#Muse media #Annie Proulx on Love

Love...#Muse media

#Muse Media are a series of short posts that combine different media with a notable author.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpCaQSRwdd0[/embed]“Late in the afternoon, thunder growling, that same old green pickup rolled in and he saw Jack get out of the truck, beat up Resistol tilted back. A hot jolt scalded Ennis and he was out on the landing pulling the door closed behind him. Jack took the stairs two and two. They seized each other by the shoulders, hugged mightily, squeezing the breath out of each other, saying, son of a bitch, son of a bitch, then, and easily as the right key turns the lock tumblers, their mouths came together, and hard, Jack’s big teeth bringing blood, his hat falling to the floor, stubble rasping, wet saliva welling, and the door opening and Alma looking out for a few seconds at Ennis’s straining shoulders and shutting the door again and still they clinched, pressing chest and groin and thigh and leg together, treading on each other’s toes until they pulled apart to breathe and Ennis, not big on endearments, said what he said to his horses and his daughters, little darlin.” Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

Love is portrayed in novels in as many ways as there are to love. But in the quote above from the novella Brokeback Mountain, Annie Proulx manages to capture the most intense sense of passion and desire to make it a visceral need. If it's not already obvious, the two characters have not seen each other for a long time - at least a year if not longer as I recall. If you want an example of writing that makes every word count, this is it. And she conjures not only love and passion, but by her use of phrases such as "stubble rasping" and repeating "son of a bitch" she manages to impart the sense of maleness that is integral to the scene, and the love affair the book portrays. And yet even then, there is a tenderness as Ennis calls Jack "little darlin".  It's one of the few books that I have read, then seen the film, and then  reread the book and still cried at the final scene.

In the video above, Annie Proulx talks about the making of Brokeback Mountain and gives some insight on her process of how she came up with the story and well as the film being made. Even watching the first minute I think you will find worthwhile.

Perhaps her love of the printed word helps to give us some insight as to how she can portray her signature characters from the American range so vividly.

 “You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.”

Annie Proulx

 What  kinds of love scenes  do you like in a novel? Do you have a favorite love story ?

Come join the discussion, and please share this post on your favorite social media. 

Many Thanks!

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Receiving a Versatile Blogger Award!

In the short time I've been blogging I've found other bloggers to be an extremely friendly, helpful bunch of people. Always going the extra mile to help out with problem or suggest an easier way to do things or an effective plug-in or  widget.  Sherryl Perry of http://keepupwiththeweb.com/ gave me enormous support recently when my account was hacked.I belong to Bloggers Helping Bloggers on LinkedIn and the group is fantastic – we read each other’s blogs, exchange comments as well as practical advice.But this week I’ve been totally blown away by receiving  the Versatile Blogger Award from Susan Cooper. Yeah!!! Thank you so much Susan. What an honor and so completely unexpected!You can find Susan Cooper on her award winning blog at http://findingourwaynow.comSusan herself has a great blog and is the recipient of a number of awards  - the Sunshine Blog, and Versatile Blogger Awards from “searchingforthehappiness“ and recently the Readers Appreciation Award from “Little Box Of Books“.As she says on her blog, she has a passion for life, but I’d say her generosity of spirit is the key to her success.In the twenty years while I was in business, I  believed competition and sharing information was a positive – in business this only hold's  true up to a point. So now I’m a novelist and a blogger, I’m delighted to find it’s a world of exchanging ideas, information and camaraderie.Part of receiving the award requires telling Susan 7 things about myself. Some feel more secret than others.

1. I love all things Italian – the country the culture, the food, the language. It’s been a dream of mine to live there someday – well for 6 months at least - but the older I get, the less likely it becomes. Visits are lovely though and Umbria is my favorite region.
2. I enjoy playing chess on-line. I’ve always thought of chess as being the most boring, nerdy thing in the world, until I discovered playing online and having 3 days to make a move. I enjoy playing live too. Wanna play? Let me know.
3. My cat likes to wake me up by purring loudly in my ear or tickling my nose with her whiskers. Since I left home at eighteen, I've never lived without a cat.
4. I have an auto-immune condition which saps my energy and limits my mobility. But without it, I probably wouldn’t have had the time to explore becoming a writer. It started with a journal and  went from there. Writing is something I can do in small chunks. Having been a type ‘A’ personality all my life, pacing myself is hard, but after 13 yrs I’m improving (ya think?!)
5. I’m a breast cancer survivor. I was very lucky and although I had a mastectomy, I didn't have  to have chemo or radiotherapy. Now I can join the Amazonian archery club!   I wrote my first published story during one nerve-wracking weekend while I was waiting for test results. It was a fantastic therapeutic way of dealing with the stress. I’ve been cancer free for 7 years.
6. I believe everyone is creative. We all have to find what creativity we can tap into, whether it’s gardening, metal work, sewing, sculpting or whatever. So many things stand in our way – time, inclination & the nagging self critic that sits on our shoulders saying ‘I’m no good at…' or 'I can’t…’ . We all have it at one time or another. It’s a question of taking a leap of faith in ourselves, and not worrying what others think. It’s the process that’s important not the result. Kind of like the journey not the destination.
7.  I’m a painter. I started going to a drawing class, 20 yrs ago as a form of relaxation away from a stressful job. Then I moved on to painting. As I said above,  for me it’s the process that’s important. I find painting (like writing) very meditative. When I started to have problems with my joints and mobility, I had to change the way I worked. Recently Susan Cooper introduced me to the program iDraw that she uses for the great drawings in some of her blogs. From there, I’ve gone on to start using ‘Brushes’ which is the app. David Hockney uses. I'd been looking at the full moon one night, so this ended up being  my first painting on an iphone. Thanks again Susan!

Now I need to pass the torch and nominate 15 bloggers to receive the Versatile Blogger Award.  I hope you check them out. There's some great blogs in there, but it was a difficult choice. I also knew people such as Claire Capetta and Doreen Pendracs for example, that I couldn't nominate as they already had the award.1. Keepupwiththeweb2. nhwn.wordpress.com3. leftcoastvoices.wordpress.com4. 101books.net/5. rowenadunn.wordpress.com/6. catarinasworld.com/7. biz.leoraw.com/8. ohegarty.blogspot.co.uk/9. susiebright.blogs.com/10. 3chicspolitico.com/11. brainpickings.org/12. thoughtlessbeauty.tumblr.com/13. zenashapter.com/blog/14.francescacarboni.blogspot.co.uk/15. angelaejkoh.com/ If you would like to check out more information about the award go to http://versatilebloggeraward.wordpress.com It's fantastic to see all the other nominees - and have the rules explained etc.Thanks again Susan for the award,  and thanks also to everyone who has come to my blog and left comments. The discussions are the part that  makes it really worth while.I'd love to hear your comments on blogging or the award. Come and join the discussion. Yeah!!! Subscribe at the top of bottom of the page.Twitter: @ artyyah    

#Editing Forward

How many times have you groaned about having to go ‘back’ and edit a piece of work? And yet all writing is rewriting. I’m fortunate that for the most part I enjoy editing. In fact I often view it as a way of ‘keeping in touch’ with my work when there’s not a lot of time. Edit a short passage – even a sentence – rather than wait for the 2 hr stretch that won’t come along so easily - and it keeps your mind from losing the plot so to speak. Makes it easier to get started the next time you come back to the work. In short I’m a big advocate of little and often. But hey, no one’s perfect, and I can get ground down and see editing as something that’s dragging me back, stopping me moving forward. But no more. This afternoon I had an epiphany!Today is the start of British Summertime. The clocks went forward – which is what prompted my train of thought. It’s been a lovely weekend in Brighton, on the south coast of England, and yesterday I went down to the seafront. It could have been the start of summer. The stripy deckchairs were out, seaside kitsch was back on sale – bags of shells, flip-flops, small containers of shrimps and half shells of freshly caught crab. Men had taken off their shirts, women wore bikinis – generally a lot of pale skin that hadn’t seen a stroke of sun for many months.  There were even some people with a couple of toes in the water. And not the hardy 365 days a year swimmers.The Wurlitzer carousel, built in 1888 has been reassembled into its circle, though when I was there at 10.30 the horses were still wrapped in a giant tent of tarpaulin. There was a sense of emergence in the air, a new season, a new beginning.It was only today when I sat down to do a bit of editing, secretly wanting to press on with where I’d left off, that I realised the problem was that I was looking at editing from the wrong perspective. Editing is not going back but going forward. As you may have seen in my last post I’ve changed the title of my first novel to ‘Radio Echo’. I’ve also recently re-edited the first three chapters (rewrite 28?). Both things have been very positive in my approach to the work. When you edit a section, it’s done to make it better. You might be approaching it with some feedback from other people, or with merely a keener eye from yourself. But the chances are very good that you’re going to make the work better. So in what way is that ‘going back’? The answer is it’s not. It’s moving forward.I’m not being Pollyannaish about this, it’s simply a fact. You are moving your work forward every time you edit. There is no going back about it. So if we keep this in mind, then maybe it will help to take the groan out of having to edit. When you’re sitting down to edit a 60-100,000w bit of work, it’s going to be more than a quick ten-minute task. Inevitably there’ll come a point – or several points, where you feel jaded, bored – whatever you want to call it. But more often than not, we’re editing smaller chunks - a line, a paragraph, or a couple of chapters. All of this is moving the work forward, which is a good thing. To be a writer you have to enjoy rewriting. That’s the fact of the matter. If you don’t, then you’ll rarely get past one edit without it being an unpleasant gut-wrenching task. It’s impossible to edit everything as you go along. The work needs distance. Then you move forward. You edit.I hope that looking at it as editing forward, rather than going back to edit is of some help to those of you who dislike the task. We all have different writing habits, methods, rituals that work for each one of us. How do you approach your editing? Are there ways you make it go faster or are more economical with your time?Let me know what you’re approach is, bad habits you’d like to get out of or any good habits you want to share.I’d love to hear from you!  

New Website Design

As you will see, I've spent all my blog time building a new website.I made the change to be able add more content and have the content that has been there more accessible.I particularly enjoyed this website themes ability to have random changeable headers  - it gave me a good excuse to play with editing photographs and artwork.Apologies if some of the thumbnails have been over cropped - particularly in the books on the writers resources page.  When I have more time I will find better images that are not so susceptible to beheading.I'll leave you with a favorite image of mine. So far I've been writing about Italy and New York.Surely this location is not far behind.Whoever guesses  first gets a free round trip ticket from anywhere in the world - ok just kidding about that bit, but if you have a short story based there or one that's prompted by this photo, send it in and I'll see if I can put it up on the site for you. 

Route 66 to Writing Rooms (orig. post Jan 9th)

Route 66 to Writing Rooms.I started this week by having a spinal MRI. In order to get this layered X-ray, they slide you into a big white tube, somewhat similar I imagine, to being in a cylindrical coffin. The ceiling is about 4 inches above your head. I've had a number of these over the years and initially claustrophobia ruled big time. An MRI doesn’t scare me now. I don’t have the hideous panic of having to claw my way out of the tube. But its taken work. To combat my claustrophobia I started some years ago by never, ever opening my eyes while I was in the tube. To open them gave way to panic. Then, eyes shut, I’d meditate or at least imagine being in a different place. By the ocean or some wide-open space. Anything but an enclosed environment.This time I put myself in a different place by thinking about a character in ‘Under the Bed’, the novel I’m working on. Instead of focusing on the closeness of the ceiling my character took me to the main thoroughfare of Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1951. Walking up Central Avenue, I was surrounded by flashing neon both sides of the street; motels and all kinds of American Southwest kitsch popular back in the day. Central Avenue was Route 66. It still is Route 66. The cache of going from ‘Chicago to LA’ on a single highway has been lost, but you can still see the remnants of the motels that used to be crowded with travellers looking for somewhere cheap to spend a night. Central Avenue is still thriving in it’s own way, although you might ‘get your kicks on Route 66’ with one of the hookers who wander up and down the strip at night. Some of the motels have been renovated, but most either don't exist or are in disrepair.I then followed my character to 1969 Harlem in New York City. There’s a loud drilling noise that accompanies an MRI, which is similar to the opening bars of a Ramones song or a jackhammer. I prefer the Ramones analogy, but it was bizarre to hear that noise and yet I was in a gospel church a couple of blocks off Seventh Avenue up in Harlem. The choir and the congregation were singing ‘Just a Closer Walk with Thee’.This isn’t the first time I’ve used hospital time to write. I always take a notebook with me wherever I go, but especially to the hospital as wait times are often long. In Radio Echo, my first novel, I decided on one of the main characters fate while I sat shivering in one of those charming little tie gowns they give you that make you look ridiculous with shoes and socks still on, white legs poking out. I sat in a cubicle with the curtains drawn, writing frantically, wanting to get down the plot epiphany before the nurse called my name.So writing has become a liberation in terms of hospital visits, because now it’s not a waiting room but a writing room. We all know a writer should carry a notebook, jot things down, make notes at every available opportunity. Easier said than done. I’ve picked up the habit by having enforced periods of what would otherwise have been mind numbing boredom. Instead I’m freeing up time to be creative that would have been lost in a frustration of waiting for the doctor or waiting for a friend to arrive or waiting for the car to be repaired.So now, waiting rooms are not something to be dreaded or avoided. Waiting rooms are writing rooms.CommentsGed DuncanFri, 06 Jan 2012 01:13:39'Would you get hip to this kindly tipAnd go take that MRI tripGet your kicks on Route 66'thanks for the heads up on journeying in the mind and redeeming the time - hope the soundtrack didn't show up on the scan xxA.K. AndrewFri, 06 Jan 2012 02:37:25Thanks for the comment Ged. I'm hoping the soundtrack does show up on the MRI. Might make it easier to twist again.RowenaFri, 06 Jan 2012 04:23:34Thanks Kathy, It's a great message that no time is dead time when you can use it to write, or imagine a story.You've reminded me of the concentration it takes to believe that you're not in a coffin when you're inside an MRI machine - I had white knuckles clutching the panic button.....A.KFri, 06 Jan 2012 04:41:13Thanks for the comment Rowena. Its easy to forget all the times one could have to write. Yeah - I've gripped that button pretty hard myself at times.tom tomMon, 09 Jan 2012 22:58:18Hospital machinery is sometimes the only way to travel. I wrote significant parts of Under the Singer in my early days of writing, while waiting in X ray departments. Deciding to use my own experiences to fatten out the character of Joseph allowed me to consider the fact that these quiet, slightly detached people looking after me, may well be about to discover I have cancer and it would really screw up their day.I look forward to the next instalment of your road trip.AKMon, 09 Jan 2012 23:02:33Thanks Tom. Hospital machinery is a cheap ride in UK at least. Now the US - ah .. a different beast altogether. Theirs is more shiny & expensive.NoelMon, 09 Jan 2012 23:26:03Oklahoma City sure looks pretty... If I don't have a notebook or pen I use the notes app on my phone. God, I'm so modern it's frightening.KateThu, 12 Jan 2012 21:01:30I'm booking an MRI. Thanks for the journey, Kathy.