Sun Devil
I read this pitch to the for my complete-but-needs-an-editor novel at the Writers League of Texas Agents and Editors Conference last weekend, a bonus which came from being a Manuscript Contest Finalist:
They called her the white rocket, and for many Air Force pilots, she was their first true love. She was sleek, sexy, and fast. When you climbed into her cockpit, you were tense with apprehension, sweaty with fear, brain buzzing with procedures, excited with anticipation. Privately they called her a bitch and a whore, because she was seductive and could kill. When you rolled her over on her back, pulled her nose down, and shoved the throttles into afterburner, you’d be supersonic in a couple of seconds. As they said, she flew like a bat out of hell. Tom Harter was the new guy in the squadron, an instructor pilot in the T-38. He wore captain’s bars on his shoulders, wings on his chest, and the sun devil on his sleeve. His story is AWOL-21.
When visiting Artisans at Rocky Hill in Fredericksburg, Texas, you will see an abundance of beautiful and tantalizing art: traditional oils, furniture, pottery, wind powered kinetic sculpture. Among these many beautiful creations, several paintings will almost jump off the wall at you, demanding attention. These are the works of Ira Kennedy.
Born in a tent near San Saba in 1941, son of a migrant worker, descendent of a Cherokee great grandmother, Ira has re-surfaced in the Hill Country visual arts world. Both Ira and his family knew he was an artist very early, and by his twenties he found himself living in New York City, his art in a group show which included Andy Warhol.
Ira became disenchanted with the art world and found himself back in the Hill Country, where he lived as a freelance writer, wrote special features for Texas Monthly, Texas Highways, the Marble Falls Highlander, and other magazines and newspapers. For five years he published the iconic Enchanted Rock Magazine, with tantalizing stories about local history not found elsewhere. During some of this time Ira lived adjacent to Enchanted Rock, wrote a history of The Rock, and eventually won two National Press Association awards for environmental journalism.
Although Ira was a competent landscape painter, he wanted to be different. As he told me, “Either you are original, or why bother?” A visit to Australia and aboriginal art was an epiphany for him. He formed his unique style combining Native American symbolic images, Mexican primitive, pop art, and aboriginal pointillism. When I saw one of his paintings during First Friday Art Walk, at another gallery in Fredericksburg, and met Ira Kennedy for the first time, I didn’t know what to think of it, I just knew him for the Enchanted Rock Magazine and as author of a history of Enchanted Rock. As I have gotten to know him and his story, I have come to see his art as an extraordinary blend of spiritual mystery and natural beauty, as utterly unique in a sea of excellent Hill Country art. A viewer cannot be ambivalent about Ira’s paintings; they demand attention, they tug at your soul, they will not leave you alone.
Years ago, Ira found and traced some very old rock art near Valley Spring, in Llano County, and this led him to study and research the symbols. Eventually, he crafted this interpretation, which is his daily prayer:
“Almighty God, creator and animator of the universe, embodiment of all things, that of which I am, please manifest this prayer:
“Thunderbird, carry this prayer to the sun father; that the future may be bright among us, bright and everlasting, as the nourishing water of the earth mother. May it be bright above us, may it be bright below us; in the daytime may it be bright, in the night time may it be bright. May the path that we follow be filled with plenty, and our numbers merge with our prayer. Thunderbird carry this prayer to the sun god, it is finished in beauty, it is finished in beauty.”
Ira Kennedy, and his art and writing, can be found on Facebook, www.irakennedy.com, and at the Artisans at Rocky Hill, 234 West Main Street, Fredericksburg, Texas.
Welcome our new superintendent and say goodbye to the interim, tonight, 7:00 pm, group pavillion. FOER t-shirts on sale.
I spent the weekend in Austin at a conference; pretty expensive stuff, but great fun. I didn’t meet any agents or editors in my corner of writing, but made some good connections with writers. Like any conference, I heard a lot that I already knew or didn’t really need to know, and in the mix heard fifteen minutes of very helpful information. As a finalist in the Manuscript Contest, I got to read my ‘pitch’ for AWOL 21 in front of the attendees (I chose not to read from my manuscript, as by that time any reading needed to be short). Awol 21 is my complete-but-in need-of-polishing story of an Air Force pilot; I had quite a few comments over the weekend about it. One funny story – I had a random conversation with a guy standing near me, and when it was time to part, he handed me his card – David Deming. I handed him my card – Robert Deming. We weren’t wearing nametags, so it came as a shock to both of us. He stood and introduced us to the entire body of people as long lost cousins, and we both heard a lot about that over the next two days.
The best part was making connections with other writers. I learned about making audio-books from two – writers, not panelists – who had made them. Agents and editors had the ‘deer in the headlights’ look by the end. I met a girl in the parking lot who told me some of her story – about a woman obsessed with a dead jazz musician – non fiction, memoir! I told her she might be scary; she laughed, and we went to find our cars. And then there was the ‘hanging out at the hotel bar with writers’ part, which was as much fun as anything.
WordPress has changed and I haven’t figured out how to change with it; otherwise, I would post some photos. If anyone can tell me how to post photos with this new format, I would appreciate knowing. Otherwise, it will mean the dreaded call to tech support.i can only upload photos from my phone.
I’m heading for the Writers League of Texas Agents and Editors Conference in Austin next weekend . The winners of the Manuscript Contest were announced, and I’m not one of them. They must be outstanding writers, and it will be fun getting to know some of them. I have never been to a writers conference, but my friend Mara Fox will be there too, and she promises that it will be a blast!
Jami and I were walking at Enchanted Rock a few days ago, and I was trying not to slip into my character, when she said that my stories are visual, and would make great movies. That made me wonder if I could write a screenplay. I don’t know the first thing about that style, but my Enchanted Rock Stories would seem to make a good modern western, having the four basics: a good guy, a girl, a bad guy, and a dramatic western backdrop. Throw in an old handgun and a towering thunderstorm, and, voila! A great film for an Austin film-maker, perhaps. Sorry, I couldn’t figure out how to put a horse in the story.
If you haven’t read my contest entry, here are the first 2500 words of Fort Davis Rocks.
I am thrilled to be a finalist, if not the winner. In my experience judging writing or scholarship applications, there is little difference between the top five applications, and the selection gets a little random.
Thanks to Nebrasaka’s Poet Laureate Lori for encouraging positive thinking (not an official tile, but surely an appropriate one).
Signing books this afternoon at the fantastic Artisans at Rocky Hill Gallery in Fredericksburg. Stop by!
“Never think that war, however necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.” Ernest Hemingway
Two guys brought trumpets to the Gillespie County Courthouse today at noon and I brought a list of war dead from this county. I read the list of names to the three of us in the rain, and they played a stunning rendition of taps.
The families of this county gave up three men to World War I, sixty-one to World War II, five in the Korean War, four in Vietnam, and two in the Gulf Wars. There were others who died during the War Between the States, but that list is harder to find. Sixty one deaths from a county of (probably) 6,000 people was a huge loss. Two families lost even more – two brothers died together during the invasion of Iwo Jima, and three brothers died elsewhere.
The Korean War was an intervention in the development of a country which is yet unsettled. North Korea’s leadership has taken their country into a private hell. The Vietnam War was our intervention in the development of a country which was able to find its destiny only when we pulled out, but after the loss of millions of lives. The Gulf Wars are not yet written into the history books, but I fear that when it is said and done we will have accomplished nothing good, and that the legacy is that hundreds of thousands of our young people have come home with the lifelong injury we now call post-traumatic stress disorder, massive budget deficits, and the creation of countless more fanatics whose ideal is to kill Americans.
In 1963, John F Kennedy said, “I look forward to a great future for America – a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose.”
Apparently we weren’t listening. Dale Carnegie said, “Each nation feels superior to other nation, and that breeds patriotism, and wars.”
So today I read the names of those who died in war, in the hope that someday we will give up war, assassination, and killing as an instrument of national policy. No, I am not a patriot. I believe in a strong national defense, but not a strong national offense. I believe we can change the world for the better, but I fear those whose names I read may have died in vain.
“But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” Jesus the Christ
At noon on Monday I will read the names of those from Gillespie County who died in war in service of this country, by the war memorial on the courthouse lawn. This is not to glamorize war, but to remember those who died, were wounded, or suffered in other ways because of war. Join me if you like, and if you have names of others to read, do so. If you can play taps, that would be a fitting way to end the remembrance. The Admiral Nimitz Museum will have a formal program at 10:00 AM in their courtyard as well.
I broke through my writers block yesterday.
I was talking to a writing friend after my last post Stuck!, and we talked about writing, and about his unwritten story. Part of his life was declared to be a government secret, and he fears telling the story could make some agency very unhappy with him. I contend that it happened a long time ago and those people are dead, that he can make it fiction, yet authentic. What made the early John LeCarre stories so interesting was their authenticity. The most exciting thing I was involved in as a military pilot was an engine fire on takeoff out of Guam, or maybe the Dutch Roll on climb out from Hickam. I carried a handgun sometimes but it was seldom loaded (those things are dangerous!) . In writing my pilot’s story, AWOL 21, about a T-38 instructor pilot, the challenge was to make it interesting. My friend’s experiences, which he has not discussed with me, are no doubt more gripping, more interesting than mine.
The discussion got me thinking.
I have been on a low dose of an anti-depressant (fluoxetine) for about six months because of anxiety from my divorce in process. I was stressed by the whole experience until I got my ego out of the way and we came to agreement on the settlement. We are friends again and are about to make our separate ways and are happy for each other. My time on this drug happens to coincide with the time I have been unable to write. I quit taking it this week. I am pretty sure it was getting in the way of my creativity.
My protagonist in Fort Davis Rocks woke up and started talking to me again. The banker is counting his piles of money, the bartender is winking at me, the writer is seducing the trial lawyer, the malevolent biker scheming his latest attack on the man. It makes me wish I could sit here all day, watching the rain outside my window and writing down what they say.
Everyone has a story. Write it. As Ernest Hemmingway said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
I don’t know where my story is going. The last time I got a few words down, I set up a scene with two characters alone, but now I can’t remember why. The villains are jeering at me, the protagonist is stone-faced, the other characters have wandered off for a drink or gone to bed early. My kid who hated reading is beating me at words with friends, as is a bald hairdresser I met in prison. I’m spending too much time playing solitaire. Sounds like writers block to me. I used to sneer at those people, who complained in pitiful blog posts that they were stuck. Hell, I could crank out 250 words waiting for the onions to brown in a sauté pan! Now, instead of ‘soon to be famous writer’ I am ‘used to be a writer’.
robertcdeming 