Michele Fogal is joining us today with her novel Root of the Spark. Here’s the publisher’s description:
Dell has an unexpected spark that masculine and feminine energies create when swirled and fused inside a single person. But will this be enough to stop the age-old tide of fear and violence as it rises again?
Born in the midst of the oldest human war, the war of the sexes, Dell is the first true hermaphrodite on the planet of Ameliaura. Dell has used the anonymity of the Fatherlander cities to survive, and the tight community of the Motherlander villages to manage, but reaching maturity means that neither of those are enough to thrive on anymore. After a vicious attack, and an unexpected love interest, Dell must step into the light to fight for a real home.
Warning: this book contains a child who is actually an ancient dragon made of fungus, a lovely villain imprisoned inside the creature’s body, a hasty clan gathering in the collective subconscious, a hermaphrodite orphanage on the brink, and some very naughty acts on a staircase.
What is Michele’s favorite bit?
MICHELE FOGAL
Years ago, I stumbled upon the concept of WILDs, Waking Initiated Lucid Dreams (WILDs) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dream#Wake-initiated_lucid_dreams_.28WILD.29 and this idea sparked many stories and is now an essential part of the universe of my Wild Seed series of SF novels.
The strange thing is that I never expected to experience a WILD myself.
A large part of the universe that I’d been exploring and writing about had to do with a collective subconscious place, a dream landscape. In the story, talented Dreamers could go into this place and interact with each other, and really talented Dreamers could go there while they were awake.
How the Magic Started
My writers’ group at the time had a tradition of using guided meditation to start our sessions. So, I went over to my writing pal Paolo’s house and we did our meditation thing and… something happened. It felt as though I had a muscle twitch in both of my eyeballs.
You know when a muscle moves a small amount over and over but you can’t control it? Just like that, but not in the skin of my face, but rather in the eyes themselves. My eyeballs moved fast back and forth while my eyes were closed, and I was definitely not in control of it. This had never happened before, but I’d just done the relaxation exercise, so I was sublimely mellow, and didn’t worry too much about it. I thought it was odd, but not enough to mention it to Paolo.
REM State
EMDR is a type of therapy, developed for trauma survivors, that is particularly useful in improving self image issues. When I’d tried it, it seemed like the idea was to get the two sides of the brain to communicate with each other, quit arguing and reach an understanding. When I spoke to my counsellor friend about WILDs and how cool I thought the idea was, she said, “Well you know that that’s what EMDR is based on right?” My friend explained that the whole principal behind EMDR was to put the client into a waking dream, an REM state.
When I told her about my eye twitching, she explained that not only had I accidently incorporated WILDs into my writing practice, I’d already done it before in EMDR sessions. Twice. I found this convergence of ideas creepy in the loveliest of ways. This kind of serendipity makes me feel like I’m on the right track, and well… that there IS a track.
Now as if this isn’t lovely-creepy enough, it gets lovely-creepier.
Tapping into the Hive
Rapid Eye Movement is usually something that you have only while you’re asleep and dreaming, but I had accidentally figured out how to get myself into a waking REM state. As I explored the idea further, again and again, I could get into this Lucid Dream space and… witness things. I don’t really know how else to describe it. I would do my meditation, which was about getting into an imaginary sanctuary, and then when I was deeply relaxed, I would call out to a character.
The main character of that story (Root of the Spark) is named Dell, and when I called, Dell would appear. I could see this person’s eyes, face and hair very vividly, and then I would jump from my sanctuary place into Dell’s body. I’d look out of the character’s eyes, hear their thoughts, feel the textures and temperatures of their environment. It all felt very real and very magical.
Science vs Woo-woo
From a scientific point of view, I believe what’s happening is that the right and left hemispheres of my brain were “communicating” in ways that normally happens while we sleep, a subconscious form of thought. From a more woo-woo perspective, I felt that I was tapping into the dreamscape that I’d been writing about, and that there were stories there that wanted me to tell them.
How it Helped
Part way through the first draft, I sheepishly realized I didn’t know what Dell did for work. After berating myself for being a bad writer, and sitting down to try to logically figure it out, I stopped dead and had a new idea. Instead of trying to “logic it out”, ie: use my left brain, why not use my right brain and simply ask Dell from inside the REM state? So I did just that. I meditated my way into my “sanctuary” and then called Dell to me, jumped into Dell’s body and whispered, “Let’s go to work.”
Dell simply walked outside, got into a trike-vehicle I’d never seen before, drove to a location I’d never imagined and opened the door of a restaurant/club that I hadn’t invented yet. It was very clear from Dell’s thoughts and the reactions of the staff that Dell was the owner. I still get goose bumps when I think about it.
Ever-Evolving
This process doesn’t work for every story, and certainly not for every writer. My favourite bit is to realize that creative process can be as diverse as our stories. It can change and evolve, no matter how much you’ve written. And the stories themselves have so much to teach us, if we can just quiet our monkey minds and listen. I think that in itself is pure, sparkling magic.
Your Own Process
If the idea of using guided meditation in your writing warm-up interests you, I have a series of them to share on Soundcloud. https://soundcloud.com/user-221571352
Wishing you a pinch of SF magic,
Michele
LINKS:
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BIO:
Michele has always felt a sense of kinship with quirky and diverse people. As a bisexual author, writing love stories that explore the rainbow of human experience is both a pleasure and a calling. Her work celebrates the divine nature of diversity, and the sacred, messy work of intimacy.
If you’d like to know when Michele releases new books, bonus content, book club questions, and sneak peeks, you can sign up for her newsletter at michelefogal.com. You can also connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Goodreads, and nudge her to get off there and write more.
Thanks so much for having me, Mary! It’s a thrill to be here! 😀