dinner with Lois and talking book shop

[pegkerr]

I went over to Lois McMaster Bujold's for dinner tonight, where she served salad with strawberries and chicken chili soup, and we talked about my comments on The Hallowed Hunt. Then we retired to the living room with our glasses of Reisling, where I told her about the ice palace book so far. She thought of one key piece: she figured out Rolf's backstory, where he came from, when I told her about a certain historical figure in the history of the making of ice palaces, and she said, That's Rolf, that's where he came from." Oh. Oh, wow. Oh, yeah. She was right.

She agreed with me that I was missing a key piece: the exact nature of the relationship between Rolf and Jack. What does each think they're getting from the other? Why are they working together when the book starts? I have a sense of why Jack turns away from Rolf to Solveig, but why was he allied with Rolf in the first place?

But after I had burbled to her for forty-five minutes or so with plot points and thematic stuff I've been chewing over, Lois agreed that it's a real book, which of course, really means something coming from Lois McMaster Bujold.

I mentioned that I've been thinking about the book again recently. Not writing yet, but thinking, trying to find the few pieces that are still missing so I can slot them into place and start writing again. I was listening to Lowen & Navarro's album Pendulum. Mulling over song lyrics is a favorite technique I use to chew on theme when I'm writing. A song on that album "Crossing Over" snagged my attention, and as usual when I get obsessed with a song, I listened to it about forty times yesterday as I thought about it (using headphones so that my cubicle mate did not kill me).

As you close your eyes
What will be waiting for you
on the other side?
Is it dark and empty?
Is it warm and light?
And can you see us from there?
Wish I was anywhere
but watching you go
Wish I could cry hard enough
to make it not so.
But it's not being without you
that frightens me most
But the thought of you being alone.

Crossing over the line that runs forever
and I know that someday it will find me, too.
Crossing over, don't know what I'm going to do
But when I get there, I'll be looking out for you.

You were so prepared
You said, Please try not to cry.
No, I am not scared.
I have made my peace
Let me memorize your eyes
Till the next time.

Crossing over the line that runs forever
and I know that someday it will find me, too.
Crossing over, don't know what I'm going to do
But when I get there, I'll be looking out for you.

This is not goodbye.
It's just farewell to the "you" I recognize
I've got a long, long time to learn
How to feel you in a new way.

Crossing over the line that runs forever
and I know that someday it will find me, too.
Crossing over, don't know what I'm going to do
But when I get there, I'll be looking out for you.

This reminded me strongly of my father-in-law's death last November. And it reminded me of the high school church youth group meeting where our youth pastor sat us down and said, "Tonight, I want you to think, really think, about the fact that you are going to die some day. One day you will cease to be alive. And there is nothing you can do to escape that fact." And oddly enough, it really was the first time I had ever really thought about it.

But I'm thinking about Solveig, and what that means to her. She became an architect partly because she wanted to build something that lasts--her father's accidental death is an underlying causal trauma that led to her choosing that career path. She has a child, which is another kind of immortality, but that isn't enough to satisfy that craving to make her mark on the world. Death is a boundary, like the ice on the lake that Solveig's father fell through, and she doesn't know what is on the other side. Rolf's evil stems from the fact that he does something terrible (cannabalizing his own children's lives, magically) to avoid crossing that line. I have thought that another hesitation I've had about starting writing is that I don't know how it ends. I have a sense that Rolf has been trying to escape from death, and so to right the scales, we have to have a death. But whose? Ingrid, the child? (Noooooo!!!!! Mustn't kill off the cute ickle child!!!!) But isn't that upsetting of the natural order, that the parent must die before the child, something that gives the book a bigger emotional wallop? Why not Agnes the mother? What am I saying there? That she's old and so she'd damned well better get along with the process of dying and get out of the way? Really, Peg! What about Solveig herself (probably the least expected choice.) Why should I want to kill off my protagonist? I've played with all three possibilities, and the problem is, I don't know which way feels most true. And then I get furious with myself and think, what the hell are you doing? Wasn't this supposed to be a light and fluffy fun book to help you recover from all the deaths you put your characters through in The Wild Swans? What is the point of insisting that someone has to die at the end of the story? Is the only way I can think of to give a book gravitas is to insist that someone get killed off? Goddammit, Peg, you need to fine tune your tools a bit and learn to use a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer all the time.

As Pat Wrede says, a hack writes about sex and violence. A great writer writes about love and death.

I know this book has a lot to say about love. It has to do with the love that is possible if you have a heart of flesh instead of a heart of stone (which is why Jack rejects Rolf and learns to love Solveig in the end). It has to do with the love of a parent for a child, and the love of a child for a parent.

Does it have to be about death, too? Lois had Cordelia say in Barrayar that when a woman gives birth, she brings one life and one death into the world (because, of course, her child will eventually die), and so each mother is simultaneously a creater and destroyer. If you'll remember, I said in the afterward to Swans that I start writing when something haunts me, and that one's been haunting me. Perhaps that's why death keeps trying to weasel into this book. It was that comment of Lois' that made me think how, when a woman gives birth, she is deliberately brushing up close to death--both because of the danger of childbirth and because she's bringing a new death into the world.

Whew. I'm sorry, everyone. That's probably too much information, but that's what I've been thinking of. Make of it what you will.

Comments

[cloudscudding.livejournal.com]

I can see two possible alternate angles to the problem. Death is the ultimate transformation--so have an ultimate transformation that isn't physical death. The second idea, which rather appeals to me, is to consider the architecture as a possible target for death. From what you've said, I'm thinking that Rolf is an architect--so "kill" either his creations or the ice palace itself...which could be one of those natural cycle/death & rebirth things.

Just spitballing.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

You are intelligent, and interesting, and I love listening to you talk about your writing process and geek about the cool things you discover.

Also, this is your journal. *g* You don't have to apologize for beeing with your bad geeky self here. So there.

[kiwiria.livejournal.com]

You know Lois McMaster Bujold? *gasps* *drools* *is short of breath* Please, can I join you next time? Hmmm... then I just need to save up enough money to actually get out of Europe, but I'm sure that's a minor detail ;)

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Yes, we've been the same writing group for several years. I've critiqued all her novel manuscripts from Memory on (in fact, elisem, another member of the group, and I actually wrote the back cover copy for Komarr). You'll note that she did the front cover blurb for The Wild Swans and wrote the first review on Amazon.

She's been a great mentor and a good friend.

[kiwiria.livejournal.com]

Oh that's right! I didn't know her back when I first read "The Wild Swans", so the name didn't mean anything to me then. I was only just introduced to her work a couple of months ago by one of my friends. She's brilliant :)

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, it's not too much information (except in the very vaguest of spoilery senses, but I could've not clicked through on the link, and besides, one sort of expects the hero to come to his senses and fall for the heroine, not the bad guy). What it is, is quite wonderful reading. There are few things as much fun to me, as a writer, than to read about the process other writers are going through. It gives me a feeling of cameraderie, and perhaps of relief. :)

If I may...

The hardest death, of the three you've said you're contemplating, strikes me as being Ingrid. It's hardest for a few reasons: one, she's a child, what we perceive of as an innocent. It's hard to kill off innocents. It may be manipulative, although, eh. If I hadn't just read this posting and wasn't privy to what's going on in the author's mind, it probably wouldn't strike me that way. I might even put forth an argument that it's more manipulative to threaten the child and have her miraculously rescued (as inevitably happens in film) than to actually go through with the dirty deed.

Two, Agnes, as Ingrid's mother is, yeah, in the more natural order of things: the parent goes first. Agnes strikes me as the *easiest* choice, partly for what you've listed -- she's older, she should just get on with the dying -- but even more, she's less, hrm. Threatening, to kill off. _Because_ she's older, _because_ it's the natural order of things. I'm not sure that's exactly the same as saying 'old people should just die'. :)

But mostly, this is biggest in my mind: you've got little girls. Killing off little girls in fiction strikes me as the most risky and difficult thing to do as a writer. You've only just recently sat and thought about your *own* mortality; thinking about your girls' mortality in a more-than-abstract fashion -- even if it's through a work of fiction -- that takes real guts. For *me*, as a writer, I think I might talk myself into that scenario not feeling true just because it was so damned scary.

And while I don't know at what point in this story the death takes place, it just strikes me as sort of hard to keep going if you've killed your protagonist halfway through. :)

Hrm. I don't really know that you were looking for feedback, but it's hours and hours earlier here than it is there, so I'm all awake and thoughtful. This is what you get. :)

-Catie

[elisem.livejournal.com]

What you said gave me an idea, which I will e-mail to you, because if it fits, it's too spoil-y for words.

And I am very glad you are thinking about the book, and that songs and comments from Lois have a hold of you. Is good to know that. I am comforted. (Really truly. I think the world is better with you writing stuff, and doing what you're doing is part of that process for you.)

[aome.livejournal.com]

It's so good to see you talk about the book again. :)

I don't see anything wrong with Agnes dying. I'm trying to remember how Solveig's relationship to her mother is, but if they have anything half-decent, the death will still be painful to her. It will remind her of her own mortality again. She is the head now - both parents are gone. And she has lost the person who *gave* her life. I think you could still very much make that poignant, even if Agnes is old enough that the death isn't shocking. If you make Agnes death towards the latter part of the book, you could show how Solveig has grown and become less fearful of death, so that the death of her mother hurts, as it should, but that she's more accepting and trusting of this inevitability.

If you *do* decide to make it Ingrid - you might consider talking to folks from The Compassionate Friends, which is an international support group for bereaved parents. I hope to heck you don't know anyone personally who has lost a child, so this could help you fine-tune Solveig's reaction if this was the way you ended up going.

I like someone else's idea, however, of killing off one of Rolf's creations.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I'm so delighted to see you thinking about the book again. This is all fascinating.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I haven't read enough of the back musings to comment -- but here I am anyway. ;)

I think there's always a great risk in killing off a kid in fiction, because it can so often be the cheesy manipulative easy emotion-getting move. I wonder if Solveig could misperceive the threat as being to Ingrid, when it's really to someone or something else--her mother, or Jack, or herself? If it's her mother, I think there's great possibility for complication -- the relief that it's not her child, the guilt at the relief, the sorrow at her mother -- and also the ultimate inevitable bittersweet realization that just because she saved Ingrid once, she can't save her always. That death is always the end. This may occur to me because I have a tropism toward darkness and the bittersweet -- but if the book is about dealing with the inevitability of loss, there's really no such thing as being saved from that -- there's just a temporary reprieve. And there's the reverse of that, the sweetness, which makes it worth saving a child for a year or ten or seventy, and which makes it worth building ice palaces that will melt away, so long as they're beautiful while they last.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Killing Ingrid would be wrong because it's what the bad guys want, what Rolf wanted, it's in the wrong place for the shape of the story. Doing it just because it's risky -- well, you have more sense than that. It's not, anyway, Victorian fiction is full of dead children.

It seems to me it would be useful to think about the line, about crossing over, and about magic. If you have a magically crossable line, maybe you could have death, the choice of death as something with a place in life, something choosable, either for Agnes or Solveig. You could have part of the story set in that undiscovered country.

Also, you clearly like hard issues, because as The Wild Swans is a book about AIDS, this one has to on some levels address the issue of abortion, of choosing your life over the child's, or vice versa.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

You know, I had just reached that conclusion this morning, too, re: Ingrid. I don't want to give the bad guy what he wants.

Can you expand on your thoughts in that second paragraph a bit? Not sure I'm following what you're trying to say, but it sounds intriguing.

[rusty76.livejournal.com]

No useful commentary on the story itself, other than to say that it seems tightly knitted and intriguing, but seeing your thought process about it is fascinating.

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, in real life, children sometimes die before the parents. It's a terrible blow. I have friends who lost their beautiful bright, 20-year-old daughter to a sudden illness. It's a tragedy, but it happens.

In fiction, sometimes the question is, "does it work?" rather than is it kind to the characters. Imagine how it would turn out, and are you satisfied with how that works. Happy endings are nice, but not necessary. I far prefer a book with a somewhat tragic but clean ending to one with a more or less happy ending that just peters out and has lots of loose ends.

One another note, for you, Lois, and any other writer who wants to look at this: http://www.avalanchetankers.us/archives/000058.html. It's officially titled "213 things Skippy is not allowed to do in the U.S. Army" but it some of it could just as easily be titled Things Miles and/or Ivan and/or (name your favorite character) are not allowed to do in the Barrayan Army. ROTFLMAO.

[lizardlaugh.livejournal.com]

I don't really have anything useful to say, but your novel sounds so incredible. I am so glad you are able to work on it again.

I haven't read The Wild Swans, but I will be very soon :)

Books 'n Death

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

Someone touched on this earlier, but I still wanted to add this.

Starting about a year or two ago I started having... well, panic attacks just prior to falling asleep. I'd flash on how, sometime, maybe soon, I'd die. Unfortunately, at those times late at night, my "demi-fundamental" upbringing would crawl out of the back of my reptile mind -that since I was gay I'd go to hell, and there was AB-SO-LUTELY nothing I could do about it. (The first time this DIDN'T happen was the first night that Bill - my boyfriend, who's now living in Las Vegas - spent the night. Odd, how the presence of another person, can effect one...)

Anywho, last Feb. I started seeing a connection the panic attacks & my reaching the same age my father was when he died. At the same time I recalled how the Death card in the Tarot could also mean change, and maybe that's what I was afraid of. (There may have been some hormonal issues kickin' in as well. Last Sept. I had a physical, and one of the things that my doctor noted was -geez, am I really talking about this?- my prostate was slightly enlarged. Doing a little research I found out that at a certain age men's bodies start processing testosterone differently, and the excess goes to the prostate. "Oh," I thought, "Suddenly it all makes sense - I've hit 'guyapause'") I began to see the next couple of years as *very* critical, that there was some change on the horizon that I couldn't stop. I could affect how I changed, however, and that's what kicked me back to my 12 step group.

Which may explain why, having been laid off of work, I'm surprisingly not all that worried about the future. (Plus, having a Buddist for a sponsor helps. Ask me sometime about he's going all "Zen" on me...)

Sorry about rambling, but just wanted to point out that sometimes "Death = Change" I'm not sure if it stands that "Change = Silence", however...

David Cummer
huladavid@aol.com

Re: Books 'n Death

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your thoughts, David. Good to see you on LiveJournal, and good luck on the job hunt.

By the way, I have some materials that you lent to me when I was doing research for Swans (the account of your visit to the Quilt) and if you e-mail me your address, I'll get them back to you.

Cheers,
Peg