Goodbye.

Never say goodbye.
As the rain falls, silvering a field green with wheat. As small drops on a breeze sift onto the back of your neck, refuse.

The goodbye wells up in my heart, thrusts itself forward for notice, and the sky weeps for me. This melancholy strokes my soul with a meaningful fingers and says....what?
That it is time?
That old things must change?
No, the rain sings a many-tongued song but it is not that. The meaning lies just beyond my reckoning but the body needs no words to feel the import of this painful pleasure. Have you ever worked till blisters form? A hot, swollen testament to purpose, a work completed.
Well done, old girl, well done.

This rain blisters me. Under old callouses a new but familiar pain forms, swelling to the chafing of the true things it flings earthward. A cardinal flaunts on a gaunt pine-branch and its small voice is as sharp and acid-sweet as the rain: a goodbye that won't come.

Train-song drives upwind, iron wheels hammering the same tune. Away, away, away, away. How I want to reply, "I will away with you!"
But I can't. Never say goodbye to good things. To good friends. To best times. I never do. How could I?

Harder, fleeter, faster fall the raindrops. The pain intensifies, becomes sweeter and firmer in its vintage. Goodbye, goodbye!
I could say it. If my soul was more tender or a deal harder I could say that dolorous word, goodbye. But I think that if I hold onto Them, those things I cannot set free, They will stay. Goodbye would be easy if I did the leaving. But while the song drums "away," it is a gypsy-call for Them. Those things I feel I must keep. The song has two words...
"Remain," is mine.

Like rain, my word spreads feather-light mist over my eyes and soul.
Let them away. You remain here, for here is your place. Say goodbye.
But I cannot. Never say goodbye. Goodbye is a severe word. If they go away, who promises I will see them again? Who promises I will not remain obedient and empty-handed and absent-hearted?

A train shouts through the mizzle: away, away, away, away.
And again.
And again.

I shiver. A divisive pleasure and pain this is, though as dusk falls I have learned its tongue, dividing my will in shards of yes and no.
Remain.
I will. I believe and trust it is right.
Away. Give them away.
But can I? Greater than a fear of tangible evil is the thought of being left behind, forgotten, shrugged out of like a coat They once loved but grew too large for. Must we keep growing? Can we not stay as we are? Remain young and safe so They will never have to give me away? I would like that. We could walk in this rain together and balance on the tracks along the railroad and staunch its song. Never have to say goodbye. We could all stay. Would that be so wrong? We are so happy.

More rain. Green now yawned up by slate and darkness. If my heart would not grow, would not breed such eager dreams, maybe the rain could not chafe its palms. We all accept the good agony of a heart's sprawling expansion, though it sometimes makes to burst the chest apart.
Oh. That is why we grow bigger, isn't it?
If we could not, would our frightened, brittle child-bones crush the thrumming soul? Or would the heart grow like cancer and force the indolent frame apart? The frame that would not say goodbye, at war with itself.

My lane is a pale blue horseshoe in the grass. Rain trots down the gutter and asks again:
Won't you say goodbye?

Will it hurt? I don't like to hurt.
Will I be lonely? I can't bear to be alone.
Will I ever get it back?
But the rain has only one double-edged sword: away, remain. It is my choice to let us grow or to make us suffocate in a body ill-shaped for the shape of our souls. If I say goodbye, if They never come back, will I miss Them? Will other days and people and times come to fill the emptiness They left? And will the day arrive when "remain" will have become too small a word for my life? And will They have to say "away" to me?

Down, down comes the mist and all glistens in the gloaming. Maybe, soon, I could say goodbye.

My blisters cool in the rain.

Away, away, but you: remain.

And somehow it's enough.

That Cabby Inside Me

You know what I like?

I like feeling small.

I like to read something that makes me realize I have not arrived in my writing and that I still have a long way to go. A very long way. I like to pick up a book and feel a delicious sensation of, "Oh, that's how it's done." Do you ever read books this way? I think I sometimes feel a certain healthy detachment from my work. I mean, I'm certainly proud of my skills as they are today, but I also possess (through having cultivated, learned, or just discovered it, I can't say) a rather Sir Percy Blakeney opinion of my talents. I don't mind mentally chucking aside the soon-to-be uploaded file of Anon, Sir, Anon when I pick up Dorothy Sayers' Have His Carcase. Of course I could pretend I think I'm as fine a writer as Sayers and that might sell a few more books, but I am quite happy with a conversation that goes something like this:
Reader: "You mean to say you don't think your writing is the top?"
Me: "Well of course it's the top of some things. For instance, it's the top of what it was three years ago and it is the top of certain books I've come across. But as for being the toppy-top, why this is the real ginger." (waving Carcase about)

Is it telling that I see that inner voice in my head as a 1940's journalist with his heels on the desk and a slightly flattened cabby-cap on his short buzz-cut? My inner voice presents itself many ways. This time it's a writer who looks like a cabby and smokes cigarettes in a sociable fashion. I like this fellow. You see, if one doesn't take oneself too terribly seriously, it's easier to take criticism, to view one's place in the world aright, and to improve. After having started the aforementioned novel at my brother's fiancee's house, I drove home through a monsoon of sorts and reflected on how generous my readers have been in giving Anon, Sir, Anon a fighting chance with four and even five-star ratings. Of course I don't pretend to emulate Dorothy Sayer's style, nor do I think Anon, Sir, Anon is on-par with her much-advanced skill. I can't wait for that reviewer who says, "I don't see what all the buzz is about. It's not at all as good as Agatha Christie." I am prepared to pump his hand, stuff my fists in my pockets and say with a foolish smile, "I know, right? Wasn't she amazing?"

I like feeling small.

I like knowing there is something to reach toward because how dull it would be to have arrived. "Oh look, Mount Amazingness has been reached. Recomputing purpose in career." I don't have a problem admitting that my skill-set is far from complete and it excites me to notice how far I've come since Fly Away Home, and by next book, how far I'll have come since Anon, Sir, Anon. Not that I've actually researched this phenomena, but I could almost guarantee that most famous authors see their early books as stepping-stones to even better things. I will always love each of my books and there is no reason to be ashamed of something you wrote being...younger. We can be glad we no longer behave as we did at fourteen, but does that mean there was something wrong with behaving fourteen...as a fourteen year-old? In the same way, I don't think that, down the road, I'll want to apologize for the lack of sage wisdom and effortless skill in Fly Away Home. It was a freshman novel and a very good introduction at that. We'll stop badgering the poor darling for not being Anna Karenina.

I am off to enjoy me (now cold) cup of tea and forge my way through the deliciousness that is Have His Carcase. On this visit, I learned that my sister-in-law's parents have a plethora of Agatha Christies and Dorothy Sayers and P.G. Wodehouse--pretty nearly any title I could want. They put my library to shame. I told you that I would have the vlog up. Well, I have it done...it is trying to publish and because it is *gulp* eighteen minutes long (you guys asked a lot of questions!) and my family's internet connection moves at glacial pace (you know how it thrills me), it is on it's second try and only 11% rendered. Snap. So you will probably get the vlog tomorrow morning. For now, go enjoy this rainy officially-fall day by letting yourself read a book for pleasure's sake.

Laters!

(Also, I have this weird urge to try to draw my sisters and myself as Disney-inspired caricatures. O.o)

If you must be Quixotic...

I like to hand myself a hard question now and then and stretch the all too lax abstract/logic muscles of my mind into trying to give a suitable answer. As I sat down this evening and thought about what to write, the question came to me:

Why do I like to write?

In forming my answers for this question, I laid certain parameters upon myself: 1) I could not use "I just love it" to explain. 2) I could not mention Epic by John Eldridge. There. Pact made, and no backsies. 

So why do I like to write?

In a pale, mortal way my answer is a mirroring of 1 John 4:19 which speaks of why we love God: "We love because He first loved us." The question "Why do you like to write" is one of a capricious nature that has no beginning and no end. It simply is. {which, incidentally, is not breaking my pact. No fear on that account. I will explain myself.} I love to write because I love to read, and as I've grown older I believe I love to read because I love to write. The things are inverse and adverse and companions and fools. A love of reading came before an acknowledged love of writing, but I would not say you were incorrect in wondering if the love of writing was always there waiting for an outlet it could not find until I first took up a pen with the intention of forming my own words on paper.

Asking a writer why they like to write {in the theoretical sense of the question} is like asking a person why they breathe. For me, writing is a natural reflex to the beauty, the events, and the people I see around me. As Anais Nin put it, "We write to taste life twice." I live and then I write. The one transfers to the other, for me, in a gentle, necessary way. As prosaic as it sounds, I believe I process by writing. Part of the way I deal with stressful situations, catty people, or great joy or great trials in my own life is by conjuring it onto paper in some way; a journal entry, a blog post, my writing notebook, or my latest story. While I am a fair conversationalist, my real forte is expressing myself in words on paper. If I leave it all chasing round my head like rabbits in a warren, I'm apt to become a bug-bear to live with and my family would not thank me. Some people need counselors. Some people need long, drawn-out phone-calls with a trusted friend. Some people need to go out for a run. I need to get away to a quiet, lonesome corner--preferably on the front steps at gloaming with the North Star trembling against the darkening blue. I need to set my pen fiercely against the page {for at such moments I must be writing--not typing.} and I need to convert the stress or excitement or happiness into something to be shared with another person.

The beauty of the relationship between reading and writing is its give-and-take dynamic. For years I gathered and read every book in the near vicinity and absorbed tale upon tale, story upon story, adventures and sagas and dramas and classics. I fed my fancy, my tastes, and my ideas upon good books and thus those aspects of myself grew up to be none too shabby. When I began to employ my fancy, tastes, and ideas in writing my own books, the dawning of a strange and wonderful idea tinged the horizon of thought with blush-rose colors: If I persisted and worked hard and poured myself into the craft, I could create one of those books. One of the heart-books that foster a love of reading and even writing in another person somewhere. I could have a hand in forming another person's mind. A great responsibility and a great privilege that, and one I would love to be a party to. Books can change a person. I am a firm believer in that. I cannot tell you how many sentiments or noble ideas or parts of my own personality are woven from threads of things I've read over the years. I hoard quotations and shadows of quotations and general impressions of books like a tzar of Russia hoards his icy treasures. They make up a large part of who I am. I think it's worth saying again: books can change a person. For better or for worse. As a writer it's my two-edged gift to be able to slay or heal where I will. It's my responsibility to wield that weapon aright and do only good with my words. Or only purposeful cutting. I am not set against the surgeon's method of butchery--the nicking of a person's spirit, the rubbing in of a salty, stinging salve, and the ultimate healing-over of that wound that makes for a healthier person in the end. It's the bitter herbs that heal the best, so now and again you might be called upon to write something with more cayenne than honey about it. But the end must be good. We cannot let the Light fade from our words.

My last answer for this self-imposed question is a bit shallower, a bit meaner, a bit more like the saucy miss I'm apt to become now and again when the mood is upon me: I like to write because I savor the power. I like to draw a person in and attach them to fictional people. I like to transport them places they've never been, introduce them to observations they'd never have seen were it not for me. Presumptuousness, I know. I like to implant a bit of Rachel in them that may stick there like a cockle-bur the rest of their lives, never to drop away. I like to entrance a reader in my intricate, gossamer web of story and spin them out to the other side, breathless and dew-damp; a little bewildered, a deal pleased. So these, dear friends, are my answers to that wonderfully quixotic question of why I like to write. I'd like to see sister-posts of your own reasons if you so had the time or the inclination. But for now I'll leave you and trot off the practicality of fetching my dinner.

"...He had begun writing again—fierce, warring words she could tell, by the bold black strokes."

-The Scarlet-Gypsy Song

A Man's a Man for a' that.

I am a woman. (Obviously.) Many of my followers are young ladies as well. I have five sisters. All of these are very plausible reasons as to why my posts tend to reference the female population more often than not.

But it recently came into my thoughts (and was subsequently brought to my attention) that we are not all women on this blog. There are a few young men of good taste and even better sense who follow The Inkpen Authoress and all this going on about "have a good day, girls" and "Hey ladies--hope you're having a great weekend" is rather unfair to the poor chappos. I am sorry, gents.

Wyatt Fairlead, a very sensible and judicious blogger at What My Mind Does, wrote me an email regarding this topic. The subject of the email was pertaining to this issue, but the manner and phrasing was what caught me:

"As I am sure you are aware I have been reading, "The Inkpen Authoress"  as a would-be lit. enthusiast and out of interest.  As I have read however I have noticed that you seem to focus on the female audience as you write.  I say this in no way to criticize, and I also realize that the vast majority of your followers are ladies.  In fact, as this realization dawned it occurred to me that perhaps your blog was more intended for ladies and I was in fact unintentionally intruding.  I am writing you to ask if this is the case, and if so, I will of course no longer comment and be a follower only in so much as...etc."

He goes on, but what the rest of the email said is of little consequence. This bit shows the great good sense of this young man. (and I hope the others resemble him in this respect.) Most fellows would have said something silly like, "Why do you talk so much about girls?" but Wyatt showed an honorable mind in wondering if he was, perhaps, the one intruding. Not so, of course, but I appreciated the thought. It showed a careful mind and gentlemanly impulse.
I have often noticed in conversation with Mr. Fairlead and other young men of my acquaintance, this tasteful hesitance to intrude, and yet careful pointing out of a flaw in my logic or behavior. It is the best sort of criticism to receive, for it is meant kindly and received kindly and all parties are the better for it. I hope I do not embarrass Mr. Fairlead by using him as a scape-goat for the thing I have been musing over for some time: A gentleman's point of view is sadly lacking in our girlish writing blogs.


I love girls. I am a girl. I live with girls. And yet I think there are not enough Wyatt Fairleads in our literary world. Think of that famed Inkling Club that Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were a part of. I recall reading a description of it by C.S. Lewis himself wherein he stated that "We were not a mutual-admiration club."
Ouch. Because I love compliments on my writing. You love compliments on your writing. And yet compliments are not excessively constructive. I want my blog to be a place where we can grow as writers. I want you to be able to point out flaws or weaknesses so that I can grow in my craft. If I think I have arrived as a writer, Heaven help me. I don't wish this to be (in its entirety) a mutual admiration club. And I think the gentleman keep if from being such.
I do not intend to portray the male audience as pedantic, dictatorial, and critical mass of men. However, it is a characteristic of men that they are able to distance themselves from the emotion of a situation or piece of writing and see it for what it is--with all it's dangling participles and incorrect grammar. The gents keep us from becoming fan-girls and vain, silly writers.


In fact, I wish I had more followers of the gentleman variety. You are welcome, dear fellows, come pull us out of our complacent, feminine ruts. Whenever I see a chap who has decided to follow The Inkpen Authoress I smile to myself, mentally shake hands with him and say, "Ah! There's a Sensible Man."


So thank you, Wyatt Fairlead. I ow you and every other gentleman (though they are few) a real handshake someday for following this blog. I treasure all of my readers (male or female) and seek your constructive criticism and advice so that I might not make the mistake of being a complacently arrogant authoress. Don't let me become self-satisfied. That is the worst mistake any human being can make. So chaps? Feel free to join this blog and hang your hat on a peg. There's always a place for your sort. :)