Isolde: It doesn’t mean it isn’t true. It is. It just cannot be.–Tristan and Isolde

When I want to suffer, I can really lay it on myself. I had a bad day, was feeling deeply depressed, and what do I do?

I shut myself up alone at home and watch Tristan and Isolde. In spite of being down in the dumps, I found the movie extraordinary, with MANY moving lines relevant to my present bathos and dark mood. If you are a incurable romantic, or if you just like the Tristan-Isolde love-triangle story, you must see this movie. I found a site devoted to the film. The site also provides the movie’s script as long as you give credit to Chani. Visit them here: http://www.tristanandisolde.net/

This week, I went to Kemp, Oklahoma to visit my parents for Thanksgiving. This is the area of the Red River Valley where I set my novel, Red River Fever, a quaint area filled with rednecks, farms, ranches, brain-fevered folks, and a multitude of stories waiting to be written. When I travel, I always take something to read and the means to write–my writing notebooks, my iBook, and sometimes my manual typewriter. This trip, I mostly read.

I finished Erica Jong’s book of poetry entitled, Becoming Light. I love reading poetry generally, but I especially enjoy poets who teach me as they move me in their poems. I love the richness of Jong’s allusions, and though some points, especially the autobiographical ones, are rather cryptic, I find the margins of the book are full of my minute notes concerning definitions or connotations of words, historical notes, notes to myself to look up a topic or image, or questions that came to my mind when I read the poems.

Jong’s poems are intense, personal, exploratory, and sometimes jarring. Many of her phrases are absolutely brilliant and memorable. I’ve decided to memorize a couple of her poems that seemed to especially speak to me. One is “There is Only One Story.”

There Is Only One Story

There is only one story:
he loved her,
then stopped loving her,
while she did not
stop loving him.
There is only one story:
she loved him,
then stopped loving him,
while he did not
stop loving her.
The truth is simple:
you do not die
from love.
You only wish
you did.

You can read more about Jong, her ficiton, nonfiction, and her poetry here: http://www.ericajong.com/

Today, I spoke at the Northeast Louisiana Scottish Scociety meeing in W. Monroe, Louisiana. I’m a member though I am Welsh and not Scottish. My topic was the sad story of Gwenllian, daughter of Llywelyn the Last. She was the last descendent of Llywelyn the Last. Her mother Eleanor died giving her birth. After her father Llywelyn died near Irfon Bridge, December 11, 1282, Edward Longshanks was determined that all of Llywelyn’s descendents would disappear. Her girl cousins were never heard from again. The boy cousins were imprisoned. Gwenllian was taken from her cradle (she was seventeen months old) and taken to a Gilbertine priory at Sempringham in Lincolnshire. She remained there for 54 years. She died June 7, 1337, never really having known her family, her heritage, or her native tongue. Plaid Cymru (Welsh Independence Movement) and other Welsh have made her a symbol. Efforts are underway to locate her body and return it to Wales, and many want a mountain in Snowdonia to be named after her.  A plaque near the location of the monastery where she lived out her life is now a shrine, visited by thousands every year. You can learn more about Gwenllian here:

http://www.ad-je-leaver.freeserve.co.uk/cydgg.htm

Last night I had a successful reading for a Sons of Confederate Veterans group at Camp Moore, a historical site and museum in Tangipahoa Parish.  They were receptive to both my reading and my music. It is a three and a half hour drive, so I didn’t return home until 12:30 A.M. You can read more about this famous Confederate mustering site here: http://personal.lig.bellsouth.net/c/o/cosby_w/index.htm

I’ve always loved Halloween; it’s one of my most sacred holidays. As a child, I liked the costumes and candy, and as an adult too, taking my children out like my parents took me, but now I am more into observing. I enjoy the costume contests and adult Halloween parties and the horror movies I can catch on cable.

It’s fitting that early this morning I just finished reading James Lee Burke’s In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead. I found it unique from other Dave Robicheaux novels, with a mystical, haunting edge. As a lover of the South and all things Confederate, I liked the facts from Confederate history he wove into the novel. Only once, through the voice of General Hood, did he make the mistake of tying the South’s cause into that of slavery. That comment seemed to be token, and slightly out of context with the tone and plot of the novel. Anyway, this was a good read.

James Lee Burke – Bestselling Author

Sometime ago, I got hooked on James Lee Burke’s Detective Dave Robicheaux novels. I’ve purchased the several I have used at my neighborhood Paperback Exchange. I’ve read them in no particular order, and after checking the list, I’ve seen there are still a few I’ve missed. I like Burke’s style, and each in this series have proved to be an enjoyable read.

I found his official website this morning. I am anxious to explore it thoroughly. More on Burke later.

The resistance to editing one’s work begins early and continues through high school and college. I vainly try to instill the desire and habit of editing into my students. I try to make it easier for them: I allocate class time for editing, peer review, reading essays aloud, and demanding multiple drafts.

The first draft, which they persist in calling a rough draft, I scan and seldom read completely. Often, I can’t get past the first paragraph without weeping, groaning, or laughing. I have tried to banish the use of the phrase “rough draft” because I believe it feeds a mindset that must be changed if a student is to become a good writer. By the time students reach me–and this is true of even many gifted and honors students–they have developed the habit of turning in “rough drafts” for grades. By this I mean, they simply write down the first thoughts that come to mind. There is no editing, no organization. The diction isoften that of a cave man. “Story good. Me likum story.” A teacher asks for a paragraph, and they often get one sentence, often illegible. If it is a homework writing assignment, I’ve often entered my room after the tardy bell from my post in the hall and notice that some are busily writing out their paragraph. Worse, after I’ve taken the one or two completed ones up, I’ve had a student bring me the assigned paragraph at the end of class, indicating that he or she was working on that during my instruction and had missed the whole class so they could complete his or her homework (which generally I want to be typed). It is sad that the student sincerely thinks I will and should accept such work. I won’t. What is even sadder, is that I know their previous teachers did accept it, and thus, their bad habits of writing have been reinforced instead of corrected.

This “rough draft” student writing is generally so superficial that it hasn’t even reached the “brainstorm” stage yet–it is more like a “light drizzle.” “Rough draft,” to a student’s mind, means they can turn in sloppy, mindless work and it be accepted. Mr. Webster, though he knows many words and even knows how to spell them correctly, is seldom consulted for editing help. The students wrongly assume they know how to spell–they do not.

I want to help my students turn their “rough drafts” into good first drafts.

Amazon.com: Severance: Stories: Books: Robert Olen Butler
One of my favorite writers is Robert Olen Butler. I’ve read everything of his I can get my hands on, and when when I heard him interviewed on NPR this week about his new collection of stories, I knew I must obtain this one also.

I’ve always used Butler’s story, “Good Scent from a Strange Mountain” in the ENG 102 class I taught at the university here–that is, until the new edition of Kennedy saw fit to not include it. I was appalled that a Pulitzer Prize winner’s story could be so quickly removed from an anthology. And he wasn’t even dead yet! Not only was it a good story the publishers deleted, it was an important story that provides valuable insights into a now significant portion of the American, especially Louisianian, population.

I read the whole collection sometime ago. Through the years, I’ve encouraged my students to read Butler’s collection of short stories in Good Scent from a Strange Mountain in hopes they can see the things Butler sees.

Butler’s new collection, Severance is thematic, telling of 62 individuals who lost their heads (from the past and from recent news). The collection consists of 62 stories, with each story being exactly 240 words. In the NPR interview I mentioned, Butler explained his math: he quoted a French Doctor who theorized that a human retains consciousness that many seconds after decapitation and that when agitated a human can utter 160 words per minute.

It sounds like a fine read, and in typical Butler style, one that will be remembered.

I truly do have more writing work than I can get to. Yet, some things are progressing. A publisher is looking at my novel, Blood Diamonds of the Lost Bazaar, and I hope to soon have one look at another, Under the Witch’s Mark: A Memoir. Note: (This IS a fictional memoir!) I am still slowly working on my Civil War Western, the modern novel with a working title of Persephone’s Underground and others I don’t have time to mention at the moment. Perhaps next post I’ll make a list of all my writing ideas and projects.

For those teachers and writes who love vocabulary, here is a good site:
http://wordsmith.org

This afternoon, I was interviewed by Sunny Meriweather of KEDM, 90.3, which is the public radio station here in Monroe, Louisiana. The interview was recorded and will be broadcast Friday morning, October 20 at 8:30 a.m. and 12:50 p.m. We discussed my new book, Stories of the Confederate South, and the upcoming reading/book signing at the West Ouachita (pronounced wash-it-tah) Library in West Monroe at the Cheniere exit on I-20. Sunny had read my book, and gave it a favorable review, and in her typical professional fashion, asked excellent and relevant questions. Several of my Confederate friends intend to be there in their reenactor uniforms so that visitors can ask questions about their equipment and the life of a Confederate soldier in the War Between the States. As I’ve said before, I love doing readings. Readings give me an opportunity to really test my writing on an audience, as well as a chance to get my work into the hands of readers.