Exploring and writing truth with fantastical elements is how I work in both my art and writing.

 

Painting by Florence Susan Harrison.

"Fantasy is not antirational, but pararational; not realistic but surrealistic, a heightening of reality. In Freud's terminology, it employs primary not secondary process thinking. It employs archetypes which, as Jung warned us, are dangerous things. Fantasy is nearer to poetry, to mysticism, and to insanity than naturalistic fiction is. It is a wilderness, and those who go there should not feel too safe.” 

                       —   Ursula K Le Guin

This beautiful image and quote are from Terri Windling's gorgeous web page on the Symbol, Allegory, and Dream: The Art of Florence Susan Harrison, a thoughtful essay that also is a defense of writing the fantastical in good fiction.  Is this painting not gorgeous and all about surrender and passion and love. The link: https://www.terriwindling.com/blog/2014/03/symbol-allegory-and-dream.html

Windling, whom I have followed her entire career, wrote this piece back in 2014, and when I saw it, I really latched onto the idea that I could write a story about evolution and science in the form of a fairy tale. I had already written a draft or two of my novel previously. But I was never happy with it, and it wasn't because it was a rough draft or idea. It was its form and structure, it's arrangement of characterizations. I was reading Angela Carter at the same time, and I came across a story called The Erl-king, about the same moment I saw Windling's post and something clicked in my brain. I really could write a story about evolution as a fairy and folk tale. I would be able to do this with symbols and metaphors and even with a touch of allegory as Nathaniel Hawthorne used. It would be pure Romanticism, a sort of coming of age story and the narrator would be this rather ordinary human being who is faced with extraordinary circumstances, and it would be akin to my established patterns in my painting and other work, such as poems, etc. I would be exploring my thoughts on evolution and my absolute love of science and ideas and truth in a surreal fashion. But how? Laughing.

The devil is always in the details.

And as it goes in all art, I made mistakes, some that I could fix and some I could not fix with this project. At times, the work was impossible. I was limited. So limited.

I had to put this project away (many times), though I never lost sight of it. But it was not the first novel I had written and it was not even my "dream project." I have saved that for Second Book Syndrome, because I know exactly how that happens to writers. I now call my current work, The Ambitious Fairy Project. (It's hopeful because I have a #2 planned.) In the beginning, it was too damn ambitious and I did not even have the skill set needed to do it justice. And as the years passed, I began to believe I would never write and finish it. And there would be no second book because the first had never been completed. This is an awful reality for any creative. And I write this very sincerely. And even now, I have fears that I won't finish. I will never write another novel. I hold those feelings today as I write this post. But I am on the path. I am committed.  I even took a Cognitive Behavior Therapy program to help me get to this place where I could type the words,  I. HOLD. A. BELLIGERENT. COMMITMENT. TO. THE. WORK. And I have had to come at this project very differently than I worked previously though I had to keep my keen eye for objectivity, something that has been both a blessing and curse. I had to make order out of chaos, not only in my art but in my life.  Covid and illness plagued me. Yes, plagued me. The question of Prozac loomed large. Understanding the critical mind pressed me to the floor on occasion. And none of these things have changed. 

But I have changed. In bits and pieces. Fragile changes.

As the Le Guin quote alludes to, when we really work hard, we have to be vulnerable at the same time. We enter a dangerous territory where there is no safety and we have to find our way through more chaos and somehow organize it as we go. We cannot create order in the old, negative ways. We kind of have to surrender to it. As someone who works with intention and intellect, this has been very difficult to achieve. I am not someone who likes to be so intuitive in the drafting. I want more control. I want to understand it all. See the big picture. 

Yes, I can see the big picture. Laughing. But it's how I understand and deal with my critical mind THAT is completely different. How I am willing to let process overwhelm me and surrender.

It's funny and odd, but I kind of like surrendering right now. It's very passionate. How I fall.....

Smiling.