Stranger than Fiction and Vice-Versa

This is a quote from today's Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keiller:

It was on this day in 1922 that archaeologist Howard Carter and his patron Lord Carnarvon became the first people in more than 3,000 years to enter the tomb of Egypt's child pharaoh, Tutankhamun.

The tomb was located in a place along the Nile River known as the Valley of the Kings — near where the ancient city of Thebes was and the modern city of Luxor is. In the early 20th century, the prevailing wisdom among Egyptologists was that all of the ancient pharaohs' tombs had been found. But Howard Carter was convinced that not all had been discovered, and he kept searching. His benefactor, Lord Carnarvon, grew impatient after years of financing Carter's fruitless expeditions and announced that he was cutting off Carter's funding.

Then, in early November 1922, Carter was supervising archaeological diggers sifting through debris above some ancient workers' huts when a young Egyptian boy bringing them jars of drinking water uncovered a limestone step. The workers dug up the debris and stones and uncovered an entire staircase, which led to a tomb. In the plaster that sealed the door the tomb was the seal of the royal necropolis police from the 18th dynasty, which lasted from 1555–1305 B.C.

Lord Carnarvon came to Egypt from England, and on this day in 1922, Carter broke the sealed door and he and Carnarvon entered the tomb of King Tut, the first people to do so in more than 3,000 years. Carter later recounted:

"At first I could see nothing, the hot air escaping from the chamber causing the candle flame to flicker, but presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold — everywhere the glint of gold. For the moment — an eternity it must have seemed to the others standing by — I was struck dumb with amazement, and when Lord Carnarvon, unable to stand the suspense any longer, inquired anxiously, 'Can you see anything?' it was all I could do to get out the words, 'Yes, wonderful things.'"

Inside were golden chariots, funeral beds, little ships for the pharaoh's journey to the otherworld, plates shaped like lions and cows, a gold throne, gold statues, jewelry, and the child pharaoh's toys. There was also the sarcophagus, used at the funeral to house the corpse (from the Greek, "flesh-eating"), a solid gold coffin, and the mummy of King Tut. It was the greatest array of treasures ever discovered in an pharaoh's tomb.

Most of the items from the tomb, including the iconic gold funerary mask, are housed at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Parts of the exhibition occasionally travel, and right now 50 of the objects buried with Tutankhamun are on display in San Francisco, at an exhibit at the de Young Museum that lasts through March. King Tut's mummy is still located in his tomb at the Valley of the Kings along the Nile River, and it and his coffins and sarcophagus have never left Egypt."

The above story, of course, is true. It has inspired many fictional stories including those by Agatha Christie and many more. There is a legend of a curse that supposedly killed many of the people who broke into that tomb that has been disproved but that has not stopped the spread of that story in fiction. No doubt this story of Tutankhamun will continue to inspire more stories. It has even inspired a comedy skit by Steve Martin: "Tutankhamun gave his life to tourism."

I, myself, saw the relics when they were on tour in Kansas City, MO at the Nelson Art Museum. They were very special. When you see them they do take your breath away and it makes you wonder about all of the other art objects that were stolen from the other tombs.

If any story was made for fiction, the story of the discovery of Tutankhamun was. It has all of the ingredients of mystery. Englishmen driven to discover a hidden treasure of a pharaoh who was little known during the romantic exploration era of the 1920's when such things were possible in the Near East.

Here is another time that as the ingredients of such a time and its anniversary strangely enough is tomorrow: (also from tomorrow's Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keiller)

"It was on this day in 1978 that San Francisco mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk were assassinated by Dan White, a former supervisor who'd resigned but then wanted his job back. White snuck into the San Francisco City Hall through a window in order to bypass metal detectors, then he walked to the mayor's office and shot him. Then he found Milk in a hallway and shot him, too. Fellow Board of Supervisors member Dianne Feinstein (now California's senior U.S. Senator) heard the shots and discovered the body of Milk.

Dan White's lawyer argued that he showed diminished capacity due to his anguished mental state, and that a symptom of this was that the normally fit and health-food conscious White had begun eating a lot of junk food and had binged on junk food the night before shooting his co-workers. It became known as the "Twinkie defense," even though Twinkies were never actually mentioned in court, and the Twinkie Defense is not a genuine legal defense according to the rules of jurisprudence.

Harvey Milk was the first openly gay person to be elected to California public office. This year, Harvey Milk was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama for civil rights work, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed off on legislation (after being petitioned by 40,000 voters) that designates May 22 as Harvey Milk Day in California."

There was another anniversary of another assassination on November 22, 1963 of John F. Kennedy that is like the one above still making waves in our culture. There has been many books and short stories that have used this death as the center piece of the plot or one that sets off other events in the plot.

I remember being in a meeting in which I said that novels are truth or stories are often about truth. The other members of the group just about jumped down my throat. I was going to tell them that it was not something I originated but something that Aristotle said. That is how novels, short stories work. They have to be about the truth although the events may be fictionalized. Writers take from real life and put them into stories but they have to be about truth or it does not work. Sometimes the events are true but changed a bit to fit the truth that the writer is expressing. Even if the genre of realistic fantasy or fairy tales are used, the plot has to about the truth or it does not work.

Life is full of these events. Here is another event further back in history but very real today from the very same Keiller column:

"It was on this day in 1095 that Pope Urban II, while on a speaking tour in France, called for the first Crusade to recapture Jerusalem from the Turks. There was no imminent threat. Muslims had occupied Jerusalem for hundreds of years. But Urban II had noticed that Europe was becoming an increasingly violent place, with low-level knights killing each other over their land rights, and he thought that he could bring peace to the Christian world by directing all that violence against an outside enemy. So he made up stories of how Turks in Jerusalem were torturing and killing Christians, and anyone who was willing to join the fight against them would go to heaven.

About 100,000 men from France, Germany, and Italy answered the call, formed into several large groups, and marched across Asia Minor to the Middle East. Nearly half of them died from exhaustion and sickness before they ever reached their destination. They began sacking cities along the way, and they fought among each other for the spoils of each battle. When they reached the trading city of Antioch, they killed almost everyone, including the Christians who lived there. By the time they got to Jerusalem, it had recently fallen into the hands of Egyptians, who were friendly with the Vatican. But the crusaders attacked anyway, killing every Muslim they could find. The Jews in the city gathered in the temple, and the crusaders set it on fire.

Pope Urban II died two weeks later, never hearing the news."

Again, a good story and true. It certainly has validity today. I thought the story had George W. Bush written all over it. There is a lot that can be done with it and I am sure it must have been done including history books. Don't forget all of the fiction having to do with the Templar Knights and who can forget "The Da Vinci Code " by Dan Brown?

If my little piece seems so simple, please forgive me. Some of the events in that I have talked about have strong meaning for me. I have never used John F. Kennedy or not so far. The murder of Harvey Milk is still too new for me. I have read fiction that had as part of the plot those two events as well as the events of Pope Urban II. There is the wars in the Middle East and the current wars that this country is waging that can be traced to what Pope Urban did so long ago. Nothing is done in isolation. There are many books on the crusades, too numerous to put anywhere and I have read many of them.

And as for taking real events, all I did take were the events that had happened today and tomorrow from the Writer's Almanac and the anniversary of John F. Kennedy's death that I did not have to look up. There are so many to chose from and a writer does not have to chose from any of them. That's the beauty of it.

Finding Out What I Think

Many people have written that they use writing to find out what they think about things. I know this to be very true. I write on a newspaper opinion forum and I have learned so much on that forum. I also learned to develop a tougher skin and to question other people's statements of truth. I never take what they state is the truth but do some research first and then respond. However, the learning of what I think about certain issues is the primary reason I still post on that forum.

Today, a poster wrote:

"Zeb,

I know you consider yourself a free spirit, but this is really not about you or me, this is about the United States of America, and whether or not it is a nation which was founded on the principles of Christianity over 233 years ago.

This nation has a history, it has a well documented accounting of those who have served our country as Presidents, leaders, and founders. Nothing in these historic documents illude to Bhuddism, Islam, Pantheism, Evolution, or idol worhipping.

You may not like our nations heritage, the founders, or even our achievements as a nation. You, however are priviledged, as am I to live in the United States, once, the land of opportunity, home of the American dream, where a government has no authority over its people, its people have authority over the government.

That is the nation you are now a citizen of, and as Americans, all should be proud of and grateful to the founders of this nation, and for me, I also thank God."

I knew I did not agree with this statement, but I could not say why. I started to write my statement and was surprised at my response:

"But it is about you and me. We make up this country along with others. This country is not an inanimate being, existing separate from the people who live here. That is what you don't get. No country is more important than its citizens.

This reminds me of a quote, I think it was Marcel Proust, who said that that the Mona Lisa and even the arc de triumphe paris is not worth one human life.

This country serves me, you, its citizens and not the other way around. Human life is what it is all about. The Constitution and Bill of Rights is a living document that serves the people of this country and we don't serve it. The courts and the laws that Congress changes as things changes because we the people change as we are born, live and die. New people come into being and it starts all over again.

One time on The Daily News, Jon Stewart had pictures of people running for president. He asked which of these people would have won in 1776? He showed the picture of John Edwards only since it was Democratic candidates only. The others would have been disqualified. Hilary Clinton because she was a woman and Barak Obama because he was a Afro-American. Things change."

That is how it works for me. I just put my pen down on paper and start writing. Then my opinion appears before me. I know a writer who writes stories to find out what she believes as the truth. I am not going to write here how this works, it just does and writers have been doing it for a long time. It is like writing meditation and I do that often. (I just wish I could figure out how to get rid of the italicized portion of this post.)

Reading my words on the forum, I like what I wrote. I had never given it much thought. Yes, people are more important than objects such as flags, buildings, and other things that represent this country. This country is the people and not the buildings or some principles that the previous writer thinks is what founded this country. We are a different nation now. The framework that the founders built have withstood the assaults on the principles that made this country great. We now include more people under those of us who can vote and enjoy the freedoms that are in the Bill of Rights. I like that too.

We now have an Afro-American president. Women can vote. People who don't own property can vote too. People who are not heterosexual are now reaching for full their rights. It is a different nation.

I don't know if anyone will ever read this blog. If any writer will ever look at my words. Who knows? What I do know is that I hope that he or she writes what they believe in and explores what they think is right and celebrate the life that writers enjoy. It's a hell of a lot of fun.

"Fears About the Self"

I get up every morning and do some writing meditation in my journal. Usually it is with some coffee and some fruit or yogurt or even nothing. I also do some reading. It is my fun time and I have some music going usually classical. No one is stirring in the house not even the cats for this time of the year I have the electric blanket on and they love the warmth. The dog is outside and will soon hit the screen door and someone will usually let her in.

Ah, then the hard part comes after my bath and I am dressed. Sitting myself in front of the computer in my office and starting my writing on whatever project I am going to work on in the morning. Oh, it is so hard to get started. I have the music that I listen to which does not interfere with my concentration. The heat is on.

And I am scared. I am scared I will not be able to write as well as I did yesterday or that I won't be able to get myself together and write at all. I am scared that what I do put down will be pure crap. I am afraid that I will never get the book I am working on published or even finished. I don't even know what genre it will be for it has changed so many different times. If I get it published, no one who tries to read it will like it. No one will understand what I am trying to do. No one will like my characters and I really care for them. How will I get the editing done and the letter describing it mailed out? At that point I either eat myself silly or I go back to bed and sleep. When I wake up, I feel awful because I really did want to work on my book and other things.

There is a book that someone told me about that addressed many of the problems that I have for I have had them for many years. I have never stopped my writing meditation but I stopped writing stories and books but not in my head. I stopped putting them down. I used to think I was the only one who did this but I have discovered other writers who do this. They report it as a struggle to put the stories down on paper.

Anyhow, the book is "Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards of Artmaking" by David Bayles and Ted Orland (The Image Continuum: 1993) actually does address this issue and others. I keep it around so I can re-read it now and then. I got it in 2005. The authors say in their chapter, "Fears About Yourself", that when you act out of fear, your fears come true. I think that is probably right. They give the example of a oarsman who had recently learned how to work the oars and moves the new boat across the water. There is only one rock that is dead center in the water. He zigs lift and zigs right to miss it. And then he crashes right into the rock. He was afraid of the rock.

The authors state there are two families of fear when you are writing. There is fear about yourself as a writer and then there is the fear about what your readers will think about you. The fears about yourself prevent you from doing your best work while the fears about your readers prevent you from doing your own work.

Well, the authors don't have any magic words that will make one's fear go away. In any situation where there are troubles or problems I have always found that the answer is always mindfulness. You have to get in the present moment and stay there. It is not easy doing that. It is like listening to music and hearing each note. Sometimes you can do it and sometimes life feels like it is going a million miles an hour. Right now, life seems slow because things are quiet and Roger Eno is on the stereo. The grandchildren that were visiting have gone home. Everyone is lying down. Other times, it is not so easy. I am always reminded of this television program years ago called Doogie Howser, M.D. or something like that. He was a doctor and an youngster. At the end of the day and at the end of the program he would sit at his computer and write about his day and the audience would see the words appear as he read them. That is what this blog reminds me right now.

I have written about a writer who makes herself put her fanny in a chair and does not do anything else not even search the Internet about her favorite actor (she loves Sam Neill and I do too and just wanted to put his picture in here.) or anything until she gets her work done. She works by the time. She works at least two hours even if all she can do is put one finger on a key. I sit down and think I need to do some exercise, put the crock pot on for soup for dinner, read my blogs including this one, feed the dogs or cats, make some business calls and on and on. I have discovered that my doorbell does not work. I have not fixed it. I have a table out there for packages. Jehovah Witnesses have not given up. They leave their magazines on my door. The real reason that I do all of that is fear. Who am I fooling?

As the end of the book states, it all comes down to choice between giving your writing your best shot and risking that the villagers will come for you with their torches and pitchforks or not tying at all and feeling unhappy that you let those moments slip by and doing nothing. At the end of an evening in which I watched some empty television programs I try to remember what they were about the next day. I can't. But I can remember what I wrote about years after I put the words down even if they never found the light of being published. They seemed alive to me. That's a good choice.

Rolling the stone up again

In the book, "Words Fail Me: What Everyone Who Writes Should Know About Writing"(Harcourt Brace: 1999), the author, Patricia T. O'Conner, writes about the Greek Sisyphus in mythology who was condemned to roll a stone uphill only to have it roll down again. O'Conner recommends that Sisyphus should be the patron saint of writers. I am not so sure I would like that since the name sounds too much like the venereal disease syphilis . (They are not from the same root word. The name "syphilis" was coined by the Italian physician and poet Girolamo Fracastoro in his epic noted poem, written in Latin, titled Syphilis sive morbus gallicus [Latin for "Syphilis or The French Disease"] in 1530.)

The reason that O'Conner wanted Sisyphus as the patron saint of writers was that most writers end up feeling that they are not going anywhere as Sisyphus felt rolling the damn rock up time and time again. Progress seldom announces itself. It comes in increments, according to the author, without fireworks and without any fanfare.

One time I was writing a book using realistic fantasy and it was one of the hardest thing I ever done. I had the elements of my story in place, but I had no idea how I was going to weave them together into a coherent story. I remember thinking if I could just come up with a story or plot line that would make sense of the whole thing I would buy a wreath and put it on the grave of the man who inspired the story in the first place. When I finally got it together, I forgot my promise and felt absolutely lost in the editing of it.

O'Conner has some signs that you can use so you won't feel that you are running in place and some signs to look for. She cautions not to expect to see them all. If you see one, it can help you keep you going. I have them on the wall behind my computer.

1. You met your quota.

Set a quota or a number of words or pages each time you write. I do a words count since I work on a computer. When the count grows, I know I have made progress. Sometimes, my goal is one sentence or even one word. It just depends. Don't set an unrealistic goal.

2. You've done your time.

I have a friend who is a writer and never uses a word count. She sets a time. When that time is up, she is up and ready to do something. She puts a check on her calendar page. She is done. She does it this way because she often can't get going on something. Inspiration is sometimes perspiration and she keeps her butt in her chair until the time is spent. She does not do anything else no matter what.

3. Your writing holds up.

If it still looks good to you the next day, it probably is. I also read it out loud. If it sounds pretty good, it is good. I catch so many mistakes that way.

4. You can't wait to get back to work.

Now you're getting somewhere. If you are dreading getting back to whatever you are working on it means to me I made a wrong turn somewhere and go back to where the writing felt good. Usually, I edit something further back and usually wipe out the stuff that felt bad.

5. You can't stop.

This does not happen every day, but oh when it happens. It is wonderful. I remember wanting to watch a particular program and did not watch it because I was having so much fun writing. I have a rule. Nothing comes before writing except family.

6. You're not afraid to show your writing.

If you have the confidence to ask for someone else's opinion you've made progress.

I don't have a criticism group right now. The last time I tried the group loved my work and never said a word in criticism. If I said anything back about their work, they reacted in anger. I thought all of them were published and discovered none of them were. It is best to find a group that is in the same level as you are and if you can't listen to yourself. Before I showed my work, I worked on it and read it out loud.

7. You can take criticism without collapsing.

Well, you asked for it, didn't you? Besides, if criticism helps you get your project back on track, that progress. I remember the first time someone criticized a story of mine. They said a swimmer I was describing sounded more like a boat than a woman. I looked at it and they were right. I was very young and never thought about that aspect of it. I sold that story later. I learned to look at elements of my story in a detached manner.

I also learned that sometimes what someone did not like is what I did like. Someone objected to something in a story that was to them very gross. I kept it in. I considered it the central part of the story.

As I said, I don't have a criticism group. What I found to be a good way to edit my story is to give it some time, and then return to it.

Television, my biggest problem

I spend too much time watching television. All of the time that I watch it goes into the brain as dead time. I told my children, when they were growing, that the thing will fry your brain and I now tell my grandchildren the same exact thing. So what do I do? I watch television.

I used to watch it during the daytime and I don't anymore. Thank heavens. I do turn on the news when I get up and watch it long enough to see if anything has happened or is happening of interest to me. Most times nothing has happened and I switch it to the music stations. I love classical music in the mornings.

I must explain there is a lot of things in this world that are of no interest to me. For instance, I am not interested in the sex tapes of Carrie Lejean (I hope I got her name right) or which actor is breaking up or hooking up with each other). Politics are interesting especially if they concern what is happening in Washington and Sacramento and a few of the states that I have a passing interest such as Oregon. I am always interested in writers and literature. I don't care about current music trends unless it is classical. There are a lot of well-known people I have no idea who they are and just ignore them such as Britney Spears and Hannah Montana and don't want to learn who they are. I am sure this goes with my age.

It used to be there was nothing but re-runs. I hate re-runs. Now, I like Nova and there has been nothing but re-runs for the last year. I stopped watching it. Then the re-runs stopped. They showed a program about the beginnings of Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution. I have always thought that was an exciting time. I have read books about it and even knew the year, 1859, when it was introduced. They made a program that made that time as dull as anything I ever watched. I changed stations and turned it off. Then they started a program on the early history of human kind. I tried Nova again. This time it was very good. I watched the second installment last Tuesday. Wow. Luckily, Front Line was dull and a re-run. I turned it off. But tonight is Bones. It is not a re-run. Oh oh. Last week's episode was terrible. The script was insipid.

I went to Starbucks this evening to read the New York Times. I wanted to get away from the television set. I love MSNBC and the news programs, but I don't have a laptop. I would have worked on some of my writings such as one book and a short story that is ready to go but needs one last read through. I did enjoy the paper. I started to think. I have two other blogs that has worked out very well. By Jove, I will start one for my writing.

Already, I have not watched any television today and skipped the news altogether because I created this blog. I am watching the clock. I am still going to watch Bones, but I will return back to this blog to do the editing of this post after wards. I will also do some exercise so I can report it on my other blog. This is a heck of lot more fun than anything I have done in a long time.

P.S. I ended up watching Bones and wished I did not. It was a silly story about a murdered dwarf that was also a wrestler and he had a green skeleton (they never did explain the green skeleton or I missed it.) There was a sub-plot about Booth trying to make it with Bones. Frankly, I don't care whether or not Bones and Booth get it on and wish they would not spend so much time on this issue, but I asked someone who watches it every week and he says he is very interested in this prospect. They had a lot of grown up intelligent people spending time thinking and discussing it. If these characters were real people, they need to get a life.