Nine of Birds – Tarot for Writers

Sep 23, 2020 | Events, Tarot for Writers, The Writing Life, Writing Advice

So I pulled a Tarot card today.  This one, for us, in preparation for our virtual convening, The Grove.  Honestly, I was hoping for something inspirational, something like The Star to indicate rebirth and a new beginning.  I know – and I say it all the time – that there are no “good” cards, or “bad” cards, especially in the Shining Tribe deck, but in times like these, times when I feel like I am long past being able to process or accept one more curve ball from the news or my community, I will forgive myself for wanting a little bit of reprieve.

But the Tarot knows what it needs to say.  Today’s card is the Nine of Birds.

Like the Star, this figure emerges from the realm of the dead – in this case, a burial mound.  She stands at the entrance, accompanied by the wisdom of the owl, and equipped with a weapon which both and urn and a scythe.  It’s a barren image, of grief and death and sorrow. 

BUT.  Isn’t that where we are now?  Haven’t we been literally been surrounded by it for longer than we can fathom? One of the key messages of this card is that we are in the doorway, and we have our protections and defenses.  But to move forward we have to process and acknowledge all our feelings.  We have to accept our losses, and empathize with others’ suffering.  

This is a card that calls for rituals of mourning and release.

I don’t know about you, but I am tired of shouldering all the burdens, fighting all the battles, and feeling so stuck in the process.  

So the Nine of Birds, of course, is the Star’s shadow self, and a great plug for our intensive, creative, restorative gathering coming up on October 24-25th: The Grove.  Four teachers and ten hours of rituals and techniques to clear away, reach for, and gather what you need.

And for those who aren’t coming, I encourage you to find a ritual for release.  Clear a space where you can feel safe and let out something you have been holding.  For me, these feelings immediately start my creativity swirling.  If you need a more specific exercise for your creative project, imagine (possibly for your character if you have one, and if not, just embody a watcher/voice) the moment when “you” have risen out of the land of the dead, when the effort has been expended and all the emotions have surfaced – the moment that is too full to hold back anymore.  Don’t forget, if you are writing a story, that quite often our characters don’t actually know what they want – they often fight against what they need only to arrive at the place they thought they didn’t want to be in.  So this is a great moment for a narrative.  It’s unstable; it needs to be embraced or emptied or it needs to explode. This might be the emotion right before or right after a major climax.  On the other side is the new world, a new epiphany, a new possibility.  We can’t see it yet, but it’s coming.

Come to The Grove if you can. Sign up for updates from the Two Trees Writers Collaborative if you want to hear more about our upcoming offerings.  Stay safe and happy writing.

WE CREATE OUR OWN MONSTERS, a conversation with Amy Danzer at The Rumpus

Oct 15, 2018 | Shadow Child, The Writing Life

(September 24th, 2018)

“I read Rahna Reiko Rizzuto’s recently released novel, Shadow Child, in preparation for a panel I moderated at Chicago’s thirty-fourth annual Printers Row Lit Fest (PRLF). Shadow Child is a captivating mystery that centers around Lillie—a Japanese woman, American born—who comes of age during World War II and lands repeatedly between deadly rocks and hard places. Through the narrative of Lillie and her daughters, Hana and Kei, Rizzuto explores the scars, shadows, and hauntings of war, internment camps, natural disasters, racism, and other injustices.

“Shadow Child is brilliantly written, resonates eerily with current events, and left me with questions beyond the ones I had time for at the PRLF, so I was thrilled when Rizzuto agreed to interview and entertained more questions. I was equally delighted when, on a recent visit to New York, Rizzuto welcomed me, at the last minute, into her home where I got to gawk at the cavalcade of books and sculptures that lined her walls, feed on her homemade granola and yogurt, and spend several hours lost in conversation with her about fatal diseases, ecstatic dancing, and everything between.

“We tackled the ways in which Shadow Child examines trauma, identity, and monsters:”

For our full conversation, click here to go to The Rumpus.  A teaser?

“Shadow Child has lots of monsters, hauntings, ghosts. But that is not where the real peril comes from. My monsters are the guilt and sorrow kind. They rise out of despair, helplessness. They are a manifestation of “dis-ease”; and they are invisible. Hidden.

“I have often said, even in this conversation, that we create our own reality. So it follows that we also create our own monsters. Sometimes, they are inside us, in the acts, or feelings or impulses that we don’t want to admit to. They are born out of our decisions, and how we choose to deal with things beyond our control. They remind us that the past is not easy to erase and ignore. They are also—just as trauma is in this story—inheritable.

“There is one moment—I’ll try not to make this a spoiler—when one of the characters realizes that the monsters can be wielded, controlled; that she can choose to evoke this notion of the monster and it is quite a powerful thing, though of course, it doesn’t go as planned. Very little in this novel goes as planned.”

 

 

Fiction and the Chaos of Trauma

Jul 15, 2018 | Shadow Child, The Writing Life, Writing Advice

As a writer, and a woman, and a human, I’ve thought a lot about trauma.  And in this cultural moment of #metoo, gaslighting, nationalism, disenfranchisement, and violence against just about every kind of human that is not a replica of those in power, and also our planet and other living things, I have grappled with the question of how writing can help us heal that, for the writer and the reader.  Electric Literature published my thoughts on this, which begin:

“I started writing my second novel in the aftermath of violence. In a more-common-than-you-think incident — one that is often used for titillation or as the opening scene of some revenge movie involving a father or a husband with a gun — a friend of mine was raped. I was haunted by the details: the red binders of mugshots my friend searched through at the police station; the bizarrely stubborn fingerprint dust smeared all over her walls. I was haunted by what happened to her but also what had happened to me, because of course I also have my own versions of this story, which I have never told.

“It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s more that I don’t know how. For me, as a fiction writer, narrative has a purpose: it’s how we humans create meaning. It’s where our lessons are. Our maps. But my stories have no beginning, no ending. No cause and consequence. No comeuppance.

“They happened. I escaped.”

To read the rest, click on this link, which will send you to Electric Literature: How Writing Fiction Helps Me Give Shape to the Chaos of Trauma

The Thriller in the Shadows

May 31, 2018 | Shadow Child, The Writing Life, Writing Advice

Have you ever been writing a story that you thought was “completely made up” only to find it has absorbed details from the world around you?  Or that your plot is stubborn about the path it wants to take, and that that path, on second or third look, takes you in a familiar direction?    What structures are the right ones and how will they change the story? And then there are the not-so-subtle pressures of what sells that editors and agents bring to the process: who is your audience, who do you want it to be and what would you do to reach it?  In this essay on Lit Hub’s Crime Reads, I reflect on the many, often subconscious, influences a novelist draws on, and the long process of bringing a novel into the world.  Here’s how it begins:

“My novel was sparked by a true crime, but it refused to become a thriller.

Nearly two decades ago, a friend of mine was raped. In these days, when trending hashtags have empowered women to talk about sexual harassment and assault, this statement may elicit no more than a knowing nod, and a half-raised eyebrow about why a crime that I wasn’t present for would be important to me. It was the stuff of my nightmares: a woman alone; an attack in the night. But it was also my fault.

My friend had come to New York for a life that fell through before she even arrived. She stayed in our guest bedroom for what was supposed to be two weeks while she waited for her promised apartment to be finished. But as a New Yorker will have already guessed, her visit stretched into months, with her move-in always around the corner. We were approaching a year-long “visit” when I suggested that she look into a sublet: a place that could be her own, even for the short time she would need it. Instead, she pressed the developer and he deemed her apartment ready—the only one in an otherwise uninhabited construction site. I told her not to move in.

It was a matter of days later when the phone rang with the news that she had been followed to her building. The shock, and the guilt that it would not have happened if she had stayed with us, were crushing. Of course, she moved back in. We fed her, read her bedtimes stories because she couldn’t sleep, tried to make sure she was never alone. I sat beside her in the back seat of police cars as we drove our nighttime neighborhood to see if she could spot the guy on the sidewalk. Rapists have patterns, it seemed, and generally didn’t bother to go far from home to find their victims. I went with her on trips to the police station to make statements, to search through stacks of red binders full of mug shots. Threaded through all of it, the hope and fear that we would find him: the hope that she could be saved by his arrest, and the fear that, with his existence confirmed, the terrible night she had suffered would have to be relived in court.

I had started writing a new novel, my second. It was historical, literary, domestic, and yet parts of my experience started to appear on the page. It wasn’t an account of the attack on my friend that was worming its way into my novel. What haunted me, and left me in tears, was the reminder of our lack of safety. Even months later, as we returned from a weekend away, I could barely breathe as the New York skyline grew in front of us. I did not trust my home.

But I stayed, and my novel about two sisters—one labeled good, the other bad—took shape in the ravaged, ragged aftermath for another year. After several drafts, I decided it was finished and my agent sent it out and got a bite from a major publishing house. It was deemed “good…but.” The good was the urgency that had kept the editor up all night reading. The but was that she wanted me to rewrite it as a thriller.”

Read the rest on Crime Reads.  Here’s a taste of what’s to come:

“I WROTE MY WAY INTO SOME KILLER SCENES; I CHANGED MY TOWN TO ACCOMMODATE THEM; MY CHARACTERS BEGAN TO DEVELOP NEW PERSONALITY QUIRKS, ARTISTIC TALENTS, DARK SECRETS….”

Acknowledging My Community

Dec 12, 2017 | Goddard, Hedgebrook, Shadow Child, The Writing Life

Last week I finished my first pass page proofs for Shadow Child, my new novel coming out in May. I started it in the year 2000.

Jacket for Shadow Child by Rahna Reiko RizzutoHolding those pages in my hands, with their elegant design and their printing marks, I was amazed at how much effort has gone into the creation of this book, effort from people at the publishing house with whom I have become deeply connected and others I have never met. After almost two decades, my book has a face – the jacket I have attached here is brand new and just posted by Grand Central – and it’s a face that, as gorgeous and perfect as it is, is also one I could never have dreamed of. The birth of this book is much like the birth of a child, in that you imagine what your child will look like, but the person who was created in some magical and mysterious way from your DNA is both instantly recognizable and utterly unfamiliar.

It is taking a publishing village to get Shadow Child out into the world. At Goddard, when we write, we might imagine that we are done once the final draft is ready to send out into the world. This is not true. The draft that will be published, which had already been read in various stages by friends, writer friends, agents and editors, was so thoroughly…engaged with…by my brilliant editor that on some pages there were so many comments I literally had to take a deep breath, close the document and come back to it a different day.

As wonderful as my pre-publishing experience has been, we hit a snafu the other day when I turned in my acknowledgements and was told that they had only saved three extra pages for them, never expecting that I might need…eight.

I couldn’t cut the names of the people I interviewed, around fifty, even if my story changed and I didn’t use the material, and even if some of them have already passed on. I couldn’t cut the people who helped. I held onto the list of books that served as resources and inspiration because my novel is partly historical and the reader might want to know what really happened. Some of the decisions I made about how to use that history, what to identify, where to let go of fact in my quest for a greater truth – I felt that context was essential to include. And more than all of that, I could not cut my community.

Over two decades, the community around this book is vast, and I know that, as much as I tried to list my many supporters, by name and affiliation, there are perhaps an equal number of people who have not been named. This is because my brain is old, but also because the people who made a difference are not always the ones who read the whole manuscript or gave me feedback. They are my friends, my colleagues, the people I spent time with. They are my students who, in asking questions about their own work, sparked an answer to a problem I was having in my book for me. They are fellow travelers, Pele’s Fire writers who create an electric buzz of brainstorming around them wherever they go; listeners who insist that the passage I read cannot be cut, even if I have to reshape the novel to keep it there, or who remember a scene from six years before; friends whose comments on a piece of art we saw together, or a movie, crystalized an idea in my brain. We don’t always know where our ideas come from, or how they shift and change. There is a time when it is just us, and our muse. But there is a far longer time when we are writers in the world, and the others around us are collaborators and inspiration whether they know it or not.

I offered to drop my bio to accommodate the acknowledgements. They refused. They offered to compromise the internal design. I refused. We were able to move a few things around, and I got ruthless with my sentence structure to gain some pages, and so far, it looks like the acknowledgements are going to fit. They won’t be as long as a book two decades in the making requires, with apologies to anyone whose name I have forgotten.

My advice to you who are still writing? Jot down those names, make a note of the passing conversations. Seek out your community and cherish it. Never forget you are a writer in the world.

Getting Unstuck – Tarot for Writers

Nov 30, 2017 | Tarot for Writers, The Writing Life, Writing Advice

Sometimes I feel like my whole year has been in Mercury retrograde.  With one thing after another, there has been a lot of waiting, a lot of postponing, and a lot of loss.  I have been stuck—in situations that are not my choosing, with no path forward—and in talking with my friends and sister writers, I know I am far from the only one who would rather watch reruns of clips from The Voice (or Aquaman GIFs) than face my ever-growing list of things that just stubbornly refuse to get done.  As we enter the holiday season, which has its own joys and challenges, it can be helpful to recall that, as writers, we have complete control over our tools and our voices.  We don’t need anyone’s permission, or an infrastructure, or a legal ruling, or even an outside opportunity in order to write. So my current burning question for the Tarot is: How do we get unstuck? To find my answers, I pull a single Tarot* card.  I use it for insight, as a confirmation, to get around my blocks and habits, to take some risks and find some epiphanies. Often, it gives me an energy that I need to hold onto, so I put it on my altar. Today’s card is The Knower of Rivers. Knower of Rivers​The Card: In the Shining Tribe Tarot deck, the Knower of Rivers is analogous to the Knight of Cups: a card of action, and also emotions and the subconscious. It follows the Place of Rivers: a place where we go to meditate, withdraw, and revitalize our emotions. The Knower comes out of this place renewed, ready for action, with the tools for success literally clutched in their hands.  The card suggests power, and also victory (in the “seven” of the four figures and three fiery trees on the ridge).  But this is a victory fueled by self-knowledge, and it comes from the courage to gaze deeply into oneself and “enter the deep and limitless waters” of our own mysteries. So what does this card mean for you, as the writer? Embrace retreat. Of course, it is great to pull a card that promises action and transformation when your life feels like you are running in place. But this card reminds us of two things: First, change comes from within. This is not an external card, where success comes from wielding a sword or forcing an issue.  The suit of Rivers is about intuition, and mystery, and dreams.  It is intensely creative.  It suggests that all the power you need lies within you. And forward motion comes, in part, from embracing the darkness you find there, accepting it, and transforming it into radiant light. This has been a really important reminder for me, since it is the darkness that makes me stuck: I don’t want to feel it or deal with it. But the darkness—our struggles as humans—is what gives our creative stories and images energy. Without it, there would be no plot, no vision that haunts your readers, no powerful connection to their own lives.  To be writers, we need to tap that darkness. Second, you are doing something. Sometimes the self needs renewal. All the “doing” that our society equates with progress can get exhausting, and hollow.  “Being” is important too, especially for writers.  We need to gather—our energy, our material—and since we do work on a subconscious level, we may not be aware we are doing it. So instead of thinking of ourselves as stuck, better to think of ourselves as resting. Retreating.  Recharging. And to be open to just being very aware of what is going on around us, and the messages we find there. How can you apply this card to your work? Relax. Open. Don’t try to escape. My exercise offering is designed to help you notice what you are experiencing and find a way to use it. In these times of unconscious gathering, you may be getting messages that you aren’t bringing into your conscious mind. You may even be actively blocking or resisting them.  So we will mimic the journey that the Knower of Rivers takes. It is helpful to find a quiet place, where you can relax and release your mind. (Have something to write with handy.) If you find that your thoughts are racing and your brain is telling you that either you don’t have time for this or it’s all useless, be aware that those are defense mechanisms. As long as you don’t have a train to catch, you can give yourself ten quiet minutes. Deep breaths help, as does closing your eyes. Your mind does not have to become a perfect vacuum.  There simply has to be enough space to allow some images or words to bubble up. Don’t chase them.  Do imagine bubbles: let them rise, with ease, then let them go.  See if something starts repeating. [For me, it’s been witches! For whatever reason, witches keep appearing in random tarot readings, in my email inbox, in conversations with friends.] Once you notice a pattern or a repetition, or even just one single image or word that has some energy behind it (even the energy of resistance or fear), you might know exactly what to do.  If not, jot down some notes.  When does this message appear?  What emotions are associated with it?  What archetypes?  What colors? What size is this thing you are feeling?  Where is it in your body? What words are associated with the image?  What images with the words?  Most likely, once you’ve made these notes you’ll have a direction to explore, but if not, the final step is this: Pick a pronoun and write: “She is… They are… It is…” (whichever pronoun you chose) and then follow that with any associated or descriptive word from your notes above.  [Such as, “She is red.”]  Then freewrite a sentence to follow that.  And another to follow that. I hope this exercise helps you get in sync with yourself and start feeling unstuck. Happy writing! *In this feature, I’m working with The Shining Tribe Tarot: Awakening the Universal Spirit, created by renowned Tarot scholar Rachel Pollack, who taught me that the Tarot “is a vehicle to remind yourself of what you already know.” If you want to know more about the deck and its images, or have your own Tarot practice, here are the links.