Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Manuscript

As I am making my latest changes and edits to The Flower of Knighthood, I am realizing something. It's not at all that there was so much wrong with the manuscript. I was happy with it when I thought it was done, as I've mentioned in earlier posts, and I would have started working on publishing it at that point if I had not started writing Parsifal. It's more that I really am different than I was three and a half years ago when I finished writing the first draft of it, and am more evolved even from when I completed my copyright submission draft a year and a half ago. This is one argument for editing it like I am now, because I've written so much more in the interim that my expression has improved a lot, and it's also one argument that I need to stop working on it at some point very soon. I don't want to change it so much that I lose that excitement of a first book by refining it too much. I also realize that I was rushing it back then, because I wanted it to be done, but it has improved with the mellowing of some age. However, it's becoming clear to me that since I am always growing and changing, I could go on editing it forever, if I was crazy enough to do so, and that alone makes me want to respect its integrity and just leave it be at some point. It's a real balance that I need to find, and I think I am near to achieving it. There are some small word changes that I can make that get closer to what I actually wanted to say, to make it just a little more streamlined. I don't want to miss an improvement that I can make that will indeed help the final version. I keep saying this same thing about the whole process, but it really is totally worth all of this effort. Even when I tweak some tiny little thing that makes a line flow better or have a tighter rhyme, I feel great. It's reached the point where I go for pages before I change anything, so I am almost there.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Intuition

I was on an intuitive streak this weekend, with some help from the universe. As I mentioned below in my book fair rundown, in a big Persian bookstore, I walked right to the exact text that my friend has been looking for. I was drawn to it because of my own work, which ties in with the subject, though I had never heard of that particular author or book. I just jumped at the title when I saw it. I also went upstairs on Saturday evening to check on my housemate's two Siamese cats, and there were two paperbacks that had fallen out of the bookshelf in the common area on that floor of the house. They do that sometimes because the shelf is too full and they shift over time and tumble off the ledge like ripe apples from a branch. I was tired so I thought I'd get the cats first and then put the books back. When I walked out of the bedroom, I noticed one of the books looked like it was in Arabic. I was afraid it was a Koran, which is not supposed to lie on the floor, so I bent to pick it up. It turned out that it was a paperback account of a woman who went to live with an Iraqi family and wrote about the experience. It just so happens that my guest recently befriended an Iraqi man and has been looking for guidance to understand him and his culture. I took the book down to her, and blew her mind with it. She asked me the next day how I did that, and how I found the first book, The Man of Light, and I answered that I really didn't so much, but that I was led to them. I let my subconscious direct me, and things like that happen to me all the time. She told her Iraqi friend and he was kind of amazed, too. It happens so often, I guess it doesn't surprise me any longer, although I surely don't take it for granted. I just work with my environment and let it tell me what to do. I figure God puts me where He wants me, and gives me what He wants me to have, providing me with just enough information to keep me moving forward in the direction He wants me to go. So I just go with that flow. It hasn't failed me yet.

Spin

I have a great idea for a music article, and I just pitched it to Spin. I hope they like it!

Book Report

I have now learned after two years in a row of attending the LA Times Festival of Books that it is a safe bet that the weather will always be unseasonably warm the weekend of the event. It was really, really hot on the UCLA campus with the sun beating down on the miles of vendors’ booths, and my friend and I gave out sooner than we would have liked on Saturday and never made it back at all on Sunday. She has written a novel and we both went mostly to see if we could do any research on possible publishers for our respective works, but the grounds were such a jumble that we did not get far in that regard. Note to festival organizers: It would really be helpful if you would group the vendors’ booths by category so that it’s easier to find all of the poetry publishers, the book agents, etc. The layout seemed more organized last year, but it was a total mess this time, with no apparent rhyme or reason to where anyone was placed. We spent a lot of our afternoon just wandering around like desert mystics looking for God, which was not entirely unenjoyable, but also wasn’t terribly productive. We attended two scheduled events, including a panel discussion about poetic voice, and a presentation of some selected readings from PEN fellowship winners. Neither of those was really captivating, so we hit the booths to see what we could learn. I did pick up a few publishers’ catalogs and a literary journal that looked interesting, and we hit the stalls with free religious books. We scored free Korans, a huge pile of Buddhist books and free research versions of the Old Testament. My friend and I are both into religion and theology, so we were pretty happy. We missed my other friend James; he got there early, and the heat was just too much for him by early afternoon. After a few hours baking in it, and the promised Taco Bell pit stop, we decided to call it a day for the fair. My friend is part Iranian in heritage and she wanted to visit Persian bookstores on Westwood Blvd. We fueled ourselves with Persian ice cream (orange blossom, yum!) and went to three stores. The most useful one for us was Ketab, a large store with texts in Arabic, Farsi and a few in English. I didn’t see those at first and mostly just roamed around looking at the pretty Persian art in the store, but I found the English section in the back. I love to study Sufism and I found a number of books that were really interesting. I pulled one off the shelf, called The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism by Henry Corbin (http://www.amazon.com/Man-Light-Iranian-Sufism/dp/0930872487/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209413486&sr=8-1). I held it up and showed my friend, and she freaked out – it turns out she has been looking for that book for a really long time. Yaay, me! She bought a copy and so did I. It’s a theological analysis that incorporates alchemy, Sufism and the development of the highest Self of man, all topics I groove on constantly. We went to two more Persian bookstores, but they were much smaller, so we decided to call it quits and went home. It was a day of wandering; we ended up roaming about trying to figure out where to eat, and ended up at a hole in the wall kimchi house on the western edge of Koreatown. We were the only non-Korean people there, and when we walked up to the door and asked for a table, they seemed astonished that we wanted to eat there. The waitress’ attitude was sort of like, “Well, ok, if you really want to, we won’t stop you.” They dug out one dusty old menu with English translations and we perused it. I decided to skip the spicy goat bowl and the funky octopus. I am adventurous with many things, but not always so much with food. I like spices, but not crazy hot things or weird rubbery textures that seem like a cooked alien or organ meats or things that are just downright macabre, like fish with the eyes still in. I ordered spicy potato soup, which sounds vegetarian, right? - but when it came, it had a heap of bones in it, beef as far as I could tell, though I am really not sure. I am not a vegetarian, but I wasn’t in the mood for meat and don’t really eat red meat or pork anyway, so I just spooned out the potatoes and broth and left the bones in the bowl. Dealt with like that, it was really good. They had asked us how spicy we wanted our food, and I think we got the baby spice for sissy Westerners, and it was still plenty hot. I am not a natural at chopsticks, but I was motoring through my sticky rice and feeling proud of myself, when the Korean proprietor came over and asked compassionately if I wanted a fork. I said no, and he seemed surprised. He kind of shrugged and walked away, and I was a little sad. I guess what felt like progress to me looked like hopeless flailing to him. My friend was mesmerized by the goofy ballroom dancing shown on the big screen TV. I was mesmerized by how tired I was. We ate a lot of food, and went home and chatted until about midnight, when I finally had to pack it in. I had been running around since 8 am and I was just beat. We were still planning to get up early the next day and head over for more panel discussions, but after a big breakfast, we never made it out of the house until early afternoon, and even then not to the festival. We were still sunburned, bug-bitten and worn out, and we just got some soda and sat around and talked some more. My housemate’s friend stopped by and joined us on the back patio, and we all had a fun, relaxed conversation. My friend also shared some online Arab culture with me, including pictures like I have never seen in my life before – they were taken inside the Ka’aba! I did not know anyone could go in there except the very highest imams or shaykhs, and I never would have dreamed they would let anyone take photos of it, since Islamic culture is often strict about representational images. The pictures were amazing. There are footprints that are said to belong to Abraham in the interior of the shrine, with a lovely green silk prayer pillow set in front of them. There were also pictures of the men who make the black draperies embroidered with Koranic verses that hang on the outside of the building. We were happy to see that the wheelchair-bound were abundantly represented in the employees engaged in that undertaking – way to create jobs for the disabled! That seems like a perfect embodiment of the ideal of Muslim charity and compassion. My friend had to leave around 2 pm to avoid traffic going back to Orange County, so I saw her off, greeted my roommate returning from Coachella, and then took a two-hour nap.

Overall, the book festival was another publishing event that did not entirely give me what I was looking for, but I had a great time with my friend, and it always encourages me to see so many people come out on a hot day for books. If I do self-publish, I may try to rent a small stall there next year. An audience of twenty thousand book lovers is an audience I want to reach. And I am pleased with the progress I made by using this event as a goal to finish another book draft. I am going to try to complete the current readthrough by the end of the month, and make the additional changes. Then I will read it yet again and see what I think.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Book Nerd Party Weekend

Here is the book fair I keep going on about:

http://www.latimes.com/extras/festivalofbooks/

My new writer friend who lives down in Orange County is coming up to visit for the weekend so we can go together, and my new writer friend from L.A. is going separately, and we may meet up with him, too, maybe hit the UCLA Taco Bell for lunch and go to some speakers's panels. My O.C. friend is a journalist and fiction writer who is trying to get a publisher for a novel that she wrote. I met her at the San Diego conference I went to in January. She is going to stay with me at the Sugar Shack for the weekend. (Good thing she likes cats, we have plenty.) We're just going to go to this thing and hang out and see what happens.

I did finish my book edits, and I printed out 25 copies of my ten-page sample and also 25 copies of my book synopsis, and I've got a whole stack of business cards to take with me. I did not finish my entire post-edit readthrough, and probably won't be able to before Saturday, but I'm happy with what I did get done and with the materials I have to hand out to anyone who might be interested. I was reading last night and my brain just shut down, and I went to bed at 9:45 pm. There are only so many times you can read the same book again in the same week.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Crazy Enough To Be Fun

My best friend in New York sent me an online quiz yesterday, basically asking, How crazy are you? It's pretty funny. Here's the link:

http://www.penddraig.co.uk/pen/tests/sanity.htm

I love some of the questions, like the one asking if you ever try to impress people by showing off double joints or doing weird things with your eyes. That's not insanity, it's entertainment. And I was sure to answer "yes" when it asked if I own the Holy Grail. It was totally worth throwing a sanity point away to answer that in the affirmative.

I scored 25% off my rocker, sane enough to be functional but just crazy enough to be fun. So now you know exactly what you are dealing with.

The Nearly-Ending Story

OK, I worked hard last night and confirmed all of the last set of changes to my book manuscript. I also started reading it again to make sure they all work in context, and I found a few more little things to improve, mostly streamlining punctuation. I punctuate things eccentrically sometimes, as an additional means of expression, and it works well in some instances and in others I am realizing it can be awkward. I am consciously making an effort to keep enough of it to retain the signature element that it gives my writing without having so much that it is annoying. I am going to work on this at lunchtime today and also devote a lot of time to it this evening. This is about the nine millionth draft of this book, and I realize that chronicling its daily progress is probably deadly boring to some readers, but I want to document the process of writing and publishing books, and this is all part of it. If it's any consolation to you, if you are bored reading about it, imagine doing it. That's the dream I'm living right now! It's good for me the way sit-ups are good, or wheatgrass juice, and it is fun in a nerdy way, but it is really, really tiring. I have truly earned this accomplishment. I think I am also going to ask my copyeditor friend how much he would charge me to look over it once I am done with it. It's really hard to be objective about something you are so deeply immersed in, and I think having a final pair of eyes to go over it just to look for any lingering typos is a good idea.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

The Neverending Story

I finished making all of the edits to The Flower of Knighthood about an hour ago, and printed it out. I'll start reading it again either tonight or tomorrow morning to make sure that I caught everything.

A Cycle Is Near Completion

I finished my readthrough of The Flower of Knighthood and am making the edit changes that it needs based on that proofreading cycle. I hope to finish those edits today or tomorrow and quickly go through it again once more before Friday to make sure of the manuscript before the book fair starts on Saturday morning. I’m very pleased; even with a little badly needed R&R the past two weeks, I’ve stayed basically on track with where I felt I needed to be with it. I’m highly motivated on this project, and I want to make it as good as I can and get it out into the world as soon as I can, so it’s worth all of the effort to me to ensure that that happens.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Written In Runes and Stars

I was lucky enough this past weekend to meet and interact briefly with two of my heroes, Daniel Ash and David J from the bands Bauhaus and Love and Rockets. (For more detail, see my music blog at: http://fleurdamourmusic.blogspot.com/2008/04/gothic-lolitas-forest-spirits-love-and.html) I heard they were spinning records at Amoeba Music for Record Store Day, and I headed over as a fan, not as a journalist. I love those bands, and have gotten a lot of inspiration from them over the years, and I wanted to catch the vibe from those two. That’s one reason I like doing interviews with artists. Creative people have a pronounced energy and I find it highly stimulating. Being around creatively active people helps me be so, as well, in a kind of osmosis or alchemy. It’s funny, but I just got this horoscope:

The universe has arranged for you to cross paths with individuals who'll excite and inspire you. Is this foolish? Should you be cautious? Is it simply time to take one giant step outside the box? It's all up to you -- but don't doubt your instincts for a single second.

It seems like it was part of a larger pattern for me to go this event. Another interesting aspect of the afternoon was that I went to a charity clothing sale (also detailed in the above blog post) before I went to the music store, and I picked out a little faux tortoiseshell belt that I liked. I didn’t think about it until I was walking back to the car, but it’s composed of a series of small plastic rectangles that reminded me suddenly of runestones. Then I realized that they all have a diamond motif on them, diamond as in the shape, not the stone. They DO look like a significant rune I drew recently. Anyone reading this blog regularly knows by now that I place some weight in things like astrology and I Ching and runes because I have quite a mystic worldview especially grounded in archetypal psychology, and while esoteric things can be misguided or misused, there is a basis for them in the symbolic unconscious. I’ve had life experience that shows me that things are connected, and throwing a given rune and then having the same symbol show up in my life in other ways seems like synchronicity to me and not mere coincidence, especially since I was drawn to it so unconsciously. That's always a clue that something's up. The rune was Inguz, depicted either as a diamond shape like the decorative marks on the belt

http://www.mysticgames.com/runes/Inguz.htm

or as more of an intersecting double-X motif like a DNA strand.

http://www.elexion.com/runas/readings/02.html

This is a significant symbol because it’s also an axis mundi, and represents the union of heaven and earth. I posted earlier about the recurrence of this motif in my life lately (http://parsifalshorse.blogspot.com/2008/04/tree-of-life.html), and here it is again. I also encountered the Tree of Life in the movie I watched on Friday night, My Neighbor Totoro, also an axis mundi and also detailed in the post on my music blog. I think that interesting things are starting to sprout from seeds planted long ago.

Friday, April 18, 2008

The More the Merrier

I had a great idea last night. I live in an artist's community, and my housemates are amazing. I live with people who know how to design buildings, make robots and explosions in movies, act in TV shows, create video presentations for concert tours, shred on electric guitar, and run non-profit organizations. I want to start interviewing them or letting them each publish an article on my blog, whichever they prefer. I'm still in the earliest stages of audience-building here, and my field is wide open in this format. I would love to include Q&A with these interesting people, and give them a chance to share their talents here. Stay tuned.

New Progress

I am happy to report I'm now more than two-thirds of the way through my edit readthrough on The Flower of Knighthood, so am pretty much right on target with where I wanted to be with it. I'll finish this cycle and make my edits this weekend, and make another pass through it for next weekend's book fair. I really buckled down last night and worked for several hours, and caught up to where I need to be.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Progress and Plans

I am halfway done with my current edit readthrough of The Flower of Knighthood. I spent a lot of time on it last night and this morning, so I am more on track for my deadline of having it ready next week for the LA Times book festival at UCLA. The book fair is the same weekend as the Coachella music festival, which I have to miss this year; I'd love to go, but I feel like with my current priorities, I really need to attend the publishing event. I feel good about my progress in general. I planned the first half of this year starting in December and January, and I've done everything I set out to do. I attended the San Diego writer's conference and the Santa Barbara poetry conference, took a great music industry overview class at UCLA, took seminars at local community colleges and Mediabistro, worked on my book, published a few magazine articles, started this and my music blog, and booked and paid for the Arthurian conference in France and the flight to get there. I am not planning anything else major until that is behind me, because I still have to dedicate a few hundred more dollars to hotel balances, a train ticket and other trip expenses. I also want to keep a lot of time free to get the book ready by then, and I am researching travel magazines to pitch for this once-in-a-lifetime journey, so I am not booking any more classes in the near future. I may be participating in a panel discussion at the Lightning in a Bottle festival in Santa Barbara in May, and I do hope I get the editorial project gig at the music magazine, but that's plenty to keep me busy until after the big trip in July. For the second half of the year, I am planning to purchase my computer, I need to work on editing my second book, and I hope to attend the Brooklyn Book Fair in September. I need to go to NYC anyway, so I am trying to make my own plans coincide with that event. There is also a writer's conference at Yosemite in August that I am looking at. I need to do more research to see if it would benefit me, but I love Yosemite, so it might be worth my while just for the R&R. Once I have the computer, I will prioritize pitching some new magazines and working on music.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Career 2.0

Wired Magazine is preparing a style book for the new millenium, detailed here:

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/wired-brings-style-web-journalists/story.aspx?guid=%7B98D0C925%2D82B8%2D4E1A%2DB742%2D900DDB99DCBD%7D

It will include updated information to help writers work specifically for the internet as opposed to print. I am looking forward to reading it, and I also plan to take more classes in practical web applications for writers later this year when my schedule frees up some. I am not naturally techy, but I do love the resources of the internet, and I like writing for the web. Many of my articles have been published both in print and online and I want to acquire more tools to augment my writing in on online platform. I'm not tech-oriented but I'm not a Luddite, either, and I don't mind reinventing my career; it's just reality that you need to do that. The internet is the most exciting thing that's happened in my lifetime - you can reach an unimaginably large audience with your ideas and creativity. I am grateful to avail myself of that opportunity, and excited to learn new skills.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Drafting

I did a lot more work last night and this morning on my book edits, and I plan to devote my lunchtime to the same. I am about one-third of the way into this read-through; this book is short, so it doesn't take too long to complete a pass. I have been taking public transit a lot in order to free up time to write and work on my projects - I cleared up at least ten hours a week of writing and reading time by doing that, which is awesome. That's why the second book went so quickly, and why the first one did, too, in NYC. I lived on Staten Island and spent at least three hours on the ferry and subway every day, so I learned fast that you can get a lot done if you use that time productively. I am so in love with my books. I've worked so hard on them, but it's totally worth it. I've got The Flower of Knighthood to the point where the garment is completed, it's now just about sewing on lace and sequins. It's almost ready to wear to the ball.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Reality

I have missed my self-imposed deadline for finishing another proofread of my book manuscript for The Flower of Knighthood, but I am pleased with the progress I made regardless. I underestimated how tired I was, and once I factored in working on my taxes, I realized I was being optimistic but unrealistic. After lots of sleep and a little recreation (watching Cloverfield and The Fifth Element with my housemates, eating Cold Stone ice cream and doing some web-surfing), I did get some work done on the book. It's at the point where it's totally publishable, as the tweaks I am making are just refinements and perfection of the finished piece, so that is good to see. It's amazing to me that after living with this book for several years now, I can still find improvements to make, but that's how it is. As long as I have another draft by April 25 for the LA Times book fair, I will be ok, and I think that goal is realistically do-able.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Editorial Project

I may be getting some project-based editorial work soon at a music magazine here in Los Angeles. It would be to help pull together old archive materials for an anniversary issue coming up for the publication. It's something I would be able to do on my own time, which is great. I don't want to say much until something is nailed down, but I am excited about it. The editor I spoke with was very complimentary of my writing samples, so I feel really great right now. This might throw off my self-imposed schedule for my books, but I can work around that. I am going to prioritize the read-through of The Flower of Knighthood for this weekend. This extra income would also help me more quickly meet my goal of buying the new computer that I need.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Latest Journalistic Effort - Twilight Sleep

Here is my latest article, a profile of Los Angeles/Silver Lake band Twilight Sleep published in Performer Magazine.

http://www.performermag.com/wcp.spot02.0804.php

Dionysos

The Dionysos book I am reading is called Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life, by the Hungarian classicist Carl Kerenyi. It's a very scholarly book, but is written so well that it goes fairly fast. Kerenyi was a friend of Carl Jung, always a favorite of mine, and I love classical studies. This book is remarkable. Kerenyi was a great scholar, and wrote a definitive book on the Eleusinian Mysteries, which also involved Dionysos. The god is a misunderstood one. Nowadays, he seems to stand mostly for addictive intoxication and wild behavior, witness The Doors' Jim Morrison. That was one aspect of his ethos, but he is really one version of the god archetype of a great mystery tradition, wherein the divinity of plant life is consecrated. According to Kerenyi, he is commensurate with both Zeus and Pluto, in their cthonic aspects: as a plant representative, Dionysos dwells partly underground, where seed germinates. Kerenyi found that he symbolizes or embodies the unstoppable life force that creates both plants and animals. He has a sacred marriage with a goddess, sometimes called Ariadne, sometimes Persephone or Rhea or Demeter, but the same Great Goddess no matter her name. Kerenyi also found that the Minoans on Crete were the earliest worshippers of both this god and his marriage, and that their art's bull-god and snake-goddess imagery is directly related to him, as the symbols of spermatozoa, embryo and full-grown man that mark the god's evolution in the myths associated with him.

One of the most striking things about this text is that in the introduction, Kerenyi says that he got the idea for the book in 1931. It was not published until 1976, three years after the author's death. Apparently he was working on it until near his demise. That is inspiration for the slowest among us - forty-five years is a long time for one project, but worth it if it's completed in the end. I sometimes feel like my books have taken nearly that long, but it's only been ten years since I started on them. One of my favorite things Carl Jung ever said was in response to a question. I forget what the person wanted to know, but Jung said in reply, "I recommend a course of study of several years." In other words, find your own answer, coupled with a warning that it would take a while to do so. I've thought of that many times, and used it to motivate myself through some very slow patches of research and writing.

Goals Progress

I set a goal for myself of April 10 to finish my next readthrough of The Flower of Knighthood, and I may or may not make that. I realized I was exhausted and took some time to rest, and I have had a lot going on the last few days that wasn't very fun. I did not start back on the book until this morning, but I gave myself the 10th as an early deadline, and as long as I read it by the 15th, I am going to be all right. The intro already sounds better with the edits I made, but we'll see once I really get into it.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Thank You Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Michael, Gabriel, Dionysos and Whoever Else Helped With This Airline Ticket - Paris is Again a Go

I finally got my e-ticket confirmation for my flight to Paris for the conference. I am so grateful. I even got great seat assignments for all four travel segments, mostly on the row by the emergency exit with lots more legroom. It pays to book early. I somehow have trip insurance included, which is also great. I am going to call the airline directly and confirm that they have me in their system, just to be on the safe side, and then I can move forward with the rest of my trip-planning activities. I received another email yesterday from the first broker saying my charge did not go through and I need to call them immediately. Well, gee, I've been trying to do that for three days. They'll just have to excuse me, because I am done with it. If they give me any problems, I have all the documentation of the several emails I sent them while on hold trying to pay them once I got the fraud protection lifted, the emails to which they never responded and the held calls they never picked up; whatever to them, good riddance. I am so glad I did not get that flight, because if it was that hard trying to get through to them to give them money, imagine what it would have been like if I actually had a problem and got stranded somewhere. No thank you.

Friday, April 4, 2008

The Tree of Life

An active archetype in my life right now is the axis mundi, the central pole of creation that is symbolized in forms as various as mountains, diamonds, church steeples, lotus stems and the shamanic World Tree. It's a cosmic axis point that connects opposites: the realms of spirit and matter, and the masculine and feminine principles, fundamentally. The symbol is cropping up everywhere for me lately. I've seen numerous tree motifs in things that I am reading or otherwise attracted to. I've also recently drawn a very remarkable rune, Inguz, the rune of completion, whose sigil is a linear representation of the union that the axis mundi symbolizes. It's a very good sign to keep seeing indicators of this archetype. It means that things are integrating in my psyche at a deep level, with results in the outer world hopefully to follow soon. I'll write more about this later; I have a thread of correspondence going on about it with my scientist housemate, and I'll revisit the topic as the skein progresses. It seems that more people are getting involved, too, the collective unconscious busily at work as it always is.

Reason and Soul

One really intelligent thing that was mentioned in the "Talking to God" workshop I attended at the poetry conference the other day was something the instructor said: "If you talk to God, it's called prayer. If God talks to you, it's called psychosis." That's the truth of our modern era. I get called crazy or stupid all the time because I am very spiritual. The atheist lady who attended the same workshop and criticized religion had an attitude very prevalent in those of her philosophical persuasion. It seems very common to feel that reason and belief in God are diametrically opposed and cannot coexist, ergo, if one believes in God, something that cannot be proved by reason alone, that one must be foolish or insane. I don't believe in God because I am naive or unstable, I believe in God because I see clear evidence on an ongoing basis that He is real, and very active in my life. I write about art and I make art, and to me art and God are inseparable. The creative urge itself is sacred, and was seen as such by the ancients. I am glad that we had the age of enlightenment and outgrew at least some of the modes of the past, but now we need to outgrow the modern reliance on reason alone. We have two halves to our brains, one which processes information in a rational and linear way and one which does - something else. It's the "something else" where God comes through for me. He also usually shows up through the back door, like in this ticketing nightmare - I tried to do something straighforward and it degenerated into chaos, but the chaos proved to be fertile. I got onto the flight He wants me on. I am going to this conference to try to advance the cause of my King Arthur books, and in my Parsifal, the Holy Grail draws mankind to itself in an unbroken circle. "Brotherly love" is a pretty good summation of that theme. The spiritual book I am reading where I saw the word "Philadelphos" is about the Greek god Dionysos. One of the places I plan to visit in France is St. Denis, the seat of the royal chapel during the Middle Ages. I wrote a paper about it in college, and found out in my trip research that inhabitants of the village are called "Dionysiens." It could not be clearer to me that this is a pattern to which I need to pay attention. That is how God talks to me, call me crazy all you want. The cup itself, the Grail, has origins in Eastern religions of antiquity. The cup of Dionysos is similar in function - the cup is always a metaphor for whole consciousness, and I see God as transcendent consciousness. My experiences with God are an interaction between the real world and the psychological realm - inner and outer worlds interact. Archetypes such as this sacred cup are the indicators of that interaction.

The flip side of being as spiritual as I am in this modern world is that while I get denigrated and dismissed a lot, I also get complimented for speaking up by people who have experiences similar to mine. I tend to hang out with like-minded people and seek out the kinds of environments that foster spiritual experiences. I've been to churches, cathedrals, synagogues, mosques, Hindu and Buddhist temples, non-denominational retreats, Native American ceremonies, pagan services and so forth. I have found God at all of them because I was looking for Him. I am interested in religion and theology in general and how it interacts with art. I have written primarily about art in my journalism, and spirituality in my personal writing including the books and my music. I am starting to bring them together, mostly through this blog at the moment, and I want to continue to do so, because that marriage is where my greatest opportunities for self-development lie.

The sad thing about the very vocal atheist I met last weekend was that she was clearly wounded by patriarchy, not by religion. Without going into the particulars of her life, she had a very bad experience early in life with a male member of the clergy which colored her subsequent view of God and religion. She felt it was all worthless after that, because if a "man of God" could be so heartless, it must all be a crock. That is understandable but regrettable. A man, or a manmade system of religion, is not the same thing as God, not at all. And the misbehavior of one man should not negate millenia of positive human experiences with theological pursuits. I also often get attacked for my positions about religion because there are those who hold that religion has been responsible for many and horrible wars. I see their point, but the fact that wars have been fought in the name of religion does not mean that religion is to blame - humans fight the wars and humans are to blame. Wars are fought over power and resources. Religion is a cover for that. Saying that a war is backed by divine purpose or that one's foe is demonic makes one's aggressive position pretty much unassailable, doesn't it? To use God or religion in that manner is an abomination, to use a Biblical-sounding word of condemnation. Anyone who would use God as an impetus for a war doesn't really believe in God at all, or they could not commit something so terrible in the name of what is widely perceived as the highest worth. The problem is not God or religion - the problem is mankind's need for domination and control of one another. That is the purest abomination, and the least human thing about us. It is an animal characteristic, a trait found in the primates from whom we evolved. The world religions can be used to advance those worst traits when applied coercively, but when used properly, they also offer means to work one's way out of the ego-driven mindset by increasing consciousness, the factor that lifts us out of a purely animal existence. To ignore that truth is in fact the mindless position. It's easier to blame religion than to look the awful truth of the worst side of our nature full in the face, but it's cowardly to take that easy way out. The base nature cannot be transcended until it is known. None of the churches I've been to has been perfect. I've left some because of major dysfucntion, but again that had nothing to do with religion and everything to do with personal behavior and attitudes, warfare on an individual level rather than a societal one. It's also very interesting to me that in modern churches and temples, the ancient texts are read and the traditions followed, but many people even amongst those practicing religion on a regular basis are threatened when God comes too close. It's one thing to read about prophets in the Old Testament or Koran experiencing revelation and acting upon it. It would be something else entirely if a real person living now were to say that they are experiencing something similar. One would be almost universally denounced for doing so, instantly labelled a lunatic or seen as some kind of venal attention-seeker. It's somehow believable to read about God talking to those people, back then, far away, as He is recounted in the Torah to have done on the Exodus. It's just not ok to admit it if you listen for that kind of guidance now.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Vive Le Vive

I am happy to report that my purchase for the second, connecting flight to Paris went through, according to my online banking. I am now just waiting for the vendor to send an email confirmation of the purchase and the flight reservation. To be safe, I am also going to call the airline directly to confirm my reservation and will call my bank, too, to make sure they see it as a completed transaction. I may still have some cleanup on that first fiasco (the reservation for the first flight was still in the airline's system as of last night, though showing as unpaid, and I had to put a stop payment on that charge just to set my mind at ease after being unable to reach the ticket broker by any rational means), but at least I will have something booked for sure.

I try to stay away from tedious and everyday topics on this blog, because I hate reading someone else's blog where they talk about what they had for dinner or something equally mundane, but I also want to cover anything that impacts my writing, and this conference seems really important to my career. It's important to overcome obstacles, and this was a big hurdle. Tedious and boring does not begin to describe sitting on hold on the phone all afternoon with what is apparently some kind of shell company in an effort to get a ticket sale completed, with no response. As a writer, I am not wealthy, and I have to exploit my resources to the fullest, which is why I went for the cheapest fare I could find, and thought I had gotten a great deal from a reputable source. That turned out to be wrong. I actually ended up spending a little less money on the second flight, because it was not a non-stop, and I had not even really looked at those, because I had a bad experience once with almost missing a plane. However, the universe is mysterious and I think that the flight I ended up on is the one I was supposed to take. It stops in Philadelphia for a layover. I am working my way through a very spiritually-oriented book at the moment, and when I got home after arranging my flight, I was reading and immediately came across the Greek word, "Philadelphos." Not a very common word, is it? When I told my friend about the synchronicity, he also reminded me that he recently wrote a short story that takes place in Philadelphia. He had sent it to me, and I read it, but I had forgotten all about it until he said that. I also picked up my mail last night and there was an unsolicited letter that originated in Philadelphia. Patterns like this are tao, flow, whatever you want to call it. It pays not to fight the stream, but just to go along with it. I also saw something online during all of this that said "everything is right on track," so I am okay with this outcome. Looking at the itinerary realistically, too, aside from all metaphysical concerns, a stop on the East Coast after a five-hour flight doesn't seem like such a bad idea before getting back on a plane for another seven hours. I also witnessed 9-11 firsthand from the Staten Island ferry, and the thought of how much fuel is on a plane that flies straight from Los Angeles to Paris without stopping is a little disconcerting to me.

Vaya Con Dios, Vive

Well, I do think I lost that cheap fare, but I still have not confirmed that because I have tried for three hours via phone and email to reach the ticket broker, and they can't be bothered to answer me. I called the airline directly and they told me that my reservation was still in the system, but that they doubted I could still get the preferred rate, since almost 24 hours has passed. I sent a cancellation to the broker, maybe that will get their attention. I found another rate at a different online broker, assuredly a more reputable one; unfortunately it's not on a non-stop like the first one, but it's not too horrible. I took a big chance and went ahead and booked it. I am not letting anything stop me from going to this conference.

Maybe Not So Vive

I am in fraud protection hell. My bank put a hold on my online airline ticket purchase because it red-flagged their fraud profile, and now I am not sure if I am going to even get this ticket to Paris, let alone at the good rate I reserved. I fixed the bank issue and I am trying to get through to the ticket broker via phone and email, with no luck. My reservation is still in the broker's system, and also in the airline's but for how long, I have no idea, and I don't know if that holds the ticket price. I am willing to bet it does not.

A Career In Freelance Writing Is As Risky As It Sounds

This is a really good article about freelance writing, and how and why it has become so hard to make a living doing it. The word rates have not increased in twenty years, nineteen national publications have closed their doors since 2000, and most publications have cut staff drastically so that the competition for what spots remain is cutthroat. Many of those former staff people upon losing permanent positions were dumped straight into the freelance market, increasing competition there as well. The old print business models have failed, but no one has really figured out the internet yet in terms of how to generate similar revenues to what print could in the past. My personal career has been impacted by the dot-bomb, 9-11 and the collapse of the music industry. I also lived in NYC in the mid-to-late nineties when the drastic industry changes started to come in, so I have my own war stories. It's easy when you are young and working in somewhat of a vacuum to think that it is just you having problems, but then you talk to other writers and learn you were all part of a massive cultural shift. It's funny, I did some web writing last decade, and it was looked down on as not being as good as print, as this article says. Now it seems prescient, and I am glad I have early new media in my portfolio. And many of the magazines I could not get into back then as a fledgling writer are long gone - I outlasted them.

I found this link on Mediabistro, so I must give them credit for discovering it.

http://www.observer.com/2008/mag-hell-0?page=0%2C0

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Vive La France!

I just got an email alert for a flight to Paris that I can afford, and I grabbed it. I am now confirmed for the King Arthur conference in July. I already booked the conference and reserved accomodations in Paris and in Rennes where the event will take place, and all I have to do now is book the TGV (the train) from Paris to Brittany and back, and save up for food, souvenirs, etc. I can't wait. I have never been to France, and I have always wanted to go. I will be visiting all of these things while I am there:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rennes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Saint_Michel

http://www.ville-avranches.fr/site-scriptorial/scriptorial-gb-projet.htm

http://www.francerama.com/escapades/broceliande/en/index.htm

http://www.louvre.fr/llv/commun/home.jsp?bmLocale=en

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sainte-Chapelle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Denis

Organizational Psychology

I woke up this morning thinking that I want to make a spreadsheet of goals I have for the rest of this year and beyond. I need to get really minutely organized on some of my projects because they are tediously detail-oriented and have specific steps that I need to follow in order to actualize them. The most obvious of those is my aim to publish The Flower of Knighthood as soon as is humanly possible. I desperately need closure on that project, not that I have not enjoyed making the book, but it has gone on for years and I want it to be real. I need to follow up on the publishing leads I do have, research more potential publishers, go over the self-publishing materials I received from the workshop I took a few weeks ago, and make a decision. I am also trying to attend the Arthurian conference in France in July and that will take some additional planning on top of what I have already done. I need a new laptop, too, and I know which one I want: an Apple Mac Book Pro. It's not cheap, and I need to generate some additional income in order to get it in the near future. I need to get cracking and publish some more articles to cover that expense. I am angling to write at least one arts and culture travel piece to gain some income from the France trip and offset some of my costs for that, too. I can write it off next year, but I'd like to get some money back from it sooner if I can. I also want to try to at least blog about the book festival coming up at UCLA, and I'd love to land a paying piece about it, as well. I have declared a moratorium on all classes and workshops (except free ones) until I pay for my plane ticket to Paris and my laptop. I am also refusing to take on any projects in the next couple of months other than those which will directly serve the above goals.

Immediate Goals

The one really great thing I got out of this conference was that I pushed myself to finish my edits to The Flower of Knighthood in order to have a manuscript to take with me, even though I ended up not showing it to anyone there. I am setting a goal for myself of April 10 to finish a read-through of what I accomplished with that draft, and a second goal of April 25 to finish any further edits it may need. I picked the second date because the L.A. Times Festival of Books occurs the weekend of April 26-27 at UCLA and I want to take my manuscript to that and hopefully talk to some people about it. There are dozens of publisher's booths at the festival and many speakers and events. I went last year but was horribly sick, and it was unseasonably (and unreasonably) hot, and I had to bail after about an hour. It was truly a dreadful experience. I was too sick even to talk to people, scary sick from mold exposure I got in New Orleans while doing hurricane recovery work a week or two before. It may be just as well. I thought my book was ready at that point, and I found I was wrong about that. If it is not ready right now, it is close enough.