(I was going to spend this afternoon working hard, but my puppy hurt herself and it kinda shook me up! I hope writing this will settle me and help me concentrate again. At least I had a good early morning session, before Ms. Pup decided to get too rambunctious!)

“Closer to the Heart” is arguably Rush’s most famous song. It’s short, it’s melodic, it doesn’t feature an excess of shrieking or synthesizer or time signature changes or science fiction references. I think it’s the first song of theirs I actually liked, that I didn’t find incomprehensible or grating. It has a highly recognizable guitar riff, which gives me light chills. I think I could sing it, which I can’t say for all Rush. Geddy Lee can sing higher than me, or he could in the good old days.

The song epitomizes the thing I like best about Rush, and the thing I find most irritating, which are – astonishingly – two very closely related things. I first understood what this quality was when I did one of those silly Facebook memes, the one where you’re supposed to answer questions about yourself using song titles: “My Life According to [Name of Band].” I chose Rush, anticipating a hilarious time indeed.

I got stuck on the very first question: Are you male or female?

Unless your answer is “male”, that’s a hard question to answer with a Rush song. I considered putting “New World Man” as my answer, but surely, SURELY Rush had written a song about a woman? Somewhere, sometime? I don’t know all their works; they’ve put out a lot of albums. I started perusing song titles online, and I never did come up with one. I ended up using “Where’s My Thing?” as my (slightly rude) answer to the meme question.

But the experience made me think. Songs with the word “woman” or “girl” or a female name in the title are usually love songs (or, y’know, lust songs). Rush doesn’t do love songs, almost without exception. The closest I can think of is “Entre Nous”, which is a song about love in the abstract, about the way two people relate to each other and never know each other completely. It’s one of my favourite Rush songs, in fact. I put it as the answer to “Your current relationship?” later in that Facebook meme.

I love that Rush doesn’t sing love songs. I love songs about philosphy, SF/F themes, atheism, art, history, natural science. Hard-edged, lyric-centric songs that make you think. They’re wonderful.

But they’re also problematic, because there seem to be no women in Rush’s intellectual/emotional universe (because let’s not pretend they never sing about emotions; I hold up “Snakes and Arrows” as Exhibit A). I’m not sure they’re intentionally leaving women out; I imagine they’re singing about themselves and their own feelings and experiences and they’re guys so that’s what you get. Maybe they can’t figure out how to incorporate women into a song without it turning into a love song (and that’s pretty rare anywhere, right?). Whatever the case may be, I think this is one reason this band isn’t very popular among women: we feel alienated when don’t find ourselves included in the music.

It happens that I DO find myself in this music, but I can see why one wouldn’t.

“Closer to the Heart” epitomizes the problem. Because here we have a thoughtful, passionate call to a new kind of life:

And the men who hold high places
Must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality
Closer to the heart.

Ah yes, those men and their crazy high places! Later on, you get philosophers and ploughmen, and “each must know his part”. I know the song is from the 70s, but the language is embarrassingly dated — which is too bad, because I love the message.

For me, the message outweighs the language: it’s a call for truth, art, and integrity. I love that stuff. Even as-is, I guess I don’t feel completely excluded because the song ends with:

You can be the captain
And I will draw the chart…

Geddy Lee is talking to me, there, friends. ME. I guess I’m willing to believe that any song about art, authority, and intellect must be about me – or about any of us – whether it calls us by name or not.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

[Thar be spoilers here, matey! And I hate those fiddly spoiler tags, so I’m just wantonly spoiling everything left and right. This is your only warning.]

[OOPS, the review didn’t cut’n’paste correctly from Goodreads the first time! There was a big gaping hole in the middle. Apologies to anyone who read this in the last 24 hours and couldn’t make head or tail of it.]

I need to start this review with a caveat: I am a weirdo.

Okay! Whew! Good to have that off my chest! But seriously, I want to acknowledge fully and honestly that most of my issues with this book are probably MY idiosyncratic issues, and may not apply to anyone else. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to review a book as if I were someone else, so you’re stuck with me and my idiosyncracies I fear.

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Dwarf, or Klingon?.

I glimpsed the photo elsewhere out of context first, and I honestly thought it was Gowron.

Because it’s funny.

I just came THIS CLOSE to naming a character “Breast” in Greek! More like chicken breast than boob, but still! I wanted a Greek-y sounding name, and the word “Stithos” came to mind, and I thought it sounded awesome, but luckily it occurred to me to look it up. Do your research, kids!

Apparently I eat a lot of Greek food.

Well, a virus anyway. Do they count as microorganisms? I remember debating this question with my sister at the dinner table when we were kids – are viruses alive? – but I don’t remember what we concluded.

Given how old we were, we probably concluded my sister was a booger. That’s how most of our intellectual sparring wound up.

Anyway, I’ve got a cold. That doesn’t mean I haven’t found anything to challenge your little brain, however. Here’s an excruciatingly comprehensive round-up of the #YesGayYA topic that’s been blazing through the YA blogosphere (and you know it’s been BLAZING like a supernova if I mentioned it already, because I am always the last person to know anything) (and yes, I noticed they didn’t round up my paltry contribution, and that’s really ok). My Takei post got a lot of eyeballs, so I figure there are a few of you interested in the topic.

You know who else has a lot of eyeballs? The Harvester of Eyes, that’s who.

So you see, having a cold is bad, but it could have been much, much worse.

Seraphina Sequel plot outline is GO! I get to start writing!

It’s… it’s kind of shocking how excited I am about this. I suppose it’s a good thing that I like to write, eh?

Working title is Dracomachia. That could change, of course.

[Rachel bounces off, stage left…]

At a book site I visit, someone posed a question to the site members at large. How does one prepare oneself to write in an unfamiliar genre? Lots of answers had already been given by the time I got there, and yet they were all exactly the same answer: research! Read a hundred books in that genre! Learn the genre inside and out!

Because I am contrarian by nature, my first thought was Why on earth would anyone research a genre?

My knee-jerk incredulity aside, of course there are reasons to research genre. Perhaps one is a scholar of the genre and wants to write a dissertation on its conventions, history, or subclassifications. That seems like a very fine reason to me. Or maybe you want to deliberately learn the tropes so you can subvert and manipulate them to your own nefarious ends. Fair enough. It’s not a goal of mine, but I can understand it.

But I dunno, all the research answers seemed (to my ear) to carry an undertone of “so you can be sure you’re doing it right”.

Doing what right, exactly? Fantasy? Western? Is there a right? Bearing in mind that I have a slight anarchic bent, particularly when it comes to art, I think genre is something imposed upon literature from outside, rather than something integral to the work itself. As I wrote to a friend recently: What about “books where the author is transparently preoccupied with epistemology”? That can’t be a genre? I suppose that’s too much of a mouthful for retailers, and the acronym is no better.

I realize there are strict guidelines set by Romance publishers — when the protagonists should have their first kiss, how many sex scenes there should be, how unambiguously happy the ending should be — and yes, you would have to research the guidelines to get published by a particular publisher, but that’s the exception. In almost any other case, surely the work itself must come first. If you set out to write “A Western” first and foremost, there’s a good chance the effort will ring hollow. Write the story that’s burning a hole in you, and genre can fend for its sorry self.

I saw Maurice Sendak speak, back when I was in college, and he said (according to my totally infallible memory), “People ask me why I write children’s books. I don’t write children’s books. It’s not my fault that booksellers shelve my books in the children’s section, instead of next to Chaim Potok.” Hearing that was a formative moment in my philosophy, I suppose.

Now, because I am a bit of a Socratic, I cannot in good conscience fail to tell you that what I just told you is wrong. (Did you follow that?) Because I followed my own advice and I wrote exactly what my heart dictated, and I ended up with a very quiet fantasy novel. Ibsen (or Austen, once I cheered it up a bit) with dragons. And I was told, “This is very sweet, but Fantasy Readers have genre expectations. They’re going to want a bigger story with higher stakes and more action. They’re going to want to see more of this wonderful world you’ve created, not just parlor drama.”

“Huh. How about that,” I said, my outward calm masking my inner chafing at the Tyranny of Genre.

Aha, you’re thinking. Should’ve done that research after all, eh little missy?

Yeah, but here’s the thing: fantasy was and always has been my preferred genre. If “fantasy research” means reading a lot of fantasy, I’m not sure what more I could have done in that regard. The heart of my book was good; no one ever asked me to change anything that was really important to me. From my perspective, changes made for the sake of genre are surface changes.

I think some of it comes down to which aspects of the work take precedence for the individual writer. To borrow a metaphor from Scott McCloud, the work is like an apple: there’s the core of the book, the meaning at its heart, and there’s the polished skin of genre on the outside (and other layers, such as craft, in between). I write – wrote, have always written – from the centre outward. If I don’t have a solid core of feeling and idea, I’ve got nothing. I’m not interested. For other writers, though, maybe it’s easiest to start with the shiny surface. To start with genre, make it all pretty and “right”, and then fill in the big gaping hollow at the centre. That’s a perfectly valid way of working as well.

Just don’t forget to fill that big hollow space. It would be easy to do, since that shiny surface is mighty pleasing to the eye.

As I work on the outline for the sequel to Seraphina, I’m finding that I do have a better generic understanding now, as well as a better understanding of myself and what it takes to get me interested in the work. I can beat on plots all day, but I’m never going to get anywhere unless I’ve found my core, the idea that sets my head on fire and gives me a reason to write.

OK, then! So what have we learned? Rachel knows nothing! Rachel argues one thing, then argues its opposite, then says, “Hey, I’m Socratic, so it’s ok!” But seriously, it is ok. There’s never just one way to go forward, and I take great comfort in that.

Hello darlings! I am back from my Tropical Ontario Vacation. I think it can pretty much be summed up in two words: The Diefenbunker. It’s a little bit sobering to see objects you remember from your childhood – rotary phones, overhead projectors, hydrogen bombs, IBM mainframes the size of a small car with less memory than an iPod – in a museum. But more shocking, I think, to realize you’d forgotten what it was like to use them.

You’re wondering whether I ever actually used a hydrogen bomb. I’m just going to let you wonder.

At the Canadian War Museum (which we also visited; we’re martial sorts, apparently) there was a listening station where you could hear popular songs from the Cold War ABOUT the Cold War. Y’know, old classics like “99 Luftbalons” and “Russians” by Sting. I don’t remember all the songs listed; I didn’t recognize several of them, and there was at least one — U2’s “Bloody Sunday” — which I didn’t think pertained to the Cold War at all, for all that it was a protest song from the 80s.

Music really brings back that special Cold War feeling, more than the rotary phones, even.

Anyway, I mention this because during our tour of the Diefenbunker, they mentioned the Distant Early Warning system that Canada had put in place in hopes of getting 15 minutes’ warning if Soviet nukes were coming at us over the pole. “Distant Early Warning”, I realized with a start, is also a song by Rush.  It wasn’t on the list at the other museum, though. Clearly an incomplete list, and they left off a Canadian song, no less. Maybe it’s too obscure.

Those were frightening times, and yet we somehow managed not to blow ourselves to bits. I choose to take that as an optimistic sign, that rationality and cool heads can in fact prevail.

Anyway, nothing profound in all this. I’m just musing aloud, feeling thoughtful. More interesting stuff tomorrow, maybe, if I’m feeling interesting.

Ah, welcome! I trust you avoided the homework like a champion. That video was sillier than I remembered, and not in a Monty Python sense, either, alas. You have to feel for the philosopher-host, though: when the guy you’re talking about has only a handful of epigrams left to his name, it’s hard to fill half an hour. Can you blame him for talking about shopping?

Yeah, okay, I suppose I can.

In any case, this looks like the perfect time for a little symposium! And I mean that in the original “drinking together” sense. So pull up a couch, friend, and grab yourself a kylix of whatever pleases you. I’ve got some exotic Canadian tap water here at hand, because nothing makes me chatty like… well, I’m always pretty chatty. The water’s a resulting need, not the source of prolixity.

Prolixity! I know, right? I’m already sounding pompous. This is going to be the best symposium ever!

Long before I was an amateur Medievalist, I was very nearly a professional classicist. I seriously considered it; I looked at graduate programs and attempted to learn Latin on my own (I’d done four years of Greek but no Latin because I was a weirdo Hellenist). I finally came to my senses and skipped grad school althogether, but it was a close thing.

Looking back, I’m not even sure why I studied so much Greek. I’m not particularly talented at language (with the possible exception of English), but some kind of bloody-minded stubbornness kept me coming back year after year for another round of letting the aorist imperative* punch me in the face. I suppose I just liked a challenge, and nothing could knock me out cold like the dative case.

* Aorist is a PAST tense. How can you be imperative in the past? Sat down! Was quiet! I could never get my head around it.

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Some kind folks have gently expressed concern about the content of that last post. They feared the language and emotional candor might be off-putting to someone encountering my writing for the first time.

That is a very fair criticism, and one I take seriously. Looking back at the post, I have said nothing I feel ashamed of. The words were used in the context of anecdote, not in a contemptuous way. Though I have obliterated most of the story’s details, those words – and how I felt about them – stand out starkly. That was the point: that one’s memory of facts can be mistaken; that one’s memory of feeling remains clear; and that maybe that’s what feeling is for. That idea informs the very heart of Seraphina, but without the story to support it, it’s not very interesting to anyone but me.

Maybe it isn’t interesting to anyone but me even with the story, but that’s another question.

If the language in my Origins II post made you think you’d walked onto the set of a daytime talk show – and that I’d start throwing chairs next – I’m sorry. While I suspect most of my readers are people who have known me for many years, I realize guests might show up at any time. I’ll try harder to keep my muddy boots off the furniture.

If you’re worried that all the posts are going to be that emotional, don’t be. That was an extraordinary event; I don’t go around having epiphanies about the nature of my own mind every day. I certainly don’t get in fights every day.

But here’s something to consider: my profession consists of taking all my disparate thoughts, experiences, observations, sensations, and feelings, and synthesizing them into something new. Emotions are a tool of my profession. There will be discussion of emotions here if I am to talk about what I do, just like the bricklayer’s blog – one assumes – is full of references to bricks.

And I want to talk about what I do, because I think it’s interesting. Luckily for you, I think a lot of other things are interesting too.