First, The Thorn and the Blossom received a wonderful review from Publishers Weekly:

The Thorn and the Blossom: A Two-Sided Love Story
Theodora Goss. Quirk, $16.95 (82p) ISBN 978-1-59474-551-5

Evelyn Morgan is a university student struggling to lead her own life despite others’ expectations; Brendan Thorne’s troubles begin when he loses his wife to heart failure and subsequently quits his job. A chance meeting leads to their falling in love around the centerpiece of a medieval Cornish version of the tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and from then on their lives and relationship seem to be a modern-day parallel of the frustrated romance between Gawan and his beloved, Elowen. But Goss (In the Forest of Forgetting) presents no ordinary linear tale: the reader is treated to both characters’ stories in parallel on alternate sides of an accordion-style book, letting the reader decide which story to begin with. The fantasy elements are light, revolving mostly around Gawan’s story and Evelyn’s visions of fairies and trolls. Overall this makes the tale align more with old-fashioned romance than pure speculative fiction, but Goss’ appealing characters and modern magic atmosphere will continue to attract a following. Illus.

And second, the reading I did from The Thorn and the Blossom at Boskone was taped! The videos are available on YouTube, but you can see them below. Reading with me is my wonderful editor, Stephen Segal, who actually came up with the idea for the physical format of the book. (I came up with the idea for the story, of course.) The first video is the reading itself, and the second video is a Q&A session we had afterward. I hope you like!

I’ll get back to blogging regularly soon. Probably some time next week, once I’ve recovered a bit. It’s been exhausting, but there’s a good reading why I’m doing all the work I’m doing. I’ll talk about it, eventually . . .

So for the next two weeks I’m going to be posting sporadically, and my posts may not be all that interesting. I apologize in advance . . .

Today, I’m going to post about something that came out online just today: my slideshow on the top ten fantasy love stories for Huffington Post. Here’s the introduction:

When you’re in love, it feels as though you’re living in a fairy tale. The prince or princess of your dreams has chosen you, and you’re going to spend the rest of your lives together, happily ever after, in a castle on a hill with singing furniture and animals that do all the cleaning. Right?

Of course, real life never works out that way (show me a mouse that does dishes, for example). But fantasy does tell us some important underlying truths about the experience of being in love. There’s a reason that romance has always had a fantasy element. (Think of Odysseus falling in love with the sorceress Circe, who turned his men into swine, or Oberon and Titania deciding the fates of lovers in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or Mr. Rochester asking Jane Eyre if she is one of the fairies). Romance is a sort of magic: it changes our perception of the world, making us believe that we’ve found the person we are meant to be with, that the two of us are truly one. It can fill us with an ecstatic sense of joy and make us feel as though the furniture could sing – if we just listened closely enough. But fantasy also shows us some darker truths about love. The modern popularity of paranormal romance has its roots in fairy tales about women marrying bears, and bulls, and other beasts, which reveal that the one we love is not, in fact, a version of ourselves, but another being – one we can never know completely. Love can overcome those differences, but they are still differences. Fairy tales also reveal that love is difficult: sometimes you have to climb a glass mountain in iron shoes or confront a bloodthirsty ogress. I think some of the truest and most important stories about love are fantasy stories, which show us both love’s power and its complexity.

Here are my choices for the top 10 fantasy love stories, both ancient and modern. Fair warning: none of them involves sparkly vampires!

I’m going to give you my top ten here, but in order to read why I’ve selected them, you’ll have to go over to the Huffington Post slideshow! So, without further ado, the top ten! (In my mind, I ranked them 10 to 1, but the slideshow allows you to rank them yourself.)

10. The Myth of Eros and Psyche
9. Henry DeTamble and Clare Abshire in The Time Traveler’s Wife
8. Richard St. Vier and Alec Campion in Swordspoint
7. The Ballad of Tam Lin and Janet
6. Tristran and Yvaine in Stardust
5. Morgon and Raederle in The Riddle-Master Trilogy
4. The Legend of Tristan and Iseult
3. Aragorn and Arwen in The Lord of the Rings
2. The Fairy Tale of Beauty and the Beast
1. Westley and Buttercup in The Princess Bride

Do you agree with my choices? Disagree? I’m interested in finding out . . .

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I had a wonderful time at the reading on Tuesday night, and then a wonderful time meeting people at the Concord Bookshop today, and I’m going to post pictures. I’m also going to link to some of my favorite reviews of The Thorn and the Blossom.

But maybe tomorrow night. Tonight I’m too tired, and so I’m going to write about an issue that was raised on Tuesday night. An audience member asked me, how do you handle reviews? Because whenever you write a book, there will be positive reviews, and there will be negative ones. And as I told him, I don’t think writers ever develop thicker skins. We can’t. We have thinner skins than most people, and I think we need to be that way: it’s what gives us the sensitivity to write, to create art.

So how do you handle reviews? Well, I read mine. Even the negative ones, partly because I find that I learn from them. When they’re done well, they’re like getting feedback from a critique partner. The good negative ones, I appreciate. And then there are the ones that say “This just wasn’t my sort of thing” or “The book was stupid.” Those I can’t really learn from. (Make my next book not stupid. Got it.) Those are also the ones you need to put into perspective.

How, you ask. (Even if you didn’t just ask that, you did. Trust me.) Here’s what I do.

1. Go to Goodreads.
2. Look up James Joyce.
3. Read his one-star reviews.

Did you know that Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man has (as of today) 2423 one-star reviews? This is JAMES FREAKING JOYCE. If he’s going to get that many one-star reviews, I don’t think I’m going to worry about mine.

Here’s what some of those one-star reviews say:

This book is a very dry, written version of the Dead Poet’s Society without Robin Williams.

I almost felt as though I was reading something written by someone with a severe case of ADHD, with an inability to focus on any central point for more than a moment.

The only reason I am giving it 1 star is because I didn’t want anyone to think that I just forgot to rate it.

This review is based on a partial reading of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man because I really couldn’t force myself to read more than the first 25 pages (and page 99, to see if it had improved).

He may be the master of moderist lit and stream of conscious narration, but every time I try to have a Joyce appreciation moment, I flash back to an ex boyfriend who would call me at 4 a.m. to sigh into the phone for an hour before finally offering, “I feel abstract.”

This was much more enjoyable than Ulysses, which is saying almost nothing.

There was no climax and that also bothered me.

I found it extremely difficult to get through (and this is coming from someone who read Atlas Shrugged in a week) and filled with the sort of run-on sentences that make children grow up to hate reading.

I read the beginning and chose to stop. I would rather read Vogon poetry, or stab myself repeatedly with a fork, than read Joyce.

That’s probably enough, right? (I actually cleaned up some of the punctuation.) After all, you can go read them yourself. I should be clear and say that while I don’t like everything James Joyce wrote equally, I do consider him a genius and one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. And a man capable of exquisite prose. For example, here is the final paragraph of “The Dead”:

“A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”

The final sentence makes me shiver.

I’m not going to comment on those comments (and my opinion of Atlas Shrugged is unprintable), but I think they’ll help you put reviews into perspective. Because we’re talking about JAMES FREAKING JOYCE and some people aren’t going to like him because they’re looking for a climax.

As for ratings, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man has a 3.54, which is lower than Twilight, which has a 3.67. I’m not even going to comment on that one. But this is possibly worse: it’s rated lower then Stephen Hero, which has a 3.64. Now that’s just stupid, but it’s also predictable because the people who read Stephen Hero are already Joyce fans, while Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is read by most high school students. If only your fans read you, your ratings will be higher.

Lev Grossman wrote an interesting article on ratings and reviews that I will discuss tomorrow. But I hope today’s brief discussion of ratings and reviews has been helpful. Remember, I read my reviews, even the negative ones, and try to learn from them. But you can’t take them entirely seriously.

So, here are the events.

The reading is tomorrow night, Tuesday the 7th at 7:00 p.m., at the Boston University Barnes and Noble in Kenmore Square. There is more information on the event on the Quirk Books website, as well as a Facebook page for the event.

And then, on Thursday, I’m going to be at the Concord Bookshop in Concord, Massachusetts, from 2:00-3:00. I’ll be signing books and just generally hanging out, so come talk to me! The Concord Bookshop has an event page for the signing.

So there you have it, my two events for the week.

It’s late and I don’t have time to write more tonight, so I’ll leave you with a sanctuary. (Sanctuaries are places you can go when the world seems too much with you. Some sanctuaries are physical, some are mental. This one is mental.)

It’s the song “The Bonny Swans” by Loreena McKennitt:

I’m looking forward to both the reading and signing, but this is going to be a long week. And to be honest, I’ll be glad when it’s over.

Several days ago, I read a lovely interview with Margo Lanagan, the Australian writer. In it, she talked about her writing day. I’m always fascinated by accounts of how other writers do their work. If you’re a writer, go read it. Here’s a description of how she starts her day:

“Get up as early as possible and, before I’m awake enough to attack myself with criticisms, start writing (I write the first draft of everything longhand, in biro on lined bank-weight paper). If I can get in a couple of hours before breakfast, that sets me up for a productive rest-of-the-day.

“Breakfast, then head off to my rented Writing Room, two blocks from my house. Install myself there, immerse myself again. I still aim for ten pages a day – I’m not allowed to beat myself up about it if I don’t make the count, but I do have to try. I’ve found that if I’m on a roll and write substantially more than ten pages, I’m in fact stealing words (and likely slightly sloppy words) from the next day.

“Sometimes the ten pages are done by 11 a.m., sometimes it takes a full 8 hours to get them. Whatever’s happening, don’t let anxiety leak into the process. Keep it as enjoyable and hopeful as possible. Writing snacks: raw carrots, Vita-Weats, anything crunchy – but low fat (don’t want to get sleepy!) – I literally chew my way through plot glitches. If I can, stop writing at a point in a scene where something interesting’s about to happen, to make it easy to start again next day.

“Walk away from it and do unrelated things. Exercise is the best; rinse out my brain with oxygen. Put the book out of mind until just before going to sleep, then just gently prod at the scene I’m going to tackle in the morning, get it ready to take up on waking.”

Doesn’t that sound nice? It does to me. But of course, I was comparing it to what I was doing that day, which went something like this. I wake up at 7 a.m., get dressed, commute for forty minutes to the university, sit in my office and prepare for class, teach four classes in a row, sit in my office and hold office hours, commute back for forty minutes, pick my daughter up from school, and make dinner. Then, I sit in front of my computer and do whatever I need to – often, answer emails, type up a blog entry, do any writing work I need to (by which I don’t mean writing – right now I have an interview, a guest blog post, and an afterword to write, which I need to get done sometime this weekend). If I have any time afterward, I may try to write something, but honestly, lately I’ve just been too tired. Not every day is like that: I don’t teach on Tuesdays or Thursdays, so those are days to catch up on marking papers, but they will also soon be the days I schedule mandatory conferences with students.

It’s kind of a miracle that I get writing done at all.

When I was reading the interview, I also envied Margo’s writing room in an old Victorian house. I have a writing space of course, but it’s in a corner, and I can usually hear whatever else is going on in the house. And it’s also where I prepare for teaching. Before I go on to what I think of all this, I’m just going to say that Margo is a wonderful writer and has a book coming out, which I’m going to read as soon as it’s available. Here it is:

It’s all about selkies, and I love selkie stories. So I’m really looking forward to it. I’m very glad that Margo has a lovely office and the time to write books for me to read!

But her interview also made me think about my own life and the way it’s organized. I don’t like envying other people. For one thing, there’s something unworthy about it. If I want something that someone else has, I should figure out how to get it for myself, rather than envying that person. What will envy get me? (A blog post, evidently.)

What I envy, of course, is time and space, and there are many writers who have that. (Yes, I envy them as well. And I know perfectly well that, although they have more time and space than I do, they also have to do the same writing work, and often freelance work as well.) So how can I get that time and space? Those are the questions I’m thinking about right now. I don’t have answers for them yet, but at least they’re on the agenda.

Today, I did two things that made me happy. I went to one of my favorite antiques stores and bought a small sewing cabinet, sort of like a table with drawers. It’s old and elegant and mahogany, and I’m going to use it as a jewelry chest. And I bought two scarves. I don’t know why scarves always make me feel elegant: perhaps because they’re not utilitarian. I do have a sense, finally, of who I am and where I want to go. I just don’t see, yet, how to get there. But it will happen.

This is a book unlike any I’ve read before: it’s literally a two-sided story. Pick it up, think it’s like any normal book. Then you realize: it’s accordion-folded. Read through one perspective, then turn the book over, and start reading again – from the other perspective. If it sounds a little odd, don’t worry: once you have it in your hand, it makes a lot more sense. And you will probably be a little in awe, if you are anything like me. So much for the book format, but what about the story? Well it’s pretty much as amazing as the format. Have you ever read a book, told from one character’s perspective, and wondered what the other was thinking? Especially when it’s a love story? Theodora has given us a chance to see the same story play out from two wholly different points of view: Evelyn’s and Brendan’s. I read Evelyn’s story first, and found myself emotionally invested fairy quickly – I devoured her story. When it ended, I almost got really sad: it was over! And then I remembered I still needed to flip the book and read Brendan’s side of things. Happiness! And wow – what an experience.

If you click on the review, you’ll see that there’s also an interview with me, and a giveaway! So if you want to win a copy of the book, go enter . . .

Second, I’ve been so tired recently, and working so hard, that I’ve felt the need to retreat, to find a sort of refuge. But of course I don’t have an actual physical refuge, so instead I’ve been looking at pictures. Like these, from Domythic Bliss:

Third and finally, I’m going to include a song that’s been going through my head over and over again, I’m not sure why. But here it is, “Winter Song” by Ingrid Michaelson and Sara Bareilles.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know what I’m doing. You know that this is a sort of spell, that I’m summoning something to me. I don’t know what, exactly. But that’s what these words and images and music are. They’re a way of saying, dear universe, you know that I’m tired, and that I need something. And you’re usually better at giving me what I need than I am at knowing what it is. So I’m asking: whatever it is, just go ahead and send it my way. All right?

First, I was featured in an article in the Boston Herald today: “‘Potter,’ ‘Twilight’ Feed Generation’s ‘Hunger’ for Fantasy Lit.” The online version includes a picture of me, and the print version also includes a picture of The Thorn and the Blossom. Here’s part of what I say in the article:

“When I was growing up there was a fantasy section of the bookstore and a literature section. Now mainstream literature and fantasy are coming together,” said Theodora Goss, 43, a 2008 World Fantasy Award winner and Boston University writing program lecturer.

The Lexington resident’s recently released novella The Thorn and the Blossom, a romance following star-crossed university students, blends Arthurian legend, fantastical elements and the modern age.

“I think that there’s a deep and sentimental reason why we are reading more fantasy and why it is coming into the mainstream. More and more we are living in a fantastical world,” Goss said.

For the rest of what I said, go read the article!

Also, several lovely reviews have appeared recently.

Sofia Samatar: Goss is a writer’s writer; her characters are often artists, or people who are trying to become artists, or who wish they could be artists. The Thorn and the Blossom is, as its description advertises, a love story, but it’s also a work story. It’s about people finding the great passion that will make them happy, and for the lovers Brendan and Evelyn, that’s passion not just for each other, but for meaningful work. For enchanting work. They seek out enchantment like knights in the Forest Sauvage, and we want them to find it. [ . . . ] There’s no extra ornamentation on The Thorn and the Blossom, which may take some getting used to for readers who reveled in the more baroque language of Goss’s electrifying collection, In the Forest of Forgetting. But I feel that in this book, once again, Goss writes her process through her characters. Brendan and Evelyn seek the right literary form to express the magic they’ve experienced, and they both write unexpected things as a result. As for Theodora Goss, she’s left the weirder and creepier aspects of her work behind to write a curl-up-on-a-winter’s-day love story in The Thorn and the Blossom.

(Full disclosure: Sofia is a friend of mine, and a writer herself, as you can probably tell from her review. You can also probably tell why I love this review so much: it’s always amazing when someone totally gets what you were going for.)

Oodles of Books: This book was short and sweet, just like it sounds. The unique format is what intrigued me at first, and since I like anything with a love story, I was really looking forward to see what this would be like. Like mentioned, this is a two-sided love story which I thought was great because we got both sides of the story. How often does that happen? [ . . . ] I definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a short fairytale to quickly dive into.

Cheap Black Pens: The novel is a quick read, but it’s quite sweet and clever. The book is written with the perspectives of two star-crossed lovers who bond over an Arthurian legend, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Shared dialogue is obviously the same, but it’s great to read how Evelyn and Brendan have similar thoughts about situations. [ . . . ] I’m choosing this as my guilty pleasure read.

And finally, and I think this is really special, the book is featured in the New York Public Library gift shop as a Valentine’s Day gift book! It’s actually the only book included among the Valentine’s Day items. Honestly, it’s an honor to have the book chosen in that way by one of the greatest public libraries in the country. (I could say the greatest, but I have to show loyalty to the Boston Public Library, where I did some of my most important dissertation research!)

I was recently asked about how to work on publicity by a new writer, and I do have some thoughts on that. I’ll be writing about it over the next week or so, as I publicize my own book. Tonight, I’ll just share a few observations.

First, publicity is crucial. It’s not about telling people how wonderful you are, or your book is. It’s about telling people that your book exists. You have to actually get the word out.

You should already have done all the easy things. If you’ve published anything at all, you should have an Amazon author page, and you know what? You should also have an Amazon UK author page. Yes, you have to create those pages separately! Here’s my Amazon author page, and here’s my Amazon UK author page. As far as I can tell, you can’t yet create an Amazon CA author page. But remember that we’re living in an international marketplace. Your book will probably be available anywhere English is spoken (and many places it won’t).

You should also have author pages on Goodreads and LibraryThing. Here is my Goodreads author page and my LibraryThing author page. The one on LibraryThing isn’t very developed yet. I’m still trying to figure out LibraryThing, to be honest. It doesn’t feel quite as intuitive as the others. At some point I should probably join Shelfari as well. Of these three, Goodreads feels the most important to me, because so many people use it. But each of them has a different function.

The point of all this is simply to be present where people buy and talk about books. It’s not even to publicize anything in particular, but to have a presence. And then, when you do want to publicize something, you have a place to do so. Notice that I have a reading coming up at the Boston University Barnes and Noble on February 7th, at 7:00 p.m. I’ve already posted it on Facebook and Goodreads, and tweeted about it. But I had all those venues set up long before I ever had a reading planned.

I’ll write more about this tomorrow. Tonight, I still have work to do. And yes, it’s publicity.

Here’s what I mean, more specifically. I’ve been trained in a nineteenth century literary tradition, in Charles Dickens and George Eliot, as well as in what broke that tradition – the literature of the turn of the century, of early modernism. By which I mean writers like Oscar Wilde.

The books I’ve tried to read recently are in the nineteenth century tradition, of the big, fat book that moves slowly, that gives a full and vivid description of a secondary world, whether that world is Middlemarch or Middle Earth. The Harry Potter books are heirs to that tradition. They are books that ask you to feel, to experience the story emotionally rather than intellectually. They are books you can become immersed in.

And I start wondering, reading books like that – what happened to modernism? To the slim book that moves swiftly? Look, for example, at this excerpt from James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (which I picked mostly at random):

“The sunlight breaking suddenly on his sight turned the sky and clouds into a fantastic world of sombre masses with lakelike spaces of dark rosy light. His very brain was sick and powerless. He could scarcely interpret the letters of the signboards of the shops. By his monstrous way of life he seemed to have put himself beyond the limits of reality. Nothing moved him or spoke to him from the real world unless he heard in it an echo of the infuriated cries within him. He could respond to no earthly or human appeal, dumb and insensible to the call of summer and gladness and companionship, wearied and dejected by his father’s voice. He could scarcely recognize as his own thoughts, and repeated slowly to himself:

” – I am Stephen Dedalus. I am walking beside my father whose name is Simon Dedalus. We are in Cork, in Ireland. Cork is a city. Our room is in the Victoria Hotel. Victoria and Stephen and Simon. Simon and Stephen and Victoria. Names.

“The memory of his childhood suddenly grew dim. He tried to call forth some of its vivid moments but could not. He recalled only names. Dante, Parnell, Clane, Clongowes. A little boy had been taught geography by an old woman who kept two brushes in her wardrobe. Then he had been sent away from home to a college, he had made his first communion and eaten slim jim out of his cricket cap and watched the firelight leaping and dancing on the wall of a little bedroom in the infirmary and dreamed of being dead, of mass being said for him by the rector in a black and gold cope, of being buried then in the little graveyard of the community off the main avenue of limes. But he had not died then. Parnell had died. There had been no mass for the dead in the chapel and no procession. He had not died but he had faded out like a film in the sun. He had been lost or had wandered out of existence for he no longer existed. How strange to think of him passing out of existence in such a way, not by death but by fading out in the sun or by being lost and forgotten somewhere in the universe!”

This is a way of writing that leaves spaces, quite a lot of spaces, for you to fill in. It’s a writing with gaps. And so it allows you to breathe, to put in something of your own, to participate. In fact, you have to. You can’t read it lazily. (I would argue that you can read Harry Potter lazily. At least, I have.)

The issue for me is, I don’t want to write in the tradition of Eliot. I don’t even particularly like Eliot. I want to write fantasy, but not like that. Luckily, I have Jorge Luis Borges and Milan Kundera to show me different ways.

(Twice in my life, I’ve dated men who told me they were in love with me, but did not like Borges. And I’ve thought, how is that possible? Because if you don’t like Borges, there are some things about me you will never understand. Some of my stories wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for Borges.)

I suppose all this is why I’m drawn to late nineteenth-century literature, which is pre-modernism but has already started to fragment. The tyranny of the omniscient narrator is already gone in writers like Bram Stoker, Arthur Machen, and H.G. Wells. I recently read a story I liked very much: “Reports of Certain Events in London” by China Miéville, in his collection Looking for Jake. It took me a few pages to understand what he was doing, and for those first few pages I was frustrated, but once I realized that he was using those late nineteenth-century techniques, and what he was using them for, I felt a sense of delight. And then, when the key to it all, the term Viae Ferae, was in Latin, I thought, Ha! Lovely. It was the literary technique of another time, used in a thoroughly modern setting. And what I also liked was that the story asked me not to feel, but to think. Like Borges. (When stories ask me to feel, tell me to feel what and where and for whom, I often end up feeling emotionally manipulated.)

So I don’t know, maybe I’m out of step with the times, in some way. But it seems to me that the big, fat fantasy novels are heirs to a mid-Victorian tradition. (After all, where else do you see three-volume novels, endless serials? Those belong to the middle of the nineteenth century.) And I’m not interested in writing that way.

Hitting the wall is what happens when you’ve been running and running, and suddenly you can’t run anymore. That’s what I’ve been doing, I think: all that running. And suddenly, I was completely out of energy. When I got home on Friday, I fell asleep, and I ended up sleeping much of the weekend.

I’m not going to try to write very much tonight. I do want to post about a few things that I haven’t posted about yet, and that I wrote or read or watched over the weekend.

First, I wrote a guest blog post for The Bookaholic called “What Are We Mything?” Here’s the first paragraph:

“When I teach classes on fantasy literature, I often start by having my students read Sigmund Freud’s essay “The Uncanny.” In that essay, Freud tries to figure out why we respond to certain events with a sort of creepy, uncomfortable fear, the sort of fear you feel when you see a ghost. (Each time I teach his essay, I think of Scooby Doo, shivering and whining until Velma reveals that the ghost is really the caretaker of the dilapidated old estate.) Freud says we feel the uncanny when we experience something that challenges our sense of reality, that makes us think our rational, scientific view of the world is inaccurate. Suddenly, we encounter the supernatural, and we start wondering if we really live in a world that can be explained by the laws of physics. Maybe ghosts do exist after all?”

To read the rest, you have to go look at the post! It’s all about why we need myth in our lives.

And I wanted to think about a quotation from a blog post by Terri Winding:

“A question today: What gets you to your writing desk or drawing board or rehearsal room or where ever else it is that you create your art? I don’t mean on those magical days when everything is flowing so well that a herd of elephants couldn’t keep you away . . . but on all the rest. What gets you into the studio, what overcomes distraction and procrastination, what helps you to put brush to canvas and pencil to page – even on those days when you’re tired, or stale, or fearful, or worried about a dozen other things?”

I was thinking about this particularly because I’m not writing right now – or I am writing, but it’s all Q&As and guest blog posts. Which I love doing, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not working on the story I’m supposed to be writing. I’ve gotten Ivan and Blanchefleur to Professor Owl’s tower and just left them there. What gets me writing is that when I write, I get to escape to my own magical countries, and you know what? I like living in my own magical countries. They can be so much more interesting than this one. I actually like what’s inside my head. I wish I could go back there – maybe once I finish a few more things.

There’s a final thing I wanted to say. Over the weekend, when I was so tired, I watched the movie The Secret of Moonacre. I realized afterward that it has very low ratings – the reviews were not good. Well, you know what? All those reviewers are wrong. I loved it! I could see where the negative reviews were coming from. The movie does not have a linear plot, and it cuts abruptly from scene to scene. But the director is Hungarian, and I’ve seen those techniques used before in Hungarian movies. They are not flaws but choices the director made. And it’s visually beautiful – stunningly so. And the story is strange, unusual. I think we like what we’re used to. We feel comfortable when a movie goes the way we expect, when we can actually anticipate what’s going to happen. Anything strange, anything unexpected, throws us off. But my task, as someone who is a sensitive reader and viewer, is to understand the strange, to appreciate it. (I’m not saying it’s everyone’s task. But it’s my task. This is the way I was made, and what I was made for.)

The movie teaches me something: that when you have an unusual vision, you have to follow it. No matter what anyone tells you.

I have some more interviews and reviews to post here, and then, yes, there will be an actual (if short) thought on having a genius at the end of this post.

First, I recently did an interview with Library Thing.

And here are some more reviews:

Dialect Magazine: Destined, unstoppable true love is a theme I tend to avoid in my reading, but Goss expertly blends the all-encompassing passion, and the literary love story, with the history and myth of Arthurian legend, layered like the accordion folds of the novella. The beautiful craftsmanship and slightly awkward form of this novel is a perfect format for the love story within. It is just inconvenient and fragile enough to prohibit one-handed subway reading, making reading The Thorn and The Blossom into a more mindful activity. In Goss’ The Thorn And The Blossom, fairies and witches’ curses and true love are real, but so is catching the bus and marking papers. This is magical realism at its best, a blend of epic love story and subtle affection. This story is for readers who believe in magic and true love, but not in lovers pining away, blandly waiting for a match to turn up and transform life.

The Charlotte Geeks: Goss has written a complete tragic love story and done so in 82 pages, the amount for each character to tell his and her tale. [ . . . ] If you are a book collector this is a great buy for your collection. It is unique in its design and construction. If you enjoy a tragic romance, then this is an excellent novel to buy. It is a quick read, and well worth reading twice in order to better piece their stories together.

The Bookaholic: I did not hesitate to review The Thorn and the Blossom after reading the premise and seeing the unusual binding of the novella, and in the end I was not disappointed. While it was a quick read, short and sweet, I adored the accordion style binding and romantic backdrop for the characters. [ . . . ] Sometimes whenever I finish a novel, I’ll wonder what the story would be like in the other character’s POV. I loved how The Thorn and the Blossom gives you this vision.

Daemon’s Books: I had a lot of fun reading The Thorn and the Blossom, it’s really well crafted and it was a different reading experience not just in the story, but also physically in holding the book, which is like an accordion. So if you’re looking for something new and exciting and quick to read (did I mention each side is only about 40 pages long), you should definitely get yourself a copy of The Thorn and the Blossom.

Beneath the Bracken: The bookbinder in me, was taken by the book itself. It’s constructed in accordion style with a slipcase and gorgeous illustrations. The reader in me, was taken by the story. Two stories, actually. It’s a love story which weaves the lives of Evelyn and Brendan, their past and their present; with a tale of wonder and enchantment. It’s a quietly beautiful story that, with its clarity and charm, stayed with me in the days after I’d read it. One to read again.

Journey of a Bookseller: One of the most fascinating things about this book is that it is accordion paged and comes in a slipcase. His story on one side of the pages, hers on the other. There is no right or wrong way to read it. Read her story first, or his if you prefer. And it’s a tantalizing tale. [ . . . ] Why not get a copy of this book for yourself and read about the secrets these two lovers hold? Happy reading.

Now, to what I was saying about having a genius. This comes from a talk given by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love.

I recommend this video for anyone who does creative work. I very much like the idea of having a genius (rather than trying to be one, which seems like an exhausting sort of task). And you know, it helps when I face the fact that not all reviews are as positive as the ones I’ve posted above. Anytime you create a work of art, some people won’t like it. That’s simply a fact of the creative life (and one Gilbert herself learned, I’m sure, when Eat, Pray, Love was published, despite the fact that it was a best-seller.)

So what do you do then? Well, what I’ve done is looked back at The Thorn and the Blossom, which I wrote more than six months before its publication date, and thought about what I would change now, if I could. And you know what? There is one thing I would change: I would add a particular paragraph. But that’s it. I know that the story is what it was meant to be – that in a sense, I wasn’t simply sitting down and writing it. I was also channeling the story. And whatever happens to it, however people respond to it, I’m confident that I wrote the story I was supposed to.

I like the idea of having a genius, a spirit that tells the story through you, so that in a sense you become a conduit for it. An educated and trained conduit, of course. But a conduit nevertheless.

And now, you know what? It’s time to move on to the next project, tell the next story.

I’m just going to tell you a couple of writing things, and then I’m going to rest my eyes. For those of you in the Boston area, I’m going to be doing a reading at the Boston University Barnes and Noble in Kenmore Square, on February 7th at 7:00 p.m. You can find the official poster for the reading below. I’m also going to be chatting with people and signing books at the Concord Bookshop, on February 9th at 2:00 p.m.

Recently, three interviews with me were posted: on SF Signal (with the wonderful Charles Tan); on Daemon’s Books, which posted a lovely review of the book; and on The Qwillery, which  also posted a lovely review and is doing a book giveaway.

Also, believe it or not, I do still have other things going on, other writing projects. A short story of mine called “Beautiful Boys” will be in Asimov’s Science Fiction, and I have another short story coming out, but I can’t tell you about that one yet. Also, my article “A Brief History of Monsters” will be in Weird Fiction Review, sometime in February.

I’m sorry, I know, this post is all about the writing. But I can’t think clearly enough to write about anything that would be more interesting, right now. I’ll be back in better form tomorrow, I promise.

And here is the poster:

Here are the two I finally chose as winners, after much debate. Jennifer and Matt, I’ll email you about the books!  I wish I could send books to everyone who participated in these giveaways. Thank you all – your writing totally made my Mondays!

From Jennifer O. @ Lit Endeavors:

True love is watching Grease two times a day for a week because it’s her favorite musical and you get a kick out of watching her sing “Totally Devoted to You.” Love is drinking two pots of coffee to stay up all night because it’s a Sunday, the Dr.’s office isn’t open, and she has a fever of 102. Love is walking around in one piece and shattering into a thousand when she saunters into a room. It is reading twenty Mercer Mayer books in a row because instead of falling asleep, her laughter is filling the room like coins being poured into a glass jar. Love is calling her 6 year old classmate a turdbucket because he called her haircut ugly and “boy-looking.”

Love is being reborn every morning, when she calls you Mom and asks you to make her pancakes with extra syrup.

From Matt:

I’ve read so many stories involving love, heard aphorisms about it, and seen it represented visually so often, I feel like I should be able to say something eloquent about love – romantic love in particular, but of course other kinds exist and should be celebrated as well. But the more I’ve experienced love in its various permutations, the more I realized it’s tremendously difficult to pin it down even in the most abstract terms.

When I think about love that is true, I find myself turning to examples from my own life. First and foremost, I love reading, writing, language, words. That isn’t to say I sit down every day – if only! – to write with a feeling of complete enthusiasm and unbridled possibility. Sometimes, I dread it. But as many difficulties as writing brings, life goes worse for me if I don’t do it for any extended period of time. Words and stories, they comfort me. They challenge me. They give me everything and demand everything of me. We work together through the prosaic and the ineffable. It’s a partnership of sorts, one that encompasses the greatest highs and some truly awful lows. But that aspect is such a part of me, I can’t see myself not writing or reading. I can’t remember who said that acts of creation are also acts of love. I think it’s absolutely true. Okay, so maybe one aphorism.

The other example is my parents. My mom had me at what was certainly too young of an age. Instead of putting me up for adoption, or taking any other alternative, she dropped out of high school and raised me – and the six siblings that followed. Meanwhile, my dad has worked two, occasionally three or four, jobs to provide for us and especially for me, to give me a good education through elementary and high school. His days off are few, and the hours he’s not devoting to the family are equally sparse. Same for my mom. Because of the time, attention, and opportunity they’ve given me, I have the mind, the talent, and the determination to make something of myself, to pay forward (and pay back, as much as possible) the tremendous debt of gratitude I owe them for making me who I am.

That’s love in my eyes, pure, simple, and true.

And here were the honorable mentions, which are also wonderful.  These were especially difficult to choose, because once again I limited myself to four, just like in the last giveaway.  But there were many more I could have chosen!

From Sara:

True love is not just taking out the trash and making the lunches and cleaning up the blood and poop and mud. It is not just the flowers and whispers and the shivering static sparks in your fingertips. It lives somewhere on the borders of these, braver and darker and gentler and fiercer. It smells of sulfur and fur and new bread and new babies’ soft hair. It tastes like dust and chocolate and wine and salt. It laughs and moans and weeps and rages. And it is very quiet. Shh. It is sleeping. And never sleeping, sitting awake at your bedside to keep away monsters.

From Liv DelGiudice:

I’ve always been attracted to found family stories. That’s the reason tales like Star Trek or the stories about Sherlock and Watson have always appealed to me. Of course as humans we love our families, and that love is pure and true. I love my mom! She’s absolutely my best friend, but there’s something about the idea of a found family story that really resonates with me.

I love the idea that Jim Kirk picked up the ashes of a life and blew away with them, to somehow end up on the Enterprise, with friends who could take him down a peg. I love the idea that in their own ways, in all their incarnations, Sherlock and Watson both bared their scars and let something other than salt into the wound. I love the idea that at the end of everything, Guinevere might have seen Arthur and Lancelot clasp hands and wondered if it was all worth it.

Because family is big, and it’s love, and despite what some people might argue, it is so much more than blood. It’s running to catch a Streetcar in New Orleans, hands clasped, trying to remember how to breathe because your best friend stayed too long with the author and now you might have to walk home. It’s staring down some Klingons with a sarcastic doctor and a logical Vulcan and a beautiful woman whose name means freedom, and winging it because you can trust them. It’s waiting three years to punch a missing part of your life in the face, because at the end of the world–he comes back after all. It’s the question mark. It’s forgetting to end your story.

True love is where you find it, however you find it, and however you want to make it. It’s got nothing to do with age or knowledge or wisdom, just the feeling of falling into nothing with a hand clasped in your own, and knowing that even if you smash to bits on the ground, you’ll have that palm pressed against your own, for infinity plus one.

From Michelle M.:

True love ripples like a stirring cadence, the ballad that breaks you out of sleep and clamors to be heard through the quiet. It’s the world opening up to beauty once again, the fates knitting their ruby threads through your heart and combing ribbons into your hair, their hands washing you in rosewater and Venus’ myrrh. It’s the fluttering forth of secrets once suspended inside, melodies once wan now stitching a gossamer rhythm you’re not quite sure of, but yet you listen, marking each delicate strain.

It’s finding a scent of flowers crowning you in the cold, and the smallest shiver of joy beating a steadfast song. Of stringing pearls through the salt of wounds and dressing the body in precious stones, a mosaic of crystal and sun softening the skin. A gorgeous salvaging of dreams, the lips aflame with seeds.

From Keith Glaeske:

True Love is a Force of Nature. As such it can be resisted or accepted, but it cannot be tamed or overcome. Eros was one of the few things that even the Gods could not gainsay (the other being the Moriae, or Fate) – they were as powerless before it as humanity. And, if story is to be believed, even Time and Death are not proof against True Love.

Just as no human-made structure can last indefinitely against the fury of Nature, no human-made convention, taboo, or boundary can long withstand True Love. Like water, it can drown you or sustain you; like fire, which can melt butter and/or temper steel, it can shatter you or strengthen you beyond breaking.

I’ve been doing what feels like a lot of publicity lately, although I know some writers do a lot more. But I thought I would describe what it’s like, for anyone out there who’s interested – particularly other writers. Because the truth is, most writers don’t do a lot of publicity. The ones who do the most are also the most successful, although I don’t know which came first. When you’re successful, you have to do publicity. There’s really no getting around it, unless you’re J.D. Salinger. And trust me, you’re not.

The problem, of course, is that most writers are introverts. Publicity does not come naturally to us. It takes precious energy, which we need to replenish by doing things that do not involve other people. Like sleeping, or sitting under a tree.

Since I’ve been doing so much publicity lately, I’m going to give you my personal thoughts on it. But of course everyone does publicity differently, just as everyone writes differently. These are things I’ve discovered that work for me. And they work for me as an introvert, although as I’ve mentioned, I’m pretty tired right now. I need to sit under that tree or something. Except that right now the ground is covered with snow . . .

Some time ago, a writer friend told me that he was working on a novel, and that once the novel was finished, he would begin to publicize it. He would update his website, go on Facebook. Maybe even tweet. And I thought, how do I tell him that he’s leaving it way too late? That you should start doing publicity at least a year before you have anything coming out? If you start doing it when you have a novel coming out, no one will know who you are. If you start at least a year before, it’s just about making connections, about having a presence of some sort. But it was incredibly useful, when this book came out, that I’d been blogging steadily for a year, that I had been on Facebook and Twitter for a while. For one thing, I was easy to find. I’ll be doing a signing at the Concord Bookshop on February 9th, and the bookstore contacted me through Twitter. People contacted me for review copies through Facebook. So just being out there mattered. It also mattered that when people interviewed me, they could find information on me. Journalists generally like to find background information before doing interviews. My website helped with that.

So I guess the first thing I would say is, you should already have been making connections, so that when something like a book comes out, you have a way to publicize it. You already have ways to connect with people.

Once you have a book, you’re probably not going to be the only one doing publicity, of course. I know that copies of The Thorn and the Blossom went to all sorts of places: newspapers and magazines and bloggers. All of that was coordinated by the publicity department. Your responsibility is to respond to anything: answer Q&As, do interviews, write guest posts. That’s tiring, by the way. Even if you’re doing a telephone interview, it’s as tiring as meeting someone and talking intensely for an hour. (Don’t get me wrong, I love doing it, and I learn so much from the questions people ask me. But we’re talking about publicity and the introvert, and it’s tiring to do those sorts of things.)

That’s the phase I’m in now, just trying to respond to everything. But I’m grateful, at this point, that I had so much in place before this book came out: that I had an updated website, with a press page on which I had a bio and photo. That I had Facebook and Twitter accounts so I could announce things and people could contact me. That I’d already been going to conventions, so I knew people who were reviewers and bloggers. I could ask them personally if I could send them copies of the book. There was no guarantee they were going to like it, of course, and I would never have expected them to like it simply because they knew me. If they disliked it, I would have expected them to say so, honestly. But at least I knew people to send it to. I could coordinate with and supplement the efforts of the publicity department.

So now I’m going to use this forum I’ve created to ask you, would you like to help with publicity? Because there are things I can’t do, but that anyone else who likes the book can do. If you do like the book and you want to help spread the word, here’s what you can do:

1. Go to the Amazon page for The Thorn and the Blossom (notice that I conveniently provided a link!) and “like” it. Or if you have something you’d like to say about it, consider writing a review. Anyone can review on Amazon.

2. If you’re a member of Goodreads, consider also rating the book on Goodreads, or posting a review. Here’s the Goodreads page (again, there’s the link!). You can post the same review on both Amazon and Goodreads, if you want to.

3. If you’re ambitious, you can also write a review on your blog, and thn link to it on Facebook or Twitter if you have those accounts. If you send me the URL, I’ll also link to it in some way, whether through this blog, or on Facebook or Twitter. (Assuming it’s positive and doesn’t give too much of the book away. Of course, if you didn’t like the book, you should feel perfectly free to write a negative review! It’s important to be honest. But I probably won’t link to it, because, you know, I’d rather publicize the good stuff.)

4. And if you’re really ambitious, you can spread the word to actual live people. Relatives, your book group, etc. And how you do that is of course up to you! (By the way, if you want your book group to read the book and you want me to talk to your book group about it, I would be happy to do that.)

Of course, what I want most of all is simply for people to enjoy the book. But if you do want to help out, that’s how to do it. And for writers: if you want to use or copy any of this blog post for your own publicity efforts, please feel free to do so. I’m learning a lot, and I want to share it with all of you.

I’ve been thinking about fear recently. There’s always fear involved when you’re attempting to do something new, and writing a book is always something new, something that is at least a little fearsome. You’re afraid that once you write the book, people won’t like it, or won’t buy it, or will buy it but won’t like it afterward, or any of the various combinations of things that can make you wonder why in the world you bothered writing a book in the first place. Rather than, you know, watching television and eating chocolate.

(Yesterday, I had dinner with friends who are writers, and one of them said to me, you never learn how to write a story. You learn how to write that story, that book. You have to learn all over again how to write the next one. So the experience is always different, always new.)

I should point out here that despite my fears, The Thorn and the Blossom is doing so much better than I could ever have anticipated. Some people will like it, some people won’t, and that’s always the way things are. But it’s selling!

Today, I saw three things other people had said about fear. The first one is something I see every day, because it’s tacked to the bulletin board above my desk. I originally took it from Terri Windling’s blog:

“What would you do if you weren’t afraid”?

It’s on a post-it note, but I should probably have it typed up, or even tattooed on me somewhere, because it’s quickly becoming my motto. I ask myself that question often: what would I do in this situation if I weren’t afraid? There are several projects I’m working on at the moment. One is a poetry collection, which I think I’ve mentioned, and that’s attended with all the fears one always has about a book: what if no one likes it? What if my poetry is terrible? And there’s a secret project of sorts that will accompany the poetry collection, which I’ll tell you about soon. And then there’s a super secret project that I’m just starting to work on, and that one I really had to think about. But I thought, what would I do if I weren’t afraid? And the answer was, I would do it. So there.

The second thing I saw today came from Twitter:

“A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom.” – Aung San Suu Kyi

Yup. Especially common sense. We think it doesn’t make sense to do something, or do it in a particular way, and so we don’t do it. Well, common sense is just shorthand for what other people would say. And what do you care about what other people would say? You are you, you have your vision, and you have to follow it. Despite common sense. You have to do it sensibly, in that you need to make sure you can eat and have a roof over your head while you’re following that dream. But there’s also such a thing as uncommon sense. Your uncommon sense is that small voice inside you that tells you which way to go. If you don’t think you have one, that’s because you haven’t been listening to it. Listen, and it will be telling you all the time where you should go next.

And then, I saw this on Jeff Vandermeer’s blog, in a post called “Things I Know?“:

“Fear and taking the short-term view will harm not just your career but your creativity. Conversely, taking chances while keeping the long-term in mind will often reward you. But the important thing here is beating the fear. Even writing itself is often about beating the fear – evading the fear that comes with the editorial mind-set, which can rob you of the confidence to write. In the broader sense, it’s fear that makes us not push outside of our comfort zones. It’s fear that tells us we’re not worthy of an opportunity. It’s fear that tells us this new thing isn’t something we can actually accomplish. Jumping in with both feet while being aware of the long-term effects of what you’re doing is so important. Saying yes is so important. As important? Don’t fall into patterns of paranoia and bitterness. Something is always going to go wrong in your career. There’s no getting around that. You can lose yourself in circles of why that turn your world into a place where you only see the negative. This just feeds the fear more, and gives you more excuses to not do something.”

I can’t add anything to that – it says what it needs to so perfectly. Oh, and that question about why I bother to write books in the first place? It’s because I look at the world around me, and there are things about it I don’t like. And so I want to change it. Changing the world: that’s why I do what I do. Despite the fear, following my uncommon sense.

(Do you think we’d still be talking about Joan of Arc if she hadn’t followed her uncommon sense?)

Leda

Where the slow river
meets the tide,
a red swan lifts red wings
and darker beak,
and underneath the purple down
of his soft breast
uncurls his coral feet.

Through the deep purple
of the dying heat
of sun and mist,
the level ray of sun-beam
has caressed
the lily with dark breast,
and flecked with richer gold
its golden crest.

Where the slow lifting
of the tide,
floats into the river
and slowly drifts
among the reeds,
and lifts the yellow flags,
he floats
where tide and river meet.

Ah kingly kiss –
no more regret
nor old deep memories
to mar the bliss;
where the low sedge is thick,
the gold day-lily
outspreads and rests
beneath soft fluttering
of red swan wings
and the warm quivering
of the red swan’s breast.

Helen

All Greece hates
the still eyes in the white face,
the lustre as of olives
where she stands,
and the white hands.

All Greece reviles
the wan face when she smiles,
hating it deeper still
when it grows wan and white,
remembering past enchantments
and past ills.

Greece sees, unmoved,
God’s daughter, born of love,
the beauty of cool feet
and slenderest knees,
could love indeed the maid,
only if she were laid,
white ash amid funereal cypresses.

Evadne

I first tasted under Apollo’s lips,
love and love sweetness,
I, Evadne;
my hair is made of crisp violets
or hyacinth which the wind combs back
across some rock shelf;
I, Evadne,
was made of the god of light.

His hair was crisp to my mouth,
as the flower of the crocus,
across my cheek,
cool as the silver-cress
on Erotos bank;
between my chin and throat,
his mouth slipped over and over.

Still between my arm and shoulder,
I feel the brush of his hair,
and my hands keep the gold they took,
as they wandered over and over,
that great arm-full of yellow flowers.

And I thought this would illustrate them well. It’s a study for the head of Leda by Leonardo da Vinci.

How would you describe true love? It doesn’t have to be romantic love. There are many kinds of love: for a romantic partner, a parent or child, a friend, an animal, a house, a place, even the planet. But it should, in some sense, be “true.”

(I was thinking about that question myself, and realized that my true loves include all sorts of things. Like the city of Budapest and my grandparents’ apartment, where I spent the first few years of my life; and my love for the stories of Isak Dinesen, which taught me so much about who I am; and my deep and abiding love for the ocean.)

I’m afraid you’re going to get sick of hearing about The Thorn and the Blossom, but I have to write about it today, because the book came out on Tuesday! It’s out there in the world, and people are getting their copies, and I very much hope they like them. When you write a book, you know that you’re never going to please everyone, and that you shouldn’t even try. If you try, you’re not being true to yourself. But what you hope is that the book will please some people – will mean something to them, be special to them. That it will give them pleasure, comfort, solace, a little magic.

I’m going to post links to some more reviews here, because there have been many lovely ones (although I can’t include them all), and then I’m going to stop talking about the book for a while and go back to blogging about other things. But first, here is an interview with me that came out in the last few days with Westword, a paper in Denver: “The Thorn and the Blossom‘s Theodora Goss on Creating a Double-Layered Story.”

The book received a lovely review from the School Library Journal: Evelyn and Brendan’s story is told twice, once from each perspective, in this intriguing production. [ . . . ] Teens who enjoy a romantic tale will be enchanted by the clever packaging and the fanciful, touching story of young people thwarted in love.

And here are some of the reviews on book blogs:

Unabridged Chick: This is a romance with academics, sort of A.S. Byatt-lite (in a good way!): Oxford scholars turned medieval professors, a kiss, a misunderstanding, some magic. [ . . . ] I read Evelyn’s story first, and let out a serious sigh upon finishing, then quickly flipped the book to gobble up Brendan’s story. (Who, by the way, needs to be my boyfriend. Hello, Mr. Dreamy.)

Tutor Girl Reads: This book was a really magical experience for me. I always have an intense interest in how academics do things, and there were just enough details about the researching, publishing, etc. process to keep me interested, but not enough that others not interested in such processes would get bogged down. That aside, this book was really a love letter to the stories that bring us together and the stories that last for generations.

The Introverted Reader: I got it in the mail, ripped it open, and fell in love. It is just a gorgeous book. There are a few illustrations and I loved those. The covers (Evelyn’s, Brendan’s, and the box that holds the book together) are well-matched and elegant. [ . . . ] Highly recommended, primarily because of the unique format of the book, but also for an enjoyable story of star-crossed lovers.

The Quillery: The Thorn and the Blossom is a very quick read weighing in at only 82 pages, but it really is amazing how much Theodora Goss packs into those pages. [ . . . ] The Thorn and the Blossom is beautifully written, enchanting and gorgeous inside and out. I suggest that you pick up the printed copy of this book to appreciate how special it is.

Misfit Salon: The Thorn and The Blossom has Goss’s trademark style: subtle, layered writing with unexpected fantastical touches. Goss expands upon the Arthurian legend of Gawain and the Green Knight and the Green Man folklore to tell the star-crossed love story of modern day Evelyn and Brendan. The parallels between the myths and the present day are not broad or obvious; I love the depth of Goss’s literary interpretation.

Wordsmithonia: This is one of those books that you need to read for the experience of reading it alone. It’s a two sided book without a spine. There are two covers and the pages are done like an accordion between then. When you finish one story, you flip it over and read the other. It’s a fairly short book either way you count the pages, but what’s inside was a pure joy to read.

I Just Want to Sit Here and Read (and you can also read an interview I did with this blog): The Thorn and the Blossom, by Theodora Goss, is a unique book with a lovely romance.  The book is accordion style in which you can start reading Brendan or Evelyn’s side of the story first then when you are finished, flip it over and read the other. [ . . . ] There is no actual spine but I found myself really digging the layout. Overall, the story is very romantic with some magical elements sprinkled in.

Sophistitakied Reviews: Overall, The Thorn and the Blossom was definitely a unique reading experience. I enjoyed Brendan and Evelyn’s relationship and I loved that so much of the book was based around Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. And getting into the heads of both characters as they tell the same story was an unfamiliar feeling, but it was really insightful and cool. I can only hope that more authors/publishers take notice of this creative way to bind a book and jump on the bandwagon; I’d love to read more novels like this!

The rules are the same as for the first two giveaways. The third giveaway will go until midnight on Sunday night. You can enter by answering the question I pose, in a paragraph or a couple of paragraphs, in the comments section to this post. Once again, there will be two winners, who will each get a signed copy of The Thorn and the Blossom and In the Forest of Forgetting. Here is the third and final question:

The Thorn and the Blossom is a love story, between two people who experience what they believe to be true love. How would you describe true love? It doesn’t have to be romantic love.  There are many kinds of love: for a romantic partner, a parent or child, a friend, an animal, a house, a place, even the planet. But it should, in some sense, be “true.”

That’s it! This is the most challenging of the three questions, and I’m looking forward to seeing what you have to say. Once again, past winners can’t win again, but can certainly answer the question I posed. Good luck to all, and as always, I look forward to reading what you write!

Please note that I will not be blogging tomorrow to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA). If you want to know why so many internet sites will be protesting these acts, there are many sources for that information, too many for me to link to here. Suffice it to say that as a former intellectual property lawyer, and as a writer and scholar, I believe these acts are badly written and misguided. I’ll be blogging again on Thursday.

And a final announcement that I may not have made yet, in all the excitement of the book coming out: I just received author copies of Under the Moons of Mars, which contains my story “Woola’s Song.” Here’s what it looks like:

Even though I had a book come out today, the writing life goes on. In fact, I’ll have some exciting news to announce in the next few weeks! I hope you’ll like it . . .

Since there were fewer entries this time, I only chose four honorable mentions, but even those were difficult because the quality of the writing was so uniformly high. But I did have to make a choice. The two winners are Emily Gilman, who chose to travel to the City at the End of the World, and whose description of it was both mysterious and magical, and meabhchildhoodreads, whose description of the forest that no longer exists was so beautiful and sad. The past is a foreign country we will never be able to access. I loved both of these descriptions – thank you both for posting them!

I’ll be in touch with the winners by email!

From Emily Gilman:

For years I have wanted to make a pilgrimage to the City at the End of the World. I want to stand in the desert heat and feel how cool the stones of the white Wall are even at noon, how deceptively soft the winds have worn them. And I want to see for myself how the powder that coats my palm afterward glitters starlike – so different from the sand kicked up by the bus’s tires.

I want to sit up late into the night listening to the story of the woman who wept. I want to hear her story in the strange syllables that are no language and every language, that all can understand but only those who make their home in the City learn to speak. I want to hear how the woman stood and wept so long that her hair turned white as bone and her clothes turned to rags and at long last the merciful wind blew her away, like sand, over the Wall to her beloved.

I want to watch the lights that churn and dance through the night dark above the Wall until they fade into persistent hallucinations with the dawn.

One thing stops me: I am afraid that if I travel to this City, if I feel the Wall under my hand like a cat that ever wanders and ever returns to this one spot, I will never leave. I am afraid that if I learn this of all languages I will never speak another, and that I could only truly love someone who spoke it back to me.

I fear that, for better or worse, if I meet the eyes of one of the silent priests I will be called to join them, to climb their tower and gaze deeply as we reach out to set the ashes of the dead free of our world.

From meabhchildhoodreads:

The entrance to a forest lies at the end of my small country road. Flanked by a green field and small brown bog water river, the tall conifers stretch into an almost always greying sky. The entrance is marked by a particularly muddy stretch of land: the kind you have to gingerly tiptoe through, for fear of sinking down to your ankles in muck. There’s nothing really special about the forest, that exists purely for the harvesting of timber, deliberately filled with pine that grows quick and chops easy. But there are small moments of beauty inside.

Unintended willows grow upon ledges, whose branches drape over passers-by. There is a tiny bridge that an equally tiny river flows beneath. During the summer if the weather stays dry the cress starts to flower above the water, creating a river of white buds. Tree stumps sit idly covered in moss while pink ragged robin snakes around their roots. And, on those rare days when the stars line up and the clouds part ways, there is sunshine. Sunshine that escapes through the clouds and sends shafts down through the tall trees that are off the path. Rays of light that make the very dust in the air sparkle and land upon the pine needle carpet of the forest floor. I can almost imagine the ghost of a little red-haired girl in a white dress racing among the trees.

That was my very favourite place in the world. Last summer when I returned home to walk in the woods I discovered a heart-breaking sight. My grove of trees that had always caught the sunlight so perfectly, was gone. It was replaced by the open air and a sea of fresh tree stumps, raw and wounded. Their flesh was open to the sky, where I could count the rings. The little dancing girl was gone, forever.

If I could go anywhere in the world I would go back to when my forest was still whole and watch the sun amid the trees, just one last time.

As I said, I also have four honorable mentions, but the truth is that I loved all the entries, and although I didn’t reprint it here, I would love to go on a journey to Middle Earth with Wendy S.! Seriously, after I had read all the entries at least once, I sat rereading them for at least an hour, trying to make a final choice.  Finally I had to, because it was almost midnight.  So here are the honorable mentions, but please do look at all of the entries, since they are quite wonderful.

From Shannon Blue Christensen:

I was told to pack lightly. It would be necessary to disturb unused paths to reach my destination.

So, I packed my books and my music and my boots and toothbrush and a change or two of underwear and my sentimental jewelry. I checked my tattoo for verification. I leafed through pages and pages to find the right paper and drawers and shelves to find the right pen. I brought no food, for this was a passage of purification; not of curiosity. My passport and car keys were unnecessary.

I began my journey in an overstuffed beaten leather chair. No footstool. I curled up and pulled an over-stuffed blanket over me.

My books didn’t fit and had to be left on the floor.

I thought, “Surely a tiny iPod must be fine.” But it didn’t fit either.

My chair was full of me, the thoughts I feared most, the noise in my head, and the paper and pen daring me to write it all down.

It was terrifying. I was statue-like with solitude, frozen with confrontation. I could not hide from myself for my hiding spots were all on the floor. My fingers grew stiff with cold and I began to hyperventilate. “Quiet!” I told myself. “Quiet, or you’ll find you!” And I tried. I tried until the tears slowly washed my face and my hands were numb. Exhausted, I stopped running. Closed my eyes. Took a deep breath. And peeped inside.

I saw a young girl, underfed but otherwise lovely, with the same pen and paper as I. I sat down across from her. She began to write – dreams emptied, wishes still floating, daydreams birthing. And I looked at my own paper. I had written the same pictures. We wrote together for ages and seconds until she looked at me. “You will return? No more shadow?”

After so many quests, so many vehicles of hunting and escaping, I finally found my prey. Sitting unobtrusively inside my soul, the one place I had always feared most. Yes, I will always return, now that I know where you are.

From emily:

I’ve always wanted to go see the Northern Lights, because I’m the kind of person who likes lights and colors and looking at the sky. So I would head somewhere north, Alaska perhaps? I’ve heard you can see the aurora borealis from most anywhere there during the spring in Alaska, considering 2012 is amongst the years of peak solar storms – one of the “reasons” the world is going to end this year. Once in Alaska, I would ask the locals for the best location to see the lights. “Any empty field with a clear view of the northern horizon will do, but one with a backdrop of a mountain range will add to the spectacle,” they would say. So I would find myself an empty field with a clear view of the northern horizon and a mountainous backdrop to sit and wait, shivering because I never dress warm enough.

I don’t want to expect anything of the aurora borealis for fear of disappointment. But it’s too late for that. I can’t pretend I don’t expect it to be a fury of green streaks similar to a lighting storm without the thunder. Or swirls of green lines lingering in the sky in the pattern of my fingerprints. I can’t pretend I didn’t have that dream where time traveling was possible when the clouds turned green and the sky bright red, banded with more green. I mean how can I not expect anything short of spectacular of the Northern Lights, who once induced enough current into manmade telegraph lines that people could communicate cross-country without a power source? It’s definitely too late to not expect anything of the Northern Lights.

From Jenny @ Stone Soup Books:

I have never seen this place, but I look for it wherever I go.

It is a small house with badly peeling white paint and a sagging front porch grown over with star jasmine and clematis. Ivy has infiltrated the house, crawling inside through a broken diamond paned window. The house has planted itself firmly on top of a hill that is covered in cornflowers, poppies, ox-eye daisies, sweet William, rocket, and Indian blanket. Small birds fly out of the grass that scratches my thighs as I approach.

Gossamer dresses and faded floral pillowcases are draped over the clothesline peeking out from behind the house. There are trees by the road; weeping cedars and a crab-apple. There is a pond almost hidden between two small hills. It is filled with arrowroot and snakes and the sunken remains of a rowboat.

I would walk up to the front porch and sit down on the rotting steps. I would let the sun spin my hair into gold and dazzle my eyes. I would let ants and ivy cover my skin. I would hold the house and the hill and the pond against my soul and thrill to the thought of being
very

very

vastly

alone.

From Margaret Fisher Squires:

In the Runcible Spoon restaurant, unique blend of smart bistro, Irish pub, and hippie coffeehouse, a Portal gives entry to the realm of Dalreyn, and its Friendly Forest. I have paid for my lunch and tipped. The wooden booths are empty of other patrons. This is my moment. I duck into the small cupboard below the stairs . . .

. . . and emerge in a grove of tehagon trees. Tall and straight, they bear summer foliage in shades of wine and gold and cream. Their spicy resinous fragrance exhilarates me.

I have come prepared, and dig into my pocket for a small bag. Kneeling, I heap nuts and fruits onto a cushion of moss as an offering to Derith, the forest’s spirit. The forest is called Friendly, but isn’t always. Best to be careful.

Following the chuckle of running water, I find a stream and walk beside it, accompanied by a large blue dragonfly that hovers over the dancing current. I wonder if I will hear the song of the Joy Bird, who was created by Yeshal the All Mother and her daughter Ayshulan of the Moon as they sat eating strawberries with Derith. Ayshulan designed its plumage, a tracery of pearly gray and indigo, silver and shadow-purple, and on its breast, an ivory circle glowing faintly like the full moon. Yeshal gave it a ravishingly sweet song. The three divine ladies rejoiced in this beautiful creature until the goddesses began to bicker over whose contribution was the best. They argued back and forth until Derith had had enough. She decreed that the Joy Bird would be visible only at night, and audible only during the day. Only on the Autumn and Spring equinoxes would the bird be both visible and audible. So saying, she sprinkled the bird with a dusting of iridescent laughter.

Either goddess could have reversed Derith’s will; but sometimes mother and daughter are quietly glad when someone smooths the friction between them. So all remains as Derith decreed. And it is said that if the Joy Bird sits on your shoulder, you will be the happiest of mortals.

Deeply content, I walk listening to the chirping of finches. My stream flows out of the trees into a meadow, dividing into a score of interweaving purling strands. I stand surveying a mosaic of islets. An oak shades the largest of these, and a rowan tree graces one the size of a living room carpet. Others are no bigger than a dining table, a footstool, a slipper. Amethyst spirit flowers and yellow sun-badges spangle the grass. Stepping among them, I discover that every isle, every mossy pebbled bank, is home to a small frog, and each frog is a different color: Spring green, turquoise, tangerine, golden . . .

With my back against the oak’s bole, I gaze in reverie until I am drawn through the Portal to share what I have seen.

Well, I know why I’ve been so tired for the last few days. I have some sort of stomach virus, the kind that makes you tired and achy, and makes you not want to eat anything. So I’m afraid you’re not getting much of a blog post from me tonight.

Instead, I’m going to use this opportunity for what writers, using a technical term, call “shameless self-promotion.” A number of wonderful reviews of The Thorn and the Blossom have come out recently, and I’m going to link to them here.

First, just today a podcast interview with me went up on Girls in the Stacks.  I had so much fun doing this one!

And here are some of the reviews that have gone up so far. I’m going to link to them on the Novels page as well, but I thought I would link to them here to let you know the latest.

Paul Goat Allen on Unabashedly Bookish: The BN Community Blog: Leave it to Quirk Books to – once again – blow me away with an insanely innovative release. [ . . . ] The bottom line is this: the initial appeal of The Thorn and the Blossom is its unique construction but what makes this such a memorable reading experience is Goss’ poignant and deeply lyrical writing style. The fusion of contemporary romance and English folklore with the Green Man motif throughout gives this novel a dreamy feel and makes for an undeniably enchanting read – romance fans who enjoy their literary escapism flavored with myth and folklore will absolutely cherish this innovative and heartrending novel.

A Little Sun Shy: I loved The Thorn and The Blossom, and so will you if legends, love stories, and modern-day Victoriana tickles your fancy. Somehow, a blend of Charlotte Bronte, Iris Murdoch, and Neil Gaiman has been achieved in two counterpart, intertwined, novellas. My hat is off to you, Ms. Goss, my hat is so far gone that I’ve lost sight of it.

Things Mean a Lot: The Thorn and the Blossom was one of my most eagerly anticipated releases of 2012, chiefly because of Theodora Goss’ lovely short fiction (some of which you can read online). As I was hoping, the book is full of elements I love – folklore, scholarship, echoes of medieval literature, and plenty of intertextual references. Although Goss’ style is very much her own, what she does here reminded me slightly of other authors I absolutely love, such as A.S. Byatt or Elizabeth Hand.

The Geek Inside: As in any good love story, things come between Evelyn and Brendan, and I was anxious that their story be resolved in a happy way. I’ll admit it here: I’m a sucker for a good story of Hope – the promise of happiness is so important and so many stories don’t give you that. I enjoyed this book, it’s shorter than most books I read but definitely packs a punch.

La Deeta Reads: This is a good story. It is a fantasy where cursed, starcrossed lovers are seemingly reunited through time. It is romantic, sad and of course you are led to believe that all could possibly work out in the end. I loved that it was in this quirky format, beautifully packaged. This book would make a lovely gift for Valentine’s Day, an anniversary, or just for a loved one.

Karissa’s Reading Review: Overall I really loved this book. I loved the beautiful writing, the subtle magic, and the literary references. I loved the haunting romance and the star-crossed quality to their relationship. It was a quick read, but a very enjoyable one.

Geekstronomy: I found it very refreshing to read a romance story that concentrates on the interaction of the couple, not the contrived situation they have put themselves into. [ . . . ] I would recommend this book to all those people who want a little romance in their lives, but have no interest in the bulging pantaloons.

Sapphyria’s Book Reviews: This is one of the most unique novels and I’m glad I was given a chance to read and review this. [ . . . ] I’m extremely proud to place this accordian-style book on my bookshelf!! eReaders only wish they could be as awesome as this hardcover, accordion-style book!!!

Inside of a Dog: I loved the way the story of the modern lovers echoed the story of the medieval ones. I loved the lyrical language of this story. I thought the concept of the book design was intriguing and perfectly suited to the story that Ms. Goss was telling. I recommend this book highly both for its art and for the wonderful language.

Reeder Reads: If the creative aspects of this beautiful novel don’t blow you away, the story itself will. [ . . . ] This is a beautiful, gripping love story told from two different perspectives that will take you about an hour and a half to read if you read it front to back. I started with Brendan’s story, but it can be read from either perspective and you’ll still get the sense of their love for one another because it’s evident on every page.

The Crazy Life of a Bookaholic Mom: The writing and storytelling are stunning and charming. [ . . . ] This would make a wonderful gift for someone who appreciates unique books or one who appreciates romantic fairy tales. It is a book I will be proud to display on my bookshelves and one I know I will enjoy time and time again! It is a truly enchanting gem of a book!

The Bookworm: The Thorn & the Blossom A Two-Sided Love Story is a sweet and quirky little book about two star-crossed lovers and I enjoyed it very much. These two short stories made me smile and sigh and had me wanting more. [ . . . ] All in all, a charming little romantic book with some mythology in the mix, that left me with a smile on my face.

Impressions: The story itself is beautifully written by Theodora Goss. This is a combination of the contemporary and the mythological, as Evelyn and Brendan’s story seems to mirror that of Sir Gawan and Elowen which is found in the medieval poem The Book of the Green Knight, simultaneously giving the reader a sense of a concrete present and a magical atmosphere. It’s a wonderful combination.

The book comes out on Tuesday, and you know, I really, really hope that people will like it.  That it will find its audience.  I suppose that’s what we all hope for our books.  They’re like our children in that way – we know they’re going to go out into the world on their own, and we just hope for the best . . .

Some time ago, Grace Nuth, who blogs at The Beautiful Necessity, mentioned that she might start a blog specifically focused on mythic and fairytale decorating. And now she has!

It’s called Domythic Bliss, and although she only has three posts up so far, they are just as interesting and beautiful as you would expect from Grace. I’m going to quote from her first few blog posts, because Grace expresses so much of what I’ve come to believe about decorating. She describes why she created the blog:

“I love interior decorating. I never get tired of looking through a really great book of interior design, and I’ve been known to spend hours on blogs and websites devoted to the fine art of turning a house into a home. But there has always seemed to be a gap in the blogosphere and book market. There were books and websites devoted to Victoriana. There were books and websites devoted to Country and Cottage style, Tuscan style, Bohemian and even Steampunk Style. I would peruse these books and websites and find bits and pieces here and there that spoke to me and seemed like what I wanted. But like Goldilocks, I was still in search of the decorating style that seemed ‘just right.’”

I’ve felt this too. I love elements of cottage style, and bungalow style, and French country style, and Scandinavian style, but somehow none of those styles was exactly right. The books I bought could give me ideas, but none of them made me say, yes, this exactly.

“I love a room that spreads out before you like a feast to the eye no matter where you are looking. Even though it is often the opposite of sparse or minimalist, it shouldn’t just be a jumbled mess of random objects. Instead every view should be full of magic and enchantment. It’s a golden standard to which a homeowner can strive for years and decades before just the right combination is obtained, and usually is an amalgamation of family heirlooms, flea market finds, and one-of-a-kind artworks, sculptures, and handicrafts.”

Well, that’s certainly what I have: an amalgamation of family heirlooms, flea market finds, and one-of-a-kind artworks, sculptures, and handicrafts. But I think the important words in that paragraph are “magic and enchantment.” The things you have should be magical. They should create a space that enchants. I think that’s what is missing from most decorating books. There’s loveliness, but no magic.

“Every room is laid out like a story – a fairy tale told right in front of you, full of magic, secrets, and wonder. And in fact, the decoration of the room revolves around narrative and storytelling . . . sometimes literally, as fairy tale volumes are displayed as decoration, and sometimes figuratively as a room is set up to remind you of an enchanted forest cottage or a queen’s boudoir. That is the ideal Mythic Home, to which all of us who love the style strive. But don’t despair! The process is a wonderful journey, and my goal with this blog is to share homes with all sorts of different degrees and levels of mythic accents and themes. And together we can work on identifying just what it is that makes a house transform from decoration to imagination – from practical to enchanting.”

Exactly! The home needs to tell a story. And for the home to be enchanting, that story needs to be a magical narrative. Are you the princess? The witch? The fairy in the woods? What character are you, and what story are you telling about yourself? And if you think that’s silly, remember that we are always telling stories. A home can just as easily say, “I am an investment banker” or “I don’t spend a lot of time here” or “I don’t really care how things look.” It’s always telling a story about you. This is about telling a more interesting story. Grace also gives some very useful advice:

“Here’s a thought for decorating mythically and adding enchantment to your home: First see your home through the eyes of an adult, and then see your home through the eyes of a child.

“The house should be useful and practical, appealing to the senses and showing some sort of unifying theme of color or style (or multiple styles that somehow work together). But then once the “bones” of the decorations are in place, you can and should approach the rooms again, looking through the eyes of your child self. Did you love dragons? Tilt at windmills? Read fairy tales? Have invisible friends? Starting the decoration of a room by keeping in mind the ‘rules’ of decorating just means that when you reach the second phase, you can feel free to break every rule you just made, and create a chaotic wonderland just for you. Hang paper chains from the doorways. Attach fairy wings to the wall when you aren’t wearing them. Paint your ceiling with glow-in-the-dark stars. The sky was the limit to your imagination when you were a child. Try to rediscover what you dreamed about, and make it a reality as an adult. Create a home that the younger-you would enter and stare around in thrilled awe.”

Reading these two paragraphs made me realize what’s wrong with my decorating style. When I was a teenager, I tried to have a sophisticated, grown-up room, although even then it had elements of enchantment: the walls were a light, pale, dusty pink, and there was a tapestry on the wall that showed a view into a forest, in which there was a castle, with mountains in the background. And I had a very large, impractical old mirror with a chipped frame painted sage green. Also, curtains over my bed. Since then, I’ve had a sort of assumption that I should have a sophisticated, adult space – without really thinking about it. But why? There have always been touches of whimsey: I buy old silver plate in flower patterns, so it looks as though I’m eating with a silver garden, and I have ceramic bowls of pine cones and acorns on low tables. But the space, overall, is practical rather than enchanting.

I think it’s time for me to rethink my decorating. And just so you have a good sense of what Grace is talking about, here is one of the pictures that she’s posted on her blog. Enjoy, and then go over and see the rest of them!

I’m so tired that I’m not going to write much of a blog post, but I am going to show you some of what I’ve been working on. These are three older poems that I’m in the process of revising. They’re all rather strange, and I’ve been seeing if I can make them work. All three are fairy tales of sorts (or snippets of fairy tales) that I’ve made up, so I’m going to give you Mother Goose telling her tales to the children:

And here are the poems.

The Mountains of Never

I went to the mountains of Never, which flourish their peaks for the moon,
white as the wrist of a lady, white as a fountain of may,
and the journey lasted forever, although it was over too soon,
for the mountains of Never are nearer, and farther, than away.

At the mountains I met a lady whose wrist was as white as the snows.
She sat with her white face lifted, blankened and blind, to the east.
I sat and watched her eyelids as a thousand moons arose,
and slowly the snows on her shoulders, flake by flake, increased.

Finally, where her face had been, there was only a hillock of white,
the white of the mountains of Never, that flourish their peaks for the moon,
so I turned to the hills and valleys that ranged beyond my sight
and sat with my white face lifted, still, and still, as stone.

Lucy

Lucy walked into the forest; the moon hung like a scythe
over a harvested landscape, bared by autumn and death,
and above the clouds moved silently with the swiftness of a breath.

She carried a wicker basket filled with necessary things:
a flask of dew, a tortoiseshell comb, a pair of butterfly wings
found on a budding rosebush, mysteriously, last spring.

She walked into a clearing and uttered a low, sweet cry
(I will not tell you the words of it, an ancient lullaby),
and then she stood and waited, and frowned a bit to see.

Then suddenly the Elder began to sway and turn,
and all of that grove of branches similarly to churn,
as though a command had animated the artwork on an urn.

The brown trunks twisted and trembled, the roots were pulled from the ground,
thick with the mud of ages, and ivy wreaths unwound,
and the trees stepped from their places, with a snap and a creaking sound.

Now Lucy stands among them, and gives them a smile and a glance,
and scattering the last of their leaves they bow and they advance,
and the Elder invites Lucy to participate in the dance.

The moon hangs over the mountains, curved like a scimitar,
and the clouds have gathered together to cover every star,
and the place where the trees are dancing appears as a long bare scar.

Far off in the towns the men are dreaming in their degrees,
but above the forest the death’s-head of the moon sails on and sees
Lucy, laughing and prancing among the dancing trees.

Our Lady of the Nightmoths

When, one night, the nightmoths came,
powdered wings against her skin,
she lay down and closed her eyes,
slept and dreamed, and went with them.

Clutching tresses of her hair,
furred and squeaking like a mouse,
spread like parachutes in air,
they went any wind to north.

Nightmoths squealed behind her ears,
rubbed against her elbow joints.
She flew over valleys where
artist earth with icebergs paints.

She flew over mountains where
wolves elope with hungry ease,
where the caribou prepare
merger with the antlered trees.

Soon the nightmoths brought her north,
to the land were snows respire,
where each night the sky consumes
itself in multicolored fire.

There they settled her to wait
while her hair grew white like glass,
where the snow’s white termites bit
through her legs and diamond grass

sprouted from her cheeks and chin.
She had waited half a year
when the Nightmoth Lady came,
winging steady through the clear,

dropping powder from her membranes,
clouded in the nightmoth swarm.
Furred antennae felt the cold maid,
slender feelers closed and made her warm.

I know, I used to write some pretty strange stuff. But then, I still do.

That reminds me of an article by Pico Iyer published in the Los Angeles Times called “The Writing Life: The Point of the Long and Winding Sentence.” Here’s how the article begins:

“‘Your sentences are so long,’ said a friend who teaches English at a local college, and I could tell she didn’t quite mean it as a compliment. The copy editor who painstakingly went through my most recent book often put yellow dashes on-screen around my multiplying clauses, to ask if I didn’t want to break up my sentences or put less material in every one. Both responses couldn’t have been kinder or more considered, but what my friend and my colleague may not have sensed was this: I’m using longer and longer sentences as a small protest against – and attempt to rescue any readers I might have from – the bombardment of the moment.

“When I began writing for a living, my feeling was that my job was to give the reader something vivid, quick and concrete that she couldn’t get in any other form; a writer was an information-gathering machine, I thought, and especially as a journalist, my job was to go out into the world and gather details, moments, impressions as visual and immediate as TV. Facts were what we needed most. And if you watched the world closely enough, I believed (and still do), you could begin to see what it would do next, just as you can with a sibling or a friend; Don DeLillo or Salman Rushdie aren’t mystics, but they can tell us what the world is going to do tomorrow because they follow it so attentively.”

I love the phrase “the bombardment of the moment.” And I feel that – don’t you? The bombardment of now, of what is happening now, and now, and now, every moment that we live in the world? If you become too involved in it, you begin checking the news regularly to make sure you keep up. Or even your facebook or twitter feeds, to make sure you don’t get behind. It’s as though we always have to know what’s going on.

I understand Iyer’s initial idea that the writer is supposed to gather and transmit information about the world, but it’s wrong: we are not televisions. DeLillo and Rushdie may be able to tell us what the world is going to do tomorrow, but it’s not because they follow it so attentively. It’s because they have something else, a deep historical sense, a sense of intuition. That’s not something that comes from focusing only on the now.

Iyer realizes some of this. He writes,

“Yet nowadays the planet is moving too fast for even a Rushdie or DeLillo to keep up, and many of us in the privileged world have access to more information than we know what to do with. What we crave is something that will free us from the overcrowded moment and allow us to see it in a larger light. No writer can compete, for speed and urgency, with texts or CNN news flashes or RSS feeds, but any writer can try to give us the depth, the nuances – the “gaps,” as Annie Dillard calls them – that don’t show up on many screens. Not everyone wants to be reduced to a sound bite or a bumper sticker.

“Enter (I hope) the long sentence: the collection of clauses that is so many-chambered and lavish and abundant in tones and suggestions, that has so much room for near-contradiction and ambiguity and those places in memory or imagination that can’t be simplified, or put into easy words, that it allows the reader to keep many things in her head and heart at the same time, and to descend, as by a spiral staircase, deeper into herself and those things that won’t be squeezed into an either/or. With each clause, we’re taken further and further from trite conclusions – or that at least is the hope – and away from reductionism, as if the writer were a dentist, saying “Open wider” so that he can probe the tender, neglected spaces in the reader (though in this case it’s not the mouth that he’s attending to but the mind).”

And you know, I see his point. We do need, not more, but a deeper relationship with what we have. Not knowledge, or not just knowledge, but understanding. That’s what writers give us. I think it can happen in ways other than by writing long sentences. You can achieve depth and nuance through a variety of techniques. But the important thing to remember is that the writer is not a television, just as the artist is not a camera. Both the writer and artist are there to convey what is underneath, rather than on the surface. To engage not the eye but the imagination, the inner eye.

Iyer’s article makes me want to experiment with longer sentences, to see what I can do with them. Toward the end of his article, he gives a wonderful example, quoting Annie Dillard:

“Watch Dillard light up and rise up and ease down as she finds, near the end of her 1974 book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, ‘a maple key, a single winged seed from a pair. Hullo. I threw it into the wind and it flew off again, bristling with animate purpose, not like a thing dropped or windblown, pushed by the witless winds of convection currents hauling round the world’s rondure where they must, but like a creature muscled and vigorous, or a creature spread thin to that other wind, the wind of the spirit which bloweth where it listeth, lighting, and raising up, and easing down.’”

What’s so wonderful about that sentence, what makes it work, is that it’s preceded by the short “Hullo,” which functions as a sort of anchor, a strong beat that grounds us before the lilting sentence begins, and the fact that the sentence itself moves like that windblown maple key. We can feel it moving as the sentence moves.

So, long sentences. But more important than that, nuance and depth. Those are the lessons for today.

Reminder: Book Giveaway #2 will be going on until Sunday night at midnight! If you would like to participate, look below for the rules.

Here is the question: If you could travel anywhere, where would it be, and what would you do when you got there? It can be a real place, or a place that you or someone else has imagined. Again, be creative!

Today I’m very tired, so rather than writing a long post, I’m going to show you something. If you’re the sort of person who reads this blog, I think you’ll find it fascinating. It’s a television show called Tales from the Green Valley that ran in 2005, but I just heard about it. Here’s a description:

Down on the Farm – 1620’s style

How do you gauge gas mark 7 when you’re using a 17th century bread oven?

Why did people 400 years ago save up their urine to help with the laundry?

Why did farmers in Britain traditionally plough with oxen and not horses?

These are just some of the questions five historians and archaeologists asked themselves as they spent a whole year working a farm restored to how it would have been in the year 1620.

Tales from the Green Valley follows the five as they labour for a full agricultural year, getting to grips with period tools, skills, and technology from the age of the Stuarts, the reign of James I. Everything must be done by hand, from ploughing with a team of oxen using a replica period plough and thatching a cowshed using only authentic materials, to making their own washing liquid for laundry and harvesting the hay and wheat with scythes and sickles.

Each of the 12 half-hour programmes, made by Lion TV for BBC Wales, follows a month in the life of the farm situated on the Welsh borders. Far from being a reality series, these beautifully filmed programmes revel instead in the period’s rich history, the British countryside as it changes through the seasons, and of course food. Every episode features a dinner cooked up using period breeds and varieties of animals, fruits, and vegetables, according to 400 year old recipes extracted from housewives’ diaries, farming manuals etc.

The five specialists wear period clothing – because they’re practical, real working garments, with the men in breeches so the bottoms don’t get muddy and wet, and the women wearing long thick skirts which protect from brambles and keep them warm.

And when historian Stuart Peachey, costume and social customs specialist Ruth Goodman, and archaeologists Alex Langlands, Peter “Fonz” Ginn and Chloe Spencer don’t have the answers, they call in outside experts: a host of traditional British artisans – charcoal burner, butcher, hedge-layer, candlemaker, dry-stone waller, thatcher . . . all working with period tools.

Now doesn’t that sound fascinating? It certainly does to me. One of the wonderful things about being a writer of fantastical stories is that I get to go everywhere – all of space and time is open to me. I’m not confined to the present. But to make my stories real, I want to make sure that I’m presenting other times in a reasonably authentic way. (Reasonably because you don’t want to write a history of a particular period, but a story in that period. So it’s often more important to get the feel of a period than to make sure you know every single thing about it. But you don’t want to get anything wrong – mistakes will inevitably stick out.) The other day, I found myself suddenly having to understand how a watermill actually works. Thank goodness for Wikipedia, which had a handy history of watermill construction! I could choose my preferred style of watermill from among the examples given. Programs like Tales from the Green Valley are so useful because they allow you to see the details: what food looked like, how clothes were made. The best thing, of course, is to experience some of these things yourself: find someone to teach you how to spin, spend some time among cows. This is one of my favorite things about being a writer: it constantly requires you to stretch, to learn more.

And I think fantasy does that more than realism, because when we say realism, we’re really just saying “the reality we know.” In 1620, people didn’t live in that reality. If we want to write a book about the seventeenth century, or even a fantasy book sent in a period vaguely like the seventeenth century, we need to know about the reality of other times. We need to work harder than the supposed realists, who can look around themselves for their material.

I recently heard someone turn the old advice “Write what you know” around, into “Know what you write.” In other words, if you don’t know, do your research. And I think that’s much better advice.

So, without further ado, here you go. Tales from the Green Valley, the Christmas episode (since many of us just celebrated Christmas, and the Solstice, and the end of the year in general):

This is the second book giveaway, and here is how it works. Once again, I’m going to ask a question and ask you to write a paragraph or so. Longer is all right if it’s not too long – if you’re wondering about length, take a look at the entries that won and got honorable mentions in the first giveaway, which are about the right length. But notice that length didn’t necessarily help: some of my selections were relatively short.

Once again, the giveaway is for a signed copy of In the Forest of Forgetting and a signed copy of The Thorn and the Blossom, plus cool bookmarks, and there will be two winners.

Here is the question:

I’ve traveled a lot, and there’s quite a lot of traveling in my stories. In The Thorn and the Blossom, Evelyn travels to the Cornish town of Clews, where she meets Brendan Thorne. If you could travel anywhere, where would it be, and what would you do when you got there? It can be a real place, or a place that you or someone else has imagined. Again, be creative!

I’m also going to post some pictures of me wrapping the books from the first giveaway, as well as from the auction for Terri Windling. Here are all the supplies laid out on the bed:

And the books being wrapped in gold and silver tissue paper before being put in bags that will keep them safe while en route:

And finally the wrapped books, before they are put into those nice gold bags, which are put in the envelopes:

Last time, quite a few people said that whether or not they won, it was a fun writing exercise, and I hope that once again this question will stir your imagination. Think of it as a way to write a prose poem or start a story!  Or even a novel! I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with . . .

Addendum: Sorry, a friend pointed out that I did not post how long this giveaway will last.  Like the last one, it will end on Sunday night, midnight my time (Eastern Standard Time).

Second addendum: I also didn’t mention that all of your responses should be comments to this post (below). I must have been very tired when I wrote this!