p e n c h a n t

Sometimes we forge ahead into developing what we want to become, and neglect what we were at the start. Going back to your early creations helps to remind you who you were when the world was new and your pure self shone more clearly, before layers of influences and conscious choice modified your mind.

Recently, as I was rummaging through a trunk (see Trunk Sale), I came across this piece that I produced when I was about fourteen.

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At first analysis, I see that animals were an interest of mine, especially birds. That is still true: animals, and especially birds, are recurring images and subjects in my writings and art. The animals are not too anthropomorphic: only hints of clothing adorn them, just enough to convey character or personality (a necktie, a propeller cap, a scarf, a collar). Again, still true: in my middle-grade novel, The Dragon in Cripple Creek, CO (Harry Abrams/Amulet Books, Spring 2010), a dragon ends up with duck tape on his wing. He also sings “America the Beautiful”, but he remains “dragonish”. Animals and humans inhabit the same comfortable space in my worlds.

This piece also tells me I enjoyed incorporating words with pictures; they both had, and still have, an equal importance to me. There is a little wordplay, another favorite device of mine, with the goose’s name. I probably took it from a rhyme I learned when I was a toddler: John, John, the gray goose is gone…. Hence, this is John, the gray goose. Today, I’d probably go ahead and call him John-John.

But there’s more. There’s a bit of mystery. Did Shakespeare go truffling? What do the initials W. M. stand for? Is W. M. a sly reminder that Shakespeare’s name was William? Was it he who named his pets, or did they come pre-named? I can’t answer these questions: I can’t remember. But I can tell you I like to leave some things unexplained. And most important, there is story here.

Another observation: Shakespeare is literally outside the box, a position I try to maintain in an attempt to be original. He is not in Elizabethan dress, but something like 1930-ish Oxford baggies, including necktie. And I’m still doing that today—not the dress, but placing the old into the new. I’ve put an ancient dragon in the 21st century, and in my current work in progress, I’m putting Hans Christian Andersen in contemporary Copenhagen.

Considering all of the above, I’m reassured that I haven’t strayed too far from who I was and what tugged at my heart from the start.

Take another look at your early works, and see yourself.

I gobble, I have gobbled, I would have gobbled, I had gobbled, I will gobble, I will have gobbled, he has gobbled, he must have gobbled, he must gobble, he was gobbling, he will be gobbling, he is gobbling, he is a gobbler, he is the gobblest, he is the gobblingest; gobblology, gobblosophy, gobblogical, gobblidity, gobblation, gobblable, gobblative, gobblement, gobblography, gobblactical, gobblific, gobblanamous, gobblennial, gobblocity, gobblotic, gobblistic, gobblastic, gobblspheric, gobblicious, and last but not least: gobbledy-gook

Mixed-media turkey
(tail-feathers: all the colors a starving artist has at hand / wattle: pencil shavings / beak: pen nib / inky feet: airbrushed with drinking straw)

TRY THIS AT HOME! It really works! Fool your friends! Send secret messages! Got something to say, but want to keep it private? Forget text messaging, and go invisible ink! That’s right—or should we say, that’s write—you know, the stuff that flows out of a pen? Only you can’t see it: it vanishes before your eyes! Shhhh … don’t tell anyone, but once you know the trick, you can see it! (We’ll get to that part in a minute.) First, you make the ink yourself, by following an ancient, home recipe, passed down from kid to kid to kid, from goodness knows how long ago. You can do this in your own kitchen, using a few common ingredients—just don’t get caught! Ready? Here’s what you do. T-ke a—e

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When doing live research, which goes beyond electronic or print research, sometimes the subject is as near as your neighborhood pet shop. One advantage of doing live research is that you observe things a picture won’t tell you: the subject has its own unique language. Even at that, these sketches are like third generation copies—you know, when you copy something on a copy machine, and then copy the copy, then copy the copied copy…. The farther you go from the original, the more removed you are from its nature, its truth. In this case, the live rats were the original, the second is myself and my limited ability to capture what I see, or try to see, the third is the sketch, after it’s been processed through my head and hands and pen. It’s important to try, at least, to capture the essence of the subject. It’s important for the artist or writer to experience as much as possible a subject in its live form. Seeing a Van Gogh reproduction in a book is nothing like seeing the actual painting in a museum; you must see the original to get a better grasp of its reality. Seeing the original is like meeting the person, whereas seeing its copy is like seeing the person’s corpse in a casket.

Though we are far removed from the sunflowers that Van Gogh likely picked himself, we get a glimpse of what he saw and felt. He smelled them, touched them, perhaps tasted them, found a vase for them. They meant so much he counted them: “Vase with Five Sunflowers”, “Vase with Fourteen Sunflowers”, “Three Sunflowers in a Vase”.

And so, once a work of art has been made, though it is not the subject in actuality, it has a reality of its own. A nature, a language of its own.

But that language would be different, diminished, had the artist not experienced the real.

I was introduced to her in college through her bittersweet Something Childish But Very Natural, and fell headlong in love with her, as does Henry with Edna in the story. Their love is too fragile to last—Henry’s and Edna’s—but mine is stirred every time I reacquaint myself with Katherine Mansfield. Her stories explore unfulfilled and broken dreams, domesticity, class ideologies and idiosyncrasies, eddies of intimacies within everyday people. Her adults are grownup children, her children are the seeds and sprouts of grownups, and the stories they inhabit are like times familiar to most of us. That does not mean she tells no occasional high drama: she just tells it in her quiet, natural voice, though with a slight chill. In How Pearl Button was Kidnapped, little Pearl loves the parenthetical bliss—and bliss it is, against her life in the “House of Boxes”—and despairs when she is rescued. In A Suburban Fairy Tale, the starving children in the snow become sparrows, begging for crumbs before flying away. The Child-Who-Was-Tired, in the story by the same name, overburdened with care and desperate for a moment’s peace, smothers her young charge in order to have it. The nervous wretch in the remote wilds reveals through a pencil drawing to the travelers who stop by that his mother, the woman of The Woman at the Store, shot and buried his father.

One of my favorites is See-Saw, a short short with a lasting truth. The title alone is perfect. In the story, a boy and girl are seriously at play being housekeeping grownups, in a small earthen hollow, while above them two “old babies”—a man and wife—are equally sincere at playing real life. It begins with a lovely description—

As the people leave the road for grass their eyes become fixed and dreamy like the eyes of people wading in the warm sea.

—in contrast to what follows. Listen to the young ones:

“If you don’t get me no sticks for my fire,” said she, “there won’t be no dinner.” She wrinkled her nose and looked at him severely. He took it very easy, balancing on his toes. “Well—where’s I to find any sticks?”

He collects an armful in a second, once she informs him in a whisper the sticks do not have to be real.

And the old ones:

“Very hot,” said he, and he gave a low, strange trumpeting cry with which she was evidently familiar, for she gave no sign. She looked into the lovely distance and quivered, “Nellie cut her finger last night.”

And so it goes, back and forth between the two pairs, up and down, youth and age. In a momentary reminder that there is beauty at hand, a bird perched on a young chestnut above sends out a “great jet of song” over them. The man, “the old snorter”, responds by shooing it away, complaining, “Don’t want bird muck falling on us.” The children, as spontaneous as the world that sparkles around them, are studying hard, unconsciously, to become what the grownups have long been: solidified into the mundane.

Capturing the beautiful with the mundane, that is one reason Katherine Mansfield’s works deserve to be on the writer’s shelf, if not in the writer’s heart. “Life never becomes a habit with me,” she said. “It’s always a marvel.” She died at age 35.

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A page from my college sketchbook, when I dreamed of illustrating her stories.

GRILLED CHEESE EXPRESSIONISM

This makes a nice lunch.

I use a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat with a tab of butter (olive oil should work just as well), and lightly buttered multi-grain bread, white cheese—usually jack, though Gouda is good, and when in the mood I’ve used sharp cheddar—with thinly sliced onions browning alongside the sandwich. Once the cheese has melted and the bread has grilled, I add the onions and—here’s the creative part—slices of avocado and a coil of mustard.

Finding a good avocado is an art. I grew up in a home with an avocado tree outside my second-story window, and we had avocados throughout the year. The more avocados you examine and try, the more familiar you become with what is good and what is not. Keep in mind that ridges running beneath the skin indicate strings inside, which are undesirable. The fruit should give slightly under pressure when ripe.

To complete the meal, I serve tomato soup (Trader Joe’s brand is my choice) with a slice or two of avocado afloat, and a liberal sprinkling of freshly ground pepper. The color combination alone is pleasing.

artwork is acrylic on rag board

Or maybe it’s the science of nonfiction …

Whatever, these writing tips are real. Accidentally sit on one and find out. Nonfiction doesn’t get better than this!

Nonfiction as non-art? Non-art as fiction? Science as art? “The Insignificance of Mechanical Means Whereby the Muse Reveals Herself, Number Nine”? Tragicomedy?

These pen nibs are from my collection; some I have used, some I’ve abused.

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Gone are the times when I read a book for pleasure. Now, as I read, I’m thinking: The writing is too self-conscious; or, What direction would I have taken had I been the writer? or, That “only” is in the wrong place. Not that I don’t occasionally enjoy reading, but as a writer who wants to continue improving his work, I read analytically, critically.

I picked up a book last night—Tess of the D’Urbervilles—with a particular scene in mind. I haven’t studied it page by page, but I know the plot, and wanted to see how Thomas Hardy handled the murder scene at the story’s end. Fate has been slowly wringing Tess in its grip, from that May day so long ago when Angel passed her by to dance with another, until the moment he returns to her, repentant and emaciated, to claim the bride he abandoned. It is too late. Too late for any spark of joy to light her way, any hope of fulfillment. She has surrendered to the numbing tide that is poverty and abuse, and has drifted like flotsam into the hold of Alec D’Urberville, the man who victimized her youth. It is one of the saddest tales in all literature. When Angel returns, only to be turned away, and Tess is back upstairs with Alec …

That is the scene. It is the climax, if the book has a climax. It is almost anticlimactic. How and why does Hardy do it?

We do not see Tess take the knife in her frenzied state. We are not there to feel her vindication, as she plunges it into Alec. We are not even with her as she rushes downstairs and out the door. No. We know of it through the disengaged landlady, who, on hearing Tess’s agony, peers into the keyhole to see her despairing face, then hastily retreats to the chamber below for fear of being caught eavesdropping. From over the landlady’s shoulder, as she glances out the window, we see Tess leave the house. The landlady then happens to look up to the ceiling, where a small spot of red grows.

And so we know what has been done.

The psychic distance that Hardy employs is almost a slight to what we deserve to witness, and what Tess is deserving to accomplish in our presence with its spectrum of passion and gore. Yet. She is an innocent throughout the story, soiled by, not her own actions, but those of others. Why should she now be stained? So Hardy maintains her purity of heart even as she commits her crime.

On thinking this through, this critical decision of a master writer and his craft, I came to another realization. Tess is nearing the close of her wobbly rotation. When we first see her, she is dancing the May Day dance in a circular celebration of newness and life. When we leave her, or rather, when she leaves us and the unjust world, she is symbolically, sacrificially entombed in Stonehenge, to where she and Angel have retreated, pursued by the law. She has come full circle, from life to death, by means beyond her control. Fate had dealt its trump. Hardy writes of the landlady’s room: “The oblong white ceiling, with this scarlet blot in the midst, had the appearance of a gigantic ace of hearts.”

All this whiteness, with its blot of blood, is the essence of Tess. Symbol and statement was, to Hardy, truer than drama.

What would you, the writer, have done?

In Brian Jacques’ popular Redwall, the book that began the series, Basil Stag Hare pays a surprise visit, posing as a decoy to an antagonistic rat. This flamboyant military gent is conveyed in the narrative through personality, action, and speech, more than physical description, so I had a little room for choosing his looks.

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In my process, the thumbnail sketch comes first, showing the compositional elements of subject and setting. It’s similar to a rough draft or random notes, for the writer—getting down the initial idea.

If there were no need for approval—of editor, art director, and marketing people—I would bypass this second sketch stage and move to the finish. That does not mean I’d begin painting right away, but would draw and draw and draw, directly on my illustration board, until I get it right, applying what I’ve learned as an artist, researcher, and observer, and continue making small adjustments as I then begin the painting, and continue painting and reworking until I’m satisfied with the results. The revision process, in writer’s terms. But seldom do I get that privilege. This sketch was rendered primarily to show my plans to those whose approval was necessary.

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Basil’s mocking bow, as it appeared in the 10th anniversary edition of Redwall. To my great disappointment (and loss of any chance of royalties), this edition was pulled prematurely after one year. It hardly had a life. The stated reason: this particular edition was “special”. Right.

This is the second in a haphazard series of helpful, time-saving tips that, if you are already familiar with, we trust you still will enjoy. If these are not familiar, then—Here’s to better writing! Once we conjure up enough tips, we’ll dump them all together for easy reference. We thought we’d continue the series with, you guessed it: More openings.

We don’t mean more openings, but more about openings.

Besides grabbing your reader’s attention, as we have already seen (see Writing Tips #1: Openings), an opening should also set the tone. Tone, as in, music, sound. There’s monotone, poly-tone, sepia tone, and dial tone.

We’ll start with monotone. Monotone is not as easy as it sounds (pun intended), and contrary to what you might think, it can be quite dramatic. Just as short words or lines in poetry propel the reader forward, or actually, downward (down the page, which is really what we want to accomplish), monotone can have the same effect. Use short, choppy words, monosyllabic words. Here’s an example: The mind is piqued. The words are read. Go on, you can do it. Too. If you but try. Write the whole thing. With words with short sounds. See? We cleverly avoided using multi-syllabic words, like interested, curious, and syllable, to heighten the drama.

Then there are the lonnnnnnnng sounds, the sesquipedalians, what the Dickens folks call Dickensonians, those run-along sentences that do exactly that: run along, all the way down the page (which, again, is what we want to accomplish), sentences that, even as they are being composed by your confident writer’s hand, create a mesmerizing effect, like a long journey to gosh-n-golly knows where, off to some vague horizon, that only you, the writer, know (or maybe don’t, but we’ll get to that when we cover plodding plotting), and the reader can only anticipate, as he or she continues to the end of your sentence, which should leave him or her breathless and desperate to …

… turn the page. Which, as we have seen twice already, is what we want to accomplish! Before we depart page one, however, let us return to the subject at hand. Tone. Since we nearly overspent ourselves on that last one, which we did not identify but demonstrated (by showing, not telling … OK, we’ll tell. It’s poly-tone), we will be brief. Sepia tone. Anything historical. Western history, for example. You know, cowboys.

Now comes the dial tone, which, no less intriguing than the other tonalities, can be a writer’s plaything. To establish dial tone, have one of your characters, preferably the protagonist, since he, she, or it usually appears on the first page first, call up another one of your characters, who appears later on in the narrative. This is a subtle way to introduce someone else, and to create dialogue that the reader is privy to (whereas in real life, see, you only get one side of a phone conversation, unless the sound is on DEAFENING or SPEAKER). You may be wondering how an “it” (see “he, she, or it” in above sentence) can use a phone, but that’s what creative writing consists of: making the impossible plausible, but that’s for another Writing Tips time, which, unfortunately, we have run out of. Or, to carry the theme: You’ve been disconnected.

Next up: place settings, conflicting views, viewing conflicts, and throwing your voice.