tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post8168247397276099440..comments2023-10-25T05:30:54.507-04:00Comments on Oh Get A Grip!: "Blue Nails": A conversationAshe Barkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03390519279886657608noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-91365361357059871492014-06-16T15:40:27.020-04:002014-06-16T15:40:27.020-04:00Good luck with that! And there's nothing wrong...Good luck with that! And there's nothing wrong with writing a novel backwards. It's a time-honored tradition. :)Annabeth Leonghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07455191827664110878noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-53464537475921184082014-06-15T20:35:29.318-04:002014-06-15T20:35:29.318-04:00Hi Annabeth!
I hope you're right.
I always s...Hi Annabeth!<br /><br />I hope you're right.<br /><br />I always see myself as a short story writer. As an ADD guy I've never had the attention span to come up with a novel, but Lisabet once pointed out to me that if I gathered together the Nixie stories that have been published so far in different anthologies and filled in the chronological gaps I'd have a novel. That was a real revelation to me. I've been trying to do that since, so someday there may be a novel of sorts. i do hope so. The problem has always been the origin story. The story of her demise was the first story i wrote followed by others, so I'm actually writing a novel -<br /><br />- backwards . . . <br /><br /><br />GarceGarceushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11160407485298015371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-48638666371471660952014-06-14T21:25:42.815-04:002014-06-14T21:25:42.815-04:00I am so glad to see Nixie again. I would read the ...I am so glad to see Nixie again. I would read the hell out of a Nixie book, as I think I've said before. She is one of those characters that breathes, that seems to exist in a reality beyond a set of writer ideas. Annabeth Leonghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07455191827664110878noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-83606785983391280802014-06-14T13:27:21.552-04:002014-06-14T13:27:21.552-04:00Hi Lisabet!
I don't talk to her in my head, b...Hi Lisabet!<br /><br />I don't talk to her in my head, but she speaks to me naturally on a good day. When I was a kid I used to have a kind of dream girl that lived in my head whom I did talk to.<br /><br />Now - there are under the surface some sutble ideas going on. What is a blood family supposed to be? There is a premise to the vignette that I have been interviewing her over several evenings to try to hear her origin stories, very similar in a way to the young reporter and the vampire Louie whose origins he explores in the interview narrative of Rice's "Interview With the Vampire". <br /><br />This vignette is based on the premise of Nixie telling me her story over several nights as the material for "The Tortoise and the Eagle" which I am dying to show you when I finish this last overhaul.<br /><br />GarceGarceushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11160407485298015371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-28543537563084600732014-06-14T13:19:34.476-04:002014-06-14T13:19:34.476-04:00In the Anne rice novels we find when a person is t...In the Anne rice novels we find when a person is turned they lose their humanity, or seem to. They lose their compassion for their prey. They remind me a lot of the valkyries in Wagner's opera "Die Wulkrie". If you ever hear them singing their parts during that famous piece "Ride of the Valkyries" they're laughing at the slain, they have no empathy for the dead at all. <br /><br />I personnally don;t think the ego personality survives death, though i secretly hope it does. I do think something more fundamental does. But it raises an interesting question, if the natural quirks and evils of our personalities were allowed to survive in healthful vigor for an indefinate amount of time, how would that twist us out of shape? Especially in Heaven where you have to be goody-goody all the time?<br /><br /><br />What's interesting about the vampires in that first book is that its stated by Lestat I think that very few of them are ever killed. Most of them die after a fairly short time of existential enui.<br /><br />That's interesting about Lestat's mother, i had forgotten that. It can be very empowering, and now that I'm exploring Nixie's orgins I can see the same for her. It represents power as it might for anyone who has never had power. But also you discover quickly that if the sun will result in yoru fiery death you become extremely limited too, especially without any honest friend to watch over you during the day hours.<br /><br />Of course one of the pleasures of being a lady vampire would be luring cretins to that dark little corner where they think they're going to take advantage of you and - whoops.<br /><br />GarceGarceushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11160407485298015371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-12661545850433631212014-06-13T12:01:31.839-04:002014-06-13T12:01:31.839-04:00Hehe-- No, not this time Garce :>)Hehe-- No, not this time Garce :>)Daddy Xhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12927663248424944119noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-30018234691219947982014-06-13T08:31:27.101-04:002014-06-13T08:31:27.101-04:00Hello, Garce,
I've known Nixie for a long tim...Hello, Garce,<br /><br />I've known Nixie for a long time (though not as long as you have). Every time you bring her on-stage, she becomes more real and more complex. <br /><br />Do you have these conversations with her when you're not writing? Does she hang out in your mind, engaging in dialogue, when you're on a bus, or in the supermarket? Or does she only emerge when you sit down to write one of these exquisite vignettes?<br /><br />I loved the Moby Dick image, too. Plus this one:<br /><br />"The milk pale face, the platinum silver hair, she looks as though she was poured into her clothes from moonlight."<br /><br />Gorgeous.<br />Lisabet Saraihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05162514190572269660noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-21534401689174946782014-06-12T22:27:26.930-04:002014-06-12T22:27:26.930-04:00Oops! Seems my last message got "lost"....Oops! Seems my last message got "lost".<br /><br />What I said was I preferred Lestat, because in it she has Lestat's mother, once brought across, pondering if given immortality, most people would improve, or just become more of what they were as mortals. In other words, if you were a selfish pig as a mortal, would you become more altruistic, or just more of a pig? Because what reason would you have to improve if you didn't fear any eternal punishment?<br /><br />And also when she leaves Lestat to go out into the world, she thanks him for that gift. She will never again have to fear men, or being a lone woman in a crowd of men, again. She can experience the world as a man would, without fearing the reprisals so often visited upon lone females who dare to be independent. At that moment, I'd have gladly given up the sun for the opportunity to experience the world like that, knowing that any random alpha-hole who gave me trouble would quickly find out he'd picked on the wrong "little woman". Make your own damned sandwich, you cretin! YOU are MY dinner tonight!Fiona McGierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13495707848048468428noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-51470582667874548892014-06-12T21:21:56.907-04:002014-06-12T21:21:56.907-04:00Hi Daddy X!
Definitely looking forward to your po...Hi Daddy X!<br /><br />Definitely looking forward to your post next week. Will there be Indians?<br /><br />GarceGarceushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11160407485298015371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-5219081061762754942014-06-12T21:20:54.627-04:002014-06-12T21:20:54.627-04:00Hi Sacchi!
Have you read Moby Dick? I've rea...Hi Sacchi!<br /><br />Have you read Moby Dick? I've read it twice. It's all about God. Ahab is angry at God.<br /><br />Garce<br /><br />"Speak not to me of blasphemy man - I'd strike the sun if it insulted me!"<br /> AhabGarceushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11160407485298015371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-49663515225506079002014-06-12T21:19:11.136-04:002014-06-12T21:19:11.136-04:00I had to go running to the dictionary to find out ...I had to go running to the dictionary to find out what bicameral means! I think writers are bicameral by nature. Nixie is very much a part of me, combined with a few other people I know. I think she represented a part of me from a darker time. This is a better time so she is becoming more sunny. The questions that bug us are what we should be exploring in fiction or we're missing an opportunity. She is kind of what Jung would have called my "anima".<br /><br />I think a lot about AnneRice and what she was going through when she wrote "Interview With the Vampire" which is my vote for greatest vampire novel ever written flat out. She had a little girl who had died from an illness and she is spiritual agony at the time and for a while became an atheist. The child vampire Claudia who also dies in the novel was definately based on her lost child.<br /><br />Thank you for saying so, but Anne Rice is over my league. She's a better writer, but we write along the same lines.<br /><br />GarceGarceushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11160407485298015371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-10043301369166530892014-06-12T16:41:10.613-04:002014-06-12T16:41:10.613-04:00Tremendous post once again, Garce. Always insightf...Tremendous post once again, Garce. Always insightful, thought provoking stuff from you, as this topic truly calls for. Your philosophies dovetail nicely with my own. Check out my post next wed. <br /><br />Communicative connection between human beings is a catalyst toward achieving profound states of experience. Daddy Xhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12927663248424944119noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-20679680334713964672014-06-11T23:18:38.362-04:002014-06-11T23:18:38.362-04:00What Fiona Says, indeed. But my shallow mind gets ...What Fiona Says, indeed. But my shallow mind gets the greatest kick out your Moby Dick image. Sacchi Greenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10801164916418570059noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9156334464585894857.post-2797487655045895002014-06-11T12:06:40.946-04:002014-06-11T12:06:40.946-04:00Sigh. Truly an enjoyable read. Where to begin? I...Sigh. Truly an enjoyable read. Where to begin? I think, Garce, It seems to me that Nixie is you. The curse of a bicameral mind is that we are always having discussions with ourselves in our minds. Primitive man used to call the "other" voice by the names of whatever gods he/she believed in. We now know that these "conversations" are a part of our consciousness. But Nixie, for you, is the "devil's advocate" to your questioning pilgrim. You're still asking those questions that used to burn so hot within you during your younger days, but now you're couching them in fiction. And ascribing eternal life to one part of you. She's the yin to your yang, the foil to your actor. And not coincidentally, she's female while you're male. In this piece you express the duality of our natures, while exploring the important questions we usually ignore as we focus on the minutiae of our lives. But for you these questions won't go away. <br /><br />I love to read your stuff. It always makes me think, going back to the first thing I read by you that involved the "tulkas", a concept I'd never heard of. You really need to get Nixie into a full-length book of some sort. This reminds me of that "Interview" book, only you're so much a better writer than she will ever be. (She's vindictive so I don't want search engines to find a mention of her name here.) You use the eternal person to provide answers we all need but are afraid of, so we never ask the questions. The only other thing I can say is "Bravo!" and thanks for sharing.Fiona McGierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13495707848048468428noreply@blogger.com