Haunted Mirror

Good Writing-Career News:
Someone asked to see more of my poetry, though the one I sent wasn't quite right.
I think I can deal with that.

Because You Always Wanted to Know:
Brahms' Violin Concerto--Music to Mop By!

My Family Now Has a Llama.
There's really no way to expand on that.

I had a thought (which I think is a good one) about revision, about the mechanics of it. My hypothesis:

It requires the same creative synthesis of information to process critiques into a plan to revise as it does to write a story.

The reason I came upon this is in some of my critiques for Knight-Errant, a lot of the same keywords were hit upon, but opposite ideas forwarded as to what needed to be changed. In other words, if I'd simplified the statements down to bullet-points and mathematically set them against each other they would be opposites.

Instead, trying to picture what I could do about the flaws both were trying to express, I came to an image of what both were saying that meant a third suggestion of what I needed to do. It will accomplish the change, though not directly taking what either said.

And that is a process only the writer can do by looking at the advice and seeing the story and superimposing their vision of the story on both and adjusting it until something works.

I think I am complicating a very simple concept, but does anyone else have any thoughts on the hypothesis?

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.

I just realized why too much time can be the death of a story idea. I had thought I was just outgrowing them.
Wrong. A story idea is not grown out of; it's is the germ of a story, and the cool that comes to it in the writing is all that makes it or breaks it. Something patently ridiculous can be treated so well it becomes classic.

No, it's the "dream" of the story. You know how Bear and others talk about the book you wrote, the book you meant to write, the book that others read as three separate entities? The dream is where the story you were going to write is. Then you write something different, and either try to draft it back closer to the dream, or consent to the new construction of it and reshape it accordingly, before opening it to readers. Who then dream out a story that may or may not look much like what you wrote.

Anyway. You can lose the dream before it hits the paper. The story dies.

I hate it when that happens.

Also: people are writing about the novels they've written.

!?*@*?!                  Just what everyone wanted to know about me!!!!!!

My first novel was a project to create a "Pilgrim" American Girl story. With some other homeschooling girls I was trying to become an American Girls Historian. It was almost completed at 5 pages for a long time--a few years later by "parental pressure" I finished it. I thought (and still think) this gesture rather moot, as I'd already proved myself to write to the finish of a good story.

See, I'd moved on quickly. If Gen sold out at 6, I became a hack at 12, a two-year old writer.

Too many people know I'm a writer now.
This is ironic, as it shocks me when people DON'T know.

It's more that people ask if I've gotten published. This is pretty much the wrong question, but they don't know that and it's fine. I just wish I had a different answer for them. Even just, "racked up 60 agent rejections since last year!" Nope, I've got a few poems submitted to magazines. I'm still writing more than I edit.

Anyone else here with me?

I know some people who don't talk about their writing except to other writers because of this. I'm a naturally open person, though. I want people to know my goals and hopes.
I also would like to get a move on with that dratted manuscript. *kisses WD101s boo-boos, to make it all better* No, no, I love you honey, it's just that you're all covered in mud right now...

But hope springs eternal! I'm writing a portion of my new novel out of chronology to try and buff up to submit to a certain YA epic-fantasy edition of a certain favorite magazine of ours...


And I want to read this (my four-day weekends are too short!) :



Love that tag-line. :)

I had one of those awesome days that isn't anything but a string of good incidents which included:

~ sitting in the midafternoon sunshine on a stack of pallets (for scrap wood) with a fluffy cat in my lap and a fun book to write at hand
~ watching a tear-jerker movie in a tiny box and enjoying it
~ getting things done! Like planting spiny poppies.

People need to share more about these kind of days, as a Xanga-keeping friend reminded me.

It's the rants that give people something to comment on, though; noted that in the entries from last April.
So.
Rant for the day...
Why did I hold off on The Game just because it sounded so run-of-the-mill? It's Diana Wynne Jones! She's never doing run-of-the-mill--it's never been one of her faults, and I should have realized it.
This isn't quite the right sort of rant, since I enjoyed it all the better for waiting until it grabbed me off the pile.

I like picking out titles from stories I'm working on. It's not just a gimmick that makes me feel clever (no doubt leaving everyone confused and uninterested: my specialty) but it helps me pick out the writing that conveys the essence of the story in a short bit.

Can you guess anything from today's quote? I'd think so, but I'm not sure.


As for the new project, I have 5 *blinking* pages. Handwritten, with a half-page really.
I really don't know how to write anymore, or I started too soon on this one. I don't know what's wrong with me...

Today, I wanted to write the beginning of a novel.

If you think my day was a disaster by the tone of that statement, I can't oblige you with hilarity of that (or any) sort. It was a very middlish-of-the-road as a housewife sort of day.

Well, the alarms going off at 6, and then 7, 7:30, 8:15, 8:30, etc. were about pending disaster, and quite obnoxious (also nervewracking: severe weather here is to be taken seriously) but I didn't get too cranky over it. It did rather set the tenor of the day.

While Severe Thunderstorm Warning is pealing out from the weather-watch unit in our living-room at almost noon, our neighbor calls to ask if it's heading our way, and would I go up and feed Auntie and make sure she's not worrying about the Ravaging Winds, Lightning, and Flash-flood capable Rains?

Why yes, of course I can do that.

I did, however, turn out an okay dip with leftover oddsbobs at lunch time with an expanded pea-soup (it came out very well: stock is a great thing) and a sweet-potato-pie that looked picture-perfect and tasted delightful.
No marshmallows. That's a redundancy that steals the potato's glory.


I think my wordcount is around 250. Twice that much if you count world-building words. They ought to count. I had just as much of a headache then!

I am really having trouble being productive on my days off. I think it's because I don't have a novel centering them, which is the usual arrangement. I finished the last novel project I'd been concentrating on months ago. I've been focusing on editing since then, and short stories, but it's just not the same.

And still, I'm not to the place I should be on research. Yet because my days aren't centered I find it hard to get around to the reading that I should be doing--it's what I pad the crevices of my days with.

I find vicious circles rather fascinating. They fall in the same category as paradoxes--the conundrum, I guess. Tautology.

I may have something fascinating to say about Alaska, or the Wild Woman, or quilting in a bit, but for now I pulled this quote from "Women Who Run With the Wolves" and think it's rather a gem:

She cannot develop by standing around being everyone's bootjack.

This is in a discussion of the psyche insights of the story about Vasalisa & Baba Yaga & the Doll her mother gave her. It's so far the most fascinating chapter, but I love the way this book lionizes the feminine intuition at large.

Right now, I'm disappointed with myself.

It took me a bit to realize that's what was going on, because I'm unfamiliar with the sensation, at least as a regular thing.

You may imagine, I'm being confronted with the worthlessness of Beastly without even more extensive revisions and I just don't know where I'm going to call up the ability to make it better, when that's all I've been trying to do the last three times I did major edits, and clearly didn't do much good.

But.

It's St. Patricks Day! And there is green! Not just in the cheesecake I made or with the daffodils on the table, but on Google, and random recipe sites and such.

Also, Irish tenors on boats to "No Cats In America".

*Don't mind the desperate tone in here...

There should be a special word for the agony a writer goes through when they realise what that other person is hearing/reading is No Good. Not something funny sounding (enough phrases for that already). Something that sounds excruciating.

In happier news,

I remembered a part I didn't write lyrics for in my Tribute Favorites poem of my last post, so here is what I made up when watering goats today:

Every cold dawn
On a long road
Winding on and on
I remember illusions
That I have loved
And I want to create
Some more!

[The tag...]

These are the sort of things you create and try not to think about what profound throughts you could have been thinking if you'd resisted the urge...
Guess the tributes!       [not really. spare yourself the "What If?" agonies of wasted time.]

Rainbows on bubbles and great winged horses
Snowdays with Tumnus and werewolf keen noses
Gamboling kitsune, sly leprechauns
My favorite illusions, once seen and they're gone

Kings born in exile with old broken sabres
Changelings and deep wells and candles and prayers
Angry steep mountains with snow to hunt dwarves
Mad wives in attics and those fey secret drawers

Time full of wrinkles, impossible heroes
Wrestling with Grendel and magical bureaus
Avatars running from demigod des'ny
My fav'rite illusions are running away with me.

Alphabets forming from thornbush and briars
Phookas that prefer to ride on two tires
Redheads, tea, dragons, elves, shoes, steel, owls, rain
Here let me tell you my favorites again...


Hint: I cheated.

So, this instead of finishing another major edit on Beastly. I will scoping out new guinea pigs predictably later than I like and sooner than is good for you.

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?

I could probably live a long, healthy, content life without ever hearing the word

FLOUNCE

used in a serious* way again.
Honestly, OtherWriterPeople. Flounce. Think about it--pronounce it aloud and cherish the vowels: Flounce!



* Brian Jacques use of it conveyed a snooty volewife's movements rather aptly. It sets my teeth on edge now, but it was not a bad try. But since when was he going for serious, even if he used it unhumorously?

Today I'm working on a stupid little non-speculative story in which a Japanese girl impersonates an emo-boy to get into a band.
    It has no literary merit, and very little plot. I just had to write it.

I'm already doing good on my goals for the year though. I've been working on the PoV sludge after the first few scenes in World Domination 101 both yesterday and today. Next week I tackle actual structure there, condensing the action somewhat.


I didn't manage to post Epochs of 2007    so I need to do that now.

~  fantasy book club at the local library!
~  discover SF/F convention in Tulsa, volunteer
~ invited to writer's group, join      (though I haven't found any of them on LJ yet)
~ accepted to VIABLE PARADISE where I get enough encouragement all the critiques settle in to work through my system

I have a feeling it was a great launching year for my career. I also:
-- Put up a website
-- Sent out my first submission ever
-- Sent it out another place when it was rejected
-- Entered another in a contest
-- Got over a desire to not read more fantasy for a long, long time

I am hugely grateful for all these things coming together.
I did not see anything come together for sales, but my ground-work laying went to another level.

    [this will probably mutate into other posts elsewhere as well--I disseminate myself]
I realized while devouring Patricia McKillip's Ombria in Shadow that I love her fantasy novels like I love Hayao MIYAZAKI's films.

The parallels are in the worldbuilding, but not in the exquisite detail they put into it. Hayao's is primarily visual, as is her's in a way. But both really excel in drawing a place so that you are aware of it's hidden corners and that there are complexities beyond the stage.

They also are good at drawing out a single facet of our reality and looking into it, making it more major so that the whole of the world around it is reflected differently.

Oddly enough, that "facet drawn out" phrase makes me think of Rescuers Down Under, the image of the diamond they're looking for. Apparently that was a stand-out moment. The colors and contrasts were very striking.

With McKillip, having an artist with a uniquely rich vision create her covers is an asset to the experience itself of her book. With Miyazaki, his adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle (while not as perfect as Spirited Away, I think) was a way of putting his lens on a new imagination (Diana Wynne Jones') and drawing out new corners. His inventions to the story are interesting. They do not put tropes back in (like Hollywood adaptations tend to)--they add wider spins. He makes a story with pockets of darkness part of a cosmic struggle where the darkness is overwhelming.

Seeing artwork from the movie (that I've got on my own computer, have for months!) while reading it, I feel the poignancy of what he created out of that story more strongly than from the prose.

This is very roundabout, but in a way, I've been talking about two artist who can bring a new dimension to another work of art by focusing their vision.

In a way all artists do that. We not only contribute to the art lexicon we draw from it. Some more obviously than others, and at different times more completely. Kinuko Y. Craft's Elinor of Aquitane paintings (there are two!) and the ones she's done of Raine and Od and other characters' of McKillip's have a certain focus that gives them meaning beyond some of her generic faerie work, I think. Miyazaki does best drawing on his own Japanese historical roots, vividly painting a piece of Japanese culture--but also at bringing to life and color the Wizard Howl.

What will you draw on to focus your art?
 Or how do your favorite artists hone their vision in?

I wonder if I can't craft weaving plots of complexity because I work on too many things at once? If so, I want to finish Sedition and Vol. 4 at the same time and devote myself to Vol. 5.

Maybe the book will turn up with some significance that way.

I was contemplating the end of Vol. 1 of Aolon, and that the guy don't get the girl. Hmm, I think to myself. Is that a good way to make people read on into the next section?

"But," I reason with myself, "it's never necessary to him to win the girl: I hope I established she wasn't for him... And I'm writing this to break expectations!"

It struck me, that was false. Or it should be. I should write to break my own expectations. I'd never written a story where the guy misses out on the Fascinating Female, and instead gets reFascinated...or so it may imply.

If that's what the point of this is (making myself tell five stories in one, which is actually beyond my skill; writing a tragedy, which is more finessed than I've managed), then it's not such a pretension. Breaking my expectations of the stories I tell is a good thing.

And I don't have to try and be cleverer than the whole genre establishment, doing something utterly new.
If it strikes a few young readers that way, all the better.

You know the scene break is good if you get to the end and think, "Oh, shoot."

Note to Elf: Practice "shoot" scene breaking.

Epiphany courtesy of Mister Monday (Garth Nix)~Chapter Four