I can't imagine inspiring anyone right now with my head stuffed up with a cold and my tonsils like marbles, but here it is, just the same, a very lovely honour from Ms. Shehanne Moore in the form of A Very Inspiring Blogger Award.
Shehanne, apparently, had something of a fight on her hands with giving me this award on account of her Lady Fury being annoyed with my Lady Anne, concerning their shared taste for unconventional men and Flint being a pirate. But Shehanne snuck the link through under Fury's nose (probably while Fury was occupied inspecting the contents of Flint's trousers) and gave me the award anyway. So thank you, Shehanne, for your bravery in facing Fury's ire, I appreciate your kindness.
According to the terms of this award, I must now reveal seven things about myself so I'll tell you what I find inspiring:
1. I have two cats: Jiggeratta the Wicked and Fluffernutter. They are old, cuddly and purry and inspire me to want to stay in bed and write.
2. Downton Abbey and Game of Thrones aside, I could live without TV. I prefer movies, good books, and writing as entertainment. There is nothing more inspiring to a writer than enjoying someone else's fantastic work.
3.The sound of a gentle rainfall inspires me to smile, as long as it's not falling on my head. Then I kind of scowl a bit and mutter.
4.I think that finding the courage to get out of bed and face the world everyday is very inspiring, especially for people who can't. A disabled person is so much more than just a chair with wheels, but sadly that is often all people choose to see. Think about it.
5.Taking the chance to tell someone you appreciate them, especially a stranger, is crazy scary isn't it? But I like to do it because the world is full of nay-sayers and life, let's face it, it's just too short.
6.Warm beach sand, vodka, and room service...yeah, very inspiring. But so is walking in the woods, taking pictures of birds and flowers and the things I love.
7.Friendship. Kindness. Love. Children's giggles. Old people holding hands....Enough said.
But the best part of any award, I think, is in sharing it with other people. So with great delight, I have chosen bloggers (in no particular order) who have inspired me in some way. Each of them are wonderful, talented, creative people who, without their words, the world would be a smaller place.
Staff meeting at work recently which means two hours of listening to people banter opinions about stuff and some drawing time for me. I know. Shocking, isn't it? But I'm a multi-tasking kinda girl, I can listen, take notes and doodle at the same time. In fact, the scribbles and swirls help me remember what was said better than my chicken-scratch handwriting.
Captain Leonidas, as usual, lounged in the back of my mind, waiting to torment me yet again by my inability to draw him. He's a complicated character to say the least, an automaton with a human soul. But what does he look like? Well, that's the problem. He goes through a metamorphosis during the story, starting with a very mechanical body.
"He
was such a magnificent marvel of steam-powered science; blackened steel and
brass rivets and gruesome sharp edges that caught the light in razor clarity.
Close up, his warrior’s body seemed very well formed indeed, with massive shoulders
and the ridges of his Aegean-styled breast plating as muscular as she had seen
in the anatomy books secreted from her uncle’s library. But the crested helmet
molding his head cast his zirconium eyes into shadow, revealing only a glimmer
of blue, and nothing of their intent. A bright scarring of tin ran from the
corner of his left eye, across his cheek, to the corner of his mouth in an
imprecise repair which twisted his lips into a cruel sneer. With the sharp cast
of his features and the flutter of his cloak he looked not unlike a vicious
bird of prey."
That's what Lady Anne described when she first met him. He's fairly imposing and so I imagined him to be a guy-in-a-metal-suit, very daunting to be around, but with this presence, that she can't help find fascinating, even if he is her mortal enemy.
So I was a little bit excited when out from my pencil popped this quick sketch of an Aegean-style warrior wearing a crested helmet. Could this be Captain Leonidas? He does have a bit of a presence about him. Maybe it's a start.
Scanning the picture when I got home, I attacked it with my drawing tablet and some quick colour.
Glowing blue eyes? Check.
Imposing presence? Check.
Fluttery cape, black armour; check and check.
But wait a minute, that sounds a lot like....this guy.
Well crap. Okay, what if we change the colour. How about blue, nice and bright to go with his eyes, and we'll make his face silvery and...
And...
...And now Captain Leonidas is Optimus Prime. Yeah, he is more than meets the eye, but..bleah.
Thanks, Mr. Transformer. You aren't helping.
Damn and double damn. You'd think I'd know that though, with all the Transformers hanging around my place, infecting my subconscious with their Mecha designs. And you'd also think that with all the source material to work from, with the intense library we have of Manga books about giant robots, Star Wars tech books, and more model kits than there is room for (thanks to my husband's home business as a very talented model maker and graphic designer) that I'd find it easy to cobble together the design for a Steampunk-automaton-robot-guy-with-a-human-soul.
The problem is, when I picture Captain Leonidas and when I'm writing his character, I'm thinking more of his human soul than I am of his metal body, and I'm imagining what he looks like when he has his real body, when he's his true self again. So abandoning all pretense of trying to draw a mechanized version of Leo, I concentrated instead on how I saw him dressed up as a courtly prince.
"True,
Cleone did appear handsome in the small photograph which had been placed on her
nightstand. Unlike Swiverton, he was young, tall and golden haired, with a fashionably
curled moustache and a strong chin. In military finery, he looked grand, the
way he held his sheathed sword, noble, but his bland expression revealed
little."
Oh, boy. More then meets the eye, indeed. She might not know it yet, but I'm thinking Lady Anne's pretty darn lucky to be marrying Leo, don't you?
After pages and pages and pages of building chemistry and
sexual tension between my hero and heroine, they’ve come to the point in the story
where they can no longer avoid each other’s charms and for some damned reason…I’m
sitting at the computer, tap, tapping away each night, working on everything but the smexy
bits.
Every time I try to bend my mind to the particulars of this first
love scene between the characters…it shies away, squirming like a squeamish school girl faced with
frog dissection in Biology class. Remember the rubbery texture of the frog and
the smell of formaldehyde? Yeah, my mind does too, and for some reason it would
rather think of that grossness then concentrate on this particular love scene.
Not good, right?
I’ve written sexy scenes before. I’m no stranger to the
language and the mechanics, but it seems with this particular scene, my mind
needs to take some Viagra.
Maybe it’s because the mechanics in themselves are really very
simple; girl locks lips with boy and then their souls collide. See? Simple. Maybe
too simple. Maybe I’ve not given myself enough to work with. There’s not a lot
of physical touching at this point in the story, given the circumstances, so
the usual hands sliding over skin and groping of body parts doesn’t really apply.
The process of showing (remember, kids, show don’t tell) the desire is
primarily internal, and that’s throwing me for a bit of a loop. I’ve got to
find different words and different ways to describe the emotional interaction
and eroticism and it’s taking time and lots of thought and reading to give my
mind a refreshing break (though that last one might just be gratuitous
procrastination J).
All good things come to those who wait, but… I’d really like
this story to get finished sooner than in ten years’ time, so if anyone has advice
on how I can jump this hurdle, break through this writing block, and dissect
this metaphorical frog without puking, I’d greatly appreciate your wisdom.
As I’m listening to the Internet radio this afternoon, “Take
on Me” by A-Ha came on and I was instantly reminded of May 10th, 2010.
“You listen to A-Ha?” some might ask with a snicker, considering the band was a
momentary big deal way back in the mid-eighties but is now unheard of in most
North American circles. So bear with me, if you will, while I explain the
connection of nostalgia between that song and myself.
Firstly, the video for “Take on Me” influenced my desire to become an
animator, a very important decision in the course of my life as I had, up until
that moment, been studying at University to become a teacher. Secondly, that same song was also
playing when I met my future husband on the very first day at Sheridan College. He popped in a cassette tape on his car stereo, while driving me home that afternoon instead of making me take a bus,
prompting a conversation which began with me asking rather incredulously, “You
like A-Ha, too?” and ending up with him rather gentlemanly making certain I was
walked to my door with the promise of meeting up again the next day.
But bringing us back to May 10th 2010, I had missed A-Ha’s
only other concert played in Toronto during their inaugural about 20 years earlier when I was 16 or so, and thanks
to a quirk of fate, very nearly missed seeing them again, this time on their
farewell tour.
You see, I had bought the
tickets the second they'd become available several months previous, was elated to have scored floor seats about ten rows back from the stage,
had arranged for my very kind brother and sister-in-law to watch my son for that
evening. I was excited and all ready to go...until about two weeks before the concert date, I woke up half blind.
Imagine, if you will, opening your eyes in the morning and you can't really see half of what you're certain you could when you went to sleep the night before. What would you do?
Well, blinking didn't help clear up the problem. Closing my eyes
for a few more minutes didn’t chase away the blurry, shadowy, glittery blob
which covered the right side of my vision. So, I placed a call to my doctor
and another call to work with the somewhat lame-sounding excuse of, “Um, I
don’t think I can come in today…I’m having trouble seeing.”
At the doctor’s we determined many things; the problem wasn’t the result of a stroke or
some kind of psychological fit, it wasn’t full-on blindness, it wasn’t completely debilitating. It was, however, getting worse; very slightly,
but noticeable by me when trying to read. The doctor couldn’t make a determination. I
needed tests done. She’d get me looked at fast, she said, and placed a few calls
with colleagues.
I went home, bewildered for the most part. I could still see
enough to go through my daily routine. The mental struggle to see around the
glittery/blank/shadowy spot, however, soon began causing headaches and the most
intense fatigue of my life. I tried my hardest to keep reading and keep writing
on my computer, to keep driving and living my life like ‘normal’. I went to
work, cooked dinner, did laundry, and pretended everything was fine. I was
determined to be strong and not give into the fear of the unknown which plagued
me with every squint and blink of my eyes.
But when the tests came back to say there was a lesion in my
brain, disrupting my right visual pathway, I could no longer pretend fearlessness.My doctor, with the grace and kindness she possesses,
wrote a note explaining to one and all that I was not to work or drive until further
notice and that I was to rest as much as possible until a cause for this troublesome
lesion could be determined and a course of action taken to cure it.
“It could be a tumor,” she said, “We don’t know for sure.
The CT scan will give us some clues. You also need an MRI.”
Oh s*it, *gulp* and all of those types of things passed through my mind. What was wrong with me? Would I lose a chunk of my brain, or even worse, my life? This couldn't be happening. I had a 6-year old child for God's sake and a husband who needed me. This couldn't be happening. And why now? Why when I had this concert to go to, which I had waited so long to see, why throw this at me now? I couldn't understand it. There are no reasons when these things happen. Sometimes life just gives you the short straw.
In the spirit of optimism, I joked with the nurse at the
hospital that when URGENT is written on your chart paperwork in big red
letters, it’s probably a bad thing. She stared at me and said, unsmiling, “It’s
better than CRITICAL.”
True. Very true. And because my headaches weren’t acute and
I could still see a bit, I wasn’t CRITICAL. I was allowed to go home and wait
for the call to go in for my CT scan, which could be anytime from a day to a
week. For someone who’s sick, that’s an eternity of time to sit and wonder and
start praying for mercy while the fear of the unknown grows inside until it
becomes so obnoxious it infects the people around you too. Because that’s what happens when you’re
sick and you don’t know what’s wrong. A thousand ‘what if’s’ invade your mind,
a thousand doubts afflict your body, and the people closest to you go through
it all too, just as scared by it all as you.
May 10th arrived shortly thereafter, the day of
the concert. I suppose it’s fitting they called me in for my CT scan that same morning,
because A-Ha’s music seems to have been there for many of the important times
in my life. I was sent home with the understanding that until I had my results and the
doctor had spoken with me, I would continue to rest and not do anything
exciting. Concerts were definitely out.
Um...right. Or rather,
wrong.
At that point, I made the decision that I was done with being terrified. Sure, it was scary, but if my fears came true and the
situation was, in fact, ‘the worst’, why would I want to miss the chance to live
my life to its fullest while I still could? What point was there in putting my life on hold for 'what if's'?
Half-blind, weak and emotionally exhausted, I
went to the concert anyway. I stood in the packed hall, propped up by my husband’s
strong arms so that I literally would not tip over, and squinted and cheered
and fell in love all over again. The experience was unbelievable, probably the
best night of my life (aside from my wedding and the birth of my son.) Even
though I couldn’t see them very well, A-Ha was ten rows away, performing “Take
on Me,” and at my side, the man who made it possible for me to be there and who
has stood by me since the day we met, holding my hand when I’ve needed it most,
and even when I thought I didn’t. I couldn’t have imagined a better combination
to help me face the fear and begin to heal.
“You have MS.” My doctor said a couple of weeks and several
more tests later. “The partial blindness will clear up in about 6-week’s time. Chances
are good you’ll never have a full attack again.”
Whew. Bullet dodged. Not a tumor. No one had to crack open
my skull and take a piece of my brain out. I was going to be, in medical terms,
relatively fine.
And luckily my doctor was right. I did slowly get my vision
back a few weeks later, and my life a few months after that.So far, other than some blips on the radar, for
the past nearly three years my vision has stayed fairly clear. Its true, I make silly, embarrassing
type-o’s—a lot of them. I stumble with words when speaking and writing. I gap-out. I’m
slower with finishing stories than I ever, EVER, wanted to be (this simple blog post, for instance, has taken me all of an afternoon and the better part of an evening to write). But I’m okay, and even if I go half-blind again
or if some other crisis happens, I’ll still be okay.
Because I’ve never forgotten
what I learned at that A-Ha concert on May 10, 2010 with the music deafening my
ears and the crowd of fans screaming along to the songs, and my husband at my side. Vision, true vision, does not come from what we see with our
eyes, but what we see with our soul. Life truly is what you make it, so love it, no matter if the world goes black at times. Appreciate every second.
Losing my sight opened my eyes to the strength I have inside. Would I have learned that lesson if I hadn't gone to the concert that night? Maybe, maybe not. But I do know, one of the things that got me through the almost paralyzing fear, was having that concert to go to, and for that reason, as well as many others, I will always
smile when I hear A-Ha singing, “Take on Me."
I imagine him sitting across from me in a dimly lit room.
Perhaps we are at a table in a local café where the patrons accept one of his
kind without the raised brow and whispered sneer of social snobbery. I sip my
latte while he watches, the glow from his blue eyes a glimmer of slightly bored
amusement.
“Tell me how you feel the story is progressing,” I prompt,
picking a chocolate biscuit off a plate and taking a nibble. “We’ve gotten
quite a bit past that momentous tea scene now.” (for more on that see An Interview Of A Different Kind )
He watches the movement and remains silent, wisps of steam
gently curling from the crested piping on his helmet. I see that as a sign of
displeasure. Of course, it is rude of me to eat in front of him, knowing that his
lack of a digestive system means he cannot do the same. Out of respect, I put
the biscuit back but the curls of steam continue.
“You have hurt Lady Anne,” he accuses, his voice a mixture
of rich echoes as it reverberates inside his metal body. “And given me no
choice but to do the same.”
“All is fair in love, war and story writing.” I say with a
smile. “I’m glad you’ve fallen in love with her. She needs a man like you.”
“I am not a true man.”
“Because you’re stuck in a metal suit? I think Lady Anne sees you quite differently. Especially after you engaged with her in la fete noir. She gave herself to you quite selflessly.”
“It was a mistake. A decision made in the heat of battle. It
will not happen again.”
“Do you really think so?” I cannot help laughing. “She has a
say in the matter too, you know, and I believe she quite enjoyed the moment. As
did you.”
He stares at me, steam hissing from his piping. “Give me my
old body back.”
“Do you think it will make a difference to how she feels
about you if you have a flesh and blood body instead of this metal one?”
“It makes a difference to me!”
He leans forward, gripping
the table so hard the edge snaps beneath his steel fingers. Steam swirls around
us in a hot mist which quickly cools as it settles on my skin. I abandon my
drink, pushing the cup aside to face him squarely.
“I like you, Leo. You have a wonderful, strong soul. I see
why Anne is drawn to you, despite your self-loathing problem. But you have a
lot of growing to do before you deserve your happy ending. Show me that you
know what it means to be a true hero, and I will consider giving you your old
body back. Until then, I suggest you enjoy the adventure and take out your
frustration on that nasty dreadnought.”
I imagine the scent of brimstone is heavy in the air as he angrily
stands up and storms from the coffee shop, crested helmet hissing steam and red
cape snapping behind him.
He’s a troubled soul, Leonidas. So dark and brooding and fun
to write. I have every confidence that he will redeem himself in the course of
the story. But I think as a writer I can’t make it easy. Life isn’t easy. Neither
is writing a book. Each chapter is an adventure, a new lesson learned. And just
like Leo, I must be patient, accept my literary shortcomings and learn from them before
I can write, ‘the end’.
What about you? Are there books you’ve written or read where
you feel you've learned something about yourself by the time you've reached the end of the story?
I was going to do a blog about braids and braiding and how
it’s become popular again to have girly-girl hair, but decided that if you want
to know about hair accessories for ‘steampunking’ an outfit there’s lots of
other blogs and pages out there. A good one can be found here: http://pinterest.com/ladymccormick/steampunk-hair-and-makeup/
And you can learn how to do a classic French braid like the
one I do, here:
And it would have been nice to have posted some more design
sketches for Tin Heart but it’s been a blasted week at work and I don’t have
anything finished quite yet.
But what I will
tell you is a bit of a personal story instead, ‘cause it’s what’s closest to my
heart.
My little boy (who really isn’t so little anymore) hit a
milestone this week. You’ve met him in this blog before so I think it’s safe to
discuss the fact he’s filled with this wonderful creative energy that I wish
the schools would quit trying to knock out of him, but I digress.
Alex is a dreamer. Always got his head in the clouds. The
sort of kid who you could give a box of crayons to but instead of using them to
colour with, he’d build himself a tower, or drive them around the floor like
cars, or pretend they were robot soldiers fighting a battle. Then he might draw
a picture of the battle, but he won’t colour it in. He’d be all about planning
it out and designing what the robots look like rather than making it pretty.
Because he sees things different. He is
different. His mind has always been so full of ideas that for most of his short
life he’s had a hard time getting them out so other people could understand. At
school that’s made him a bit of a loner, standing on the outside of friendships
and looking in, trying to figure out why people do the things they do because he
wouldn’t do it that way himself. Printing therapy. Speech therapy. Motor skills
assessments (fine and gross). Endless doctor’s appointments to see what makes
him tick. Hours of encouragement watching him struggle to learn to read and
count. Nerve wracking meetings with the teachers to ‘assess the situation’.
Soul searching nights where sleep never comes while I toss and turn and wonder,
what can I do to help him more? There must be something I have missed.And all the while he’s been this great little
guy, watching the world from a different angle, and wishing he could fly.
“Mom,” he said to me last fall. “I want to get an ‘A’”
“An ‘A’?” I said, feeling a bit nervous because, well, let’s
face it. An ‘A’ on a report card is pretty big for someone who’s always had C’s
and B’s at best and been on the lowest rung of the classroom. They stay very
clear of labelling kids these days, but the whispers of ‘slow-learner’ did not
pass me by. So I said to him, “’A’ is just a letter in the alphabet, you know.
You do the very best you can do, and that will always be an ‘A’ in my books.”
“Yeah, but I want to get an ‘A.’”
“Okay. But it’s lots of practice. Lots of homework and
studying every night.” Like we weren’t already doing extra to help give him a
boost, right?
“I know,” he said, and
meant it.
So that’s how it’s been over the past several months; a
nightly regime of dinner, homework with a bit of relaxing TV time at the end, Harry
Potter for a bedtime story and then lights out. Fridays and weekends are always
off, where we walk and talk and have fun watching movies or playing board games
and vising with friends. But otherwise, we’ve stuck to his commitment of
putting in the time to help him with his schoolwork. It’s been hard at times,
for all of us. Discipline isn’t one of this family’s superpowers. Life throws
curveballs and often gets in the way of the best laid plans. But we did our
best for us and for him and perseverance wins in the end, right?
*gulp*
Report card day arrived this week.
He handed it to me all excited with shining eyes and a big
smile. “Open it, mom! Let’s see what I got.”
So I did, mentally composing a quick, ‘It’s okay, we’ll do
better next time,’ to soften the blow, just in case. ‘Cause sometimes, no
matter how hard you try, life hands you disappointments.
I scanned through the report, glancing at the subjects and
counting.
He didn’t get one A.
Nope. Not a single one: Nine.
Nine A’s.
Nine freakin’ golden A’s?
My little guy went from being a struggling student to an “A”
average in a matter of months?
He didn’t just fly, he soared!
Well...I cried.
He patted me on the shoulder with that lopsided grin of
I-told-you-so which he has perfected, his eyes beaming with pride. And man, does he
deserve all the happiness he’s feeling right now. He put in the hours and it
paid off. Big time. He reached his goal.
Perseverance, persistence, patience; golden qualities and so
hard to learn. It’s always easy to just give up when things get hard, to lose
focus when tired, to stop believing in yourself when the world looks the other
way, especially if you dance to a different tune than everyone else. (Or are working
on a project that takes longer than a day, like writing a book. *ahem*)
But as the saying goes, the difference between impossible
and possible are 2 little letters: IM.
I’m.
I am.
I am possible.
And I’m so proud my little man learned that about himself this
week. It was by far the real prize of getting that letter ‘A’.
Thought I'd post a sketch of my heroine from my romantic steampunk work-in-progress: Tin Heart.
I wonder what Anne's thinking about. She doesn't look very happy. Then again, after all the trouble she's been put through in the story lately, I wouldn't expect her to be.
But what do you think? Does she look the part? A petite, blonde woman, not beautiful, but pretty, with 'memorable' grey eyes? I'm not certain if I've captured her quite her yet, but it's always nice to visualize what a character is like when writing a story. And steampunk, well, it's just such a fun, visual genre. The gadgets, the fantastic settings, the hats and parasols... I can't help but think this story would make a lovely graphic novel as well as a novella. Perhaps, one day, a publisher out there will think so too. :)
