AUG 30, 2019 by Constance Emmett
published in diymfa.com/category/writing

Any list of tips for writing complex, flesh and blood LGBTQ+ fictional characters should mirror the list for writing complex, flesh and blood human characters. Whether you identify as a member of one of the groups represented by the capital letters+ or not, it takes passion, knowledge, empathy, imagination, skill, and love to write fictional characters into complex, flesh and blood humans.

The above is obvious, but there are huge challenges in writing a character that readers identify with, can’t forget, and miss when they finish reading the piece—whatever their sexuality/identity. So let’s jump in at the deep end:

1) Dig Deeper to Avoid Stereotypes

In writing your characters—whether you belong to the same sexual/gender identity or not—avoid stereotypes, tired devices, conventional narratives. Vast and disparate groups of LGBTQ+ people are corralled into the narrowest of descriptions by the narrowest of minds: sad and despairing, lonely victims; hysterical and giddy; whatever. Similarly unimaginative and ignorant stereotypes are applied to every race, ethnicity, and religion on the planet, too. Reject them all and start fresh.

If you rely upon or even step into these well-worn tropes for an LGBTQ+ character (an editor accidentally added the word limp to the description of my deceased, gay male character’s wrist—I deleted it), you’ll pen a cartoon, stopping at one dimension, and that makes you a poor writer, whatever your own identity. For inspiration and instruction, read literature.

2) Read Literature

Undoubtedly, you already read literature to nurture your fiction writing. For writers of LGBTQ+ characters, reading literature with LGBTQ+ characters and experiences—queer literature—is key. Great writers have written complex gay and lesbian characters in the past, and fresh voices are writing flesh and blood LGBTQ+ characters now.

Here are two links to lists of contemporary works, for readers of different ages, in every genre, from writers of all identities, by authors from all over the world, and every experience and viewpoint:

The Best of Trans Literature by Susan Stryker

The Top 10 Queer Books of 2018 by Them Magazine

Don’t forget to go back in time, too, even if you’ve read these authors before. Explore lesbian and gay themes in the works of: James Baldwin, Rita Mae Brown, Emma Donoghue, E.M. Forster, Patricia Highsmith, Christopher Isherwood, Armistead Maupin, Alice Walker, Sarah Waters, Oscar Wilde, Jeanette Winterson, Virginia Woolf and many more (other than as a curiosity, Radclyffe Hall’s The Well Of Loneliness won’t help):

The Best 25 LGBT Novels of All Time — The Advocate

3) Gain Inspiration Without Breaking A Sweat

Contemporary movies and TV series are stepping up to the plate (finally), such as Orange Is The New Black, in which a trans woman actor plays a trans woman with depth. Google contemporary TV series and movie LGBTQ+ characters worth viewing, in the eyes of critics and community members. Don’t stop at TV series and movies, because no matter how well written and portrayed, you must add more to your arsenal as a writer—read good fiction.

4) Consider Your Limitations

If you’ve only met trans people casually or not at all, then it’s doubtful you’ve gained enough knowledge about the trans experience to write a flesh and blood character. In that case, you should not tackle a major trans character, or even a secondary trans character. Write what you know—get the knowledge, or change course on the character’s identity to include what you want to write.

5) Write It

What about crisscrossing sexual and gender identities between writer and fictional character? Should a woman writer attempt a gay male character? Hanya Yanagihara wrote her best-selling novel, A Little Life, centered on four gay men. Should a male writer create lesbian characters? Should men write women protagonists, as they have with self-annointed authority since time immemorial? Michael Cunningham wrote about lesbians in The Hours, and Colm Tóibín, a gay man, created heterosexual women protagonists in Brooklyn and Nora Webster. All of these novels are about much more than their characters’ genders and sexual identities, so does it matter that the authors don’t share the identities of their characters? Overwhelmingly, critics and readers alike applaud the novels listed above—and while reactions are more mixed among community members, they are widely read, their characters enjoyed.

Still, there’s good reason to read Virginia Woolf’s Orlando—her own identity fantasy portrayed in her own wonderful writing—at least in addition to Michael Cunningham’s version of her life. The same can be said for reading gay male authors writing about gay men, women about women, trans authors writing trans characters—but all fiction falls into some degree of verisimilitude—it’s up to the reader to decide the level of success the author has achieved.

The late Toni Morrison’s novel Paradise did not spell out for the reader which characters were white and which were black. She wanted “to dissuade people from reading literature in that way. Race is the least reliable information you can have about someone. It’s real information, but it tells you next to nothing.”

Is the same true for sexual and gender identities? It’s real information about a person and it is defining—if only in the way the world reacts to the person’s identity—but it never captures the sum total of anyone’s parts, it never speaks for the whole of the person.

Writing is above all about taking chances. Whether or not you share the same sexuality or gender identity as your character, go for it. If you think you have the passion, skill, knowledge, empathy, imagination, and love to pull off a complex, flesh and blood character, one who makes all readers feel the living being in the fiction, whatever the character’s sexuality/gender identity or yours—write it—write the character and find out.

To quote the late, great Toni Morrison again, “If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it.”

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Constance Emmett’s debut historical/LGQ novel, Heroine Of Her Own Life, published by Next Chapter, is available on Amazon. She writes in an aerie-like office in the beautiful foothills of the Massachusetts Berkshires, where she lives with her wife and their dog. Her non-fiction is posted on her blog, or connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

Amazon will release the Kindle/device version August 29th and the paperback on August 30th!

August 16, 2019 by Constance Emmett

Published on diyMFA.com/community

Rejection. Nobody likes it—most writers experience it. The rejection tallies of famous books are something of a Holy Grail for writers:

• J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was rejected 14 times
• Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With The Wind was rejected 38 times
• George Orwell’s Animal Farm was rejected because “It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA”

Considering the quality of these works and the millions of readers around the world who love them, their rejection was ridiculous. At the time though, each author had to survive rejection in order to present his or her work to the world—you must too. 

My debut novel was rejected thirty three times by a combination of agents and editors before a publisher offered a contract—I know something about surviving rejection. Here are my five top tips for survival:

1) Stick with it 

Sticking with trying to publish long enough to figure out how to succeed, while writing —these were both my top challenges and keys to my success. Here’s how: take a 100th hard look at what you’ve written and revise—you’ll find something to improve, always; write something new; build your author’s platform—you’re here in the DIYMFA website diymfa.com, author- platform-building central!

Network: attend writer’s conferences and talk to the conference speakers, pitch to agents—ask for their advice about submitting your work successfully—you’ll never have a better opportunity to ask the experts. If they like your pitch, move fast with your submission and send exactly what’s asked for—no more, no less.

Rejection stings—there’s no question. The silence that often follows submissions is worse. Open up your laptop and keep working. Right this minute you’re engaged in a website that offers a treasure trove of help, understanding, instruction, and support—explore all that DIYMFA has to offer—it will help your work in myriad ways.

2) And Still She Persisted!

Yes, you must persist, but with your eyes wide open. Research the publishing houses and agencies that best suit your work (and do create a mix of agents and editors for your submissions). Your style and genre vs. their list, the match between what they are looking for and your work—all must align. The information is available on the house or agency website. Consult websites such as Writer’s Digest, Poets & Writers, and your home away from home, DIYMFA. Some agencies reject at a higher rate than others—their rejection rates impact your chances— check out Query Tracker for all things submission related. 

When you find “it does not suit my list” in rejection emails, it really might mean you chose the wrong agent or publisher for your work. Keep going, but keep your mind open: if the rejections pile up, ask yourself what’s wrong—stop burning your submission bridges until you do.

3) Don’t Put Your Head in the Sand

Find out what’s wrong. Who has read your work? If you’re sticking with family and friends, book clubs of neighbors and friends, or even writer’s groups, you may not learn what to do to avoid more rejection—your beta readers may not know how to help. Reach out to communities of writers and professionals. DIYMFA and all the team’s resources are right here. Take advantage of their offers of critique. Go to the website of a writer you like—one who writes in your genre—and see if she works as a freelance editor (many do). Trust her to review your manuscript, synopsis, query, and pitch—get her opinion on what’s holding you back. Criticism in a rejection from an agent or editor is rare but it’s like gold—mine it. Revise and rewrite, and ask a pro to review it again. Repeat.

4) It’s okay to sit in your car and cry

Irish golfer Shane Lowry won the 2019 British Open this summer. He not only won it, he blew the doors off of it. In previous years, he failed to even make the cut—essentially, he was rejected by the British Open after the first of three rounds—not once, but four times. After one of those dismissals, he sat in his car and cried. Shane’s a big bloke with a big red beard. After a good cry, he got back on the golf course and worked to perfect his game, and he hired a new caddie, an expert golfer, someone he trusted to help.

You’re only human, there will be bad days. It’s okay to release the stress with a good cry, or any healthy way you like. Take a walk to clear your mind, fill your lungs. Do a little yoga, stretch your neck and back—they take a beating while you sit and write.

5) Take A Deep Breath—Exhale

Walk the dog. Invite your spouse out to dinner. Take the kids to an ice cream parlor. Spring a surprise lunch on your mother. Day after day, you may appear to all of them as a black cloud behind a computer, and while you owe them a nice change—especially if you can only write in the evenings or on the weekends—you owe yourself one too. You’re trying to do one of the hardest things on earth—breaking through the wall from unpublished to published—give yourself and those around you some R&R, give yourself a break, and like Shane Lowry, go back to perfecting your game refreshed. Repeat.

Rejection number 28 was the nicest one I received: the editor loved my prose, but my novel did not fit her list, and it was the list of my dream publisher. Double heartbreak. Full disclosure though, around rejection number 31 I started to feel like I should give up. I felt silly continuing. I’d followed all of the tips above—several very late in the process, but I’d done all of them, and more than once—and I felt like giving up. It was a dangerous point in the process. I did not, I persisted, and as with all things worth doing, that’s key.

You likely have tips in addition to the five above, ones that got you through rejection—or are getting you through now—please share them, and best of luck!

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Constance Emmett’s debut historical/LGBT+novel, Heroine Of Her Own Life, published by Creativia/Next Chapter, begins shipping at the end of August. She writes in an aerie-like office in the beautiful foothills of the Massachusetts Berkshires. Her non-fiction is posted on her blog, or connect with her on Twitter @ConstanceEmmett, Facebook, or Instagram.

Case Study: From Beginning to Book Launch

JUL 25, 2019 by Gabriela Pereira
published in Writing https://diymfa.com/writing/case-study-constance-emmett

One of my favorite parts of my job is when I get to share epic wins from my word nerds. Today, I’d like you to meet Constance Emmett. She’s a DIY MFA course graduate whose debut novel, Heroine of Her Own Life, begins shipping to readers this August.

While I could go on and on about how DIY MFA supports writers in their journey to publication, I figured you’d want to hear it directly from someone who has benefited in some big ways.

I sat down with Constance and asked her to share some insights she gained on the road to her debut book launch

[Gabriela] When you started out writing, what were you hoping for? What was your goal?

[Constance] I watched BBC’s TV series Tipping the Velvet, based on the debut novel written by Sarah Waters. Listening to an interview with Waters, she described her goal as to write what she wanted to read. It struck me to the core. I wanted to write what I wanted to read!

While my goal was partly to write something I wanted to read, I also wanted to inject a dose of youthful hope back into my middle-aged life. I defined it as hope for something really engrossing, revealing, redefining. Something fun! An escape hatch, possibly.

Immediately I started writing, working on the weekends and holidays, and tried to get it published starting in 2008. I had no idea what I was doing, and it showed. This first novel is still in my queue, and I have loads of ideas about how to rewrite it and get it published now. 

[Gabriela] What was your biggest challenge on the road to publication?

[Constance] Sticking with trying to publish long enough to figure out how to succeed, while writing through it. These were both big challenges, and both key to my success.

In 2012, I decided to start attending conferences, reading about the subject, hiring editors, mentors, etc. The years rolled by without success. The more rejections I piled up—thirty-three— the easier the actual rejection process became, but the harder it became to imagine success. That was a dangerous point. I got depressed and felt hopeless a lot, silly even. I’d come to regret telling my friends that I was trying to publish a novel.

But during that time, I kept writing and I kept submitting the novel. I believed in the book and I thought that with one more submission, I might succeed. With number thirty-four, I did.

[Gabriela] What was your biggest a-ha moment on the way to publication?

[Constance] My a-ha moment came after years spent working with three different professional editors, published authors, and mentors—of course, one of those being you, Gabriela. I was sure that I wanted to write what I wanted to read, but I didn’t even think about others. Not exactly “To hell with the reader!” More like, “What reader?” I was clueless.

Looking at Sarah Waters, I’m sure she writes what she wants to read, but I know she writes what others want to read, because her novels are award-winning, best sellers. The light bulb finally went on. Yes, a writer has to write what she feels, knows, and wants to read and write, but she also has to write so that the reader cares long enough to feel it and wants to read it. So, it can be done. A writer can write for a reader and herself. That was my a-ha!

[Gabriela] How did DIY MFA help you reach your goal?

[Constance] First of all, Gabriela, you gave me permission to call myself a writer. There I was, sitting in the audience at one of your DIY MFA talks, attending a writers’ conference, but I still wasn’t telling anyone I knew that I was a writer. I needed permission to acknowledge that I was a writer and you not only gave me that permission, but you insisted. I left that room a writer.

Then I started DIY MFA’s Pixels to Platform. Your mentoring moved me down the path from writing alone to publication. While I was taking the class and involved in the mentoring activities, more bricks were added to my writer’s house. I never could have created my blog without that class. Never. It added to my growing sense of professionalism. I now have an author’s platform.

And DIY MFA supports me still. I can turn back to the class materials and rejuvenate my efforts to make the platform stronger. DIY MFA continues to provide me with much needed and appreciated support as I face the next challenge—marketing the novel.

I am so excited for Constance and everything that she has accomplished. If you’d like to give her book a little preorder love, you can find it via this Amazon affiliate link.

Heroine Of Her Own Life

In early 20th century Belfast, working class Meg Preston struggles to accept her own sexuality and yearns for forbidden love.

Battling the customs and hardships of their time, Meg pursues a relationship with her childhood friend, Lillian Watson. But soon, tribulations of war, violence, and emigration threaten to tear everything apart.

Seeking refuge for herself, her love, and her family, can Meg find the courage to become the heroine of her own life?

In her debut novel, Emmett has created intriguing and wholly relatable characters who enter our hearts as soon as we meet them. Her distinctive craft makes itself known from the start and keeps the reader quickly turning the pages of this unique and endearing tale. 

Donna Russo Morin, bestselling author of GILDED SUMMERS

Constance Emmett

Constance was born in Brooklyn, New York, where her mother’s family landed after leaving  Belfast, Northern Ireland. Raised in the New York area, she grew up in the home of great readers, and became one herself. Writing detective fiction as a nine-year-old, she peppered the pages with snappy dialogue. 

She earned her B.S. and M.S. in Biology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and worked as a biologist in research and development for nearly thirty years. She came back to writing after she saw a televised interview of novelist Sarah Waters in 2004 and she has spent the last fifteen years writing steadily. Her debut novel, Heroine of Her Own Life, is in the queue for publication by Creativia/Next Chapters.

Constance’s fiction incorporates her love of origins as well as journeys taken at a walking pace. The Irish family stories found a lifelong home in Constance, and formed her as a writer. She creates characters who feel  dislocation and regret but have the resilience common to all survivors.

A dual citizen of the U.S. and Republic of Ireland, Constance lives with her wife and their dog in the foothills of the Berkshires. Both women were raised in the city, but they love almost everything about country life.

The cover art for my novel Heroine Of Her Own Life has been designed—perfectly—by my publisher Creativia. Thank you Creativia for such a powerful, intriguing, and beautiful cover, one that captures much of the story of the novel and all of its essence. Publication date TBA—stay tuned!

Over the moon to announce that my novel, Heroine Of Her Own Life, is under contract to publisher Creativia! Hardcover, paperback and audio. Details will be posted here and on www.facebook.com/constanceemmett.author.

Gardening is simple and easy. If you’ve thought of starting a garden, just ask a gardener how simple and easy it is. After all, it’s nothing more than digging a hole and placing a plant into it. Repeat. Water. Feed. Voilà. A garden. Sorry, that’s not what a gardener will tell you.

She’ll tell you about the best mix of composts and loams, and where to buy them, or how to create them (don’t get me started on composting). On the gardener’s list of activities too is the acute attention to details: the microclimates of her site versus the macro of the garden design. Also on the agenda: the pH, the nutrients and the micronutrients of her soil, how to test and amend the soil, sand versus clay, wet versus dry, hours of sun per day, and the areas that receive the brunt of winter’s winds.

OK, that’s a lot and it’s not uncomplicated. What else? Pests and pestilence: an infinite variety. Infinite problems, infinite solutions: organic remedies and preventions or all out chemical warfare—your choice. Employing plant partners to keep down pests, to till or not to till, whether to offer your garden’s slugs beer in which to drown them (no, it just encourages their drunken relatives to move in).

Give up? Have you decided to sit on a bench and read a book, take a nice walk, lie in a hammock—anything instead of gardening? No? Consider the weather and how much of it you’ll experience. You’ll plant and weed in the rain and the cold, as well as in the heat and searing sun, a bull’s-eye on your back for the swarms of biting insects. Perfumed in bug spray and sun block, you’ll be clothed from head to foot, leaving no entrance for ticks and little exit for the heat you’ll generate.

Don’t let me discourage you though: while working in a garden, you’ll enjoy the fresh air, if you are lucky enough to have fresh air, and the birdsong. Unplugged, you’ll be able to contemplate the world around you while you work, and enjoy the feeling of using your body to work.

Oh, yes: the body working. Most chores in the garden are best accomplished in positions that are designed to hurt your back, knees, hips and hands. Bent in two and kneeling, you’ll remember every weed you pulled for days. Stretch to undo the kinks, and you’ll know which side you favor when shoveling dirt. You will vow to change sides more often while shoveling (raking, spading, weeding)—but you won’t.

You won’t because the gardening takes over. Each activity takes over quickly, and you could do it all day—except that you can’t, nor should you try. It’s an elemental response, a basic need: to grow food, to tame, to beautify, to create. It’s simple.

Part of gardening is simple and easy. Part of it, a few minutes’ worth, really is digging a hole and placing a plant into that hole. But oh, how much pleasure you’ll have as your reward, to see that plant the next day, refreshed, roots stretched out, enjoying its new home and turning its face to the sun. Later, when you bend and kneel to pick lettuce for your supper, you won’t feel a thing.

I am reminded of 1950’s American cars by the mating display of male turkeys, a part of our landscape this month. Photographs tend to make the toms look noble, the symbol of our national holiday. A static visualization, photography can’t capture the movement, the silliness of their display. The red wattles and inflated chests, the quivering feathers, like the fans of flamenco dancers, the puffed blobs over the legs. Turning in a tight circle with a mincing step, the male turkeys resemble the cars of the ’50’s, turning on a circular dais at a Detroit car show.

The male moves slowly toward the hens in his rafter or group. He turns his attentions to one. The disinterested hen moves away, continuing her pecking at the ground, eyes down. The tom turns to another hen, and another, all with the same result, all with no hard feelings. Mincing and quivering, his large tail feathers erect in a half circle, he is Louis XIV, except when a strong wind blows his feathers about. The tom in display is not aggressive, not that I’ve seen. He seems amazingly unsuccessful, but considering the number of wild turkeys in our area, he must succeed.

With failure comes deflation. The hens move off and he follows. His lust abates, the mincing and turning stop. First the tail feathers collapse into what looks like the back of a frock coat. All of the puffed and inflated bits collapse. The bright fuchsia, red and blue of the wattles pale. He puts his head down and pecks, walking like a turkey again—he processes. His thought, “I might a well eat something,” is communicated through the air.

Naturally, I feel sorry for him, silly as he is, hard as he tries. I see something of the tom in myself as a writer trying to publish. There I am, all gussied up, on a revolving dais for the rafters of agents and editors to inspect. I’ve made my feathers as attractive as possible, in the novel’s synopsis, the cover letter, the biography, the query letter, the novel’s first chapter, the first three chapters, the first fifty pages, the entire manuscript—whatever the hen’s desire. Packaged and emailed, or printed and mailed, at expense, it wings its way into a void. Unlike the displaying tom, I don’t get my answer for months. Like the tom, I rarely receive an actual response. More often than not the rafter simply walks away, eyes down, pecking at the earth. Deflated for a time, I recover. No hard feelings.

I’ve sold my 2003 Subaru Forster XS to a good and close neighbor. The little golden SUV soon will be filled with the sounds of two little girls and their young mother. They’ll wave as they drive by our house, and I’ll wave as I drive by theirs.

Still, I’ve had a difficult time selling this car to them. Not based on any demands by the buyer or me, but unexpectedly, it was an emotional experience. I bought the car while my mother was visiting us in 2003, and she came with me to the dealership—the start of her relationship with the car, as well as mine.

The following years of the aughts saw that car having a role in the final changes in my mother’s life. At my urging, she sold her house in North Carolina, the one my father had died in, earlier in 2003. My mother, my wife Suzy and I bought a condo for her in our Eastern Massachusetts city—an attractive and large condo within two blocks of a vibrant downtown. Five minutes from our house by the Subaru Forester.

I drove the Forester down to North Carolina to help her pack up the house and to drive her and the dog back to Melrose, Massachusetts. The movers were due to come at the end of that week, take the household items and place them into storage while the condo was painted, then deliver them. During innumerable phone calls, my mother enacted the charade that she was packing her belongings to some degree. Any degree. When I arrived however, nothing had been packed. Not one box.

During that week, I packed everything that was going, and tossed the rest. Not the last time I held all the objects that defined my parents’ lives in my hands, before wrapping and packing them, or worse, throwing them out.

The night before the movers were due, my mother still had not packed her clothes. I lost my temper. I hadn’t any inkling that her faculties were failing, had failed, not then. Unfortunately, I remained encased in that particular stupidity for nearly the rest of her life. But whether I was driving her to our house from the condo for dinner, or later, driving to visit her in a locked unit of a nursing home, I was driving the Forester. But for all the heartache, we always had laughs, my mother and me, in and out of the Forester, and to just short of the end.

While preparing the Forester for sale, those memories made me cry, a bottle of Armor All wipes in hand. Swamped by a blubbery nostalgia, I tried to remember all the cars that my parents owned. Starting at the beginning of my life, my father owned a 1939 Lincoln Continental. I remember standing up on the back seat when I must have been three. No car seat. No seat belt. At some point, the Lincoln Continental was banished and nothing replaced it. We lived in Brooklyn, so there was no need.

After our move to White Plains in Westchester, my father bought a car. A Vauxhall. Why and where he found such a British car in 1959, I haven’t the foggiest. It was small with a gray exterior and red leather seats. An ordinary little car, the Vauxhall was known as the English Ford—why didn’t he simply buy a Ford?

My father and I spent many Saturdays driving the Vauxhall to visit vintage car showrooms. In adoration, we approached the shining Lagondas, Bentleys, Rolls-Royce, Duesenbergs, Astin-Martins and Bugattis. Neither of us disturbed the hushed tones of the showrooms—chapels where few came to pray—nor did my sticky little hands smudge the shine. Back we drove in the Vauxhall, dreams of larger, more beautiful, more muscular cars of the 1920s and 1930s in our heads. No dreams of the American cars with fins and bulbous lights for us.

My father never owned a car like the showroom cars we worshipped. Of all the cars he owned—the Vauxhall, a turquoise, tank-like Rambler, two hump-backed Volvos, a hideous and fatally flawed purple Pontiac, several nondescript Ford sedans—I think he only liked his Crown Victoria. The Crown Vicky was a favorite cop car at the time, and could be pushed to 140 mph, which may have been part of the allure, although it remained untested, I’m sure.

I never have owned a super car either. I did buy the first Ford Probe, as close to a racecar as I’ve ever gotten, despite my childhood certainty that one day I’d zip around corners in a hunter green Morgan. The dear old Subaru Forester is pokey and rides like a buckboard, but its steadiness and sure-footedness make up for a delay in acceleration. Not a Morgan—more like a golden version of the 1959 Vauxhall. The Forester served me well and will keep its new owners safe and sound—they’ve named it Goldie Horn. Why didn’t I think of that?

I had a dream about snakes last night—about snakes living in our house. This herpetological state of affairs was just fine with us. A psychologist would have a field day with my dream. But for every culture and religion, and in every era, snakes have captured the imagination of humans. Beyond the obvious phallic symbol, the serpent has represented the underworld, temptation, fertility, wisdom, healing, and creation.

Tea With Snakes

In the dream, I opened our front door to a friend and said, “Come in. Oops, mind the snake.” She entered and also was unperturbed by our slithering housemates. As we sat in the living room and drank tea, pythons glided past and into the kitchen. We observed them with benevolence. In an early REM gear, my powers of reasoning were such that our dog Oscar did not figure in the dream—a terrier, he would have given chase and worry, ruining the ethereal and pleasant nature of the dream—the dreaminess, if you will.

When Irish Eyes See Snakes

Why were snakes on my mind? We celebrated St. Patrick’s Day last Sunday, and St. Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland. Is the story true? I think St. Patrick himself would tell you that it is not, but it was a good choice. There were no snakes in Ireland to begin with, so his success was guaranteed. In those days the Irish drank a fermented mash, a kind of beer, but one so strong that the imbibers hallucinated—St. Brigid was always at it—so the banishment of the non-existent snakes became legend.

Super Snakes

On March 20th we celebrated the spring equinox and the rising of a spring full moon, a worm moon and a supermoon. This is the first time the spring equinox and a full moon coincided so closely since 2000, and it will be the last time until 2030. With spring showers come the worms, out of the softening soil. That explains the worm part of the appellation. The super bit is due to the fact that the moon was making its closest pass to us on that night. It was brighter and even seemed larger. The emergence of the worms attracts robins, and indeed I saw my first robins in a field on March 20^th.

Snakes and Worms

Here in our hill town Brigadoon, we have snakes and worms. In fact, I’ve never seen earthworms as large as ours. They’re more like small snakes than worms, and use their muscular bodies to aerate our rocky soil. The snakes are plentiful, too, but I’ve only seen small ones. They cross the roads in the spring and lie in the glorious sunshine on the warm asphalt. Unfortunately, they are not speedy enough to escape traffic—the salamanders and red efts meet this fate also. It’s very sad to find them squashed on the roads, their beautiful hides split. I herd them over to the side of the road if I find them alive in the middle, a stupid exercise, according to Oscar, who strains to get a really good look, sniff and taste.

New England is home to species of large and venomous snakes, such as the copperhead and timber rattlesnake. I’ve never seen either, which is fine, although I wouldn’t mind seeing one from a safe distance.

Speedy Snakes

Coming upon a snake can be startling. Walking along our country roads, all seems still—I have the measure of the world and the sounds around me—and then there’s a burst of energy and sound as the snake hurries away into hiding. And how they move! They manage a very speedy locomotion with no limbs, gathering themselves up and propelling themselves forward, their tube of muscles designed to escape danger or attack prey with stunning speed.

Stacking fire wood in the woodshed this summer we came upon evidence of the snake life in the wood pile. We found quite a few discarded snake skins, their owners somewhere else in their new finery. I also met one live snake, curled up on a log, in a hole between two rows of stacked wood. We looked at one another for a moment before it disappeared—puff.

Snakey

Humans are funny about snakes, and while I wouldn’t want to live with them, not in reality, I tend not to mind them. My neighbor likes to weed gardens and when I happily offered our garden to her ministrations, she declined, saying that our garden looked “snakey.”

I’ve run into that description before, at a wedding in western North Carolina. Not at the wedding itself, which was a lovely, snake-free affair, but at an event for the guests the day before. We were on a boating expedition down a large, roiling and scary brown river, as only North Carolinian rivers can be. The leader of the expedition told his charges to watch out for “snakey” areas in the water. Nobody wants to be in the water with snakes—we’re at a severe disadvantage. The truth is though—and it’s true of most animals—snakes want to get away from us and our flailing limbs, our loud voices.

It is spring, but snowing as I write, covering the garden with poor man’s fertilizer. Soon it will rain though—real rain—the kind of rain that floods the burrows of the sleeping giant earthworms, bringing them out to the paths and roads. The snakes need heat and will take longer to emerge, but soon enough Oscar and I will encounter them and their salamander cousins on the roads. I look forward to these “snakey” encounters.