The Book I've been Reading

“Edgar Allan Poe Complete Tales and Poems” is what I’ve been reading lately. Another eighteenth birthday gift it contains 73 short stories and 48 poems. So far I’ve read four of the short stories so I’ve barely managed to scratch the surface, but I think it’s a must have: Edgar Allen Poe is a great writer and he writes on a variety of subjects, and has a vast vocabulary, it keeps me thinking and I do love it. So: “Edgar Allan Poe Complete Tales and Poems” not for the simpleminded or the bigheaded: you have to be selfless enough to go and pick up a dictionary.

Anne Boleyn's Execution Anniversary

For my eighteenth birthday I got a history book called “The Lady in the Tower – The Fall of Anne Boleyn” by Alison Weir. Words cannot describe how thrilled I was to see it. I’m enthralled with English history, but especially that of the Tudor dynasty. It’s so much more intriguing than a soap opera because it actually happened. Alison Weir is an excellent historian, and while I don’t always agree with her conclusions, she always includes other opinions and theories of other historians and why they feel that way, and it is all wonderfully written. The combination of a great writer/historian and one of the most dramatic moments of English history equals a great book.

 

Anne Boleyn

I believe Queen Anne was convicted on trumped up charges by her enemies for her opinions on religious reforms. She was reputed for her brilliant mind and offended many who would have been her friends with her stubborn nature and sharp tongue. Queen Anne had always had a strong influence on her husband Henry VIII, making her an even bigger problem with her political adversaries. Evidence and documentation shows that even in the weeks leading up to her arrest, she still wielded some power over King Henry. However, in her failing to bare the King her husband and her country with a living son, she lost a lot of her much-needed royal favor.

Elizabeth

Anne’s enemies needed to find a way to bring down her and her faction in a swift and single blow that would be so terrify that no one would dare say “nay” for fear of their own necks, and good enough to convince the easily influenced Henry, who had already set his eyes on Jane Seymour. History shows that Anne’s enemies succeeded. Ever the court flirt, she unwittingly handed her enemies a way to destroy her and her entire faction so effectively and thoroughly that to even speak Anne Boleyn’s name for the remainder of Henry VII’s reign and into that of his son’s Edwards, Lady Jane Grey, and Mary I was ill-advised. It was not until Elizabeth I, Anne’s daughter, was crowned Queen, that Anne was spoken of openly in favorable tones.

"Anne Boleyn in the Tower"

After she was convicted of treason by way of plotting the king’s death and committing adultery with her co-conspirators:
Sir Henry Norris, Sir William Brereton, Sir Frances Weston, (all of whom were close friends of Anne’s and had the king’s ear on many issues) and Mark Smeaton (Henry VIII’s lute player), and incest with her own brother Lord Rochford, her husband managed to get an annulment of their marriage. Yes, an annulment, meaning that the marriage between Henry and Anne was never lawful, which means Anne couldn’t possibly have committed adultery if they weren’t married. That didn’t stop her from going to the scaffold and dying by way of the sword on May 19, 1536, for adultery, now did it?

Anne Boleyn
Painted around the time of her fall.

Never admitting her guilt, Anne all but denied it on the scaffold when she was making her last confession: her last chance to seek forgiveness before meeting her maker, and save her soul. Why she didn’t out-and-out denied it is because she knew by doing so she might provoke those who had condemned her to take it out on her cherished daughter Elizabeth.

 

Memorial for Queen Anne

Every year, since the 1960’s, on the anniversary of her death, anonymous persons order red roses to be placed on the memorial plaque in St. Peter ad Vincula which is said to mark the place where Anne’s body lies. However, a number of historians now believe that spot actually marks the where Katherine Howard (Henry VIII fifth wife) lies, and Anne’s body is beneath the memorial for Lady Rochford (who acted as go-between for Katherine Howard and her lover, and lost her head for it. It was also Lady Rochford’s testimony against her husband [George Boleyn] and Anne that was the primary evidence used to prove that Anne had committed incest with her brother. On the scaffold, Lady Rochford admitted that her testimony against her husband and sister in-law Anne was a lie). 

Henry VIII

Anne, handmaiden to Katherine of Aragon, Henry VIII first wife, was raised up to be Queen, and then she was brought back down by the same men who raised her up and her handmaiden Jane Seymour. I find it intriguing that they never took Anne’s title of “Queen” away. Her coronation papers to become queen were not based upon her marriage to Henry, and they were never undone, and she went to the scaffold a queen. It is because of her infamous fall that we all get a little feeling of foreboding when we hear anyone reference the Tower of London, in which Anne was locked in the very rooms she slept in as she awaited her coronation to become queen, and later her daughter Elizabeth would be locked in those same rooms as she awaited her own fate by the hand of her sister Mary I.

  I find it eerie that I finished “The Lady in the Tower - The Fall of Anne Boleyn” on the 475^th anniversary of Queen Anne’s death, so eerie in fact that I felt I had to share the fact with everyone.

Anne Boleyn

Poems by Emily Dickinson

I have been keeping a small book of Emily Dickinson’s poetry by my computer: I read a bit while I’m waiting of something to load up, and I’ve come to find that I can read the exact same poem on two different days and sometimes I can understand what she is

trying to say better than other times. I think it has everything to do with my mood. If the poem is subtly rebellious to the higher order of things and I am in a similar state of mind I will pick up her meaning a lot better than if I were at peace with the world and was trying to read the same poem, in which case I will have trouble understanding its meaning.

  To write poetry that is entirely written with raw emotion through symbolism is an incredibly difficult task (I know because I’ve tried). While poets sometimes frustrate me “Why can’t they just say what they mean straight out instead of using ridiculous, and overly decorated and exaggerated innuendos?” However I do recognize that reading and writing such poetry does exercise one’s mind, and expands one’s vocabulary as well.

  So, I shall keep Emily Dickinson beside my computer, besides it’s a good way to spend the time as pointless and life sucking advertisements load onto my server screen.

Lady Jane Grey

"Innocent Traitor; A Novel of Lady Jane Grey" by Alison Weir is the book I have been reading lately. Alison Weir is an excellent writer and historian who paints a very vivid setting of the mid 1500's in the political world of the time.

Lady Jane Grey lived a very short and all references agree - wretched life. As a young girl, she was no doubt kept in the dark about much of the plans that were made about her own life until deals were made and the contracts sealed. in order to paint the full picture of the intertwined religious and political structure and power struggles surrounding her life, we must look beyond what she knew and what others did concerning her. Alison Weir weaves and excellent story consisting of all the view points of the people who made the decisions that brought about Lady Jane's life course to a tragic end.

My Movie Grievances

Maybe I’m weird, and out of the loop, but I don’t care, I can’t get this issue out of my head.
Yesterday we watched “Nowhere Boy” a movie about John Lennon’s adolescence. I mostly
enjoyed the movie; it was well put together, and well told. The key word in that statement is “mostly”. They had a sex scene that I felt was completely unnecessary, and didn’t contribute to the story in any way, shape or form; if anything it decreased the quality of the movie as a whole. We get it, John messed around a lot. We know this. The whole world knows this; they really didn’t need to do that.
That’s my standing point for all movies, TV shows, and even books: you don’t need it. People who are into that kind of thing have plenty of romance novels and pornography to keep them entertained; they don’t need to put it in my movies too. People, like myself, who watch movies for the acting and the story, don’t need (or want) to see that. We get it. The camera can phase out and go onto a different scene before clothes start hitting the floor, really, really.
The same goes for action scenes. Some of them go on way too long. We get it, they’re fighting…now what. Things like that in real life rarely last very long. Either you’re a good fighter, or you’re not. Luck is on your side, or it isn’t. That’s the way it really goes.
Give me a more expanded and twisted plot; more things going on in the story. You might say that I’ll like things that the British come out with. No. Things that could be summed up in two minutes take them twenty minutes. They even make an exciting plot,like a worldwide epidemic take forever: Okay, main character is fine, world is sick…view the government people panicking…view other people who aren’t important panicking……view the main character in her everyday life as people around the world are becoming ill……see main character’s dysfunctional family…see the government panicking again…see main character start to cough…see main character’s best friend get sick…see dysfunctional family again…main character’s husband starts to wonder if she is sick.
At this pace I have grown old and died before we find out if the main character has the same illness as everyone else, or if she just has a cold and is somehow immune to the disease.
As a result there are only a couple of movies and TV shows that I enjoy completely. Maybe I’m just picky…Nah, the sex scenes are still unnecessary.

"The Road Less Traveled"

Now, I read a lot….I know big shocker “A writer that reads a lot? Get out of here!” No really. (It’s kind of like being Irish and having a drinking problem; it goes without saying doesn’t it? If you’re Irish and you don’t have a drinking problem, then you can go ahead and mention it, otherwise, you don’t really have to say anything.) But, I do, I read a lot, and I love to read. It has become my pet project to read all of the books on Mama’s bookshelf, and, like me, she’s a writer, and thereby she’s a big reader too. So, I've set myself quite a big project.


I’ve begun to read a book called “The Road Less Traveled” written by M. Scott Peck., M.D. It’s a pretty heavy book and it makes me stop and think, and I love to think, so I’m thoroughly enjoying this book. The main reason behind me reading this book is so that I can read (and understand) the sequel “People of The Lie” also written by Scott Peck. The reason behind my desire to read the sequel, is that it just kind of jumped out at me. If you are a big reader then you know the feeling when you walk into a book store, and (after you’ve calmed yourself down from the excitement brought on by all these books!!) you start looking at some of the book titles, some books just jump out and scream “Read me! Read me! Put down that crappy novel you’re holding and PICK ME!!!” Well, that’s what “People of The Lie” kind of did for me, except this time I wasn’t in the books store, I was in my living room, and I wasn’t holding a crappy novel, or even reading one for that matter (I was reading “Doc Holiday, The Life, The Legend” by Gary L. Robert, which could be considered crappy for Robert’s inability to write a story in a smooth and flowing manner, I suppose) but I have decided to set that one aside for now, until such a time that Scott Peck’s writing can no longer hold my attention. (I’m ADD in case you haven’t been able to interpret that from my writing yet.)

My Novel

Achievement
Yesterday I finally hit two hundred pages for my novel “Survival”. It was something that I never thought would happen at any point in the process of writing this story.

In the Beginning
It started out as a little imaginary life of four friends knocking around in New York City, which came to me one time as I was day dreaming, as we storytellers are prone to do. It didn’t have a plot, story line or anything else that made it stand out as something worth continuing. A large number of my stories came from daydreaming, and to sort out the good and the bad and the ugly, I tend to stick with the ones that have some sort of direction when I first dream them up, rather than having to start with almost nothing, and having nowhere to go. This daydream however, I remember was a particularly lengthy one, and even though there was no plot or direction, I couldn’t find a good excuse to pass it up, because by the time my daydreaming session was over, I had completely lost my heart and soul to these characters.
I hesitated however, I didn’t rush over to the notepad, or to my laptop as many writers claim to do right after they finish their astounding dream that was the start of a story that earned them $10 million overnight. No, I was nervous, the thought of taking the time to write down something that I the creator, had absolutely no idea, or a whisper of an idea of where this tale would lead, was frightening. I was an idiot. To excuse my imbecility, I had only written two books, and had never had experienced the phenomena of a story taking a life of its own, with little or no encouragement by us supposed “artists”. I should have shown some back bone and gotten started right away, and let it take me where it was going to take me. But I didn’t. Which brings up the question, if I had started right away, would it have turned into the story that it has become now? Would it have been better, or worse? We shall never know, but I can honestly say that I have absolutely no complaints about this manuscript, though it is far from being finished, I have no complaints as of yet. (I’m sure, once I reach the editing stage, my state of mind will be quite different.)
Once I finally wrote down all that my daydream had shown me, and a little bit more, (like I mentioned earlier, manuscripts tend to take on a life of their own once you let them take control.) However, I still had no plot, or direction.

A Direction
I had a friend whom I had known for a few months, and we had discovered the “twilight” books together, and enjoyed the first three and had gone to see the first movie together. We were lounging in my room, and I mentioned that I had just finished writing a book. Before I could say anything more about it, she said, “Let me guess, it’s a vampire book.” Which prompted me to say, it wasn’t, in fact, it was a small collection of animal stories for children. While the pause after that was slightly awkward, the thought came to me: Why not write a vampire story? Before my friend left for the day, I had already made up my mind that I wouldn’t begin a new story; I would just change my unformed story into my own vampire tale.

The Challenge
Then the fourth and final “twilight” book came out, and I was thoroughly disappointed, as I believe a number of people were. “I could have written a much better ending than that.” I thought to myself. It wasn’t so much the ending that bothered me either, it was the fact that the characters that I had grown so fond of in that love tale, changed in the final book. They did things that I felt were seriously out of character, and there were a number of unanswered questions in the story. The “twilight” magic that had entranced me had been brutally murdered, it was sad really. Such a promising story curled up and dried like leaves on a tree. But it taught me a lesson, I needed to ask more questions when I write, make double sure that all the subplots, as well as the main plot, are addressed. It was then that I challenged myself, though it was entirely subconscious at the time, that my vampire tale would be better than all “twilight” series books. Am I crazy? You bet.

The Settling
After my decision, subconscious as it was, I was still without a plot for my lovable characters, though I had forced the metamorphoses of one character from human to vampire (much to her displeasure I might add.) I let the story sit, unable to think past those first two chapters. There were times, after I had let it sit for some time, I considered deleting the darn thing and starting over again, or just deleting it and letting it die into nonexistence. A couple times I even sat down with the intention of just that, but then I would read a bit of it, just to see if there was something worth salvaging for another story, and I would find that it was all worth saving. Everything was good. You could say that each time I considered braking up; I would fall in love all over again.
People have this notion that there is only one type of creative writing process. That you must “strike while the iron is hot” or take the chance of losing that inspirational moment, and sometimes, yes, that is the case. But not in this case, the writing process for this tale started really slowly. The storyteller in me knew instinctually that if I left it alone, my subconscious mind would work on the story and would send my conscious mind a mental telegram when it was ready. But, as I mentioned before, I didn’t leave it alone, I kept going back, hoping that my iron would get hot this time, which probably made the entire process take longer than it probably would have, if my conscious mind had just stopped poking at my subconscious mind at let it work on its own without any interruptions. My excuse for this is, as I mentioned before, my inexperience in writing stories as a whole. I had only ever had the “strike the iron while it’s hot” kind of inspiration at this point in time. But eventually, my conscious mind got the message, and I left my story to settle while I concentrated on other immediate things: like moving across the country….

The Plot
One day it happened, it was after my mom and I had gone to a new writer’s group meeting, called Coffee House Writers Group. The people seemed nice, and I was thinking of maybe joining along with my mom; and if I did join: which story would I bring? At first I thought I’d bring one of my finished tales, and see if I could get any helpful hints to finish it up. Then all of a sudden, I got my telegram from my subconscious mind. It had come up with a plot, but it needed my conscious mind to ask more questions to fill in the little pot holes (or more accurately: “plot” holes), if it was ever going to be a complete story and beat the cause of one of the biggest vampire crazes of all time…