Grist For The Mill

The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceeding fine

A guy back in second or third century Greece named Sextus Empiricus, a physician and philosopher, is the first we know of to have used this phrase.

All it means is that things often take a long time to come to pass.

For today's post I'm focusing on a different, although related, phrase.

The meaning of this one is also pretty well understood, although literary connotations are prevalent in its interpretation as a general rule.

This one refers to the fact that everything any of our senses has ever encountered is on the table for use in any way we see fit to use it. 

Every experience of which we have been a participant, in particular. 

Every word spoken to us. 

Every look directed at us and intercepted by our own eyes. 

Every time we have been touched. 

Every step we have taken. 

Every thought in our minds. 

Every feeling we have had.

All of the above and then some ... it all belongs to us ... it is all fair game. We own it and can do as we please with it.

As writers/artists, we can come up with all kinds of ways to present our interpretations. Interpretations always and only. We cannot interpret or present anything that has never touched our lives in any way, shape, or form. So every word that we write, every piece of art we generate, is an interpretation of something that belongs to us by dint of having at one time been in some way a part of our relationship with our world.

We can 'make stuff up' in terms of putting different concepts, experiences, interpretations together into different patterns, but it's all based on what our senses have gathered and stored in our minds over the course of our life.

Having said that, every day provides plenty of grist for the mill of any author or artist. Every person we meet and interact with in any way is a potential character or part of a painting. Everything we witness might turn up in one of our works in some way or other.

I was recently reminded that everything and everyone I've ever known is indeed grist for my mill. 

I own the experiences of my life, all of them.

Not all of those experiences have been perfectly positive.

Those are the ones I hesitate to 'bring to life again' by using them in writing or artwork.

Yet there they are.

They are the balance.

Life is not solely good.

The reminder included a thought which often escapes our attention: 

If they wanted you to write warmly about them they should have behaved better.

That made me smile.

If ever anyone wanted to write bad things about me, they'd have a tough time sifting through them all - there are plenty and plenty, believe me.

Me, I don't have to write any such things. I can be the hero of my life, not the bad guy. 

And wouldn't that make for a boring Character!

At any rate, the current project I'm working on is going to take a good while to get written as it's literally a work in progress.

It's also a project that I'm somewhat ambivalent about.

However, it's only just begun and has a long way to go.

Meanwhile, along this same line, I've been writing some SNARK pieces - to balance out the Mamm Books' generally positive attitude.

Almost exclusively I've tended to focus on the good, and that's fine and dandy, but it leaves a person without the balance that blending in the bad brings. Sad but true, there's plenty of bad that's got to start showing up in the next books of SONG - so I have to begin wrapping my head around the need to be able to write them.

Happy endings are all the more poignant if you go through the nasty stuff in order to get there.

So.

It's going to be SNARK time for a while here I think.

Luckily for me, the Younglings can run into lots of Snarky stuff on their adventures, and prevail, so those little stories might be what gets me through the writing of this other project. The same goes for the rest of our Characters. As I'm writing the SNARK things, the Characters of SONG will have the task of keeping me balanced by winning out over the Snarky things they run into on the Spiral. Thank God for Warriors.

When it comes to Fiction, remember that it is entirely based on Fact. The 'fact' part of the 'fiction' is likely to be woven all but invisibly into the fabric of the piece, but it is the foundation of the whole thing. 

Our senses have provided us with enough material, enough grist for our mills, to write for a very long time, believe me. Fictionalizing people, places, events, experiences, encounters, reactions ... it's only changing bits and pieces of the facts as we know them.

Just sayin'.

The good guys and the bad guys might not exactly be precisely as a person expects. 

If you're looking at my books wondering whether or not you are in them, chances are that if you've interacted with me in the course of my life YES you will be represented in some way. It can hardly be otherwise, can it?

I based the main Characters of SONG loosely on people who are dear to me, and they're good strong Characters on whom I can depend always.

Not everyone with whom I've interacted in my life has that same distinction; that's a fact it would be senseless to deny.

We've got the good guys defined.

Now it's time for some of the bad guys to start showing up. They'll NOT be based on specific individuals as are the SONG Characters. 

Bad guys are bad guys, remember. 

By definition they are not nice. They will bite you if you let them.

There have been more than enough in my experience to not have to be any too specific; their characteristics will blend and morph and reverse to the point that no individual will be identified as such. 

So if you've done me wrong, or anyone I've had contact with, don't worry. You'll most likely be the only one able to recognize yourself in the pages of the books. If by chance you do, GOOD. 

You'll probably be wrong and that character is more likely to be a mix of good old-fashioned historic bad guys, but hey - if you think that's your shoe, go ahead and put it on!