognize the name.

Where are these friends of yours?"

"Oh they're taking classes over here at the college."

"What college?"

I pointed behind me toward the old building, "Back here. I'm not sure of the name of it—"
He shifted his weight onto another foot. "Are you talking about that gray building behind the chain link?"

I nodded.

"Young lady. . .that's not a college."

"What? Of course it is, I have friends who are over there right now, attending a lecture. . .I was just there. . .I'm. . .okay, I'm really trying to get away from this really creepy guy who's chasing me, and—" I could see I was only making it worse. "Okay, if it's not a college, what is it?"
He hesitated, squinting at me. "It's. . .a hospital. An asylum."

Then I was profoundly confused. He was eyeing my scrubs. He was also ever so slightly moving toward the phone on the counter. "Let me call some help for you, young lady," he said carefully. His hand was on the receiver.

"Don't do that," I told him. It came out sounding like a warning, I really just meant that I knew what he was thinking and it was not accurate. But how would I convince him now? I didn't know where I was, I was dressed in scrubs, disoriented, and calling a mental hospital a college. I'd have the same thoughts he was having. . .

He picked up the phone and started dialing, his other hand slipping under the counter. I remembered the box he had been holding and I knew what else he was holding now.

I just turned and ran out.

Taking the gravel alleyway that ran behind the hardware store, I just kept running with no idea where I was going. I thought of the college. The surrealist stairs. My friends. Franklin. Had I wound up with a bunch of crazies during my night on the town? No, I knew my friends. But Franklin was new.

A buzzing began in my head. I started to cry. The tears leaped from eyes into the wind like miniature paratroopers.

Something moved at the end of the alley. A figure. It was him. I spun and dashed in the other direction, getting a painful slap in the face from a tree limb, which caused me to stumble. That’s all he needed. He was there, his arms around me like a wrestler, and I anticipated being body-slammed and whacked with a metal chair.

I swiped my heel at the back of his knee, so that his leg folded; he lost balance, and we fell to the ground, where I wriggled free, but then there were two more hands. Four hands? He had help with him. The man in overalls from the hardware store. Some sort of weird conspiracy? Did he hire a lookout for these forays into kidnapping and violation?

A sharp prick in my neck soon ebbed into grogginess and I knew I was losing consciousness.

As a howling October wind created Halloween ambiance outside, Franklin finished securing the straps around her while the other man looked around the room, studying the bizarre artwork on the walls.

“You look really stupid in those overalls,” Franklin cracked.

He turned. “The wife insisted we go as The Farmer and the Farmer’s Daughter. She never misses a chance to remind me how much younger she is than me.”

Franklin chuckled, his attention back on the girl in the bed. “This was a bad one. They ought to change her meds.” He caught the other orderly staring at a picture. “Why do you keep looking at that?”

“I don’t know. I’m drawn to it. But it creeps me out.”

Franklin studied the painting, MC Escher’s House of Stairs.

House of Escher

Slings and Arrows

Recently, I was offered a publishing contract on my novel Achilles Forjan. I allowed myself to get all excited and when the hard copy of the contract came, I realized it was not the same as the "sample." I didn't like the idea of handing over the rights to my own book for SEVEN years. I didn't know this publisher well enough to entrust my work for such a long time. And then there was being at the mercy of their idea of what my work was, what it should look like, how it should be edited, and then how I'd get 10-15 percent of the profit on each book. The book I SLAVED over. The book that came from my guts. The one that cost me several years of my creative life. That book that is a piece of me as surely as if I had given birth to it. It was one of my literary children. And this deal would include very little, if any, marketing efforts on their part. Those perks are reserved for the cash cows like Dean Koontz and Nora Roberts. Rightfully so, as they have proven their profit viability in the marketplace. I'd still have to do the interviews, the book signings, the business cards, the web page... There were other things that just didn't feel right, too. My gut told me to refuse the contract. I always listen to my gut. It wasn't a pleasant decision, though. Making a decision like that is sort of like being pecked to death by chickens. How long had I waited for an opportunity like this? For years, I have intentionally avoided pitching my material because I wanted to feel like it was worthy enough to compete. Now that I feel I am a good enough writer to publish my work, I'm faced with the usual slings and arrows a writer faces when trying to make it to print. There are so many talented writers out there, but most of them don't get into the right door, largely because of the politics of the publishing industry. The advent of self-publishing has offered control back to the creator. (I don't mean God, I mean the writer...writing is, metaphorically speaking, quite like playing God...but that's for another blog). Now if we could only get past the stigma of it all. The stigma that says if you have to publish your own work, it must suck. That is sometimes true. But in many other cases, it is not. James Redfield (Celestine Prophesy) self-published first. So did John Grisham (he sold copies of A Time to Kill from the trunk of his car), as did Deepak Chopra, Mark Twain, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Edgar Allen Poe, Benjamin Franklin, Stephen Crane, Beatrix Potter, Margaret Atwood, Amanda Brown (Legally Blond). It's a great way to test market, and often, self-published books get picked up by traditional publishing houses. So stigma be damned. I began the task of being my own publisher. Then a funny thing happened. I fell in love with the process. I discovered a formidable affection for being in control of the editing, typography, formatting, design of my own work. And I resolved to get all my completed or nearly-completed work in print and continue to do that with forthcoming material. This has translated into 100 hour weeks. But I am loving it. I feel permeated by satisfaction. It's always been about getting my work out there, not getting rich off it. I'm not delusional. Having come close again to being sucked into the literary abyss of greed, and allowing my work to be corrupted, pigeon-holed, and packaged by strangers who take most of the profit, I managed to pull myself back, regain my footing. I can do this myself. So. The self-published copies will be used to fish for a literary agent. It's cheaper that way anyway. There's a reason why writers are historically poor, downtrodden, and half-insane addicts. It's because it's so hard and so expensive to get their work noticed. These days, it's still expensive. It costs upwards of $40 to send a manuscript to just ONE publisher or agent, when you include paper, ink, copying, postage, etc. One inkjet cartridge, for example, costs me $30 of that. So the point is, it's more economical for me to publish on Amazon's CreateSpace, buy a copy of it for $4 or $7 or $10 and mail that. In the old days, before computers, the craft of writing was even more arduous and tedious and time consuming. Imagine hand-writing a 300-400 page manuscript and then spilling your coffee on it. Imagine typing the same amount, and then realizing you have to do a major rewrite, and that means typing it all again. And you could spill your coffee on that, too. My best friend, who is also a writer, used a typewriter up until 4 years ago. She had turned over six of her manuscripts to her new agent, and he was in such a hurry to get to New York for his meetings, that he didn't make copies of them. Then POOF. Something weird happened; he had some sort of mental breakdown, or was abducted by aliens, or otherwise fell off the face of the earth, and she never could find him after that. Imagine. Six full novels. Gone. She's been flirting with rewriting them for the last four years, and has done some of it, along with new material, but you never quite get over something like that. It's like having someone rip out your spleen. I will continue this quest, and if, along the way, some agent or publisher sees my work and deems it suitable for representation and then negotiates a lucrative and satisfying alliance that will bring us both joy and a plethora of meaningless material possessions, I'll seriously consider it. In the meantime, it's still about the WRITING.

To purchase my books and music, go to http://jaebaeli Doing so will ensure blessings on you and yours, and the quality of your life will magically improve.

Slings and Arrows

A is for Annoying

Not long ago, it came to my attention that i have some rather irritating trends in my work. Namely, the names. Titles, i mean. My first "slew" of books all begin with "A." Achilles Forjan, Armchair Detective, As You Were, Another Justice. . .I'm not sure if it's some deep-seated Alphabetical Addiction, or merely a subconscious belief that my writing is still at the beginning. . .perhaps i am working my way through the alphabet, like some popular mystery writers (A is for Annoying).

Now that would be sufficient to vex me, but i also noticed the the covers i designed for Achilles Forjan and Armchair Detective, both have vehicles on them. And As You Were has the image of a two lane highway....My best friend says she thinks it is my subconscious need to "go somewhere." Looks like i need a vehicle for a trip away from A's. In fairness, i do have other books that don't begin with "A." Operation: Utopia, The Curse of Madagascar, It's About Time, Brainmatter, Yin & Yang....but the A-list is the one that's closest to print or in print right now, so I'm ultra-aware of it. I considered changing the titles to some, but just didn't feel right about it. So I'm just going to let that go, and be mindful henceforth. A is now for AWARENESS.

A is for Annoying

Artistic Angst

Certain situations and combination of events and feelings coincide and then all existential hell breaks loose in me. I've gotten off on a track of thinking that has led me to this point of stress, angst, emotional upheaval. Partly, the stress stems from this Guitar Bar idea becoming more about me, and less about the venue. More pointedly, the stress of defining myself. Identity markers. Strip away those and we fall apart, evaporate, cease to exist or are merely taking up space.

How do we stay balanced in our understanding of success? Is success represented by money?
by acknowledgment of others?
by happiness?
by how many people love us?
by our contribution?
does it matter to someone?
does it matter to a great many someones?

Perhaps I should never make my artistic endeavors a source of income. Perhaps I should just be what I am: retired. . . someone who enjoys writing and recording music for friends or to give as gifts, creating art, writing books, and going to flea markets and buying and selling on eBay. . .I have a peaceful environment, plenty to keep me interested and busy; a few close friends, pets I adore, the ability to walk around outside in beautiful surroundings and take a deep breathe and just be in the moment.

The only thing that's missing for me, then, is the right "someone" to share it with. But my standards are so high, that my odds are low. I have to cling to the belief that the universe has a wisdom beyond my comprehension, and when it is time for my person to waltz into the room, she will, and i won't be OUTSIDE in my beautiful surroundings, taking deep breaths and being in the moment.

Artistic Angst

32 Hours Slaving Over a Hot Pinch Roller

In an effort to prove myself more than a relationship obsessive, i shall tell all readers that i have spent the last two days doing something other than thinking about sex, talking about sex, or having sex...

After 32 hours of intensive labor, creative juice-flowing, cursing, knob turning, crawling under my desk to attach and re-attach various cords, researching glitches, posting to homerecording.com and existing wholly on sunflower seeds, Hazelnut coffee with Vanilla Carmel creamer and various finger foods....i now have completed TWO whole songs for my EP. This is one of an endless catalogue of EP's i intend to offer up to the Muses as a legacy before my number comes up. It's been too long coming. I've threatened to put my nose to the old pinch roller and get this done since...well since i bought my very first multi-track recorder years ago. But life has a way of interrupting, even when you are one of the lucky ones who don't have to go to the usual day job. But i recognize the intrinsic value of putting my hands and mind and spirit toward creative endeavors; not doing so usually summons up the demons in my head, and the pitfalls in my life.

Later, I'm gonna work on another edit of my recently completed final (i-mean-it-this-time) draft of my latest novel, and maybe paint a picture.

I feel better already.

Now, back to those 32 hours, slaving over a hot Tascam 424 MKIII....

I am, by nature, a fiercely independent sort, and i prefer to be in charge of the entire process of birthing my creative children. My music is no exception. Along with this creative tyranny, i have to take the good and the bad. The bad always seems to be about some equipment malfunction or my lack of expertise in making it function, some doo-dad or gizmo that i have yet to shell out the money for, or simply that dealing with these variables tends to squish my creativity into something that looks like it should be on my windshield. I conquered all of these things, and now am feeling just a little pleased with myself. Although when i listened to the mixdowns today, i naturally found a few things that need tweaking. Something will always need tweaking. It's just good to know when to stop tweaking and wave bye-bye. Let it be let it be let it be.

I'm not at that point of acquiescence, yet.

32 Hours Slaving Over a Hot Pinch Roller

Put THAT in Your Pipe

What with all the new age channeling going on, (allowing non-physical entities to speak through them) I've had to decide how I feel about it. . .because, you know, there can be nothing in my experience left misunderstood. . .

Aside from the Channels who are obvious charlatans, I believe there are some who are authentic (a truth that crosses over many boundaries and into many situations). In my endeavors to understand this phenomenon, I've had to take the beliefs I had in place and add any new beliefs I've come to; and I've come to this:

I am a channel, too. But I don't channel Abraham or Ramtha, The Enlightened One. I channel my Muse. Each time I embark upon a creative endeavor, I channel. Each time I have an inspiration, I channel. Each time I understand something on a profound level, figure out one of life's great mysteries, or make a decision at the grocery about "paper or plastic," I channel. (okay, the last one was added for levity, I don't consider my choice of grocery bags an enlightened epiphany. . .)

But I channel. And you channel. And everyone CAN channel.

When I set about creating the things I create—whether in the area of music, art, or writing, or giving a massage, or helping a friend figure some conundrum out, I am tapping in to that channel that we all have as spiritual beings, having a human experience. When I get any inspiration, it comes from SOMEWHERE. Call it inspiration or Muse or non-physical energy or collective consciousness . . . it comes from higher self—from collective unconscious, from God.

Abraham or Ramtha or just smartness from a human brain or mind. . .are all pulled from the same Source. It is often referred to, as a matter of fact, as "Source." The only difference is its manifestation; how the information presents itself. If someone is seeking and meditating, and some other consciousness appears and introduces itself or names itself, that is Source. If someone is seeking and meditating, and has the experience of epiphany, that is also source. There really is no fundamental difference, other than how it manifests itself, and in what form.

For instance, I might take a lump of clay on a potter's wheel, and make a large vase or I might also make a plate; it really depends on what the inspiration is—it's still the same clay, taking different forms. It's still Source.

If this is so, then we don't need those "middle-men"—those 'tweeners who try to make us believe that we can have nothing of God or higher consciousness without them. In other words, a priest is not a conduit to God. WE are the conduit to God. We are, in a very real sense, GOD. We all come from the same Source, the same essence, and so we are all portions of that Source, manifested in physical form, in a particular time-space continuum.

Put THAT in your pipe, and smoke it.

Put THAT in Your Pipe

Kairos

I've been working on Baggage all day. Made some good progress with the language, the prose aspects. Spent time finding more specific ways to convey different aspects. And I've been integrating everything from random musings to dreams into the book, too. Snippets of conversations that play out in my head when I'm about to doze off....

I discovered this fabulous word today::: Kairos. (kay-ross). It's an ancient Greek word meaning the "right or opportune moment" or "God's time." It's that undetermined time "in between" linear time in which something "special" happens....i used it in the manuscript today, even though i knew most people would have no idea what it meant.

Ironically, it resonated with me so much because i feel i am in Kairos lately.

Kairos

My Muse Still Breathes

All authors get to a point in their writing life, where they feel they have plumbed the depths of the well the Muse provides, and begin to doubt that they have anything else to offer. This is usually a case of stagnation within the mileu of new experience. Without new input, new contrasts in our day to day lives, we can only reiterate what we have already learned.

I had reached this point a few weeks ago. I feared that the 12 books I have in print and the 2 I'm almost finished with, were to be the last. I couldn't imagine having another fresh idea, even though I had just completed an entirely fresh novel from start to finish (Baggage). This book wasn't based on anyone I knew, and it had no personal experiences in it. I want to have an equal number of mainstream books as I do "gay" ones, to increase my chances of finding a mainstream publisher or agent. So I've been trying to break away from the need to write about only gay characters. I also needed to write without the temptation of including numerous sex scenes. It can sometimes be a cop-out to do that. So Baggage had no Gay characters, none of them inspired by anyone I knew, including myself, no scenes that were based on something that happened to me or anyone else in my life. It was entirely new. So I was pleased to have accomplished that goal.

But then, as I was about to complete the other few I had not finished, it occurred to me that I had no more tidbits after that, in my writing files, from whence to nurture and develop a new story. I spent so many years writing portions of books and then putting them away, that I had plenty to work with.

The day came when I was nearing completion of all those old projects, and was faced with the impending task of creating something entirely new.

As the days wore on, I still couldn't think of anything, still couldn't find inspiration that would give me the new book. So I let go of it. Not for long, just a few days, and asked my subconscious mind each night to provide something in my sleep. Dreams have always been a rich source of material for me. From the odd short story, The House of Escher, (included in the collection, "Brainmatter") to any number of springboard scenarios that became various novels, my dreaming mind could always serve up something new and interesting.

I knew I needed to focus on other things and other people, and try to break out of my routine for awhile. I created about 7 new paintings, (Shown on left) having been inspired by the work of Russian artist, Wassily Kandinski, and watched a lot of TV and movies, and read about 3 new Koontz novels, since he has been such a mentor to me. I have studied his writing for a long time, because I wanted to understand how he managed to provide so much reading pleasure. I have actually figured out how he accomplished this on many levels, and that has been helpful to my writing in many ways. I hoped that reading him again, and getting all this other input, would stir something up.

It did.


My best friend and I had been talking about the concept of Walk-ins, and I had read some material about it out of curiosity. Then, after having headaches everyday lately, and some blurred vision, I had a tragic fantasy that my eyesight might be in danger. That led me to consider that I hadn't ever written about a blind character.


After that, I had this image in one of my dreams, of a woman standing on a precipice. She is shot in the shoulder and falls into the void. That was not a dream that was much fun to wake up from, since the woman was myself. While I suspect it was some subconscious fear that my love life has been killed by the lack of hope, and I feel I am about to descend into some romantic void, I ignored this in favor of using it for fodder.

Then, I used a method that had worked for me before: taking previous seedlings of unrelated ideas and putting them together to see what happened. It's kind of like creative cooking. You know that certain things go together, but then you throw in a few things to see if it tastes different or better.

From this collection of disparate ideas, my muse baked me something new.

I now have the seedlings for a new book, and am working on it along with completing the two novellas in progress. (Those--Quintessence and Another Justice--should be available in November). The new book, is as yet untitled, but that always reveals itself in the writing, unless I have begun with the title itself.

The blurb I have so far, concerning what the book is to be about, is:

"A non-physical walk-in soul makes an agreement with another incarnated soul to take over her body. The Walk-in, perhaps too fearless, and too hungry for the pleasures of the flesh, discovers she has inherited the life of a Morman goody-two-shoes who is live-in caregiver for two men--one blind, the other wheelchair bound.

And someone is trying to kill her."

My Muse still breathes.

My Muse Still Breathes

No, the Other Baggage...

I sat down with my coffee and noticed no mail yet from the source of my current vexation. Within 5 minutes, (last night after our phone call, I sent the txt: Thank u for being u. I get a text from her- Got ur txt. : Training 2day, No email. grr. I text back: Rats! Guess I'll work on writing, music, sculpture & my self. Have a good day! . . .

So I'm spending the day trying to be productive. I have to stop obsessing on this woman. Baggage still needs another 20,000 words or more, unless I'm going to let it be a novella. It did occur to me yesterday that I might consider writing novellas. . .i have this idea that I have to write full-length novels because that's what "real writers" do and with the idea that potential publishers/agents won't take it seriously if you don't. . .well, it's not like they've been beating down my door. I've been doing it all myself. And then there's the argument I make frequently, that a book should only be long enough to tell the story. I don't believe in "padding" as I think it contradicts the act of creation. . .so. IF it becomes clear that Baggage is complete before it reaches standard length, I guess I'll have to let it be a novella. I'm also trying to get A Random Act of Blindness done. It needs to at least double in size to even be able to reach novella size in order to print it in paperback. It's around 50 pages, and needs to be at least 100.

No, the Other Baggage...

Crush

Sometimes I wonder if I'll get through it~
this solitude foisted upon me by fate.

I wonder why she doesn't call me?
Must I do everything?
and nothing

Even when everything feels like nothing,
and nothing, everything?

Crush

Already (poem)

I already love her mind.
I already love her words.
I already love the parts of herself she reveals to me in herds
of raw, broken, struggling, yet
completely filled vessels of hope and
understanding. I'm not demanding
totally sodden with angst,
yet pure, unfettered, passionate, real.
A bargain on hearts, today, mine's a steal.

I don't know where this thing will go
knowing, yet knowing, I cannot know
wishing and hoping, that floating hope
I'm holding the wrong end of the rope
relating the angst of the things we do
feeling connection, connection anew
reaching for content, my spirit breaks through
I could fall for someone a lot like you.

Already (poem)