Novelists, if rumours can be trusted, are lonely beings, locked up in dark towers, plunking away at their typewriters, maybe drunk, sometimes bored to distraction, always driven by sordid imaginations and the horrible spectre of writer's block.
How dynamic. How picturesque. How unlike the truth of it (except for the writer's block thing, and yes, maybe sometimes a bit bored). Mostly, I think, writers' lives are slow and quiet things.
And as far as lonely goes, not me, and especially not when I'm working on something new. Because, you see, my house is full of creatures. I cant' say they talk to me, but they have their ways, and if I start to slip into untidy habits - floor pacing, power munching, unworthy feelings - they are they, doing their job.
This little balsam wood puppet guards my study. He may be lightweight and his arms only move by strings, but he and his trusty steed are always looking out.
This guy was a gift from a friend of mine in Argentina. He was made in Uruguay. The more you look at his silliness, the stronger his glare, like he knows you're judging him and he hates you for it. That harshness keeps me honest. Look at the wall-eyed insistence! I go to him when I'm dawdling because I can almost hear him: "Get back to work."
I found this clay horse in a little shop in Washington DC. Although you can't see all of him, he's mostly about line. (The red ribbon is what's left over from my mediocre holiday decorating.)
He sits on a table in the hallway and every time I pass him, I stand up straighter, and if I'm in writer mode, he makes me think about the shape of whatever scene I'm working on. Movement, shape, colour, texture, and grace.
You can tell by the remnants of scotch tape on the top of this old post card that I used to have this hanging on the wall. I stared at it during the years it took me to write The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno. Eventually I stuck it in my 'Indian guards' frame for protection (for me or for them, I'm not sure).
My guardian angel, I kid you not. Sometimes when I can't write and get lost in a kind of gloom, I drift around looking for some solidity. This lumpy lady offers kid-warmth and even just looking at her makes me feel okay. You can't tell in this photo, but the back of her wings are wonderful.
This is my husband's Howl poster. Bossy, isn't it? If you're not writing, then read, it tells me over and over. Dream. What are you doing? Why aren't you lost in some one else's world? There's magic in there.
I've got a thing for odd Christmas ornaments. This little piggy I couldn't bear to put back in the Christmas box. He looks all harmless, doesn't he? But up close, his face is wicked, wicked, wicked, and he's my reminder that every good story needs a villain, however well disguised.
I don't even know what to say about this thangka. I got it for fifty cents in Katmandu in my early wandering. It used to have pigeon dropping on it, which I somehow felt was fitting, though time has worn them off, one of time's jobs. It's the Indian goddess Kali, the dark mother, the releaser of the soul, the destroyer of ignorance, goddess of destruction. What's not to love?
And my two River Styx creatures. They hide as a cat-headed bench and a dragon spouted urn, but they lurk. They are the dark places, the animus, the id.
So thank goodness for my gatekeepers. The husband and the cat guard the doors and the windows and all unknown access points. They breathe real air, reminding me to do the same. They bring food and coffee and dead mice and sounds in the other rooms. All other creatures of the house bend to their wills. (Including me.)
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