Happy Birthday William Faulkner

 

I wish I was at home, still in the kitchen with my family around me and my hand full of Old Maid cards.

William Faulkner

(Happy Birthday, Bill.)

Anne Rice talks about writing on Facebook

I've been looking at all my Anne Rice books, thinking of my reading of her over the years, I remember vividly some of my thoughts when reading one of her books for the first time, thoughts which made my own journals or that I wrote as marginalia in the book. Rice was a consummate researcher and reader by personality and in this video she talks about that. Research was a part of her life. Reading was her life. Like myself, she read far more nonfiction than fiction. She said that she liked detail, those dry details that many people read over or soon forget. 'Those are the things I love.' In this video she talked a bit about Michael Curry whom she loved as much as she loved her character Lestat. 'Micheal Curry is equally important to me. She answers questions about her process while talking about writing. Writers face "constant battles" when creating. I sometimes believe it is absolutely neurotic to be sitting alone in a room, spending hours talking to imaginary people. But some of us are dreamers like this. She talks about those horrible moments of trying to shut off our minds after hours of creating, something I often experience.' I laughed and smiled when listening to her talk, because she was so "NOLA" Irish Catholic that it's funny at times and I so loved that because I also grew up in that kind of atmosphere in the South. Anne Rice was an incredible human being, a wonderful writer, a loving wife and mother, and was lucky in both her experience and career. Like all human beings she faced pain and suffering. Jack and I were talking about her and her dreams/goals and how she never really got her books to TV the way she wanted because she simply ran out of time. I don't watch the current series. I followed her carefully over the years and I knew what she wanted. 'I hope fans of the TV shows will buy her books and read her stories so they can see these characters as she envisioned them.' One of the most wonderful things about this particular video for me personally (as a writer) was Anne saying she does not work in drafts. I loved discovering that because I have felt so alone in the world of publishing at times. I do not write in drafts at all. I don't even understand that process. I don't really share my work or ideas, I keep them close to me. I don't need beta readers, and have never used a beta reader in my entire writing experience. I sometimes think I will, but never do. Usually other writers I know will see my work when I am done. Laughing. One "definitive" piece of advice Anne gives is about trusting your own emotional instincts, right or wrong. She did lament killing off Armand, and later brought him back to life. And I was surprised to find out how much editorial advice she took from Vicky when I knew how much freedom Anne had when working. But of course, Vicky and her had one of the longest editor/writer relationships in the history of publishing. I often wish I had been in the room when Vicky read Interview with a Vampire for the first time. In those years, Knopf was a literary, upmarket publisher (still is) and we all know Victoria Wilson knew she had never seen a book like Interview with a Vampire come across her desk. OMFG. Even now as I write this I am laughing, because my own experience in publishing gives me a true understanding of that moment. Vampires. Vampires at Knopf in the 1980s and not by some dead 19th century writer. Pardon me while I lie back in my chair and laugh while marveling at the thought of it. Of course, vampires were popular in genre fiction, but this was not genre fiction. Well, as they say, the rest is history. Yes, I have some friends who would never ever admit they had read an Anne Rice novel. A couple times, I gave them as Christmas presents to professors at college. They are full of philosophical thoughts and the cosmos is a metaphor for life. I miss Anne Rice. Her complexity. Her contradictions. Her love of beauty and understanding people who lived in the past. She got history better than most. Really. She had struggles. She was very nuanced in her thinking and often changed her mind, back and forth. That's a rare thing in the world right now. Too rare and a loss. I wanted to write this post because at some point I might not have time myself. We are all running out of time.

On Arthur Rackham

Haunted Wood, 1913, Arthur Rackham

"He became, in my eyes, a wizard who with one touch of his magic wand would people my imagination with elves, gnomes and leprechauns. He would make me gaze fixedly at a majestic tree with massive trunk, and tell me about the little men who blew their horns in elfland. He would say that under the roots of that tree, the little men had their dinner and churned the butter they extracted from its sap. He would also make me see queer animals and birds in the branches of the tree, and a magic door beneath its trunk..."

              — Walter Starkie's memoirs of his famous uncle

Rufus Wainwright - Sonnet 29 - Shakespeare

This is all I have to say today.

A Cassandra that nobody quotes or talks about now.

🎨 Leonard Baskin

The bee is domesticated but not tamed.

     — William Longgood

The Origin of Love (feat. KJ Apa, Lili Reinhart, Camila Mendes & Cole Sp...

I am reading The Symposium by Plato and I found this song which is version of Aristophanes's speech. Everything cost. Love is a wound. The search eternal.