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Anvils and Hammers

12/28/2015

I suppose, as we near the end of this year, it’s inevitable that all manner of resolutions surface for the next. I understand the concept of starting anew, and have even done so at various life points --- which I highly recommend, particularly if you notice things becoming stagnant. My protagonist certainly takes starting anew to an entirely different level. As the Kirkus review for Gryphon’s Heir notes: “though only 25, he feels that his life has become a joyless slog,” and when given the choice --- admittedly after some understandable dithering, given the extraordinary circumstances --- he heads into literally a completely new world. I’m not sure everyone wants to take new starts to such extremes, but it’s not a bad concept --- although I confess I’ve always found the timing of resolutions around New Year’s a wee bit arbitrary.

I was in conversation about this the other day, and after making that confession, was asked a really thoughtful question in response: “Well, your protagonist is an English teacher, isn’t he? What kind of literary reference would he make about new starts, whether a new year or a new life?” The funny thing is, I didn’t have to think much: a short poem (an epigram) I use in my own classes popped into my head immediately. It’s a good one for students especially, because it’s short, pithy and to the point. Written by American poet Edwin Markham (who was an educator himself, actually), it’s called “Preparedness” and reads as follows:

                                                                For all your days prepare,
                                                                And meet them ever alike:
                                                                When you are the anvil, bear---
                                                                When you are the hammer, strike.

I like to think Rhiss, the protagonist of Gryphon’s Heir, would also appreciate this poem (although I never presume to speak for him out of turn, because, you know, fictional people are real people, too). It presents a mindset I think he would heartily approve of. I know I do. And it’s good advice, regardless of what we’re talking about. Here’s how I explain it to my students.

Some days, life seems to conspire against you in everything you do. Or maybe it’s nothing as complex as an organized conspiracy. Perhaps it’s part of what I call (in an as-yet unpublished prayer from Arrinor, the world of Gryphon’s Heir) the “malign indifference” of a bleak and cheerless world that really doesn’t appear to care whether things go well for you or not. Either way, there are days when absolutely nothing goes as it is supposed to. You fight with your nearest and dearest; the car malfunctions on a busy road and no one stops to help; things go terribly at school or work; and all the other myriad possible aggravations of life, major and minor (even minor aggravations don’t seem quite so minor when we’re in the thick of them), pile up in a perfect storm of misery and malefaction. On those days, says Markham, you are the anvil: life pounds the crap out of you as a blacksmith pounds the crap out of an anvil while fashioning horseshoes. And on those days, says Markham, stoically put up with it. Because, really, there’s nothing productive to be gained by having a hissy fit over the injustice... although that is our natural reaction, and I may have thrown one now and then. Also, there’s always the hope a better day will come. Preferably soon.

Other days, it’s a totally different tale: everything goes right. Everything aligns, everything clicks seamlessly into place, and man, you are just having the perfect day. (For a writer, it’s when your words are golden; events witty, original and sublimely clever flow off the keyboard by themselves; characters do all kinds of lovely, surprising things enhancing your narrative immeasurably; and the Muse whispers in your ear a never-ending stream of amazing ideas.) On those days, says Markham, you are the hammer. It’s you pounding that anvil to create something useful or beautiful --- or both. And you will create a work of art, whatever it is. But you have to recognize it’s that kind of day and really carpe the diem (seize the day), knowing these opportunities do not routinely present themselves to us mere mortals.

So... pretty good advice in just four lines, both for entering a new year or a new world: be prepared for the bad stuff life throws at you by gritting your teeth and hunkering down when it happens, and by moving decisively and gratefully to recognize and take advantage when life presents the good stuff.

Oh, and either way, you need to be fast on your feet.

Thanks, Ed.

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More Lurid Confessions of the Writing Kind

12/21/2015

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My last post was a response to the question had I always been a writer; I ended with a teaser... although probably not much of one to anybody who knows me: I discovered... I discovered...

Well, Tolkien, of course. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE, FRSL, Oxford don and world-creator-on-the-side. As has been the case for so many people, he was a seminal literary influence on me. In fact, looking back, it’s hard to overstate his influence. My mother bought me The Hobbit when I was 11, and there’s irony in that I just couldn’t get into it. In fact, I think I tried unsuccessfully at least twice, eventually putting it aside. I don’t recall why it didn’t grab me, truly I don’t, because the very idea is heretical to me now. But there things languished until a family friend showed me The Lord of the Rings in one volume, recommending it highly. I started reading it --- might have been perversely attracted by its mammoth size --- and was immediately enthralled. It was the summer between elementary and junior high and I was all of 12. I don’t say that with any overweening pride --- I’ve said I may have been a wee bit precocious as a child --- but as a career teacher, I have not been made aware of many 12 year olds who could or would tackle such a work. So... maybe there is some pride in that confession. (As an ironic aside... I doubt that if Tolkien was published today for the first time he would find anywhere near the literary success he has enjoyed. In fact --- it pains me deeply to say it --- I actually have doubts he would be published at all. Many people’s acquaintance with The Lord of the Rings today stems not from the novel, but from Peter Jackson’s wildly successful films --- and I’m always pointing out to my classes that Tolkien’s Middle Earth and Jackson’s Middle Earth are very, very different places telling stories that, while similar in numerous regards, are also profoundly dissimilar in numerous particulars. Many people today watch the films, then turn to the books to get, they assume, more of the same --- which, of course, they do not receive at all.)

However, the upshot of my exposure to Tolkien was simple, but, quite literally, personally transformative: it made me deeply desire to create stuff like that, too.

There we are, simple as that. He had created something alive, something wondrous, something that could be held up and examined from many angles like a diamond sparkling in the sunlight. So I wanted to. Interesting when you think about it, isn’t it? Why does this creative urge come welling up from within the vaults of our souls? And why should Tolkien’s creative urge spark one within me?

But I didn’t want to parrot. As far as I’m aware, fan fiction didn’t even exist in the Dark Ages when I was young --- I think it’s mostly a child of the Internet --- but I never felt the slightest desire to write stories of Middle Earth or its races/creatures/civilizations. The idea never occurred to me: Middle Earth was Tolkien’s world, and to commandeer it --- even though chances of being published were zero --- seemed blatantly disrespectful and creatively bankrupt. I just aspired to Creation of a world, a world as rich as Middle Earth.

Now, in fairness, I look back at stories I wrote in junior/senior high, and yeah, they were, in various ways, pretty Tolkien derivative. One year, at the local senior high drama festival, I took part in a writing workshop conducted by a fairly well-known local playwright. I submitted a story for a critique, and he noted that there was no question I had been “influenced --- perhaps too influenced --- by Tolkien.” But he also noted, very kindly, that I seemed to have ability to string words together, and he encouraged me to find my own voice and carry on. So I did.

And then... I’m not trying to gloss over thirty years, but university arrived, and marriage, and children, and a teaching career. I wrote sporadically, but nothing organized. (Although I composed some pretty creative assignments for my classes.) Life was just too busy. Until, in the midst of a rewarding but draining career, ten years ago, I found myself deeply unhappy, and turned to writing about it. I wrote of a teacher who, also disillusioned with his career, was offered an escape by a very unusual being into another, perilous world. I had no particular design to write a novel, but... the writing was therapeutic, and the story grew. And eventually, I realized I was no longer writing for therapy’s sake, but because the story had developed a life of its own. It was absorbing. All kinds of amazing things were happening; some I had planned, but many I hadn’t, and I wanted to learn more about what was going on.

So I did. And the result was Gryphon’s Heir --- which Kirkus Reviews says is, among other things, “fabulously layered mythmaking.”

That’s a happy ending. For today, anyway.

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I Was A Teenage Writer... And Other Sordid Confessions

12/14/2015

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“Have you always been a writer?”

I was asked this by a friend the other day over coffee. She was admiring her new copy of Gryphon’s Heir after I signed it (a task that doesn’t seem to get old, I modestly confess) and we were talking about the writing process (a topic that likewise does not get old). I should probably also admit we might have engendered strange looks from other patrons who witnessed us rapturously inhaling the new book smell. (Not at the same time, but still...)

What do you say in response to a question like that? “No” would appear to indicate a grievous lack of lifelong artistic commitment, while “yes” just seems a tad pretentious. Although “yes” is the honest answer. So... “yes,” I told her. I’m unflinchingly honest about affairs of the heart. Well, mostly.

But it’s true: I’ve always loved to write, to express myself with the written word, ever since the mystery of reading and writing was first unlocked for me. I still vividly remember running up the steps of our house at the tender age of six, clutching my first grade reading primer (with the catchy title of Tip --- about a dog and his humans), shouting excitedly to my mother, “I can read!” Yeah, it was kind of a momentous occasion. And my first foray into reading my work in public was in grade four. My teacher, Mrs. Mitchell, had given us a writing assignment with the single topic line of “I may be old, but look at me now.” I made it, as I recall, into a narrative purportedly written/spoken by John A. Macdonald’s diary (he was the first Prime Minister of Canada, for those of you who aren’t Canadian), and Mrs. Mitchell was apparently impressed enough with it to have me read it aloud as part of the entertainment segment of the weekly school assembly. I don’t recall being particularly nervous doing it, either. I guess, even at that age, I was quite okay with sharing my words to anyone who would listen. I may have been a wee bit precocious. Well... maybe more than a little.

In junior high, I started writing quite a lot. It was mostly science fiction when my teachers would allow it, because that was mostly what I was reading --- one of my earliest purchases, a copy of Arthur C. Clarke’s The City and the Stars, remains in my collection, rather battered, binding totally gone, still displaying its then-princely price of 95 cents with the solemn caveat slightly higher in Canada. (With apologies to devotees of Harper Lee, Jem and Scout and Atticus are a little tame when one is reading about intergalactic exploits.) I even created a series of stories about a transportation hub named Goddard City. Located on Earth, it was a combined airport/seaport/spaceport/monorail station, so all kinds of people and situations could, and did, occur. I wrote several stories using Goddard City as either the background or as a primary locale, and I think they were mostly well received by my teachers and fellow students. Although... I don’t know. I was aware I had a certain... reputation. (I was going to say cachet, but reputation is probably closer to the mark.) Frederik Pohl says, in his marvelous memoir The Way the Future Was, that science fiction writers were all toads as children. I wasn’t exactly a toad... but, well... toad-dom is kind of a subjective pejorative, isn’t it? All right, maybe I was kind of a toad. Glasses, too smart for the Neanderthals who seemed to make up a large proportion of classes, no good at sports, tall and gangly and fairly uncoordinated. Sigh. Yeah, okay. I was a toad. And my small circle of friends were toads, too. Ribbit... ribbit...

But I wrote. Wrote fiction. And journaled, too. Still have a good deal of the fiction... and the journals, too, although I don’t look at them too often, because I read these journals now and I ask myself just who was the angst-ridden teenager writing such loads of unadulterated, melodramatic crap? You see, I’d discovered girls, too, although they hadn’t discovered me. I worshipped one girl in particular from afar (mainly because she was blissfully unaware I even existed, except maybe as the nerdy kid on the fringes of her classes) from grade four until grade ten, when we went off to different high schools. Anyway, she started figuring in my stories. You know, I look back now and think, boy, my childhood was just a series of clichés. Which is, I think, on one level, a really good rebuttal to all those writing gurus out there who decry the use of clichés. Yeah, I know clichés are tired and worn and uncreative and all that, but dammit, life seems to be frequently composed of clichés, doesn’t it? That’s why they often work even as we roll our eyes at them. Not that I’m advocating using them all the time in fiction, you understand, he added hastily. So, yeah, I wrote.

And then... and then... I discovered...

Gosh, I have to go now. My wife’s calling me for dinner. No, really, can’t play anymore, have to go home. Rachael, my social media guru, told me my blog posts need to be shorter, not longer, and this one’s already running above 900 words, and I still have more hoary recollections/sordid confessions to take out of the crypt and dust off, so... if you’ve travelled with me this far, maybe you’ll come back next week? Same bat time, same bat channel? Hmm. That’s not very Arrrinoran, is it?

All right, then: go you with the One.

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A Season of Waiting

12/7/2015

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                Finally given the opportunity, Rhiss was unsure how to begin. “Borilius,” he said hesitantly, “you have… been here for some time.”
                “Indeed. Many years.”
                “And all that time… you have essentially waited for me,” Rhiss mused.
                Borilius smiled. “Well… aye. You oversimplify things, but I suppose it does in fact boil down to that.”
                “And you knew I would come.” It was not a question.
                “Beyond any doubt.” The smile was gone, Borilius completely in earnest.
                “How?”
                “There were signs. The most significant was that we were told you would come by… an unimpeachable source.”
                -excerpt from Gryphon’s Heir by D.R. Ranshaw

Pity the poor people surrounding Rhiss, the protagonist of Gryphon’s Heir. He’s “made” them wait 25 years for him to arrive in their world. (Not intentionally, of course, but that doesn’t make the waiting easier, does it?) And as another character notes later on, “twenty-five years is a very long time indeed. We have waited all that time, never losing faith you would come. But hope needs something to feed on during such a span, or it withers and dies. In consequence, I fear, expectations can spiral completely out of control.”

As a society, we hate waiting. My gosh, but we’re terrible at it. We hate waiting at traffic lights --- for what is usually going to be, at max, only a couple of minutes or so. (Is that really such a big bite out of your life?) We hate waiting in the checkout line at the grocery store and we are utterly convinced the old rule is absolutely true: the other line always moves faster. I have readers who are waiting impatiently for Gryphon’s Awakening, the sequel to Gryphon’s Heir. I could go on, but I think you get the idea: we hate waiting with a white hot intensity for darn near anything.

And yet... isn’t the anticipation frequently almost better than the moment itself? When you were a kid, waiting for Christmas... agonizing, wasn’t it? And then the day was here, and passed by with blinding speed, and... then it was over. Just like that.

I was thinking about this just the other day, when we put up our Advent calendar as part of our Christmas decorations. Reflections on waiting seem doubly appropriate for Advent, which in the Christian calendar is the period of waiting leading up to Christmas itself. (Given that our kids are grown now and scattered at different post-secondary institutions across the country, putting up the daily decoration for the calendar is a task that falls to my wife and me. But it’s a task we willingly, cheerfully undertake... because we’re waiting for the end of school with great anticipation. Yep, teachers do that, too.)

Waiting well is fast becoming a lost --- possibly extinct --- art. We’re a society of irritable, impatient, whiny waiters. (I don’t intend to make this a diatribe against the Internet, but I think there’s no denying that the Internet is shortening people’s attention spans and capacity for both focus and waiting. I see it in my students, especially over the span of a 31 year career.)

We encourage the value of waiting to our children (“wait your turn,” for example) but then promptly turn around and teach them to devalue it in nearly every activity we and they undertake.

And yet, there’s value in waiting. I don’t mean the aimless, mindless, impatient waiting that most people do too often. I mean purposeful, deliberate waiting --- very possibly because you have no choice in the matter, but even so, think what it can foster and encourage: reflection; patience; fine tuning; turning an issue over and over and coming to new understanding. Whether you wait in solitude or in the midst of a multitude, in silence or in a babel of noise, there’s value to be gotten from waiting.

Oh, and by the way, for those of you already tired of waiting for Gryphon’s Awakening, even though Gryphon’s Heir only came out in June... I’m going as fast as I can. Except when I have to wait for Rhiss to tell me what he’s doing next. Sometimes he tells me a great deal... sometimes he’s much less forthcoming... and I’m trying to be patient with him when he makes me wait. I’m really impatient to hear from him how things will ultimately turn out, but I’ve learned that it’s best if I don’t try to force things, just wait to hear his voice whispering in my mind’s ear about the wonderful and amazing things he’s doing.

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D.R. RANSHAW

Anvils and Hammers

More Lurid Confessions of the Writing Kind

I Was A Teenage Writer... And Other Sordid Confessions

A Season of Waiting

D.R. Ranshaw's Blog

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