fencing – Allison Thurman

the plague diaries: pleasures and wayward distractions

So, week 1 of full-time telework + social distancing and I’m hanging together.

It’s not been total lockdown – I’ve taken a couple of walks in the park though it’s tricky finding a time when everyone isn’t having the same idea. I think everyone is still sorting out the difficulties of keeping 6 feet distance (the entrance to the park is narrow enough that really only one person can go in or out at a time, so pauses to sniff the roses hold up everyone). Also it’s still rainy and chilly. So I’m still doing a lot indoors. But I’m making good use of my time (because anxiety hates idleness).

Yes! This is biweekly links with a theme! First off, keeping active:

Rockville Fencing Academy coach Aklesso’s at-home workout (YouTube): the footwork in particular works up a sweat. The blade work I’m not sure I have enough room to do – I risk both my basement wall and ceiling trying the “around the back” infighting seen at 18:00.

Vermont Fencing Alliance’s cat toy fencing drills #1 (YouTube): because I have cat toys…everywhere. Though I will likely make a tennis-ball-in-sock target of my own I may well find my cats chasing it because it’s in the house, so it must be theirs.

Keeping my brain moving:

Masterclass: Neil Gaiman Teaches the Art of Storytelling: this link probably shows up on your social media all the time and so may not need more props from me but 2 lessons in I think it’s worth the hype. This is also social – I’m taking it with a couple of friends. And if it goes well there are any number of other writing classes to take (hey, look at that, I posted a writing thing!)

Helping out:

Calling All People Who Sew And Make: You Can Help Make Masks For 2020 Healthcare Worker PPE Shortage: there are some mask patterns floating around out there for homemade PPE. At first I was skeptical as there’s no way I can make something equivalent to the protection of medical-grade filters. But, a friend who works in public health (hi Lydia!) assured me it’s necessary due to shortages – something is better than nothing. And sewing is something I can do. I’m using Mark Lewis’ pattern because it includes a pocket for additional filters. Not sure where I’ll send them yet but there are plenty of options.

rectangles of scrap fabric with chalk marks 7 and 8 — Just waiting on the rest of the supplies.

MarylandUnites: I have reservations about Governor Hogan but overall I think he’s handling the coronavirus crisis well—in part by consolidating ways to help on this one handy page. I’ve made two donations: cash to my local food bank and blood to the Red Cross (which is safe and desperately needed). I’m sure every state will come up with similar efforts in the coming weeks if they haven’t already – Google is your friend.

Round red sticker: I make a difference. American Red Cross. Allison, 1:27. — The first time I’ve donated since 9/11. I should get into a regular habit.

the coronavirus post

I’ve been following the news of the coronavirus since mid-February or so – whenever it became apparent that it was spreading beyond Wuhan, China. I have a casual interest in infectious disease, developed over several years contracting to different parts of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and reading the news releases that crossed my desk.

So, I kept up with the news coming out of China and was surprised when Wuhan put the entire city on lockdown. I was aware that HHS agencies had disaster plans in place for pandemics but the possibility of it hitting Stateside seemed vague and distant, very can’t happen here.

But my husband is a risk management professional and was on high alert. He stocked up on hand sanitizer and masks as early as January. I scoffed a bit, but as guidance came out of CDC I started washing my hands for those carefully counted 20 seconds (pft to happy birthday! Calling back to my teenage goth years I’ve been counting my “hey now now”s). But what really brought it home was my competition this weekend.

Understand: fencing is not a full-contact sport. Indeed, the objective is to not let your opponent get that close (infighting notwithstanding). I was sanguine. My husband was not. Though the US Fencing Association has suspended the handshaking rule you’ve still got a lot of people breathing hard and sweating in a relatively confined space.

And though it chafed, I had to admit he had a point. The virus continues to spread and we can’t be confident just how far because of the Trump administration’s message mismanagement.

I went. I fenced incredibly well. I slathered hand sanitizer on my hands, my glove, my mask, hell, even my body cord and reel plug. And I am fine.

But much as I want to keep this good roll going I probably shouldn’t. Not because I’ll get sick—even if I do, I’m healthy enough to weather it—but because if I do I might unwittingly pass it on to someone more vulnerable.

I’m sure half of you reading are rolling their eyes. But it’s just like flu, I hear you say. You’re being paranoid. Bring back the weird news and writing tips! And I get it: nobody wants to be that wild-eyed doomsday prepper. And none of us have ever had to seriously consider the spread of a disease for which we have no vaccine or treatment, save keeping patients alive longer than the virus.

black and white photo of early 20th century hospital ward with white cots in rows — I could invoke the 1918 pandemic but it’s all but outside living memory now. Via.

So I’ll be the Chicken Little.

I sure as hell never expected to see an illness so severe it would demand event canceling and self-quarantine, either. But here we are, and even though WHO and CDC aren’t calling this a pandemic yet they are clear that it’s a big concern. Already I’m bringing my work laptop home every night in anticipation of being told of the first infection at my office. And though it makes me want to tear out my hair I’m considering avoiding fencing competitions and even my club as well.

It’s not a question of if Covid-19 going to disrupt my life, it’s a question of when, how much, and for how long. And I hope I’m wrong! And we can all have a good laugh at my alarmism.

But be careful out there, just in case.

my brain is lying to me

I had a good week at Nationals. As in, surreally good:

back of arrowhead shaped medal: 8th Place, Veteran 40-49 Women's Foil, National Championships, Columbus OH — I won a shiny…

…fenced a team event as the “anchor” (though I was always the kid picked last for kickball). On the elevated finals strip, no less, though not a gold medal bout

…and even placed the highest I ever have (80th) in a large (150+) competition of mostly spry teenagers.

Additionally, querying and other networky/researchy things revolving around The Book™ are going better than expected. Don’t really feel like I can go into detail yet but it’s all very promising.

Bundle of red roses. Occasionally an eye opens in the center of the largest one. — So why, when everything is coming up roses, does it all feel a little…*wrong*?

Part of it is straight-up homesickness. I lived out of a suitcase for half of June. I don’t usually travel this many places in quick succession. While the people I’ve met and events I’ve participated in have been wonderful, I’m unused to such rapid changes of place and I’m left disoriented.

Some of it is exhaustion – all that travel, plus full time job and Life that never stops on top of my seeming inability to get more than 6 hours sleep a night has taken a toll.

But more than anything else it’s my bad wiring.

I have anxiety and depression. I don’t like to dwell on it so I don’t talk about it very often. Due to my great good fortune in having decent mental health care they are mostly managed, most of the time.

But sometimes my brain just won’t let me have nice things, as it did towards the tail end of last week. It has this chemical rebellion that results in feelings that it’s all going to backfire any minute, or that it’s all luck and not the result of long hours of hard work.

As I type this I’m bouncing back, but it’s a long, slow bounce. The best I can do is rest, get back on a regular schedule and avoid caffeine like the plague (ask me about my celebratory slice of chocolate pie. No, best not). When I’m in such a state, rejoining the workaday world where I am not an [insert activity here] rockstar is paradoxically easier than enjoying my successes.

So: big girl panties yanked up, laundry done, early bed tonight.

the valley of suck

Yea, though I walk through the valley of suck, I will not falter…At least, I hope I won’t.

It’s fair to say that I’m not going to have the second draft done by the HNS conference in June. Well and so–I work with the time I’ve got and while it’s not as fast as I’d like at least it’s steady.

But I’ve run into parts of this book that I…despise is not too strong a word. One section in particular I still hate despite acting on quality feedback, and though I move on to the next part I have to wonder if my second draft isn’t turning into just another, worse, first draft.

My plea to my regional Historical Novel Society chapter resulted in: get more critiques. Which I can’t argue with. Second (and third, and fourth) pairs of eyes catch what I can’t because I’ve been looking at the damn thing too long.

I have a local critique group but can’t always get to physical meetings. I’m checking out Scribophile on the recommendation of another HNS colleague to see if online critique exchanges are equally helpful.

Totally unrelated (or not?): my fencing game has been in the valley of suck as well. New coach, new footwork, so I’ve been clomping all over the strip like an asthmatic elephant for months.

Until this past weekend when some of it finally “clicked”.

back of bronze medal. Reads: Third Place Vet 40=49 NAC Women's Foil North American Cup, Baltimore MD — This is my best ever result in this event.

This is a consistent pattern with my fencing: I have to sweat away in the valley of suck to make a higher (how’s that for a cheesy/tortured metaphor?) I wonder if my writing progress will be the same. I’ve been fencing sixteen years and this pattern remains. I’ve only been writing for four.

Four! (I started at the cusp of a previous government shutdown, and here I am again).Has it been that long? Or has it been that brief?

distraction and derailment

Fall has been a big season of change for me:

New day job
Studying for new certification for new job
No coach (he retired and I’m still looking for a new one)
Old friend back in town

Listed they seem trivial but taken together it’s required a realignment of priorities and expectations. Control freak that I am even the good changes have me flailing a bit. But learning a bit of flexibility is never a bad thing, and without the occasional shakeup it’s easy to go stale.

What little writing/editing I’m getting done is more productive. It’s like removing my nose from the grindstone allowed some ideas to free up, and I’m finally resolving some plot holes and character motivations that I’ve been fretting over for months.

Because of changes in commute I’m also forced to brainstorm in new places, and something as small as a change in scenery is enough to jog things loose.

My apologies for brevity, but yesterday was actually my first day of the new job and I’m still kind of cluttered. What have you all been up to?

horny devils: the vejigante of Puerto Rico

I am fresh from a week’s vacation in Puerto Rico! Save some fencing, I did very little save read, rest, and walk around Ponce’s historic downtown. The weather was gloriously warm, the food excellent, the company better, and the rest much-needed.

Needless to say I ran into neither USOs, nor the chupacabras of cryptozoological lore (though there were iguanas, many iguanas) because weird stuff doesn’t happen to me. But I did get a taste of Puerto Rican folklore at the Pan Am Championships’ opening ceremony:

three dancers in brightly colored robes and horned masks in sports stadium — Vejigantes on the piste. Author’s own.

These colorful critters are vejigantes (bay-he-GAHN-tay), a sort of all-purpose demon (or family of demons) that evolved out of the meeting of Spanish, African, and native Taíno cultures.

A quick whip around the web reveals the name comes from “vejiga” (Spanish for cow bladder) and “gigante” (giant) in reference to the dried, seed-filled cow bladders they use as “weapons” at festivals like the annual Carnaval Ponceño.

Most striking are the masks (careta) made of papier-mâché and/or coconut husks. Colors and patterns vary by geography (those above are from Ponce) but bright colors, teeth, and horns seem to be constants. This long-standing folk art is specific to Puerto Rico, and though how-tos (PDF) abound I suspect they don’t stick to traditional methods.

Examples of varying quality were on sale everywhere, in every size from fridge-magnet-small to half my height! I could only get this ~4″ sample home, it’s spiky horns protected inside the hard shell of my fencing mask:

Small black, green, yellow, and red mask with pointed open mouth and five horns — My Ponce souvenir

The man who sold this to me said it represents the wife of the “main” vejigante. I haven’t found any list of characters or their relationships so far and it frustrates me that I’m ignorant of the stories behind the imagery. The temptation to research is great but unavailability of info may be for the best – I have no business doing new research when The Novel is still in progress.

fencing and writing

This whole “writing a book” thing has a steep learning curve. No matter how much I practice I might not see positive results for years. Even if I do the odds of being able to make a living at it are small. It sounds bleak and I suppose it can be – I can well understand why some people just quit.

Fortunately I have some prior experience stubbornly pursuing uncertain payoffs.

I’m a competitive fencer.

two women fencing, one with the name Thurman on the back of her uniform — Competition photo. Guess which one I am.

I picked up a foil because I needed the exercise and I’ve always thought swords were cool. What started as a less-boring means of keeping in shape became a physical and mental passion, and over the past fifteen years I’ve earned a couple of ratings (kind of like belts in martial arts) and medals along the way.

Please note that “fifteen years” thing. Fencing is about keeping calm and acting correctly in a quickly changing, physically demanding situation. I am neither a natural athlete nor reliably cool-headed and it took every second of those fifteen years to get this far.

Interestingly, the longer I work on the book the more parallels I find between fencing and writing:

First efforts suck. Just as the first draft is dreck that needs editing, my first competitions were practice for competing: adapting to the noise, fighting down performance anxiety/”stage fright”. With each event I got a little more confident, and performed a little better.
Practice practice practice. As writers must write, so must fencers fence. Damn tiredness, sore feet, writer’s block, or whatever else. Feet on strip = butt in seat.
Massive amounts of persistence and patience are required. I competed for four years before getting my E rating and it took another three to get my D (the highest is A). I hope it won’t take me that long to get published. Even if it doesn’t it may still take years for my books to do well, but that’s ok, because:
I don’t have to be perfect to be good. I’ll never be an olympian but I’m not a bad fencer. I’m good enough to win national medals and keep my head above water with scary As and Bs. And while I’ll never be a J. K. Rowling, I hope to tell a story competently enough to entertain readers.
Ongoing education. Just as there is no mastery in writing, there is no endpoint at which someone becomes a perfect fencer. High rated fencers still have coaches and do drills and footwork. I expect to read books on craft, take classes, go to conferences, and the like long after I’m published. Speaking of which:
I can’t do it alone. Without supportive, enthusiastic club mates and a coach that prevents me giving in to my natural laziness I’d never have done this well! My writing is much the same: I need critique partners, beta readers, editors and other professionals I’m still discovering to make my book as good as it can be.

seventh place medal, USFA National Championships 2014 — The result of 13 years of work.

In the next two weeks I’m in one local and one national competition, so wish me luck. If nothing else they’re good persistence/patience exercises I can fold into my writing discipline.

What about you? What “transferrable skills” do you bring to your own writing (or other creative pursuit)?

giving up one thing to get another

I used to be a costumer.

Let me back up. I am a costumer. My love of costume and fashion goes way back, and I started sewing in high school as a means of getting EXACTLY the outfit I imagined. Over the years I’ve turned my hand to everything from modern patterns to science fiction and historical costume, the latter especially a wonderful outlet for my restless need to research.

Fitted Gown — English fitted gown, ca 16th c.

Elizabethan partlet with blackwork embroidery

I not only enjoy sewing but do it well: I can draft my own patterns and alter existing ones; I’m comfortable dyeing, hand sewing, and even the odd bit of embroidery. Given that my day job has me moving pixels around a screen 40 hours a week it’s a refreshing change to work with something physical.

So you have some idea how big a deal it is for me to set it aside.

Farscape duster — Duster from tv show “Farscape”

Doublet — Sleeveless doublet with trim, ca. 16th c.

Once I got serious about The Book ™ I realized I’d have to stop sewing. Fact: there are only 24 hours in a day. Eight of those I must sleep (and I really must; one of the cruel tricks of being over 35 is that I can’t function on 5 hours a night anymore); another 8 I must work to keep a roof over my head. ~Two days a week I fence and giving it up isn’t an option because I get cranky if I don’t exercise regularly. I also have husband, family, and friends who I enjoy spending time with. Something had to give.

My coach once gave me a valuable piece of advice: you give up one thing to get another. He meant this in the context of fencing: if you go on the offense you give up defense; if you defend one side you automatically leave another open. There is no one perfect act that gives you EVERYTHING, and I’ve found that this holds true for other aspects of my life.

Once the first draft is complete I’ll reward myself with a sewing project even if it’s just garment dyeing or a quick and dirty commercial pattern. Until then all creative energies must go towards the book.

This will be even more true for the next 6 weeks as the HNS conference folks finally got their requirements for cold reads/critiques to me. I need 10 more-or-less finished pages by May 31 to send to my mentor, so even the “pouring sand into the sandbox” of first drafting will be taking a back seat.

Wish me luck.

tighten up

I’ve been writing again for the last few months. Nothing original and nothing great, but I’ve been enjoying it and getting decent feedback.

So I’m thinking it might be worthwhile to get some instruction with an eye towards creating something original instead of playing in others’ sandboxes.

To this end, I’m doing some basic reading on fiction writing and looking for an online creative writing course once Nationals is over.

I don’t have anything I particularly want to share outside it’s relevant ‘verse, but if you’re genuinely curious PM me. I mostly leave this note here so y’all will hold me to account (like bug me at the end of July to make sure I’ve found a class)!