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David Bowie Is…Inspirational

So last weekend my family and I were in Chicago. The main reason was to watch the New Zealand All Blacks play the American Eagles in Rugby, and also hang out with with friends. However, there was something waiting for us there…

Chicago is a hell of a town, but all the stars seemed to be in alignment for this trip, because the Museum of Contemporary Art was hosting the only American stop of the touring exhibit, David Bowie Is…

Now I have always loved Bowie and his music- pretty much ever since my friend Shelley introduced me to both when I was a teenager. Then it was Labyrinth (like most teenage girls that was an eye-opening movie) and the Prestige. So I knew he was a talented man.

Even knowing all that, this exhibit opened my eyes. David Bowie is a renaissance man in the truest sense of the word. He studied mime, he writes, sings, acts, paints and designs.

The exhibit was like a little peek into his brain, and it was amazing. Even our ten year old daughter, whose entire knowledge of Bowie is confined to the song Moonage Daydream in Guardians of the Galaxy, was entranced.

Seriously if you can get to Chicago to see this exhibit, then go (it closes January 4th). Going in knowing nothing might be even more exciting…especially for creative people. Personally this year has been all over the place, but taking a brief walk through someone else and their uber-creative life put things in perspective for me.

So, what can we learn from Bowie as writers..and people?

Be Curious. Bowie as a young man had an idea of what he wanted to be, and he set about to get there. He read books that he thought were cool while traveling on the Underground in London. Eventually, he found ideas in these books he read just to look good, and that broadened his mind. Read widely. Look around you, and be always looking for new experiences to enrich your writing.
Try New Things. Bowie has this program written for him by Apple called the verbalizer. In the mid-1990s this program took sentences and chopped them up and put them in new patterns. He’d then use these new and sometimes strange sentences to get him started on writing lyrics. It may sound weird and wacky, but it also seems like it was the kickstarter for new ways of thinking for him. Experiment outside your genre, it may feel weird but try out some new writing shoes now and then. Don’t be afraid to mix it up.
Collaborate and Learn. David Bowie discovered other artists, sometimes quite different to himself and worked with them. He found musicians and producers all over the world, and made funk, pop, and avant garde music. Learn from others. Even if others tell you how amazing you are, you can always lose more. Writing can be solitary, find ways to communicate and work with others. It’ll be fun and you might learn somethingâ€”or at least have a good time!
Keep Your Head On. Although Bowie achieved amazing, world-wide success with Let’s Dance in the 1980s, he didn’t stop there. Popularity was something he wanted to try out, but then he went back to doing what he loved, creating. Love what you write, or what’s the point?
Be Fearless. Or at least give the impression of fearless. Keep moving forward, even if there are highs and lows, who knows what is ahead.

To me Bowie is the ultimate hybrid; always trying new things, refusing to be labelled as one thing or another, and always moving. Perhaps that is what makes him so alien and intruduing. However, after seeing the exhibit, I know one thing Bowie Is…inspirational.

â€œAll art is unstable. There is no authoritative voice. There are only multiple readings.â€

Books of My Childhood

There is one of those memes going around asking which books have stuck with you, and it made me think about what those books would be for me. However, being an author, I couldn’t just make a list…it needs context, and character to tell the whole story.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it, I blame my father, Roger Ballantine for getting me to be a writer. I am sure it wasn’t his plan, but when he read me as a bed-time story these words

In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit

I was set on that path. Later on, as a writer I came back to reading the Hobbit to my daughter, and I realised just how difficult to read aloud it is. Probably that is because Tolkien has a real Victorian style of writing, and is also coloured by his knowledge of epic poetry like Beowulf. It does make for long sentences. I only appreciated the effort it took my Dad to read this every night, when I had to do it!

But he didn’t stop there, he also read me Lord of the Rings. I can’t tell how many months or years that took, and maybe he abridged bits, but that was an act of love. Later I read the series myself, and it stuck with me. That aspect of worldbuilding was like Edmund Hilary getting to the top of Everest; everyone else followed in his tracks.

Now I was firmly entrenched in the world of genre fiction.

I proceeded over to the Narnia books. Like his pal Tolkien, CS Lewis carved out a place in my heart. They made kids the heroes, and they told me that there was magic in the world, even if I couldn’t see it. The Last Battle taught me just how easy it is to be broken by a book. You think GRR Martin slays characters you love? Well, at least his books aren’t for kids. Two words. Train accident.

Then I read the Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper.Â This introduced me to the possibilities of weaving myth and legend into stories. I remember reading these books over and over again in an almost obsessive way.

Ender’s Game. Though now classified as a YA book, it wasn’t when I read it…it was just a book. Also, the abhorrent beliefs of the writer Orson Scott Card had not yet revealed themselves, so I was able to enjoy this book- something I feel sad that young readers today are less likely to be able to do. This book haunted me, mainly because it is about choices made and childhood being warped.

I don’t ever recall my parents telling me not to read something. I am sure they were watching what I was devouring, but I never felt their presence in it. Reading was just fun.

Later on in teenage-hood, I worked my way through Stephen Kings’s early works, Carrie, Pet Cemetery, and It. I enjoyed the shivers and the masterful way King blended the ordinary with the terrifying. However I didn’t keep reading beyond teenage-hoodâ€”maybe that was enough exploration of horror for me.

When I was at my Nana’s house, I also read her books. They seemed relics of the past…which I guess they were. Most of them had probably been her books when she was a child. I recall there was one series about a group of girls all called Catherine (?) who were summoned to attend this mysterious school which might have been in Cornwall. They had all sorts of adventures, and we trying to untangle the mystery of who was running the school and why they were attending. Being a British book it was probably some kind of tragedy!

If anyone can find out the title, then please let me know!

Anyway, shortly after that I started writing for myself, dragging around my green journal and scribbling away on it. So perhaps parents should be warned, if your child reads to much there is a distinct danger that they may become a writer!

Mind you, there are worse things to do I suppose…

The Trouble with the Wife

Thinking about wives Yesterday I was watching the start of the second season of Sleepy Hollow. The show is goofy fun, with a great mix of characters, pseudo-history, and a charming pair of leads.

Usually I enjoy the show, but there are some scenes I feel really disinterested in; the ones with Ichabod’s wife, Katrina. Yep, I had to Wikipedia her to even remember her name.

It’s not a problem with the shows creators doing a poor job of writing female characters, because Abbie Mills is a fantastic person that I really enjoy watching. Her sister Jenny Mills, is even more tormented with a collection of kick butt skills, and attitude to match.

So the writers of the show can create great female characters, instead it’s the usual problem. ‘The wife.’

It’s a terrible tag. Think about it; in most shows or books, when there is a wife character, she is usually the one fans or readers complain about the most.

She’s the one whose scenes feel flat or forced. She always gets in trouble, and the hero has to drop everything to go and save her. She is either whiny, too perfect to be true, or has such a pitiful sense of survival that she should have been a Darwin Award winner.

As a wife myself, I’m a little distressed by this. For a moment I wondered, is there something inherently dull about being a wife? Does somehow becoming one make the rest of your life fall away? Do you lose all your common sense and become merely an appendage?

Luckily, I know plenty of fascinating, strong, and loving wives who show that is not true. Nope, unfortunately, it’s something about the way many writers approach writing wives.

Now, I’m going to point out that this could be said of any ‘side kick’ characterâ€”including a husbandâ€”but most often it does seem to be the wives that get this treatment.

So here’s how it begins…

When writing a male character, there is a statistical chance that at a certain age, he will have married. So the writers go, ‘ah he needs a wife.’

Ugh. First thing, by throwing that label on her immediately, is putting her into some weird mold of what a ‘wife is’. New flash darlings; wives are actually women cunningly in disguise. Frighting, huh?

Instead of just putting in a cardboard cut out of ‘the wife’ in your story, think about what sort of woman you want? She can be anything; any colour, have any jobâ€”but the one thing she must have is her own goals and aspirations. Yes, they can be family, but as a wife I can tell you I have ambitions beyond that too.

In other words, stop thinking of the wife in terms of the family alone. Where did she come from? What have her life experiences been? What are her faults? (Please don’t forget that one!)

Put as much effort into making her a character with fullness and completeness, as you did making her husband. (Again this goes for any sex, or any sidekick too)

Katrina Crane in Sleepy Hollow is also the McGuffin. She only exists to be the goal just out of reach for Ichabod. Now I love my husband, but I don’t want to be his McGuffin. I am his equal, and my back-story is in reality as complicated as his. Sometimes I will save his bacon; sometimes he will save mine.

Now things have moved on from last century, and writersâ€”especially of genre fictionâ€”have worked out, people do like strong female characters. However, in ‘the wife’s’ case that strength can…well it can waver…

Katrina, like many of the ‘wifey’ characters these days, has been built up to have powers of her own. When Ichabod is not around, she is a strong witch and leader of a coven. She can do spells and…stuff…

That all sounds cool, until Ichabod is near her, where suddenly she loses all those powers. Pffffttt, I don’t know where they go… This tends to happen with the portrayal of women, but in the ‘wife’s’ case it is almost endemic.

It does disappoint me, because I enjoy all the other characters in the Sleepy Hollowâ€”and I hate feeling this way about a female character. The show has a wonderfully racially diverse cast, and a pretty equal percentage of male to female.

My favourite, Abbie Mills is a rounded person with back-story and character quirksâ€”but then she is not hobbled with the almost cursed title of ‘the wife’.

It is the problem with labeling anyone with archetype, and I am hoping the Sleepy Hollow writers can bring Katrina foreword as her own, real character as the season goes on.

As a writer it serves as a reminder, to think in terms of people rather than simple placeholders. The wife problem is part of the wider, characters considerations, so I know if writers put themselves in the heads of wives, they will find their motivations and goals too.

So go out there, make full, wonderful, conflicted, powerful, diverse charactersâ€”and if you write a woman who is a wife, make sure that you show the world that wives are also people too!

Fascination with the Lost

I’ve always had a love of history that has run along with my love of writing. I adore combining the two, and right now one of the series I am working on is set in Hollywood in the 1920s.

I’ve also had a fascination with the lost memories, the forgotten experiences of the past. Like everyone else I enjoy tales of royalty, and grand battles that changed the face of the world.

Yet, I am also intrigued by the tiny, everyday details of history too. How ordinary people lived, what they did, and those mundane things of their everyday life. I even know exactly where the fascination for the past began.

One of my earliest memories if of my Nana and the tales she liked to tell me. She’d led an interesting life; the child of a gentleman farmer, her life had been forever changed when he died, and the family’s circumstances changed.

I hung on her stories of her childhood with servants who trimmed the hedges, and ponies purchased for her entertainment. Her later life she talked less about, and that was where the wondering and speculation began.

Then there was this older lady who came into the fabric shop I worked in right out of college. She was always impeccably dressed in black satin and lace, complete with long, matching gloves, and a fabulous wide-brimmed hat. She was well into her nineties, and loved to talk to those that had a moment. I recall how she spoke of the changes in Wellington, from telegraphs and horse drawn wagons, to cars and street lighting. I imagined all the things she had seen and done in that time.

So working with history for me, is the only way to try and inhabit that time. I like to think of it as my very own TARDIS, and like the Doctor’s time machine, it is definitely bigger on the inside.

You see, once you dive into research, it can be a deep, deep pool.

I started with buying books on Old Hollywood, particularly ones with old pictures. There is something about one picture of a place that can spark the imagination so much more than any number of pages of a book. It’s hard to believe in Hollywood today, but it was a tiny, farming ares before the movie people shifted out West for the better light. Flicking through images, and decades you can see the changes like it is indeed a movie.

So once I have the big picture, I want to know how life was for people.Â That’s when I start wading into the deep water, and started reading the magazines (periodicals in librarian speak) of the age. That is where all the minuate of life contained in gossip can be found.

How would life have been for a young woman heading to Hollywood in the 1920s? What would she have heard on the street when she got off the bus? What smells she had encountered? How would she have made her living before breaking into the movies? Where would she have stayed so far from her family?

People these days tend to think of the time before their own life as conservative with everyone in their neat little boxesâ€”but humans then are like humans now. There is a huge range of people who don’t accept what society tells them.

So plenty of adventurous women broke the bonds of what people expected, and headed to Hollywood. I can’t tell the tales of the real peopleâ€”those memories are lost forever like the people that had themâ€”but can capture some small echo of them, and maybe make people aware of something outside their own timeline.

I’ll leave you with this particularly interesting story, just to point out the more things change the more they stay the same

…In 1935 Barbara Leonard was a bit part actress trying to make a living in Hollywood and get someone to notice her. All changed when her husband found her semi-conscious in the bathtub with the words ‘Last Warning’ written in reverse on her back.

Barbara had previously told the police about two men who had pounced on her, gagged her, and stolen $500 from her. That time, she and her husband got guns and headlines like ‘Gun Warns Gangsters’. Her face was in the papers, she had attention.

The ‘Last Warning’ incident was when the men came back. She said they told her to stop talking. Police never found any motive, since Barbara wasn’t rich, and nor could they figure out why these thugs would write backwards.

Yep, you guessed it. Experts are now pretty sure Barbara wrote the words on her own back, probably with a ruler and an eyeliner pencil. Still it made an interesting photograph. In the end though, it didn’t really give her career the boost she wanted…but it was a good try…

Amazing what people will doâ€”even ordinary peopleâ€”and that’s a goldmine for writers.

Me and My Bit

Me and the Bit So the saying goes, writing is a solitary craft, and yes…most of the time it can be. What they don’t say so much, is most of your time will be sitting on your butt.

I guess with the recent amount of death circling writers and podcasters I have been thinking about health and getting the most out of life. Yet even before all those terrible events, the passing of another birthday does give one pause.

It is time to realize that I can be betterâ€”not just with writing, but with also taking care of myself. It’s not about about fitting into a smaller pair of jeans, but it is about taking care of myself, and just feeling better in my own skin.

So, for my birthday I asked my parents for a Fitbit. I’ve been noticing for awhile my friends and colleagues getting on board with tracking what they do and eat. Being that I have discovered a love of numbers and spreadsheets, I was prepared to give it a go.

Now, I should say honestly, I have tried various things before, but literally after a week or two, I have fallen back into bad habits. This time however, I had my husband Tee Morris, to work with me.

So after talking to friends, the recommended Fitbit device for best accuracy was the Fitbit One. It’s a little pricy at $99, but for that you get not only the device, but access to their website, and the app. Honestly, you would pay way more for a gym membership.

The Fitbit is tinyâ€”like seriously half the length of my middle finger. It comes with a clip that you slip it into, and then pin under your clothes. Tee wears his in his trouser pocket, mine I clip to my bra strap. You wear it all day and it will track how many stairs you climb (the first goal is at least 10 flights) and how many steps/miles/calories you burn. (First goal is at least 10,000 steps a day) You can also slip the Fitbit into a strap to wear on your wrist at night, and it can track your sleep.

From there you can (and probably should) log food on the app or the website.

And then…well then you fall into numbers. I also learned a great deal about my self. Even though I was doing 30 minutes of exercise on the elliptical, I was suddenly made aware how little I was moving around the rest of the day.

Soon I found myself parking away from the door of the supermarket, taking a quick walk around the block to get my 10k steps, and carrying things up and down the stairs to hit those 10 flights.

Then I started upping my elliptical time from 30 to 50 minutes. At first it was hard, then it started to get easier.

Interesting.

Then I started adding friends on the website. Now I started to feel competitive. I can see this leader-board, and I don’t want to be at the bottom of it. It’s like the Fitbit has tapped into all my hot buttons, and I have to say coming up on five weeks I am still keen on it, still looking at the numbers, still motivated.

That’s a first for me.

The results? Well, I have lost 9lbs, and have gained a lot more energy. Those stairs are feeling a lot easier to climb. I also feel better in myself, and more energetic, which was what I wanted.

Most of all I feel aware of my own health, which was something I had let fall by the wayside.

Why is it working? It’s a combination of numbers, competitiveness, and awareness for me. Also looking at my friends, I can see it is working for them too.

So if you are a writer, or anyone else who spends a lot of their time seated, this could work for you too. Part of being a writer, is being around to get out all those ideas you have out into the world. To do that you need to take care of the body that carries your brain around.

It is time to take some notice of that too. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some steps to get…I’m only 9th on my leader-board!!

Death, Taxes, and PG Holyfield

…it was so hard to think of a heading for this postâ€”or to write it at all. Even after 2 weeks, it isn’t quite real yet.

Finally, I settled on a title for this post, that is a variant of a short story PG wrote for Scott Sigler. It’s a bizarre, funny, and yet chilling piece of writing. That pretty much sums up the abilities of the man; his writing could take you on that kind of rollercoaster. Have a listen to it here.

If you’re not part of the writing or podcasting communities, then maybe the name PG Holyfield doesn’t ring a bell. Summing up the life of one person in a few short sentences feels like a disservice to the man, but that is what our life whittles down toâ€”at least to strangers.

PG was one of the first wave of podcaster novelists. His podcast fantasy murder mystery, Murder at Avedon Hill was a full cast extravaganza, which I was lucky enough to be part of. He went on to be part of other podcasts, like Beyond the Wall, and the Consumption Podcast.

He was also a fixture at events like DragonCon and Balticon.

Those are all the facts, but he was also a great friend, amazing father, generous writer, and kind man. He had the kind of laid back attitude that somehow made him a solid center of an event. His voice, which we are lucky enough to have thanks to his podcasting work, has the warm, slight drawl of the south, with a hint of gravel to it. His laugh, and even his giggle were just cheering.

Around PG, you got the sense that life was good.

Until his life was taken.

There are many podcasters and writers sharing their stories, a part of the collective gathering of memories that people throughout the generations have done, in order to hold onto what they can of their loved one.

Some are funny. Some are outrageous. Some will break your heart.

I can only tell you mine. I can’t remember when I met PG. I can’t even remember if it was he that asked me to be involved in his podcast or the other way around. All I know for sure is when I asked him to be the part of Auberon King of the Fey, in Chasing the Bard, he was at first wary. His southern drawl, he said was not what he imagined for the King. I told him, that is why I wanted him to do it.

When I got to mix his voice with Tee Morris’ and Chris Lester’s, I always smiled. The boys of Chasing the Bard made magic from my words.

Then I got to meet PG, he was just like his voice. Everything was always easy around him. He pulled you in, made you laugh with his dry observations. You just wanted to hang out with him. He gave the best hugs.

Yes indeed, it is hard to sum someone up when there are so many little moments we snatch from each others lives. Yet the podcasting and writing community is trying to do that for Patrick, assembling some kind of collective memory. I find that amazing and beautiful.

We’re all trying to raise money for the three daughters he left behind. It’s the least we can do as a thank you for the gift of his friendship. You can donate now, but also stay tuned, because the creatives who loved PG are gathering. Keep an eye on this website for details.

For now, I am going to bury myself in writing, and making sense of a world that is hard to understand. And remember PG. Always remember PG.

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