gwynnega | Entries tagged with eleanor bell

So I'm working on a short story that I began to write nearly two years ago and put aside because 1) I needed to do some revisions on Eleanor Bell and 2) after finishing said revisions, my brain was entirely swallowed up by the Jo book and suddenly it was nearly two years later.

Have I mentioned I miss the Jo book? It's a sort of bewildered feeling, not having Jo and Martin and Cyn around. (Of course, when I have to plunge back into Jo book revisions, I'll probably miss missing it!) And it is odd to have picked up this short story from two years ago, which is about Alfred from Eleanor Bell and a vampire suffragette named Beatrix. As I meander cluelessly through the first draft, Alfred keeps saying, "Oh, NOW you're talking to me, are you? Now that those other characters from that other book have left you in the lurch..."

Current Mood: pensive

It is Monday, and I am feeling less than great and hoping my chiropractor can see me soonish. Bleh. But chapter 27 is coming along. I've been researching the beginning of the Iraq War for the Jo book, and it occurred to me I could actually use my 2003 LiveJournal entries for info. Turns out I went to three antiwar rallies around the time the war started (though I'd only remembered going to one). Stuff that was happening in Feb-Mar 2003: I was beginning to write the first draft of Eleanor Bell, I'd just been accepted to grad school, my friend Stew was doing a going-away show preparatory to an east coast/European tour, Buffy season seven was airing, and the slogan of choice among my LJ friends was Make Smut Not War.

This weekend I watched the Jane Campion version of The Portrait of a Lady, which was worlds better than the turgid BBC production and which further cemented Ralph Touchett's position as one of my very favorite fictional characters evah.

Current Mood: uncomfortable

Realm Lovejoy has posted an interview with me on her blog. I'm especially pleased about the fantastic illustration Realm made of my character Eleanor Bell. I've never had anyone draw any of my characters before! Very cool.

Realm also recently posted an interview with my wonderful agent Diana Fox.

Current Mood: excited

It's a beautiful autumn afternoon, cool and cloudy. I just treated myself to the Irving Penn Small Trades exhibition. Amazing photographs--many of them show such a vanished world.

Seeing the exhibit reminded me of the importance for input to go along with all the output, when one is busy with noveling. The 1950s London photos made me long to write about Alfred, pre-Eleanor Bell, which I probably will do (at least a short story) after I finish this draft of the Jo book. I hope to finish chapter 19 this weekend, now that it's finally starting to behave...

Current Mood: impressed

The Science Fiction Poetry Association's 2009 Halloween Poetry Reading is live, though there will be more poems to come. It includes an mp3 of me reading "Ariadne's Thank You Note" (originally published in Space & Time Magazine). It's an Eleanor Bell poem, one that doesn't appear in the novel. I always feel like I'm channeling Eleanor when I read her poems aloud...

Current Mood: pleased

Last night when I got home from the office, I discovered the mail had brought my contributor's copies of the new issue of Space and Time Magazine, which contains my poem "Ariadne's Thank You Note." It's another Eleanor Bell poem, one that doesn't appear in the novel.

Current Mood: pleased

So the Jo book has completely taken over my brain. But when I hear certain songs, they get me thinking about that sequel to Eleanor Bell that I'm going to write...

Last.fm: [plays Trouble by Cat Stevens]

Alfred: Excuse me,

gwynnega, but doesn't that song make you feel like writing about me and Madeleine?

Jo: HEY!!!! That's no fair.

Martin: Wait your turn, vampire.

Alfred: It was just a thought.

Martin: Yeah, yeah.

Last.fm: [plays Man-Erg by Van der Graaf Generator]

Alfred: One might say this is my theme song, eh,

gwynnega?

Jo: You leave

gwynnega alone! It took us long enough to get her full attention after she finished writing about you and Eleanor and Madeleine. Don't you remember how you felt when she abandoned you mid-book and wrote fanfic for a year?

Alfred: That was annoying, to say the least. Okay, I'll wait my turn...

Jo: Sure he will. He's just waiting until our backs are turned.

Martin: Hey

gwynnega, maybe you oughta play the Jo book playlist to be on the safe side?

Current Mood: creative

Today when I was walking back from the cafe with my sandwich, I suddenly had a big insight about the Eleanor Bell sequel. "Oh!" I said out loud. I think a lightbulb may actually have appeared above my head.

Of course, I'm not actually working on the Eleanor Bell sequel right now, but this will make it easier when I do. So I got back to my desk and ate my sandwich (half veggie, half ham and brie) and worked on the Jo book, which is going pretty darn well.

***

Meanwhile, I think the country's having an "it's the economy, stupid!" moment. And not a moment too soon...

Current Mood: hopeful

The first issue of Plath Profiles is up, including my Eleanor Bell poem To the Critics. The issue looks full of fascinating stuff, including such essays as "Alice in Cambridge: Sylvia Plath, Little Girls Lost, and 'Stone Boy with Dolphin'" and "'Just Like the Sort of Drug a Man Would Invent': The Bell Jar and the Feminist Critique of Women's Health Care," as well as Plath's poem "Mirror" translated into Hindi.

Current Mood: pleased

Eleanor's Lessons, an excerpt from The Posthumous Life of Eleanor Bell, is now online via Thaneros Online Magazine. Vampires! Sex! London! Anthony Trollope shoutouts!

Current Mood: pleased

My poem "Scarlet Ode" will appear in an upcoming issue of Goblin Fruit. "Scarlet Ode" is an "Eleanor Bell poem" that doesn't actually appear in The Posthumous Life of Eleanor Bell. Goblin Fruit is one of my favorite online magazines, so I am completely delighted.

An excellent start to the week!

Current Mood: happy

So today I've been feeling happily ensconced in the Jo book rewrites...but just now last.fm played "The Road to Find Out" by Cat Stevens (one of those Harold and Maude songs), and INSTANTLY my brain was back in the Eleanor Bell sequel, and Alfred and a couple of secondary characters were clamoring at me. Yeesh, I think I need to not listen to any Harold and Maude songs until I'm done with the Jo book (or, at least, until I've made a lot of progress on that front).

Alfred, hold your horses!!!

Current Mood: creative

Nice quiet weekend, though, as usual, too short. I worked on chapter four of the Jo novel, read more of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and watched some Dark Shadows, some cracktastic 1984 Ryan's Hope, and two very good movies, Old Boy (Korean psychological thriller, which I didn't love as much as Oasis but which is quite an amazing ride) and Zodiac.

It seems that the key to wresting my mind away from the Eleanor Bell sequel and back to the Jo book is listening to the right music: mostly a lot of Phil Ochs, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Nina Simone, plus a couple of Television tracks and the Isleys' "Fight the Power." Nonetheless, I keep making notes for the EB sequel...

Current Mood: creative
Current Music: Phil Judd - Fire Extinguisher

"Eleanor's Lessons," an excerpt from my novel The Posthumous Life of Eleanor Bell, will appear in the first issue of Thaneros Online Magazine, set to come out at the end of March.

Yay!

Current Mood: jubilant

So I finished the Secret Short Project, which I will be emailing off today. Today at lunch I was going to get back to the Joanna novel, but I was playing Magazine on last.fm, and Magazine's a band I always associate with Alfred. So at lunchtime I found myself scribbling notes for the sequel to Eleanor Bell...

( write me! no, write ME!! )

Current Mood: amused

Today's weather: gorgeous

Today's traffic: horrible (it took me about an hour and twenty minutes to get to the office this morning)

Today's Ryan's Hope: The Seneca and Bucky Comedy Hour

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I always think of the yet-to-be-written sequel to Eleanor Bell as "Harold and Maude with vampires." So whenever I hear these songs, Alfred and Madeleine start talking to each other in my head, even though I'm in the middle of a completely unrelated novel and a Secret Short Project...

Current Mood: creative

My poem "Ariadne's Thank You Note" will appear in an upcoming issue of Space and Time Magazine. It's an "Eleanor Bell poem," albeit one that I didn't end up including in the novel.

This makes two acceptances since the new year. Hooray!

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My longtime friends Joe and Mike Nolte's acoustic show at Wacko last night was lots of fun. It was a book signing for Bomp! : Saving the World One Record at a Time, a history and compendium of the late Greg Shaw's marvelous magazine Bomp! (of which I have a nearly complete collection tucked away in boxes somewhere, and which I read and reread as a punkrockteenager). Joe and Mike's band the Last had their first album, the classic LA Explosion, on the Bomp! label, and they did a lot of songs from that record and the general time period (1979-ish). A good time was had by all.

Current Mood: pleased

An excerpt from my novel, The Posthumous Life of Eleanor Bell, is now online at A Fly in Amber. (The excerpt also includes "The Girl Who Slept for a Decade," one of the Eleanor Bell poems.) Yay.

And now to finally watch the new ep of Torchwood...