Theodora Goss

I feel as though I’ve spent the entire day reading and sending emails! I haven’t, of course: this morning I went to a ballet class, which reminded me that my body was made to move, not just to sit and type. But I have spent a lot of time on the computer today.

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.

Reminder: Book Giveaway #2 started yesterday and runs until midnight my time, which is Eastern Standard Time, on Sunday the 15th (meaning that Sunday is the last day to enter). If you would like to enter, write a paragraph or so in response to the following question, and post it as a comment to Book Giveaway #2 below!

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):

It was so difficult to choose the winners of Book Giveaway #1! The descriptions of imaginary gardens were gorgeous: everyone who entered created magic, and I had a wonderful time reading them. I’m going to start by telling you about the two winners, and then I’m going to include six honorable mentions. I chose the honorable mentions because I did have such a difficult time, and I wanted to feature them as well. But please remember that my choices were subjective. They would not necessarily be your choices, and I was impressed by the poetry and imagination in every description. (I just wanted to mention, as well, that I recognized several former students of mine, and you all write beautifully!)

The two winners are Phillis Holliday and Anita Edmonds. I chose Phillis’ because I loved the idea of a secret garden in which children can get away from their troubles and learn strength. It was a garden with a story – I can imagine an entire story coming out of it! And I chose Anita’s because it was written by a true gardener, who knows what she’s talking about. I don’t know if it’s a real garden, but it sure sounds real! And exactly like the sort of place I would very much want to live myself. Congratulations to the two of you. I’ll be in touch by email to get your addresses so I can send you the books! (And as you’ve probably guessed, you won’t be eligible to win in the second or third book giveaways, although you’re still welcome to participate.)  Here are the two winning descriptions.

From Phyllis Holliday:

This is a small garden in the great city of secrets. There is the reek of garbage and sickness in the alleys and evil thoughts jumbled in lost minds. It is no place for a child. Yet the children do survive for they find a way to get into the garden. Some come through an alley, led by thin wise cats like shadows. Some discover the way by a tunnel under a rotting building. All in all they arrive and breathe in the scent of mint, clover, certain flowers they cannot name and vines on trees and no matter what the weather or time of day, there is always a blue sky and birds singing. There is a small playhouse with a mossy roof, and inside, a table set with tea party cups, teapot, tiny sandwiches and raisin cookies. Some play hostess or host and some go into the room with all the books and some find the musical instruments they suddenly know how to play. Out on the green lawn, surrounded by a thicket of thorns, they tell each other stories and how they will escape their dangerous alleys and frightening shadows. The garden is where they invent a life full of joy and magic and above all, how to live in danger and surpass it. This garden can be found in many cities and you could pass by the children and never know where they go when they are not seen.

From Anita Edmonds:

I live in a small, elderly, untidy cottage, filled with cats and books and yarn, built in a space carved from the forest. My garden is a glorious confusion of herbs and flowers, vegetables and the occasional fruit tree (persimmons!) . . . and it bleeds into the woods on all sides, where the squirrels chase each other up and down the trees (and in their spare time bury black walnuts everywhere), and the jays screech from the branches when they see me come out, and the cats stalk mice in the underbrush. There’s a groundhog living under the front porch; I feed him apples and peanuts during the warm months, and he confines his depredations to the patch of greens planted near his house, and the clover in the path. There is a patch of nettles down near the beehives, and my medicinal herbs spill out from that, and behind them is a tangled patch of black raspberries, and a few blackberry bushes. The kitchen garden is just outside the back door; I can go down two steps and out the stepping-stone path down to the rosemary bush, clipping this and that as I go. Below that are vegetables: cucumbers and squash and lettuce of all kinds, tomato plants on a long trellis, tepees of beans and corn, rows of onions, and half a dozen hens scratching industriously between the rows and nipping the occasional bite of a green leaf. There’s a huge old fig against the south side of the house, and flowers everywhere: clove pinks and gillyflowers, lad’s-love and kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate, daisies and foxgloves, daffodils and crocuses and little wild violets that make lovely jam in the spring, hummingbird sage and Michaelmas daisies in fall, moss roses and lemon balm rampant along the path, and a bed of cowslips and lungwort under the maple tree . . . there are clumps of feverfew everywhere, pots of geraniums on the back porch, a spill of thrift over the edges of an old birdbath, and bird feeders hung in any tree I could reach. The cats and I sit on the front porch beneath the Japanese wind bell and the hanging baskets of petunias (grown from seeds my grandmother gave to me), and watch them, hour by hour, while I knit innumerable hats and contemplate my unbelievable luck at this, my one and only life, just as I dreamed it.

Here are the six honorable mentions. Again, I chose each of these because they engaged my imagination and transported me to places where I wanted to go. I’m sorry, I wish I could send you all books as well, but I’m going to announce Book Giveaway #2 tomorrow. Please feel free to enter again!

From Wendy S.:

My garden would be a dreaming garden where all the flowers, herbs and sagacious weeds would speak to me each night and tell me their stories. From the Old English Tudor Roses, I would ask if the War of the Roses caused any family feuds, much like the Capulets and Montague’s and do they need any family counseling to mend old thorny wounds. I would ask my little Hearts-ease what I needed to do to heal a broken heart of long ago that still ached in the summer months. I would talk to Rosemary and ask her if Ophelia really did use her to remember anything logical before she decided to become the owls daughter. My Monkshood and Foxglove would whisper the secrets of the Fae who gathered each night and danced under their petals. And I would tell one of my most favorite flowers of all, the little modest, Wallflower that really she was quite beautiful and charming and just because the other flowers were showier or rambled on and on, that she didn’t have to do anything but to be herself and she was a treasure unto herself.

From Lynn:

It would be a moon-garden of white flowers only, glowing under a full moon. It would never be found in the same place; neither would it ever look the same: sometimes huge and sprawling; sometimes small and intimate. There would be foxgloves taller than me; thick hedges of tea roses which would hide the rest of the garden from view; tiny lily of the valleys dotting the ground like pebbles marking my way. And there would always be one flower, not easy to find, lit from within by a brilliant opal fire. It would slowly swell open and on each of its petals would be tiny spider-silk writing telling a story of wonder, of landscapes, of adventures beyond any I could imagine.

From Arijah:

In my imaginary garden, there would be a wisteria arbor which would have musical stepping stones, each with a different tone so that one might spend hours hopping from one to the other. The path would lead to a Koi pond; a reflection pool with a small trickling waterfall. Opalescent pebbles would line the bottom and water lilies and frog pads would adorn the surface. Frogs would sing their songs there at night. The pond would be surrounded by fragrant herbs and grasses, and tea trees would grow at one side and small fruit trees to the other. Mushrooms that glow in the dark, in shades of white and blue would be scattered hither and tither. The path would divide into four around the pond. Each path holding mysterious and fun statuary amidst weeping willows . . . their long flowing branches make the best hidden tea rooms and hiding places. There would be a wide opening in the canopy to view the stars and full moon at night, and directly under would be planted peppermint. Throw a blanket over the peppermint to lie down and gaze up at the stars, and with every movement the smell of candy canes would fill the air. Wind chimes made of old things like Grama’s silverware, pieces of tubing and odd things like keys, would hang from the branches so that they ting and clack in the breeze. Roses would grow to the east so they fill the air with aroma when the sun rises. On small tree stumps, fairy cups would be placed on fairy saucers to catch the rose morning dew. Moon-flowers would grow to the West along a tree line where the forest begins.There, dividing the garden from the forest would be a door. Mysterious noises would always emanate from the forest, so that the curious might get close enough, press an ear against the door, hear a faint step or whisper and then quickly retreat back to the safety of the garden . . . perhaps hiding under one of the willows. “Wishing fuzz” (at least that’s what we used to call them), the seeds from dandelions, would flow in the breeze . . . illuminated by the sunlight through the branches,they look like little stars skipping along. Dragonflies would make home there, birds would find rest and nest there, and the occasional fox might make escape by way through there, but for sure there would always be magic there.

Arijah also included some illustrations on her blog.

From Jen Adam:

To find my garden you would have to follow a path of crescent moons pressed into the grassy loam by wild horse hooves. A strand of golden hair snagged from a banner tail and caught in the branches of a hawthorn, a tuft of silver tugged from a velvet coat by the grasping boughs of a holly hedge – these are signposts proving the trail. A curtain of wild ivy hides the entrance, stretched across a gate of tangled oak limbs and twisted birches. On the other side, willow trees and maples, ash trees and fir trees and cedars frame a clearing of soft grass.

There are no benches in my garden, but a fallen log on one side with a seat carved by the hands of time. Climbing roses screen a stone wall, relic of an old homestead and a promise that all things change. Violets and bleeding hearts and forget-me-nots hide in dim blue shadows while bolder black-eyed susans and flirting daisies and lilies of every color shine in brighter spaces.

In the center of my garden is an apple tree, the fruits of which may offer Truth, or Faith, or Freedom, or Courage . . .

. . . if the wild horses let you pass.

From Pat Bowne:

The garden obviously belonged to a person with many interests and a short attention span, for no two parts of it were alike and nothing in it was completed. The pond, for instance: bordered at one end with beautifully joined and polished stones, over which a fountain spurted from a bush cut into an impossibly detailed face, yet the other end of the pond shallowed into mud and mint, and the other side of the bush trailed off in spindly, sparse-leaved branches overcome at their ends by a pumpkin vine and two tipsy cabbages. One branch of the rosebush arched over a chair whose seat and arms were as polished as the pond’s rim, its back and legs still bark-covered, while the others flopped into an untrimmed knot of lavender and kale, next to a patch of velvet-smooth lawn half bordered by thyme and half-hidden by the meadow grasses that flopped into it. Everything was just the size for one small person to sit or paddle or pluck or lie in. It was, in short, a witch’s garden, and the garden of a clever witch at that. There was not a whole thing in it, not one item that any of the spirits dancing attendance upon her could take into itself and say “There I have you, now you are mine!”

From Matt:

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything that you need.” – Cicero

It is a garden full of stories, this one. If you stand in front of the gates – wrought-iron, crested by words in a language you don’t recognize – and look through, it doesn’t seem so unusual. Chinese red birches and Mount Etna brooms, cinquefoil and hyacinth, lotus and foxglove: though beautiful, not everything here is safe.

Inside are stone benches and great swaths of grass situated just so beneath the shady overhang of the trees; no matter which way the sun moves, the shadows remain in place, and the air feels right, whatever your clothing. A massive fountain spouts water from a central statue into a large round pool. A statue of what? I cannot tell you what you see. For me, it’s an uncanny recreation of a woman I fell in love with pouring water out of a pitcher – an Aquarius of sorts. The sight comforts me as much as it breaks my heart. I told you there was danger here, didn’t I? And this place is not about me, not exactly.

Run your hands through the water. Cold, yes? On some days, the water is like the Styx – one sip and you forget, not everything and not forever, but for a while. That’s the nice thing about gardens and stories. The escape. Though it never can last. On other days, it’s like the Fountain of Youth, but not exactly. Rather than making you younger, it brings back memories with such perfect clarity, it’s like re-living them all over again. Perfect oblivion or perfect remembrance. Think long and hard before you drink.

The real draw, though, are the trees and the flowers. These are where the stories lie. On this leaf you’ll notice a word: Life. The veins somehow form letters. Botanists regularly clamor to get inside here, but why spoil the mystery? In autumn, when the ground is covered in gold and orange and scarlet, you can trample your way through a whole library. Smell the flower. Any one will do. You hear it, don’t you? A story. Building a world between walls. One artist’s imagination made manifest. The wrong skin. Breathe it in, and the more you’ll hear. Or take a little from here, a little from there. Make it your own. The stories don’t live in a vacuum. They need you to live.

I want to particularly point out the roses. The thorns? Those rekindle heartache. But the scent? Oh that transports you to the moment – or moments, if you’re a lucky sort – of purest joy. Love, often, but not always. Again, if you want to savor the good, you must risk the bad.

Whose garden is this? Mine? No, by no means. It belongs to everyone. Please visit again soon. Often. Tell people about it. If not, if this place is neglected . . . well. Everything here dies.

Reminder: Book Giveaway #1 ends at midnight, my time, tonight (in about four more hours)! So if you want to enter, make sure to get your garden description in by then. For the rules, look under Book Giveaway #1 below. I’ll be reading the descriptions tomorrow and selecting a winner. And then I’ll be announcing Book Giveaway #2!

I came to a realization today. First, Realms of Fantasy folded, and now Fantasy Magazine is being incorporated into Lightspeed. That means in one year, we’ve lost two dedicated fantasy magazines. I’m sure Lightspeed is going to be wonderful, and of course there are still many places to read fantasy, both in print and online. All of the major genre magazines publish it. But I miss having magazines that focused on fantasy, as opposed to fantasy, science fiction, and horror, as the online and print magazines do now. I want my fantasy fix.

Actually, you know what I really want? I want The Journal of Mythic Arts back.

Do you remember The Journal of Mythic Arts? It was published by Terri Windling from 2003 to 2008, and it was gorgeous. It reflected Terri’s aesthetic, which is lovely and sophisticated and deeply informed by all the art I most love, and also her intelligence and knowledge of the fantasy field. You don’t get a publication like The Journal of Mythic Arts without an editor like Terri Windling. It came out four times a year, once each season, and each issue was packed with fiction, poetry, essays, book reviews, and art.

The thing about a publication like The Journal of Mythic Arts is that you always know it’s going to be wonderful. You always know that the quality of the contents is going to be high, and that the issue itself is going to give you visual pleasure. You can read it the way you would drink a really good cup of coffee. (Like a skinny peppermint mocha – sorry, ignore me, that’s my current vice.)

The Journal of Mythic Arts also had a different point of view from the publication that are out there now. The ones out there now tend to be darker. What I always felt, when I read The Journal of Mythic Arts, was a sense of hope – a sense that the world was magical, and magic was a good thing, a sort of gift. I think we need that in fantasy now, to counterbalance both the dystopian tendency that seems to have taken over in literature and what we see happening in the world itself. We need some escape from that, some refreshment from it. We need to believe that magic is possible, despite all the tragedy we see every day (in literature and on the news). Don’t get me wrong, we need tragedy, we need to explore dystopias. But we also need beauty and pleasure and respite.

I posted about this on Facebook, and didn’t anticipate that people would immediately suggest my editing such an online magazine. I know how very, very hard Terri worked to make The Journal of Mythic Arts a reality. And my life is so full right now that I can’t even think about it – not for a while. But I really do see the need for something different, a voice and viewpoint that we’re losing.

We need a dedicated fantasy magazine.

I don’t know what to do about that, not at the moment. But sometimes identifying a need will get a ball rolling, and then something positive will happen. So I’m putting the idea out there.

Universe, now it’s your turn! (And if you want me to do something like this, to take on a significant project, you might give me some more time. Just saying.)

The above, by the way, is either Circe by John William Waterhouse or me thinking about how much we need a new fantasy magazine. But probably both!

Yesterday, Damien Walter had a wonderful column on romance and fantasy in The Guardian, and he mentioned The Thorn and the Blossom. The column is titled “Romantic Fantasy, Fiction and Reality,” and it has an intriguing subtitle: “The elusive nature of ‘real’ love is a perennial question for writers, and fantasy authors provide some refreshing ways to pose it.”

Here’s what he says about the book:

“But what if true love is rare – so rare that we might only find it once every ten lifetimes? Would you suffer loneliness for eternity waiting for love, or would you settle for something less? Such is the theme of The Thorn and the Blossom by Theodora Goss, a novel almost as remarkable for its format as its writing (but only almost). Packaged as a slipcased, accordion fold book, read in one direction it tells the story of Evelyn, and in the other of Brendan, two star-crossed lovers whose lives intersect again and again, but never quite find romance.

“Goss has written some of the most remarkable short fantasy fiction of recent years, shortlisted for the World Fantasy award for short fiction in 2005 for “The Wings of Master Wilhelm,” republished in her sole collection to date, 2006’s In the Forest of Forgetting. The Thorn and the Blossom is Goss’s longest work to date but even with its dual stories combined it numbers less than 100 pages. Nevertheless, it extends her fascination with postmodern revisions of myth and folktale, which has led to her being labelled among the emerging “mythpunk” movement in contemporary fantasy. The Thorn and the Blossom introduces the courtly Arthurian myth of Gawain and Elowen, and recasts it in modern garb, asking the reader to wonder if the values of courtly love could survive in the modern world.”

The reason I mention this is that honestly, I never thought of myself as writing a romance when I wrote the story. I knew that I was writing a love story, but I’d been so used to thinking of romance as “category romance” – you know, the stuff in the romance section of the bookstore. And The Thorn and the Blossom is most certainly not that. But romance doesn’t have to be defined so narrowly, does it? The word used to have a much broader meaning, of course: any tale told in a Romance language, one of the languages derived from Latin, rather than in Latin itself. Latin was for serious writing. French and Spanish and Italian were for fanciful tales about knights and ladies and giants. (Which, of course, The Thorn and the Blossom is about, technically. It’s about what happens when Romance, in that broader sense, survives into the modern world.)

But I think what I wrote is in fact a romance, in the lower-case-r sense, so the question is, what can fantasy add to romance? And I don’t mean vampires. I don’t mean, what can fantasy tropes add to category romance, without actually changing its fundamental nature? Because the love interests in category romance are already fantasy figures, so there’s not all that much difference between having a romance in which our heroine falls for a dashing, dastardly pirate and a romance in which our heroine falls for a dashing, dastardly vampire/werewolf/mummy. (All right, I don’t think there are many supernatural romances, as these books are often called, with mummies in them.) I write this as someone who spent her teenage years reading category romances, from Barbara Cartland on, as well as mass market fantasy. And I do not write it as a criticism, simply as an observation that supernatural romance is a logical extension of, not a fundamental change to, category romance.

But what can fantasy add to the love story? Because I think Walter is asking an important question. What is real love, and what can fantasy tell us about it? One thing it can do is express the mythic dimension of love. The realist novel goes perhaps a little too far in showing us the ways in which love is socially constructed. Yes, Elizabeth Bennett does realize that she loves Mr. Darcy after she sees Pemberley. She sees herself as the mistress of Pemberley as well as his wife. In Jane Austen, love is always shot through with economic considerations. And that is a genuinely important insight into how we love, although she has been criticized for looking at love, and human motivations, so coldly. But love is also foolish, dangerous, magical. Emily Brontë shows us that in Wuthering Heights. And of course she has been criticized for giving us protagonists who essentially torture each other. In our rational era, Heathcliff is seen as abusive, his love for Catherine Earnshaw as unhealthy. But that sort of obsession, that complete desire for the beloved – that’s part of love too. Pride and Prejudice is a novel; Wuthering Heights is the story of two people who belong in a Romance but ended up in a novel.

When we are in love, it feels mythic. The world feels fantastical. We feel as though we are “soul mates,” meant to be together since before birth, after death. And perhaps we are. Perhaps the novel is not, in fact, the ultimate word on love. So at a minimum, fantasy shows us what love feels like – as though we are suddenly, actually, living in a Romance that has come true. And perhaps (at a maximum?) what fantasy does is show us the fundamental truth of love. That love is exactly that: the coming of magic into the world.

Reminder: Book Giveaway #1 is still going on, so if you’d like to enter, look at the rules below! Remember that it will end on Sunday night, at midnight my time (Eastern Standard Time).

I heard this song by Amanda Palmer a few days ago, and it really stuck with me. I’ve listened to it over and over since then, which is what I do with all the songs I love. It’s called “In My Mind.” Here is the video:

I think the reason it struck me so much is that the person Palmer describes wanting to be in five years is pretty much the person I am.

In my mind
In a future five years from now
I’m a hundred and twenty pounds
And I never get hung over

Because I
Will be the picture of discipline
Never minding what state I’m in
And I will be someone I admire

I’m about five years older than Palmer, and I’m a hundred and twenty pounds, and I never do get hung over because you know, I’m a college professor and a glass of wine is pretty much my limit. And there are ways in which I am the picture of discipline, although that’s mostly from the outside, because it doesn’t necessarily feel like that from the inside.

And it’s funny how I imagined
That I would be that person now
But it does not seem to have happened
Maybe I’ve just forgotten how
To see
That I’m not exactly the person that I thought I’d be.

I don’t think I was this person five years ago. I think I was a lot more confused, a lot more afraid, not at all sure I could do what I wanted in the world.

And in my mind
In the far-away here-and-now
I’ve become in-control somehow
And I never lose my wallet

Because I
Will be the picture of discipline
Never fucking-up anything
And I’ll be a good defensive driver

I never do lose my wallet, and I am a good defensive driver. I think my last speeding ticket was twenty years ago. I’ve been pulled over three times since then, once for running a red light, once for not yielding, once for turning into a one-way street the wrong way – all accidentally, and each time I apologized profusely, and each time the policeman warned me sternly and then let me go.

And it’s funny how I imagined
That I would be that person now
But it does not seem to have happened
Maybe I’ve just forgotten how
To see
That I’ll never be the person that I thought I’d be.

So I guess the question is, did I become the person that I wanted to be? And I suppose the answer is, partly. I’m less confused, less afraid. But my life still looks a lot neater from the outside then it does from the inside. Being the picture of discipline doesn’t necessarily mean you are actually always disciplined. There are parts of my life that are still very much a mess.

And in my mind
When I’m old I am beautiful,
Planting tulips and vegetables
Which I will mindfully watch over

Not like me now
I’m so busy with everything
That I don’t look at anything
But I’m sure I’ll look when I am older

I’ve planted tulips and vegetables in the past. And sometimes I want to be the person who plants tulips and vegetables, who lives a sort of calm and gracious life. But I’m so busy with everything that there’s no time, not even to look around me some days. So actually I’m in the same place Palmer is, in the song. Despite never getting hung over or losing my wallet, despite being a good defensive driver.

And it’s funny how I imagined
That I could be that person now
That that’s not what I want
But that’s what I wanted
That I’d be giving up somehow
How strange to see
That I don’t want to be the person that I want to be.

So I guess the question is, what do I really want? Because there have been times in my life when I thought I wanted to be the woman who planted tulips and vegetables. And I still dream of that sometimes. But my life is so full, even though sometimes it feels like a merry-go-round that is moving too fast. I don’t think I could give up the messiness of it.

Sometimes we think we want to be one person, and we end up becoming another person, and it’s because that’s the person we always wanted to be anyway.

And in my mind
I imagine so many things
Things that aren’t really happening
And when they put me in the ground

I’ll start pounding the lid,
Saying, “I haven’t finished yet,
I still have a tattoo to get,
It says, ‘I’m living in the moment.'”

I’ll never get a tattoo. I used to say it was because I don’t like pain, but that’s not the issue. If I could pass the New York and Massachusetts Bar exams, I can take a tattoo. It’s because I don’t like permanence, and as soon as I got one, I would change my mind and want something else. I don’t want to make a decision about who I am, what represents me, that is supposed to last the rest of my life.

And it’s funny how I imagined
That I could win this win-less fight
Maybe it isn’t all that funny
That I’ve been fighting all my life
But maybe I have to think it’s funny
If I want to live before I die
And maybe it’s funniest of all
To think I’ll die before I actually
See
That I am exactly the person that I want to be.

I think we become the people we actually want to be, for good or ill. So we have to stop and think about who we are, why we want to be that way, at least at a particular point in our lives. When I look back, I realize that I’ve made choices, all the way, that made me into a different person than the person I thought I wanted to be. Instead of tulips and vegetables, I have a PhD and a writing career.

(It is funny, isn’t it?  Everything we go through.  I do feel as though I’ve been fighting all my life, partly with myself.)

I chose the mess and pain of getting here. I chose the life I have now, and the person I am.

When I think about where I want to be five years from now, that’s where I have to start.

Remember, if you want to enter Book Giveaway #1, look for the rules below.  And I didn’t make this clear, but yes, you can enter from any country.  If you win, I’ll find a way to get you the books!

I am a human being, and I am woman. But there have been times in my life when I’ve been treated like the latter instead of, rather than in addition to, the former.

Why was I thinking about this today? Probably because I read a blog post by Amanda Palmer on her wedding to Neil Gaiman, which was in the house of the writer Ayelet Waldman. So I started thinking about strong, creative women like Palmer and Waldman who do their own work, go their own way. And I wondered why it’s been difficult for me to do that at certain points in my life. I think it’s partly a result of growing up in the South, where there were certain things women weren’t expected to do. Create their own companies, for instance. Write best-selling novels. They were expected to support their families. To be nice, to avoid controversy.

It was a surprise, coming North for law school, to find that I was being treated differently – that I was expected to be as competitive as my male classmates. That no one cared whether I was nice or not. And you know what? It was liberating.

I’ll tell you two stories to illustrate what I mean. While I was in law school, I spent the summers working at law firms in Richmond, Virginia. In the South again. In those law firms, when we went to lunch, the men always let the women get into the elevator first. So, of course, all the women were at the back of the elevator. And then, when any women needed to get out, all the men would get out first, stand in the hallway until they got out, and then get back into the elevator. It was an elaborate and inconvenient ritual. And while it was meant to be courteous, it was also insulting, because it was a daily marker of difference: you might be an associate at a law firm, but you were still a woman. You were never just another human being.

The second is more personal. After I ended a relationship, the man I’d been in a relationship with decided that he could no longer speak with me, that it was too painful. And then he asked his best friend, who was also a friend of mine, not to speak with me either. And because of their relationship, his friend agreed. I thought for a long time about why that incident was so painful, and finally decided that it was because I had been treated, not as a human being, but as a woman. (Of course what I thought at the time was, are we in fifth grade? I was incredulous.) As a human being, I had a right to form friendships of my own. But as a woman, I was the one he had been in a relationship with, and that meant he had the right to ask male friends to end their own friendships with me. Yes, this too happened in the South.

It took me a long time to get past the lessons I learned, growing up in the South. To realize that I could be ambitious, could create the life I wanted for myself without asking anyone’s permission. That I could speak my mind, generate controversy. That, as the historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich wrote, “well-behaved women seldom make history.” And that I had a right to want to make history, do something important. Change the world.

That, in fact, the world needed changing, and it was much more important for me to try to change it than be nice.

No wonder being treated as a human being, rather than a woman, felt liberating. (Although it was also, initially, disconcerting. I was not used to competing, to being in an environment where niceness got you exactly nowhere. Believe me, it counts for nothing at Harvard Law.) But I am inescapably both.

Women like Palmer and Waldman generate controversy. They make us talk about what it means to be a woman, and what it means to be a human being, and how to negotiate those two identities. And that is in part what I value about them and their work. I hope my own work participates, in some way, in that discussion.

I’m starting the year more tired than I would like to be. Here she is, tired Dora (if you look closely, you can see the lines under my eyes):

So I have a lot of work to do, simply on myself. Rest, become healthier. But I also want to work on all the projects I have planned. I’ll tell you about them as the year progresses. I think it’s going to be a particularly interesting one.