I’m taking a class with D. D. Scott about getting inspired, and we did a fun exercise where we named our muses. Pick out that spark inside ourselves that gives us ideas, and think about what feeds it. What makes him or her excited and what’s a total turnoff? What do they do for fun and what music do they like? D. D. calls her muses the Carrie Squad, in reference to the characters on Sex and the City—you don’t have to limit yourself to one. Here are some of my girls in the basement:

Ann the Intrepid. She’s a Tarzan for the snowy climes, who likes hiking, skiing, and adventures. Complications! Crisis! Cousins-in-law! Never fear, Ann is here, with trusty jacknife and compass. She’s looking for a reason to buy a blow torch. Singing? Norwegian folk choirs, who belt it out at volumes that can be heard on the other side of the fjord. This muse likes new tools, new projects, brainstorming, and clearly identified problems to attack. She has no patience for little fiddly bits, indecision, need for sales pitches, or fear of the unknown.

Yolanda the Sensualist. She signed us up for belly dancing classes and spends an unfortunate amount of money on scented candles, wine, bubble bath, and wacky stockings. She is a huge fan of the rococo period in art (think naked cherubs and gold leaf) and Ray Charles. Bling? Oh god, yes, although fortunately cubic zirconias are very sparkly. She has no patience at all, and is lounging around elsewhere if there’s any heavy lifting going on.

Yoopsy Topsy the Zaftig Hatmaker. Cheery, optimistic, good time gal. Loves puns and wordplay, bright colors, asymmetry, nutty clothes. Music: When Harry Met Sally soundtrack (big band/swing music mixed to be bigger, brassier, and faster). Irritations: tastefulness (black is for bank robbers) and bookkeeping.

So it’s a brash crew, disinclined to be quiet and pretty easy to entertain even with stuff I can find around the house. However, I notice that none of these muses is interested in nose-to-the-grindstone follow-through. That’s a task for different muscles—or maybe I need to recruit an Anita the Accountant to this party.

More Värttinä, because I love them so.
Äijö
Sulhassii
Laiska

Chapter 4

The story began at Alanna Coca’s blog.

Anthony growled a low warning and hoped the wolves would keep their distance. It would be scary enough for any human to have the pack circling. And this one was a nonbeliever—if anybody decided to shift before taking on the cat, Jessica’s night was about to get even more difficult.

Unfortunately, a lot depended on Katherina. She backed off when she realized how many wolves there were but she hadn’t hidden her tail. The way she purred and spat as she taunted Anthony, he wondered how tight a grip she had on her form; she’d made it clear that she didn’t care about Jessica.

He mirrored her movement around the clearing, circling so Katherina was no longer between him and the human. Katherina’s eyes flicked from side to side, in counterpoint to her tail, locating the wolves who hadn’t yet shown themselves.

I do from time to time catch a current TV show* or a movie that’s in theaters now, and over winter break I gorged. There are plenty of full-on reviews and summaries around the Web; here I’d like to highlight some interesting moments in the banquet.

Up in the Air. George Clooney plays a man who travels constantly for his job with an organization that’s contracted by companies to do the actual firing when they downsize. Clooney plays it subtle: he’s in nearly every scene of the movie, and he could have been exhausting to watch. Instead the onion is peeled. He delivers the HR speak calmly and earnestly—does he believe it? Does he know the impact? What does he want? He smiles at most of what happens, but the low-key delivery ends up saying a lot. In other words, the movie shows rather than tells.

I accidentally did some thematic reading this week: Blind Descent, by Neveda Barr, followed by Bulletproof Texas, by Kay Thomas. Both are mysteries that figure largely around caves. Barr writes a series that takes place in the national parks, and this one is in Lechuguilla cave in Carlsbad Caverns park. I didn’t realize that Thomas’s book also involved a cave, but on the first page the characters make a discovery that they think may be on a scale of Lechuguilla. Both books have main characters who are terrified by dark, enclosed spaces, and coping with their fear figures throughout the stories.

I admit it—whatever the equivalent of “Trekkie” is for The X Files, I was one of them. I thought Mulder was hot and Scully was smart; I taped reruns, went to the movie when it came out in 1998, and bought the DVD. Last summer, I was excited to discover that a second movie was being made, but I managed to miss it when it came out. So it was with a sense of vacation well and truly started when I brought the DVD home to see at last.

A lot has changed, though—at least in TV land—since the days when a paranormal investigator like Mulder would be relegated to a basement office at the FBI.

I was one of four winners of a contest to write a “life story” in five parts that could each be “tweeted”—that is, they’re 140 characters or shorter. My story, “He Hardly Remembers the Crisis from Childhood,” is being posted this week (December 28—January 1).

You can go the suspenseful route and read one each day on Nanoism’s Twitter page (you don’t have to be a Twitter user to read this), or you can wait until Friday and see the whole thing on their blog.

This is one of the prettiest Christmas carols I know, and I love the effect even when performed in two very different styles.

Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming

It’s a very old song, and it’s a toss up whether the traditional feel is better conveyed by a sweet and ethereal children’s choir or a costumed madrigal group.

Pete Seeger sings by himself, accompanied by a banjo. When you click through, choose track 10 and a new window will pop up to play the song.

Either style reinforces the improbability of the event the song describes: a flower that blooms in the winter.

Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming
from tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse’s lineage coming,
as those of old have sung.
It came, a floweret bright,
amid the cold of winter,
when half spent was the night.

If you go for the Gerber baby type, I come from a family of very cute babies. For a variety of reasons, it’s not something the relatives comment on, which, blissfully—perhaps especially for a girl—meant a youth engaged in action, not image. The grandparents and aunts and parents talked up deeds (working hard, tucking in your shirt) rather than genetic inheritance (being tall or smart, having a marketable ratio of long-twitch to short-twitch muscle), and largely they were successful. I only learned how to do makeup after being in community theater, and after meeting someone, I can far more readily tell you, say, their stand on gender roles than their eye color.

I didn’t blog much about how it was going during November because I was trying to be diligent about working on the novel. If you want to get a feel for the zeitgeist, though, check out Doyce Testerman’s blog.

Having a gang of fellow travelers helped me stay in motion more than I realized it could, and the Internet made them available 24/7 when I needed another prod. I’m glad to have fallen in with the right crowd on Twitter who offer up conversation and enthusiasm 140 characters at a time, especially @karenquah (who also did some blogging about NaNo), @Scribblerati (who built a whole website where writers can hang out), @uppington (for having done it before and showing us what to do next), @WriteAdvantage (who talks about editing and reminds me I know something about this), @catepolacek, @TamaraNKitties, @KeriStevens, @CraigCottingham, @count_01, @merrileefaber, @jennspiller, @silverwriter, @vdemetros, @hdgrogan, @jessrosenbooks, @marybrebner, @boudreaufreret, @AlannaCoca, @jhtatroe, and @BCB_.

Oy vey, and Scott, who remains untempted by Twitter (but did you know half my Facebook peeps think you’re my brother—which means I get to read your novel, right?).

And thanks to my unflagging townie writing peeps, especially Phil, Deni, and Amy. I am reading for brainstorming any time, any place, as long as we can eat croissants there.

At some point, from some position, I'll be able to see a path through this thing

I did it. The story is there. The pacing is a disaster; one of the scenes I wrote twice because I changed my mind about where it should appear, a third of the characters don’t have names, and around the 20th I quit updating my outline. I always have to go back and write in more so you know things like the hero has brown hair, or the conversation took place in a subway car . . . but . . . but . . . the main and most of the minor pieces are there.

Used to be I thought 500 words in a day was good; 800 words was terrific. During NaNo I had to average 1,667, and during Thanksgiving break I logged 3,500 a couple days to make the deadline. It was hard; it took me all day, some days, and I remember at least six days of hitting my target and thinking, “I have no idea what I’m going to write tomorrow.”