#writers

The Mountain

/ JillArcangela / 3 Comments

Photo courtesy of pro-climber Brady Hogan. See more on Instagram @summersnowproductions

Photo courtesy of pro-climber Brady Hogan. See more on Instagram @summersnowproductions


I am obsessed with you
With everything about you
The way you look
The way you feel
To me
As my body
Moves over you
The sounds around you
The way you preside over everything
Everything
It’s true
You have brought me pain
Defeat
Injury
But every time
That I return
To stand at your feet
And look upon you
In all your majesty
I feel none of those things
They are gone from me
From my memory
From my body
And all I feel is courage
And hope
And fire
To go forward
To push upwards
To make myself worthy of the view from your shoulders
Because I want you
Under my feet
Under my belt
And crossed off my list
Because you
You are the mountain
And I
I was born to summit

The Empty Box

/ JillArcangela / 2 Comments

There is a void
In this room
A starkness
In space
Since you left here
With none
To replace
Your smile
Your charm
You static disarming whisper-like breath
Your verses
Of passion
Your sensuous jest
Your pear golden eyes
Now the world looks like less
Than it was
Than it is
A place that once fizzled
Is flaccid and drib
You stripped it all down
It all went away
A life that was full
Now echoes in grey
But not for not wanting
A lovelorn departing
Without ever quite leaving
Me safely from you
Still tied to your words
Your lips where they’d sit
The kisses between them
The silence of split
The bare walls around me
The vacancy sign
The murmur of nothing
This cube
This nude shrine
To you
And to us
Or at least what I thought
And what should I do with a heart under lock?
I shall stow it inside
This now empty box.

Native Affair

/ JillArcangela / Leave a comment

All my life, I’ve been having a love affair with native America. I have always found the culture, people, customs, and landscapes to be among the world’s most beautiful. I perceive the demolition of North America’s pre-Western society and the loss of its culture as being among history’s most disturbing genocides. Suffice it to say, I have a deep sense of compassion and respect for our indigenous people.

Since initial conception, I knew that my novel would have to have Native American characters and that much of the storyline would take place in a world dominated by native culture. Being a “white woman” raised in East Coast urban chaos, I, like my characters, was walking into a world I knew nothing about.

I have the advantage that I’m writing speculative fiction, a genre crafted by masters like Vonnegut, Huxley, and Orwell, a genre as layered with imagination as it is with serious research and defendable theory. Because I am writing a possible future, I am given the flexibility of projecting reality with curvature. I can apply any inconsistency to present day knowledge as long as I can justify it with the series of events that caused it to veer from “the way it is.” I can not, however – under any circumstances, allow this flexibility to make shallow, cheapen, or stereotype my native characters.

Using a mix of scientific theories on how various social and environmental disasters would affect our natural world, I was able to create a projection of how our society would be forced to change over time. Since there is, of course, more than one possible outcome, I juxtaposed the two most likely and most contrary scenarios. Blending historically documented accounts of tribal living and natural resources with the theorized changes in the environment, I designed a future in which a much altered version of our American history is playing out, an ecotopia marred by the nightmarish consequences of present disregard for our human habitat, a place where survival has triumphed because of native wisdom.

Living deep within this world are strong, beautiful native characters who come to the forefront as well as line the background of the story. Paying homage to what was through factual study, I needed to also pay homage to what is and what could be by paying attention to the subtleties that could not be explored through traditional research. So, I reached out to the tribes.

I am so glad I did this.

Three tribes are represented in my book, and I have made contact with elder members of all three. A native language professor, a chief, and a cultural expert – respectively. I have spoken with other tribal members in my efforts to reach the individuals best suited to answer my questions, and each conversation was helpful in some way. Discussing my story with people who happily and immediately shared my ambition for cultural accuracy was beautiful and inspiring.

My sincerest wish is that when they received the copies I promised to send, they will be happy with what I have done. I’m not sure how I would live with myself if I dropped this ball… No pressure, though, right?

Is it hot in here? I feel like it just got really… uh, whew…

Ripe Hearts

/ JillArcangela / Leave a comment

Pear trees,
and sunshine,
whispering willows,
and pussy willow pillows.
Kissing you
underneath
the falling blossoms
of breezy cherry trees,
whimsical and pink,
like my cheeks,
warm with the heat of
adoration divine.
Your love feels like
cool, crisp juice,
quenching, refreshing,
apple, peach, plum.
Lips are red,
full of blood,
engorged like
sweet, summer strawberries.
I fall onto
the lush green
of a grassy hill
and gaze up at a
canopy of color,
like a shading,
shadowing umbrella
made of tiny green leaves
swaying gently in the sky.
The warmth of you,
like the warmth of sunlight,
covers me as you cover me.
My toes still cool in the air.
As you touch
soft hands to my
soft white tummy,
I fill up again.
Filled with feelings,
I smile and sigh.
A warm breeze wafts by.
The leaves overhead
sound like the ocean.
The grass is cool
beneath us.
The sun is warm
above us.
Our arms and legs
wrapped up like
grape vines
on a fence of
faith and trust.
You kiss me again.
Your kiss is so sweet,
sweeter than
Queen Anne cherries,
more like
mandarin oranges.
Heaven above,
how I love
the taste of
your warm
and juicy
passion fruit kisses.

8/2000

Come Forth

/ JillArcangela / Leave a comment

A funny thing happens to me when I’m moody. I write poetry. Gobs of it. It doesn’t really matter what kind of mood makes up “moody” as long as it’s intense. Because I’m human, primal emotions are the ones I feel most strongly. Anger, grief, sex… just some of the primitive triggers on my poetry cannon.

As I add to my blog, people who know me keep asking me if I’m ok. My poetry, they say, worries them. I take this as a compliment. Not because I’m trying to freak anyone out but because it demonstrates that my work is affecting my readers. I reassure them that I’m absolutely fine then turn my attention to the underlying issue.

As artists, we channel inspiration through ourselves and into our chosen medium. We see the world and what we need to add to it through a vision that is uniquely ours. When it’s good, our art is the collaboration of both our inspiration and our perspective. Inevitably, in the process, pieces of our hearts and minds are transferred to our craft, revealing ideas, images, perspectives, and emotions that arise from within us, making us visible to some extent.

The implications of this, of course, is that once you start putting your work out into the world, anyone who views it is offered a peek inside your life, or at the very least inside your crazy, mixed up, frequently ridiculous, though quite creative brain. The inevitable revelations that show through in our work leave us asking an important question: How much of ourselves should we reveal?

For me personally, I’ve decided on all of it.

Does that seem over the top? Definitely, and good for it because the truth of that matter is that I am in no way responsible or even concerned with how the world receives my work. It isn’t my job to anticipate the responses of any number of people who might visit it. My job is to tell the story, to put the work out there, to finger paint the canvas of life with colors both inspired and inspiring. If I start filtering my work based on what might offend or what someone might use to design an under-informed judgment about who I am as a human being, well, I should close up shop right now.

As artists we are drawn to passion and prone to provocation. The things that most find disturbing are often our greatest sources of inspiration. We lurk in the alleyways of the human experience, looking for a broken piece of reality discarded or ignored by others so that we can fit into something bigger than ourselves, something we can sink our teeth and hearts into, something that moves us… and in turn, might move another. We cannot afford to be timid or shy, to offer up only what we think will be well received. We can only speak from our hearts and paint the world as we see it, and we should never look to change our eyes.

So, come forth, poets and painters. Come forward, sculptors and songwriters. Come up, artists of all kinds. Come into the lightness of creating without a filter, without a care for how the world perceives you. Stand in your place, and let them look. Let them talk. Let them grimace, if they must. I am certain it is infinitely better to explain or defend your work than have it go unnoticed.

Learning the Writer’s Craft

/ JillArcangela / 1 Comment

I’ve been writing all my life. It started probably around five, maybe six, with a pencil sketched comic strip featuring a simple, wiggly outline of a heroic sheepdog called Flufster.  By 9, I was the mad short story girl, most accompanied by minor illustrations.  Middle-school saw my first book – a neatly presented, word-processor-produced anthology of my poetry up to that point in my life.  It included nearly 50 poems, ranging in topic from love to murder, flowers to fornication… yes, I said middle school.  Don’t ask.  It’s just my brain, and the point is that it has always been my brain.

Writing, words, emotions, expressions, visible people with visible flaws pushing through real-life problems – even problems I have not experienced directly, are all just natural components to some bizarre and expansive spiritual index from which I draw material.  These things don’t “come to me.”  They come through me.  I’ve never curtailed the act of expression because I have no control over it.  I can only let it out or be eaten alive by it.

But if you know me, you know that my real hang-up isn’t writing about things.  It’s learning about things – and learning them so well that I am able to turn the valve from suck to flow.  It’s the channeling of information into and out of my mind.  The type or topic of said information need only be of relative interest.  All knowledge is based on experience, and I want to experience everything.

It’s a very simple process.  First I flood, then I write.

Moving forward in this work of building my writing platform has brought to the table the very language my brain speaks.  After decades of unbridled self-expression, all my flooding and all my writing, the countless Obsessions du Jour (cut me a break… I’m a red-headed, Italian Aries), I’m learning about writing for the first time.

I ramble through tons of articles and commentaries on writing.  I watch The Writer’s Room on Sundance.  I read Writer’s Digest.  I follow the blogs of other writers.  I’m flooding… Oh, look… I’m writing about writing.  (Geez, I hope my novel isn’t this predictable.)

But what am I learning?  I’m learning new ways of tapping into the stream that once flowed only when it chose to.  I’m learning how to craft the result of unchecked creative cascade into something even better.  I’m stepping outside my box to move around and get a better look at what I’m creating, and I’m tweaking it from there – like a painter placing one brush stroke from the corner of the room.  I’m gaining skill.

So, with a bow of gratitude, I tip my hat to all who, unbeknownst to them, help provide me with this education. What a beautiful, useful lesson this has been thus far, and there’s so much still to learn.

I’m a sponge in the ocean, a kid in a candy store.

Deriving The First Novel

/ JillArcangela / 2 Comments

aldous

 

There are certain books that I return to.  I can’t really help it.  There is something about the way they are crafted, the voice that speaks from the pages, or perhaps the world within that I can’t ever completely walk away from.  Like an old friend or an addicting lover, I am drawn to them over and over.  One of those is Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.  It is so potent, so penetrating.  The contrast of raw emotion against spiritual depravity, ladled thick with cutting social commentaries that expose the evils of all outcomes and trap a man between equally undesirable choices…  It defines the human societal experience and challenges conformity, and it is positively brilliant.

When I set out to write the story, I had several goals.  I wanted to create something that was beautiful to envision and engrossing to read, that felt adventurous and “escapist,” but that was also relevant and believable.  I wanted to create a perspective future that was founded in current reality, one that would paint a picture of tomorrow by layering the logically developed consequences of today’s social, political, and environmental issues with pure fiction.

Of course, there is no such thing as pure fiction.  All fiction is based in some kind of reality.  Even in high fantasy, characters experience emotion – something derived from the human experience.  Every leaf connects to a root.  An anchor for every ship.

So, for my first novel, I looked at history to find my fiction.  History and the future are so closely related, despite our present day tendency to ignore such information, thus it made sense to me that history would define this fictionalized future… or futures, as the case may be.  In the fall of one empire, we see the foreshadowing of ruins to come.  In the succumbing of a people, we realize our own dangerous shortcomings.

Predicting the future, however, is a tough business.  I mean, there is, after all, the freewill variable.  People always have a choice, and if history has taught us anything it is that people choose to survive.  This is where I justify the story’s cultural divide, the other place, the other outcome.  In designing this counter, I was able to present an opposing set of values and its contrasting effects.  Not to mention, it – by its very nature – afforded me the opportunity for unbridled creativity and grounds for a tremendous visual experience.

Writing on a common theme (in this case: “two worlds colliding”) comes with unique challenges.  Avoiding cliques, staying on an original storyline, and sidestepping the traps of predictability turn the marathon of novel-writing into an obstacle “ultra” – 50 miles of author hell.  But when a story is demanding to be told, what can you do?…

…You check your laces and get limber.  Aldous did it, and that man was high as a kite.

Whether or not I have succeeded in my endeavor, to write the next standout in the wide and ever-expanding genre of speculative fiction, remains to be seen.  (Querying would be a good first step to finding out.)  Nonetheless, the mission was in earnest, and the inspiration was solid.  If I’m worth my salt as a wordsmith, I should make out ok.  I hope, in any case, that you’ll explore and enjoy what lands here – on my blog.