March 14, 2017 by M A Clarke Scott

Be Swept Away… A Journey of Love

Life is a Journey

Do you love to travel to foreign locales? I do. I haven’t been everywhere, not even close. But over the years, I’ve been on a journey or three. And the places I haven’t been, I love reading about in novels.

Fiction brings facts alive for me. I always enjoy learning about new places, different cultures or customs, art and architecture and history. This is much better through the lens of a story than from a dry encyclopedia or text book. But that’s me.

So when I set out to write fiction, I couldn’t help but write stories about young women traveling or living abroad, perhaps studying, vacationing or on a personal quest of some kind. I’ve written three books like this.

The Art of Enchantment, though it wasn’t the first written, will be the first to be published on March 20th. I’m so excited to share it with readers at last.

Coming up with a series tagline that represented both the “journey” aspect, and the “personal growth” aspect of these stories was hard. I thought of and discarded two dozen options before finally settling on “Life is a Journey“. It may not be witty, but it captures everything that’s in my mind and in my heart when I write these books.

Travel as Inspiration

Because I love to travel, very often it’s those exotic, stimulating experiences and environments that inspire my story ideas. (That’s as good an excuse as any to plan another trip, if you ask me!) Writing the stories brings back memories, and enriches my original travel experiences. As do these photos from my journey.

A Dissimulation of Doves was inspired by a trip to York, England, back in 2006, and specifically by a charming old inn where we stayed. I still remember lying awake one night, restless with jet lag, imagining the people who owned and worked at the hotel.

What kinds of adventures might they have had, both in the past and present? And what would happen if a young Canadian woman came here to find out?

Another work in progress, currently titled Tempered by Love, was inspired by a summer stay in the south of France in 2009. Not Provence, which is perhaps more familiar to North American travelers. Rather Aquitaine, a very special province full of fascinating geology, pre-history, history and rich culture. In particular, an annual Medieval Festival in the village where we stayed conjured an almost magical atmosphere. Jugglers, acrobats and even giants might appear, and inspire life changing events for an unsuspecting traveller passing through.

Finally, a month long stay in Tuscany in 2012 was the inspiration for The Art of Enchantment. Tuscany is already so rich in art and history. It’s such a beautiful, living landscape, it can’t help but inspire storytelling. Strangely though, the seed for this idea came from an imaginary place – a crumbling Renaissance villa.

As we were driving along a scenic country road, I got to thinking about the fact that the artist Sting apparently owns an old villa somewhere, in Umbria, if I recall correctly. And I got to wondering about the fate of all those old buildings – who owns them now – what are they used for – and how do people, especially old families, afford the costs of upkeep and repairs (it’s the architect in me, I guess.) How would one go about rescuing it? That’s what got me thinking about old money and new money, a clash of worlds, and a way to give an old villa a new life by making it into a passion project for two creative dreamers. Thus Clio and Guillermo were born!

Memories from Tuscany

To celebrate the connection between travel, romance and storytelling, and get you in the mood for reading The Art of Enchantment, I’ve included a few photographs taken on my 2012 trip to Italy. Enjoy!

Tell me about your own travels in the comments section below! What exotic places have you visited that got you dreaming about what might have been, and what could be!

Who knows, maybe you’ll inspire my next book.

And don’t forget to pick up a copy of The Art of Enchantment, available for pre-sale right now. Be swept away on a journey of love…

December 29, 2015 by M A Clarke Scott

Fairy Tales as Real Life Lessons for Women

Forging a Better Version of Yourself Through Fairy Tales: Lessons for Women

Clarissa Pinkola Estes, in her seminal 1992 book of fairy tales, Women Who Run with the Wolves, says of stories: “In a very real way, we are imprinted with knowing just by listening to the tale.” (p.387)

Participation mystique: Just like living it

Termed “participation mystique” by Jungian psychologists, this notion has more recently been scientifically proven by brain researchers. Your brain really can’t tell the difference between experiences you live through and those you read about someone else living through, even if fictional. Here’s an article in The Atlantic about it. And another in Science.Mic.

For a person like me who makes stuff up for a living, and loves fiction more than life, this is incredibly validating.

Thus we can read stories and fairy tales to expand our experience. The lessons we learn through fiction are real and applicable to the lives we are leading. This is the very purpose of myth. To pass along the wisdom of the ages. To learn from our “elders.”

In this book, Women Who Run with the Wolves, there is a particular story – a dark fairy tale – that Estes believes “deals with most of the key journeys of a woman’s psyche.” It’s one that seems to have particular relevance to women, such as myself, who wake up one day in mid-life and wonder: What happened? How did I get here? Has this happened to you, too? Do you wonder about the choices you made, the lies you told yourself, the sacrifices and compromises that marriage and motherhood and life seem to have demanded of you? Do you look in the mirror and ask: Who am I?

Do you look in the mirror and ask: Who am I?

The story’s called, “The Handless Maiden.” By reading, and slowly absorbing, this tale, we can experience, vicariously–through “sympathetic magic”– the transformations the character experiences over her entire lifetime. That’s a lot of wisdom to help you with your own life stage challenges.

Did You Sign Away Your Self? Time to Toughen Up, Ladies

There is no way to compress all of Estes wisdom into a brief blog post, but I’ll try to highlight the key points. Likely I’m doing her careful arguments a great disservice, but this is meant as an introduction only. Hopefully if this intrigues you you will seek out and read the book, if you haven’t already. Estes suggests taking quite a long time to read the story. Maybe even months. This time is necessary because the lessons of the tale are very, very deep in a woman’s psyche, and you can’t just shake a stick at these parts of yourself and expect understanding, or change.

These deep lessons take place in a female psychic underworld, where we learn knowledge and language from the “Great Wild Mother” who wants to toughen us up to prepare us for life in the topside world of everyday. But we have to go down there to receive these lessons. Way, way down there.

Preparation for real life

In the tale, a series of tests and lessons must be mastered, each requiring a cycle of loss, sacrifice and enlightenment representing “women’s lifelong initiation into the renewal of the wild.”

Synopsis: The Handless Maiden

The tale, in brief synopsis: A man unwittingly sells his daughter to the devil in exchange for riches. She is too pure for the devil to claim, even after her hands are severed. She leaves home to become a beggar. A spirit guides her to a magical orchard, owned by a compassionate king, who falls in love and marries her. He builds her silver hands. She has a baby. The king goes away to war, and the devil interferes again, twisting messages, until the king’s mother is forced to send the queen away for safety rather than kill her. She is taken in by woods people and lives happily for seven years, and slowly her hands grow back. The king returns and seeks her out in the woods, and they live happily ever after.

The Stages:

The bargain without knowing = The end of innocence. (What poor bargain did you make?) Everywoman gives up her deep self knowledge and power for a more frail self. We trade our wild selves for the promise of riches, but the reward is hollow. We choose superficial riches and gives up dominion over some part of our passionate, creative and instinctive life. We become a sleep-walker, yet this is a necessary step on our journey. A catalyst. The father who guides us is ignorant of the connection between the inner and the outer worlds. Things are not what they appear to be.
The (symbolic) dismemberment, or separation from false life/innocence
The wandering (foraging for fruit symbolic of feminine strength)
Finding love in the underworld (she is rescued, but not yet whole)
Harrowing of the Soul (a time of healing, a shamanistic initiation during which she rediscovers her creative inner strength)
The realm of the Wild Woman (return to society as a fully empowered, adult woman bringing gifts of knowledge, maturity and fertility.)

art by Jeanie Tomanek http://www.jeanietomanek.com

For a terrifically written, thoughtful and more thorough analysis of this and other fairy tales, as well as art inspired by them, visit my new favorite link, the extremely awesome Terri Windling’s Blog, Myth & Moor.

“The trials these wounded young heroes encounter illustrate the process of transformation: from youth to adulthood, from victim to hero, from a maimed state to wholeness, from passivity to action. Fairy tales are… maps through the woods, trails of stones to mark the path, marks carved into trees to let us know that other women and men have been this way before.”

Windling concludes her analysis by saying: “Likewise, we’re not meant to remain in the circle of enchantment deep in the fairy tale forest — we’re meant to come back out again, bringing our hard-won knowledge and fortune with us…in service to the family (old or new), the realm, the community; to children and the future.”

Inspiration for Writing and Life

A better source of inspiration for writing women’s fiction I can’t imagine. One of my novels, a work-in-progress entitled “Coming About,” is a more intentional exploration of a woman’s journey through various stages of this process of metaphysical maturation and self-discovery. It’s about a woman who values her professional success as an architect over her selfhood as a woman. At the beginning, she has figuratively sold her soul to the devil by having an affair with her boss, and must lose everything she values and go on a spiritual retreat to learn how to integrate her inner and outer worlds.

This journey also serves as a metaphor for a writer’s life. What are we, as storytellers, doing, besides entertaining our readers, if not bringing our life’s journey to bear on stories that are a product of our creative imagination. For what purpose? To share them with our community, and our children. As I said earlier, this is the very purpose of myth – and of story. To pass along the wisdom of the ages.

If you’re a writer, have you applied this framework of the heroine’s journey to your writing? And whether you are or not, does this fairy tale speak to you in terms of your own life journey?

October 31, 2015 by M A Clarke Scott

Getting Ready for NaNoWriMo: What are your pre-writing rituals?

The Value of Rituals

This is a great article, and also I love this guy so I recommend subscribing.

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Anticipating NaNoWriMo Daily Writing

As the participants of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) anticipate our start tomorrow, I’m thinking about the little rituals we all have, conscious or not, as we prepare to sit down and write.

For our purposes here, let’s have a little fun. What are your personal “ok I’m going to sit down and write now” preparation or psych-up rituals? Let’s share and maybe have a laugh.

Aahhhh, My Morning Latte

When Barker mentioned the ritual of preparing your special morning coffee, that really resonated with me. I make my own half decaf latte’s at home and I love them so much, but the preparation gives me as much joy as the drinking of them. Something about the anticipation, the way I lay out all the bits and pieces, the sensuality of it, the noise of the steamer, even. Damn those coffees taste good. And then I feel I’m ready for anything.

As for daily writing, I think I probably do a few non-essential household puttering things. Put a wash on, let the vacuum go (it’s a robot), tidy a few piles of papers. Maybe sit and stare out the window doing deep breathing for a while, gathering my thoughts, immersing myself in my imaginary world. And once I get going, I would also read over the past day’s words as a way to sink into the story world before I begin.

Good Luck Charms Actually Work!

Oh, and as for good luck charms, there’s this guy:

I’m not sure why but he has to be with me when I’m writing new content. My B-I-L thinks it’s weird that my mascot is a jester, but… well maybe it is. But he chose me so I can’t help it. (It doesn’t mean I don’t take my writing seriously.)

I’m sure as I get going, if I pay attention, I’ll notice a few other weird things that I do.

How about you?

October 12, 2013 by M A Clarke Scott

Remembering Thanksgivings Past

BOUNTIFUL BEGINNINGS

I was the child of parents who grew to adulthood on a pioneer homestead in Manitoba. Throughout my life, I took it pretty much for granted that the major holidays would signal a large family gathering, accompanied by some significant feasting, with food that my parents had more or less produced themselves from the land.

Although we reaped the rewards at these special times, our everyday lives benefited from the work my parents did every other day of the year, too. It may have seemed to me as a child that they simply waved their arm and all that bounty magically appeared on the table, whereas now I understand how much it was the product of their bent backs and a not insignificant amount of wisdom passed down through the generations.

A NEW TRADITION OF GRATITUDE

I had to leave home, to go to university here and there (actually the further I went the more I discovered), before I came to appreciate what we had at home.

In particular, I remember two Thanksgivings.

The first was during my undergraduate years. One year when I clearly had decided I couldn’t afford the time or money to go home for the holiday, I was invited, along with my roommates, to join a large group of likewise “homeless” singles for a Thanksgiving feast. This was my first encounter with someone else’s traditions. Looking back, I can clearly see how insular I was, how little exposure I had to cultural groups outside my own. I still find it difficult to understand why someone would want cornbread, mushrooms, apples or oysters inside their roast turkey, or curry spices on the outside. 8^* But never mind.

On this particular occasion I was astonished, enlightened and delighted with the sheer variety of dishes that were brought to the pot-luck Thanksgiving feast I attended. All the familiar items were there (well maybe not pyrogies, I can’t recall now.) But certainly there was roast turkey and stuffing and myriad root vegetables and squashes. There were also things I had never had, that others deemed de rigeur: brussels sprouts, for example. (imagine that!).

And as many kinds of pie as one could dream of: not only pumpkin but apple and pecan as well.

But despite the disorientation and titillation of learning new things, there was one thing that was familiar, and perhaps even more accentuated in that strange setting: gratitude.

Somehow, I suppose because we were all displaced, the sense of appreciation, not only for the bountiful feast, but for the warm and generous companionship, was uppermost in my mind. Perhaps it was simply that none of us took it for granted. In my memory, it was one of the warmest, richest, most emotionally fulfilling holidays of my life.

RECONNECTING WITH THE BOUNTIFUL EARTH

A few years later, when I was further from home in the middle of grad school, I was taken in hand by a new friend and co-worker, along with my own room-mate at the time, and swept away to a rural area outside of Montreal for the Thanksgiving weekend. This was a part of the country with which I had no familiarity.

Not only the customs, but the very geography, were new and strange.

Our hosts ran a small pig farm. They were gracious and welcoming, immigrants themselves to Canada. Highlights I can remember include accompanying our hosts in borrowed galoshes as they fed their livestock and harvested from their fall garden most of what we would be eating that evening, including late tomatoes, squashes, greens and brussels sprouts. We were sent on a long country stroll down a grassy allee of trees under the rainbow canopy of colourful Eastern leaves, armed with a bag of wrinkled apples to feed the horses who met us at the bounding fence, anticipating the sweet treats we brought.

GRATITUDE TRULY FELT

Later, we warmed ourselves by a wood fire inside the cozy farmhouse and sipped wine while our hostess prepared the meal. My senses were alive. It was as if I had never experienced hospitality before, never seen food pulled from the dark soil and lovingly transformed into beautiful and delicious dishes, never tasted such a sumptuous meal, never felt such warm companionship, never felt such gratitude.

How odd, when in fact that is exactly what I had grown up with.

But perhaps without experiencing it out of my familiar context I would never have come fully awake to the wonders of a country harvest, and food lovingly harvested, prepared and shared with loved ones. Nor of the delights of opening ones home and ones arms to strangers.

It is a Thanksgiving weekend that I will always remember, and consequently why I prefer to be in the country at this time of year. Also perhaps why I feel a special urge to open the door and include those outside my immediate family at the table. I certainly never again took for granted the skills, traditions and loving generosity of my own family.

So this weekend I’d like to say thank you. Thanks to my parents and family for all that they gave me and all that they taught me. Thank you to all those friends and strangers who opened their homes, tables and hearts to me over the years. And thank you to the earth that provides us all we need and more. If only we are able to pause and remember to appreciate it.

How about you? Do you have a special memory that you cherish – a moment in your past when you woke up and really felt gratitude for everything you were given?

October 6, 2013 by M A Clarke Scott

Dare I Do NaNoWriMo?

COMMITMENT PHOBIA

Right off the top, National Novel Writing Month sounds like a really bad idea for a person as commitment phobic as me.

For readers who aren’t familiar, NaNoWriMo is “National Novel Writing Month, shortened as NaNoWriMo (na-noh-ry-moh), … “an annual internet-based creative writing project that takes place every November. NaNoWriMo challenges participants to write 50,000 words of a new novel between November 1 and 30.” For more information read the rest of the Wikipedia definition here, or go to the NaNoWriMo site.

But since my writing’s been totally off the rails for quite awhile now, what with dealing with getting my house ready for the market, suffering from unexpected chronic pain and disability, dealing with the consequenses of menopause-induced brain fog (more on that in a later post,) shooting off exploring screenwriting, film-making and other, largely unrelated employment opportunities over the last couple of years, I’m thinking this might, in a counterintuitive sort of way, be A GOOD THING, as Martha says.

A bit of focus, you know?

NOTHING TO LOSE

Well before anyone starts shouting, ‘Hell Yeah, go for it!!’ I’ll just say I’ve already registered. I’ve never had trouble cranking out words before, but then again I’ve never committed to writing 50,000 new words in a month. But since my buddies at the RWA-GVC are doing it en masse, I figure I’ll jump on the coffee-trolley and see what happens. The worst case scenario is that I write no more than I’ve been writing lately, which is a big fat ZERO. Absolutely nothing to lose, right? My situation can’t get any worse, and the beauty of NaNoWriMo is, there really aren’t any consequences. (Except shame.)

PLANNING THE NOVEL BEFORE I BEGIN

The problem now is, I’m definitely NOT a “pantser” as we say in the biz. In other words I’m not one of those writers who can just sit down at the computer and start banging out words without any concern for what the novel is about or where it’s going. (The very thought of it makes me catatonic!). Which means that I have to decide WHAT I’m going to spend the month of November writing and do a little preparation. And since everything I’m working on (in a figurative, if not a literal sense) is either in revision, nearly complete, or a screenplay, I’m not sure what to choose.

Option A: To take my rough, incomplete outline for an interactive STEAMPUNK novel about a time-travelling jeweller and write through just one storyline. (Basically the interactive novel requires three “forks” in the story, something like gaming narrative, or “Choose Your Own Adventure” stories, where the reader makes a decision for the protagonist about where the story goes next, requiring a total of 12 different endings for the same storym, making it rather complicated.) But since I’m somewhat stuck on that, it makes me nervous. On the other hand…

Option B: To take the seed of an idea for one of my future novels and just go for it. Some of these are a bit better thought through than others. Whichever one I choose would fit into a potential “series” with one of my already completed novels. The possibilities include:

a) a story about an ambitious and uptight lawyer trying to rise above her family’s shame and a passionately dedicated social worker dealing with kids on the street, and greedy developers and corrupt city officials interfering with approvals for construction of a youth shelter, who teaches her to take risks, let down her hair and believe in causes again.

b) a story about a vain, hardened lawyer with a secret past whose glamourous life is shattered along with her face and her pelvis in a serious car accident, and who must rebuild herself inside and out while working through physiotherapy, with the help of a selfless contractor whose estranged wife’s street life as an addict doesn’t make his job as a father any easier.

c) a story about an Art History doctoral student doing thesis research in Florence who meets an Italian architect and gets drawn into his shabby-chic aristocratic family’s troubles, deciding to help them keep their run-down ancestral villa out of the clutches of a crazy-rich egomaniacal American rock star who wants to renovate it beyond recognition and destroy centuries of cultural history in the process.

Okay so that’s it. Tough choice, eh?

If you read this and want to vote, leave a comment and tell me which story you think I should write for NaNoWriMo and give me a couple of reasons why (or not). Depending on public opinion, it might make it easier for me to choose. And wish me luck. Thanks!

October 3, 2013 by M A Clarke Scott

DOES THE AUTUMNAL EQUINOX SIGNAL A TIME OF PRODUCTIVITY?

A TIME FOR EVERY SEASON

There’s something about this time of year.
I always anticipate that it’s going to hit at the beginning of September with the start of the school year but I’m usually wrong. There is always a month of readjustment and settling in. It’s not until now, at the equinox, that I really feel it – a surge of both mental and physical energy and a desire to regroup, reorganize, make lists of goals. It’s all left-brain activity.

The start of a new school year was always exciting to me. Everything came alive and was new. New books and shoes, haircuts and spectacles. New classes, teachers, friends and adventures. The unrelenting green of summer suddenly bursts into a rainbow of colour. The air is crisp and clean and stirs our blood along with the falling leaves.

SEASONS EFFECT OUR ENERGY AND OUR MOOD

This got me thinking about the seasons and how they affect our mood, our energy, and our productivity. Certainly this is true for me and I think it may in some ways be an environmental or a physiological change. But it’s also something that’s deeply entrenched in our way of life and in our culture. It’s something that stems from history and is part of our evolutionary story.
Even amongst our prehistoric ancestors the end of summer was a time of social gathering and relaxation. This would be followed by a busy time in preparation for the winter months ahead. There would likely have been a frenzied time of hunting, gathering and preservation before the cold winter months forced us into our sedentary and enclosed hibernation, when the cave painting, basket weaving, song singing and storytelling would take place.
Perhaps it’s the storyteller in me that feels the need to get organized in preparation for this busy time.

576px-Merry_X'mas

MIDWINTER FEASTING AND CELEBRATIONS

We have a desire to accomplish a great deal in a short time, after which we know we will be rewarded with the midwinter festivities, another time of rest, social engagement and feasting. This is followed, for me anyway, by a bit of a low ebb. January is a time to reflect on the holiday season and establish new benchmarks for the beginning of the new year. But before we take action we need to contemplate while we’re undecorated the Christmas trees and sweeping up the needles and putting away the trappings of the festive season for another year. January has traditionally been a month of recovery, reflection and rest, perhaps partly because I celebrate my birthday at the end of January. I don’t switch into it a new mode until until then.

A TIME OF INTROSPECTION AND CREATIVITY

Then around the last week in January or the beginning of February I feel a burst of energy. But this time it’s one that’s in harmony with the solitary, pensive, creative nature of the season, and is typically when I start a new project.
This burst of energy continues and the sustained until Winter gives way to the new life and energy of spring draws us outside and into the action. The frenzy of the summer season is upon us and we succumb to the nomadic urge to move to the Summer camp, to mate, to plant our seeds and nurture our crops in preparation for the fall harvest once again.

Some people don’t like change and resist it, but I love it and crave it. I don’t live by the clock but the turn of the seasons, nature’s measured march of time from one activity and ritual and festival to the next always inspires and energizes me.

How about you? What is your favourite season? Do your peaks and valleys of both physical and mental energy correspond to the seasons?

M. A. CLARKE SCOTT, Author

Romantic Women's Fiction ~ Healing, Wholeness, Hope ~ Stories for Life

Art