| Lidia Savoderova, Model and Photographer |
I am not impelled to write. I was, some time ago, but now I start writing with some reluctance, because I anticipate lacking the energy to do a good job with it!
So, I go about the usual silly things I do, and if I’m preoccupied with a particular woman, I imagine what sort of person she is, and what she would do, and how she would interact with other people, and what sorts of situations she would find herself in. And sometimes, this leads to a story. Usually a story that doesn’t lead anywhere, but sometimes, it is promising as the loose plot for something that I would write.
Lidia Savoderova was someone I discovered on DeviantArt (DA), a model, and a photographer. I decided that she had one of the most beautiful faces I had ever seen! She could change her face to look like anything from the girl-next-door, replete with freckles, to an elegant model, to a sex-symbol in lingerie, to a tragic character in a melodrama. Until I learned that she was a photographer as well, there wasn't much I could imagine her doing; unlike other writers, I didn't have the imagination to create a story based on a model, because, (never having been a model myself,) I regarded modeling as essentially a passive occupation. In contrast, photography is very much an active and creative occupation. Depending on what drives the photographer, they, in turn, could be inspired by either the prospect of big money, or the beauty of a subject, or the prospect of making real a story in her mind, and so on.
I had already written a fantasy about a photographer, Jane, with a couple of other books loosely related to Jane. (My goodness; I had forgotten all about some Jane stories that I had left hanging …) In the Jane stories, I had created Jane not to be a beauty, initially; if I were to write a photographer story inspired by Lidia Savoderova, it would be quite a different sort of story. Now that it has come up …
The sort of character I would like to write a story around, would be a strong, somewhat driven girl, who nevertheless gets distracted by the needs of the people surrounding her (Helen, Alexandra,) or a girl oppressed by her circumstances, who nevertheless tries to function as a compassionate human being (Prisoner, Jana), or a girl hungry for love, who discovers a heart that returns love and affection (that sounds disgusting in so many ways, but that's pretty much the story of Yraid).
I just realized how narrow the spectrum of thematic inspiration is that I am driven by. However, that’s not to say that the plots do not evolve into quite complex stories; for instance in Alexandra, the story has surprising twists. I had great hesitation about the plot twists in Galactic Voyager, but it just barely holds together, and I’m not going to mess with it. The story of Helen (Helen and Sharon) was the twistiest of all; it evolved without my conscious participation!
Something I struggle with is the entire problem with how girls and women present themselves in today's world. I have very few friends with whom I meet regularly—these days, of course, hardly anyone at all, because I take distancing instructions as seriously as I can. Quite honestly, though I have often been lax about wearing masks and keeping distance, and not coughing in anyone’s face, and so on, it ultimately comes down to luck, or probability, whether the people around me are infectious or not—but there is a wider circle of acquaintances, and there are many interesting types in these circles, who serve as models (not in the art or fashion sense, but in the sense of the origin of a character) for my stories. Remember: I must not only have a central character, who may be just a little glamorous in some way, but also characters who surround and interact with the central character.
Until recently, girls presented themselves as feminine; sometimes submissive and feminine, sometimes feminine, but not at all submissive; sometimes not very feminine, but not aggressive, but quite determined, and so on.
You might recall that I was recently engaged in looking for an avatar to represent me. Being incognito, though, I didn't want to have my avatar being recognizably me; but I also wanted to get away from being represented by a photograph of someone who was not the least bit like me, as had been the case for seven years. (Which may have been the source of the little popularity I do have; something to worry about.) So the goal I set myself, was to start with a photograph of myself, and blend it with a photograph of some other woman, who looked similar, or like other members of my family. (Of course, I would not consider actually using the photographs of family members, for fear of being badly beaten up.)
One of the pictures I considered was that of Lidia S. What I loved most about her were her lips, which are so kissable! And her eyebrows, which are to die for. Another one was Hedy Lamarr, the actress of the 1940's, who had rather an annoyingly highbrow expression when her face was in repose. But I discovered, quite by accident, that one of the actresses under consideration to play Hedy Lamarr in a planned biopic was the woman who played Wonder Woman in the recent movie: Gal Gadot.
Now, Gal Gadot is an interesting person. It is difficult to get a handle on what sort of person Gal Gadot is, from observing her public appearances. (It seems very much as though she is a lighthearted person with a wonderful sense of humor. Watching a story of what Gal Gadot was like on the set of Saturday Night Live as reported by Kate McKinnon makes you crack up.) Thinking of Gal Gadot as playing the role of Hedy Lamarr is thought-provoking. Either Gal Gadot's acting skills will be stretched, and she'll wind up being a fabulous serious actress, or it will be a disaster. Gal Gadot has a huge personality (as Kate McKinnon would confirm), and it is possible to imagine her doing almost anything.
Quite unintentionally, I have described Gal Gadot as being quite charismatic, due to information we get from TV and the movies. The only reason I haven't described Lidia Savoderova in as flattering terms is simply because I have not seen any media coverage of her. I imagine that there might be a lot of coverage in Russian TV,
Kay Hemlock Brown
