WHENAS in Silks My Julia Goes

WHENAS in silks my Julia goes
Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.

Next when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free;
O how that glittering taketh me!

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by Robert Herrick, 1591-1674

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Today is Valentine’s Day and I wanted to choose a poem that was both “romantic” in tone, but also light hearted. I also wanted to go with this one because of the very different content given to the word “liquefaction” compared with what we have come to know, far less pleasantly, in Christchurch during the past eighteen months.

Robert Herrick was a 17th century clergyman and poet, and a member of the group of Cavalier poets known as the “Sons of Ben”—poets with an enthusiasm for the work of Elizabethan/Jacobean dramatist and poet, Ben Jonson.

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To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets around the world, click here or on the Quill icon in the sidebar.

From the Residency Desk

It’s just on a month now since I posted about my big writing goal for 2012, here—namely that:

“I would like to try and complete Daughter of Blood, The Wall of Night Book Three, by 31 July of this year–without compromising on the quality of the work.”

I should add that 31 July is the end date for my current writer’s-in-residence stint at the University of Canterbury, so that is one reason for aligning my ‘big goal’ to that date.

I also talked last month about how I thought I might go about achieving the goal, including:

~ internet free writing time (keeping my residency office at the Uni internet free is the biggest part of that plan)

~ treating every month like NanoWriMo, ie aiming for a monthly target of 50,000 words on paper

So here’s the data for ‘month the first’ :

Overall word count for the month: 26,786 words

Chapters completed: 5, with the 6th well in train.

Highest New Word Count Per Day: 3200

Average New Word Count Per Day: 1100

(I almost always revise the previous day’s work and then write forward from there, so ‘new word count’ means on top of any revision done.)

Clearly 26,786 words is a long way from 50,000—but I am also very mindful that it’s not just about the quantity of words. It’s also, to paraphrase Coleridge, about getting “the right words in the right order.” So 1100 ‘right’ words in their ‘right order’ can be as valuable, if not more so, than 3000, or 5000, or 10,000 that need to be totally rewritten.

Having said that, getting words on the page at all, no matter their quality, is absolutely vital—as even having something (whether 100, 1000, or 10,000 words) that must be totally revised is still 100% further along the track than an empty page. A set word target can really help with that process—but it has to be a means to an end, not an end in itself.

Another reminder that consciously embarking on the big writing goal has brought home, is that the project can’t all be about getting to the destination, ie the finished book. Completion is very important, certainly, and so too is getting one’s writing out there—but a big part of being a writer has to be enjoying and feeling rewarded by the actual process of writing and creating the work. An undue concern with word counts per day could potentially mitigate against that: a lot, in fact.

As always it’s about creative tension, walking that highwire between getting a book written at all and writing it right. This point seems “obvious”, a truism even as I post these words now. But the great thing about writing books is that with each one I am starting afresh as well as ‘making it new’—and the early stages, with all those blank pages still stretching ahead, is a very different place than the final reworking of a completed draft. And a good place to remind myself about what’s really important in the process.

So that’s it from month-the-first: close on 27,000 words and 5-6 chapters. Having said that, I’m pretty sure that one of the first things I’m going to be doing this next writing month is tearing up one of those chapters and if not starting again from scratch, at least rewriting it substantially. And the whole “no internet” thing—definitely part of the solution!

When I was updating my website yesterday, I was thinking about writing a short piece on “The Writer’s Life is Like …” And then I thought: “Nuh—because it’s so obvious!” (Plus done before by just about every other writer—big press, small press & indie–under the sun!)

I mean, of course the writer’s life is like any other small business! You do the book writing (and or doughnut selling, whiteware repairs et al) by day and everything else “after hours.”  (That’s night times and weekend, folks.) And run to stand still, or at least inch forward in small increments—because writing is a small business. So, duh!

While on the other hand,  not being a business at all. That’s because it’s also a vocation, ie most folk who write feel called or compelled to do so, regardless of whether it makes good business sense. Which, again of course, it usually doesn’t! Opportunity cost: high. Likely chance of ever breaking even let alone returning a  profit: low.

This of course means that you can look on the writing life as a ‘Lifestyle Choice.’ Or alternatively, as a ‘Life Sentence’—it all depends on one’s point of view. Also, possibly, on whether one can find someone else willing to underwrite one’s Lifestyle Choice. This could be called Patronage (grants, residencies etc fall into this category)—but more often it’s “Wife”, “Husband”, or “Still Doting Parent.”

Conclusion: the writing life (aka ‘being a writer’) is A Conundrum.

Or in the immortal words from the movie Shakespeare in Love: “It’s A Mystery.”

One, I suspect, of the world’s few remaining Great Unsolved Mysteries—and perhaps that’s ‘the answer’ to the Conundrum, because there is nothing quite so beguiling, or addictive, as a good mystery …

—

Well, you have probably cottoned on by now to the fact that I am not in an entirely serious mood, and might even be accused of being tongue in cheek … Although like most jests, my ‘terribly important thoughts’ contain at least a grain of truth, possibly even more than that. But you see, here’s the thing: to find out for sure, you have to be willing to enter the maze and walk it’s paths for yourself—and to return to the mystery part of the conundrum, I’ve heard it whispered that everyone, on entering, is given a different ‘key.’  Which means that there is no universal truth about the writing life that anyone can share with anyone else—except possibly (I would go so far as to say ‘probably’) the one that Lilith Saintcrow tweeted the other day:

“Writing is not the problem. Writing is the goddamn solution. Get solving.”

“Oh yea!” I say. “And again: yea!”

And now, with post o’ the day done, could be time to go do some solving! 😉

10,103 earthquakes now since September 4, 2010 and still counting—now ain’t that something?

Details are as per the Christchurch Earthquake Map, here (explaining how it works) and here.

Monday 6 was Waitangi Day, the holiday that celebrates New Zealand’s founding as a modern nation, and in my blog post, here, I talked briefly about the importance of contemporary Maori writers in the NZ literary scene.

The day before I had discussed a few of my favourite retellings of the Arthurian legend, here, and yesterday I followed up with a few more favourites that draw on the Arthurian cycle without actually being retellings, here.

But doing the post for Waitangi Day and then following up with a traditional tauparapara/karanga as my Tuesday Poem, here, also got me thinking about the use of Maori myths and legends in contemporary New Zealand SFF–and a few of my recent favourites. (But I certainly haven’t read everything that’s out there, so if I miss your personal favourite, that’s probably why—but fear not, you can tell me about your picks in the Comments!) But otherwise, here goes!

Probably the most well known, recent retelling of a Maori legend would have to be Witi Ihimaera’s Whale Rider (1987), mainly because it was made into an internationally successful film in 2002. Whale Rider draws on the legend of Paikia, an ancestor of the East Cape’s Ngati Porou, who was reputed to have been saved from drowning in a canoe journey from Hawaiki (the ancestral homeland in Maori myth) and brought to New Zealand by a humpback whale, thereafter being known as ‘the whale rider.’ The novel tells the contemporary story of Kahutia Te Rangi Paikea Apirana, a twelve year old girl who is a descendant of Paikia and struggling to gain recognition from her conservative grandfather, Koro, in the leadership of their family line. You don’t think this is speculative fiction? Then all I would say is: read the book, especially the part about the actual whale riding. ‘In my book’ it’s at least a strong contender for the tag of magic realism.

In terms of the use of Maori myth and folklore in contemporary SFF, I can’t go past Karen Healey’s Guardian of the Dead (2010.)   I think it’s an excellent book—an intriguing mix of urban fantasy set right here in Christchurch, as well as in Napier in the later part of the book, that has been woven together with Maori legends of the patupaiarehe (fairies) and taniwha, as well as the myth of Hine-nui-te-Po, the Goddess of Death. Perhaps the most intriguing part of the critical replication of the myth of the trickster demi-god Maui’s (unsuccessful) encounter with Hine-nui-te-Po, is that it has been interwoven with the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Entirely successfully in my view, but I will leave you to make up your own minds—because if you haven’t read it already, then you should definitely read this book.

A third tale that I really enjoyed recently was Tina Makereti’s short story, Shapeshifter, which was included in the Tales for Canterbury anthology last year. As you may know, Tales for Canterbury was put together by editors Cassie Hart & Anna Caro as a fund raiser following the February 22nd Christchurch earthquake. To help promote the collection I featured intros to some of the stories on my blog (you can find them here)—but I could only do a selection and didn’t quite manage to include Shapeshifter. But in fact it was one of my absolutely favourite stories in the anthology—I loved the twist given to the story of Pania of the Reef, the ocean maiden (the Maori equivalent of a Greek nereid) who was the lover and secret wife of local (Napier again!) chieftain Karitoki. I also love the way Makereti captures a distinctively Maori ethos in the story, yet someone who has never been in New Zealand could still read and completely “get” the story.

Anyway, those are three of my favourites—another story sequence I am aware of is David Hair’s  The Bone Tiki  and The Taniwha’s Tear, which I understand draw extensively on Maori sources, but as I haven’t read them yet (mea culpa—so many books, so little time!) I can only mention them here. But if you’ve read them, or have other favourites you would like to discuss, please do so in the Comments. 🙂

On Sunday 5 I highlighted some of my favourite Fantasy retellings of the Arthurian cycle, here. And commenters mentioned a few more too, which was great—so do check those comments, too!

But once I started thinking about it, I realised that there are actually a whole lot of Fantasy tales out there that are influenced by the Arthurian cycle, and draw on its mythology, without being actual retellings. So I thought I’d share a few of my favourites today.

First up, I just have to start with The Dark is Rising quintology by Susan Cooper, simply because it’s such an outstanding series. Although the eponymous The Dark is Rising is probably the best known of the series, the first book is Over Sea, Under Stone, where the character of Merriman Lyon (Merlin) is first introduced.  The strongest Arthurian influences don’t really come in until the 4th and 5th books, The Grey King and The Silver on the Tree, but it’s a classic series and undoubtedly strongly embedded in the Arthurian legends. And as for my first reading of The Dark is Rising–may I say that as I kid I found it really scary, but in the best possible, shivery kind of way!

And then there’s The Drawing of the Dark (hmm, noticing a certain theme with titles here) by Tim Powers, which is another longstanding favourite. The debt to the Arthurian cycle is that as the story unfolds we learn that the main character, a freebooting, Renaissance-era sword-for-hire, is actually infused by the spirit of Arthur, and through Arthur,  the older hero archetype of Sigurd/Sigismund (may I say, really loved that aspect to the story) and gets caught up in the Ottoman seige of Vienna, which was indeed an epic battle of its day. So another nice mix of myth and history, which as you will already know from Sunday, I really like. (Oh, the Dark—well it may not be exactly what you think, but you’ll have to read the book yourself to find out!)

The Fionavar Trilogy by Guy Gavriel Kay, comprising The Summer Tree, The Wandering Fire and The Darkest Road (yup, there’s that word again, only as an adjective this time, not a noun!) is another series where the Arthurian cycle is integral to the story, not just in terms of avatars or archetypes, but with the actual characters of Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot, and yes, Arthur’s hound, Cabal—love the part played by Cabal—being drawn into the epic battle between light and dark in another world. I don’t want to give too much away, but I know when I first started reading this series my first thought was that it was going to be very much in the mould of The Lord of the Rings. And to a certain extent it is—but the story does very quickly find its own voice, and a big part of that is the way the Arthurian cycle is drawn into the tale, but not quite as we know it! Needless to say, I enjoyed its use  in the series, almost in a blending of Tolkienesque—with a side nod to Joy Chant’s Red Moon & Black Mountain re the Dalrei of the Plains—and Celtic/Arthurian mythologies, very much.

These are just a few of my favourites, but I know there are many more. So how about you, do you have a favourite Arthurian influenced Fantasy novel or series to share?

Yesterday evening I had the great pleasure of attending the launch for poet Jan Hutchison’s third collection, The Happiness of Rain (Steele Roberts.)

You may recall that I featured Jan’s poem Unwinding Matariki’s Hair (which is part of this new collection) as my Tuesday Poem on December 6 last year–you can read it again, together with Jan’s personal comment on the poem, here.

The Happiness of Rain follows Jan’s prior collections, The Long Sleep is Over and Days Among Trees, both also published by Steele Roberts.  It features The Coming of the Matariki, which won first place in the Bravado International Poetry Competition 2006—and of course Jan has recently won the Takahe Poetry Competition 2011 for a new poem, Reading the Book Aloud.

I love Jan’s poetry—she is an outstanding wordsmith and poetic craftsperson, and her poems are always insightful, compassionate, and keenly observed. So I was delighted to be able to attend her launch and am very much looking forward to sitting down with The Happiness of Rain—I hope, very soon!

Te Tangi A Te Matui

Kia wkakarongo ake au
Ki te tangi a te manu nei
A te matui

Tui-i-i    Tui-i-i    Tuituia
Tui i runga
Tui i raro
Tuia i waho
Tuia i roto

Tuia i te here tangata

Ka rongo te po
Ka ronga te ao

Tuia i te muka tangata
I takea mai i Hawaiki nui
I Hawaiki roa
I Hawaiki paa mamao

Te hono i wairua
Ki te whaiao
Ki to ao marama

Tihe mauri ora!

~

I listen
To the cry of the bird
Of the matui, calling

Tui-i-i    Tui-i-i    Tuituia
Let it be woven above
Woven below
Woven without
Woven  within

Interwoven with the thread of humanity

Feel the peace of darkness (death)
Feel the peace of light (life)

Bind together the people
descended from great Hawaiki
from far off Hawaiki
from long distant Hawaiki

The coming together of spirits
Out into the dawn
Emerging into the world of light.

The spirit of life is in us!

—

The incantation or tauparapara, Te Tangi A Matui, is both traditional and very old. I first learned it as a child and young adult growing up in the King Country, where it was often used as a karanga, the traditional call that begins the welcome onto a marae. The translation was also as I was given to understand it then. I post it today to honour and celebrate Waitangi Day and the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi: Te Tiriti O Waitangi, the founding document and the founding act of our modern nation.

The Treaty House, at Waitangi

Today, 6 February, is Waitangi Day, New Zealand’s national holiday. For blog readers who are not Kiwi (aka a New Zealander) the significance of  Waitangi Day is that it marks the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi 172 years ago by the Maori chiefs of NZ and the British Crown. As a result of the treaty, NZ officially became part of the British Empire. It’s celebrated on 6 February and called “Waitangi Day” because although the treaty was subsequently taken all around New Zealand, it was first signed on 6 February at Waitangi in New Zealand’s Bay of Islands.

Te Whare Runanga (meeting house) at Waitangi

The words “he iwi kotahi tatou: now we are one people” were spoken by Captain Hobson, who signed the treaty on behalf of the Britsih Crown and subsequently became the first Governor of New Zealand.

Sadly, the chequered history that followed the signing of the treaty and the subsequent settlement of New Zealand by “Tangata Tiriti”—all those peoples who settled in New Zealand following the treaty, including people of British, Chinese, Indian, Dutch, Pacific Island and many other ethnicities—has often fallen short of the aspiration voiced in Hobson’s words.

The Bone People, by Keri Hulme

Nonetheless, I still feel that we do have something to celebrate as a nation today, including:

~ that 172 years on we are still, as a nation, trying to make that aspiration of kotahitanga, unity, work—we haven’t given up.

Whanau, by Witi Ihimaera

~ Something I feel is really important about the Treaty—and that I feel we overlook too often—is that because of it, subsequent immigration into New Zealand by peoples from other parts of the world has been lawful, and this is the fundamental principle that underpins our society, not conquest or seizing by force. This is not to deny the subsequent wars, land confiscations and injustices that took place—but I feel that it is a very important part of our cultural and political heritage, one we should be both proud of and try to live up to, ie it’s why we can’t just push aside claims of past injustices on the basis that ‘bad stuff happens’—because if the whole reason we’re here is lawful, then we have to honor and uphold that lawfulness and justice as we go forward. Well, that’s what I reckon, anyway.

Tu, by Patricia Grace

~ And as a country, I think we have a great deal to celebrate that is about being here together. As a writer, a big part of what I can celebrate is the contribution of Maori to New Zealand literature, through distinctive voices such as Hone Tuwhare, Witi Ihimaera, Patricia Grace, Keri Hulme, Apriana Taylor, James George, Hinemoana Baker—and many more. But these are amongst New Zealand’s most outstanding writers, in our eyes as a nation & also in the world’s eyes, and to me that is a small—or  a large, depending on how one looks at it—realisation of “he iwi kotahi tatou” in practice.

Do you remember when it seemed like every other Fantasy novel or series that came out was a retelling of the Arthurian cycle? I love the “Matter of Britain” (as the Arthur legends were termed in the Middle Ages) but there definitely came a time when I felt “Arthurian-ed out.”

But as with all trends there are some books that remain enduring favourites. Here are a few of my favourite Arthur retellings:

Marion Zimmer Bradley’s “The Mists of Avalon”, first published in 1983. I recall being enthralled when I first read it—by  its interweaving of Celtic myth and real history, and the combination of politics and battles and magic, romantic and sexual relationships—but most of all that the entire story was told from the perspective of the women in the Arthurian cycle. That was definitely a first for me in my Fantasy reading and one I liked, opening up the notion that women’s history and women’s voices in and through storytelling had something to say: something that mattered.

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“The Crystal Cave” by Mary Stewart (1970) — I first encountered Mary Stewart as a writer of romantic thrillers, so was unsure what to expect when I picked up The Crystal Cave, which is an Arthurian retelling from the perspective of Merlin (or Myrddin Emrys) the bastard son of a Welsh princess in the period at the end of the Roman-British era and the beginning of the Saxon invasions. But I loved the way Ms Stewart wove the magical story into probable history—as much as we can deduce it—and provided alternative rationales for how Merlin, as a real man, might have woven his magic. So in this sense it is what I would call the “legendary history” style of Fantasy but still a must-read (together with its sequels, The Hollow Hills, The Last Enchantment and The Wicked Day) for lovers of the Arthurian tales.

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“Down the Long Wind” by Gillian Bradshaw also falls into the “legendary history” quadrant of the Fantasy ‘verse and is the omnibus publication of the trilogy comprising The Hawk of May (1981), Kingdom of Summer (1981), and In Winter’s Shadow (1982).  This retelling focuses on the Arthurian story from the perspective of Gwalchmai, literally the “hawk of May” whom most would know better as Gawain. Like both The Mists of Avalon and The Crystal Cave, Bradshaw’s retelling has a strongly historical context, although it is focused more exclusively in a Celtic milieu than either of the other two books and draws on the older myth cycle of Gawain as a sun hero, in this case wielding Excalibur in its guise as the sword of Lugh.

Hmmm, perhaps like me, you are starting to detect a theme here, which is that the three Arthurian retellings I have enjoyed most all have a strongly historical base, albeit woven through with older magic and myth. So it is perhap not surprising that another strong favourite is a straightout historicalization (I think that’s a real word!)—Rosemary Sutcliff’s “Sword At Sunset” (1963), which sets the Arthurian story in a similar end-of-Roman British era to Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave. In this case Arthur is Artos, the bastard son of a long-dead Uther, but raised by his uncle, Ambrosius, to lead the Roman-British fight against the invading Saxons. I have always been strongly drawn to this portrayal of Arthur as a very human man, struggling with the internal divisions between the Celtic and Roman British, as well as the external struggle against the  Saxons.

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But there is one more version of the retelling that I feel deserves a mention, simply because of the imaginative twist that Patricia Keneally-Morrison takes with the Arthurian cycle as part of her Keltiad--a space-faring Celtic kingdom (Keltia) where the traditional myths are told in a SciFi-Fantasy setting. The Hawk’s Gray Feather (1991) is the first of the Arthur trilogy, told through the voice of Taliesin, followed by The Oak Above the Kings (1994) and The Hedge of Mist (1996). Despite the space setting these are probably more magical books than any of those previously mentioned, and provide an innovative treatment of the traditional “Matter of Britain.”

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So how about you—do you have a favourite Arthurian retelling you’d like to share?