anachred

More Writing Philosophy from Unusual Sources

I think I'm condensing a few different statements into one idea (so I can't find the quote) but in Michael Shurtleff's Audition, he talks about when you're working with a partner who isn't working with you.

This, he says, is valuable, because the harder you have to fight to get across, the stronger the impression.


For me, this immediately clicked into writing terms. The harder the character is fighting toward or away from something, the higher the tension and drama and...ROMANCE.
(again, not in terms of love romance, but narrative romance.)

This made me go back to work on a story in the Aolon book, because of all the stories I've written, that one is tight with that fighting tension.

Maevidh's mother was angry—she could still feel it in her chest, though she had even left the city. She gritted her teeth.

I Need to Remember...

Maevidh is heir to a witch-queen. She has grown up fighting her mother--they are in each others' minds.*
She has grown up fighting physically, because they are warrior-witches.

At the start of the story, she's fighting off a soldier who claims he volunteered to be her guard, when she suspects he is a spy for her mother or someone else. She is also going to break a treaty with an empire they fought for 60 years only a few decades ago. Agents of the diplomat she both loves and hates are on the hunt for her, and even if she succeeds, she can look forward to being anathematized. Of course, she also fights herself.

It may verge into melodrama at points, but that can be fixed with a little pruning. 
The idea that the more distance there is, the harder a character will fight to get closer has clarified why this story interests me every time I look at it, though the sentences hurt. She's surrounded by people she's fighting.

In the other stories of this book, this is true as well, though not to the same extent. Not just their enemies, but the ones they want to love, and they are fighting.

I need to think about this, and try to approach stories that way again. ...Without the labyrinthine grammar.


*I think i'll need to punch up this element of horror, but I'm pretty proud of the idea as it is...



This is Balthier, my latest spinning project. He and Maevidh may have a bit in common, really...

m_stiefvater   has a great post on why reading YA is in no way a "teens only" domain: The Relevance of YA to Non-Teens

(Maggie's book Shiver, sequel to Lament, debuted at #9 on the NYT Bestseller List this week, fyi.)

She pretty much sums up why I avoid most "normal" (adult-geared) fiction, and embrace even good picture books in my reading diet. And articulates it better than I have been able to so far.


...I mean, the "why" besides the obvious fetish for toy cars and Wonka-type worlds.




Speaking of bright colors...
I'm writing a synopsis for Poisson today. I like writing them, even though they tend to emerge at a snail's pace.

One of the short-list agents requires them, and there's another who may. So. I'm not quite ready to ship pieces of my heart into the wide world just yet.

Also colorful, look at what I got in my Ravelry "Folklore and Fairytales" group swap:


The roving and book are both more awesome than they look. You'll hear more from me later...

My mother wears glasses. I have a fuzzy memory of realizing she looked different, and kind of strange to me, without them on at a very young age. I wasn't tiny, though, since I was becoming observant of that kind of thing

But apparently not too observant.


I assumed until a few days ago that she saw just fine while she was wearing her glasses.

Now, recently she had to update her prescription, so I knew that she didn't always see wonderfully even when the glasses were on.
My dad (and brother) don't like her to drive at night. Another clue.

It had never once occurred to me, though, when I found dishes that were still a little dirty, or places that were terribly dusty, getting annoyed they never got cleaned, that she might not be able to...see them.



...Am I blind or what?

I don't think I have much to contribute to the current debate on white-washing of covers or movies or Blog Against Racism Week.
But here's a collection of books I picked up because the person on the cover is *not* white.

Amusingly, Un Lun Dun's heroine is, as far as I can tell, Anglo--the cover fooled me. And I picked it up for that reason. So I'm telling on myself here...

(Above is fantasy, below is YA.)

I'm sad about a few things right now...
genuinely sad in little ways, not depressed.
It's odd to be used to mild depression and have to think, to recognize sadness. We don't respect sadness as a culture. That's twisted.


I am sad.
A professor with a huge influence over me, and my best friends, and my mother and people who never heard his name died the other day.
He has thrown off a lot of suffering in body, but also took with him a brilliant mind, sparklingly clear and acute to the end.
We miss him.

I am sad.
My friend Justice, who is tiny but still a person, and one I love very much, is not going to be with me every day anymore. A more convenient babysitter has come up. I may be needed to fill in, it may be it stops working out.
But I know enough of saying goodbye to not deny that I will miss him.

I am sad:
I have discovered a wound, and though it is old, I am feeling the hurt for myself back then. I am stitching my scar-coat with honest tears that don't burn so much if I don't try to push them back.

And I am allowed to be sad.
You are, too.



And, I am *not* sorry if I am embarrassing you. You're allowed to be embarrassed as much as sad. And I will not feel guilty for it.
If, however, you need some other way to relate to me, I wrote a much less maudlin poem the other day open for critique:
My Almost-Functional Steam Engine Mind

"But since the club president is now lying down due to culture shock, would you mind coming back next time?" ~ Ouran High School Host Club


o h m y g o s h, this is the silliest thing I have enjoyed in a long time. Making me laugh aloud. (I mean, the manga moments that make me laugh are generally silly, but this *whole thing* is so silly.)


This is going into my arsenal.

Since the president is in bed with culture shock...
You know. A lot of countries would be better off if their presidents were more susceptible to culture shock, really...


( ETA: Very Important Exhibits )

If you are smart, you will go read this post on being the Other:

I Didn't Dream of Dragons

And then you will read at least the first few comments.

A profoundly sad, mind-opening essay on trying to write your own world when all you've read is White stories.

{I wonder if we still feel this in America, what it was like to have all you could read (of any good) being English stories?
But that's not the point.}

Read this. It is something we need to understand.

I've always been a bit distanced by descriptions of "post-novel ennui" per The Gilded Harp and Elizabeth Bear's blogging. For her, once finished with a novel draft, there is nothing left. She needs to wait to be full again, to let the next thing simmer.

I just realized what mine looks like. That makes me think it is, indeed a state for other writers to watch for in their process, too.
I fiddle.
A little of this project. A gush of new ideas, none really ready to be started. (I always let ideas sit in a journal for some time before starting on them. How long depends on how long it takes me to being Jones-ing for the actual writing of it.) A little of writing on that one.

Then after a while, a week or so maybe, I am struck with the need to write This Certain Project. Sometimes it needs a little pre-writing work still. Other times that's something I've been fiddling through and have almost finished.

Anyway, the past fortnight I've written the openings for two stories, prodded at a couple more, and done A Lot of spinning. And rolling over cool word combinations in my head. Like titles for the cool colored skeins I'm working on. Not kidding--I rolled into bed saying the phrase "Ice Dreams" over and over to myself.
The idea of most chagrin right now is My Vamp Rendition.
I didn't want to write a vampire story.
Vampires are so over, they squick, the cool ones are all cliches, et cetera, et cetera.

I have a dreadful feeling this will The Certain Project I will latch onto.
I'd much rather it was The Return of Mr. Birch.
Time to go read more Pride and Prejudice...

My Boss to Me, yesterday: There is hope for America! Slim chance, but there is hope!

Me, inside my own head, as I am "discreet": Sorry. There really isn't.

Obama, Palin, Elvis, The Return of Arthur (yeah, that's for England, I know), it doesn't matter. The problems are all the way through the system and it will not be remedied by anything but...well. Not good intentions.
History doesn't work that way. There is hope for every person and community (not town, understand, but human community group) and there is a lot still that can be managed in the shadow of a great economic civilization's demise.
But that's what we have here. The economic civilization of the good ole US of A is probably over.

If you're thinking this came out of nowhere for me, book-blogger and fantasy scribbler...well, I've been stewing a long time. I think about stuff like this all the time, I just haven't blogged it yet.

I am looking forward, somewhat to see what culture develops to be the Titan in the world next. It probably won't run on jets and diesel trucks. Will it build a spider's web of trains and tunnels? Will there be ballooning? I don't know.

But the future is coming, and the future isn't America. Not like we think of it, at least.


Calm disagreements and discussion are welcome, but note *priggish tone creeps in* there was no finger-pointing in my post or polemic/hysteria/sensationalism. Go and do likewise.

Cat Note:
Yesterday, Bagheera-My-Work-Cat and I were coming downstairs after I disappointed him over something (I filled his foodbowl! What more could he want? I think he finds me emotionally absent...but kid, I have to work. Would I rather pet him that tweak that Publisher document yet again? Wouldn't I?)
Anyway, tangent indulged: we were coming downstairs and our footsteps were in sync.
It was so bizarre.
His legs are three inches long and he has four of them. How come they matched up, even if he was double-time?

Global Nomad Note:
On a totally separate subject, I have moved around a lot. Still averaging under 3 years to a place. I occasionally have flashes of insight into the wreckage of my lifestyle because of this. My most recent one was to think: Hmm. I could buy an umbrella. To have one. That's something people have so they can use it.

I had an umbrella, like...four years ago. In Japan they sell what amounts to disposable umbrellas in every convenience store because monsoon season isn't traumatic there, but it is not joke, either. water, mighty, gushing from the sky kind of weather. Non-stop. For weeks.
But anyway. Sometimes I realize I don't have something really kind of basic in my life because I left it behind in whichever move it was.
So I bought a desk a few weeks ago. I was all nervous and everything.
And sometime soon, I'm going to lay hands on an umbrella.

Self-Discovery Note:
And apparently I lisp slightly. My mom mentioned it today, and I was a bit confounded. I'd never noticed.
That might of been part of that thing where my aunts and uncles would say to me "Stop talking like a baby." Really, one aunt, and someone else who picked up on it, I think.
Though I was probably not even 8 years old. That's kinda mean, if you know what I'm saying--I WAS a baby. I didn't have any idea what they were talking about. And it may be part of why I talk below my natural speaking tone a lot of the time...

I'm probably really not traumatized.
I mean, not by the "talking like a baby thing". The umbrella factor is still a problem. Some day I'm going to wake up and find that I haven't had a bed in 5 years, or something. Worse: a BOOK.

Boring Writer Notes:

Really... My littlest brother is playing my Lord of the Rings fan-music. This would be more surreal if someone hadn't REQUESTED one of the songs during a visit a little while ago.
I'm two 9 year-old-boys favorite band. Awesome Points: 100!
If we're talking for a MG writer...

I was thinking about the resurgence of the Gothic themes (in urban fantasy particularly) is interesting, and how children's literature has gone back even closer to it's forebears in terms of Gothic plotting and setting (Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos, Lemony Snickett, Flora Segunda).

The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, both could fit right into that reading list...what's more, right into the cover art:
  
(Okay, thinking about Flora Segunda makes me thrilled with the Dandies in Kilts idea all over again. Some people are so imaginative...)

Which made me realize the only big difference is the sense of madcap humor, the self-deprecation in it. In popular literature now that's kind of the unique thing to our era, don't you think? The Gothic novels were very self-serious (except for Northanger Abbey--that book deserves so much more admiration). The sarcasm of Urban Fantasy is overplayed, but really one of it's great draws.

I might cross-post this to urbanfantasyfan as a book-thinky post. To try and encourage them to be interesting...
But as hardly anyone ever answers there, tell me:

Is Self-Deprecation Humor a unique asset to our "post-modern" literature?

You may blame this speculation on reading Coyote Dreams and Heart of Stone (mizkit) successively in less than 42 hours, and much less open-brain-space.

One of the things about the existential economy of the internet is that the currency is not only intangible, it's redistribution of wealth is fairly arbitrary.

Only if you are really subscriber-rich (think Boing-Boing, a niche blogger like Miss Snark was) is your referral sure to make a difference to the referee.

There's always the Black Swan affect, though, like with the Numa Numa video on YouTube that became a phenomenon. And so we strive...


I told you I wanted to image blog, right?
Well, for starters, here's something that's bugging me:


This is a new permanent fixture of our keyboard. A mic-ing contraption that protrudes over the ivories I rarely deign to tickle and now will have more reason to neglect. Except I'm appalled at how slow my fingers have gotten (a problem that doesn't translate in your favor to a slow typing reflex) and have determined to work on a Ludovico Einaudi song (Le Onde) until I don't feel like a waste of opposable thumbs.

From a distance, this bent-pipe and foam-padded contraption has a certain urban grunge appeal, I'll admit. When trying to play an instrumental piece, though, it has a certain suicide-pact appeal...

Now I must go back and link the life out my text for the sake of the people...
Oh. Don't forget Dr. Horrible! Here's the First Act, up for a limited time only!

One of those hazy "the real world as spec fic" realizations came to me yesterday. It had something to do with the way icon-making is an internet swap-meet (appropriately derivative and grass-roots), and the way Cory Doctorow talked about the unweildiness of copyright laws as they stand being applied to the Internet and electric media. The inciting thing I think was seeing a welcome to fellow bloggers to link back to an announcement about a new magazine.

Thesis:
The Internet's Natural Economy is Existential

Rather than demand a currency, trade seems to be done in name-credit, high reader numbers forming a particular sort of wealth, a relativistic commodity.
Acknowledging the icon maker, linking back to the inspiration, exchanging funny YouTube videos becomes the accepted form of currency.

This is something that young people who have been initiated into MySpace, the IM culture, and forum politics navigate differently, more aptly than others don't.
I know of a guy, a teacher, who has great stuff to say and started to blog, but who I've never seen comment on someone else's. His missing a key part of being in the blogging world. He gets comments because he has loyal students (like me) who never get comments back but are too emo over their own lack of comments to stiff someone else.

What this means I don't know.

What do you say? Arguments? Further Evidence?

Personally, I've been wanting to use more images in my blogging, because I love some of the arts blogs that have three pretty photos in each post...

There may be more in the wings on this, I'd really love to dialogue about it.

I've started a poetry journal, since I seem to be pursuing a career as a poet (funny how these things can creep up on you).

If you want to see it, friend gossamer_spun

I'll love to have critique, since I'm not doing too well finding people who WILL critique my poetry, even where critique is the norm.
[Now I shall know who my true friends are, won't I? ha-haha-haha!]

And Now:

Essays on the Wild Woman—The Ugly Duckling and La Mariposa

 

I went to Eureka Springs with my family yesterday. That was fun, and the place is lovely. I'd love to go with people who shop, and also some sort of expendable cash.

But the real highlight of this trip for me is going to be Pea Ridge, a Civil War historic national park, a totally unexpected sort of thing.

I find the Civil War depressing--reading a book about the overarching politics and basic history was enough for me to feel informed on the issue. Delving into the atrocities and such is not appealing to me. This trip was more than an expedition into forest trails and coming across a great abrupt bluff with spars of rock spearing up below. I read the meatier information blurbs avidly, listened to Mr. Docent when he went into the more fascinating branches carefully.

Someone, I think at a Conestoga panel, mentioned that if you want to learn about war, read up on specific battles. They mentioned a few they thought were noteworthy, but I don't write epic fantasy (*much*) and didn't think more of it.

Until watching the video of the battle here (which in a few ways, including scale is a significant one) then driving and looking out over the actual area and putting a picture together in my mind that was so compelling and new of what it looked like to fight a war.

Generalizations are the bane of Truth, you know it?
And specifics are awesome.

After a month of being stopped on World Domination 101 revision, a little judicial reading seems to have stewed up the right conditions for Idea to spring forth.

It's funny how exposure isn't enough--there has to be that letting-it-sit period. At least for me. This time it felt especially slow since I wanted to have a monthly pace, of tackling aspects thoroughly and getting it done quick as I could.
I get that feeling right now, anyway, of needing the right intersection of input to get the right vantage on it. Queen's Play resurrected my thoughts on the culture-conflict lacking in Outlander, and introduced to me the fact that what I'd thought about on that wasn't in the manuscript.

Who knows? Maybe I wouldn't have been able to write this story I'm working on now the right way if I hadn't heard the song Unwinding Cable Car.
This train of thought often gives me philosophical heebie-jeebies, but I accept it.

Got anything particular in your soundtrack to writing now?

[gettin' mileage outta this feature]
Religion:

I have a very mystic worldview, and that affects both the magic I establish and the religions that come into play.
I try to be intentional about all my religious systems, because it has been far too easy to just let things slide. Being intentional about everything, really, is the lesson I’m learning as I mature as a writer. (I hope.)
The set-up of the worlds I put together is based on the way I perceive reality. I can handle that. Playing with the way I perceive reality is a good character exercise! As well as anthro practice, which I really enjoy—the whole perceiving another’s reality thing is big for me since I was immersed in Japanese culture as a teen (talk about cultural perceptions being exploded).
Symbolism is big; but in the culture I’m crafting right now, I’m trying to redefine everything I can, I want to know it so well, it will immerse the reader in the foreign, and yet be clear to them. Dogs are evil, snakes are grace symbols. Afo (cat-sized deer) are intelligent pets. They even helped with the city mail distribution for a few years!
Magic not only has to make sense to me, I have to really deliberate it, or it doesn’t happen. I’m way to pragmatic for this fantasy thing, I sometimes think.... In my current story, I want to show a shift in societal attitudes. In the more village-centric culture, the supernatural being called upon to happen is normal. In the queens’ hierarchy, a schooled talent for manipulating material things is the art that is encouraged (and in the artistic community, an outbreak of more natural talents that infuse power into handiwork is key to the revival of more grass-roots power). In the technological world, those in touch with the mystical affect things around them without a clear idea of how they are doing it, sometimes without knowledge that they are.
In my recently finished (1st draft finished, that is) folk fantasy, the only magic is the transformation of humans into animal shapes to fight spirits. That’s more like what my undeliberated magic turns to. I’m trying to grow, though. Someday I’ll have this down, and mages will hit the generator....
And then we have the superheroes, who are not at all explained. They just blow things up.
(Actually, I have yet to see anything blow up. I must rectify this error, or Miss Snark will have my _..._ posterior.)

Location...the Why of the Where
I put everything I have into what I’m working on at the moment. Granted, there is always more than one story in development, more than a few being written out; sometimes something won’t fit where I put it. Sometimes I have to scrub something that did, because something fit better with what I was trying to do. [i.e.: really original fantasy! Set in...Ireland? Oh. Well, those sketches were cool, but I think the Amazon Basin is really more appropriate considering your claims of trying for originality. ]
However, my imagination is generally funneled in one direction, and so I’m picking things out of my surroundings (be they magazine pictures, non-fiction articles, backways in the car) that I think can go with the basic concept, and then the other details I’ve picked out. I’m being much more intentional about this in my “currently conceptualizing” project. I am looking for a very specific ambience. One that can hold the character of the past I’ve given it’s country, one that can bring out the nature of the personalities I’m peopling it with, and one that can be fun enough to explore people will want to get lost there.
Short order, see.
In other words, how the heck do we do this, anyway?
There have been certain times I loved being in the city. Under the amber of streetlights, in the murk of blaring signs, the wide sidewalks unpeopled at (unholy) late hours, the whir and stream of the passing taxi. I’ve never actually lived in a capital-like city, though, so I don’t know how well that experience will translate. I lived on a campus in Pasadena, and a fairly important backwater city in Japan...and this place, the central city, was where the stories I was binding together could meet each other. All in different social times, all in varying layers of society, but bound together by the character of a country symbolized by the city.
The city has to carry a lot. It deserves a lot of attention, even if I don’t really know what I’m about.