Metaphysicality (or Something Like That)

What’s on my mind? Words. 

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.” - Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, 1872.

Words are the building blocks of language. Most of us use many. Some, we speak. Some, we write - whether in anger or meant as a joke or muttered while we’re asleep. We throw words around like medicine balls, hoping they’ll “teach someone a thing or two” or we’ll learn something when the balls bounce back.

As a writer, I look up many words a week - quite often, words I already know. Why do that? For the same reason every writer or wannabe writer does - to check the word’s alternate spellings, its translation to or from another language, and its shaded meanings. 

To “run” suggests speed, but not distance; to “sprint” suggests a burst of speed, with a distance implied as short. From running and sprinting, the jump to synonyms (related words with the same or shaded meanings) is quick and fun, just as meandering into the thicket of antonyms (words that mean the opposite of “run”) can also be fun.

I bury my nose in a dictionary several times a day, and thank Mr., Ms., and Dr. Dictionary Writers for the work they do.

One of the countless words I don’t know well enough is “metaphysical.” I think it means “abstract,” but then I’d need to look up “abstract” for its precise definition. No point guessing ... I turned to an online dictionary to check. 

“Metaphysical”: 

met·a·phys·i·cal

/ˌmedəˈfizək(ə)l/

Learn to pronounce

(A good start ... )

adjective

1. 1. 

   
   

   relating to metaphysics.

   
   

   “the essentially metaphysical question of the nature of the mind”

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2. 2. 

   of or characteristic of the metaphysical poets.

noun

1. 1. 

   Metaphysical; plural noun: Metaphysicals; plural noun: the Metaphysicals

   
   

   ERK!
   

   
   Now that everyone knows how to define this word, let’s move on to synonyms and antonyms, shall we?
   Let’s also find whichever Mr., Ms., or Dr. Lunkhead penned this so-called “definition” and toss the word right back, like a medicine ball.

   
   PS: “Metaphysicality” (the word in my headline) is a made-up word.
   
   © Nicole Parton, 2019

Tell It to the Giraffe

Yesterday started well enough, but by the time it ended, I felt like the town fool. I was the town fool. Before I tell you what happened, I’ll preface this story by saying that I had surgery for a brain tumor, a few years ago.

In case you were wondering, I survived. But I now take the Arnold Schwarzenegger of brain medications to keep myself ticking.

The afternoon found me stuffing mushrooms (Tra-lee, Tra-la!) for a party to which we’d been invited. Happily in mushroom-mode, I realized my recipe needed walnuts, and took some from the Highly Organized Chockful o’ Nuts box I keep in the freezer.

What did I also find in the box? Two large chocolate macaroons, sitting by their lonesome, next to the chockful o’ nuts.

“Gee,” I said to myself, “When did I make these? 1952? 1983? Last month?” I’d forgotten I had.

Carrying them into the kitchen, I took a bite. It was spectacular! So I took more bites until I’d eaten the whole thing. “I must find that recipe,” I thought. I eyed the second macaroon. “Mmmm …”

But then, being the generous type, I decided to share this unexpected largesse with Himself, all the while secretly hoping he’d pass, so I could eat the second macaroon, too.

“Look what I found in the freezer!” I said, holding out the macaroon.

He looked at it and screamed: “Where’s the other one?”

(“Ahhhhh, this must be his secret stash!” I thought.)

“I ate it,” I beamed.

“No-o-o-o!” he screamed again. “They’re $6 each!”

(So I *hadn’t* made them?) “That’s a lot to pay for macaroons,” I thought.

“They’re CANNABIS!”

“Wha-a-a?” I’ve never used cannabis or any other drug in my life. Except for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s daily medication.

“You ate the whole thing?” he screamed again.

“Yeth,” I said.

“You’re going to get high!”

I blinked. “As in … drugs??? I am! I can feel it! My head’s starting to hurt!”

“Not yet! It’s going to take awhile!”

“Oh,” I said, instantly feeling better.

Himself explained these macaroons were medicinal, but nonetheless contained THC or BBC or whatever it is that gives them their impotence. He said he uses the stuff to offset the headaches he still gets following an accident in which some idiot threw him 5 ft. (metric-schemtric!) off his bike three years ago.

(The driver claimed she couldn’t see him. No wonder … He was wearing a fluorescent vest, a helmet, had front and rear blinking lights on his bike, was in a marked crosswalk and had made eye contact with her. Perhaps she’d overdosed on macaroons.)

I returned to my mushroom-stuffing, fortunately finishing the job before … WHAMMO!

I was instantly 3/4s (or maybe 5/6ths) out of my mind. I can’t bear to think what would have happened if I’d eaten both macaroons. I’d probably have run downtown naked.

This would have fazed no one (except, maybe, our neighbor Mr. Harris, who tends to be the excitable kind. That’s what Mrs. H says, anyway. Mr. Harris is easily excited).

Half our neighbors are growing cannabis in their front yards, bold as brass. Mrs. H even braids it in her hair. She looks like Zeus. Mr. Harris brews cannabis tea. No one wants to drink it because they’re afraid of becoming addicts. Even Mr. Harris won’t drink it. He just wants the neighbors to think he’s “cool.”

For awhile, I couldn’t even talk after eating that macaroon. All I could do was make clicking sounds as I smacked into walls and fell down. I remember thinking to myself: “You shouldn’t sign any contracts right now …”

Said Himself: “It’s impossible to hallucinate on what you’ve just had.”

I told him to tell it to the giraffe. I’d morphed into one and was nibbling leaves at the top of a very tall tree.

I saw and heard things I tried to remember but immediately forgot. I fell asleep for what seemed hours, only to see the clock had advanced just two minutes.

I didn’t make it to the party. Himself did, as I - using some weird new Morse code I’d invented - clicked him to do exactly that.

It took three hours for my head to clear. Even then, when it was time for my evening dose of brain medication, I regressed - looking, behaving, and feeling like a total idiot. I was pretty much okay until I took this morning’s medication, when my mind slowed and my memory slipped.

Clever detective that I am, I realized that anyone on meds as strong as mine should never, ever eat chocolate macaroons.

Even now … I was trying to remember something a minute ago but have already forgotten what I tried to remember.

Worst of all, I was having a Crisis Hair Day. I lassoed an invisible stranger to put an invisible bowl over my head and snip-snip-snip. I now look like Little Lulu, buzzed on macaroons.

© Nicole Parton, 2019

Monster

What’s on my mind?
Monster.
When Himself and I recently stumbled across a grave on a windswept mountain, we also stumbled across a mystery. 
Monster. 
Like the loud, slow tick of a clock, I heard it in my head.
Monster. 
I wanted to know! I wanted to know! I wanted to know who or what this was! Mother-in-law? Pit bull? Hit man? Missing person? And then I looked closer, and stopped making jokes.
The words “R.I.P. MONSTER” were painted in blue on a heavy rock at the top of the grave.
I felt certain this was no pet’s grave. This was someone or something whose remains couldn’t be buried in a cemetery - someone deeply loved, despite being a ...
Monster.
It’s none of my business, but does it not seem unusual to find such a grave atop a mountain?  You’d probably need to know it was there, to find it. Respect for the someone or something buried there prevents my naming its location.
Monster.
The small grave is newly cemented over. Cemented over! Heavy rocks ring it - not rocks from the area, but landscaper’s rocks carried to the site, as likely was Monster himself. The rocks are also cemented in. No one does that for a pet’s grave. Whatever or whoever this was (is!), I suspect the grave diggers didn’t want it to leave, to be found, or to be dug up.
Monster.
Artificial flowers cover a portion of the grave. A heart made of cat’s-eye marbles set in concrete mark it, but the writing and symbols on the grave appear to have been done by one or more adults or teens. 
It’s unlikely an older person did this. An older person couldn’t have carried those heavy rocks up the slope. An older person wouldn’t have placed a plastic-wrapped sealed envelope (presumably containing a note) on the grave. 
The envelope reads: “To Monster.” It’s from “Facebook Freinds of Monster.” An older person might not have misspelled the word as “Freinds.” I’d never open that note. I hope no one does. If Monster’s hangin’ ’round, perhaps he’s already read it.
Monster.
Drawn on the envelope is a broken heart with a tear drop - the same image gold-painted on the cement, with the addition of  “4 EVER”.  
A part of me says: “Report this!” Another part says: “Leave it alone!” And a small, niggling part is afraid of what lies beneath.
Monster.

© Nicole Parton, 2019

PS: Although my new book, The Butterfly Box, is finished, plenty of  “technical things” remain for its submission, so I’m not writing regularly yet. 

On Golden Pond

What’s on my mind? Garden ponds. I’ve always wanted one. I said the same in The Trickle-Down Effect (June 3), and one month later, I’m still in love with this pond, and will forever be. It isn’t an enormous pond: We don’t have an enormous plot of land. What it is, is a small patch of serenity in our busy lives.

Every morning - rain or sun - one of the first things I do is step outside to hear the gurgle of its waterfall. Some waterfalls “crash.” Some “trickle.” Some wash over stones, polishing them. Our waterfall gurgles. 

The pond and its waterfall make their magic through a hidden pump and the occasional help of a garden hose - and magic, it is. In scarcely a month, the lilies have flourished; the water hyacinth has grown; the duckweed has spread. 

The man who created the pond left us two gifts - the pond itself, and a small painting of a section of our garden. Each of these will forever remind us of the small and gentle things that bring pleasure - the birds visiting our garden, the butterflies floating on the warm air, the bees pollinating whatever they find, wherever they find it. 

The pond is a paradox. Just as it is central to all this activity, it is a place of calm. Allow me to share it, and the artist’s painting, with you.

© Nicole Parton, 2019; painting © Bernie Schrott, 2019

Astral Projection: Part 2

This is the continuation of Astral Projection Part 1, in the post below. Writing a novel? This is the post for you. Google Russell Galen for more essays and publishing pointers - NP

                                                * * * 

“How do you create a strong plot?” That’s the question New York literary agent Russell Galen posited in his 1992 essay, Astral Projection. The answer’s no less relevant today than it was then:  The reader’s “identification” with one or more characters in a novel can put you into that orbit.

But let’s hear Galen’s own words about this:

“People read novels in the first place for what I call astral projection, the power to visit another world while staying safely in one’s armchair. Good fiction enables you to visit a reality different from your own. Even if you were to stay as close to home as possible - let’s say, a novel about you by your spouse - you’d be travelling far and wide, into the perspective of another human being. Would such a novel be any less exotic to you than the most bizarre science fiction?

“All the standard techniques of fiction go into enabling astral projection, but the most important is identification: causing you, the reader, to feel that what is happening to a character is happening to you. Without it you are an observer in the action; with it you are a participant.

“There are two aspects to creating identification.

“The first is viewpoint. Readers have a natural tendency to identify with the character in whose head you’ve put them. The associated danger is that taking them out of that character’s head interrupts the spell. Switching viewpoints can be a powerful technique in the hands of a master, but, done poorly, is one of the most common reasons first novels are rejected. Just as I’m beginning to identify with a character, the writer will yank me out of there and put me into someone else’s head, then repeat the process a few times before returning me to the first character. Readers can’t identify with several characters with the intensity they can with one, and the interruptions prevent us from identifying fully with any particular one.

“The second is to create a rooting interest. Imagine you’re watching a bout between two unknown boxers. Maybe winning is of life-or-death importance for them, but not you. Now imagine one of them is your brother or son, or better, has promised you the prize money which you need for a life-saving operation. Now you’re rooting madly for your guy to win. By sharing your fate with the fighter your two identities merge: you enter into his shoes and are affected by his triumphs and failures as deeply as he is. You’re no longer a spectactor, you’re a boxer. Astral projection.

“To create that effect in a book, we need to create that shared identity where the reader feels his own fate hangs on what happens to the character. To do that, we need a character capable of inspiring sympathy, and then put him into a conflict. Because he’s sympathetic, we’ll take his side in the conflict.

“To ignite that favoritism into a rooting interest, we give the character a powerful and meaningful desire to prevail in the conflict. The more he needs to prevail, the more the reader becomes caught up in the conflict. The conflict can be as tiny as saving a two-foot patch of garden, but if the character needs his garden so deeply that the consequences of failure are unacceptable, a strong story can be built around it. If the character would merely like to save his garden, but could live without it, we don’t have the stuff of a rooting interest. Desire is the muscle of strong plots, and the lack of it is the most common failing in weak ones: the reader says, “Who cares”?

“We now come to what I call engagement: the moment at which the reader buys into all of the above, that is, begins to root for the character and care about the outcome. Our true enjoyment of the book - the moment at which astral projection begins - begins at the point of engagement. If we become engaged on page 2, page 1 will be a little boring, but readers will give us that, and a bit more, but not that much more. Dozens of times a year I reject novels which postpone the point of engagement beyond my point of tolerance. Be sure to locate the moment of engagement in your story, the moment when the reader’s rooting interest begins, and make sure it doesn’t come too late; failure to do so is a prime reason for manuscripts being abandoned unfinished.

“After engagement comes the struggle, the character’s fight to prevail in whatever conflict you’ve set up. He faces obstacles, he defeats some, is defeated by others. If we’re rooting for him we will hang on every word.

“Finally, satisfaction: a resolution of the struggle which leaves the reader feeling content. Since we’ve been rooting for our character, we won’t feel satisfied unless he gets something out of the struggle. He might prevail. He might not, but get something of value anyway, such as experience, wisdom, maturity. If your aim is to write a strongly plotted book, be sure your ending resolves the struggle in a satisfying way.”

© Russell Galen, 1992 

Astral Projection: Part 1

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away called New York City, a Very Nice Man named Russell Galen wrote a clever essay about writing fiction. He titled this essay Astral Projection. While 1992 may seem a long time ago - especially to you younger earthlings - it barely moves the needle, in galactic terms. Russell Galen’s essay contains a universal truth, as big-bang-on today as it was in 1992.

Good writing interests me, which is why I find this piece of writing about writing so very interesting. 

Russell Galen is the founder of the estimable (look that up, if you must) Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary Agency, Inc., of New York. I’ll publish this essay in a couple of days, and thank Mr. Galen for allowing me to do so. In the meanwhile, let me yada-yada-yada.

I have many reasons for wanting to share Astral Projection with you. First: I suspect some of you are developing or established writers. If so, you can probably tell me how to write faster and better: I wrestle with words every day, and don’t always win. 

Second: Galen’s #1 tip on writing a can’t-put-it-down novel has more to do with character identification and less to do with strong writing. There! That allows us weaselly writers to sigh with relief when we’ve waltzed with the wrong participle or neglected to use the subjunctive. 

And third: I hope you’ll enjoy Galen’s clean, direct prose as much as I did. Writing, agenting, and publishing have seen some dark days, but I have the strong feeling the industry is bouncing back. 

Reading opens you up to new worlds and new ideas. It helps develop critical thinking skills. It makes you smarter, and more understanding, and more empathetic, and more curious.

Friends unfamiliar with the process of book-writing (of which I’ve done a teensy bit, a millenium ago) always ask: “So when can I buy a copy of Blankety-Blank?” They’re always surprised to hear a writer’s job doesn’t end when the last page is done. Writers who seek a traditional publisher almost always need an agent. Finding that agent can be a long and tiring process. 

An agent who believes in the book (and in the writer) will try to match your manuscript with the best publisher for it. This challenging process can take a week, a month, a year - or longer. A good agent is like stardust. And for that agent, so’s a good writer.

The team of writer/agent/publisher/editor/artist works as hard as possible for just one person - you. Not only do we want you to love the book on which we’ve labored - we want you to spread the word!

                                                     * * *   

So that’s a self-serving, round-about way of introducing you to Russell Galen, whose reputation as a smart, caring agent precedes him. Galen says agents and editors generally read just 1% of developing writers’ novels from start to finish. Of those, he says, agents and editors prefer “strongly plotted manuscripts (that) force you to finish ... (over) better written manuscripts which lack a strong plot …” 

BING! Time’s up! I’ll plunge straight into the meat of Russell Galen’s essay in a couple of days - and into what he calls “astral projection.” Doesn’t every writer want to write a better book? The universal truths in this essay could put you in that orbit. 

© Nicole Parton, 2019

Let Us Prey

What’s on my mind?

AN ORANGE CAT IS STALKING BIRDS. 

PLEASE BELL HIM, OR KEEP HIM IN.

Life isn’t simple. It should be. Life should be rainbows and flowers and unicorns and kittens.  

There’s a new cat in town. A hep cat - a term so old, it’s new again. An orange hep cat - and no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump. Our village (that pretends to be a town) is a Trump-Free Zone. 

Having made little posters to alert the neighbors and let the owners know what their cat was up to, I wanted to pin those words to trees and tape them to lamp posts.

No matter how well fed, cats always revert to type - fixating on birds and goldfish bowls. I don’t like asking for trouble, so our pond has no fish. Not only do we have fish-chomping raccoons,  but hungry mink and bears, too. And house cats - let’s not forget house cats.

House cats belong in houses. Not out on the street, extending claws, flexing muscles, licking lips, and hanging around with juvenile delinquent cats, asking for trouble. 

Rarely do we see cats around here. Responsible owners in this semi-rural area keep their cats indoors.

This orange cat must be new to the neighborhood. I’ve seen him twice this past week (Fast fact: 80% of orange tabbies are male). The first time, he was standing in the middle of a quiet street, sizing up the neighborhood, as trouble-makers do. 

The second, he was in our garden. Belly low to the ground, eyes locked on his prey, his clear intent was to play ping pong - his paw, the paddle; our birds, the ball. 

Racing outside, I clapped my hands to scare him off. His response? A cool, insouciant stare and a flick-flick of his tail. As if in slow motion, he easily vaulted our 6 ft. fence. 

He’ll be back. I know it. There’s tender birdies in these parts! 

So I penned a version of the note above - opening with “YOUR” ORANGE CAT … and closing with a snippety “THANK YOU!” Why post these notices widely instead of dropping one at the owner’s door? Why would I write “YOUR” and annoy the whole neighborhood? Because I don’t know whose cat this is, that’s why. 

Why write “THANK YOU!” when the owner might not comply? I may as well have written “OR ELSE!” Where was my proof the cat had come over our fence? Foot-high cat … Six-foot fence … Hardly seems possible, though cats are acrobats. 

I originally wrote OUR birds. This sounded too proprietary - likely to get stuck in some bird’s craw. They are no one’s birds - or, more PC, they are their own birds, responsible for their own lives and decisions: #tweet-too. 

Where was my proof the orange cat was stalking birds? No lifeless, feathered bodies; no terrorized birds cowering in trees.

Who am I to order a pet owner to “PLEASE BELL HIM …”? Maybe the orange cat was a starving stray? Maybe I’d robbed him of breakfast. Which soul has greater moral equivalence - a bird’s or a cat’s? 

Life should be rainbows and flowers and unicorns and kittens. The orange cat was once a cute and fluffy kitten, innocent of the evils of the world. 

I’d maligned this cat. I’d wronged his owner. How dare I! Feeling guilty as hell, I ripped up my poster.

IMPORTANT PS! USA Today reports unbelled cats kill as many as 3.7 billion birds in the continental US every year. 

© Nicole Parton, 2019