A Day Late: My Idol

On March 24, 1603 the greatest queen England has ever known, Elizabeth I, died in Richmond castle. After nearly 45 years on the throne Elizabeth had made England a stable country by bringing Britain to world power after defeating the Spanish Armada. She is remembered by most people taught British history as the stoic virgin queen who staunchly refused to marry. I know her as a survivor. Despite that many parts of her soul were damaged and fragile because of the tragedies in her life she succeeded in being the Queen she knew she could be.

She was a princess, and then wasn't a princess. She had a mother who was killed on her father's execution orders. She was forgotten. She was molested by Thomas Seymour. She had a sister who abhorred her and locked her in the tower. She couldn't marry the man she loved because of his family history and his wife's mysterious death. People plotted against her, she was betrayed, she loved, she hated, and she faltered, and then carried through with her actions. She survived.

When she died the Councilors found a ring that was a locket containing portraits of herself and her mother, Anne Boleyn. She wore it all the time. Although she was only two when her mother was beheaded, here is the evidence Elizabeth knew she was loved by her mother. Perhaps it was from this love she found the strength to carry on at all times in her life. 

I admire Elizabeth for her independence and will to persevere. Nothing would stand in her way to take the country she loved and make it great, which indeed she did. When her goal had come to pass, she was able to draw her last breathe with at least that comfort.

GOLDEN SPEECH 1601

To be a King and wear a crown is a thing more pleasant to them that see it, than it is pleasant to them that bear it.

I were content to hear matters argued and debated pro and contra as all princes must that will understand what is right, yet I look ever as it were upon a plain tablet wherein is written neither partility or prejudice.

There is no jewel, be it of never so rich a price, which I set before this jewel; I mean your love.

Though God hath raised me high, yet this I account the glory of my reign, that I have reigned with your loves.

I have ever used to set the last Judgement Day before mine eyes, and so to rule as I shall be judged to answer before a higher judge.

You may have many a wiser prince sitting in this seat, but you never have had, or shall have, any who loves you better.

It is not my desire to live or to reign longer than my life and reign shall be for your good.

First Book

The snow is melting and according to the calendar spring is upon us. I don't know about other writers, but there is something about the spring that makes me write more. At night the ideas and lines creep into my mind and take over my thoughts. In reflection of past springs, I remembered the first book I had ever asked for as a child.

I must have only been four years old, and it was late spring or perhaps early summer, and my mother had brought me to The Toadstool Bookshop. I stopped off at a table because a book had caught my eye. There was a brown horse on the cover, and the book was titled The Wild Horses of Sable Island. My mother indulged my new fascination with horses and bought the book for me, which told the story of a wild stallion as he struggled to survive and form his own band on the Sable Island.

What everybody thought was a passing childish interest became a passion and that book fed my passion. Unable to access real horses, I became obsessed with horse stories and soon I had books such as The Wild Horses of Sweetbriar, Seastar: Orphan of Chincoteague and Brighty of the Grand Canyon. Christmas and birthdays I requested more books and toys with horses. I found reading and writing as my only link to horses since my parents did not have the money for riding lessons and my mother did not know horsey people.

Fast forward 18 or so years and I now have my own horse and I write about horses in novels, poems and short stories. Yes, I have greatly expanded my reading subjects, but nothing is still better than a well-written novel capturing the magic of the horse to me be it "realistic fiction" or a high fantasy novel. 

My life has been molded by the story of the horse. By the way, I still have the book The Wild Horses of Sable Island tucked safely away in a drawer. Perhaps, someday, I will read it to my own child. 

Writing About Horses: Human Truths

As writers we explore many different human truths through our writing and try to make sense of the things we can never have an absolute understanding of.  Have you ever found yourself coming back to the same human truths repeatedly through different poems and novels you are writing? I do, every single time.

The majestic bond between human and horse and the elements that can form or shatter it bleed from the pages of my writing. Even when I am writing a story or poem that is not horse related I find myself bringing it back to horses somehow in my mind. Another element I pursue either knowingly or subconsciously is the loss of innocence. When is that defining movement when the character loses another piece of their childhood shield? Tied together these two elements are the driving forces in my writing to create stories where growing up is reflected in the spirit of the horses and their owners.

There is something about the horse that cannot be expressed quite right in words, because there are no great words to convey the feelings they produce in humans. The story about the relationship between human and horse can be told countless times because of the abundant ways to convey the beauty of it all. So, that is why I will keep writing about the horse, no matter what other human truths I may explore through my writing.

Skip Beat: Show Business Showdown!

Kyoko Mogami has one goal: defeat Sho Fuwa in show business. After using the submissive Kyoko and leaving her innocence to turn to hatred, Sho has transformed his docile childhood friend into his worst enemy and his future competition.

But thanks to Sho, Kyoko becomes a fashionable young lady, not afraid to speak her mind, and chibi demons rise from her body like a natural aura. What Kyoko wants, Kyoko will get.

Kyoko has given her all to Sho, now she will give her all to defeat him. She joins the LME talent agency, albeit becoming a member of the "Love Me" section, a department designed by the President (whose known for his sumptuous entrances) for those who need to learn to love themselves. Kyoko meets Ren Tsugura, a cool reserved actor whose main focus is his work ethic who shakes her to the core with his "lying gentlemanly smile".

Throughout the series Yoshiki Nakumura wonderfully molds her characters through several major events and a love triangle with the oblivious Kyoko, the unwilling Ren, and the pompous Sho takes form. Kyoko becomes a dark angel and Sho is the demon who wants to reclaim her, but the magic fairy Ren is not about to give his angel to the demon.

Who will get the girl? Nakumura is talented at holding the climax in her readers' sights, but never giving out. The amount of awkward and hilarious moments beautifully balances with the more serious scenes. It is not long before the reader is swept away with the characters and their parallel universes they occupy through their artistic work.

For those who enjoy reading romance and love quirky, fickle characters you will not want to miss out!

Black Butler: Rooting for the Demon

Ciel Phantomhive is a young earl from Victorian England. Unable to forgive those that destroyed his life Ciel makes a pact with a demon: secure his revenge and in exchange Sebastian will consume his soul.

Kuroshitsuji deals with the darkness of both human emotion and religious belief. Shinigami, demons, fallen angels and human enemies all seem bent on one thing: destroying the powerful young earl and harming those he cares about. Through it all though, the bumbling servants and Ciel's young fiancé keep up the lighter side of the tale and each character has delightful quirks. We soon find the debonair and charming demon keeps Ciel safe and even withstands abuse from his young master. Then when the servants are destroying his day, Sebastian takes solace in the company of a cat who lives in the garden. Why would a demon be worried about cakes, dances, his master's education, teatime and his obsession with cats?  He is one hell of a butler.

Yana Toboso's brilliant art and storyline successfully displays the Asian belief of Yin and Yang. The reader is soon cheering on for Sebastian as he helps his young master save citizens of Britain from both human and demon threats. Is it not delightfully ironic the hero of the tale is a creature of the devil?

Writer's Life 2010 into 2011

So the year 2010 is ending and 2011 is, thankfully in my case, rolling in without a blizzard. I must ask myself as a writer what have I accomplished in the year 2010? So, I will list my accomplishments from this past year even if they were just baby steps.

1.      I wrote a complete rough draft for my novel The Blood of Nature and Evil. However, this is a fantasy novel that should really be around 500 pages long and it was crammed into 250 pages due to time constraints for undergrad thesis. But hey, I got the skeleton all laid out now.

2.      I read out loud to a group of peers twice this year (and I didn’t take any type of medication before either of them).

3.      I roughly have a good start on my novel for my MFA program, My Kingdom for a Horse.

4.      I submitted two poems out but I am still waiting for replies.

5.      I started this blog and keep writing it, despite it seems to lack followers and comments.

Personally, I think I would accomplished a lot more if I wasn’t so distracted by the internet and the awesome anime series and AMVs on youtube.com. Anime and manga do offer me much of the fodder for my imagination outside of novels though.

So, what would I like to accomplish in my writer’s life in 2011? Read more novels. I spent a bulk of my time this past year reading manga. I will also start what I deemed “the dreaded rewrite” of The Blood of Nature and Evil and write more short stories. I will submit more stuff out I suppose as well so that I will have rejection letters to burn as well.

So readers, what would you like to accomplish in 2011 as a writer now that I have shared my goals?

What Does the Horse Give You?

People often ask a writer why they wanted to become a writer. In the case of all writers one reason is because we have stories inside us that we feel we must share with the world. If we don't record the story we feel it smothering within us. However, is there not a more specific reason within all writers? Is there not the main driving force that creates the stories within us? In other words, the source for our spirits and imaginations that enables us to create our stories.

For the longest time I could not tell a person what divine reason forced me to write. I would always say horses were one of my main inspirations, their gracefulness, strength, endurance, loyalty and legend have captivated me since I was child. I knew though, that there was an even more defining reason I wrote, but I could not express it in words.

The answer came to me from the poet, Louise Gluck, in my last semester of college in the Spring of 2010 in Modern Poetry class. We had to present a poem to the class and inform the other students what we thought about it. I chose Gluck's poem randomly out of search for a poem involving horses off of Google. The first two lines of the poem told me the reason I was writing: "What does the horse give you/ That I cannot give you?"

Finally, I had some words to express the driving force I have for writing. What does the horse give humans whose lives they touch? There is not a single word or sentence that can be termed a correct answer. My mission is to write stories that gives some sort of answer to this question.