Horse I Wish I *Could* Borrow

The current cover of the Hayden's Ferry Review is this image:

I'm trying hard not to be jealous of so gorgeous a cover--especially one that would be so perfect for my own book. Only my love of Hayden's Ferry saves me from thinking mean thoughts.

Heartbreakingly Beautiful

My friend Valerie just sent me the link to this Tumblr. I just want to stroke this big guy's nose. Nic Fiddian-Green, I'm a fan.

While we're on the topic of voice--a writing prompt

My Intro to Writing Short Fiction students got onto the topic of Monsanto topic--more specifically, onto the idea of patented genetic code. As I was trying to re-rail them back onto the topic of the day (narrative structure), one of the students called out, "can you imagine God coming into the office of the CEO? being all like, 'Yo, bitch, I own the copyright to all genetic codes.'" They laughed, but another, clearly worried about our irreverence, called out, "God doesn't sound like that."

"We're getting back onto structure," I said, secretly loving the idea of God sounding like Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction, "but I'm throwing that out there as a writing prompt: God confronts a CEO." I paused with them a moment to bask in the coolness of this idea, then added, "but if you write it, the voice of God is going to be a crucial choice, and it better not sound like anything we'd expect."

I'm throwing this idea out to the larger world. God's been given the voice of George Burns before, but what would God sound like in your story/poem? Make the voice specific to the context and let the language be determined by the personality in response to the situation. 

Voice

I love having caller ID. When an unknown or an 800- number comes up, I rarely answer. I figure, this saves both me and the telemarketers trying to call me quite a lot of grief. Today, though, I'm waiting for the plumber to come fix my toilet, so when the unknown number came up, I took a chance and answered, thinking it might be him.

It wasn't. The call was from somewhere in the subcontinent, from a man who claimed to represent Microsoft. He asked, how I was doing? On this side of the phone line, I gaped, unsure whether to say anything. In fact, even as naturally suspicious as I am, it took me half a minute of silent gaping to realize I needed to hang up. I didn't know if he was from Microsoft. I doubted it. Everything from the series of numbers and letters that had appeared on my phone read out to the pause while it connected us to the distance in the line suggested that maybe I shouldn't trust this situation. All this was almost tipped by one enormous fact: the fact of his voice.

The lilt of it, the pitch of it, the seeming sincerity when he asked how my day was--it all reminded me strongly of a colleague at work of whom I am quite fond. That half-moment when I didn't hang up? It was consumed with the need to remind myself that this wasn't the man I knew, and that it was OK to hang up.

Still, I was strangely shaken. I felt I'd been discourteous to a stranger--this even though I myself have worked as a telemarketer to help support my family over the summers while I was in grad school. I know from experience that a hang up isn't an insult; it's just a reason to move to the next call. But that human voice... that unique timber that no robocaller has ever replicated...

Because I'm working on manuscript revision today, it struck me how crucial this element is in writing. If I can make a voice that personal on the page, it's hard to hang up on. Our love for the sound of our fellow beings is one of the things that pulls us into story, whether we know it or not. It's what we most enjoy when we sit round a campfire and speak of ghosts. It's what makes us crave stories when we're alone and need the comfort of voice.

As writers, we're the ultimate scammers and salesmen, pitching a line we acknowledge up front to be false, and expecting emotional payment regardless. Any number of craft elements help make this possible, but I rarely give voice its due. Today, I'm rethinking this.

Hit "Escape"

My friend Kirsten just sent me this link to an amazing horse made of computer keys. I love the detail of the shoulder--so smooth!

Somehow, writing a book about horses seems like a similar project--we both made a horse from computer keys; we just used the keys a little differently.

I googled "unusual horses" and this is what I found...

I knew about the Akhal-Teke before, but still the pictures! They appear to be made of solid gold.

There was an Akhal-Teke show jumper a few years who was traded out of Russia to an American for the price of a washing machine.

This little guy looks like he'd be perfect to fit in my pocket:

And this one...

And this one...

But, dude. "There is a limit."

If I could ride this to work in the morning, I would.

To quote A Christmas Story, "he's... he's smiling at me." Or not at me from this angle. I am no less creepified.
...Why the toilet lid? Why the spigot?

There's just something about making horses out of stuff that isn't horses. (I still love the kitchen utensils and the ones made from fabric laid out on landscapes that I posted a few weeks back.)

On a totally unrelated note, I found this image at a site on trendy home decor. (Shhh! We're hiding our horse under the lampshade. No one must know!)

Seriously, it's OK to do this in my house? It is, in fact, trendy? Duly noted, my friends. Duly noted.

Salvador Dali