The Loneliness of Vision

(Alan Lee's Túrin Turambar surrounded by the outlaws who dwelt south of Brethil)

I am trying to read new Fantasy, Children's, YA, and Adult. I've noticed a trend I find very sad, a trend toward very gritty, quasi-horror kind of Fantasy, not vampire fantasy, but Medieval in the sense of gore, lice, torture, corruption, and a Conan type religious mask put over on a parody of the Middle Ages. This is not to say that the fiction does not work; some of it is masterful, as in George R. R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" series. But it is depressing, very. It's depressing because much of it has a very nihilistic, hopeless sense of life.

I think it is vital, when writing tragedy or about humans in extreme conditions, that the fiction "message" should be: that it is not human to accept the tragedy or the conditions; it is human to keep fighting. Tolkien's story of Túrin Turambar is an excellent example in that you can't get more Gothic, tragic, or oppressed than this story. And it is uplifting. Why? Because, although he is a tragic character, Túrin is heroic. Tolkien understood, first hand, from his experiences in the worst war ever fought (trenches of WWI) that HOW a man acts in the face of impossible tragedy decides everything. He becomes angelic if he refuses to let tragedy defeat his spirit. This was demonstrated over and over and over so many many times in history that the message should be clear, or so I think it should.

I've just finished "Firethorn" by Sarah Micklem. This book was lauded by everyone, and I mean everyone. Picked up by the top agent in the field, first time writer, etc., etc., etc. and the book is evil in a way I find almost impossible to describe. I spent two hours this morning trying to tell Sky why I found it so. It is written by a masterful storyteller, and I will not quibble about her details and how her society is untenable or any of my other petty complaints about world building. I won't go on about how if one does something "realistic" it had better damn work on the larger scale, not just the way the cloth is woven. I really, really, really wanted Micklem to save the book and save the character. Instead, she let me down. In shorthand, this book is an SP, Nomad, Gen X book that substitutes the lowest of human animal traits for anything noble or heroic. I will not mince words. Sarah Micklem has no reason to heed my comments; she's obviously wildly popular and successful. The book gave me nightmares.

(One of my favorite artists: Chmiel, who does quite a bit of Tolkien work.)

Okay. To go on. Entirely depressed by Micklem's book, unable to tear myself from it, I started having that terrible sinking feeling that my own work was lousy and that even if my intentions were good, I was going to fail and fail badly. Ad nauseum. I will not go on and whine about my own severity to myself that demands that I keep trying and trying and trying when it's obvious that I'm missing the gene that will get me published. It's not anything with my work; it's a kind of feeling that my work doesn't have.

But I pushed through the depression even though I am really sick today on top of being depressed, and was sorting through my art collection (some of which you see here) trying to think of a style that will work for my own book. I opened up the ms to go through the basic visual elements of each chapter and skimmed.

To my surprise, this book is light years beyond "Firethorn," for all Micklem's talent. It needs to be combed more and polished more, but the backbone is there. I have no confidence in it, no hope that anyone at all will see what I see, but that doesn't mean that it is not there. The book is shining. This has not happened to me before; I've always only seen the flaws, not the light of it, the shape of it, shining there, despite the flaws.

All during the work on this book, especially since joining Facebook, I've realized that this work that I have chosen to do completely isolates me. I have chosen a very, very hard road. I have chosen to speak from the heart and from my mind, no matter how subtle, no matter how complex, no matter how sublime. I have chosen, not to try to get published or to sell a book or to write something that people will read; I have chosen to give the best within me to the best out there. I suspect that if the series ever does sell that most people will like it for wrong reasons. But if only, if only, they will somehow sense what I am trying to set down on paper...

I feel cursed for this work, for this desire to do this work. Maybe not cursed, but cast out. I don't talk about it, fearing to bore people. I don't even like to allude to it or brag about it or complain about it. I'm completely obsessed with this work, so much so that I've almost destroyed my life over it, and I cannot even tell people, whisper to people, "do you understand?" I feel so completely isolated and cut off, more and more and more so as the series rises up out of "hopeful wannabe" to a sledgehammer of accomplishment, and I want more and more to hide it away, to keep it from people, to pretend that I am not doing anything. Part of me finds this shameful and so I'm trying to write this blog about it.

But I cannot possibly go to Facebook for what it is and say, "I am so filled with passion over this work that I am shaking as I sit here." How can one say that? It is like being a closet something--a friend of mine once said it was just like being an alcoholic. The most sublime thing in my life, the great Joy, is, to others, like being an alcoholic. Is it any wonder I cannot speak of it? I retreat into technical discussions to pretend I don't care.
(Tony Dezuniga, a magnificent comic artist)

And so, I've decided (as you might can deduce from these three drawings) that these are closest to what I want as the style of the artwork. Dezuniga's warrior here is stunning, not because he's a barbarian, but because Dezuniga has the ability to gesture. I do not want to do photo-real art or cartoon art or polished art, but to give the allusion of emergence out of the page like Lee's picture at the top of this entry. Chmiel does this with marvelous skill.

I want now to go on. I have the backbone, both in drawing and in writing. I want now to do to my art as these three pictures will indicate and to my writing the same way. I want to learn when to leave something white, unfinished, raveling off. Rand was hard and clean, Vermeer. I do not want the complexity of Dickens or George R. R. Martin--I want this emergence, this drawingness feeling.

I am in complete and utter pain, unable even to talk about the vision that I have. I am so completely and utterly in the grip of it, struck dumb with Joy, and I feel like a babbling idiot. I walk so softly now, so afraid that just as I am gripping it, I will slip up, mess up, somehow not be able to show the light. I feel that it is also so important to talk of the importance, to try to express the complete and utter pain and joy of the creation, of the making of the best within me.

And my question to Sarah Micklem is: how can such effort have been for this book you have written? To make the effort alone is so heroic, and to make it to show art that despises the Will, the Joy, the Beingness of this--how is it possible? Does she feel responsible? Does she even know? How can she live it it and know? Are her values so completely different, so utterly hopeless and nihilistic? Does anyone else see this or will I just sound like a fool? An old fuddy-duddy. Somehow concerned with heroism and morality in a world that scorns such things.

A hard day today. I am saved only by the Will within, my own pigheaded stubborn love of this vision, a desire to keep trying to bring back the fire of God.

For God hath Wrought no Greater Beauty than Man

When I was thirteen, my best friend gave me a copy of Ayn Rand's Anthem. Boy, did that change my life. I quickly read everything Rand had published at that time. What is ironic is that I read into Rand what was not there, well some of what was not there. At this time in my life, I was also heavily influenced by Spock on Star Trek and Quai Chang Kane from Kung Fu. I did not understand some of Rand's characters and I disagreed with much of what she wrote, but I found Howard Roark to be a kindred spirit. I went on to read authors who had influenced Rand, looking for what she called "a sense of life."

At the age of nine, having read The Lord of Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, I had decided to write epic fantasy. At the age of twelve, I knew that I had to learn to draw my own characters. Rand taught me not to be ashamed of being talented or smart and to love the heroic in man. From Spock, I learned to honor discipline and from Quai Chang Kane to honor the quiet spirit. Later, I added to my mental collection all art that I found that honored the "angelic" in man or that which makes him a man and not an ape. Mathematics, music, art, poetry, science--all these things I loved and desired in my life. I lived a life close to that of Rand's characters and I had no problems common to Objectivists where they felt that they did not measure up to the paragons that Rand created. I found this totally appalling, for I felt that my little finger was infinitely greater than Dagny Taggart, for was I not real? I later found out that my mother had read and admired Rand and probably married my father as a result, for he was also the paragon, similar to Roark or Galt. He was an aerospace engineer who was tall, handsome, brilliant and vastly dissatisfied with anyone who told him what to do or what to think.

Later, I discovered that the way I had grown up was the way that people tried to be when they went to college. I had lived this life as if I were the brilliant daughter of Roark and it was odd to me that people did not see this as a totally logical and sane way to live. When I began mixing with Objectivists I was astounded at the people that I met, for the paragon did not sit naturally on them, but was something forced, desired, but not natural.

I later called this code of ethics that I learned from my father and recognized in fiction: the Cult of Toughness, after my father's family who tended toward stoicism. They were Welsh immigrants, thirteen generations American, staunch Baptists, engineers, teachers, poets and farmers. It is hard for me to describe the meme set that I learned from my father that was reinforced by writers that I loved. I later learned that this meme set was ancient, probably a combination of the Celtic warrior caste and the eola caste, or professional caste of poets, doctors and engineers. My father's people were the eolas of the warrior class, so to speak. The adopted the ethics of honor and stoicism and the mind set of the intellectual.

The one thing lacking in some of Rand is the wicked sense of humor and the backwards emotional set of this kind of Celt who would laugh when dying and cry when happy. These people had a sense of humor that was subtle and malicious at times. You had to be very fast with your brain to engage any of them for they would take you down with sarcasm and wit unless you took it on the chin and kept fighting.

I knew when I started writing that I could not write stories with a certain kind of character that is very popular, the character like Luke Skywalker. One of the reasons for this is that my entire family is kind of devoid of fear. If they are not counter-phobic, doing wild things for an adrenaline rush, they are like me where fear just does not enter the picture, well the anxious kind of fear. Fear is a momentary reaction to a physical situation and not a mind set. The popular character has at his heart (or hers) fear. Having not really known fear, I found it difficult to write about characters motivated by fear. Fear of failure was even more remote from my own life. There was no fail. People did what they did motivated by the act of it, not some goal of achieving something such as a prize or recognition. My family is extremely competitive, but not because they want to win, but because they like to battle. Winning is just not nearly as fun as playing.

But I got lost in the suggestions of well-meaning people, lost in the expectations of editors, and lost in the examples so prevalent in our society. I learned after a long, long time that fear is a value/problem of a certain caste that includes farmers and merchants and has to do with money and loss and status that relies upon wealth and connection. For the warrior caste, the driving motivation is pride or arrogance; for the eola caste, the driving motivation is curiosity or hatred; for the performing caste, the driving motivation is fame and security. Only one caste was motivated by fear and greed, it is NOT a universal trait, just an American trait.

I am still trying to free myself from the web of expectation in fiction writing. Part of this disentanglement lies in the creation of characters who are not motivated by fear. This picture is an illustration for a YA novel called, Tales of Anieth - Aveldonacc. This is a picture of one of the most famous kings of the Horse People, Raol Aveldonacc. In all wars and invasions there is a key man, or a key battle. The key man in the invasion that takes place in this series is King Raol Aveldonacc. In one version of the history of Anieth, Raol is the man who betrays his people to the Zelosians, causing a genocide. The books are about a group of teens who try to change this history. In the first book, they try to change King Raol's early life, making him a hero rather than a traitor. Ultimately, Raol is still a tragic character, but along the lines of Turin Turambar or Cuchulainn, not Luke Skywalker. Raol's basic motivation is not fear, but outrage.

Part of the challenge of writing for me is to create pictures of my characters. The pictures HAVE to show the character and not just be pretty or in an interesting style. I am faced not only with personality, but with family genetics, and racial characteristics. Raol here has to be a Celtic type from 2,000 BCE Europe. His family has black hair, blue or greenish eyes, and very fair skin that does not tan. They have deep set, long eyes, straight, heavy brows, the long Celt nose and prominent bones. Their hair is also fine and straight. In the story, Raol is perceived by others as ugly or beautiful, but not "normal" looking with eyes that would burn people, he is so intense and so disgusted with what he sees around him. He is a reformer, stronger that the people around him and a berserk. He is also a brilliant musician and hates being a warrior. He does not have any gentle feelings, but hates or loves with a brutality that is totally repressed. I had to show all this in his face, but make the predominant characteristic of the young Raol to be that of the reformer or the man with vision.

I wanted to make Raol a man of God without a god. He is a MORAL man, or a man who will die rather than violate his code. He is a man of few words who loves women, music, and poetry but also excels at all the sports and is a master of strategy and warfare. He is a highly educated man and a man for whom honor is not a word, but life itself.



Gradually, I am getting close to my goal of being able to write about my own people while ignoring the values that I find so difficult to understand. More than anything else, I want to give this vision to young people (people of all ages) of the beauty of MAN as a man, as an angelic part of God, if you will, the Michael of the Flaming Sword, the man who is both a poet and an engineer and a fighter. The kind of man that is almost dead in our culture or the man who would die before he crawled. A man like Howard Roark, or maybe more like Stephen Mallory or Ellis Wyatt.

Here is a segment of the book, showing something of Nick Stanford, who plays the character of King Raol Aveldonacc.

He had watched the girls' archery contest a moment earlier with great joy. The girls used shorter bows and competed for accuracy and speed rather than distance and power and elegance.
A woman should be accurate and fleet of foot and word, he thought. A man should be precise with power, saying little, but meaning more in his one word than a woman could in a whole conversation. Men were meant for elegance, standing, looking, watching: arrogant and beautiful, while the women ran around them, hens scratching in the dirt, lovely in their movement as men are in their stillness.
He remembered what he had learned of the Holly and their goal of being forever caught in the moment of thrust and the singing release of the spear, poised, silent, yet taut and powerful in the space between movement.
A man is stillness.
Nick did not look at the target, knowing that a true arrow is already in the target of the mind. To shoot, one had to already have shot. The string snapped and vibrated. He watched instead the breath-catching beauty of the arrow flight, feeling himself the arrow, shot by god, set free into the sun and air and blue, blue reach of sky. He stood, silent and still, showing the audience the soul of skill itself: the precision, the singing of the silence. As soon as he moved all would be lost and the audience would clap and cry out as they then evaluated his shot, not by its action, but by its results.
Nick knew that he had hit the eye of the target where the other princes had shot wide or near of the impossible distance. He turned away; the moment was over. It was as if he had died: he felt that silence of ending with a great grief that was still, bowed, broken.
It was over.
Then he resented the rush of time that pulled him out of eternity and made him part of the crying crowd and the other shooter's appraisals and fears of doing not nearly so well.
It is only about the moment, he thought. Then even that feeling was lost in the rush of girls and youths who rushed up to congratulate him. He felt himself swept up by them, moved and moving, lost in the herd of chattering, high voices clamoring for his attention.

It is hard for me to express that I want to give young readers this meme set, this heroism, this beauty of man that is passing away from us. It is my life's work to show through the arts what is the highest in man, that which makes him the most beautiful of God's creations.