The Mother & Child

Heather Baker—the main character in the original fairy tale The Girl Who Couldn't Sing—produced a CD, The Faith of a Crucified Child, and a DVD, My Name is Heather Baker, Welcome to My World.

Today, I wanted to share a special clip from the DVD and a special mp3 from the CD. 

In today's DVD clip, Heather shares her belief about the sacred relationship between a mother and her child.

Although, Heather follows no particular religion, her faith in a higher being—that she often refers to as god—saturates her fundamental life philosophy.

In the song, A Mother's Prayer, Heather approaches that higher being, heart heavy with guilt from years of denying her relationship with her mother, at the behest of her father. Although she was very young, when the initial rejection occurred, her feelings of guilt—logical or not—are very real.

mp3: A Mother's Prayer

As a result of acknowledging and expressing that guilt, Heather experienced a deep healing. Reborn from that experience, her ultimate message is one of triumph and joy.

Read the rest of her hopeful story

The Girl Who Believed in Fairy Tales

My Name is Heather Baker, Welcome to My World

In 2005, Heather Baker—the main character in the original fairy tale The Girl Who Couldn't Sing—produced a DVD.

My Name is Heather Baker, Welcome to My World is a fresh, irreverent journey into one woman's psyche.

Get links to songs from the original CD & full DVD in the book 

Feeling out of place, but determined to make sense of it all, Heather uses different voices to chronicle her inner excursion, and we are invited along for the ride.

Whether it's dealing with darker fare like her mother's mental illness, quirkier subjects like her interest in astrology, or her obsession with the story of Seabiscuit, Heather uses her depth of insight, and zany sense of humor, to bring us all along with her.

The end result: We all enjoy the trip.

The DVD features several previously unrecorded songs: The Deep Blue Sea, Time and You, Broken Dolls, She Never Dyed Her Hair, and The Beach.

In this first clip, Heather introduces her multiple personalities, and discusses her ambivalence about her inner journey.

Perhaps, she's ambivalent about her inner journey, because troubling things lurk in the depths…

mp3: Modern Day Art

~ Excerpt  ~

Once upon a time there was a woman who didn't smile. She lived with a stern frown etched upon her face. On occasion, fleeting delight would catch her--like a doe in the headlights. Her lips would curve upwards, or she'd find herself unable to stifle a laugh, and someone would inevitably pronounce, "You have a beautiful smile."

She would pass the palm of her hand over her face, erasing all signs of glee, and grimace for the rest of the day in devoted penance, because life was a vale of tears and suffering, especially for women. That's what her Bible said, at least--and the misogynists.

The woman wasn't a particularly young woman, nor was she a particularly old one, but she wasn't quite middle-aged either. A late bloomer, with the planet of Neptune conjunct her Mid-heaven, she had a hard time distinguishing between fantasy and reality…

The three short stories, The Girl Who Watched for Elves, The Girl Who Dreamed of Red Shoes, and The Girl Who Couldn't Sing, chronicle the journey of a girl who believed in fairy tales and are a prelude to the Once Upon a Time Today collection.

The Faith of a Crucified Child

Heather Baker—the main character in the original fairy tale The Girl Who Couldn't Sing—released her first CD, The Faith of the a Crucified Child in 2000.

Read her hopeful story and

Get the link to mp3s from the original CD in
A Short Story: The Girl Who Couldn't Sing

#28 College Music Journal Chart, CMJ Issue #704!—WOBC, Oberlin, OH, March 2001

As good as the best goth releases out now!—WSHL, North Easton, MA, March 2001

Good beats. Very pretty voice. What a picture! —KCFV, St.Louis, MO, March 2001

I like Heather's voice! Definitely a unique sound. —WDCE, Richmond, Virginia, March 2001

WOW! Modern experimental techno sound. Unique vocals! —WMHC, South Hadley, Ma, March 2001

~About the CD~

Heather Baker has produced a unique CD of musical sounds & textures, that takes the listener on a ride, to what seems like other worlds, far far away. Like Dorothy's Emerald City, Heather Baker's world is wherever we want it to be, in a dreamy land far beyond our daily lives, or up close and personal, touching us deeply inside. The synthesized sound scapes are the perfect vehicle for her haunting vocals and lyrics. Refreshingly honest, they portray the emotional complexities of real life. There are no easy answers here, in fact there are no answers at all. Heather's musical journey is one that you must hear to fully understand.

Read her inspiring story and

Get the link to mp3s from the original CD in
A Short Story: The Girl Who Couldn't Sing

Track Listings:
1. Stop the Chain
2. Remember the Pain
3. Your Little Girl
4. Modern Day Art
5. Red
6. The Divorce Song
7. Bitter Blue
8. Full Circle
9. A Mother's Prayer
10. New World
11. Martian Woman
12. The Faith of a Crucified Child
13. You Didn't Win

Man. This album is nothing if not intense. My initial reaction to this CD was reminiscient of the Seinfeld episode where, after listening to George unload his darkest secrets, a stunned Jerry pauses, takes a step backward, and says "good luck with all THAT."

I will admit up front that I'm not a huge fan of electronica music. I typically find it too sterile, too repetitive, often too self-indulgent. Or was that jazz? (j/k!). What I am a fan of, though, is the computer and the opportunities and access it has afforded artists such as Heather to express themselves in ways not possible less than a decade ago. I guess we have Beck to thank for that.

It is against such backdrop that I review this CD.

The subject here is clearly and unambiguously divorce, specifically the havoc that divorces can wreak on children. It's honest, it's brutal, it's in your face. Maybe a little too honest. More on that later.

First, the music. As an earlier reviewer noted, Heather's voice is very reminiscant of Dolores O'Riordan, and in fact, the music itself is somewhat Cranberries-esque. At times the arrangement steps over the voice, at other times the opposite. I could personally do without some of the odd phrasings, but she doesn't go overboard. The voice is there, and it has a lot of potential. The artist bio noted that Heather put down her guitar "out of respect to all the guitar players much more talented and gifted than herself". Apparently, she doesn't consider herself to be a worthy musician, at least not as far as the guitar is concerned. While I've never heard her play, I would respectfully suggest that she reconsider this decision or at least find one of those "talented and gifted" individuals to work with her.

But enough harping about the music - the lyrics are clearly the star here. As noted, Heather holds nothing back. These are some tough words to listen to, and they must have been doubly tough to write. Certainly not every divorce is quite this painful, but anybody who's been through one will recognize the lies and betrayal inherent in the process, while anybody who hasn't will be glad they avoided it.

But my main criticism of this album is that Heather is almost too literal, almost too precise, in her language. A little subtlety or ambiguity is not always a bad thing, particularly when delving into a subject this heavy. This will come, I think, with Heather's growth as an artist. I look forward to her next effort— Woodrow Call, Music Reviewer

Read her Happily Ever After Story and

Get the link to mp3s from the original CD in
A Short Story: The Girl Who Couldn't Sing

Photography © Jennifer M. Kiger

The Girl Who Couldn't Sing

When life gets tricky, Heather Baker meditates on fairy tales.

She can't sing... Yet.

But, maybe, with:

• A few more voice lessons, 
• A music degree, and
• Enough practice, 

Heather Baker's dreams of becoming the next indie singer/songwriter sensation will come true.

Enticed by Neptune, the planet that rules everything hazy and glamorous, and dogged by Saturn, the planet that rules obstacles and eveything practical--she bounces between fantasy and reality.

Which planet will win?

~ Excerpt  ~

Once upon a time there was a woman who didn't smile. She lived with a stern frown etched upon her face. On occasion, fleeting delight would catch her--like a doe in the headlights. Her lips would curve upwards, or she'd find herself unable to stifle a laugh, and someone would inevitably pronounce, "You have a beautiful smile."

She would pass the palm of her hand over her face, erasing all signs of glee, and grimace for the rest of the day in devoted penance, because life was a vale of tears and suffering, especially for women. That's what her Bible said, at least--and the misogynists.

The woman wasn't a particularly young woman, nor was she a particularly old one, but she wasn't quite middle-aged either. A late bloomer, with the planet of Neptune conjunct her Mid-heaven, she had a hard time distinguishing between fantasy and reality…

The three short stories, The Girl Who Watched for Elves, The Girl Who Dreamed of Red Shoes, and The Girl Who Couldn't Sing, chronicle the journey of a girl who believed in fairy tales and are a prelude to the Once Upon a Time Today collection.

The Fairytale and Fantasy in My Three Worlds

As the three short stories—The Girl Who Watched for Elves, The Girl Who Dreamed of Red Shoes, and The Girl Who Couldn't Sing—that serve as the prelude to my new Once Upon a Time Today collection, are being released, I wanted to share my three worlds: The one for The Daughter of Light, the one for the three short stories, and the one for the Once Upon a Time Today collection. Each is distinct, and purposeful, to their particular stories.

The Daughter of Light Trilogy
The Daughter of Light cosmology is the most complex of my worlds, and includes the mortal and enchanted Worlds. The mortal world is real, it's ours, and it spans hundreds of years. The enchanted world is hard-core fantasy. All made up. However, I used the borders of time and space, between the two worlds, to shift time. While things in the series are always "present day" in the enchanted world, any creature from Faerie can travel to any time in the mortal world—as long as that time has already been lived and/or is currently inhabited by mortals, i.e. creatures from Faerie cannot travel into our world's unknown future. The hitch is: creatures from Faerie cannot travel back in time. Once they've traveled to a particular point in history, in the mortal world, they can't ever travel back to a prior period in human history. So time between the mortal world and enchanted world is fluid—to a degree.

I wrote it that way because The Tale of Melusine (which the entire series spins off of) is a 14th century French fairy tale, but I didn't want Melia's forays into the Mortal World to be strictly historical. I wanted her to be able to visit more contemporary times. So while Melia and her sisters visit their father in Ireland in the 1300s, and her older sister, Melusine, marries and lives with a French nobleman of that time in Half Faerie, Melia also travels to the early 1900s to find Gabriela in Texas, and to find Lola in California in 1998 in Half Mortal, and will, finally, enter our present time, in the last book in the series, War & Grace. Then, there's that nefarious character obsessed with bringing the twenty-first century to Faerie in Half Faerie…

I'm a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings. To give us verisimilitude, Tolkien wrote his Middle Earth historically. It's a time period that existed, but it's in the distant past. I also wanted to create a sense of verisimilitude in The Daughter of Light, but I decided to create my enchanted world parallel to ours, existing in tandem with Planet Earth.

In creating my enchanted world, and the faeries and creatures that live there, I did a lot of research about faeries. I didn't like a lot of the traditional faerie lore. It didn't suit the faeries that I wanted to write about, so I decided that most faerie lore, as chronicled by mortals, would be recognized as fictitious, by the creatures that inhabited my enchanted world.

For example, in the mortal world, Melia's older sister is the famous sister—the legendary Melusine—but in the enchanted world, Melia—and her younger sister—Plantine steal the show—and for very different reasons. Plantine, because she triggers an apocalyptic event, and Melia, well, Daughter of Light is her story… so, sorry, no spoilers!

The Girl Who Believed in Fairy Tales
The three short stories in The Girl Who Believed in Fairy Tales that comprise the prelude to my Once Upon a Time Today collection are set in our world. You will find places in them that actually exist! Austin and Houston, Texas; San Diego and Escondido, California. However, they are written as fairy tales, so you'll also find overriding elements of symbolism and archetypes, in the references to the tarot (The Girl Who Watched for Elves), astrology (The Girl Who Couldn't Sing), and other fairy tales (The Girl Who Dreamed of Red Shoes).

The Once Upon a Time Today Collection
Finally, in the this collection, the world is also our world, but it's a timeless one. Therefore, in that collection all locations will be created ones, i.e., you won't find Hollywood, but you might find Glitter City (Beautiful Beautiful). These stories will be retellings of fairy tales drawn from the oeuvre of Hans Christian Anderson and Brothers Grimm. There will be no real world references. In Half Mortal, Jade belts out an Alanis Morissette song, but there will be no such name dropping in the Once Upon a Time Today collection. Although, you will find smartphones and the internet.

I created these three worlds in different ways for a reason. In Daughter of Light, I wanted to blend imagination and reality, to the highest degree possible. In the three short stories, I wanted to spin reality into a fairy tale. In the novellas, in the Once Upon a Time Today collection, I wanted to create the timelessness of the classic fairy tale, but with a contemporary sensibility.

The Numinous Moment
All in all, I'm always seeking that space between human and divine, ego and Self, conscious and unconscious, imagination and reality. In my own life, the moments I've lived in those spaces, have been the most numinous. (Numinous meaning spiritual—sorry, I had to use that word, because I just love it, and because it has the sense of shimmering and light those moments possess!)

Those are the moments, the opportunities, and the possibilities, that I strive to create in all my work.

Thus, my three worlds, and the sense of magic and enchantment in each.

The Girl Who Dreamed of Red Shoes

Synopisis:
In A Short Story: The Girl Who Dreams of Red Shoes a young woman searches for something to feed her deep spiritual hunger. Bavarian Kreme donuts and M&Ms only make the void worse. After weeks of binging, she dreams of her spirit floating through a large mansion, disconnected from her body. When she comes across an audiobook exploring an old fairy tale, she can’t resist buying it. As she listens to story of The Red Shoes, she experiences inner shifts that awaken her to the possibiliy of a renewed spiritual life.

~ Excerpt ~

Once upon a time, there was a young woman who’d lost her way. She knew her home address, and she knew how to get there, so she wasn’t lost in that respect. At night, she would have dreams, and in those dreams she would wander a cream-colored mansion infused with golden light. It would seem as if she was floating or flying, more like a ghost than a person. When she would have occasion to look in the mirror, she would start, because the person in the reflection looked nothing like who she felt herself to be… and so her dreams showed her: her spirit was disconnected from her body, hovering close by, but nonetheless lost to her daily reality.

And you wouldn’t think this would be a problem, since she was aware of it. Perhaps it would be an easy thing to coax her spirit back into her body, but in fact, it was not.

The young woman and her spirit had been disconnected for years, so even though they were familiar to one another, they weren’t really acquainted. Besides, the girl didn’t want her spirit to return to her body. She’d decided a long time ago that flesh was a dangerous place for spirit to live, so she made sure her spirit never felt welcome or comfortable inside her.

Yet, the young woman suffered from longing. The longing persisted, even though she pretended that it didn’t…

Once Upon a Time Today

Symbols and Archetypes in Fairy Tales

Symbols and archetypes are powerful fairy tale elements. Both activate the unconscious and the imagination.

What is a symbol? It's an object that represents or stands in for an idea, belief, action, or something else. The glass slipper in Cinderella, the shard of broken mirror in The Snow Queen, Rumpelstiltskin weaving straw into gold.

What is an archetype? At its most basic, it's a role—one that we all grasp at an instinctual level, the King, the Queen, the Joker, the Thief.

By making use of symbols and archetypes, stories that might be considered simple become more complex, as they radiate through each individual in a personal way. Profound understandings and connections can be quickly sparked, through images that tap into deeper levels of consciousness. Because no matter how many times, nor how many ways, fairy tales are told and retold, we add our own inner details to Cinderella, the Evil Stepmother, Sleeping Beauty, the Wicked Witch, the Big Bad Wolf, and the Deep Woods.

Over and over, the relatable psychological symbolism of fairy tales, serve as a short-hand for bridging individuals with universal truth. Pretty much, in a way that other stories can't. I think that's why fairy tales are so enduring, why we tell them and re-tell them. And why they are so darn satisfying.

The Tarot is a set of cards that, like fairy tales, have been around for a long time. There are hundreds of different tarot decks, kind of like the many fairy tale retellings. An individual artist puts their personal spin on an archetypal image. The image isn't replaced, it simply wears a different set of clothes.

I thought it would be fun to show the tarot spread I created for The Girl Who Watched for Elves, one of the short stories that serves as a prelude to the Once Upon a Time Today collection. One of the things you might notice is that tenth card in the spread, the one on the bottom row on the far left, 'the elf card,' doesn't appear exactly as it's described in the story.

The Twenty-Card Spread in The Girl Who Watched for Elves ~ Hanson-Roberts Tarot Deck

That's because the story was written by combining the images from the above deck, with the most traditional and popular tarot deck, the Rider-Waite deck.

Now, take a look at the "Eight of Pentacles" in that deck. Ask yourself: If you saw that picture, would you see an elf? Possibly—probably—not! But during the tarot reading in the story, Heather was taking a trip down memory lane, and she knew the next chapter in her story was her reunion with her grandmother. She also know how much the story, The Shoemaker and the Elves, meant to her. She saw the card, according to her personal history. That's what we do with symbols and archetypal images. We personalize them. Because of their simplicity, it's almost impossible not to.

Transformational themes, symbols, archetypes—these elements contribute to the enduring and beguiling nature of fairy tales.

Fairy Tales as Tales of Transformation

If you look up fairy tales, in say, Wikipedia, you find such a mishmash of definitions and attempts at definitions that it makes you understand: What makes a tale specifically a fairy tale is hard to nail down. In cases like this, I resort to personal experience.

What is a fairytale to me?

First and foremost, for me fairytales, are about transformation. (I'm not cheating or anything, Hilda Ellis Davidson and Anna Chaudri consider transformation to be a key element of the genre too.) But aren't all stories about transformation, you say. I mean isn't the essence of any good story some sort of change?

In this regard, to me, fairy tales are concentrated. The essential nature of a fairytale is to capture that fleeting, ephemeral moment when the transformation of the little girl, little boy, princess, prince, orphan, servant, bird, or toad, occurs. The prince slips on Cinderella's shoe, with a single kiss the Frog Prince resumes his human form, and Grandma is revealed to be the big bad wolf. In one breath, characters have become something different than they were. Not just to themselves, but to the rest of the world. Even when they are restored to positions and places from which they were knocked down, stolen from, and betrayed, they do not return the same.

All fairy tale characters bring along with their new self an increase in wisdom and life experience.

Which, in my opinion, is the requirement for the Happily Ever After. Because, as most of us know, Happily Ever Afters can be tricky. So unless you've got some kind of new magic, ability, skill, or awareness up your sleeve, you're going to be in trouble.

Which is never to say that we're ever completely protected from the Evil Forces that want to crash our castles, but wisdom and experience… well, paying attention helps.

I believe in fairy tales, which one might extrapolate to mean: I believe in transformation. I do. In that regard, I've begun writing Once Upon a Time Today collection.

"In these stand-alone retellings of popular and obscure fairy tales, adult characters navigate the deep woods of the modern landscape to find their Happily Ever Afters."

I've imagined this collection for a long time, and after experiencing my own moment of transformation this summer, the wind whispered while we were riding the ferry, "It's time."

So, today, I introduce to you A Short Story: The Girl Who Watched for Elves. It's the first of three short stories that I consider a prelude to the collection.

Do you believe in fairy tales?

In A Short Story: The Girl Who Watched for Elves a young woman spends a transformational afternoon with a tarot reader. As the reader interprets the images in the twenty-card spread, the young woman experiences a deeper acceptance of where she’s come from and a more hopeful view of where she’s going. The traditional tarot images—representing the formative points in her past, the challenges of her present, and the promise her future holds—awaken the young woman to a sense of life’s magic.

~ Excerpt ~

On a crisp fall day, a young woman visited a tarot reader.

He shuffled his cards and proffered the deck for her to cut before proceeding to lay out twenty cards, in two rows of ten.

The young woman sat across from the reader in anticipation.

What secrets might he reveal to her about herself?

The reader gazed at the tableaux, then at her, then back at the cards. He adjusted his glasses, and settled one elbow on the table.

What did he see in the cards?

"The world you were born into was very hot," he said.

She nodded, appreciating this new way of looking at her origins.

Once upon a time, a girl was born into the heat of battle. This battle wasn't apocalyptic in the sense of the world at large, no, the battle she was born into was rather microscopic, when considered in relation to the billions of people who lived on planet earth and the problems that plagued them. But she was only an infant, with a newborn's limited ability to move, and no ability to leave the battlefield, so to her, it was like being born into Armageddon ...

Fangirling Dexter: Should Harry Have Read Dexter Fairy Tales?

Okay. When I decided to fangirl Dexter it felt risky. I've read all the stuff about branding and how authors should create a recognizable image that will help connect readers with their stories.

But Dexter is a show about a serial killer and I write fairy tale/fantasies.
But I love Dexter, its been my guilty pleasure for years.
And it's the LAST SEASON.

Seems (some part of me) was bursting to share my passion for the show. So I threw myself into it, hoping, somehow, somewhere along the way it would all make sense (and I wouldn't have to delete the posts hindsight). Because when I wrote the first post A Sympathetic Serial Killer… Right… (Some part of me) was still asking myself, why are you doing this?

Dexter is your secret.

And although I was really enjoying the season, and really enjoying writing my Dexter posts, it continued to not make much sense to me until about mid-August. When it came to me: Delivered in  a dream… not really (although I do have things delivered in my dreams… DRAGONS!) what my final Fangirling Dexter post was going to be about, I was like, oh yeah.

This is how it all comes together.

Should Harry Have Read Dexter Faiytales?

I've been reading The Uses of Enchantment, The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (UE) by Bruno Bettelheim since April of this year (according to Goodreads.) It's taking this long to read, not because the book is so long, only 309 pages, but because it's so dense. Each paragraph is an idea to consider, absorb, and test against my own personal reality. Because as I wrote in my blog post about fairy tales, Good and Bad Have Long Tails…, when I was young those enchanted tales held out hope for a future where the truth might be set free, and I might be able to breathe.

Uh-huh. Fairy tales mean something to me. Sometimes its hard to verbalize how deep they go, even though I'm a writer. There are places in me that simply don't want to speak. But those places see and they hear and they act. Those places comprehend the theories of which Bruno Bettelheim writes.

A little bit about Mr. Bettelheim. He was born in Austria in 1903 and was exposed to the psychoanalytic theories of Freud as a teenager. Fascinated, he pursued the study of Freud's works, became acquainted with Anna Freud,  and underwent his own psychoanalysis. However, in March of 1938, Germany invaded Austria and Bettelheim spent the next year in the concentration camps, Dachau and Buchenwald, where he witnessed fellow prisoners being arbitrarily killed. Perhaps due to his training, he developed an analytic awareness of the psychological effects of terror, the terror that was wielded by the SS to, in Bettelheim's words, change the prisoners permanently into passive subjects without any resistance or without any ability to resist the Nazi system.

Bettelheim was released from the camps in 1939 and went to America, where he became the Director of the Orthogenics School for disturbed children in Chicago. Although there is controversy about his work, specifically his theory of the etiology of autism, he seemed to possess an uncanny understanding of children and their interior lives. He always attributed his ability to empathize with disturbed children to his own experience of terror in the concentration camps.

Watching the documentary, "Bruto Bettelheim: A Sense of Surviving," one gets a sense of  just how disturbed the children admitted to the Orthogencis were: homicidal, suicidal, psychotic, severely delinquent, and mute. To be eligible for admission a child had to have sought treatment elsewhere and have had the treatment declared a failure. One of the students, now a functioning adult, describes his state of mind when he entered the school as a child of ten. I had detailed, specific fantasies about murdering and dismembering woman. Very disturbing stuff.

How did Bettelheim's treatment of the most disturbed work? From the introduction to UE, my main task was to restore meaning in their lives. Then he goes on to identify parents and caregivers as having the primary impact on a child's ability to find meaning, with cultural heritage following. Accordingly, he believed that literature carried such information best. However, Bettelheim was not satisfied with much of the literature written and published for children because it fails to stimulate and nurture those resources the child needs most to cope with difficult inner problems.

Bettelheim believed fairy tale symbolism constellated a child's imagination in a way that helped the child make sense of their interior life and imbue it with meaning. Rather than being told what to feel, believe, and think a child could take from the fairy tale the developmental lessons that suited their personality and current circumstances. This could happen in three ways:

1. Justice. Fairy tales acknowledge the dark side of human nature: the wicked witch, the evil stepmother, the corrupt father, the ridiculing elder brothers. The child is given an indirect route to experience his own feelings about being treated wrongly, unjustly, and callously by the world of adults around him. When the children in fairy tales outwit the adults who terrorize innocent children, the child can imagine, one day, justice will triumph in his world as well.

2. Faith. Most fairy tales involve the hero leaving home. Whether they are sent out, pushed out, exiled, or run away, the children in fairy tales must grow up. Identifying with the hero's journey, children learn there is power to be gained by facing adversity, achieving competence, and gaining wisdom.

3. Hope. Because of the Happily Ever After/HEA, the child experiences hope that he too can find his way in the world: To run his own kingdom—his own life—successfully, peacefully and to be happily united with the most desirable partner who will never leave him. And it's the hope that is important, because hope allows us to trust the future and as Bettelheim points out, not trusting the future really means not trusting oneself.

Whew. Back to Dexter.

What would have happened if Harry had read the traumatized Dexter fairy tales? Maybe "Beowulf" for starters. We can imagine feelings of terror and rage flooded the psyche of Laura Moser's traumatized son as he sat in that bloody shipping container—abandoned—for days. As we saw, in Season One, when Dexter does a face plant at the crime scene especially prepared for him by Brian, those memories have been repressed and disconnected from the conscious urges of Dexter's Dark Passenger. Could a symbolic tale of a man slaying a beast devouring an entire town have assuaged the unconscious roots of Dexter's need to kill?

Or was The Code really the only answer?

What about "The Beauty and the Beast"? Could Dexter's psyche have called forth a life-affirming force as compelling as his Dark Passenger? And if it had, would he have needed Hannah?

Interesting questions.  Personally, I believe in the unconscious. I believe in the journey of drawing up as much from our depths as we can manage. And I believe in fairy tales. But I don't think Dexter is a fairy tale, because I don't think there's going to be a Happily Ever After. Sob. However, by externalizing Dexter's struggle with his Dark Passenger, the show has created an incredible entertainment vehicle that allows us to get as weighty as we want with its meaning.

As you can see, I've leaned towards heavy.

Thank you Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Carpenter, James Remar, David Zayas, C.S. Lee, Lauren Velez, Julie Benz, Erik King, Yvonne Stahovski, Sara Colleton, Scott Buck, the writers, directors and the rest of the cast and crew that have made such an amazing show that I have loved watching for 8 seasons!

(I actually got tears in my eyes when I wrote that! No wonder I'm fangirling!)

And to close it all out… how about that Dexter-themed GIVEAWAY I've been promising!

Enter to win Dexter: The Complete Final Season

Scheduled to be released on November 5th
or a $40 Amazon Gift Card.
WINNER'S CHOICE

Awesome.

Fangirling Dexter Pick of the Week: Dexter Wrap-up Podcast 8.11 Monkey in a Box with writers Wendy West and Tim Schlattmann and actress Yvonne Strahovski.

And in case you missed the rest of the Fangirling Dexter posts:

A Sympathetic Serial Killer… Right…

Episode 8.04 Scar Tissue

The Psychology of Dexter

Eating Magic: What's Ultimately Dark… & What's Ultimately Light?

Does Everyone Have a Dark Passenger?

Fangirling Dexter: Does Everyone Have a Dark Passenger?

Of course they do!

I answer yes unequivocally, without hesitation, and with absolute conviction. Jung and Freud would agree, except they would call it The Shadow or the Id, respectively. The religiously inclined call it Sin. With all those names and widespread acknowledgment, my bet is the Dark Side—those socially and morally unacceptable impulses we strive to keep a lid on—is universal.

What's very individual is how aware/conscious we are of those pesky little desires.

Now, I'm all into depth psychology and that's pretty much what Dexter is. What's so wonderful about Dexter is his awareness/consciousness of his inner darkness.

In fact, he's so aware that he's given it a name: The Dark Passenger. And he tells us about it in those impeccably written and delivered voiceovers: how it drives him, what it craves, and how he feeds it. What is even more fun is how he recognizes the darkness in others. As someone who is very clear about his own dark urges, Dexter's got X-ray insight into what others hide. This plays out in the series in two psychologically delightful ways.

Every season, Dexter has a major nemesis. It's usually the first kill of the season, the first homicide the department has to investigate. Dexter, the unassuming lab geek, blood spatter expert in his pastel button downs and hush puppies (are those hush puppies?) is called to the scene and meets someone else's Dark Passenger via forensics.

Initially, he's attracted to and/or intrigued by the clues the killer has left behind. His fascination swells as he begins his covert/unofficial/on-the-side investigation into this particular deviant. What's so cool is we, the audience, aren't just privy to the normal-homicide-investigation-analytics of your typical cop show, we get the bonus view of the Dark Passenger's analysis.

Let me stop right here and say motive is often the most CLICHE aspect of PLOT in many of the shows I watch. You can almost see the actors' and actress' groping through cheesy lines of "Why they did it." Not Dexter. From the incubation of Dexter's ravaged psyche to the events that feed every other character on the show, including the killers, I have to give the show 5-stars on developing their characters' motives. You're always left with a feeling of believability. Yeah, this is what drives them. Detailed backstories that aren't too convoluted. Whether its Hannah, Trinity, even Deb, Angel, and Quinn—and most recently, Dr. Evelyn Vogel, there's a feeling of reality as to this is what made these characters who they are.  It helps that the show has SUCH INCREDIBLE ACTORS AND ACTRESSES delivering the lines: Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Carpenter, David Zayas, Charlotte Rampling…

Okay, so that's the first level of insight we get from Dexter's Dark Passenger. The second one is his insight into us Normal Folks, i.e. non-killers, those of us whose Dark Passengers aren't inclined to murder. Heres' a quote from Season 1.01 that puts a big grin on my face:

Dexter is on a date with Rita. They've gone to a crab shack.

"Needless to say I have some unusual habits, yet all these socially acceptable people can't wait to pick up hammers and smash their food to bits. Normal people are so hostile."

Here Dexter is genius in giving us insight into ourselves. By openly sharing his Dark Passenger with the audience and its insights into other killers and normal people, the show creates a safe, creative, entertaining space for us to explore, acknowledge—perhaps, confess—become (more) conscious/aware of our own Dark Passengers.

Kind of cool, huh?

Of course in Daughter of Light, Umbra is humanity's Dark Passenger. (Can't wait to see how that's going to turn out!) I started writing the series and developing the concept of Umbra in June 2008. Dexter, Season 1, aired in 2007. Although it crossed my radar, my ego/superego completely rejected a TV series about a serial killer. When I finally broke down and watched it (see A Sympathetic Serial Killer… Right...) we rented at least the first two seasons from Netflix and marathoned them. I vividly remember the sun rising as we watched Lila's last moments in Paris. I can't remember if it was the third or fourth season we had to begin watching real time. But as I was already obsessed with depth psychology and the issues of "inner darkness," the slick genius of the show immediately hooked me. I gained even more respect for the series after reading the books, because the TV writers really balanced out Dexter's darkness with his Hero/Light/Ego side through his struggle to connect with others.

Which brings us to the final season—Hannah—and Dexter's struggle to become Whole.

Some viewers are put out that Hannah is the final catalyst in Dexter's inner battle. They want it to be Deb. The paradox is, without Dexter and Deb, there would be/could be no Dexter and Hannah. And while enduring bonds are the stuff that makes us human, I'd argue it's true love—the romantic experience of the irreplaceable other—that catapults us into the light of our best selves.

So… Will he? Will he? Will he?

Will Dexter become Whole?

Three more episodes to find out what happens in this epic story about integrating dark and light.

Fangirling Pick of the Week (there's two!):
Michael C. Hall on the Daily Show
Review of Dexter 8.09 Make Your Own Kind of Music by Gracie

On Writing Half Faerie: Is it Insta-love for Melia & Ryder?

Insta-love is a popular phenomenon in young adult, new adult, contemporary—okay, insta-love can be pretty much found in any genre where characters are falling in love.

Why is insta-love so popular?

Why do some people love it while others groan and throw the book against the wall?

Chemistry is real.

Phermones, whatever you call it. Of the billions of potential partners on this planet, how many of us are attracted to all of them?

None of us.

Why not?

It just doesn't work that way.

Mysterious forces, seemingly, draw us to that one guy across the room wearing the glasses, the faded tee, and those jeans.

HIM.

Why?

If that romantic sighting goes any farther, we might get some answers. We might find we have amazing things in common, that some quirky trait of his drives us insane (in a good way), or that he's a great kisser. Or something. Or we might find out—Ugh! It was the most superficial of attractions and, please, get this guy away from me.

But if attraction blooms, and continues to grow...

When do we know it's love?

And what is love, anyway?

When I met my husband, I'd decided I was pretty much a failure at love. At least I was a failure at picking out someone to fall in love with. Cause the guys I dated before I met my husband, well, let's just say they all had their great qualities, but there was a reason they were in my past.

Uh-huh. You know what I'm talking about.

Back to my husband, my The One.

I was at a new job. It was completely overwhelming.  I don't think I noticed anyone or anything other than the stack of files on my desk for the first three months.

Then one morning I was in a departmental staff meeting and looked up.

There was this guy sitting across the room with this kind of halo of light around him.

I was like: Who is that guy?

A few weeks later, there was an office crises. Parents were calling to find emergency baby-sitters; everyone else was calling out for pizza. It was going to be a long night.

HE walked into the panic room. Sat at the table with the one dumb terminal. (Do they still have those?)
Took off his glasses. Stared at the screen. Put his glasses back on. Got up, said, "There's a comma missing in the JCL," and walked out.

OMG. Who is that guy?

No one stayed late.

I was standing by the elevators one morning with one of my colleagues. HE walked by, put one hand on her shoulder, put one hand on my shoulder, offered us both a simple, quick greeting, and was gone.

It didn't piss me off and I HATE for people I don't know to touch me.

It all climaxed at an office lunch at the Spaghetti Warehouse. We were talking about Titanic. It had been released a few weeks earlier and I'd already seen it three times.

"Why would you want to go see a movie when you already know the end?" someone asked.

"Because it's so romantic," I said. "I love it."

Ten people down, HE leaned forward, looked at ME, and said, "I love it too."

Be still my beating heart.

We went out soon after that, and well, now, we're married.

But until I'd met him, I'd never understood when someone told me, "You'll know."

Like, how will you know?

And then I did.

And living it was a revelation.

So I really wanted Melia and Ryder to have that.

Not exactly insta-love, but definitely insta-attraction.

Swoon.

I guess the only thing I can do at this point is leave you with that song…

What's Ultimately Dark... & What's Ultimately Light?

I finish reading The Wisdom of Psycopaths by Kevin Dutton. And how did I stumble upon this gem, you might ask.

Well, if you've been reading my blog at all—you've probably noticed an explicable swerve from the usual theme of faeries, magic, and enchantment to… uhm… me fangirling Dexter every other Sunday. Which, BTW, the more I delve into the shows wrap-up podcasts produced by Scott Reynolds and watch things like The Writer's Room episode featuring Dexter aka Michael C. Hall aka David Fisher, Sara Colleton, Scott Buck, Wendy West, and Manny Coto on the Sundance Channel, the more I discover my love for the show's WRITING is justified! YAY. I'd hate to be all crazy and fangirling over some pathetic show glorifying serial killers with lots of cliches and gratuitous violence like The Following… ahem. (Sorry!) Cause like Scott Buck said: "Dexter is about a serial killer, but it's not a serial killer show."

Okay, where was I? Oh, yes, I've given myself permission to go full-frontal fangirling on Dexter this final season and that means keeping up with the show's official blog, Dexter Daily. So there was a post on the blog about Kevin Dutton and THAT is how I came across The Wisdom of Pyscopaths.

And as you know, I'm super fascinated by psychology so I have to read this book. And I do.

OMG. It definitely reframes things. In this final season, Dr. Vogel—the neuropsychiatrist played by the phenomenal Charlotte Rampling—espouses edgy theories about psychopaths, a perspective which comes straight out of Dutton's book or at least from the studies cited therein. What's really irreverent is the book's final chapter… Gee, I just can't SPOIL it for you…  But I'll leave you with a hint. It seems there's a distant proximity between the psychopath and the saint.

And of course that gets me to thinking about Umbra… because these kinds of questions about what's ultimately dark and what's ultimately light fuel the cosmology in Daughter of Light.

Fangirling Pick of the Week: Download Dexter Wrap-Up Podcast 7.02 (#24) with Jennifer Carpenter from iTunes.

Fangirling Dexter: The Psychology of Dexter

Since I've decided to fangirl Dexter on my blog, I feel kind of weird. The shows about a serial killer, you know. So I'm reading The Psychology of Dexter by Bella DePaulo Phd. I'm not sure it's helping. It's a collection of essays that were written post-Season 4. (No Dr. Evelyn Vogel insights.) Many of them focus on Dexter as a killer. UGH! That's not why I watch the show.

Finally, I get to an essay that zooms in on the issue's of Dexter's identity. His sense of self. His self-identity. It discusses how self-identity develops and it examines the development of Dexter's. Yeah. That's why I watch the show.

Two things in life fascinate me: Spirituality and Psychology. I guess that's why you find a post about Dexter following a post about The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe on my blog. I guess.

I'm super curious. I always have been. I'm fascinated by what makes people tick, including myself. Tick-tock.

I suspect that our spiritual beliefs and psychological realities are the two legs are psyches stand on. Even if we don't have spiritual beliefs, that is a spiritual belief.

Back to Dexter. The show is intensely psychological, offering a unique window into one man's psyche.

It works like this:

1. We see Dexter at work, the blood spatter expert.
2. We see Dexter interact in his personal relationships with his sister, his colleagues, and his victims. And of course with Harry's "ghost."
3. As the series evolves we became privy to the events in Dexter's life that make him who he is.
4. And yes, we see Dexter kill. Only killers of innocent people according to Harry's Code, unless things go awry.
5. Then we get that fabulous voice-over. Of it all.

The show wouldn't work without the voice-over. I've read a few of the books in the series, and no offense to Jeff Lindsay, but the TV show took an interesting idea and blew it out of the water. All the main characters in the show are in the books, but Dexter is a decidedly more disturbing character in the books. Just sayin. I stopped reading the books.

So it's the voice-over that makes the show, not the killing. My opinion. We see Dexter's mask, and how he creates it. We see what his mask hides, how disturbing that is, and perhaps, if we are inclined to believe, the plausible roots of his psychopathy. The voice-over, along with Michael C. Hall's impeccable acting and delivery, are what engages us. Okay, what engages me.

Dexter is constantly concerned with his identity. He's often confused by social expectations. Most don't seem to make a lot of sense to him, and they seem like a lot of bother. But Harry, his foster-dad, taught him that he needed to appear normal because he isn't normal. Harry and Dexter's relationship is very dark, but it's all delivered with such intense genuineness, you can't help but be charmed. Okay, I couldn't helped but be charmed.

To say the personality of the character Dexter is a multiplicity of constructions is an understatement. The fascination is in how he processes, adapts, accepts, and reorients himself. The gems are his incisive insights on the  ever-present absurdities of the social condition.

Deb, Dexter's younger foster-sister, is his most enduring counterpoint. She doesn't see behind his mask… [no spoilers here!] So there is this kind of crazy normalcy contrasted with this off-the-charts insanity, and we get  Dexter's inner thoughts on it all. Quirky. Irresistible. Dark Humor.

And then Dexter evolves. Each season he has a particular social conundrum, a new role to take on. How he experiments, fails, succeeds, and resolves the season's particular perplexity is woven deep into the fabric of the show's plot, which always includes a Dexter nemesis and a big crime that the department is working on.

The brilliance is in how these threads come together—sans cliches, season after season. We, the viewer, are constantly surprised, amazed and gratified with how it's pulled off. And that voice-over. Dexter aka Michael C. Hall charms us in spite of ourselves. Ick. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? No answer.

Okay, that's a pretty long-winded justification of my guilty pleasure.

Fangirling Pick of the Week: Episode 8.04 Scar Tissue Wrap-Up Podcast The first 30 minutes of the podcast writer Tim Schlattman provides incredible insight into the writing process that created the series. [SPOILER ALERT]

On Writing Melia: The Freedom of Flight

When you write a story, when you create a character, what subconscious influences are at work?

I don't know the answer to that question, but I do know that I grew up listening to the John Denver song The Eagle and The Hawk over and over and over again. Now, discussing the power and freedom symbolized by flight—specifically, the flight of the majestic eagle—with a reader, my memory offers up this song like a gift.

And as I listen to the rhythm like a heart beating hope, and the chords layering a known but impossible to describe revelation, along with John Denver's soaring vocals, I think…maybe…maybe this is why Melia is an eagle.

Maybe this is why she flies.

And maybe this is why choosing between freedom and true love is so difficult her.

And I find myself pushing play… over and over and over again.

Just like when I was child.

Just like when I hoped.

Just like when I dreamed… of so many things.

Fangirling Dexter: Episode 8.04 Scar Tissue

So everyone knows production wrapped for Dexter forever on July 10. Sob. And that it wasn't nominated for a single Emmy. Boo. And the cast was at Comic Con this past week. Yay.

But did you know that tonight's episode, 8.04 Scar Tissue, was the best episode EVER? I've already watched it twice. I was so riveted and freaked out. I screamed. Ahhhhhhhhhhh!

The opening scenes with Deb and Dr. Vogel in the shipping crate—besides being incredibly intense—tied everything up with a huge bow. Dexter's origins, Deb's choice, Dr. Vogel's unapologetic obsession.

Pretty awesome.

And then came the scenes with Dexter and Dr. Vogel where he got angry with her. And everyone watching knew: She just doesn't get Dexter and Deb.

But you get the feeling that by the end of Season 8, she will.

I didn't see the end of this episode coming. At all. Maybe I should have. My husband predicted  Deb would commit suicide—like Harry. But I was like, No Way! Then there was that scene with Quinn. But the way Scar Tissue really ended freaked me out. And next episode's previews—couples counseling—can't wait to see Dexter mad at Deb.

Interesting Fact: I agree that one of the strengths of Dexter has always been the writing, but I never knew that—unusual for television—50% of the show's writers were women.

Fangirling Pick of the Week: The Dexter Panel at San Diego Comic-Con

And of course…we're all waiting for Hannah!

Michael C. Hall quotes: 

"It's a family show."— Scott Reynold's Wrap-Up Podcast with Michael C. Hall

"I think I really need to focus on some rituals to get out of character."—SDCC panel

The Siege Perilous Talks Indie Fantasy & Science Fiction

Are you a fan of fantasy and science fiction? Are you an indie author of fantasy and science fiction?

If you answered yes to either of those questions, then you might be interested in learning more about The Siege Perilous, a roundtable of four reviewers who review the works of indie fantasy and science fiction authors. I can't remember how I stumbled upon their first podcast/review of Unicorn Western, but by the time I was finished listening to the hour-long podcast (which is also available on iTunes) I was hooked. The roundtable discussion by reviewers Eric Guindon, Ted Whitemell, Jason Helferty, and Val, was lively, humorous, and thorough.

With both trepidation and hope, I submitted Queen of the Realm of Faerie Book 1 for their review. After some time, I was notified that the podcast review of Nandana's Mark (now the first part of Half Faerie) had been completed and posted. I mentally prepared myself for a listen. While the roundtable didn't fail to point out what they felt were shortcomings in the novel, they also highlighted some of the aspects of the story that are precious to me as a writer: the unique cosmology and original storyline.

I was thrilled to survive The Siege Perilous.

Curious about how it all began, I contacted the show's host and creator, Eric Guindon. He shared his purpose for creating the show and its evolution.

"The podcast got started shortly after I began my foray into self-publishing. I saw how hard it was to get yourself noticed as a self-published author first hand. I created the podcast to remedy the situation for as many of the good self-published authors as I could. I reached out to my friends and acquaintances who like to read the sci-fi and fantasy genres and they generously agreed to be guests.

"I thought a long time about the format I wanted to use. It was important to me that the podcast only do positive reviews. If a book is submitted to us but we don't think it deserves three grails (our stars) or more, we'll not review it. We don't want to bring negative notice to any authors. The author interview idea came later when I thought it would be nice to make the podcast more of a cross between a reviews podcast and a book club. With the interviews we can give more exposure to the author and get to know where their coming from. It also give the listeners a chance to get to know the person behind the book; which I think is important.

"What I hadn't planned on was that doing the podcast is actually good fun."

A few weeks after the roundtable review of Nandana's Mark was posted, I had the opportunity to discuss the book in a companion episode with the reviewers. It was indeed a lot of fun.

The Roundtable:

The host, Eric Guindon, is an IT professional who has always loved reading fiction, especially science-fiction and fantasy. His love of reading is only exceeded by his desire to write fiction as good as he has read. He shares his life with his wife Kathryn and daughter Zoé -- not to mention a host of pets, including his dog, Thor, and three cats. Eric is the author of The Reluctant Messiah, An Unexpected Apocalypse, False Messiah, Seven Tribes: The Spear's Point, and A Wizard's Life: Apprentice.

Ted Whitmell is a Science Fiction and Fantasy fan with a literature degree and a technical background. He hopes to someday find time to write his own grail-worthy fiction.

Jason Helferty spends his days working for the federal government in Ottawa, Canada, and his nights as an avid gamer playing all kinds of games, from FPS’ to RPGs, and taking care of his new baby girl. His favourite genres of fiction are fantasy and sci fi.

Valerie “Val” spent her high school years in an intensive writing program at an arts high school. She followed this by a degree in Art History and then a Masters in Communciation Studies. She currently earns her wages as a technical writer and editor for the federal government of Canada. In her spare time, she is an avid reader of blogs and novels, with a passion for new media. She is also a sleep deprived new mom, learning the ins and outs of parenting.