Aline Soules

Poet and Fiction Writer

inspiration

Inspiration, Motivation, and Supporting a Small Press

December 1 and the Tupelo 30/30 project starts for this month.  This project has been running for a number of years.  The goal for participants is to write 30 poems in 30 days.  This is my third time participating in this project and it’s always a thrill.  It inspires me, motivates me to generate work, and allows me to support an important small press.  Each of us commits to raising funds for the press through donations to support the poems.

The first poems are up at https://www.tupelopress.org/the-3030-project-december-19/ and will be added to daily until the end of the month. Please read and enjoy them. If you’re inspired, please donate (you’ll find a donate button on the page. I’m honored to be a fundraiser for Tupelo Press this month, even more so when I read my fellow writers’ bios (https://www.tupelopress.org/3030-project-contributors/).  They’re amazing and I’m happy to journey and write with them this month.  

The Gift of the Public Domain

Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/copyright-free-creative-commons-98566/

Reading a Facebook post by Jane Friedman, she reminded readers that important works will come into the public domain on Jan. 1, 2019. Of course, there are also movies, music, and works of art coming as well. Of particular importance, as The Atlantic pointed out, is the fact that a whole year’s worth of copyrighted works are affected. In 1998, the Sonny Bono Copyright Act extended the term of copyright, meaning that we spent about twenty additional years “waiting” for key works to be available publicly, without copyright control. Works first published in 1923 will be opened for us to create new works or simply read them without the addition of a copyright fee. Lifehacker (https://lifehacker.com/these-1923-copyrighted-works-enter-the-public-domain-in-1825241296), also noting this seismic event, has provided a long list of works (scroll down for their list of chosen books).

The one that haunts me is the short story, Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street. This, plus an unfinished short story called “The Prime Minister,” were the basis of her novel, Mrs. Dalloway, published in 1925 (meaning we need to wait two more years to get our public domain hands on it). I love this work for its interiority. The reason I like books with interiority is, for me, full interiority is unique to books. Setting, character, and plot can be found in books, movies, and TV, but interiority is elusive. What’s going on inside a character’s head can be interpreted and partly conveyed by actors, but full interiority, conveyed by the author directly to a reader, can only be fully available in books. Mrs. Dalloway isn’t the only “interior” book in the world, but it’s the one that gave me an “aha” moment when I began writing myself.

As the Lifehacker article points out, not quite everything published in 1923 will come into the public domain, only works with an authorized publication in 1923, so you have to check, but we are finally beginning to see a true expansion of the public domain and that’s the ultimate gift for the new year.

I suggest that you find a book on the list and indulge yourself in the new year by reading it, knowing that it will be there for you, your children, and your children’s children. Maybe one of the books on that list will prompt an “aha” moment, as I experienced. That’s what the gift of reading and the public domain has to offer us.


Seamus Heaney’s Home Place

Earlier this summer, I had the pleasure of visiting a small museum dedicated to Seamus Heaney.  Located in Bellaghy in Ulster, “home” place is exactly the right term for this very special place.  Museums don’t have to be large to be effective and I found that, in Ireland and Northern Ireland, there are many small museums that are amazingly effective, often more so than their large and famous counterparts.

The area around Bellaghy was Heaney’s home and an inspiration and source for his writing.  The lower floor is devoted to an exhibition about Heaney, but upstairs are two important spaces.  One is for children (most museums I visited in Ireland and Northern Ireland were devoted to providing space for children to explore and create).  The other is for the words of Heaney himself.  You can listen to him reading many of his poems and I spent as much time as possible letting his words in his own voice wash over me.  They are printed, if you want to follow along, but I found that his voice in my ears was worth more than any word on the page.

I have read Heaney’s work many times over the years and was privileged to hear him live as he read his work once at the University of Michigan.  Regardless of the number of visitors, as I sat on the upper floor of the museum, putting on head set after head set, I could retreat into his world, his words, his voice.

Links:
Biography and links to some poems, podcasts, videos, and articles:  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/seamus-heaney
“Digging” on YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNRkPU1LSUg
Seamus Heaney in conversation with Michael Laskey, fellow poet and co-founder of the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival. This is an edited version of an interview recorded live at the Poetry Prom 2010 organised by The Poetry Trust.  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/podcasts/75876/seamus-heaney
 

Writing at the Beach

There’s something about a beach that changes us.  We “un-lax” as opposed to relax, letting go of all but the most basic elements of our lives.  We wake, eat, sleep, walk the beach, go in the water (if it’s not too cold), and generally let time take care of itself.

And then there’s writing.  I took a week to go to the beach and write.  I doubt any of this will be Pulitzer-prize winning prose, but my goal is to complete a messy first draft of Part II of my novel before I leave here.  I came with about 90 pages and I’d like to go home with about 160-170 pages—enough to enable me to start shaping what I hope will be a good novel in the end.

Today, the temperature’s going up to 97F (clearly an off-shore wind), so I anticipate sweltering through the day, but the house I borrowed (such kind friends) has a cooler downstairs, so I may spend the afternoon in the gloom of the lower level in order to keep writing.  And that’s the key—keep writing.  Don’t go back and fix.  Don’t decide to change direction (or change direction but don’t go back and “fix” what came before).  Just keep going.  What happens next?

I completed the first part of the novel intermittently.  I still work full-time and I have to sliver my time into slots to keep going.  I decided this wasn’t the best way to operate for Part II, so I’ve taken the plunge (literally) and am determined to write the worst draft ever of Part II before I head for home in the middle of next week.

Sometimes, I get stuck, but then I remember something I learned from Ellen Sussman at a recent writing camp:  the rule of 3.  If you’re stuck, write 3 possible options for what happens next, even if those options are the most outlandish possible.  Surprise yourself, which is the key, isn’t it?  Surprise yourself.  If you don’t, you don’t surprise your reader and nothing keeps a reader going than being surprised into turning another page.  Thank you, kind friends.  Thank you, Ellen Sussman.  Your gifts make my writing possible.

[Image credit:  http://globe-views.com/dreams/surprise.html]

Creating legend

I wish I could remember who said the following:  “Where there’s no explanation, there’s a legend.”  Whether you call it legend or story, it’s at the heart of writing.  Even if your prose or poetry appears to have little or no narrative, there’s a legend or story behind what you wrote.  Some call it experience, but it’s experience remembered and, no matter how accurate, it’s your version and may be quite different from the original event.

Classic legends come from family.  To offer a simple example, I’m named after my Great Step-Aunt Aline, who was born in the mid-1800s. I believe this is fact because her name is listed on the family tree and my mother told me that she named me after her.  So far, so good.  How Aunt Aline got her name, however, is legend and it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s entirely invention.

Supposedly, Aunt Aline’s mother was pregnant at the same time as another woman on the other side of Lochaline, where the doctor also resided.  As the doctor couldn’t be on both sides of the loch at the same time, Aline’s father was instructed to row his wife across the loch when the birth time came to ensure that both women could be attended to by the doctor.  When Aline’s father finally got around to rowing his wife across the loch, he was too late.  She gave birth in the bottom of the boat.  Infuriated, she named their daughter Aline in order to ensure that he never forgot (as if he could).
Legend?  Fact?  Fiction?  Who knows?  But it’s a great story.

[Photo courtesy of https://www.airbnb.co.uk/s/Lochaline]