Friday, March 2

5:00 PM -- I'll be signing books, come by and meet me if you have a moment.

5:30 PM -- I'll be reading from Miserere and my newest novel, The Garden.

Saturday, March 3

10:00 AM Religion in SFF Many beloved science fiction and fantasy series have religious undertones. Our panelists discuss the nature of faith in genre fiction, and what the popularity of these themes might say about fandom.

4:00 PM The Heroine's Journey Does the Heroine's Journey differ in some way from that of the Hero? An examination of the heroine's role in genre fiction.

7:00 PM Libraries of the Future With the growing popularity of e-books, what will happen to our libraries?

Sunday, March 4

10:00 AM Strong Female Characters Ever since Xena and Buffy brought the idea of the strong female character to the forefront of pop culture, the concept has shifted from novelty to cliche. Writers discuss the trick to doing it well without falling into any of the obvious traps.

It never occurred to me to study Christianity from a historical angle. When I did--many, many years later--I found quite a few interesting facts. It turns out that prior to being expunged by the Deuteronomic laws, Elohim/Yahweh had a consort named Asherah. She reigned beside Yahweh in the Jerusalem temple for over half the years it stood.* 

As I moved from the history of Judaism to the history of early Christianity, I stumbled across an edition of Frontline, From Jesus to Christ, where Elaine Pagels talked about a poem found at Nag Hammadi entitled The Thunder, Perfect Mind.** What got my full attention was that this poem exalted the power of the divine feminine.

Pagels believes that whoever wrote the poem knew the traditions of Isis and the traditions of the Jews. The poem itself is composed to salute the divine feminine in all her forms.

While writing Miserere, I often referred to The Thunder, Perfect Mind for Rachael's scenes. I wanted to convey the strength of the goddess through her attitudes, experiences, and actions. Modern Christianity tends to divide the feminine between the images of the virgin (Mary, mother of Jesus) and Mary the Magdalene (who was a prophet, not a prostitute, but that's another post for another day). All of the very important parts of being a woman are omitted from this narrow theology.

The Thunder, Perfect Mind is a piece of Gnostic literature that encompasses the whole woman and projects a feminine that is both mysterious and wonderfully accessible. We don't know the name of the divine revealer who wrote this poem. She could be any woman within whom the goddess resided. Whoever she was, she was no white goddess standing serene and aloof. This is the crone speaking from all her experience, all her passion, all her multiple experiences. These are the words of a goddess in her totality. She has lived in the fullness of life and she exemplifies the Great I-am.

The opening lines demand the reader's attention with the command: "Look upon me, you who reflect upon me, / and you hearers, hear me." Then the poem reflects upon the female experience through contradictions:

For I am the first and the last.
I am the honored one and the scorned one.
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the wife and the virgin.
I am <the mother> and the daughter.
I am the members of my mother.
I am the barren one
and many are her sons.
I am she whose wedding is great,
and I have not taken a husband.
I am the midwife and she who does not bear.
I am the solace of my labor pains.
I am the bride and the bridegroom,
and it is my husband who begot me.
I am the mother of my father
and the sister of my husband
and he is my offspring.

She embodies the spiritual and the after-life:

I am the knowledge of my inquiry,
and the finding of those who seek after me,
and the command of those who ask of me,
and the power of the powers in my knowledge
of the angels, who have been sent at my word,
and of gods in their seasons by my counsel,
and of spirits of every man who exists with me,
and of women who dwell within me.
For I am the one who alone exists,
and I have no one who will judge me.
For many are the pleasant forms which exist in numerous sins,
and incontinencies,
and disgraceful passions,
and fleeting pleasures,
which (men) embrace until they become sober
and go up to their resting place.
And they will find me there,
and they will live,
and they will not die again.

Each time I sat down to write Rachael's character in Miserere, I would hear her say:

I, I am godless,
and I am the one whose God is great.

Given the chance, Rachael would open rip heaven's doors and demand that God account himself to her.

She is godless, but she believes her god is great.

She is coming ...

Selah

-----------------

*I'll refer you to the link embedded in the quote, which comes from a post by Dr. Robert M. Price, who condenses a great deal of information in a very brief blog post.

**The actual poem is very long. I've only used excerpts in this post. The original was taken from: James M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library, revised edition. HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1990 and quoted in full on the PBS web site.

A few additions that you might be interested in: I've rearranged the links under Cool Places to include three history sites that I really enjoy checking out: History of the Ancient World and The Medievalists. Both offer up historical findings and papers by scholars that might be of interest to fantasy fans.

The third is LIBRO (The Library of Iberian Resources Online). If you haven't already guessed, I've found LIBRO to be an absolute boon in locating resources for The Garden, especially information on Iberian military history. Thanks so much to the Amercian Academy of Research Historians of Medieval Spain for making this valuable resource available online.

Speaking of The Garden, I've touched up that side of the site as well, and you can see the expanded blurb here.

Now I'm back to editing and writing. What have you been up to?

So this is just a reminder that Miserere: An Autumn Tale, Teresa Frohock (Night Shade Books) was published in 2011 and is eligible for a Locus Award.

I know I've been a sloppy blogger of late, but time has been short these last two weeks. I'll be back soon. Meanwhile, head over to Locus and vote your favorite book.

Neal Asher has a nice blog post this morning about ranty blogs and why he is no longer going to read them. I've already moved into adopting that policy. I'm also staying out of threads and groups where there is a lot of anger.

It's emotionally draining and, truth be told, it's a bloody waste of my time. There is a huge difference between engaging in a discussion where people actually listen to one another and a rant where people talk AT one another. People tend to spew a lot of rhetoric without any true engagement or respect for the other person's point-of-view.

That's not a discussion--that's an argument.

I spent the first twenty years of my life being an angry person, and I've spent the last twenty learning to live in peace with the people around me. You guys get your wild on. You'll get tired of it one day too and wonder why you wasted so much time being angry at people so beyond your control.

The Garden is almost grown--a couple of chapters more and a weeding, then we're done.

Things I miss tonight: my husband beside me, my daughter telling me about her day, and yes, the cat poking me.

Things I have tonight: beautiful friends who show their love in both word and deed.

I'm in New York City now, listening to the wind roar outside my room. The sound of the wind on a stormy night always brings to mind a ballad I read in a book on vampires many years ago. I don't recall the title of the book, and the ballad was one of those anonymous ballads that has been reprinted dozens of times in various books.

When I hear the wind and see a smattering of rain, the first lines of "The Unquiet Grave" always pop into my mind. It goes like this: 

I

‘THE WIND doth blow today, my love,

And a few small drops of rain;

I had ere but one true-love;

In cold grave she was lain.

II

‘I’ll do as much for my true-love

As any young man may;

I’ll sit and mourn all at her grave

For a twelvemonth and a day.’

III

The twelvemonth and a day being up,

The dead began to speak:

‘Oh who sits weeping on my grave,

And will not let me sleep?’—

IV

‘’Tis I, my love, sits on your grave,

And will not let you sleep;

For I crave one kiss of your clay-cold lips,

And that is all I seek.’—

V

‘You crave one kiss of my clay-cold lips;

But my breath smells earthy strong;

If you have one kiss of my clay-cold lips,

Your time will not be long.

VI

‘’Tis down in yonder garden green,

Love, where we used to walk,

The finest flower that ere was seen

Is wither’d to a stalk.

VII

‘The stalk is wither’d dry, my love,

So will our hearts decay;

So make yourself content, my love,

Till God calls you away.’

Just click Research if you want to see the list.

On Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 9:00 p.m. EST, I'll be the guest author for #sffwrtcht.

I've often popped in to follow the #sffwrtcht hashtag on Twitter. It's a very friendly place to hang out, so if you have time, stop in and say hi or just lurk. We'll be glad to have you!

We will be talking about fantasy, science fiction, and writing. If you have a question about Miserere, bring it along and I'll do my best to answer in 140 characters. I look forward to seeing you there!

For the next couple of weeks, I'll immerse myself in this particular story to cultivate the voice of the characters, the overall tone of the book. I don't know if other writers do this or not, but when I reach this stage, I can't read someone else's work or that author's voice sticks in my head. Then I find myself mimicking another writer, almost like picking up an accent when talking to someone from another area of the country or world. I can take the time to work around it in the early stages of my novels but not when I'm working on the final chapters or the final edit.

What about you? How conscious are you of an author's voice while reading a novel? Can the voice or tone of a novel be the making or breaking point for you? If you're an author, do you reach a point in your novel where you cannot read other people's works while working?