Radical Departure: Mazes and Evening at the Improv

© 2011 by Joyce Mason

All Rights Reserved

In case you’re wondering what on Earth is going on here, see No Small Change on The Radical Virgo. During October and November, I’ll be doing short posts to take you along for the wild ride of rewriting and getting my humorous, metaphysical mystery book ready for submission to the St. Martin’s Press annual First Mystery Novel Contest

The only other time I have written a full, book-length manuscript was in 1990 when I wrote The Crystal Ball’s predecessor, Life’s Companions. That was too long ago for me to remember much about my process, so everything I’m discovering about writing a mystery now feels brand new. I’ve actually had considerable mystery writing education since my first foray. My first book suffered from genre confusion. It wasn’t sure if it was a mystery, a romance, a self-help book, or some a New Age version of the Jehovah’s Witness Watchtower publication—actually a bit of all of those. It was way too autobiographical. My life is stranger than fiction, and when I write it too literally on paper, it comes out just plain strange.

Writing a mystery—even a cozy humorous one like The Crystal Ball— is akin to doing a three dimensional jigsaw puzzle in motion. The puzzle is a maze, and sometimes I hit dead ends and don’t know how to get myself out of the messes I’ve gotten myself into. This reminds me of one of my favorite sayings:

Things are always easier to get into than to get out of. 

~ Corollary to Murphy’s Law

When I get stuck, in order to move out of the latest corner I have written myself into: I pace, I do other things, I distract myself until my subconscious can resolve it. I learned from the book Higher Creativity: Liberating the Unconscious for Breakthrough Insightsthat this is how problems are best solved—not by direct brain power but by tapping the unlimited creativity of our psycho-spiritual selves.

My psyche sure surprises me at times. I knew certain plot points in the book going into it, but I find it mandatory to develop others “on the fly.” Writing a long story is all about visualization. I see characters get into situations, and I have to envision in real time how they’ll resolve each crisis or tension point. I can’t freeze-frame the action; it’s like a movie that has to keep going on paper. I can pause in the writing to figure it out, but it has to flow in the reading. My characters have to think on their feet. No rehearsal.

In this intricate puzzle, change one thing and there’s a multi-level domino effect. Many other things must change as revisions ping off the sides of my mental pinball machine. I laughed yesterday when I had one couple seated in two different places in the audience, listening to my protagonist give a speech. Talk about attention to details. No wonder Virgos make good writers.

I’m bringing more astrology into The Crystal Ball than I originally planned but less than in Life’s Companions. It’s quality over quantity, and my friend Chiron plays a special role. Is anyone surprised? (I thought you’d like the skeleton key in the maze, what Chiron’s symbol represents.)

After much angst about making my deadline, getting waylaid for a few days by the flu, and several other distractions, I now sit at approximately 75 percent done, confident I can make it.

But that last quarter is also the most challenging to write—the denouement, the resolution. I have a lot of loose ends to tie up, and I don’t know, quite yet, how that’s going to happen. I’m very excited to find out! One of the biggest problems resolved itself tonight, better than I thought I ever thought it would. These are the times I know I channel. Even the Radical Virgo can’t come up with solutions that tidy without divine intervention.

I wrote something today to the effect that the members of the longevity organization in my novel live their lives like Evening at the Improv. These folks are so full of vitality and being who they are without fear or hesitation, they are just “on.” They problem solve and create scenarios in the moment and are effective, funny and endlessly entertaining.

I realized that’s how I have to write. This is also how I want to be. Seeing the differences between the 1990 and the 2011 versions of this material, I’m gratified to see how far I’ve come in the pursuit of Improv.

Most importantly, today I realized how much fun I’m having. This is what I have always wanted to do, my entire life, but all those Chironic wounds, insecurities, and lack of maturity were in the way. The wisdom years, in many ways, are even more than they’re cracked up to be.

I was born to do this, and wherever it goes, I’ll be there doing comedy sketches.

~~~

Photo Credit: © koya79 - Fotolia.com

Two for the Price of One—A Heal of a Deal!

Dear Radical Readers,

Continued positive input rolls in on my e-book, Chiron and Wholeness: A Primer. To encourage those of you who haven’t yet purchased it to take the leap, I’m offering a bonus from now through the month of April. Anyone who buys Chiron and Wholeness through April 30 will receive, in addition, a copy of my fiction e-book, The Training Tape. I think you’ll find them a remarkably complementary pair, and you’ll save $3.50 on the second e-book, too!


To purchase, see New E-Book on Chiron and the Chiron and Wholeness book cover on the sidebar. Both books will be delivered to you by e-mail as PDF attachments.

Hope you’re enjoying the season of wild creativity!

Blessings all,
Joyce

Chiron’s Key Word Corner: One-of-a-Kind

© 1993-2009 by Joyce Mason

My mother, the real Mrs. Malaprop, once said to me with love and pride, “When they made your father, they threw away the mole.”

It’s irrelevant whether it was a rodent, a birthmark, or a pan for forming Jell-O that got tossed. The point is; I am a one-of-a-kind person, raised by equally original parents. What other characteristic can you inherit that’s still uniquely your own?

In mythology, Chiron had a birth defect a lot more serious than some puny mole. He was born half-horse—his lower half. Abandoned by both parents, he was left on a hillside to die. (In ancient Greece, they apparently did not think much of uniqueness.)

Chironic people and things tend to be absolute originals. They struggle with where they belong, because they really don’t fit in anywhere, at least at the beginning. Like Chiron, they are neither man nor horse, though they share characteristics with both beings they resemble. They don’t just think out of the box. They are out of the box.

Ultimately, Chironic types go from fitting in nowhere to feeling at home anywhere. In order to survive, they have to learn how to get along with people very different from themselves. Feeling like an outcast at first seems like a heavy karmic debt. Like Chiron, we might tend to “go into a cave.” This early turning inward takes us to the source of the real answers about life and the only acceptance that ultimately makes us feel whole--self-acceptance. From this inner work springs wisdom. The once-isolated individual ultimately is sought after as someone wise who understands the mysteries of life.

Chiron’s connection in a natal chart to life purpose also comes from his mythical one-of-a-kindness. Each of us has unique talents to contribute to the world. Everyone has a variety of lessons to learn from different levels on the evolutionary spiral. Chiron is connected to healing and wholeness, and the world needs a full menu of therapeutic choices. While counselors, astrologers, medical practitioners, and those with similar occupations may be especially attuned to Chiron, a good cook, accountant, or mechanic contributes immeasurably to the needs of a well-rounded human being. (We all need each other’s talents to become whole.)

Life purpose is merely living your uniqueness for fun and/or profit. It’s the ultimate fulfillment. Here’s how you know you’ve got it: The more you express your true self, the less time you’ll want to spend doing things that don’t reflect your real essence.

Chiron taught young boys in a balanced way, as he was taught himself by Apollo and Artemis, who appeared to him as the Sun and Moon, the ultimate archetypes of Inner and Outer. His all-male heroes’ school on Mt. Pelion reminds us it is our masculine or extroverted energy that takes us out into the world, thus the career and worldly implications of astrological Chiron.

But from the integrated dualities that lead to wholeness, our most rewarding careers often come from championing a cause that originates from resolving pain. This is clearly derived from the feminine, introverted energy, the figurative cave where we have gone inside ourselves to work things out.


In other words, true vocation is the reward of both inner work and life experience. While it seems paradoxical, Chiron can tell us about both the inner and outer manifestations of this process—about our learning curve and our ultimate contribution to the collective.

As they learn to love themselves, horse-half and all, “Chironics” draw plenty of other one-of-a-kind people to learn and play with. In the Baskin-Robbins of Life, who would want to be just plain vanilla, anyway?

~~~

This article first appeared in the April 1993 edition of Chironicles.



Photo Credit: WOMAN WEARING UNIQUE GLASSES© Iofoto Dreamstime.com