Without You I'm Nothing

I've been working on non fiction for the last few weeks, which is strange for me. I'm not sure how to do it. One the things I depend on when I'm writing fiction is music. Lots of music. There are soundtracks for all the stories I write. Sometimes I make them, sometimes I use actual soundtracks. The neo-Victorian novel I'm working on now is in turns Pan's Labyrinth and Cowboy Bebop. Yes, jarring, I know. But it works for me. Black Light was full of David Bowie music, especially live recordings, but also it boiled down to two of his songs in particular: The Bewlay Brothers, from the Hunky Dory album, and Lady Stardust--not the version on the album, but a demo that I heard much later.

Many writers I know don't work well with other peoples words in their ears, in fact, I think I'm in the minority. Writing is lonely, and I do better with voices around me.

Which leads me to my point. I just finished a novella called, "Speak My Name." It's the story of a demon, who tends bar. He falls in love one night with a man who can see him in all his aspects. It's out in the world, looking for a home now, so it's been on my mind. This morning, in my facebook feed someone shared a video of Frank's(demon) and Mica's(not demon) song.

What music do you need to finish your stories? Does the music you listen to shape what you write in any way?

Black Light: Loren Rhoads, David Bowie and Ziggy Stardust.

I didn’t begin this story alone. In 1983, Loren Rhoads was my best friend. She still is, though we’re separated now by the width of the country. But back then our world was MTV. It was Adam Ant and the Police. It was used records from Saturday trips to Ann Arbor. And most of all it was David Bowie. It was the year of “Let’s Dance.”

With his bleached white hair, asymmetrical smile and deceptively bouncy pop music, this was a vastly different Bowie than I’d met years before in the middle of the night. That shrill and jagged Bowie that had been there no one else was. Still, since I was aspiring punk rocker, I might have given Let’s Dance a pass. But it was inescapable, spilling out of every car window that passed my open bedroom window that summer. And what it did for both Loren and I was lead us to the past. I remember that Loren bought albums. She bought all the Bowie she could.  We listened to Diamond Dogs on her stereo in her bedroom, puzzled over the lyrics, let the imagery color our imaginations. For Loren, Diamond Dogs was a starting point for short stories. For me, it was farther back. For me it was Ziggy. “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars”. Trace, Asia, Weird and Tommy were all born from that album. But the story, Trace and Asia’s story, began with one song.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UQvBzo_rJA

In the words of “Lady Stardust," I saw Asia, standing in that sweaty, hungry crowd, listening. I watched him feel what he could never say aloud, and I felt him lose the chance to ever speak up. Asia became the unnamed character in Bowie’s story for me. And then it became a different story. The membes of Black Light are from Michigan, because we were from Michigan, they are from the ‘80’s because so were we. Asia became a place to hold all my feelings of Midwestern repression. Ziggy became Trace; beautiful, and human, but completely unattainable. Even now when I listen to the Ziggy Stardust album it's full of energy and bravado, still a candle against the night.

Eventually, Loren's writing and mine took different paths. She has gone on to write more than anyone I know, and you can check out her blog here: httpp//:lorenrhoads.com/  

In fact, go look at her newest novel, Lost Angels, co-written with Brian Thomas: http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Angels-Above-Below-Book/dp/0963679422  It's an amazing book, and you need a copy, believe me. 

She's still the only person in the world who I can spend five hour in the same room with, just writing....with occasional tea breaks. And I don't think I'll ever be able to thank her enough for that first copy of Ziggy..... 

In Which I Fail to Explain What a Crappy Day Monday Was

I'm not sorry that David Bowie is dead. I mean, I've seen enough people suffer to the end of their lives. I don't wish it on anyone. Certainly not on a man that I owe so much. I do feel for his children. I just lost a father, and I didn't even want to be the one to call the family. I can't imagine how hard it was for his son to tell the world.

 Now, this is the place where I tell you that I'm not crazy. I didn't know the man. Yet, I got the news at three a.m. the next day--the very same time that I got the news of my father's death. Soul's Midnight, Bradbury called it in "Something Wicked This Way Comes". When my Dad died, I knew it was coming. I got up, put my pants on and went over to his house.

 No tears. But for Bowie, I cried. And my phone continued to go off until it went dead at about ten that morning. At first it was, "Are you okay?" and "I thought of you when I heard." I heard from people I hadn't seen in a decade. It was all very sweet. But with each text or call, I realized, no, I'm not okay. Not today. There's a hole in the world. Not just mine, Bowie left a hole in people's lives that don't even know that he affected them. He was part of the bones of this century, with his influences in everything from men's fashion to gender politics to children's cartoons. And what wrecks me now that all's said and done is he left us in the gentlest way he could. "It's not that I don't love you," he said. "It's that I can't stay." And he made it as strange and beautiful as everything else he did.

 I'm not sad for Bowie. I'm sad for me. Most of the important things I know about myself, I came to know through his filter. When I was thirteen years old, an insomniac in a small town, I found him, long before MTV, on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. It was I Am a DJ, and it answered so many questions that I hadn't even begun to ask yet. It was a shrill piece of desperation that I could hang onto in the middle of the night. I wasn't alone, suddenly.

 Nothing I could ever say would explain how grateful I am for that. His influences on my writing are obvious, and, again, I'm so grateful that words fail. For everything, really. Thank you for being there to save me in the middle of the night.

In a Name

Otherwise known as the post where I convince you to help me rename my character.  I know, I've a one track mind, don't I?
Names are important, though. They have power, in fiction, just like they do in magic.  They give you power. More so in fiction than in real life. Don't believe me? Okay, go to your bookshelf. Take Harry Potter down. Which came first? Lupin's condition, or his name? Okay, that was a less-than-subtle example, I know, but you get the idea. In real life we are only influenced a little by the names our parents gave us.  Okay, with a name like Martha, is anyone really surprised that I grew up pretty much looking like a hobbit with glasses? (my feet aren't furry, but the rest of it...) But my point is, I could have been something different, but I wasn't.
Names have power. Over the character that owns them, over the writer that chooses them. And here is where I'm in trouble. I need to change Ziggy's name. We all agree (real people, and the voices in my head), but I've lived with that name for an embarrassingly long time. I have a hard time thinking of him as anything but Ziggy. That's why I'm begging for suggestions. If the name comes from outside the world in my head, I don't have to risk changing Ziggy along with his name. I can keep him pure in there, and still share him with the world. 

So once again, a ten dollar bn gift card to whoever suggests the right name.  Keep trying. You get up to three guesses. Here's a hint, don't worry about the last name, but the first should have two syllables.
So there it is. My pitch. 
mart

Always Crashing In the Same Car, an exerpt.

Word of warning. This being a story about Rock n Roll in the '80's, there is language, there are drugs and  sex. Just about in that order. If that doesn't put  you off, read on, and tell me what you think Ziggy's name should change to!

1983, Los Angeles

Ziggy stands in the wings backstage at the Refugee Club, a narrow shadow. He lights a cigarette, shielding the flame with his hand to protect the darkness. In the full house beyond the curtain, Ziggy counts dozens of reflections of himself. Boys or girls, hair cut spiky with spaghetti-o colored dye-jobs, all waiting for him. He exhales a lungful of smoke. Every night there’s more of them, but it’s not enough, not yet.
"Ziggy.” Asia Heyes, the Spider’s bass player calls him from the doorway to the basement dressing room the band shares. “Weird’s real sick."
“No he’s not.” Ziggy says, turning.
“Yeah, Zig, he is. He’s not gonna be able to play the show tonight. He should be--”
"He should be shootin’ the hell up, Asia. He’s the guitar player, and this isn’t fuckin’ Charity’s Place back in Ann Arbor anymore. It’s the Refugee Club where somebody important could be listening.” Ziggy moves farther backstage, past Asia, down the rickety stairs. He smells it, bitter on the air before he hits the bottom step. Then he hears Weird choking.
Asia is right behind Ziggy, protesting. “He’s almost clean. Don’t fuck it up for him.”
Ziggy doesn’t answer. Instead of going down the short hallway to the bathroom, he heads into the dressing room. Weird’s guitar case is propped against the broken down leather couch that sags in one corner. Tucked inside, along with the instrument are Weird’s works, just like Ziggy knew they would be. He grabs the pouch and steps around Asia to cross the hall. Without knocking, Ziggy opens the bathroom door.
It’s a re-modeled storage closet, too small for three people. Gilli, their drummer, hovers, worry lining his pretty face.
Weird’s on the floor, back against the wall, arm draped around the toilet seat, like it’s his best friend. In the buzzing fluorescent light, his skin is the color of spoiled milk. His face is covered in a thin sheen of sweat, long red-blond hair stuck down with it. He wipes a hand over his beard, looks up at Ziggy through slitted eyes and grins. “Hey Stardust, you gonna hold my hair while I puke some more?”
“Are you’re gonna? I mean, you are gonna be okay, aren’t you?” Gilli’s face turns even paler as he squeezes himself against the sink to let Ziggy all the way in.
“Oh sure.” Weird groans, sucks in some of the sour air. “Yeah, I’m great.” Then he looks up at Ziggy again. “Gimme my damn smack.”
“No.” Gilli gasps. “No, Weird.”
Weird stares hard at Ziggy. “Gimme m’ works, Stardust. Neither one of them will.”
Ziggy nods. He hands the pouch over and turns away.
Asia is leaning against the hand railing of the stairs, shaking his head as Ziggy exits the bathroom. “So let him go back to killin’ himself, and you don’t even care, do you?”
“You think he can play clean, Asia?” Ziggy says. “You wanna take that away from him?”
“That’s bullshit. You don’t really think that.” Asia laughs. “You get what you want, and that’s all that matters.”
Ziggy looks into Asia’s eyes, rust/green, and takes a breath. All he ever gets from Asia anymore is anger and disappointment. Ziggy won't apologize for telling the truth. He reaches up to brush a stray lock of wavy ginger hair back from his face, but Asia flinches.
“Whatever you wanna think.” Ziggy says softly. “It’s done. Get ready for the show.”
He goes back upstairs without waiting for Asia’s answer.
Asia shakes it off. He moves to stand in the doorway. “Wait, Weird. I can play your shit tonight and Zig can play bass.”
Weird is up, unsteadily leaning against the sink, already cooking his shit, Gilli looking on, stricken. Weird snickers. “How you think he’s gonna do that? Faggot can’t even walk and chew gum.”
“I don’t care.” Asia knows he’s pleading. He wants to knock the smack out of Weird's hand, shake him. Don't make Ziggy right, he wants to say. But he goes back to begging instead. “We can do it.”
“Asia, look, Stardust’s a bastard, but he’s right.” Weird says. His hands don’t shake at all when he pulls the plunger back on his syringe to suck the liquefied drug up. “You think that bein’ a junkie’s ruinin’ my life, right? That I'm tryin' to kill myself? See, no, because it’s all I am, Asia. No junk, no music. I'm not giving that up.”
Weird is tying a piece of tubing around his upper arm. He looks from Asia to Gilli. “You guys got shit to do before we go on, right?”
Not really, Asia thinks, but feels himself give in. He turns away and Gilli follows him.
                                                                           ***
Ziggy returns to the shadows behind curtain. Weird will come through. He always does. No matter what his condition, he lives for the moment the lights hit the stage almost as much as Ziggy himself. Onstage, they always speak the same language.
Ziggy pauses before he lights another cigarette. Asia and Gilli come up from the dressing room to go out back. Ziggy stays hidden. He knows Asia needs his space. Once the stage door swings closed, he pulls his lighter out. Disappointment, anger, Ziggy thinks again. But it was all right if Asia didn't understand. As long as he didn't leave.
Ziggy takes a long drag on his fresh cigarette and pushes off from the wall. He sees the small slim form of Sammy appear from the other side of the curtain. She locates him by the glow of ash. He gives her a wide smile. “Are you my fifteen minute warning?”
“Just about.”
She tilts her head up to kiss him and he feels the sticky exchange of their lip gloss. Her hands are at the zipper of his jeans. Ziggy is still thinking of Asia when she slides her hands inside.

CONTEST!!!!

So it's David Bowie's sixty-sixth birthday today, and I had been thinking of doing something special to mark that. I mean I usually take the day to write a Bowie influenced story, so that's nothing special. I've missed him, you know, over the past decade. I've gotten used to the build-up of rumours everything year around this time, "Bowie's in Berlin and he's recording--he tweeted it last night!" Riiight.  But not really. I had come to the same conclusion that everyone else had. He'd retired, and was enjoying his retirement. But I still wanted more music.
So I was pretty skeptical when I woke to a bunch of texts about there being a new single and video. No, that can't be true, I thought.
Turns out I was wrong. It's totally true. Single, video, album.  You guessed it.  I cried.  And I also couldn't help thinking about Ziggy. 
I'd given up on anybody wanting my novel "Always Crashing In the Same Car." But today, hearing Bowie's voice again, in new words, Ziggy came back to me.  And I realize that I'm way too close to the thing to do what's necessary to make it suitable for publishing. So I decided that I would ask for help.
Here's where the contest comes in, ready?
I need to rename Ziggy, in the novel.  Now, wait, because it's already a fake name, it's not as easy as you might think to replace it with something that works. Still, I have faith in all of you. So here's the deal:
I will mail a ten dollar Barnes and Noble gift card to the person who, in replying to this blog post, gives me an alternate name for my Ziggy as he appears in "Always Crashing In the Same Car." I'll give you all up to three tries. And I have faith in all of you, but if none of the names turn out to be suitable, I will draw names for the gift card.  The contest will start now and end March 12, 2013. Simple right?  See the next blog post for a little taste of the character if you wish.

And we lived the lie like the hope it was

With all this re-writing, re-living my youth, I've been thinking a lot about David Bowie. Those who know me won't find this surprising, or even interesting. That's okay, they put up with enough.

I've been listening to David Bowie in my writing life for thirty years. I'm listening to him right now, in fact, truth be told. He is, in many ways, my most lasting relationship.

Maybe that's overstating just a bit. Then again, if we're telling the truth....

Let me explain. David Bowie came to me one late night as I lay on the floor in my parent's living room. I couldn't sleep, so I wasn't just alone, I was achingly alone. Insomnia does that to you in the deep night. It cuts you off, makes you long for human contact. Makes you forget that you've ever had any.

For company I had the television. I was thirteen. It was the summer of Star Wars, my first religious experience, the thing that made me pick up a notebook and a pen. It was also the summer of my first experience with sex--not so religious. And it was the summer I found a name to put how I felt--that I wasn't alone completely in the brand of different that I was.

You'd think the sex would have tipped me off about being gay, but it didn't happen like that. I wasn't sure what had happened, and I wasn't sure I wanted it to happen again. I was a very sheltered thirteen year old, I think, or maybe we were all...slower back then.

But I remember very clearly that the secret that love came in different combinations was just that to me. A secret. I knew how sex was supposed to go from the junior high class, and I couldn't imagine that as something I ever wanted to do. I had decided that I would always be alone.

And then came the second religious experience of my life. The kiss. It was the music that made me look up at the screen, of course, jangly and shrill, and somehow compelling. I looked up from my notebook in front of me, and saw it. The few seconds of video made everything seem to fall into place in my life.

David Bowie, paper thin, and frail, walks unprotected down a nighttime city street. His face is a narrow smudge in the dark, his eyes on something ahead that we can't see. There is a group of people around him, but he's clearly alone, none the less.

Suddenly a man, a stranger, races up, throws his arms around Bowie and kisses him. Bowie half turns, as though to keep the stranger in reach, but the man runs away again and is lost in the night. At least that's how it happens in my memory.

Watching it now, on the tiny, and oddly unaffecting YouTube screen, it seems so mild, not at all earth-shattering. Although when MTV started, they clipped those frames away, so it must have been shocking at some point.

And to me--the last survivor of the insomniac wars that night, it was huge. The biggest thing in my life. It put my fumbling first time with a girl into perspective. Gave it possibility. Gave it a name.

I can't explain how it happened, why it struck me so. It's only my explanation of how David Bowie came to me. Why do I still carry him with me? I don't know. I do know that he's buried so deep to see with the naked eye in every sentence I write. I tried to resist, but that's a waste of time. It works and this is how it works. Star Wars gave me the desire to tell stories. David Bowie gave me the context for what I needed to say.