In the Labyrinth

Is It Even Possible To Organize One's Life?

This blog/website combines the various types of my creative work: In the Labyrinth: the main blog for my ongoing writing life, which often includes research notes (easier to find them all in one place), events, books, and essays. Nature and Family: a biographical blog for family, present, and past, both maternal and paternal and contemporary life, wrapped up in our universal love of nature and travel. Handcrafted: for all my textile work and the beautiful textiles from the generations of women in my family. My published work includes: About the Novels, Articles and Essays, and Short Fiction & Poetry. There are also side-bar buttons to help navigate, which I need as this world of mine keeps growing. 

When Struck by Fear of Writing, Refer To The Masters For Help

In anxious moments while working on the current novel, I turn for assistance to a 1968 Paris Review interview with the great Canadian author Robertson Davies, where he describes his writing process, a laborious and methodical investigation long before the narrative is written.

"I am at the moment winding up to write another novel, and when I say “winding up,” I mean I am making notes and plans and perpetually building up what I will eventually write; that is how I work. I make very, very careful plans and a great many notes—so many notes indeed that sometimes they are as long or longer than the eventual book. And sketches of characters and suggestions and references to things that will be useful. All that takes a long time. Getting to work on a new novel is a dismal business, for the beginnings never seem to get any easier with the passing of time. I toil like a swimmer who feels himself about to sink beneath the waves at any moment. Like all my novels, this one began with quite a simple idea, but as I work on it, a mass of complexities assert themselves, and I have to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by extraneous detail. But then—at least the way I work—when you begin to write, you can write quite briskly because you have done all the preparatory work beforehand. I hope it turns out well. But with novels, like cakes, you never know. Even when I finish a book, I’m never sure whether it is good or rubbish."

So, I am making furious notes, plotting, character studies, and the rest -- and I pray the cake will hold. And that will be good. And can I just add, that I love even more that Davies used a food analogy -- another habit of my family when talking about literature that is close to my heart.

The Marginalia of Flowers

These lovely Medieval flowers are always swoon-worthy in the margins of various Book of Hours, sometimes in medical texts, sometimes in gardening books. I can never get enough of looking at these beautiful images and feeling inspired, mostly to embroider May Morris-style textiles. They are helpful when writing historical fiction, for they reveal the unique preoccupation with flowers, each of which has medical and social significance. It is just those small details that provide a certain weight and body to describe a place, an action taken, a letter written, or the evolution of a plot based on the underlying language of flowers.

Startling Moments from Basile That Still Ring True

I am having a wonderful time reading 16th-century Basile's splendid introductions to stories in his Tales of Tales. And while the tales are wicked-wonderful, these observations on the human condition have me enthralled -- I suspect because they remain surprisingly current. Plus ça change...

"...artisans leave their shops, merchants their trade, lawyers their cases, shopkeepers their businesses to go with open mouth to the barber shops and circle of gossipers to hear false news, invented notices, fabricated news sheets."   Basile describes this as a pleasant activity, listening to fabricated stories and tales and passing the time. But in this day and age, I went first to the current misuse of story, not to distract us entertainingly, but to politicize, weaponize, and invent to thwart one's public enemies. 

"We see crooked and judge straight, but it is so difficult to apply it that few human judgments hit the nail on the head... " Basile, IV, 9, The Crow. 16th c.

 

"Ingratitude, ladies, is a rusty nail which, hammered into the tree of courtesy, makes it dry up; it is a broken drain which wets and weakens the foundations of affection; it is soot which, falling into the cooking pot of friendship takes away fragrance and flavor." Basile "Cagliuso."