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Monday, May 25, 2015

FALLEN IS THE NAME I CHOSE_SO LET ME FALL_Muse Party Blogest


Sarah Foster and her muse Jordan created this fun blogfest for writers to talk about their muse. 
Well, how could I pass that up?

To do it the "Roland" way, I included a small writing lesson and incorporated the questions into a short flash fiction.  :-) 


The most memorable heroes or heroines you have ever met were archetypes.

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung believed that these archetypes are the result of a collective unconscious.

This collective unconscious was not directly knowable and is a product of the shared experiences of our ancestors.

If we can tap into the collective unconscious with our heroine, 


then we will stir the hearts of our readers on the unconscious level, insuring that all important reader identification.

Fallen, my muse and the heroine in many of my fantasies is the archetype, "La Belle Dame sans Merci":

“... darkness yet in light, To live a life half dead, a living death, And buried; but O yet more miserable! My self, my Sepulcher.”

John Milton {“Samson Agonistes.”}



LET ME FALL

"Let me fall,

Let me climb,

There is a moment when fear

And dream must collide."


 

I am the last of my race. I am Tuatha de Danann. And, no, human, that does not mean elf, or fae, or damned. I take that last back. 

I am damned.


"Someone I am

Is waiting for courage,

The one I want,

The one I will become,

Will catch me."



I have no memories of my youth. Youth. The word is a mockery to me.

Though I look a young woman, I have lived centuries which I do remember. I remember when the sphinx had a nose,

when the pyramids were caressed by shimmering limestone,

and when courage and honor were not hollow words.

Yes, that long ago do I remember.


"Let me fall,

If I fall,

Though the phoenix

May or may not rise."



Then how do I even know I am Tuatha de Danann? The knowledge sings to me from the depths of my spirit in the night.


Its melody mocks with teasing glimpses of a time long gone, yet unborn.


"I will dance so freely,

Holding on to no one;

You can hold me only

If you, too, will fall

Away from all your

Useless fears and chains."



How do I know I am Sidhe? It is the face which mocks me from the mirror.

High cheekbones which seem intent on bursting up and out of flesh which shimmers as if coated with stardust.

A living waterfall of honey-wheat hair, looking more like a lion's mane than any other earthly term I could use.

Large, slanted fae eyes, chilling even me with their lack of warmth or mercy.


"So let me fall,

If I must fall,

There is no reason

To miss this one chance

This perfect moment;

Just let me fall."



But enough about me. What do you think about me? On second thought, do not tell me.

What care I what humans think of me? But I lie. I do care. At least about what one human thinks of me.


Roland Yeomans. DreamSinger. 


He is Lakota myth come to life. He is the shaman who sings dreams to life. And he will tell me my beginnings or die.



"So let me fall,

If I must fall,

I won't heed your warnings;

I won't hear them."



My mind is churning with images humans could not comprehend as I sway up the steps of the Art Nouveau house,

that is just one of the doorways into Roland’s psyche.

Just its name alone is punishment to think, much less speak: Jugendstilhaus in der Ainmillerstrabe.

Once it had been the home of the infamous Countess Franziska zu Reventlow,

her erotic lifestyle and cosmic nonsense had inspired and broken the hearts of an entire generation in Munich.

Now it has to settle for being the most elite restaurant in the city.

No knocking on the door. 


This restaurant is much too elite for that. Only a rare electronic key will work … a key based on the silicon ingrams of Roland’s own brain.

I have mine in my longer than human fingers. Roland had sung this establishment into being along with most of Munich back when he used the pen name, The Brothers Grimm.

I slide the key through the black slot whose color matches my short-skirted version of a S.S. uniform.

True, I am some seventy years out of date. But what is seventy years to a Tuatha de Danann?

A mere hiccup in time.

I remember Wagner trying to teach me German ... among other things. I go cold inside. 


I remember too much, feel too little.

I enjoy the glares of the pompous patrons as I roll my hips to the back table reserved for DreamSinger alone.

The maitre d' nearly breaks his neck getting to me, but I am already seated, making sure my short skirt is hiked up suitably indecent to induce doomed desire.

He stands trembling over me as I take out my copy of The Spirit as Adversary of the Soul by old Ludwig Klages from my skirt pocket.

I am almost through with his nonsense. Seeing how close he can come to the truth, while stumbling right past it always makes me chuckle.

The maitre d' isn't close to chuckling. "Fraulein, you simply cannot wear that uniform in here!"

"Sure I can. What is the matter? Afraid those power brokers to our right will find out your grandfather wore this uniform for real?"

He spins around so fast he leaves an after-image. Roland clears his throat across the table from me.

“He cannot help his past.”

I study this strange man. His eyes. By the White Lady, his eyes. 


They look as if they have seen all the pain in the world … and have felt most of it.

“I’m tired of this dancing, DreamSinger. Who am I?”

Roland looks truly surprised. “I thought you knew. You are my muse, La Belle Dame sans Merci .”

"Is that my name or my nature?"

"Both."

I sit back in my chair. I had been right, after all. 


I am damned.

*** 

To read more adventures of Fallen, buy THE LAST FAE in Kindle or Audible:



18 comments:

  1. The Sidhe are my favorite mythological creatures. So versatile. And yes, damned.

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  2. A very Roland take on the blogfest. But I got to be serenaded by Josh Groban while I commented. Excellent! A romantic mythologist you are indeed :-)

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    1. That's my secret: let Josh Groban carry the tune at my party! I'm glad you liked my entry. :-)

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  3. What a romantic muse you have! Me, I've never thought of having one, but I do think often of Jung's archetypes. One of my favorites is Walter Mitty, the everyday milquetoast who daydreams of being a dashing hero. What impresses me about this is that Thurber was able to create him in a mere short story.

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    1. My mentor, Roger Zelazny, created such stirring characters in just short stories, too. I enjoy reading James Thurbur as well -- in my scrapbook of heroes, I have a letter signed by Thurbur!

      Fallen meets my Samuel McCord in RITES OF PASSAGE and ADRIFT IN THE TIME STREAM, my fantasy Titanic adventure.

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  4. I love the Roland way! :D

    Your muse is poetic, romantic, and wise...just what I would've expected.

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    1. You made me blush, and the ghost of Mark Twain thump my head for not choosing him -- but he would have flirted with all the ladies at the party!

      Thanks for liking my twisting the blogfest slightly! :-)

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  5. Fallen is much more than I knew, and potentially more dangerous. You surround yourself with those who have seen much. A muse such as she must give you strange dreams (I believe you have written of a few ). Excellent entry, Roland. You sound like an immortal. . .

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    1. Fallen tried to get McCord to kill her by wearing the removed face of a young girl he had delivered as a baby in RITES OF PASSAGE ... but Samuel sensed more was going on than was apparent ... and there was.

      Strange dreams haunt all writers. I just try to use mine! :-)

      Just because Fallen sees me as something or someone does not make it so, right? :-)

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  6. Oh, she seems a sad muse. Haunting and haunted at once.

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    1. Fallen is that. I guess that is why she is in seven of my novels. Good luck in June! :-)

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  7. That was fun. Although it makes me think at the party, your muse would be wandering around by herself muttering all this and off in her own little world.

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    1. Sadly, being an impish being filled with free-floating inner pain, Fallen would be mingling trying to see how much trouble she could conjure to take her mind off her own pain as she did in a chapter of THE LAST FAE towards the end!

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  8. Wow...hauntingly awesome muse, Roland!!!

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    1. I am glad you enjoyed listening in to Fallen's thoughts.

      I think you would enjoy LIES THAT LOCUST TELL

      Fallen awakens in a British asylum without any memory of getting there. Worse, the asylum is being run by aliens experimenting with the inmates.

      What would happen if Earth was invaded, and it was left to Evil to defend it?

      It is a tale in my Kindle book: BRING ME THE HEAD OF McCORD. I would send it to you if I had your email address. :-)

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  9. So much imagery in your words.
    So well done.
    Thank you for sharing.

    Heather

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