ieva melgalve

I built a house on a broken hill
Broken and mended with my own fears
I built a house on an empty space
That my mind produced instead of a cure

A house of plaster, a house of words
A creaking, cracking house of dreams
A house that held against all the winds
A house that was the birthplace of streams

There is still a place in the basement deep
A hole that opens in the deepest of dreams
It peers down deep into the abyss
Deep down, there’s a mirror of all that exists

And there I lay down on a floor, and I look
And in the reflection, there is not any house
I see myself floating up in the sky
And the streams of tears and blood flowing out

There is nothing to keep me and nothing to hold
There are no cracks and there are no seams
But there’s future below me and past up above
And me, flowing freely. A thousand of dreams.

So, first five days of Story-A-Day May have been quite good. I’ve written a story in each of them, some better, some (umm) requiring heavy editing. On average, it is just the same as if I’d written them in my normal story-a-month pace. I am running out of words though, this funny exhausted feeling I’m usually getting through NaNoWriMo.

But it seems that for me, most productive way of working is short one-month long spurts of concentrated activity instead of…well, anything that’s longer than a month. I will have to declare June an EditANovelJune. After all, it’s all fun and games, as long as I do it for a month. And as long as nobody gets hurt.

So my short story, “The Roommates”, has been published in Fusion Fragment. Go ahead and read it, it’s online and for free.
I’m quite happy about how it looks even though I’m coming through the usual post-publication blues. I think I’ll try to make a “behind the scenes” post at some time, but not now.

The scariest thing about having an opinion (or accomplishing something, or just being known) is that people will disagree with you and criticize you. There’s no way around it; the more people know about you the more criticism you will receive. (Sure, you can switch off the comments or never read them, but I think in most cases, that’s not the way to go. Sometimes, yes, but not always.)
There will be people who hate you just because you are who you are, and try to mess with you because they feel threatened by you. That is a sad thing but at least I can deal with it.
But there will be people who give me honest and grounded opinions who differ from mine, people who prove very well that my ideas are wrong. I am now able to predict them, but I cannot guard against them unless I spend all the article fending off differing opinions instead of stating mine. (There are people who do that, and their articles feel just lukewarm and moderately boring to me.)
I think that it’s reasonable, as long as it doesn’t take too much time, to respond to the best counterarguments. Which means figuring out the opponent’s idea, understanding why it’s valid and stating why I disagree.
This means that I’m giving myself amounts of self-doubt that I wouldn’t normally have. This means that there are moments when I think that what I said or did was horribly, abysmally wrong, and now I’m tainted for life and people-will-never-like-me because of that. (Every time I write a critique about Latvian book, I’m pretty certain I’ve gained a life-long enemy. This far people have been very gracious though.)

Last time I got myself out there in the wilds, I got scared about it all and retreated back in my cave, whimpering, licking my wounds and feeling horribly inadequate and foolish.
Now, I hope that I’m stronger, and that my backup (meaning my husband, and a friend or two) will help me through.

1. Take one moderately creepy religion/philosophy/worldview. Something that isn’t merely unacceptable or unfit for you, but something that makes you shudder every time you have to deal with it, something you would keep your kids away from, if you could. For me, it is Christianity. For you, it could be something else.
2. Take a kids’ version of that moderately creepy thing. A simple propaganda material that’s meant to be convincing and light. For me – “Bible heroes” flash cards, with oversimplified pictures of smiling people (Jonah in scuba gear, on the back of a smiling whale) and text that is adjusted to the gentle minds of small children (“Jesus died on the cross because he loved us.”)
3. Draw one card and get the rough idea of a story (conflict) out of it.
4. Research some more to figure out the stuff that’s been left out of the card. Dig deep.
5. Put it in a different time, space, religion – anything to twist the idea around until you love it.
6. Sleep on it.
7. Write a story.

March is so close that I hope I won’t even have pre-May anxiety attack because, well, there’s not much of pre-May available.
My plan is not to write 31 actual stories but rather to develop 31 stories-in-my-mind by outlining them in handwriting, in my notebook. I don’t know how detailed these outlines will be but I hope for something that I can salvage a workable quote from so that I can put that quote online.
My plan includes also extensive use of I Ching and Tarot cards for setting and inspiration. The more I plan it the less attractive it feels, but I think that if I don’t have a plan it would be better. Probably figuring out the essence of divination an evening before and writing a story after sleeping on it.

I need this a lot. An easy-going attitude to stories, churning them out speedily and then rewriting them up to snuff. Otherwise, my inner editor takes over and says, if there’s not a novel in it, I don’t see the novelty of it.
Screw you, inner editor. You have a say on everything except my stories during May.

I must admit I’m feeling weird.
After a long, looong time of trying to be obscure, after a all-too-provocative break off from Latvian literature, this month, I’ve gotten two superb writing gigs. In Latvian. Both are on the very edges of what I think I’m capable of (just perfect for me, because what’s the fun playing within the field you consider a well-known ground?). I didn’t ask for either of them, didn’t even suggest I’d be able to do that, and people just asked, and I was thrilled to say “yes”.

Also, I’m taking another challenge – a Story A Day dare. Which means, a story every day in May. Well, a part of one of my writing gigs will actually entail me writing a story a day (or more), so it’s not that horrible, but still I feel that weird clenching in my stomach. However, this must be the way to go for me, because my perfectionism kicks in really bad when I’m writing short stories (I always stop midway and pronounce them insufferably boring and obvious). I’m still hoping to do at least a page of script a day, too, to get to the end of it by the end of May. (Take a wild guess: who, just this morning, was celebrating the end of burn-out and promising herself to never-never do that again?)

This is very, very thrilling. As in “scary and exciting and did I mention scary?”.
I can do this though.
Until May 1st, I’ll figure out my own rules for story a day and post them so that I can beat myself over the head when I fail.

Yesterday, I braced myself for the final big spurt of action and finished 100th page of my comic script, earning the Script Frenzy victory and everything. The comic itself is only two thirds done, and most of the action is saved for the ending. So it’s really exciting and I think I’ll finish it in a month even without the peer pressure. I won’t be going too fast though because right now, most of my free time will be taken up by a freelance gig, one that I have finally delayed for so long that I am having nightmares about it. Since the theme of the gig is very disturbing, for the first time I actually had a “sitting straight up in the bed in horror/repulsion” episode that I was fairly certain happened only in movies. I must admit that it wasn’t what it’s hyped to be (actually, it’s a great way to get up in the morning), but still I’ll be glad when that job is over.

I’ve been thinking about what literature really is, both its European and American versions (because the versions are different, and different a lot).
And no, I haven’t come to a sufficient conclusion.
However, I’m thinking that if literature is a healing thing, there are zillions of ways how you can heal yourself. I, for example, just managed to get my own pesky demons down by writing a short story, Demonhunter, which isn’t really about demons or hunters or anything. But it made me smile.
And I think that literature is a way of setting the world right. All the theories are actually ways of setting the world right.
Just like our brain interprets all the various impulses coming from our senses and says, here’s a child (my child), here’s a chair, and she’s watching a cartoon… the same way, writing interprets the various stuff that comes into our mind, the emotions and thoughts, and situations we have to deal with. And whatever I’m writing, I’m dealing with stuff, building a world where whatever happens makes some sort of sense.

The question is, can I direct this thing or do I keep swinging blindly–since, considering how little I know about how I tick, makes actual sense?

First, this blog is really slow today and will continue to slouch until we change the hard drive on our server (ie at least until the beginning of May when our salaries come in). I’m terribly sorry for any inconvenience this has caused.
On other hand, my Script Frenzy comic is advancing at a good pace. If I don’t mess up at some point, I will be an early winner. This is very, very good.

Also, I am becoming increasingly more emotional and intuitive, sometimes inconveniently so. It seems not to be just a temporary thing–the feeling of balancing on the edge started when I was writing Virgin, and is in place even now, even know this Script Frenzy thing is decidedly lightweight. I am thinking that probably I should embrace this emerging side of my personality, since I enjoy the intensity of life as it is now, even if it sometimes feels like too much to bear. After all, it is me, it feels like me, and I love this enfant terrible of my unpredictable, emotional side. Now all I have to do is to balance it so that it doesn’t harm my job (both day job and writing), people around me and, well, myself.
It should be possible. It must be.