I've been on a one post a week thing lately, which while consistent, it is also a bit on the low side for a blog. So I am posting today (two whole days before the one week mark!) with a posting that what it lacks in having a main thesis or idea, makes it up in having lots and lots of links! That's right - it's time for another blonk.
Today's blonk, in keeping with this blog's overall writing theme and in honor of my own made-up term of "blonking", begins with looking at the beauty of sniglets - which is a made-up word to describe other made-up words that should appear in the dictionary, but don't.
Part of writing is having fun with langauge, and sometimes when you are in the middle of a scene and suddenly you can't think of that word you just need for your sentence, and bits of the word keep floating up in your mind, but when you try to grab them it is like trying to catch dust motes wafting through sunlight - well, then it doesn't seem like much fun. That's the beauty of sniglets - they're just a silly good time. Some of my favorites include:
Arachnidiot (ar ak ni' di ot) - n. A person, who, having wandered into an "invisible" spider web, begins gyrating and flailing about wildly. (The porch off my apartment is a spider resort. Every night I can look out and see them sipping at their dead-fly daquiries, and come the morning when I have to go out and water my plants - the wild flailing inevitably begins.)
Brattled (brat' uld) - adj. The unsettling feeling, at a stoplight, that the busload of kids that just pulled up beside you is making fun of you. (I rode the bus until midway through high school and can actually not remember one incidence of noticing any other cars on the road at all - unless they contained other students that someone knew. Nonetheless, I do still get brattled, probably because I remember those brats on the bus so well...)
Oreosis (awr ee oh' sis) - n. The practice of eating the cream center of an Oreo before eating the cookie outsides. (Okay, this one is more of an "awww" cause my son does this - I think it just must be a human instinct thing.)
My other blonk has to do with the age-old debate over what to call insanely sugary carbonated beverages, and awesomely enough has been captured in map form. Now I grew up in a household and area that were clearly pro-pop. That place is Buffalo, NY and we pronounced the word "pop" like we say most things - through our noses. For some reason in my early college years, I decided it was more cool, mature, and/or cosmopolitan to refer to it as soda, and have continued to do so until this past summer when I was visiting my family and heard my mom ask me, my sisters, my son, my nieces, everyone else about a hundred times if they wanted any pop. And for some reason when I returned home, it stuck in my head, and now when I open my mouth to say soda, the word pop comes out instead. I am sure this says something very revealing about me... but I'm not quite sure what exactly that is.
Okay, that's all of my blonks for today, but I am adding another element to these free-form posts called Read this NOW!
This new section was inspired by my former post of the same name. I was going to call it recommended reading, but that sounds too laid back for the books that I want to talk about which are ones that have grabbed me from the first page and refused to let go until I finished the entire book - sometimes only hours later. These are the type of books that if I got them from the library, I want to own them, so that I can read them again and again. These are also the books I want everyone I meet to read, so they can feel what I feel - just don't expect me to lend you my new copy - I am a book grinch.
The first book in Read this NOW! is an older one - Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. Talk about grabbing me from the first page - It was probably almost ten years ago, but I can still remember with perfect clarity the exact place I was standing in the bookstore (that is now closed) and the display of paperback books that Angela's Ashes was sitting among. This was at a time when I had no interest in reading anything other than fiction, but when I picked up the book and read the first paragraph I was converted - instantly and irrevocably. Since then the world of non-fiction has opened up to me, and I have a much richer reading life because of it - but Angela's Ashes started it all. If you haven't read it - at least follow the amazon link above and read that first page and see if it hits you as hard as it did me... Read it NOW!
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Ask Me Again Later
Oh no. That was my first response when I read the topic question for our newest writing blog chain over at H.L. Dyer's Weblog. Oh no, was followed by some head scratching, and then as no brilliant ideas came to me - there was only dread. As if things couldn't get worse Michelle McLean, the next person on the chain, wrote an enthusiastic and well thought out response to the question.
And now it is my turn. Oh no.
What is this question that has been causing me such pains? Well, here it is:
How do you as an author choose or create your story-world and give that setting authenticity?
Now don't get me wrong I am not saying that this isn't a great question for writers to discuss, or that I am uninterested in the answers. No, no, no. My problem is that I, as a writer, should be able to answer that question... and I cannot.
This is not to say that my stories all take place on a generic black box stage, devoid of anything that might give some clue as to time or place. Quite the contrary. In fact my characters are often one place or another, or in transit to someplace else, until they get where they are going.
And that wonderfully vague sentence right there is the crux of my problem. Although I know the rule of good writing is specificity, often when it comes to setting I try to wriggle by with generalities.
You might be amazed at how well this has often worked out for me... except, of course, when it doesn't. Unfortunately for me my current WIP is proving to be one of those times when I am finding it difficult to let the story-world create itself as I go. While my first novel was a contemporary romance requiring little in the way of research, my latest WIP is more of an urban fantasy with lots of weird things happening. It's been really fun to write... that is until I have to come up with an explanation for the weird happenings.
Like my previous post on plotting, I am finding that I have to take a time-out and answer the questions that are being raised. And again like plotting this is not what I would call the "fun" part of writing. I would compare it to the way I feel about doing housework - it is not something I enjoy, but it must be done because I do not want to live in the midst of a nasty stinky mess. Similarly, I don't want my characters to live in a messy unkempt world either.
None of this, however, answers the question of how I create my story-world - because I really haven't done it yet - at least, not the way that I intend to. What I can do is get back to the business of choosing, creating, and hopefully creating some sense of authenticity and when I'm done I will do my utmost to remember exactly how I did it so that A. I can do it again and B. I can tell you all about it.
You can also bet that I'll be reading the rest of the entries in this blog chain with great interest, and no doubt learning a thing or two from my fellow chain-gangers. Follow me to the next post over at Archetype Writing.
And now it is my turn. Oh no.
What is this question that has been causing me such pains? Well, here it is:
How do you as an author choose or create your story-world and give that setting authenticity?
Now don't get me wrong I am not saying that this isn't a great question for writers to discuss, or that I am uninterested in the answers. No, no, no. My problem is that I, as a writer, should be able to answer that question... and I cannot.
This is not to say that my stories all take place on a generic black box stage, devoid of anything that might give some clue as to time or place. Quite the contrary. In fact my characters are often one place or another, or in transit to someplace else, until they get where they are going.
And that wonderfully vague sentence right there is the crux of my problem. Although I know the rule of good writing is specificity, often when it comes to setting I try to wriggle by with generalities.
You might be amazed at how well this has often worked out for me... except, of course, when it doesn't. Unfortunately for me my current WIP is proving to be one of those times when I am finding it difficult to let the story-world create itself as I go. While my first novel was a contemporary romance requiring little in the way of research, my latest WIP is more of an urban fantasy with lots of weird things happening. It's been really fun to write... that is until I have to come up with an explanation for the weird happenings.
Like my previous post on plotting, I am finding that I have to take a time-out and answer the questions that are being raised. And again like plotting this is not what I would call the "fun" part of writing. I would compare it to the way I feel about doing housework - it is not something I enjoy, but it must be done because I do not want to live in the midst of a nasty stinky mess. Similarly, I don't want my characters to live in a messy unkempt world either.
None of this, however, answers the question of how I create my story-world - because I really haven't done it yet - at least, not the way that I intend to. What I can do is get back to the business of choosing, creating, and hopefully creating some sense of authenticity and when I'm done I will do my utmost to remember exactly how I did it so that A. I can do it again and B. I can tell you all about it.
You can also bet that I'll be reading the rest of the entries in this blog chain with great interest, and no doubt learning a thing or two from my fellow chain-gangers. Follow me to the next post over at Archetype Writing.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Plotting Away
In my next life I'd like to come back as a supervillian, that way when I post on my blog that I am plotting it can be followed by a hearty "Mwah, ha, HA!" Unfortunately, I am just a lowly writer trying to put the pieces of another book together and so when I say I am plotting it is usually only followed by a pathetic sigh, or if I am feeling especially sorry for myself, perhaps a whiny little, "eeennnghhh."
Why does plotting make me whine and sigh? Because for me it is the part of writing that is just not much fun. And by fun, I mean - easy. Coming up with characters is fun (and easy). Finding that first inciting incident is fun (and not as easy, but I don't break a sweat). Right there I've got the first twenty pages of a novel, but without plot it ends right there. This is why I have the beginning of several novels in notebooks and on the hard drive of my computer going all the way back to high school.
So starting novels is easy, but finishing them is hard - I know this because I have done it once. And having done it I can say, that like most things that are not easy (and not always fun) it was a bazillion times more satisfying writing the words "the end" instead of "once upon a time." Now having done it once, I want to do it again and again and again. Only problem is that I need a plot to get me there.
I actually managed to get 60 pages into my current WIP by just muscling my way through and having no clear idea of where I was going and only a hazy sense of my final destination. This meant I spent a lot of time stopping and staring at my computer screen wondering where to go next. It wasn't exactly time efficient. Plus I kept having all these questions pop-up that I didn't have answers to, and I kept telling the questions I would get to them later, although I didn't even know what came later.
It became clear that I needed a better idea of where my story was going, what is was about, and maybe have the ability to answer all those questions I was raising. Unfortunately, I wasn't exactly sure how to go about this. I thought that having written one complete novel, I would just write the next one in the same way (you can read more about that here.) Since that didn't seem to be working out I turned to my good old friend Google to see if it could help me out.
You see I was pretty certain that there was a trick that perhaps not everbody knew, but certainly a few people must know it and, of course, one of those people must have posted it on the internet somewhere. Believing all this I was determined to find that elusive secret. In looking I came across some good stuff.
This was pretty good and she definitely got the emotional states part right.
This snowflake method thing didn't really work for me, but it raised some good questions and got me thinking in the right direction.
And I was pretty certain when I found Holly Lisle's website that I had hit paydirt. It was extensive and I was certain it had the answer I was looking for. I even found this and went through all the exercises at the end of which... I still did not have a plot.
That's when I did the unthinkable - I turned away from the computer and instead flipped open a big fat notebook (that I just happen to own for this express purpose) to an empty page and decided to first address all those questions I had dug up while writing my first sixty pages. There were a lot of them - I filled about two pages. Then as I struggled to answer them something funny happened. I had to look deeper into who my characters were and I had to come up with things to happen in the novel to answer the questions and suddenly my characters were motivated and instead of acting like a bunch of kids cooped up inside on a rainy day whining that there was nothing to do - they were totally entertaining themselves. My characters were plotting.
Now this is the part where I should write, "And after that it was easy. The plot flowed like water and I never again spent a night tossing and turning instead of sleeping as I was tortured by the idea that I might never complete a novel again." Except it didn't go that way and I will probably always be a person who is part of Ambien's target demographic (although I haven't yet used any prescription sleep aids and have no intention of doing so anytime in the near future.).
What did happen is I sat back down at the computer and read through the sixty pages I had so far, just to remind myself of where I had been and to decide how much I could keep. Having answered some of those pesky questions I had to make some changes, but most of it was working out all right. Then I could avoid it no longer. I opened a new word doc and made a rough estimate of how many chapters I would need based on the chapter lengths of what I had already written and I started plotting.
It was not fun. It was not easy. And I am only half done. However, when it's over I will have a very rough (like caveman drawings of roughness) map of where my story goes, and most importantly I will know exactly where to place the words "the end" when I get to them once again. And I will get to them. Oh, yeah, watch "the end", cause I'm coming for you.
Why does plotting make me whine and sigh? Because for me it is the part of writing that is just not much fun. And by fun, I mean - easy. Coming up with characters is fun (and easy). Finding that first inciting incident is fun (and not as easy, but I don't break a sweat). Right there I've got the first twenty pages of a novel, but without plot it ends right there. This is why I have the beginning of several novels in notebooks and on the hard drive of my computer going all the way back to high school.
So starting novels is easy, but finishing them is hard - I know this because I have done it once. And having done it I can say, that like most things that are not easy (and not always fun) it was a bazillion times more satisfying writing the words "the end" instead of "once upon a time." Now having done it once, I want to do it again and again and again. Only problem is that I need a plot to get me there.
I actually managed to get 60 pages into my current WIP by just muscling my way through and having no clear idea of where I was going and only a hazy sense of my final destination. This meant I spent a lot of time stopping and staring at my computer screen wondering where to go next. It wasn't exactly time efficient. Plus I kept having all these questions pop-up that I didn't have answers to, and I kept telling the questions I would get to them later, although I didn't even know what came later.
It became clear that I needed a better idea of where my story was going, what is was about, and maybe have the ability to answer all those questions I was raising. Unfortunately, I wasn't exactly sure how to go about this. I thought that having written one complete novel, I would just write the next one in the same way (you can read more about that here.) Since that didn't seem to be working out I turned to my good old friend Google to see if it could help me out.
You see I was pretty certain that there was a trick that perhaps not everbody knew, but certainly a few people must know it and, of course, one of those people must have posted it on the internet somewhere. Believing all this I was determined to find that elusive secret. In looking I came across some good stuff.
This was pretty good and she definitely got the emotional states part right.
This snowflake method thing didn't really work for me, but it raised some good questions and got me thinking in the right direction.
And I was pretty certain when I found Holly Lisle's website that I had hit paydirt. It was extensive and I was certain it had the answer I was looking for. I even found this and went through all the exercises at the end of which... I still did not have a plot.
That's when I did the unthinkable - I turned away from the computer and instead flipped open a big fat notebook (that I just happen to own for this express purpose) to an empty page and decided to first address all those questions I had dug up while writing my first sixty pages. There were a lot of them - I filled about two pages. Then as I struggled to answer them something funny happened. I had to look deeper into who my characters were and I had to come up with things to happen in the novel to answer the questions and suddenly my characters were motivated and instead of acting like a bunch of kids cooped up inside on a rainy day whining that there was nothing to do - they were totally entertaining themselves. My characters were plotting.
Now this is the part where I should write, "And after that it was easy. The plot flowed like water and I never again spent a night tossing and turning instead of sleeping as I was tortured by the idea that I might never complete a novel again." Except it didn't go that way and I will probably always be a person who is part of Ambien's target demographic (although I haven't yet used any prescription sleep aids and have no intention of doing so anytime in the near future.).
What did happen is I sat back down at the computer and read through the sixty pages I had so far, just to remind myself of where I had been and to decide how much I could keep. Having answered some of those pesky questions I had to make some changes, but most of it was working out all right. Then I could avoid it no longer. I opened a new word doc and made a rough estimate of how many chapters I would need based on the chapter lengths of what I had already written and I started plotting.
It was not fun. It was not easy. And I am only half done. However, when it's over I will have a very rough (like caveman drawings of roughness) map of where my story goes, and most importantly I will know exactly where to place the words "the end" when I get to them once again. And I will get to them. Oh, yeah, watch "the end", cause I'm coming for you.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Getting Into Character
It's time for another blog chain posting and once again I am following the fabulous Mary Lindsey. The question this time around is a two parter: Are your characters real people to you? And how much do you really know about them?
I'll start with the first question - but I am going to change it a bit to make it the more general - Are fictional characters real? The answer to that is unequivocally - yes.
It is this belief that made me as a child always turn of the Flintstones before the end sequence when poor Fred gets locked out of the house and bangs on the door, yelling, "WILMA!" I don't know why, I just felt so bad for poor Fred always getting locked out (and don't even get me started on the cereal commercials where Barney is always taking his cocoa pebbles) of his own house - that I couldn't stand to watch it.
It is this belief that will also forever make me sigh sadly when I think back on the cancellation of My So Called Life and how I will never know how things turned out between Angela and Jordan Catalano.
And it is this belief that makes it impossible for me to watch horror movies because even with squeezing my eyes shut and chanting the mantra, "it's not real, it's just a movie" I still get so freaked out that I even once screamed out loud in the middle of a crowded movie theatre. As if this wasn't bad enough the bad guys inevitably follow me home and I spend the next several days unable to go into a room without checking under beds and in closets to make sure the bad guys aren't there. Sigh, my poor baby boy, when he becomes old enough to worry about the boogie man, instead of reassuring him, I'll be right there trembling beside him.
These examples are from movies and television, but characters come alive in books as well. How else to explain the fury a bad book adaption can ignite or even the recent backlash against Meyer's Breaking Dawn?
So, yes fictional characters are very real to me, but what about my own? That answer is a bit more difficult. While I strive to understand my characters real motivations and figure out who they are it is difficult to feel that they are as truly "real" when I have given them sex-changes, killed their children, and changed their entire past, present, and future with a click of the mouse.
That isn't to say it's all evil calculation in my Frankenstein writing laboratory. When I'm plotting, thinking about character arcs, and re-writing I am in analytical brain mode and at that point my characters are just pawns - however, it is when I am sitting and writing the actual story that my characters will do or say something unexpected and then for a small flash they are real - they are aaalllliiiivvveee (as Leah would say)!!! It is during these moments that I truly get to know my characters.
And to answer the 2nd question - how much I know about my characters really depends upon how many of these moments I have. It was during one of these moments in my first novel that I found out my main character was allergic to bees, and then when I switched over to the analytical plotting part of my brain - it was like, "Hey, I can use that" and it became a major plot point. I think this is what I really love about the writing process - the way it requires that give and take between the critical and creative, and between the real and unreal.
All righty, that's it from me. Now hurry over to Archetype's blog for what I am certain will be an awesome psychological examination of character.
I'll start with the first question - but I am going to change it a bit to make it the more general - Are fictional characters real? The answer to that is unequivocally - yes.
It is this belief that made me as a child always turn of the Flintstones before the end sequence when poor Fred gets locked out of the house and bangs on the door, yelling, "WILMA!" I don't know why, I just felt so bad for poor Fred always getting locked out (and don't even get me started on the cereal commercials where Barney is always taking his cocoa pebbles) of his own house - that I couldn't stand to watch it.
It is this belief that will also forever make me sigh sadly when I think back on the cancellation of My So Called Life and how I will never know how things turned out between Angela and Jordan Catalano.
And it is this belief that makes it impossible for me to watch horror movies because even with squeezing my eyes shut and chanting the mantra, "it's not real, it's just a movie" I still get so freaked out that I even once screamed out loud in the middle of a crowded movie theatre. As if this wasn't bad enough the bad guys inevitably follow me home and I spend the next several days unable to go into a room without checking under beds and in closets to make sure the bad guys aren't there. Sigh, my poor baby boy, when he becomes old enough to worry about the boogie man, instead of reassuring him, I'll be right there trembling beside him.
These examples are from movies and television, but characters come alive in books as well. How else to explain the fury a bad book adaption can ignite or even the recent backlash against Meyer's Breaking Dawn?
So, yes fictional characters are very real to me, but what about my own? That answer is a bit more difficult. While I strive to understand my characters real motivations and figure out who they are it is difficult to feel that they are as truly "real" when I have given them sex-changes, killed their children, and changed their entire past, present, and future with a click of the mouse.
That isn't to say it's all evil calculation in my Frankenstein writing laboratory. When I'm plotting, thinking about character arcs, and re-writing I am in analytical brain mode and at that point my characters are just pawns - however, it is when I am sitting and writing the actual story that my characters will do or say something unexpected and then for a small flash they are real - they are aaalllliiiivvveee (as Leah would say)!!! It is during these moments that I truly get to know my characters.
And to answer the 2nd question - how much I know about my characters really depends upon how many of these moments I have. It was during one of these moments in my first novel that I found out my main character was allergic to bees, and then when I switched over to the analytical plotting part of my brain - it was like, "Hey, I can use that" and it became a major plot point. I think this is what I really love about the writing process - the way it requires that give and take between the critical and creative, and between the real and unreal.
All righty, that's it from me. Now hurry over to Archetype's blog for what I am certain will be an awesome psychological examination of character.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Read This Now
Every so often I read something or watch something that grabs hold of me, in the way that I guess the Bible or religion does for some people, and I want to convert everyone around me - so they can read or watch the same thing and feel the same thing that I felt.
Today through Google Reader I came across an article called "My Long War" in the NY Times and had one of those everyone must read this experiences. The article was written by Dexter Filkins, who covered Iraq for The Times from 2003 to 2006, and the article is adapted from his book “The Forever War,” to be published by Knopf next month.
I know, I know the war - it's a touchy, painful, and confusing subject. Most of the time I try to avoid thinking about it too much - which is crappy and a luxury I have because no one I am directly connected to is over there in the midst of it. However, an article like this makes it as real as anything happening in a far away country can be.
I'm not going to say anthing else about it. Just read it. Read it now.
Today through Google Reader I came across an article called "My Long War" in the NY Times and had one of those everyone must read this experiences. The article was written by Dexter Filkins, who covered Iraq for The Times from 2003 to 2006, and the article is adapted from his book “The Forever War,” to be published by Knopf next month.
I know, I know the war - it's a touchy, painful, and confusing subject. Most of the time I try to avoid thinking about it too much - which is crappy and a luxury I have because no one I am directly connected to is over there in the midst of it. However, an article like this makes it as real as anything happening in a far away country can be.
I'm not going to say anthing else about it. Just read it. Read it now.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Blonking
Blonking is my new word for a blog that mostly consists of links - I was going to use "blinking" but seeing as how that already exists as a word I thought I would go with blonking instead. Also, I just like the sound of blonking - it has the feel of a word you could use to tell someone off with, as in, "Oh, yeah? Well, blonk you, buddy!"
My first link is for a blog called Little People. I love it because it is the equivalent of a going to a chiropractor to realign your back, except this readjusts your mind. It just takes the way I normally look at the world and tilts it just slightly, so I go, "oh." Anything that makes you look at the world and see it in a new way has to be a good thing. Also in this category is the insanely cool, garfield without garfield site.
Next I have an article I found through the NY Times about how to make the best chocolate chip cookie. Interestingly, the secret in less in the recipe than in the methods used. However, if you have no patience to read the article you can skip straight to the recipe.
Finally, also from the NY Times is an article bidding a sad good-bye to the cassette tape. This article was of interest to me as I have a long and rich history with the cassette tape. I didn't break down and buy my first CD until 1997, my freshman year of college, when I got the Chicago Broadway Cast Recording. I also have fond memories of my sophomore year when my friends and I become fans of the television show Felicity. At the beginning of the show Felicity would talk into one of those handheld cassette recorders always starting with, "Dear Sally," and talk about what was going on with her life. Because my friends and I were (are) dorks we somehow got ahold of our own cassette recorder and would pass it around doing our own "Dear Sally's". Then we would play it back with the speed turned up so that we sounded like chipmunks, and laugh our asses off. Finally, my reasons for being fond of the cassette is that the car that I currently own, a 2002 Hyundai Accent, has a cassette player instead of a CD player inside of it. Clearly, I have good reason to mourn the passing of the cassette - it has been a good friend to me.
My first link is for a blog called Little People. I love it because it is the equivalent of a going to a chiropractor to realign your back, except this readjusts your mind. It just takes the way I normally look at the world and tilts it just slightly, so I go, "oh." Anything that makes you look at the world and see it in a new way has to be a good thing. Also in this category is the insanely cool, garfield without garfield site.
Next I have an article I found through the NY Times about how to make the best chocolate chip cookie. Interestingly, the secret in less in the recipe than in the methods used. However, if you have no patience to read the article you can skip straight to the recipe.
Finally, also from the NY Times is an article bidding a sad good-bye to the cassette tape. This article was of interest to me as I have a long and rich history with the cassette tape. I didn't break down and buy my first CD until 1997, my freshman year of college, when I got the Chicago Broadway Cast Recording. I also have fond memories of my sophomore year when my friends and I become fans of the television show Felicity. At the beginning of the show Felicity would talk into one of those handheld cassette recorders always starting with, "Dear Sally," and talk about what was going on with her life. Because my friends and I were (are) dorks we somehow got ahold of our own cassette recorder and would pass it around doing our own "Dear Sally's". Then we would play it back with the speed turned up so that we sounded like chipmunks, and laugh our asses off. Finally, my reasons for being fond of the cassette is that the car that I currently own, a 2002 Hyundai Accent, has a cassette player instead of a CD player inside of it. Clearly, I have good reason to mourn the passing of the cassette - it has been a good friend to me.
Monday, August 18, 2008
What's the Big Idea?
Another blog chain has begun and this time I am in the middle. Today's topic - where do you get your ideas? The previous post can be found at Mary Lindsey's Weblog.
I have to admit that I found this topic difficult, not in the same "I'm harboring a dark secret" way as the last topic concerning genres did, but more in a drawing a blank kind of way.
My first instinct is to say something glib like, "Oh, I get my ideas at the end of the season when they go on sale 2-for-1." Really though this is just cover because my real response is to kind of shrug and say, "Ughh... hmmm... well, um, I.... hmmm."
In an effort to avoid being either glib or astoundingly inarticulate I am going to dig a little deeper, draw some comparisons to other things that have questionable relevance to this topic and see how that works out.
Metaphor/Analogy Thingy #1
If you have been on planet earth within the past week you have probably heard the name Michael Phelps somewhere between one to oh, I don't know a conservative estimate might be somewhere in the low thousands. And while the record-breaking eight gold medals he won might be the biggest story about him, I'd have to say that his insane 12,000 calories a day diet is a close second. The amount of food he consumes would (and has) made other people sick. The craziest thing is that most of the food he eats is the stuff the rest of us are told to avoid: sweets, carbs, and even fried stuff. He has to eat like this because he burns so many calories and spends so much time in the pool that when he's out of it he needs to get as many carbs into his system as quickly as possible.
In the same way that Michael Phelps indiscriminately fuels up with food, I do the same with information. TV, Internet, books, newspaper, back of the cereal box, overheard conversation at the grocery store, facebook updates, phone conversation with mom, husband telling me about his day at work - if I'm not writing, then I am information gathering. My friend Heather from film school used to say, "you have to feed the machine," and I know one of the chain bloggers currently on hiatus would agree with me as well. Michael Phelps needs calories to burn while he's swimming, and similiarly I information to burn while writing.
What happens to all that info once it is in my head brings us to:
Metaphor/Analogy Thingy #2:
My husband and I went to the grocery store together yesterday for our weekly (or bi-weekly depending on how many leftovers we eat) shopping trip. It was about halfway through the trip as I stood staring at the jams and jellies for several minutes that my husband accused me as he inevitably always does during these trips of putzing. I wasn't putzing, of course, I was trying to decide whether the apricot preserves that the recipe for Monte Cristo sandwiches called for would be best or if I should go with mango, as some of the recipe reviews suggested. Then on top of that I was looking at the different options for those two. (I won't keep you in suspense, after I explained the dilemma to my husband we chose apricot and with the leftover spiral sliced ham, a bit of brie, sandwiched between what is essentially french toasted bread it was pretty freaking delicious.)
I also wasn't putzing as my husband accused me of doing - I had a list and I had coupons and I was trying to make sure that I was using both. Which is not to say that on other occasions I haven't been a terrible putz - in fact I am notoriously putzy when I walk into a Target (especially the Super Target with the grocery section that we have around these parts) - I walk through the doors with the intention of purchasing something specific and then almost immediately something shiny catches my eye and the next thing I know I'm walking up and down the aisles of Target, looking at all the pretties and wondering what exactly I came in there to buy in the first place.
This is also my writing process. The information that I gorged on is what fills the store, that first flash of an idea for a story is what sends me in, and then I just wander the aisles picking up a bit of this and a bit of that. Okay, there is the occasional stab at structured thinking - of figuring out where the plot is going, but even for that I only have what's on my shelves to go off of. Also, while other minds or stores, might carry these same ideas, mine are still going to be uniquely my own because they are filtered through my store's own corporate mission statement: I believe most people are good at heart, I believe the bad guys that exist should get their asses kicked, and I believe in happy endings.
Speaking of endings, I think I'll stop here. You can find the next blog in this chain over at Archetype Writing.
I have to admit that I found this topic difficult, not in the same "I'm harboring a dark secret" way as the last topic concerning genres did, but more in a drawing a blank kind of way.
My first instinct is to say something glib like, "Oh, I get my ideas at the end of the season when they go on sale 2-for-1." Really though this is just cover because my real response is to kind of shrug and say, "Ughh... hmmm... well, um, I.... hmmm."
In an effort to avoid being either glib or astoundingly inarticulate I am going to dig a little deeper, draw some comparisons to other things that have questionable relevance to this topic and see how that works out.
Metaphor/Analogy Thingy #1
If you have been on planet earth within the past week you have probably heard the name Michael Phelps somewhere between one to oh, I don't know a conservative estimate might be somewhere in the low thousands. And while the record-breaking eight gold medals he won might be the biggest story about him, I'd have to say that his insane 12,000 calories a day diet is a close second. The amount of food he consumes would (and has) made other people sick. The craziest thing is that most of the food he eats is the stuff the rest of us are told to avoid: sweets, carbs, and even fried stuff. He has to eat like this because he burns so many calories and spends so much time in the pool that when he's out of it he needs to get as many carbs into his system as quickly as possible.
In the same way that Michael Phelps indiscriminately fuels up with food, I do the same with information. TV, Internet, books, newspaper, back of the cereal box, overheard conversation at the grocery store, facebook updates, phone conversation with mom, husband telling me about his day at work - if I'm not writing, then I am information gathering. My friend Heather from film school used to say, "you have to feed the machine," and I know one of the chain bloggers currently on hiatus would agree with me as well. Michael Phelps needs calories to burn while he's swimming, and similiarly I information to burn while writing.
What happens to all that info once it is in my head brings us to:
Metaphor/Analogy Thingy #2:
My husband and I went to the grocery store together yesterday for our weekly (or bi-weekly depending on how many leftovers we eat) shopping trip. It was about halfway through the trip as I stood staring at the jams and jellies for several minutes that my husband accused me as he inevitably always does during these trips of putzing. I wasn't putzing, of course, I was trying to decide whether the apricot preserves that the recipe for Monte Cristo sandwiches called for would be best or if I should go with mango, as some of the recipe reviews suggested. Then on top of that I was looking at the different options for those two. (I won't keep you in suspense, after I explained the dilemma to my husband we chose apricot and with the leftover spiral sliced ham, a bit of brie, sandwiched between what is essentially french toasted bread it was pretty freaking delicious.)
I also wasn't putzing as my husband accused me of doing - I had a list and I had coupons and I was trying to make sure that I was using both. Which is not to say that on other occasions I haven't been a terrible putz - in fact I am notoriously putzy when I walk into a Target (especially the Super Target with the grocery section that we have around these parts) - I walk through the doors with the intention of purchasing something specific and then almost immediately something shiny catches my eye and the next thing I know I'm walking up and down the aisles of Target, looking at all the pretties and wondering what exactly I came in there to buy in the first place.
This is also my writing process. The information that I gorged on is what fills the store, that first flash of an idea for a story is what sends me in, and then I just wander the aisles picking up a bit of this and a bit of that. Okay, there is the occasional stab at structured thinking - of figuring out where the plot is going, but even for that I only have what's on my shelves to go off of. Also, while other minds or stores, might carry these same ideas, mine are still going to be uniquely my own because they are filtered through my store's own corporate mission statement: I believe most people are good at heart, I believe the bad guys that exist should get their asses kicked, and I believe in happy endings.
Speaking of endings, I think I'll stop here. You can find the next blog in this chain over at Archetype Writing.
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