Mule by Shane McCrae

Mule by Shane McCrae




I think this book came up on Carol Guess' blog. Since I really enjoy her style, I bought it on faith.



What a nice surprise.



It reads a little like an echo, both the way it is written:



As we divorced Nicolas rode

Internal horses /And watching him

from the bench at the edge of the park/In wildflowers

him in wildflowers him in fileds/Of wildflowers him in fields on playgrounds which

Blossom from the ground

Must be covered over with foram with bark

It was and was possible



To love him just enough to sit there watch-/ing not enough for us to stay togehter

Not more enough than us



And the subject matter is seen as snatches of memories.



The author describes his divorce and he and his wife's emotional state about their autistic son.



I'm usually old school with my poetry, 20th century lyrical poets with a modern twist are to my taste, but this is a lovely little book that I highly recommend.



View all my reviews

Critique partners/ Beta buddies/ the quest for 'The One'

They should have a match.com for critique partners.

You know, post photos of your most recent books (all pictures are recent!). What you like, what you don't like. What you can't stand. Your ideal.

I started writing back in 2001. I had a beta reader who tirelessly and for free (!) checked everything I put on my fanfiction site before I posted it. That poor woman taught me rudimentary skills that I ought to have already known. She squawked when I let the angst draw out too long. She gurgled when scenes worked and was kind but honest when they did not.

So, you see, I was spoiled.

I'm on the hunt again and I find I hold everyone up to her standards. A little tough.

How does one find a partner? Besides ones relatives or SO, who in their right mind will read this stuff?

BDSM and Domestic Discipline

I haven't learned what I know of BDSM or the Leather lifestyle from google. I know some people. and I've been in it for a minute. There are things I understand, viscerally, and things I only 'get' because it's been explained to me. And then of course there are areas in which I remain utterly clueless. Because I am not a man and that's just how it goes.

I ALSO know a few people who are in domestic discipline relationships. But here, I'm only getting things as they've been explained to me., because I have NO experience with dom disc relationships.

There's a wibbly line between the two, as I see it. The only traditional leather-type relationship to which I was privy was very much like a domestic discipline relationship. There was a similar exchange of power and trust. However, I KNOW there are arrangements out there that run the gamut. From non-sexual to only sexual and beyond.

I'm working on the sequel to my old domestic discipline books, "Goldilocks and His Three Bears" and "A Man, a Jersey and a Tight End" and I'm trying to examine the different ways these relationships evolve. I wondered how readers feel about the differences and similarities, if any between BDSM and DD.

But why do we write?

Or make art at all?

My mother kept one of my first drawings. It is a figure drawn on red construction paper. When she asked me what it was I said, 'a girl in a red dress'. What this tells me is I had nothing in mind when I drew it. I only named it after being asked.

But what compelled me to draw it?

Trust me; there was nothing in my environment, at the age of three, that would encourage me to draw pictures. I may have been receiving positive feedback by the time I was five because by then I was in public school and scribbling like a demon. But WHY?

Nobody seems to know.

I hopped in the Wayback Machine and returned to CalArts where we discussed this subject ad nauseum sometimes in our right heads, sometimes not so much. People feel compelled to make things, to communicate. It is only later that they articulate reasons for these actions and, of course, by then there are all kinds of grown up people type reasons. "I want to make a difference." "I want to communicate my feelings." Still, there is no answer to the question But WHY?

A blog I sometimes frequent, The Greater Good, interviewed several artists and asked them this question. The one that resonated the most strongly for me was Kwame Dawes:

"I write in what is probably a vain effort to somehow control the world in which I live, recreating it in a manner that satisfies my sense of what the world should look like and be like."

That comes close to the little-me who drew a girl on red construction paper. I have Aspergers and was very withdrawn, so I drew a lot. Later, I escaped into books and still later I attempted to alter the world of books in a way that suited me and my reality. I. E. a world peopled with Lesbian, Gay and gender queer people trying to re-write the rules and find some kind of happiness.

Somewhere in there come the readers. I haven't yet figured out where, except I am pleasantly surprised to find you here in my little world... hello!

Just as I wrote this, I read Nathan Bransford's blog and saw that he is writing along the same lines, but of course more fluently.

Why We Write -- Revisited

Everyone asks it and there are many many blogs about it. Why do writers do what they do?

I've been thinking about this question and thinking about the effect of the internet on writers. It used to be a solitary job, but now it can be much more public. Actually, it behooves one to stay in the public eye as much as possible as it does appear to influence sales.

How many writers are hooked on the twitter/chat/group interaction, though? I only wonder because I can imagine how gratifying the attention could be to an individual accustomed to working in solitary. I work in public and squeeze in writing time, so I'm not quite as starved for feedback, but during a brief period when I had no work I got addicted to the internet.

It made me want to write faster so I could get a book out there. And is that messed up or what?

Because that is NOT why I write. I'm a storyteller. I make up people and events and wrap them around each other. I'd do it if no one ever read a single book of mine. And I worry that I might be more particular if publication were a distant foggy dream, not practically immediate upon finishing the first draft.

How does the instantaneous internet interaction affect the quality and subject matter of our books? I'm just wondering...

Does the Art excuse the Artist?

There was a hypothetical question my best friend and I argued while we were still getting our degrees in Art History: If a building were on fire and you had a choice between saving a Rembrandt and saving a cat, which would you choose?

Okay, besides the fact that those stupid hypothetical questions are always too simplistic, and besides the (also) fact that my best friend HATED cats so the question was more whether she would throw a cat into the fire...

I'd save anything alive before I'd save a painting. A pointsettia. Anything living is more important than art. It was her opinion that Art was superior to Life. And so the argument would begin.

Certain 'great' artists were morally reprehensible human beings. Surprised? No, I didn't think so. Matisse, for instance, who painted the famous "Dance of Life" impregnated his wife repeatedly and then gave his children to an orphanage. They were an impediment to his lifestyle, you see. Keep in mind, orphanages were a lot worse then than they are now.

Kind of ruins his art for me.

The same goes with authors. I loved Dean Koontz for many years. His descriptive passages are vivid and exciting. I could read them over and over. Sadly, he is reported to have said many disparaging things about Asian people. The man is a bigot! Who knew. It has spoiled my enjoyment of his skill. Sadly.

Now, my friend's argument was that all people are wicked and that their art redeems them on some level. She has a point, right? My question is, where do you draw the line? CAN you draw a line (I'd say, 'no') For instance, how can I read books written by mysoginists, given that I've spent most of my life fighting for women's rights? Or how can I read books written by men who subsequently supported Hitler?

Does it ruin books (or other art) for you if you know that the person who created it was an asswipe? Does it matter, or not?

on Arrogance, Greed, and the Reasons We Make Art

I love capital letters. One of my all-time favorite authors, Jane Austen, used them incorrectly and in excess. They successfully place ones tongue firmly in ones cheek. So when I say Arrogance, I mean it with the capital 'A'. As in 'nobody does it better than I and here I sit on my mighty highchair pronouncing judgment on all of you' Arrogance. I.E., the king of the dump is feeling mightier than his other vagrant friends.

And Greed. I write, currently, in a small pocket of a fan base. We aren't making the New York Times Bestseller list anytime soon, are we? We aren't talking bazillions of fan dollars. Snarling and worrying over a few hundred, or even a thousand, purchases more or less makes us small and mean.

Man makes art for no good reason, evolutionarily speaking. (Evolutionarily? :) Oh, dear.) Obviously, there is a certain amount of ego involved. We slave away and see others (perhaps) getting praise for work we might not like and we feel??? offended??? outraged??? We forget that EVERYONE HAS DIFFERENT TASTES and we get on some high horse and freak out. Writing is insecure and lonely and scary. And we all worry about money. And then there is the Love factor. It's hard to work in isolation and get no Lurve all day. It makes you nuts.

But, I'm lucky, in that my 'day job' is a creative one. I get feedback. I get praise. I get smacked upside the head and I've learned to appreciate that feedback as well because it makes me better at what I do. I observe, every day, how hard it is for creative people to praise other creative people. How difficult it is to accept that someone else might take a concept and use it differently. We are Opinionated. We Care. We are Outraged at Incompetence. lol We are Arrogant and Greedy and have to smack ourselves periodically because truthfully, humility makes us better artists.

Sadly, I don't see as much of that being learned by writers. I am painfully aware of the emotions and feelings that writers suffer. Hey, I'm not immune. But I hope I have learned something from working in Animation. Arrogance and Greed. God save me from it. I mean that. If I ever have an 'off' day and I put down other authors, or set myself up as some kind of standard (trust me, this won't happen anytime soon, but if it does) smack me upside the head and make me go read Thomas Hardy. Remind me to be humble.

Okay. Done. Going off to read some old school BDSM that teddypig recommended.