The signs say....

Sometimes you just need to trust your gut.

I didn't get the job in Denver. Actually, there were three jobs available at our Denver office, and I didn't get any of them. I don't want to go into too much detail here, but I will tell you that I found out for sure last Monday, after I had already arrived for my third stint of helping out. Since April, two other secretaries from the DC office and I had been tag-teaming out there, helping to get the office up and running while permanent secretaries were hired. I was the only one of the three of us who applied for one of the permanent gigs.

My gut had been telling me for weeks that I wasn't going to be chosen. I pretty much knew the score when I learned they were interviewing candidates from outside the firm. But I kept listening to my manager, and the attorneys out there, who were telling me that I was doing a terrific job and no final decision had been made -- so "just keep doing what you're doing."

Back when I was in radio, I heard a story -- which may be an urban legend -- about a radio station general manager who'd had one of his disc jockeys quit on him. For whatever reason, the GM didn't hire a permanent replacement right away. What he did instead was put out an ad. And when a reasonably qualified candidate showed up, he offered the guy an on-air audition. I forget how long he would let the "candidate" work -- maybe a day, maybe a week -- but then he'd let the guy go, claiming it wasn't working out. Then he'd bring in the next interested candidate and give him an on-air audition, and then not hire him, either. I forget how long it supposedly went on, but it was several weeks, at least. Now, I don't mean to say that my situation is completely analogous to that of those auditioning DJs. But I will say that I sympathize.

Speaking of signs: Even as late as Monday night, after I'd gotten the news, I was getting glowing responses from my divination tools of choice: "It's done! You succeeded!" Succeeded at what, I have yet to figure out. The only thing I can think of is that something big must have changed between my first week out there and this past week. Maybe I've dodged a bullet. Who knows?

Anyway, our Denver office is continuing to grow, and so I may still end up transferring out there at some point down the road. Just not right now. Right now, I'm going to go back to my job here in DC -- both the day job and the writing job. Dragon's Web didn't really get the sendoff it deserved, thanks to my dithering over Denver, and Firebird's Snare is on deck for release, oh, probably later this week. I'll send out a newsletter when it's ready to go. And you can expect some promotional stuff tied into that, as soon as I can figure out what it is. If you're not on my mailing list, now would be an excellent time to remedy that. Just click here to sign up. Thanks!

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Today is the summer solstice -- the longest day of the year. It's considered in the US to be the first day of summer, even though it's been pretty steamy here in DC (and it's been hot in Denver, too) for the past several weeks. On this day, Neopagans observe Litha, one of the eight sabbats, even though historical evidence for ancient pagan celebrations of the day is thin. Still, people back then enjoyed summer the same way we do now: getting outdoors, swimming, enjoying summer fruits and vegetables, and sitting around an evening bonfire.

I hope you've had an opportunity to get outside and enjoy the day -- maybe with your dad. Happy Father's Day and blessed Litha!

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These moments of gut-punched blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

The map of art: interpreting symbols.

Have you ever seen something and wished later that you'd taken notes? That's where I am right now.

Earlier today, I saw an exhibit at the Denver Art Museum called "Joan Miró: Instinct and Imagination". Miro is sometimes called a Surrealist, but he himself refused labels, and anyway this show focused on his work in the last twenty or so years of his life. The works from this period are primarily abstract, although he never completely gave up realism in the way, say, Mondrian or Jackson Pollack did. Still, you can see the roots of abstract expressionism in his work -- as well as found art. They guy would go walking on the beach in Palma de Mallorca where he lived, pick up junk that had washed ashore, and make sculptures out of it. They're kind of whimsical and kind of troubling, all at once. (I wish I could show you some pictures so you could see what I mean, but alas, he hasn't been dead long enough for his work to be out of copyright.)

Anyway, one of the captions on the wall of the exhibit mentioned some of the symbols Miró often used: woman, bird, and stars. The caption also gave explanations for their meanings in his work. That's the part I wish I'd written down, because now I can't remember what they were. The stars are meant to convey imagination, I think; the birds, freedom, maybe? That would make sense, given that the guy escaped Nazi-occupied France only to end up under Franco's regime in Spain -- and that would go along with another of his favorite symbols, the ladder, which would seem to me to symbolize escape. But the purported symbolism of the woman escapes me. It wasn't the Divine Feminine, I can tell you that much.

Anyhow, interpreting symbols in art is always an arcane endeavor. If you're lucky, the artist is a voluble sort who has flat-out told some interviewer what it's supposed to mean. But more often, it's just guesswork. Sometimes historical context will give you a clue; sometimes you can read between the lines of letters or a journal. But it seems like the farther away you get from the artist's life and times, the more you're just guessing -- and the more you have to take the work at face value and see what reactions it evokes in you.

Literature is like that, too. Authors weave symbolism into their work, sometimes deliberately and sometimes subconsciously, and readers are left to figure out what it all means. And the farther you get from the author's life and times and work, the more you're on your own. We sometimes say that the books we write are created again by the reader, because the reader brings his or her own experiences and emotions to the work.

So maybe in the end, it doesn't matter what Miró meant by putting stars and women in his work. Maybe your guess really is as good as mine.

***
A heartfelt thank-you to those of you who have already bought a copy of Dragon's Web. I'd like to say it's available everywhere by now -- but alas, owing to the fact that I uploaded everything in a hurry on my way out the door to the airport last week, the book is not yet available anywhere except Amazon and Smashwords. Because of all the snafus in getting it out to wider distribution, I'm going to extend the 99-cent introductory price for another couple of weeks -- to Sunday, June 14th. Hopefully that will give everybody enough time to pick up a copy. Apologies, and thanks as always for your support!

Mother's Day spinning.

Pschemp | wikimedia.org | CC 3.0

Today is Mother's Day here in the United States. My daughters Kat and Amy took me out to dinner -- brunch is too early for us -- and then Amy pulled out a couple of drop spindles she bought recently and let me play with them for a little while.

A drop spindle is basically a low-tech, but quite efficient, way to create yarn or thread from carded wool. (Carding cleans the sticks and other junk from the wool, and lays the fibers straight so they can be spun into thread or yarn.) Last fall, Amy talked me into taking a learn-to-spin class at the yarn shop where she works. She took the class, too, and has gotten really good at spinning. I have not practiced much, and so I am not as good at it. (Actually, I'm not very good at it at all. I need a lot of practice.)

The spindles in the top photo are all top-whorl drop spindles, the "whorl" being the circular chunk of wood (or other material) at the top of the shaft. There's a hook on the end of the shaft above the whorl. You wrap your wool around the hook to anchor it, then pull on the supply of fiber to thin it out, and then you set the spindle spinning to put twist in the yarn. The twist makes the yarn stronger. Once you've got a length of spun wool, you unwind it from the hook and wind it around the shaft below the whorl; then you wrap the unspun end around the hook and do it all again.

Pschemp | wikimedia.org | CC 3.0

There are bottom whorl spindles, too, including what's known as a Turkish spindle. Its whorl is two interlocking pieces of wood that, when assembled, make an X shape. There's no hook at the top of this type of spindle -- instead, you make a half-hitch knot near the top of the shaft (the spindle in the photo has a little knob at the top to keep your half-hitch from sliding off) and then spin just like you would the top whorl spindle. When you've spun a length of yarn, you undo the half-hitch and then wind your yarn around the arms of the whorl. The big advantage to the Turkish spindle (to me, anyway) is that when the spindle is full, you pull out the shaft and the arms, and you've got a ready-made center-pull ball of yarn.

Other bottom-whorl spindles have a point on the end. You use them by putting the point in a bowl or on the floor, and spinning the spindle like a top.

I say all this like I have a great deal of experience with spinning -- which, as I said above, I don't. At all. I have a bit of yarn that I spun with the very basic top whorl spindle we got in class, and that's it. But I've been wondering whether part of my lack of enthusiasm is due to the fact that I don't really like the spindle we got in class. So Amy (bless her heart!) got me a gift certificate for Mother's Day, and I've just ordered not one, but two new spindles. One is a bottom whorl spindle that's flat on the bottom, so you can set it on the floor to "park" it while you're stretching out the next bit of fiber (the other options being sticking it under your elbow or holding it between your knees). The other one is a spindle that you can use as either a top or bottom whorl. If I hate both of these, I'll try a Turkish spindle. And if I end up hating all of them, well, Amy's going to get a nice collection of spindles out of it.

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The game is afoot for the release of Dragon's Web, the first book in the Pipe Woman's Legacy duology. As the first step in my nefarious plan, Seized is now free at Smashwords, and the price is never going back up. If all goes well, it will also be free everywhere else by the end of the month, including -- with any luck -- Amazon. I'm hoping this will bring lots of new readers to the series.

Ah, Washington in the spring.

FOR GODS' SAKE, DON'T PICK THAT!

Up until about a week ago, I was beginning to wonder whether spring would ever get here. After a fairly mild start to our winter here in the mid-Atlantic, the cold settled in along about February and didn't seem inclined to leave.

I live just outside of Washington, DC, and I commute to the day job in the District every weekday. And the thing is that the tourists show up every year, even if spring doesn't. You can tell what time of year it is by the type of tourists you see on Metro. March through May, it's usually large groups of preteens and/or teenagers with their adult chaperones. Often, the kids all have on the same brightly-colored t-shirt with the name of their school or group emblazoned on the front. I have to say that the shirts are a great idea. Not only do they help the chaperones count heads and keep the group together on unfamiliar territory, but they also give us locals a heads-up about which train cars to avoid.

One of my favorite stories along these lines is the one about the gaggle of giggly teenage girls who were all wearing zebra-striped hoodies with "DC" in hot pink letters across their chests. I made the mistake of getting into the same Metro car these girls were in. They were so loud that it was hard to hear myself think. When the train pulled into the station at Pentagon City, they all piled out, and then stood on the platform in a huddle and shrieked at the top of their lungs. The gods alone know why.

Anyway. March through May, as I said, it's school groups. Except for several weeks in April when the National Cherry Blossom Festival is happening, and then we also get families who come to see the blossoms. DC is actually awash with blooming trees in spring, but the cherry trees around the Tidal Basin get all the press because they were a gift from Japan. The current trees are actually the second batch; the first batch, which arrived in 1910, turned out to be infested with insects and had to be destroyed. Japan sent a new, bug-free batch of trees a couple of years later. We've had other gift shipments over the years, but the ones at the Tidal Basin are mostly either the 1912 trees or their descendants.

So they're old trees, and pretty much a national treasure. And yet every year, some idiot decides their kid ought to be able to climb the trees and/or pick the blossoms. Don't. Just don't. If the National Park Service catches you, you'll be in trouble. Picking blossoms and climbing the trees are prohibited. Even walking around under the trees is discouraged. If too many people do it, it compacts the soil around the roots and makes it harder for the tree to absorb water.

Anyway, I was very glad the cherry trees finally bloomed (and in time for this year's festival, too -- that doesn't always happen), because it means winter is over at last. And it also means that next up are my favorite blooming trees, the redbuds. (The redbud tree in this photo is not in America. It's at the Alhambra in Spain. But ours look the same.) After the redbuds, it'll be the dogwoods. And not long after the dogwood blossoms peter out, summer will arrive with a vengeance and we'll all hermetically seal ourselves inside and crank up the air conditioning -- and the only people on the streets will be the poor families who decided to spend summer vacation here.

Gotta love DC.

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Speaking of being hermetically sealed inside, I've spent the weekend cranking out thousands of words on the Camp NaNoWriMo novel. It's the second book in Sage and Webb's duology, and it's going to be called Firebird's Snare. As of right now, I'm about 30,000 words into the first draft. Book one of the duology, Dragon's Web, still needs some tweaking. But we're still looking at a May release for that book, and a June release for the second book. Unless life throws me a curve ball, which it very well might here shortly. More on that next week....

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These moments of flowery blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

Finding balance.

James Jordan | flickr.com

Last weekend was Ostara, the Pagan celebration of the vernal equinox. Spiritually, at least, if not in reality, the spring and fall equinoxes are the two days of the year on which daylight and darkness are of equal length. On those two days, the dark is supposed to be balanced with the light.

Pagans take that as a signal to try to find balance in their own lives. And I'm trying. Really, I'm trying. (All together now: "Yes, you're very trying.")

I'm working on a sweater right now that I'm dying to get off the needles. It's short-sleeved but tunic length, and so I won't have many more opportunities to wear it this season. (Although if the weather keeps shilly-shallying around about turning springlike here in the mid-Atlantic, I could get another month or so out of it. Thirty degrees at 9:00 a.m. today? Really?) But see, the problem is that I'm also supposed to be editing Dragon's Web, and drafting a rough outline for the book that comes next. And cleaning the house. And so on.

I've mentioned before that when I get into first-draft mode, I seem to work best by holing up in my apartment and writing for long stretches of time. If the writing is on fire and the words are coming easily, I can knock out a 50,000 word novel in three weeks this way, even with a full-time job.

But that practice doesn't leave much time for participating in real life. I tend to surface after doing that first draft and blink owlishly at the world, as if I've been in a dark cave and am just now coming into the light. And then I'll pick up a knitting project while the first draft ripens, and go at that every night until it's done. And any marketing I end up doing for my books is more or less an afterthought.

So with Dragon's Web, I decided not to set myself a hard-and-fast deadline. I decided to start the writing when I started it, avoid pushing myself to write every day, and finish whenever the book was done. Yeah, well, that gave me a little too much latitude. I found myself writing only every couple of days, together with one really long session on the weekends, and a lot of frittering around in between. It felt like it took me forever to get that book done. And even though I've had the edits back from my editor for several days, I've been stalling on addressing them.

I guess some people can live like that, but I hate it. I hate having stuff hanging over my head, undone. Whether it's a book or a sweater or some other project, I want to get it done and get it off my plate.

Which is why this sweater is driving me crazy right now. It's almost done -- all I have to do is knit the buttonhole band and the sleeve edgings, sew on the buttons, and weave in the ends. I could have finished it today -- but I had the edits for the book, and the outline for the next book, and this blog post to take care of first. The good news is that once I hit "publish" on this post, I'll have all of that done.

All of which is to say that I'm still trying to find a balance of writing, knitting, and real life that works for me. I know I'm task-oriented and deadline-oriented, so I've signed up for the April session of Camp NaNoWriMo. The structure should help me stick to the task better, and the deadline should keep me working toward the goal. But with any luck, I'll remember to come up for air once in a while, too.

It also means that I need to have the sweater done by Tuesday night at the latest. So if you'll excuse me....

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Oh, right. I guess I should tell you that I'm aiming to release Dragon's Web sometime in May, with the follow-up book of the duology then coming out in June. I've never released two books back-to-back like this before. It should be interesting.

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These moments of bloggy balance have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.