Alysse Aallyn

Tag: Psychological Thrillers

  • Secrets of the Self – how I became a warrior by Alysse Aallyn

    Aspiration – The Future –

      Being a warrior means you never give up, you modify goals and you redesign maps.

      My explorations into True Crime had taught me what people REALLY do. Clearly, there’s no necessity to make up plots; in my next novel the challenge would be explaining what humans get up to and why.

      After the weirdly destructive father/daughter vibe of my last full-time job I became interested in three real stories – a kidnapped toddler where the FBI became convinced the parents were lying, a father in Florida pulling out all the stops searching for his missing teen (later found to have been murdered by a serial killer) and a father pimping out his own daughter (later revealed to be a kidnap victim.)

      I swirled all these into the psychological thriller Find Courtney, where a college student helps a distraught father search for her missing roommate, only to discover that he is definitely NOT what he seems. I whipped the paintings of Edvard Munch, tales of long-dead fan dancers and arson scams into a fine froth of first-person storytelling.

      I got an offer from the first publisher I submitted it to, an exciting Bridgehampton start-up promising the personal touch. It was published to wonderful reviews, but there were unseen cliffs ahead! Luckily warriors are good at managing hard landings and surprise outcomes.

      #Haiku: Find Courtney

      In the
      Dead
      Killer’s house;
      Who needs
      A sexy pirate
      Playing Daddy?

    1. Secrets of the Self – how I became a warrior by Alysse Aallyn

      Dawn – Relief –

        After the birth of my first child I bought a printing press – an adorable little toy that printed a 3×5 inch page and elegant “Egyptian” type. I wanted to print my own book of poems – The Hot Skin – and I didn’t want to ”delegate” anything. I also bought a binding machine and designed the covers – plain black and white –by myself. The pleasure of not having to rely on other people was immensely freeing.

        I also bought a sorter in which to place the ordered printed pages, taped to it the slogan “Work Is Love Made Visible” (St. Catherine) and moved this whole conglomeration, plus the baby’s playpen, to the small cottage at StormFall Farm for a poetic summer in the Berkshires.

        My husband planned to commute back and forth from Philadelphia.

        I was determined to have the experience Virginia Woolf so movingly describes in her diaries – sorting type as a way to self-soothe.

        At the time I was staying in the cottage, my husband’s grandmother was up at the big house where I often went for drinks and dinner with her. This grandmother had always been wealthy but was a big believer in “noblesse oblige” and common sense. She was very shocked that I would sometimes alter one of my poems to suit my type requirements and told me, sadly, this meant I was not a real poet. I laughed out loud. This woman would not recognize Art if it bit her.

        When my husband arrived he was angry and aggrieved that I had dedicated the book to him, thanking him for helping with the baby. Didn’t I understand what an insult that was? What would people think? Who would want to invest their money with a baby-minder?

        I was gobsmacked. His violent hysteria was even more frightening than his arguments. My first husband was a cool, smooth seducer, accustomed to lying to get his way. My second husband was very different, but I was beginning to see that the rage and the pathos were deeper than I’d realized. But with poetry you can understand – and express – anything.

        IN THE BUTTERFLY PAVILION

        This evening you said you wished
        I was more ordinary.
        I bowed my head. I did not speak.
        Outside the animals leaned together,
        Breathing lightly; waiting
        For my answer.
        Cats-tongue ferns
        Swelled up like swords, pushed out a stink
        Occluding fields of vision while
        The rabbit-bloodied lawn curled away. 
        Phlox flamed  
          Sows littered in the cyclamen
        Dwarf stars broke free as
        Frazzled molten ore raced across a sky
        Darkening to night.
        Summoning my power
        My hands stay folded in my sleeves.
        Nighttime is my kingdom.

      1. Secrets of the Self – how I became a warrior by Alysse Aallyn

        Symbiosis – Interdependence –

          During pursuit of my never achieved degree in Rehab Counseling (at Springfield College) I worked three years at Easter Seal. There were good things about it but it was not a happy experience. I taught Career Exploration – that was the fun part, trying to open the eyes of frightened people diagnosed as “disabled” to the possibilities out there. I knew very little about computers – just coming into vogue – and Easter Seals refused to get me training – but I passed on what little I could figure out. We worked on resumes, interviews, goal setting, and seeing yourself through the employers’ eyes.

          While I worked there Easter Seals built a glamorous new building and moved all “managers” out. It was carefully explained to us that anyone actually providing services to clients was unimportant, replaceable, and would be paid as little as possible – being a manager, on the other hand, was a high-status, remunerative, important occupation.

          I saw I needed a new job, pronto and used my new skills to get hired at a non-profit start-up of ex-addicts hoping to influence legislation. As the sole “office help” I enjoyed creating business practices from the ground up. I kept track of members and planned member events. Unfortunately, my boss was a very angry man (he once threw a book at me) and was usually seething about what he saw as my completely misplaced confidence and independence. After three years, we had enough work to hire an office helper; but I was not assigned to be her supervisor. This was actually fine with me because I was busy managing a family and writing on the side. You hire a poet at your peril, and I don’t think I could conceal my distaste for office politics. Office Helper observed this dynamic and began immediately planning to take my job. This only worked briefly – once I was pushed out she lasted a month.

          I was determined to keep up the good relationships I’d forged, but it turned out to be impossible. Their world was just not my world. In the meantime I had one child in college and another finishing high school – I thought I might make it on a part-time job and on paper I certainly had the skills. The weird interplay with my ex-boss – officially fatherly yet boiling with suppressed sexual rage – gave me an idea for a novel.

          Seawracked

          He lost her
          Spoke too soon
          As men are wont
          Words freighted by an inner logic
          Fell to earth and lay
          Prey to busy bristle-footed worms
          Tidily dismantle
          Subject, verb & predicate;
          Sucked out sense and left
          The elegiac bones to rot
          Amid kelp-wigged rock & glass-rope sponge
          Cheek by jowl with
          Long dead fishermen’s wives
          Punished now for ill-set dough and
          Worse-set hair
          Mouths agape in imitation of
          The badly sutured wounds of childbirth
          Secrets told; corpses left to nourish
          Nature’s counting-house
          One season only; sharing space
          With shattered petrels
          Feathers spewed like pillow-stuffing
          In passing frenzy of love-struck boy s-
          Strewn among the shavings of these once great ships
          Built by hearts & backs of men
          Who loved their daughters far too well –
          Losing them to sailors
          Crueler than the great sea-god himself;
          He who stirs our sleep these nights
          With grief-crazed cries of loons
          Casting on the waters for their
          Far-flung children
          Lost forever now
          As we are lost as
          He lost her.

        1. Secrets of the Self – how I became a warrior by Alysse Aallyn

          Ingenuity –

            I loved writing, I wanted to be a writer, so it certainly seemed that I should come up with a writing solution for my financial problems.


            “Gothic” novels were popular when I was in my 20’s; historical romances featuring aspirational heroines from the wrong side of the tracks who catch the eye of a moneyed, powerful man. I was a big reader of Victorian and Romantic literature which is loaded with fascinating true stories. Take Thomas Love Peacock, friend of Shelley and author of Nightmare Abbey and Crotchet Castle; a member of the landed gentry who saw a village girl sewing in a window and adopted her into his family for the rest of both their lives. Seemed like there was a story there! I also was a fan of ghost stories, especially Edith Wharton’s lovely After, where you see the ghost but only realize it afterwards. How about a ghost that adapted to the viewer? I had great fun writing this novel during a long, snowed in winter in Maine, sent queries to agents alphabetically and picked the first one who liked Devlyn and wanted to represent it (her name began with “C”.) I continued receiving rejections from lackadaisical agents long after the book was actually published, such is the state of the literary world.

            She sold the book relatively fast. I took the train from Washington DC to New York city and was taken out to lunch by my editor, who seemed likeable enough. She said I was so pretty, maybe they should make it a series. The money they offered wasn’t anything you could live on, but the print run was over 100,000 copies! That had to mean something.

            Then the publisher was sold. My editor was fired. My second editor and I did not hit it off. She seemed to dislike gothics and be embarrassed by them, she wanted to represent “memoirs.” I was stunned. Memoirs by definition are nonfiction. If she didn’t like fiction, what was she doing in this job?

            Not much, as it turned out. She was out, and I was offered a third editor, whose specialty was Westerns. I kid you not. Aren’t all “genres” really the same?

            I attempted to cultivate other editors. I attempted to cultivate other publishers. It was depressing how often sex appeared to be part of the deal. I was used to making my own choices in that area and I was not remotely turned on by any of these guys. Eeeeew, followed by “Ick.”

            I got a new agent. My Warrior ingenuity was playing out but soon, it would be “played out.” Because I was an artist. A key feature of Being a Warrior is not becoming a mercenary. Because that’s something different. I had things I wanted to write for me. I couldn’t explain what they were, because the only way to find out was to write them.

            #Haiku: Devlyn

            Ghosts mirror
            Fear, says brave
            Thea; this killer’s
            Motive laid bare –
            “Revenge”.

          1. Secrets of the Self – how I became a warrior by Alysse Aallyn

            Memory –


            After the bank took our house, we moved into one of the vacant condos in their project. My mother-in-law sued us with a federal injunction that accused us of damaging her tax credits.

              Throughout this horrible state of affairs my husband kept hoping his mother would come to her senses. I consulted a divorce attorney but realized that I didn’t want a different husband, I wanted a different life. I wanted to return to the past, when we were happy and everything was possible.

              At this time, my own family sold our summer place in Maine and I gained a sudden influx of cash. I decided to use it to get my husband away from his mother and into a new life. There was certainly the possibility that he would feel obligated to choose her, because of his “sunk costs” or just feel emotionally unable to leave his situation.

              Through the nine years of our marriage we had found joy and release visiting his family summer place, StormFall, in the Berkshires, and it seemed to make sense to choose somewhere near there. Hartford was the nearest big city and Connecticut seemed halcyon and clean; almost a paradise in comparison with Philadelphia. The children were six and two at the time; as soon as I received my psychology degree from LaSalle U we took off to explore the Hartford suburbs. Manchester, “Silk City”; “The City Of Village Charm” seemed just perfect. I bought a cute little new townhouse and enrolled the kids in school. It took Toss only a few months to join me. He hired a lawyer to extract him from his partnership and he found a wonderful job writing for the Connecticut Lawyer. He stayed there twenty-three years! We were a happy family again.

              NEW HOUSE

              The pregnant car disgorges
              Us. It’s winter.
              We beat our gills as light
              As hummingbirds.
              In a town of green schools and
              Greener parks this
              New built house
              Gapes and swells
              To draw us in.
              There’s a science room and
              A writing room and
              A TV room and
              Rooms for children.
              We sleep aloft for safety
              High above the thorny osiers
              Unseen by the demon’s angry outriders;
              Cherishing a safe word
              She’ll never guess; it’s
              Love.

            1. Secrets of the Self – how I became a warrior by Alysse Aallyn

              Partnership –

                Right after our marriage, my husband went into partnership with his mother to buy two wrecked downtown buildings and turn them into condos. I was happy about this since I was already thirty years old and wanted to concentrate on starting a family. We moved into the recently vacated grandmother’s home – she relocated to a nursing home – it was a 45 minute drive from my mother In law’s house.

                I noticed right away that my mother-in-law was a contentious person. She flat-out contradicted people, turning social chitchat into argument. She talked so angrily and incessantly about her divorce you would have thought it happened yesterday, not ten years ago. Above all, she hated seeing other people happy and expressed constant envy, resentment and rage. She made regular false statements about herself as if challenging others to correct her, and she corrected me about my own areas of expertise where I could easily prove her wrong if I cared to. I didn’t care to – she was my mother-in-law, my landlord and my husband’s business partner. I just determined to see as little of her as possible. She liked argument, publicly humiliating the shy, frightened man she called her “boyfriend” and ruining countless holidays working hard to destroy his ego. (He had no visible ego.)

                This was unsettling, to say the least. My husband sank all his money into their venture, she kept the books and was supposed to pay him a salary – she never did. They worked hard to secure a construction loan and she used part of the money to buy her “dream home” which meant they didn’t have enough cash to finish the project. We began to get threats of lawsuits from the bank which stated that I, who was not a partner and had signed nothing, was also on the hook for the money. She had no regard for the truth and frequently claimed lying on sworn documents was a clever business tactic.

                My husband was better than this, tried to correct and help her and in turn was attacked by her. But he felt helpless – all his money was tied up and the condos were slowly being readied for sale. When I complained about her behavior he was worried I would “expose” her and make things worse. So our partnership, too, was threatened. They went into therapy together – she reading from a long list of criticisms of my husband and what a terrible person and partner he was. When I finally spoke to the therapist I discovered neither of them had mentioned the mother-son relationship (which they both considered humiliating.) ! Needless to say, the newly-informed therapist “got it” immediately. “Get the hell out”, he advised. (She never paid him and he joined the long line of suers against her.)

                We bought a modest house in a struggling neighborhood and began to upgrade it. We had two small children and I was finishing college for a bachelor’s in psychology. All the way along I asked for professional help trying to understand this weird woman who hated her own children, humiliated anyone who ever loved her and felt insulted by rescuers. It was my first experience of evil. The diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder was just being established and she fit it to a tee. The bank took our house. Ultimately I was able to convince my husband, who was contemplating suicide, that we needed to get away from her and sever all ties. He got a wonderful legal writing job that combined his best interests, we moved two states away and lived happily ever after except… there was always my husband’s pain. Having that kind of person for a mother.

                #Haiku: The Definition of Evil

                Lost souls
                Twist truth:
                “Trust” is “punish”
                “Wild” is “Poison”
                “Conserve” is “destroy”.

              1. Secrets of the Self – how I became a warrior by Alysse Aallyn

                Resources:

                  To our father, we were the Four Princesses – Alyssiana, Genviana, Merrillana and Avrilana. He grew up with a mother, a sister, two brothers, a grandmother and four great-aunts in circumstances of extreme frugality in the Depression. Nonetheless, they were a family of snobs and social pretensions kept afloat by a “bachelor uncle” who made a fortune in the insurance business.

                  My father came into the capital from his trust fund when he was 25 (I was born when he was 31) built us a house and rented out surrounding properties. He went into the construction business with an architect friend from college, then into the laboratory development business with one of his tenants. He replaced his blue-chip stocks with high-flying ventures like Xerox and Sony, which in the sixties was like coining money.

                  By the time I was 11 he quit his job and went into philanthropic work in Africa. I was concerned that we would be “poor”. I had already seen the stark divisions in my Ohio hometown and I never aspired to shift to the other side of the tracks. He told me not to worry, but when I saw the desperate refugees from a war-torn country he was trying to help, I had to worry.

                  My father had a yacht built, my beautiful mother bought high-end clothes, they invested in art and traveled all over the world, but one by one his daughters fell off the gravy train. We went to boarding schools and approved colleges, shopped at re-sale stores and were discouraged from thinking of ourselves as “rich.”

                  My father bought a house in a 50 acre park (in the middle of the city!) and slowly filled it treasures acquired abroad. I felt guilty for all the money he gave me and aspired to pay my own way. I was relieved to dodge college – that was a big price tag.

                  I achieved an artist husband like myself – a touring musician with a wonderful sound who could play anything. We bought a house in the woods and I settled down to write. I figured we were set. But I had confused “intrinsic” with “extrinsic” values which can be easily swept away. I didn’t have “resources”. When my “house of cards” collapsed I found myself sitting in a temp office, paid minimum wage, waiting in case someone wanted to hire me for my only known skill: typing.

                  HORROR STORY

                  Lubricity
                  Darkens into sweat;
                  We face each other
                  Across the cooling dinner,
                  Night by night
                  Stiff as andirons
                  Masterpieces seen best by candlelight
                  To hide the cracks,
                  Well-meant improvements by
                  Another’s hand.
                  A well-matched pair.
                  A fountain sings but
                  One tune only. It didn’t look this way
                  Proceeding forward.
                  Backward is a different view.
                  I could have sworn that we’d last longer.
                  I caught flak from my mother,
                  Who cast a role in Wuthering Heights;
                  Preaching doom
                  In guise of cheer.
                  All I wanted was
                  Sufficient light
                  To read my tarot; recycled
                  Tea leaves brewed
                  From your used bathwater.
                  The leaves are dank and do not speak.
                  I shiver with cold and you
                  With anger; a
                  Brace of disappointments.
                  Speechless.
                  There’s still too much
                  We can’t admit.

                1. Secrets of the Self – how I became a warrior by Alysse Aallyn

                  The MOON – Influence –

                    In the life of a warrior, Models and Mentors are key. Whose coping mechanisms and vision of reality do you use to sustain you through tough times. When I was young, TV viewing was an event – not an influence. Reading was the most powerful influence, ever since I tackled My Father’s Dragon with its beautiful Henri Rousseau-like illustrations. What could they mean? I was determined to learn to read.

                    I entered books through illustrations, which I puzzled over long and hard. Egyptian tomb paintings. Imaginative depictions of the city of Troy. Nineteenth century pirates battled with Narnians for control of my dreams. I worked my way through world fairy tales and a bowdlerized Thousand and One Nights.

                    On summer vacation we read a book aloud; the Travels of Jamie McPheeters is the one I specially remember – I was horrified by its depiction of Indians eating puppies.

                    Summers we were allowed to buy books to take with us on the boat, and we read each other’s books. That’s how I discovered my sister’s favorite, Nancy Drew, and I was immediately galvanized. Here was literature as aspiration – more intimate than a hero’s tale or an imaginary quest; specifically designed to appeal to the yearnings of an artistically underserved group, it depicted and ennobled a female snoop and an empowered teenager – someone you identify with and actually imagine becoming. Nancy Drew was certainly someone I very much wanted to emulate and in my own small way, I believe I have.

                    I once shocked at group of literati debating what protagonist of literature one would choose to be by saying in was Nancy Drew, hands down. No contest. She’s constantly solving puzzles, having adventures and joyriding with her friends. Although she’s been physically threatened, her bodily autonomy and integrity is never in doubt. Over the years, I haven’t managed as much joyriding as I’d like but I’ve solved a LOT of puzzles, adventured much, and been very lucky.

                    Boss Detective

                    Nobody listens
                    To the teenage girl
                    Or notices her either
                    Pawing through receipts
                    Inspecting medicine cabinets
                    Snooping in the garage –
                    Is that weedkiller
                    Paint thinner or
                    Vanishing cream –
                    Keys to the attic, cellar or
                    Deepest basement of
                    The self?

                  1. Secrets of the Self – how I became a warrior by Alysse Aallyn

                    Dreams & Imagination

                    Children can’t differentiate between what’s real and what’s imaginary. Neither can artists, because Mind Power is the only game in town. Classic Comics put out wonderfully evocative, absorbing versions of Robert Louis Stevenson’s adventures – The Black Arrow, Kidnapped and Treasure Island. His stories have psychological questions about who’s worthy of trust and who’s a victimizer that affect me powerfully to this day.

                    I wrote and illustrated a story – Poor Left Out Harry – that my parents noisily admired and showed to all their friends. Someone sent it to a publisher (we never got it back.) I was very surprised by this because I intended it as a joke and was much more psychologically involved in making up new worlds, copying Narnia, in a complex mapmaking game my sister and I invented called Scrambles & Rocks. But then, as now, Officianados want you to “write what you know”, and as third daughter, I was uncomfortably familiar with being left out of things. I learned if you want to write about what interests YOU, you’re going to have to Resist adult promotion.

                    #Haiku: Re-Cognition

                    Confront
                    Contemptible
                    Quotidian
                    Skewed,
                    Re-Ignite. You’re
                    Welcome

                  2. Secrets of the Self – how I became a warrior by Alysse Aallyn

                    Ambivalence –

                    I like to work but I definitely understand the procrastination people. Is there anything more painful than our efforts never matching our imagination? YES, the horrible realization that all our ideas are BAD. But there’s something even more painful than that – having NO ideas. With such a fraught future awaiting isn’t it better to just exist – even if interminably – on the precipice of Hope? But that way lies FRUSTRATION and that’s the most horrible emotion of all. You’re all blocked up – can’t express yourself. And you know the person blocking you is YOU so there’s self-hatred and hopelessness, too.

                    Let me introduce you to the pleasures of being a Warrior. Warriors aren’t looking for perfection – not only is that impossible – it’s a waste of all this excellent musculature we’ve been training forever and ever. Warriors are about Process ie. Battles. It’s one battle after another, guys. Do Warriors yearn to retire? NO. We want to WIN. We’re going to eliminate that Frustration by finding a way around it. We’re going to educate ourselves about our latest bedevilment and we are going to conquer it.

                    I saw the great mime Marcel Marceau perform his famous piece about escaping a cage. Then he finds a cage outside that and one outside THAT and on and on. That’s life, folks. The way I’ve come to terms with it is by choosing Eternity. If you have Eternity on your side, you can accomplish anything. According to Blaise Pascal (1600’s) all you have to do is compare the benefits of life with Belief (meaning, comfort & hope) to the benefits of life without (you’re not responsible to anyone or for anyone!) Freedom from superstition would be a possible argument if non-believers were actually free from superstition but no one is. Superstition just transmutes itself into a different form, so it probably is endemic to the human brain. Warriors must be free of superstition – we mapmakers glory in Reality.

                    #Haiku: Warrior Courage

                    Terrifying
                    Ascent
                    Leads to
                    Breathtaking view of
                    Eternity