Thank you, Osmo

Osmo Vanska (courtesy HarrisonParrott)

In the summer of 2007 when I began research for the third Perceval novel, Perceval in Love, I developed research questions about Helsinki and Finland. The beginning of the third novel, I decided, would be in Helsinki, with a rustic side trip somewhere out in the country one weekend. I wondered if Osmo Vanska would be willing to help me. A native Finn, the Music Director of the Minnesota Orchestra had lived in Helsinki and performed with the Helsinki Philharmonic as their co-principal clarinetist. I asked my friend, Julie, who was the musicians’ personnel manager at the time, and she helped me arrange an interview with Osmo through his Executive Assistant. In preparation, I narrowed my Finland questions down to those I could not otherwise find through reading and websites, e.g. details that only someone who’d lived there would know. I also spent a lot of time researching Finlandia Hall in Helsinki where Evan Quinn would conduct. The internet can be an amazing research tool, but nothing like talking to a person who knows the place intimately.

I sent my list of questions the week before my scheduled interview to give Osmo an idea of what I needed. The day of the interview, I remained calm until I was approaching the stage door at Orchestra Hall in downtown Minneapolis. It doesn’t matter whom I’m interviewing, I am always nervous. I checked in at the stage door and since I already knew where the Conductor’s Suite was, I was sent on my way. Osmo’s Executive Assistant, Michael Pelton, was waiting for me, and ushered me into the office, introducing me.

Osmo came out from behind his desk, windows looking out on a portion of Peavey Plaza behind him, and extended his hand. I remember telling him that I’d just heard a recording he’d done on the clarinet, a clarinet quartet by Bernhard Crusell. I confessed that I’d not heard of the composer before, but that I’d loved the music and the performance. He was dressed for summer in casual khaki, olive green shirt and sandals. We settled on the white sofa facing the desk and I gave Osmo an idea of the Perceval series — the protagonist Evan Quinn who is a young orchestra conductor and music director of the Minneapolis State Symphony (formerly Minnesota Orchestra) — and that the third novel begins in Helsinki. I’m glad I sent him the questions the week before. He was totally prepared and full of lots of really good details and tidbits about Helsinki, Finlandia Hall, the countryside in Finland. I knew already that Minnesota reminded him a lot of Finland, and hearing him describe Finland, I could understand why. He suggested places for Evan and his girlfriend to spend a weekend, to spend a romantic afternoon, hotels in Helsinki Evan would most likely stay at (with a side story about Sibelius and one particular hotel — I hadn’t known Sibelius liked to drink), places where Evan could run, the layout of Finlandia Hall and especially the conductor’s dressing room and if the stage door opened in or out.

Helsinki, Finland

I told Osmo about my 24-hour visit to Helsinki on my way to Russia (then Soviet Union) and my impressions of the city because I would be drawing on my own experience as well. We had talked for almost 50 minutes, and I’d requested only 30 minutes. I learned long ago, however, that if an interviewee wants to talk, let them. I was about to wrap it up, however, when Osmo interrupted me with a comment about concert programming. I had included Evan’s all Brahms programs with the Helsinki Philharmonic in the material I’d sent Osmo the week before. He told me that he could understand the reason I’d used the order of the symphonies that I had, but he said there was a more accepted order based on their timings. He then got up and retrieved a thick blue hardcover book that contained the timings of music performed on symphonic programs. I can see the book in my mind, but for the life of me, I can’t recall its title. Osmo showed me the timings and then rearranged the programs for Evan’s concerts. Osmo’s concern that I get the concert programming right surprised and moved me.

When I stood to leave, I had one last question, an important question for any interviewer to ask. Could I follow up with him if I had any additional questions? He nodded with a smile and said that I should work through his Executive Assistant, email him with any additional questions. As I left his office, I found a crowd of people waiting to talk to him — both musicians and staff. A few weeks later, as I began work on Perceval in Love, I had more questions for Osmo, this time how to say certain things in Finnish. He responded much faster than I expected, giving me exactly what I needed.

I completed the first draft of Perceval in Love in June 2020. When I look at the Finland chapters now, Osmo is everywhere. So I gave him a cameo appearance in the Finland chapters. Thank you, Osmo!

(courtesy Lisa-Marie Mazzucco)

Slowing Down

Photo: Margi Nutmeg Lake Harriet

During the last month, I’ve slowed down and settled into a regular daily routine. Having a routine helps me to cope with the crazy pandemic news, the tragic pandemic news, as well as the hopeful pandemic news. I am still at home, going out only for needed medication refills or food shopping. The restlessness has begun, as well as some days feeling down. The sadness hasn’t hit me as much as the surreal qualities of our current world and what we can look forward to in the months ahead. I just read an email about what will be required of employees at my job in order for us to return to work. I feel like I’m in a disaster movie without a script.

So, I’ve tried to maintain my daily routine, like putting one foot in front of the other in order to move forward. I rise from bed to eat breakfast with national news on TV. I get dressed. Then I sit down at my desk to write. And I’ve gotten a lot of writing done on Perceval in Love‘s first draft. When I first got home on paid leave, I had been working on Chapter 12. I finished Chapter 20 this morning. I’ve made the decision to cut one chapter I thought I’d need so there will now be a total of 24 chapters. Close, very close to the climax.

Mariinsky Concert Hall, St. Petersburg, Russia

The time I’ve had at home has also given me time for research and daydreaming. Most people don’t know how important it is to have time to daydream when working on a novel or any fiction, for that matter. The research is easy to understand. In the last week, I’ve spent hours on Google Maps, traipsing through the streets of St. Petersburg, Russia, in preparation for the final chapters. I’ve also researched the concert hall where Evan will conduct in St. Petersburg, running into notices about the pandemic at its website. Eerie to see foreign websites announcing concert postponements and alternate online concert viewing. It’s not only here in the U.S. As I’ve spent more time in St. Petersburg, my imagination has been returning to my personal memories of that enigmatic city, so steeped in sorrow and the past, struggling to be the “Window on the West” that Peter the Great envisioned. I find myself dreaming of Evan in that city, Evan trying to make sense of it, Evan shocked by how much Russia resembles his America.

About 12:30 p.m., I stop work on the novel to make lunch. I eat reading either one of the magazines I subscribe to, or a novel. Only recently I read a couple of nonfiction books about totalitarianism that would make your skin crawl. How human beings can want that oppression or do that to other human beings is a mystery to me. There is a fascinating psychological component that has turned out to be important for the Perceval series.

After my lunch break, I’ve been doing house chores, cleaning, sorting, de-cluttering, and organizing for 1-2 hours. While I’ve gotten a satisfactory amount of that kind of work done, it seems the more I do, the more I notice needs to be done. I’m almost finished with the cleaning, with my usual vow that I will do a better job of keeping up with it. I am hoping to make a big dent on sorting through files and throwing out what I no longer need before I must return to my fulltime job.

My writing desk

The last couple of hours of the work day I return to my computer to go online. I’ve been diligent in cleaning out my email boxes everyday. Once that chore has been done, I turn to either more research, blog post writing, shopping, or at the very end, social media. I’ve been grateful to social media the last two months for keeping me in contact with friends and relatives, as well as Skype. There have been some days when I’ve needed to connect with my boss and my job in order to stay in touch. And there are the public health updates from my state that I now check every other day rather than every day.

Evenings have been for exercise then a light meal, followed by some kind of entertainment, either TV, DVD, or streaming video. I’m glad I decided last summer to subscribe to Amazon Prime — I’ve been using it quite a lot, along with Acorn TV and BritBox for my beloved British shows. Then I hit the sack between 9 and 10 p.m. to read for a few minutes before turning out the light. I realized earlier this week that I’ll soon need to start getting up earlier, a few minutes each day, and going to bed earlier, in order to re-condition my body to my fulltime job schedule.

I am well and safe, and grateful for it. As we adjust to living with the SARS-CoV-2 virus — it’s not going to be eradicated anytime soon, unfortunately — and we return to jobs, social lives, and travel, I think we will discover that this virus has changed us irrevocably. We are not necessarily the top predator in the food chain anymore. We have natural enemies that cannot be seen with the naked eye. It will be up to each of us to protect ourselves as well as those in our communities by following the public health guidelines that will come out of this for us in the future.

Two Years and Counting….

Photo: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

As I watched national news during the past week since Senator John McCain’s passing, my thoughts returned time and again to my original work in building the world of 2048-2052 for the Perceval series, how I imagined America becoming an oppressive autocracy. During the summer of 2016, I wrote about my concerns with the upcoming election, and especially how America had developed since Ronald Reagan’s presidency. During the past week, I went back to that summer also, remembering my hope that America would not walk down the path I had seen before it while working on Perceval’s Secret. I don’t pretend to be able to predict the future, but the signs were there for anyone to see.

In “The Drift Toward Autocracy Continues,” the August 20, 2018 post at The Weekly Sift, Doug Muder lays out how America continues to move toward an autocratic, not a democratic, federal government, bringing America closer to the America in Perceval’s Secret. What really stood out for me was the following:

“Here’s a norm that is key to separating a republic from an autocracy: In a republic, executive powers are tied to executive responsibilities. In an autocracy, executive powers are personal prerogatives, subject to the whim of whomever the Executive happens to be.”

The current American president insists on personal loyalty from his staff, not loyalty to the country and Constitution. The current American president is embroiled in the appearance of, if not yet proved to be involved in, corruption, collusion with a foreign power, and violating the Emoluments clause in the Constitution. The current American president this week was annoyed with the media’s coverage of John McCain’s life and death — a man who served his country as a Navy pilot during war, and as an elected representative of the people of Arizona, revealing this president’s fragile ego.  Senator McCain knew and modeled public service to country and community. The current American president pays off women with whom he cheated on his wife so they wouldn’t talk about the affairs. The current American president revokes the security clearance of a highly respected intelligence official to punish him, not because he was a national security threat but because he’d spoken truth to power, using the president’s power to grant or revoke security clearances without following standard protocol and procedure. The current American president would like very much for the Justice Department to do his bidding, no questions asked, to eliminate his enemies and rivals which would be a gross abuse of power. The current American president has no respect for Freedom of the Press as he attacks the media and calls it “fake news.” The Republican Party does nothing. The Republican Party wants to maintain their majority in Congress, and as Karl Rove put it, to have “a permanent majority” which would be another step toward autocracy.

I’ve listened to those who support the current American president. They think he’s doing an excellent job and taking the country in the right direction. But when it comes to specifics, I have not heard anyone actually go into specifics. What I find especially interesting about the current American president’s supporters is that they are usually not wealthy, they are racist against African-Americans and immigrants, especially Hispanics from the south, they want America to bully the rest of the world to get what they want which I haven’t a clue what that is, and they want the federal government to shrink along with the taxes they pay. They feel threatened by anyone who is not white, Christian, male. They do not comprehend, apparently, the irony that they elected a wealthy white man who’s not particularly religious, and who really doesn’t care about them to get them what they want. Sadly, all this president cares about is what he wants and that is power — feeling powerful, wielding power over other people, and enjoying being treated like a powerful person.

None of what I’m writing here is a secret. Any intelligent person who makes an effort to stay informed about current events and our federal government can see it all for herself. Anyone who observes the current American president and how he speaks can come to the same conclusions. The American people and their government do not have a leader in the Oval Office right now who is a public servant and who knows how to govern in a democratic republic. They have a guy who wants to be president and be like a Mafia don. He wants to make money off the American people who elected him as well as the political party that continues to turn a blind eye, and help the wealthy multiply their wealth. He doesn’t know how to work with Congress and doesn’t want to learn. He doesn’t know how to work with our Allies and doesn’t want to learn. He’d much rather tweet insults and brag about his “accomplishments” — a large word that he could not even begin to fill with what he’s done in his life.

After the election two years ago, I’d hoped that Congress would be a strong check on him. It turned out that only the Judicial branch fulfilled their role as a check on Executive power.  The Republicans seem happy with the current American president — after all, if he takes over, they won’t have to deal with governing anymore. The Congressional Republicans, for the most part, have not proven themselves to be democratic leaders who govern well. Senator John McCain was an exception. I wonder if the Congressional Republicans are really paying attention to their constituents; after all, the current president lost the popular vote by a rather large margin.

Recently, a couple readers of Perceval’s Secret approached me separately and commented with a certain amount of fear on the future that I depict in that novel. They wanted to know how I knew that the 2016 election would be the beginning of a wealthy elite take-over of the country, turning American society upside down. It’s been in the works for years. All I did was pay attention. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one.

Creative Mind Under Stress

The recent suicides of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain sparked my mind to return to my interest in what happens when psychological trauma rules a mind and life rather than the mind confronting it and healing. I didn’t know either Spade or Bourdain so I’m not writing about them specifically. But I chose to make the protagonist of the Perceval series a 30-something American man, Evan Quinn, who suffered severe psychological trauma as a child and who has an aversion to any kind of psychiatric treatment because in his America the government uses psychiatric treatment as an instrument of mind and behavior control as well as a way to make someone disappear. I wanted to explore through Evan Quinn the possibilities of untreated psychological trauma. How does the mind deal with the psychological trauma? How do the mental coping mechanisms affect behavior? How do they affect the person’s thinking? Just as the physical body has its responses to trauma, so does the human mind to psychological trauma.

When a person experiences a life-threatening situation, or a situation the person perceives as life-threatening, and the person is powerless in that situation, the mind experiences psychological trauma. Some examples (not all the possibilities) of such a traumatizing situation: natural disaster, car accident, combat in war, being the victim of attempted murder, being mugged at gunpoint, being raped, and especially for children, being abused physically, sexually and/or emotionally. Once the threat is over and the person is safe, it’s important for him or her to talk about the experience, to debrief. This includes talking not only about the facts of the situation but also how the person felt, what the person was thinking during the situation, and what, if anything, the person did in response to the situation. For example, I live in Minnesota, and during tornado season over the years I’ve heard of a small town being hit by a devastating tornado, and then witnessed residents of the town talking about their experience with the media, being heard and supported, helped and comforted. This is actually a very important step toward healing the psychological trauma of the natural disaster. But what happens when the traumatized person cannot talk about the event immediately afterward and receive support, help, and comfort?

Evan Quinn experienced abuse as a child growing up. He was a powerless, defenseless child abused by a person he trusted to protect and defend him. For any child, this betrayal and injury can have a devastating effect on the child’s psyche including dissociation at the time of the trauma. When there’s no outside intervention to protect the child afterward as there was none for Evan, the mind copes by compartmentalizing the thoughts and emotions of the memory of the trauma. In other words, the mind puts the memory away in a closet. The memory isn’t gone, though. The mind takes steps of its own to protect itself and the child. So, for example, the child may become quiet, sad, afraid, and hyper-vigilant in contrast to previous behavior. The child’s thought processes change. It only takes one trauma to do the damage, and subsequent trauma reinforces the mind’s coping measures. Each person is a unique individual, and so each person will respond in a unique and individual way to a psychologically traumatizing event(s). There is a common coping mechanism, however, that manifests as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Evan Quinn has PTSD. He’s grown up living with his abuser, putting the memories of the abuse away in a mental closet even as he remembers witnessing his father abusing his mother and her response. He makes it to adulthood because of classical music and his friendship with the Caines, especially with his mentor in music, Joseph Caine. In Europe, he’s far away from his abuser and he’s finally safe. It’s usually at this point that PTSD begins to really make itself felt because the circumstances no longer require its coping and protective function. Memories will pop out of the closet in the form of flashbacks, also affecting mental function, sleep, and emotional control. For women, depression is common, as well as acting out in inappropriate ways. For men, there can be acting out, sometimes violence, paranoia, as well as depression. Hallucinations, auditory and/or visual, are not uncommon. A profound sense of hopelessness and uselessness, deep hot rage and short temper, and despair can pervade daily life. None of this happens all at once but develops over time. PTSD is a symptom of unresolved psychological trauma.

In Perceval’s Secret, Evan begins to become aware of his PTSD and it’s recognized by Klaus Leiner who offers Evan help. Evan receives other offers of help, but his aversion to psychiatric treatment and his belief that there’s nothing wrong with him prevent him from accepting those offers. The PTSD affects his thought process and the choices that he makes. How his life progresses after that is what the Perceval series reveals. My big discovery, as the writer that Evan chose to tell his story, was that power plays a crucial role — having power over others, being powerless vs. feeling powerless, and the desire to feel powerful vs. actually being powerful in oneself. And I feel often that I am only scratching the surface of this complex human experience and condition, as well as its relevance to current human life.

 

Facing the Blank Page…Again

Every writer I know has trouble writing. — Joseph Heller

The blank page taunts me again. It demands my attention, requires me to make the Big Decision. In order to do what they love, writers make sacrifices. Some writers don’t think of them as sacrifices while others feel guilty about them. Writers also need to really get to know how their minds work in order to survive writing. Curiosity rules the writer’s mind, especially a curiosity of why human beings behave as they do. Trouble writing can be about the writing itself (find the right words, editing, grammar, narrative structure, etc.) or about creating the conditions in a life in order to be able to sit at the desk to write.

Yesterday, a realization seared my mind. The Blank Page was throwing a tantrum in order to get my attention, and when I stopped long enough to pay attention, the thought marched through my mind like a screaming subtitle across the screen of my life: I needed to focus my attention and just do it.

What does that mean? For the rest of the day, I reflected, had discussions with myself in my mind, and finally realized that I’d been giving myself too many free passes. My Attention Butterfly flits from one interest to another, never staying too long in one place before moving on to something else. My imagination latches on to an idea and spins endless variations on it, testing different directions, capturing my attention away from what I know is most important to me in my life. Granted, it’s been a rough year lifewise, and that’s interfered with a lot. But it looks like my life will be settling down and now it’s time to return to my creative process and trust it.

My “Office”

What does that mean? The short answer: I need to laser aim my focus on my writing. I feel a tremendous pressure, both mentally and physically, to stop restlessly wandering and concentrate on my creative process, figure out what I need to do to nurture it now, and then spend the time I need to spend to get down on paper (or the computer screen) all the stories that have been skipping around in my mind lately. I’ve known for a long time that my ravenous curiosity can consume me, and what I need to do is put it on a diet of writing or writing-related food. It’s particularly helpful when I’m doing research for something, and I’ll need to ratchet it up to research questions that have been coming up as I’ve been working on the Aanora story.

So, the “blank page” I’m writing about this time isn’t actually a piece of paper or the computer screen, but the dedication to writing. I have writing projects lined up like planes on a runway. But the control tower isn’t paying attention.

I know what I need to do, and I’m determined to do it again as I have in the past in order to write and write and write, i.e. establish a writing schedule and cut everything else out of my life. A comment by a writer in a magazine yesterday also hit home — the writer was talking about how the more writing a writer does on a consistent schedule, usually daily, the better the writing becomes, the faster it hits the page. I experienced this in 2007 when I edited a draft of Perceval’s Secret, then immediately wrote the first draft of Perceval’s Shadow and half of the first draft of Perceval in Love in about 10 months before life stepped in front of that writing train and stopped it cold.  I would love to get that kind of momentum going again, even with a fulltime job stealing time away from the writing during the work week.

My imagination is ready. My mind is ready. What about yours?

P. S. If you’d like to read my first Facing the Blank Page, it’s here.